Advertisement
Become a member of the Big Issue community
JOIN
TV

How to Retire at 40 review – it's time to put downsize porn TV out to pasture

This one-off Channel 4 show reveals the secret of how to retire before you get old. You might prefer to go to work instead of watch it.

I’ve always been highly suspicious of the concept of retiring. Most people won’t retire with the kind of income that means you can live on a cruise ship, eating an unlimited buffet with a big pineapple in the middle of it. So you’ll probably spend your last 20 years creosoting everything and watching too many episodes of Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away! Or, if the government has its way, you’ll be working until you’re a corpse propped up against a filing cabinet. Either way, it’s not good.

It’s certainly never occurred to me to retire at 40. At 40, you can just do something else. You’ve still got your own teeth and it’s not like you’re dead or anything. Go to college. Move to a different city. Get a job in digital marketing. Become a life coach. Jesus, what’s wrong with you?

However, some people (loonies, it transpired) are gagging to retire at 40 and are actively working to pursue it, according to the extremely tenuous How to Retire at 40. It was a bit like that other show, How to Live Mortgage Free with Sarah Beeny. We’ve obviously hit a point when having zero overheads is a turn-on. Downsize porn, if you will.

Anna Richardson, of Secret Eaters fame, the writer Rhik Samadder and Sophie Morgan went to meet people who were building their middle-aged nest egg. In between that, they all sat on a sofa pretending to have a chat, saying naturalistic things like “yes, that’s really interesting, isn’t it?”. It wasn’t. Well, okay, there was a man who was 23 but looked 50, who earned £26,000 a year sticking googly eyes on potatoes and sending them through the post with personalised messages drawn on them with a Sharpie. That was mildly diverting.

A couple on the financial 5:2 diet lived their lives in suspended animation saving £1,400 a month

The rest, though, were enough to make you want to turn the TV off and go to work for eight hours. The worst was a couple who were on the financial 5:2 diet, which sounds like a thing but isn’t. They lived their lives in suspended animation, waiting for days that may never come, not spending five days a week and spending for two. They saved a jaw-dropping £1,400 a month,
 and it was depressing beyond belief.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“You have to be organised,” the woman said, clutching a Bag for Life and looking grimly into the middle distance. Rhik tried it for a week, and when he realised he couldn’t buy sushi for lunch, he quickly went into a downward spiral, practically eating his own shoe by day two and gibbering in the toilet.

Luckily, How to Retire at 40 is only a one-off, not a series. It’s finished, gone to sit in the garden and rot. Until another of its ilk comes along – How to Live under a Rock for Nothing, presented from a cave by the disembodied voice of Kirstie Allsopp.

How to Retire at 40 is on All 4

Advertisement

Become a Big Issue member

3.8 million people in the UK live in extreme poverty. Turn your anger into action - become a Big Issue member and give us the power to take poverty to zero.

Recommended for you

View all
This Country's Charlie Cooper: 'We don't have much pride in being English'
Charlie Cooper
TV

This Country's Charlie Cooper: 'We don't have much pride in being English'

Danny Dyer on fame, therapy and working-class people in politics: 'We need a f**king leader'
Exclusive

Danny Dyer on fame, therapy and working-class people in politics: 'We need a f**king leader'

Alma's Not Normal star Sophie Willan: 'Care experienced people have superpowers – we're brilliant!'
Sophie Willan
TV

Alma's Not Normal star Sophie Willan: 'Care experienced people have superpowers – we're brilliant!'

Joan star Sophie Turner: 'People always root for the rebels'
Sophie Turner and Frank Dillane as Joan and Boisie Hannington in Joan
TV

Joan star Sophie Turner: 'People always root for the rebels'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know