Die with Zero by Bill Perkins

When most middle and upper class people die, they leave tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for others to inherit. Most Americans believe that saving for retirement is so important that when they get to retirement age, they don't know how to stop saving and start spending.  In this book, Perkins makes a case for trying to live your life intentionally so that you use your money to enrich your life long before you get too old to really enjoy it. He encourages people to think about their lives in "buckets" of time and imagine what they can and cannot do in each bucket.  Then they should decide what they would like to experience in their life and which bucket it would best fit in. That might mean putting less in your 401 k during your 30's and 40's so you can have experiences while you are young you wouldn't be able to have when you are older, or taking a month off in your 30's to hike the Andes. He also encourages readers to think about bestowing inheritance money to family and causes earlier, when they really need it, instead of waiting until you die. He suggests that if we live into our 80's or 90's our kids will be old enough and well established in their careers so that what they inherit from us at death won't have a lot of impact.

My sister recommended to me that I read this book while we were talking about cash flow now that I am no longer working full time.  I told her my husband and I had to be financially conservative until we reach 65 and start collecting pensions and social security.  This book certainly counters that idea and Perkins makes a convincing argument. That said, in the book he over-simplifies things a little too much in places. For example he talks about estimating how much money you will need each year for the rest of your expected life span.  In his example calculation he doesn't adjust for inflation, but inflation is a very important thing to think about.  I may be able to live comfortably on $80,000/year now, but will I be able to in 20 years? Not likely. In order for your money to keep up with inflation most of it needs to be in an account that makes enough interest to keep up with inflation. If you spend it all in your 30's or 40's, there is nothing there to make interest. Still, he gave me something to think about and I think I will be more daring about spending money on experiences now that I have read the book. (240 p. 2021)