Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and today I'm discussing Dying with Zero with Bill Perkins. So the title of today's episode, it kind of flies in the face of typical money advice. Around here. We talk a lot about saving and investing, about using money as a tool to buy yourself more freedom in the future, and at its core, How to Money is about helping everyday folks build wealth and develop a healthier relationship with their money. But here's the thing. A healthy money relationship, it's not
just about accumulation, it's also about intentional spending. And my guest today, he's been one of the loudest and most thought provoking voices pushing back against the idea that life should be delayed until your seventies, right after you've squeezed every last dollar into your net worth. So Bill Perkins, he argues, at the time, the time is the most precious asset that we have, and that waiting too long
to enjoy it can be a costly mistake. His book, It's called Die with Zero, came out more than five years ago, but it's still challenging the way people think about money, time, and experiences. I'm genuinely pumped for this conversation, So Bill, thank you for joining me today.
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
First question, what do you like to sploor? John? As you know, we're trying to be smart, save and invest for our future so that we have a lot of options. But you got to spend on cool stuff in the meantime. What's that for you right now?
Usually it's an experience with my loved ones or friends, right friends are loved ones, so you know, where we challenge our worldview and we have a very enriching experience. It's generally travel. I think it's one of the few things that you could spend money on that actually makes you a richer person. And it's usually including many people that wouldn't able to be able to afford the trip or go with me, or you know, just just you know, paying their way so that I can enjoy it with them.
You know, I'm one of the people that likes to go to the movies with somebody else, you know, I think people that go to the movies alone or either critics or psychos. So that is kind of where I where I go on those type of things.
I love that. I love that being able to provide that experience for someone else, but it also enriches your experience. And I do think an answer we get to this question a lot is travel. But you've also, I feel like found you've been really thoughtful about the ways you spend money on travel to accentuate through the experience, right.
Yeah, I mean the main thing is is like it doesn't have to be that big of a splurge. It works at all kind of kinds of to wealth levels. You can take somebody, you can travel to a comedy store and buy your friend's ticket and you go with a group right a games night, you know, in an interesting location, paying somebody who does like those murder mysteries to come over to your house, right and do a murder mystery dinner at your house where everybody's trying to
figure it out. You know, those are great experiences. Travel is just one where it's like everybody's in a new setting. You get to interact and enjoy each other and the environment almost like a real world movie, you know, real life movie. And so I'm very intentional about how, you know, first make sure I have the experience, and then after that trying to like how can I get the most out of this experience. I think people are probably better than me at like getting the most value out of it.
Like if I go to Japan, they go to Japan. I'm spending twice as much, but they're having the same experience. But nevertheless, as long as you do that, you're getting the value. They're probably getting the value at a better rate than me.
Does that bother you?
It used to? But like I'm on the backside of life right Like most of the people I'm talking to, you know, they're billionaires their time billionaires. They have more than a billion minutes to live. I'm a mere millionaire. Uh, and I have a lot of capital, and so I
can't afford to be efficient. I can't afford to miss out right, Like there's waste is going to be part of that, like waste by design, not necessarily I'm trying to waste money, but like I need to be very wise with my time, and I can be a little bit foolish with my money. That's the state of life on it.
I feel like a lot of a lot of people you're speaking to on this podcast, and just maybe a lot of people and a lot of folks in general, they might feel the other way around, like I have to be incredibly called and that you even talk about that in the beginning of your book. How this book like the advice and it's not for the person who's living paycheck to paycheck necessarily.
Yeah, And and people are different phases of their life, your respect of their age. You know. I was at a time where it was like, hey, you know, I had a friend that was refreezing popcorn to save save on popcorn, which I wrote about the book, right like you know, like we bought the you know, we bought bus tickets in advance and and and enrolled our employers and making do the trans rotation match like we were
master savers at that time. And when you are hungry and starving, the only thing you can think about is food, right, Like you're not thinking about a lavish banquet. You're just trying to get by and acquiring food. And when you don't have that much capital, your focus tends to be on exchanging everything you have in order to acquire capital.
And that's understandable, but we also need to think about like our life is also running out, that time period of our life is running out, and then like, okay, I don't have that much capital, But how am I going to get the enjoyment out of this out of this time period?
So what problem would you say? Die with zero is trying to speak to and in particular for our younger listeners in their twenties, late twenties, early thirties, who are like, Yeah, I find myself in that place where I'm trying to accumulate capital so that those compounding returns can work for me and generate independence for me in the future. How do I think about that dichotomy?
Yeah, I think it's trying to speak to people on an autopilot one way or another, the spend thrift and the miserly savor. Right, Like, what happens is that, you know, humans tend to like develop a habit and then stick with it and they're just not really thinking about it. They're just doing it. Right, So people get good at their job. It's just automatic.
