Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life
Bill Perkins
A Common-Sense Guide to Living Rich…. Instead of Dying Rich Imagine if by the time you died, you did everything you were told to. You worked hard, saved your money, and looked forward to financial freedom when you retired. more
240 pages, Hardcover
First published Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3.93
Rating
14585
Ratings
1709
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Bill Perkins
56 books 58 followers
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I'll save you some time. just save some money and then spend it. Make a list of things you'd like to do across your lifetime; like travel to Mexico or learn an instrument. Once you have a list decide on a good time to do those activities based on your health and possible future events like when you're going to have kids - it might be hard to go parachuting when you're 90. I can not believe someone made a whole book out of what should have been a 1 page article. more
An alternative perspective on saving and spending – both of our financial resources and of the days of our lives. I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with everything he said, but the overall guiding principles are logical. Certainly, this philosophy gave me pause to consider my own ideas about health and wealth during various stages of my life, and will help me to define my own limits, both financially and psychologically, rather than just instinctively following the earn, save, and maximize wealth model that has permeated American culture. A thought-provoking and discussion worthy read. more
WOW. Ok, as part of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Movement, I was eagerly awaiting to read this book. I grew up in extreme poverty. I am a saver due to the circumstances in which I was raised. I have a VERY HARD time spending money. more
This is a thought-provoking book about how to use your money during your lifetime. The book really changed the way I think about money. The book is not about how to make money. It is not about how to run a business. And--it is very easy to get the wrong idea about the book; Dying with Zero does NOT mean that you shouldn't give money to your family, your heirs, or to your favorite charities. more
At only about 200 pages, this is simply too long. The ideas presented could’ve been a 15 minute TEDtalk (possibly where the idea originated). I could pick apart the different sections of this book, but I will simply say this: the only people this book is really written for is people in a certain income or net worth zone. The ideas kinda fall apart when applied to the very (not even ultra) wealthy and people without much chance of a retirement - the majority of this country. Aside from a narrow audience, the voice can be slightly boisterous and condescending. more
*Blinkist*I’m not sure what I think of this book based on reading the Blink. Some statements I agreed with, while others I did not (some statements to me seemed like irresponsible advice, that people could easily take as license to spend money they don’t have or not save enough, for example). The numbers in one example scenario in the Blink didn’t add up:“Meet Elizabeth, for example. She’s a 45-year-old woman without children, and her annual net income is $49,000. But Elizabeth only spends $33,000 of what she earns. more
Like many books of this genre, it could stand to be more concise, but it does offer a provocative reassessment of typical thinking around saving, spending, retirement, inheritance, etc. For most, it will not be simple to put the thinking here into practice. Nonetheless, the book will ask you some challenging questions about how you want your life to unfold, and encourage you to live each year you have deliberately. more
if you ever see that I finished a nonfiction book, specifically a self-help book, I need you to know that I skim-read half of it. it’s fine it’s whatever. I probably read it for a book club so the gaps were filled in. anyways I had mixed feelings about this, as I usually do about self-help books. I love the overall idea. more
Received this book from the author. Thank you. In many nowadays cultures saving is a norm. Want something. Work and save. more
“We all have the potential to make more money in the future, but we can never go back and recapture time that is now gone. 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. ”This book was okay. I thought the concept was interesting. more
Thank you to the author for providing me with this novel, in exchange for an honest review. Bill Perkins is a CEO and former Wall Street trader who made his money in energy stocks. His novel, “Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life” is a financial self-help book of sorts, but not entirely. Perkins suggests tips to “live a full life” and “be your true self” by focusing more of your attention on experiences, and less on money. This concept is hard to grasp for most of us. more
So. I don't usually write long reviews, or reviews at all, but I'm about to get on a soap box here. I'm not big on self help books in general for two main reasons:1) They usually could be a fantastic essay or blog post, or even just a list with bullet points of main ideas. But a whole book. This usually just means chapter after chapter of explaining why they wrote the book and then a few chapters of self aggrandizement and repeating two or three main points over and over. more
This book has some interesting ideas about spending your money during your lifetime to die with zero, instead of being afraid to spend all your money. It also goes through some of the objections people would have about the financial concept. However, I have a few main concerns:1) This could have been a Youtube video or single article. I found the chapters very repetitive. Each chapter could be a paragraph or two, honestly. more
Dying with no money left, having spent it all on living. It sounds like an interesting concept – if money, a proxy for time, is a resource, can you optimize its use down to the last cent. The engineer in me was curious. I believed before reading this book that the only way to do that was to know for certain the date of your own death. After reading this book, I’m still of the same opinion. more
