Book Byte #102 "Die with Zero" by Bill Perkins

Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

📣 Curious Quotes from the Author

“The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.”

What I am an advocate for is deciding what makes you happy and then converting your money into the experiences you choose.

Many psychological studies have shown that spending money on experiences makes us happier than spending money on things.

“I hope my message has at least jarred you into rethinking the standard and conventional approaches to living one’s life—get a good job, work hard through endless hours, and then retire in your sixties or seventies and live out your days in your so-called golden years. But I still ask you: Why wait until your health and life energy have begun to wane? Rather than just focusing on saving up for a big pot full of money that you will most likely not be able to spend in your lifetime, live your life to the fullest now: Chase memorable life experiences, give money to your kids when they can best use it, donate money to charity while you’re still alive. That’s the way to live life. Remember: In the end, the business of life is the acquisition of memories. So what are you waiting for?”

“We all have at least the potential to make more money in the future, we can never go back and recapture time that is now gone. So it makes no sense to let opportunities pass us by for fear of squandering our money. Squandering our lives should be a much greater worry.”

“When you face asymmetric risk, it makes total sense to be bold, to grab the opportunity at hand. At the extreme, when the downside is very low (or nonexistent, as in the “nothing to lose” case) and the upside is really high, it’s actually riskier not to make the bold move. The downside of not even taking a chance is emotional: potentially a lifetime of regret and wondering What if? The upside of taking a chance always includes emotional benefits—even if things don’t work out. There’s a great sense of pride at having pursued an important goal wholeheartedly. If you’ve given something your all, you’ll get a lot of positive memories out of the experience no matter what happens.”

“Death wakes people up, and the closer it gets, the more awake and aware we become. When the end is near, we suddenly start thinking, What the hell am I doing? Why did I wait this long? Until then, most of us go through life as if we had all the time in the world.”

“Research in psychology backs me up: People who spend money on time-saving purchases experience greater life satisfaction, regardless of their income.”

“At the high end, retirees who had $500,000 or more right before retirement had spent down a median of only 11.8 percent of that money 20 years later or by the time they died. That’s more than 88 percent left over—which means that a person retiring at 65 with half a million dollars still has more than $440,000 left at age 85! At the lower end, retirees with less than $200,000 saved up for retirement spent a higher percentage (as you might expect, since they had less to spend overall)—but even this group’s median members had spent down only one-quarter of their assets 18 years after retirement.”

“In other words, to get the most out of your time and money, timing matters. So to increase your overall lifetime fulfillment, it’s important to have each experience at the right age.”

“That is what I mean when I say that we die many deaths in the course of our lives: The teenager in you dies, the college student in you dies, the single unattached you dies, the version of you that’s a parent of an infant dies, and so on. Once each of these mini-deaths occurs, there’s no going back. Maybe “dies” is a bit harsh, but you get the idea: We all keep moving forward, progressing from one stage or phase of our lives to the next.”

“No, the key takeaway, I now realize, is to strike the right balance between spending on the present (and only on what you value) and saving smartly for the future.”

📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea:

Don't spend your life savings for a rainy day. As you get older, your wealth may increase, but your health and willingness to try new things will deteriorate. It is wise to spend your discretionary income while you are young, pursuing hazardous goals and embarking on mind-expanding trips. Never forget that nothing lasts forever, and neither will you. Choose happiness over an ever-increasing money balance.

Rethink your golden years.

We're trained to believe that our golden years begin when we retire, possibly after the age of 65. We're advised that this is a rare opportunity to achieve whatever we've always wanted because we have both time and money.

But don't be tricked.

The golden years arrive significantly earlier, around the ages of 50 and 65. We now have more time and resources than we did in our youth, but, more importantly, many of us are still relatively fit.

Don't wait until retirement. As soon as you have the perfect combination of money, time, and health, go for it and start doing whatever you love!

🛠️Fixing the Tech Industry

The more I think about retirement, the more I feel it’s a lie that’s being sold to us. We all know Social Security won’t last for us even though it come out of paycheck. We start to feel older than we are when our health begins to deteriorate sooner than expected. We also see our Parents end up being unhappy with how they are treated at their age in the most of the corporate world. The outcome and prospect of getting old does not seem as fun as it used to the closer you get to it.

So spend the time now gaining new experiences and don’t wait til you’re 65. Begin now to travel and goto exotic places you’ve always wanted to goto. I’m not saying quit your job, I’m just saying, live your retirement a little bit before 65, there’s no reason you can’t start small now.

🤝Collaborate with others with this Social Media Prompt:

What do you imagine retirement to be like for you?

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My Software Stack: I use Skool for my Online Community Platform and ClickFunnels for my Landing Pages, Payments, and Email Sequencing. I use Substack for my Newsletter and Taskade for AI Note Taking/Second Brain/Project Management. I use my Personal Amazon Store for Tech and Book Recommendations.

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