Die with Zero summary

by Bill Perkins · 2020 · 8 key ideas · 19-minute read

Money is only worth what you do with it, so plan to spend it on the best experiences at the right time of life — and give it away while it can still help — rather than die with a surplus.

Why read it

For diligent savers who worry they'll postpone living until it's too late. It's a provocative counterweight to standard advice, focused on turning money into a richer life.

Die with Zero in brief

Perkins opens with a twist on the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The grasshopper who plays all summer suffers in winter — but what about the ant, who works all summer and never enjoys it? Perkins argues that many careful savers are ants: they over-save, delay experiences and die with money they never used, which means they worked for nothing.

His goal is to maximise life's total fulfilment by converting money into experiences at the times when they will be most enjoyed. Experiences pay a 'memory dividend' that grows over time, and many have a limited window: some adventures are best at 25, others at 45, and some become impossible as health declines.

To do this he proposes aiming to 'die with zero' — spending down your wealth over your life, while using tools like annuities to protect against running out. He urges giving to children and charities while you're alive, when the money can do most good, instead of leaving it as an inheritance that arrives too late.

Practical tools include dividing life into 'time buckets' to plan experiences by decade, identifying the point at which your net worth should peak and begin to decline, and taking bigger risks while young, when you have less to lose. The message: spend your life energy deliberately, not on autopilot.

The 8 key ideas

1. Don't be the ant

Unspent money at death is wasted life energy.

2. Experiences pay a memory dividend

Memories keep paying long after the trip ends.

3. Every experience has a window

Some dreams have expiry dates.

4. Health, time and money

Health is the multiplier on every pound.

5. Aim to die with zero

Aim for zero; insure the long tail.

6. Give while it matters

Give with a warm hand, not a cold one.

7. Find your net worth peak

Know when 'more' stops helping.

8. Take bold risks while young

The less you have to lose, the more you should try.

Key takeaways

• Draw time buckets for each decade and schedule experiences before their windows close.
• Count the memory dividend when deciding between saving and an experience.
• Invest in your health — it multiplies the value of everything else.
• Secure essential income for life, then spend the rest deliberately.
• Give to family and causes when it will help them most, not by default at death.
• Pick a rough net worth peak and plan to spend down after it.

Our take

Die with Zero offers a useful antidote to joyless over-saving and a fresh way to think about timing experiences and giving. Its tools — time buckets, the memory dividend, the net worth peak — are simple and memorable. But it's written from the perspective of the comfortably off; for most people, the bigger danger is saving too little, not too much. Predicting lifespan, health costs and market returns is hard, and annuities aren't equally attractive everywhere. Read it as a corrective for disciplined savers, not as permission to stop saving.

About Bill Perkins

Bill Perkins is an American hedge fund manager and energy trader, also known as a high-stakes poker player.

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• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham