"I'll Never Retire"

The Conversation That Changed My Thinking

I was talking to a woman earlier this week about retirement — occupational hazard when you build retirement planning software — and I asked the question I always ask: "Have you thought about when you'd like to retire?"

She said, without hesitation: "I'll never retire."

I assumed she meant she couldn't afford to. That's the answer you usually hear. Not enough saved, too many years left on the mortgage, pension not where it needs to be. The resigned kind of "never."

But that wasn't what she meant at all.

She meant she didn't want to. She loved her work. It gave her purpose, structure, connection, challenge — all the things that retirement articles tell you to find after you stop working. She'd already found them. Why would she walk away from that?

I left that conversation feeling something I didn't expect: inspired.

The Real Goal

We spend a lot of time in this industry talking about retirement as the finish line. Save enough, invest wisely, and one day you'll be free. Free from the alarm clock, the commute, the Monday morning dread. The entire financial planning framework is built around the idea that work is the thing you endure and retirement is the reward.

But what if work is the reward?

What if the real goal was never to stop working — it was to reach a point where you don't need to work, but you choose to? That's a fundamentally different kind of freedom. Not freedom from something, but freedom to do exactly what you're already doing, without the financial pressure that turns a vocation into an obligation.

That woman had found something most people spend their entire careers searching for: genuine satisfaction from what she does every day. No Sunday evening dread. No countdown to Friday. No fantasy about handing in her notice and never looking back.

In a way, she was already living what retirement promises — a life where how you spend your time is a choice, not a compromise.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here's the thing, though. Loving your work doesn't mean you'll always be able to do it.

Health changes. Companies restructure. Industries shift. The body you have at 45 isn't the body you have at 70. Even if your mind is willing, your circumstances might not cooperate. Redundancy doesn't care about your passion. A health diagnosis doesn't check whether you've got a succession plan.

The ONS reports that the average actual retirement age in the UK is 64.7 for men and 63.6 for women. Very few people work to 70 or beyond, even when they intend to. Some of that is choice. Much of it isn't.

And then there's the gentler version of the same problem: you might still be able to work, but not at the same intensity, or the same salary, or with the same energy. A surgeon who loves operating may not have the steadiness at 68 that she had at 48. A teacher who lives for the classroom may find the workload unsustainable after 35 years. Love doesn't make you immune to fatigue.

The plan to never retire is a beautiful aspiration. But it's not a financial plan.

Why "I'll Never Retire" Still Needs a Plan

This is where people get tripped up. If you don't plan to stop working, why would you plan for retirement?

Because a retirement plan isn't really a plan to retire. It's a plan for when your income from work eventually changes — whether that's by choice, by necessity, or by surprise.

Think of it as an independence plan rather than a retirement plan. It answers the question: at what point does working become optional? Not because you want to stop, but because knowing you could stop changes everything.

It changes your relationship with your employer. You negotiate differently when you don't need the job. You take risks differently — maybe starting your own thing, going part-time, pivoting to work that pays less but matters more. Financial independence doesn't have to mean retirement. It means options.

And for someone who genuinely loves their work, those options are arguably more valuable, not less. The freedom to stay isn't real freedom if the alternative is financial ruin. It's just inertia dressed up as contentment.

The Questions Worth Asking

A retirement model doesn't assume you retire at 65 and play golf. It takes your actual life and asks: what happens next?

For someone who plans to work indefinitely, the questions are different but no less important:

What if you dropped to three days a week at 60? Your income falls, but so does your stress. Does the maths still work? A model shows you the crossover point — when your accumulated pensions and savings can cover the gap between a reduced salary and your spending.

What if your employer made you redundant at 58? Not a plan, but a possibility worth testing. If your portfolio can support you for two years while you find something new — or while you decide you don't want to — that's peace of mind worth having.

What if you wanted to start your own business at 55? The early years might not pay much. Knowing that your ISA and pension can bridge the income gap gives you the courage to actually do it, rather than daydreaming about it in meetings.

What if nothing goes wrong at all? You work happily until 72, earning a good salary the whole time. Your pensions compound untouched. What does that picture look like? You might discover you're building wealth you'll never spend — in which case, maybe you'd rather give more to your children now, or spend more on the life you're living, or reduce your hours earlier.

The point isn't to plan for failure. It's to understand what's possible. And you can't understand what's possible without running the numbers.

Freedom Is Knowing You Don't Have To

The writer Nassim Taleb has a concept he calls the "f*** you money" threshold — the point at which you have enough that no single employer, client, or financial shock can dictate your choices. It's not about arrogance. It's about autonomy.

Most people associate that idea with leaving work. But for someone who loves what they do, it's about staying on their own terms. Saying no to the projects that drain you. Taking the sabbatical. Mentoring instead of managing. Working because the work itself is the point, not because the direct debit for your mortgage demands it.

That woman I spoke to had something rare and worth protecting. She'd found work that felt like purpose. But purpose without a safety net is fragile. One unexpected event — a health scare, a market crash, a company closure — and the thing she loves becomes the thing she's trapped in.

A financial plan doesn't diminish the love. It protects it.

The Life Lesson

I've thought about that conversation several times since. It reframed something I'd taken for granted.

We build retirement planning tools. We talk about retirement constantly. But the real product isn't retirement — it's clarity. It's knowing where you stand so you can make better choices about how you spend your time, whether that's on a beach in Portugal or in an office doing work that makes you come alive.

For some people, the best possible outcome of financial planning is discovering they can retire five years early. For others, it's discovering they don't need to retire at all — and that they're choosing their life, not defaulting into it.

Both are worth modelling. Both deserve a plan.

If you're someone who can't imagine not working — not because you're trapped, but because you're fulfilled — that's something to celebrate. Just don't let it become an excuse not to plan. The future is uncertain for everyone, including people who love Mondays.

Build your plan. Not because you need to leave. Because knowing you could is the most freeing thing of all.