Living to 100: What It Really Means for Your Money, Your Health, and Your Life
- December 10, 2025
- by Dennis McNamara
Edited for The Raad Life: Real Talk for the Reimagined Life
Living past age 100 used to sound like a futuristic fantasy that was something reserved for sci-fi novels and late-night documentaries. But look around: everything that once felt impossible is now ordinary. Flying across the world in hours. Putting humans on the moon. Carrying a supercomputer in your pocket. Mapping your DNA while you wait for your latte.
Breakthroughs in medicine and technology are quietly pushing us toward a new frontier: lifespans that stretch well beyond what any previous generation ever imagined.
Immortality? No.
Radically extended health and longevity? Much closer than most people realize.
But here’s the part no one likes to talk about:
Living longer changes everything, especially financially and personally.
If we really are marching toward a 100-plus life, then some big questions need to land on the table now, not later:
- Will our careers last longer and will they need to evolve more than once?
- Are we investing in the skills and adaptability required for a multi-chapter working life?
- How do our savings and investment strategies shift if retirement becomes a 30- or 40-year season, not a 10-year one?
- And the big one: Will we outlive our money?
For The Raad Life reader, these aren’t abstract questions. They’re strategy questions.
Aging: What’s Actually Happening in the Body
At the most basic biological level, aging is the slow accumulation of damage. Cells falter, waste builds up, and the body becomes less efficient at repairing itself. That decline opens the door for the chronic illnesses we associate with aging.
So it’s no surprise that some researchers are now pushing to classify aging itself as a disease; something we can study, slow, and one day, perhaps, partially reverse.
That’s not science fiction. It’s the direction the field is moving.
Two Dominant Longevity Theories
Right now, two theories are shaping the longevity conversation:
1. Biological Limits
Many scientists believe humans top out at around 120–150 years. Past that, the body loses the ability to recover. Even with great care, entropy eventually wins.
2. Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV)
This is the idea that medical advances could outpace biological aging. That for every year we age, science gives us more than a year back. Some experts say there’s a 50% chance LEV becomes reality within 15 years.
Meanwhile, current U.S. averages?
- 75.8 years for men
- 81.1 years for women
Women, of course, live longer—and face the larger financial implications of doing so.
And yet with the pace of innovation, living past 100 will become increasingly common.
Healthspan vs Lifespan: The Real Conversation
Living longer isn’t the goal. Living well is.
Healthspan is the number of years you’re healthy – mobile, clear-minded, active, engaged. And right now, we’re facing a painful gap:
- U.S. lifespan: ~76 years
- U.S. healthspan: ~64 years
That’s almost two decades of decline.
But new breakthroughs could narrow this dramatically:
- Genome editing (CRISPR): repairing damaged DNA
- Liquid biopsies: catching cancers early
- Cellular reprogramming: turning “old” cells biologically young again
Combine that with lifestyle upgrades and we start shifting the odds.
Lifestyle: The Quiet Power Player
Genetics determine only 25% of lifespan.
Lifestyle? The other 75%.
Meaning your daily decisions carry the real weight.
The old saying holds:
Genetics load the gun. Lifestyle pulls the trigger.
How you eat, move, sleep, manage stress, and whom you connect with adds up. Not glamorously. Not instantly. But profoundly.
Planning for a 100-Year Life: The Gen X Way
If the possibility of a 100-year life is on the horizon, the next logical question is:
How does this change how we live now?
For the Gen X audience, builders, reinventors, the ones who’ve been both analog and digital, this is about intentional design:
- Are you investing enough in your physical, mental, and emotional vitality?
- Is your career built for satisfaction over multiple decades?
- Are you saving and investing in a way that future-proofs your independence?
- Does your portfolio reflect the possibility of a long runway instead of a short glide?
Longevity demands long-arc thinking.
Freedom demands it even more.
Small Steps, Big Arc
Financial and physical longevity are built the same way: through consistency.
It’s never the giant overhaul that transforms our lives. It’s the quiet, compounded habits:
- Lift weights.
- Walk daily.
- Eat whole foods.
- Sleep like it’s sacred.
- Save like your future self is counting on you.
- Stay connected to people who bring you alive.
These are design decisions.
They shape the next decades.
A Future Full of Possibility
We’re entering an era of extraordinary potential. Longevity science is progressing faster than most people can track. And while living beyond 100 may not become universal anytime soon, it’s moving from fantasy to probability.
So the real question becomes:
If you knew you might live far longer than expected, how would you live today?
Would you invest more in your health?
Choose deeper relationships?
Save more strategically?
Reimagine your career path entirely?
These aren’t questions to fear, they’re invitations.
Invitations to design a life that works now and in the decades ahead.
A longer life isn’t just more time.
It’s more opportunity.
More reinvention.
More chapters we get to author consciously.
And for Gen X?
That’s the kind of freedom we’ve been preparing for all along.
The Raad Life: 5 Takeaways
1. Longevity isn’t just about lifespan, it’s about lifestyle.
Living to 100 matters far less than how vibrant, capable, and connected you are along the way.
2. Your habits are the strongest longevity technology available today.
Sleep, strength, nutrition, and stress regulation will outperform any supplement stack.
3. A longer life demands a different financial plan.
More years mean more transitions, more flexibility, and more intentional investing in both markets and yourself.
4. Your career must evolve as you do.
Longer lives mean nonlinear work paths. Skills, purpose, and adaptability become the new compounding assets.
5. The future belongs to those who plan for it now.
The gift of potential longevity is freedom. If you design your health, money, and relationships with intention.
