Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

In his book, "Die with Zero," Bill Perkins offers a fresh perspective on personal finance, both during and after retirement. One of his most noteworthy points is that people should favor life experiences over saving their money, considering the latter simply a means to an end.

The first few sentences of the book immediately ask "existential" questions: "What does he do with the inheritance? What if I get sick and need care? What about my retirement?" These questions are enough to make any reader skeptical.

At first glance, the ideas in "Die with Zero" appear selfish, self-centered, and most of all, risky. However, the principles presented are quite interesting and thought-provoking, enough to make any reader question their previous financial decisions.

“If you spend hours and hours of your life acquiring money and then die without spending all of that money, then you’ve needlessly wasted too many precious hours of your life.”

Choosing where and when we spend our money is the key element of the book: choosing our spending and saving, based on what it will bring us today and tomorrow, in terms of learning, well-being, and life experience.

We all know that there are things that we will no longer be able to do, or will be less easy to do as we age, so why not do them when we can? If it's something important to you, do it!

One of the striking examples mentioned in the book concerns inheritance; we all want to leave an inheritance to our children, but the concept here is to do it at a more opportune time. The life expectancy of Canadians is 80.7 years for men and 84.3 years for women. This means that in many cases, the inheritance will only be distributed to descendants, when they will probably need it the least; either around the age of 50-60, that is, when the house will be fully paid off or almost, when the children will have finished university, when retirement is approaching…

Conversely, why not pass on part of your inheritance when your descendants will need it most, that is to say in their 20s or 30s? when they will buy their first house, when they will have their children… This will probably have a greater impact on their lives!

I agree that this book offers interesting perspectives. While the premise does come across as self-centered and risky on the surface, the ideas presented offer an alternative way of viewing spending and saving in the broader context of life experience. It's a fascinating thought to rethink our inheritance practices to the benefit of our children earlier in their lives. The longevity risk is definitely something to consider, though.

Overall, I'm interested in hearing other people's impressions of this book. Have you read it? What did you think?