Right.
They know how to make the sales call, they know how to program the computer, they know how to do whatever is that they're doing. You know how to drive home, Like, you don't even think about driving home from work, right, you just magically appear somehow, right because you're in default mode network and that happens with saving money and spending money. Right, You don't think about your life fulfillment at each period in your life, and so everybody's going to have different circumstances,
different amounts of capital, be at a different age. What I really want them to think about is the purpose of my life is fulfillment, and everything is a tool for that fulfillment, whatever that means to me, right, whether it's hedonistic or altruistic or some combination in between. And money is one of those tools, and your health is one of those tools. In your life is one of
those tools. And so what I want people to do is get off autopilot and think about, Hey, during this time period of my life, what is going to fulfill me? And what resources do I have to bring to bear? And how much of each resource should I be sprinkling in it? Is it all my time? Is it all my money? Is it a little bit of my time, a little bit of my money? And how am I
going to split these things up? And so instead of going into like a specific formula or a very specific cookbook recipe, what I'm giving people the mental models on how to think of each period in their life and how to answer these questions that are going to come up.
Because it's going to differ from individual to individual based on their age, their health, their life circumstances, yes.
And also what they like, you know, Like if the most fulfilling thing for you is to play chess, I'm like, you have a different you know, spend and save category than somebody who's the most fulfilling thing is to go traveling around Africa or bicycling or hiking mountains around the globe. Right. And so you know, a lot of times when I talk to people about the book, they're like, oh, I get the book, but how do you figure out what
you like? You know, Like, that's up to you, right, you have to decide what what does your adventure here on planet Earth look like?
Is your advice ever for people to want less or to lower their expectations, because I think sometimes like I think about my kids, even there's some entitlement there, right that we're trying to work on, and what does it look like then to maybe set expectations that are a little bit lower from ourselves, because I think is that the problem sometimes when people spend too much, even on things that don't matter to them, it's because they have expectations that are through the roof.
I think that can be true, but don't I don't tell that to people. What I try to get them to do is be aware of the cost. I have friends that are still grinding, still working hard, right giving up their life, and I'm like, I want to point out the cost, like you're never going to get these forties back or fifty to fifty. You're never getting this back. You're never getting the time back with your family, You're
never getting the time back with your kids. I want you to consider it a cost and reweigh that out, like you you really want to be doing this. So I think people have like kind of like these wants and think, oh, if I want it, obviously i'm behaving. I'm not wishing for it. If I'm wanting, I'm working towards it. So you're working for this thing at a cost. And everything has a cost, And so I want people to think about those costs and then decide do I really want it? And if they really want it, then
they really want it, then it's worth the cost. But if you think about these things and you don't act on autopilot, then you're going to have a more fulfilling life.
It's been said that, and you know that's better than almonst say, anybody else. But like the eighth wonder of the world is compounding returns. Right, And when you think about just for example, Warren Buffett, he's done an amazing job of like building a ridiculous net worth and when you look at it, the vast majority of his net
worth has been built since essentially traditional retirement age. Would you say, and I know this is again kind of pointing back to what you said individualized, but is he doing it wrong?
I mean, his I don't know his private life, right, so, but his public persona it's just quite absurd to me, you know, it's just quite absurd. I just I can't, for the life of me see me see that as the most fulfilling life I could have possible and for any other human being. Right. But perhaps he's the type of guy like his fulfillment is just sitting at a desk and doing work and working for future charity is basically what his life has been. He's worked all his life.
He spent a lot of hours going over charts and graphs and investing and picking et cetera. And that money the line share that money is for future charity, which you know, I'm not against giving charity, but he couldn't give charity. He could have gave the money earlier and had a bigger impact. And so to me it's absurd. But who knows. You know, Warren Buffett might have a private life where he's just like living it up hidden from everybody, you know, just having a rock and time, you know.
Or maybe like he is just one of those people who is extremely gratified by the McDonald's on the way to work, at working most of the day watching the numbers go up. Maybe that's what brings him joy.
It's possible. I mean, you know, I have had this conversation with friends, like my friends that I get into debates, and it says, listen, if you're going to be a heroin addict, I cannot convince you that heroin is good. Like you're like, I have a problem with your heroin addict, right, Like you're addicted to something and it feels good, and I'm trying to show you that the world is bigger than what you're doing and that you would be a happier off heroin. But you know, if Warren Buffett is
addicted to the doing air quotes. People can't see this heroin addiction of work and charts and growth. Yeah, it's very hard to break that. And you've heard that like you have a problem with my drinking. I don't have a problem drinking. You know that type of thing, right, Like it's like, oh, you have a problem with you working?
