[How About This Book] Retirement Strategies Learned from a Semi-Basement

Kwanghee Choi's "Gracefully in Peaceful Poverty"
Is a Life Without Saving Money Liberation or Privilege?

Film critic Kwanghee Choi has returned to a semi-basement apartment in Bongcheon-dong. After experiencing divorce and job loss, he moved into the house left by his mother. His monthly net living expenses range from 800,000 to 1 million won. He has let go of his car, golf, and savings, and when he receives money, he prefers to spend it rather than save. Yet, he does not live in deprivation. He travels abroad each season, rents cinemas for independent films, and sponsors a young Vietnamese man with a monthly donation of 100 dollars. He is someone determined to use up all his money before his life ends. While most people save for old age, he is instead trying to decrease the power of money for his later years. This is why his new book, "Gracefully in Peaceful Poverty," feels unsettling to readers.

Even the title is provocative. Can poverty truly be peaceful? When dignity is added to poverty, does it become ethics, aesthetics, or simply romanticized? The book does not shy away from such questions. The poverty that Kwanghee Choi describes is less about hunger and more about resisting manufactured desires. Still, the question remains: Who is this kind of poverty actually possible for? This is also why the book should not be read as a guide to asceticism, but rather as one individual's manifesto against the obsession with accumulation.

In Korea today, this question is far from trivial. In 2025, the population aged 65 and older is projected to surpass 20 percent for the first time, reaching 20.3 percent, and is expected to exceed 30 percent in 2036 and 40 percent by 2050. The relative poverty rate for those aged 66 and older in 2023 was 39.8 percent. Although the pension enrollment rate for people over 65 was 90.9 percent, the average monthly payment stood at just 695,000 won. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also reported that Korea's relative income poverty rate among those 66 and older was the highest among member countries, at around 40 percent. While the chances of living longer have increased, there is not necessarily enough money to sustain those added years. In such a reality, a declaration like "I plan to spend all my money before I die" can sound like liberation to some, and like a reckless joke to others.

Therefore, this book cannot serve as a straightforward prescription. Despite living in a semi-basement, Choi has a home to return to and possesses professional capital from his writing and speaking career. He has access to cultural capital, such as renting theaters for independent films and organizing movie tours in Paris, France. His poverty is not a chronicle of absolute deprivation but rather an experiment in anti-accumulation chosen by someone with at least basic housing and ability. Erasing this distinction renders the book dangerous, as it would become a book that tells impoverished people to simply change their mindset.

Nevertheless, the reason this book is not easily dismissed is because Kwanghee Choi stands on that risky boundary. Unlike wealthy minimalists, he does not extol emptiness from a spacious living room, nor does he consume simplicity at a luxurious dinner table. His semi-basement is his actual address, and his monthly living cost of 800,000 to 1 million won is a literal calculation, not a performance. The book’s table of contents moves from home, money, and work, through to anxiety, aging, violence, and inequality. While telling a story about money, he ultimately shifts perspective to consider what circumstances are necessary for people to not hate their own lives carelessly.

Money is important. Remove this sentence, and the book quickly loses ground. Medical expenses, heating bills, rent, dental and knee care, and caregiving cannot be managed by mindset alone. In Korea, the average annual medical expense per senior over 65 is 5.306 million won. The employment rate for ages 65–69 is 57 percent as of 2024, far exceeding the OECD average of 26 percent. There is a difference between seniors who work because they can, and seniors who work because they have no other means of survival. The Guardian has pointed out that Korea’s wage peak and mandatory retirement system push older workers into low-wage, unstable jobs.

Poverty is sometimes a philosophy of life, and sometimes a day's labor. In front of a handcart loaded with waste paper, the phrase "peaceful poverty" becomes a bit more cautious. Kwanghee Choi's book questions again the issues of money, old age, and dignity on that uncomfortable boundary. Yonhap News

But recognizing the importance of money is not the same as claiming money must be life’s sole blueprint. This is the place where Kwanghee Choi directs his focus. We say we are preparing for old age, but in truth, we might be preparing for anxiety. There is always a need to save more, earn more, and rest later. At some point, life becomes a stretch of time consumed to protect one’s bank balance. According to Bank of Korea statistics, as of the end of 2025, the outstanding amount of household credit had swelled to 1,978.8 trillion won. In a society where debt and anxiety have grown this large, the notion of “spending money as soon as it accumulates” sounds subversive. And perhaps that is why it lodges in the mind for so long.

The tone of the book can be resolute at times, and certain declarations are quite blunt. Statements like “an abundance of possessions rots the brain” are both refreshing and cautionary. Not everyone can—or should—live that way. Still, the book’s usefulness is not in offering answers. Instead, it asks whether a life spent endlessly burning oneself out to conform to others is truly a life of dignity. In Korean society, “May you become rich” has long been a popular greeting. While those words have sounded warm, people have lived with the expressions of the poor in order not to become poor themselves.

"Gracefully in Peaceful Poverty" is neither an ode to poverty nor a guide to retirement asset management. Instead, it recalls the subversive expense record of someone who has tried slowing down their consumption. Readers need not move to a semi-basement or give up saving after finishing this book. Yet, they may find themselves questioning, even once: Does the money I accumulate really protect me—or is it holding me back? Is it actual poverty I fear, or the shame of not appearing to be like others?

The semi-basement is low. There is little sunlight, and humidity quickly gathers. Yet, strangely, Kwanghee Choi does not look upward from low places. Rather than envy someone else's floor, he measures the size of his own room again. That is the dignity this book speaks of—not the dignity of adorning poverty, but the dignity of refusing to hate one’s life simply for not having more. There are many people who lack money. But even more frightening is losing the words to define yourself except through the language of money.

Gracefully in Peaceful Poverty | Written by Kwanghee Choi | Jacquesdean | 288 pages

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.