alternatirement

al·ter·na·tire·ment

A year ago, while my wife and I were considering how to document our upcoming travel adventures, we coined the term alternatirement – as a name for the unnamed, pragmatic approach to modern living we’ve been practicing for many years.

But what does it mean?

If I reluctantly tried to encapsulate it in a single sentence, it would read something like:

“alternatirement is a concept that maps a practical, healthy, fulfilling and financially-sustainable route through the different stages of modern life.“

hmmm … If I were reading that for the first time -as you may be -we’d both be forgiven for thinking that sounds too good to be true – a little too twee – a bit too guruesque.

But before you click the exit button and move on, let me try again.

The reality is that it’s difficult to condense alternatirement into a clever single sentence that you haven’t heard 100x before … but sometimes, it’s helpful – if not definitive – to say what something isn’t, rather than what it aspires to be. So here, let me try again:

alternatirement isn’t a doctrine or a dogmatic set of instructions. It isn’t only about retiring. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all template for success and happiness. It isn’t just for old people, single people, or people without kids. It isn’t a travel blog, a foodie blog, or a what’s-fashionable blog. It isn’t a coupon site or simply a site on how to save money. It won’t tell you how to maximize your air miles or highlight where the next trendy holiday destination is going to be. It isn’t going to encourage you to be vegetarian to be healthy and, most importantly, it isn’t going to pretend we have all the answers to all your questions. We’re learning as we go too – but inviting you to come along for the ride or participate more meaningfully if you choose.

Perhaps through our experiences, good and bad, you’ll be inspired to plot your own path forward.

Modern times, with all their technological and scientific advances, are both a fantastically interesting time to be alive – and a horribly stressful one. As the affordability crisis deepens and changes to the only social dynamic many of us have ever known start to hit hard, life on auto-pilot will likely get much more difficult before it gets better. Artificial intelligence and the changes it will inevitably bring will also add to these pressures, at least initially, as we struggle to balance our position in society and our purpose in life.

Many of the social constructs – in place for years – that have provided safety and relevance to our lives are changing – and changing fast. That makes now an especially good time to embrace the change and proactively create the life we’d like for ourselves – and not simply let these changes happen to us.

If you’re currently struggling to maintain a lifestyle you didn’t deliberately choose, you’re possibly living on autopilot – doing your best to follow the life society chose for you… which leads to the most important question you’ll ask yourself today:

“Do you believe the ongoing struggle you’re currently feeling is going to be worth the implied promise of a particular lifestyle at some point in the future?”

If your answer is YES, please don’t waste another moment on this website -we’re genuinely happy for you and wish you all the best on the path you’re already following.

If your answer is anything other than YES … we invite you to stay a little longer and see if any of the ideas and concepts we’ll explore on this site resonate with you.

Our goal is not to replace the struggle-ridden path you may be on with an easier one we’re about to tell you about. Spoiler alert: there is no easy path – and in many ways ours is more difficult. I get it – that’s not what you wanted to hear!

Instead, our goal is to share some possibilities and alternative concepts we’ve personally followed – and which we found worked for us – so you can decide if you’d like to apply them, and chart your own path to a destination of your choosing.

And yes — if this project eventually helps in part to finance our own alternatirement, we’ll consider that a demonstration of the concept working as advertised!

So who are we? We’re Mike and Mielle – just an ordinary couple with US citizenship, and a stubborn belief that we all have the ability to chart a more tailored, fulfilled – and fun – path through life.

Want to know more about us? Click here

For the past year, we’ve been testing this concept on the road: four months living in Italy, three months in Cyprus (Where’s that?) – and now: Thailand and Southeast Asia. We’re the guinea pigs, documenting what works and what doesn’t – almost as it happens – so you can be inspired … or horrified … at what charting an alternative path actually looks like.

… and we’re starting from a position that’s supposed to make it impossible: No pension to rely on. No home to go back to. No trust fund to dip into. And no meaningful income to cover our ongoing expenses.