This makes me happy, you know, And you're and as a friend, I'm sitting there going, let's really think about all the things that you can be doing in the world and all the things you can be doing with your time, right aside from watching balance sheet go up. And you know, once we have like a read, deep, vulnerable conversation, generally I sway them. It becomes well, I really don't know what to do. What was that that that's the answer?
What was that interpersonal conversation like for you? Because at some point there must have been like an epiphany of sorts to say, what am I doing with my life? And a certain amount you get a certain amount of money and you're life you have to start to ask those bigger, more existential questions.
You know, they start to when you come truly online and kind of like late teens, early twenties, you start to ask these questions. And I was fortunate enough to read this book called Your Money or Your Life. I think a lot of the people who are savers. The whole fire moment was launched from this book, and that kind of accelerated those questions. And you know, I was asking from a very macro standpoint, like why am I chasing this amount of money? Like what is it for?
And at that age I had very immature version of that It's for the girls and the parties, and you know what I mean. The the brick size cell phone, you know what I mean?
Right?
Whatever it was, right like it was, it was basically a version of a rap video, right. But you know it got me thinking about like what is the purpose of my life for? Like why do I need this money?
Like what?
I obviously just don't want it to have. I wanted to have a life and what does that life look like? Uh? And then I'm giving up hours of my time for this money? You know, all those kinds of questions started to like really swirl in my head and I wanted to figure out like what was the optimal earnings and what was the optimal spending pattern? And what what what variables go into creating that, And so that's kind of like the epiphany I had. It was kind of like macro, whoa,
what is this for? Like? What am I going to do if I had ten million dollars? Why do I need to make ten million dollars? Like? Why am I spending hours of my life to make ten million dollars if I don't have if I don't have something to spend it on, this is idiotic?
Right, Well, you brought it. You brought up fire, and that seems to be another way to try to explain some of these concepts, but to you, it feels unfulfilling.
The one thing I love about the fire is that it forces people to get in touch with what they really appreciate and what they really want. Right, Like, you've shed a lot of the ego stuff, you shed things that are unnecessary, and you kind of, you know, work your way and save your way into this financial freedom, this lack of lack of worry, right and this freedom
that you're going to have by retiring. And my problem is is that a lot of delayed gratification and pushes a lot of experiences to time buckets in your life where they don't belong. There are certain experiences that belong in your twenties, there's certain experience that belong in your thirties, forties, fifties, right, or they're more optimal for that time period, right. And what fire is is like a mini version of going
to jail and then coming out rich. Yeah, And I'm like, I don't think I would give up my twenties, you know what I mean for a nice payday at upcoming. And some people, you know, big up their twenties and their thirties for a nice payday in their forties. And I think that's not an optimal way. Right. It is a way, but it is not an optimal way. I think the optimal way is to realize that, hey, let me look at my life. Let me look at each
period of my life. Let me look at what experiences would be fulfilling to me, and let me allocate those resources accordingly. Right. And so if it's hustling and building a business at this time period, then hustle and build a business and put your time in there and a little bit of time into other things outside of that. If it's things that are not to do with work and they're outside that, then take some of the capital
to acquire those things. In that time period, A lot of people and I witness them because I lived in Saint Thomas for six seven years. You know, think their life is going to be like a carnival commercial. And then when they get on the carnival cruise, the carnival cruise, it's nice, but it's not like a carnival commercial. And your body doesn't work like those bodies on the carnival commercials. And so most people get on those crew uses, they
get off the island and I'm sorry. They get off the boat and get onto the island, and the main thing they do is go into the shops in town and buy something for like a grandkid or a relative, etc. They're not really savoring life like a you know what I mean, this actually impacked fun cruise. And that's because life has passed them buying.
You're kind of talking about like the utility of money curve, right, and how having more money in your thirties, like taking that same trip when you're thirty two with some of your best friends or spouse or whatever like could provide a lot more value than taking it at the age of seventy eight.
Yeah, I give a pretty vivid example of my friend Greg, who loves skiing, skied with his dad, loves skiing, and you know, when we were talking about this, he's in his fifties. He's like, I can only do I used to do seven ski runs or eight ski runs on a ski trip, now two or three, and my knees hurt. Right. I could probably do more, but it's not enjoyable, it's not as fulfilling, right, And so the ski trip is
worthless to them now at this age. And so if we're talking about if we're looking at our life like from like a planning's perspective, from like like say eighteen, and we're like, hey, we're going to do x ski trips in our life, right, when is the best time to do those ski trips?
Like?