This was so eye-opening. Bart and I have been talking about it non-stop. . more
Our culture’s focus on work is like a seductive drug. It takes all of your yearning for discovery and wonder and experience, promising to give you the means (money) to get all those things—but the focus on the work and the money becomes so single-minded and automatic that you forget what you were yearning for in the first place. Well, this book blew my mind. In a nutshell, author Bill Perkins argues that we think about saving and retirement all wrong. Many of us, myself included, dutifully save our pennies, squirreling away every extra cent so that we can have enough in retirement to go on a couple vacations and then pay for our inevitable health problems as we age. more
This book is written by a millionaire for millionaire. If you are in the middle class category don’t bother reading this because it’s depressing. This guy repeats himself throughout the entire book and talks about making the most of your life by traveling and enjoying life experiences, which is great. if you are a millionaire. He says spend that money, but also make sure you save a million for retirement 🤔 great book if you are a millionaire, if not pass. more
Wow. This has me totally rethinking how I spend and save. It contains steps to help readers become more deliberate in how we spend our time, money, and life energy. Perkins’ emphasis on experiences over things and “return on enjoyment” resonated with what I’ve learned, but he framed them in a way that gave more urgency to the concept and suggested tools to actually make that happen. He perfectly puts into words the dilemma of health, money, and time and how we rarely have all three—and what to do about that. more
This book gave me a new perspective. Instilled the importance of spending more time on experiences than making money. Your life is measured by your experiences. Though most of his tips are meant for people who are already wealthy and have extra money to spend the general ideas he mentions can apply to anyone. Take more chances when you’re younger because you can. more
Ironic for a book that focuses on maximising your time before you die to waste my time. Some mildly interesting points, but it's basically a blog post that got out of control. I'll summarise so you don't have to read it:- buy experiences, not things, because apparently you won't remember things when you're older. - you're already too old to do everything you want. - the author is rich. more
Oh I absolutely loved this book, I think it's one of if not the favorite non-fiction book. more
TLDR: I am enraged. Too long. Stupid. Irresponsible. Out of touch. more
This book presents a good "other-side" argument to the prevalent FIRE culture, where you save as much as possible in your younger years so that you can retire earlier and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Bill argues that your time on earth and health diminish as you age, so you actually may not want to save every-single-penny, and spend more on experiences early on. This is a good book overall, but with a fundamental flaw. The premise of the whole book is that the goal of life is to collect memories / experience points. I am not sure I agree with it. more
This book is for a very select group of people. If you are a money hoarder who feels guilty spending money and finds comfort in saving endlessly for a rainy day this book is for you. I struggled deciding what to rate this book because there are great tidbits of information but also some cringe worthy advice. I highly disagree with a young adult quitting their job, taking a loan out for more than half their annual income to travel Europe with the intent they will make more money when they are older and pay if off later. On the bright side, I am guilty of being an over-saver and this book gave me a new perspective on living in the now while healthy and new ideas on planning for the future. more
Fairly quick read with a casual tone. Perkins talks about the side of things that most finance books ignore: actually spending money. Good book for anyone who is or grew up frugal. I would start elsewhere for someone who is already careless with money. more
Doesn’t contribute anything new to the discussion of dying broke, but it was nice to have this literary affirmation that our current retirement strategy is valid ;). more
This is definitely a book for privileged people - with enough disposable income to be able to worry about what to do it. With that said, this was actually a very interesting read. It goes against a lot of the financial advice out there as it sees money as a means to an end rather than the end itself. I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with everything the author said and some topics could have been explored a bit more thoroughly but overall the author makes a compelling and logical argument. "The premise of this book is that you should be focusing on maximising your life enjoyment rather than on maximising your wealth. more
This is the most life changing book I have ever read. I usually don't say that about self development books, but this one hits different. Everything Bill Perkins writes to us makes sense, and he uses logic to prove it to us. His thoughts have always came across my mind, but he explores it in a grander scheme. I got many insights out of this book, and I highly recommend everyone to read it. more
Cool concept. Live your life to the fullest by doing experiences when you're most physically able, rather than when money is abundant. Though quite privileged as it assumes you have fair amounts of money at younger ages and kinda recommends not investing for retirement which is questionable. Overall good book with novel ideas and made me think about making the most of my money and my time. more
A sobering, informative perspective on saving vs spending to ensure enjoyment of life while one is able. At 57yo, I wish I’d read this many years ago. A few sleepless nights after a couple of chapters so vividly describing a window narrowing by age and ability to travel and do things before health prevents. 100% enjoy life and don’t be afraid to spend some money. . more