If the alternative works from here, it can probably work from anywhere. How we pay for this is a story of its own – but an important one.

The promise we’re pushing back against

Here’s the deal many of us were offered: work for forty years, do what you’re told, stay out of trouble and if you stay the course, a promised payoff will arrive – retirement day – along with stress-free, healthy-living for the rest of your life.

Unfortunately, most of us know the outcome of this deal is far from certain – or likely to be stress-free. The years it demanded kept growing, while the life waiting at the end kept shrinking. We’ve seen that this hasn’t worked for others – and we understandably fear it might not work for ourselves.

alternatirement is the pushback against this promise.

Not the stopping work part. Against organizing your entire life around a deal that current economics makes less certain every year, and a payoff that arrives, for too many people, just as their health and realistic options begin to diminish. Life doesn’t actually happen on promised payoffs. It happens in transitions – and these transitions can be started earlier or later, steered, or at the very least, influenced.

That’s another thing alternatirement is: it’s permission to live proactively today, and not wait for a promised stress-free existence in the future that, for many, may never actually arrive.

One umbrella, three transitions

alternatirement isn’t just a name, either — it’s an umbrella term that encompasses three transitional periods, in place of the work-forty-years-and-then-stop paradigm.

… and here’s the thing – you don’t have to start at the beginning. Wherever you are in life, one of these transitions is the one you’re standing in right now – and that’s where your version of alternatirement can begin.

Pre-tirement – the groundwork.

This period can start at any point from your late teens to your late forties. It’s the stretch when you potentially have the power and means to create and invest in options – not the financial-instrument kind, but the kind that eventually lets you sidestep the rat race and explore the alternatives: income that isn’t chained to one place, savings outside the default script, the flexibility to move when you choose and live where it’s practical – and affordable.

This groundwork has a significant influence over everything that follows.

Early-tirement – the proactive years.

This is not “early retirement,” and nobody here has retired. Early-tirement means stepping off the script before any official date, while you’re still strong and mobile, and living deliberately in places where limited resources buy a fuller life. It’s the longest, richest stretch of the road — and it’s the one Mielle and I are on now.

Post-tirement – the final transition.

This is the one nobody wants to consider until it’s too late. When mobility narrows and options reduce, one great decision remains: where to go out to pasture and see out your final days – comfortably, on your own terms, in a place you chose while the choosing was still yours. The default lets this happen to people – or burdens the people you love, who have their own lives to live. alternatirement suggests choosing it ahead of time, because the harsh reality of this period is that it can start at any time.

A map, not a tour

Going forward, we plan to explain some options that exist beyond the ones you may have previously considered – transition by transition. Where someone else has covered a place, concept or a topic better than we can, we’ll simply link to them and say so. What we aim to avoid is repackaging other people’s coverage and ideas, or selling you a destination – or assuming that what suits us will suit you.

We’re the guinea pigs, putting our time and money where our mouths are – and sharing the results.

A year on the road has already changed our map

The reality of the alternatirement journey is that it isn’t to a predetermined place in time. It’s to a place that evolves – much as you will – as you navigate your own map and preferences. Flexibility is paramount, and a willingness to adapt is the key to finding your destination. This isn’t for everybody.

As it happens, this page used to say something different – it was written prior to us hitting the road, so it was more aspirational than fixed and firm. The experiences of the past year have provided us with new insights that we’ll carry with us as our journey progresses.

We plan to go into more detail as time permits, but in summary: Italy turned out more complicated than the headlines suggested it would be, Cyprus provided us room to think, and Thailand is asking the hardest questions yet.

For the people the retirement industry forgot – no pension, no house, no trust fund. The machinery of living well on less, documented as it happens.

If you’re interested in finding out what we discovered – and where we’re going – please consider subscribing to our newsletter and following along on social media.

happy alternatiring

Mike & Mielle