How would we distribute those throughout our life? Right? And I'm asking people to do that wholesale for every single activity in your life. Now. The problem is is life is about discovery. You don't know what you like. You discover what you like right like you touch it, you taste it, you travel to it, you talk with it, and you're like, I don't like this, I do like this or this, I've discovered what do I to do
for the rest of my life? And so you kind of have to like use money and you know, an idea proxy and then go through life and keep revising this list. But if you start life saying, hey, yeah, you're right, it's better for me to take two ski trips at thirty than five ski trips at sixty, you know, maybe maybe I need to do, you know, forego the savings for these ski trips at sixty and cut that number down and do the ski trips now.
That makes it. There's the concept of consumption smoothing as well, which there was a Yale paper written about that. I'm sure you read it, and it's so controversial in the personal finance space, right, And part of the reason is controversial is because it involves assumptions about future income and actually pushes people, as younger individuals to take on more
debt because it's like, hey, the income will grow. And maybe I'm particularly frustrated by the consumption smoothing as like good advice because of what my parents went through when I was a kid and how people told my dad that, hey, you're going to get the raise and you'll be able to afford the expensive house you got and then you know it didn't work out like that. So you are a fan of consumption smoothing, I think, right.
I would say I'm a fan of taking risk and it has to be worth it, right, Like, at the end of the day, you're risking your time, you're risking your money, you're risking your health for fulfillment. And if you're in touch with like the reward, the word really means something to you, then it's worth the risk, right. And there's something that's not in the that consumption smoothing paper.
Is that a concept I call the memory dividends. Okay, So when you plan an experience, you're you're you're getting some fulfillment. When you do the experience, you get a spike in fulfillment, But when you recall the experience and talk about it later in life, you access that experience and you have some fulfillment as well. And often the recall and discussed future discussions of an experience will give
you greater fulfillment than the original experience in itself. Like ask anybody who's at a game winning home run, a first kiss, you know, a job promotion, or anything like that. They're telling those stories forty years later, right, and you're actually a more interesting person because when you're talking to people, you have something to talk about because you've done these experiences,
and that experience is even more fulfilling. And so those things are inflation protected fulfillment yep, every dividends and so the way they say, hey, you know, investor early invest early, Investor early, because you're going to get the dividends and the compound compound interest. I say the same thing about experience. Investor early investor early invest early, because you're going to get the dividends in fulfillment and compound fulfillment. Right, And
so that's something you should weigh. If you really enjoy something and you really have a great experience, let's say the ski trip or friends, but then you are unable to afford skey trips in the future, it's not a complete loss because you have to factor in, Hey, I made great friends, I had a great trip. We still talk about that time when I fell down the mountain,
et cetera. Blah blah blah blah. Right, Like, this is the construct of your life, This is your self identity, this is your fulfillment, this is what you're going to retire on You're going to retire on the memories and the actions you have taken throughout your life. The money is there to just you know, when you were unable to use that money. The money you have left is just body maintenance of a body that doesn't move that much.
On that note, Bill, you came to the conclusion right that your APEX net worth shouldn't come at age sixty five. I mean that's typically I think that the number that people are saving for something somewhere in that rough frame, right, fifty nine and a half sixty sixty five, that's where I want my like peak nest egg to be. So you think that for most people that that peak network
should come a lot earlier in life. Tell me about that, and how do you how do you think how do people know when they should be turning from saber to spender?
I think you know, a lot of people don't like to talk about this, but it's getting in touch with like you your mortality and when you're gonna die. Like if I was going to leave two hundred and being health, I'd be like, oh, okay, maybe maybe I'm spending too much, right, But I can't imagine, you know, seventy five expected life. You know, if somebody dies at seventy five, you're not like, oh my god, they died young. You'd be like, oh,
it's about right, seventy five, seventy six. So I can't imagine saving all this money up, getting to a peak networth at sixty five to try and get my sixty five year old body to enjoy it all right, Like, it just doesn't make any sense. I think. I think everybody listening to those calls probably like, yeah, that doesn't
that doesn't make sense. The other thing is is that when you look at the data, people made target sixty or sixty five, but of those who save, their network keeps going up in their seventies and and people go why, And I'm like, because they can't spend it. They don't have the aptitude or the attitude to do it.
And part of it's because it's the muscle they haven't exercised.
It's lung capacity, bone density, it's muscle mass. It's also just how they feel, like, I mean, for me to go to the club with glow sticks is not as exciting as it was when my twenties are thirties, Like if we were just in a world of glow sticks and clubs. I'd be like, I'm not gonna go. I'm gonna stay home and watch Mattlock or something. At sixties, like you know, like you just like different activities as you ate, and that's you know somebody, but well not me,
you know, I get that. But what I'm saying is is that you're never going to be as in shape as the best in shape you could be at thirty three. Yeah right, You're not going to have the mental facilities or calculation engine that you had when you were twenty eight. Ever, okay, and you're just kind of like general wanting to go and do things. It just declines. And so like it's I have a in law who's like, yeah, I'm not
going to get on a plane. Sitting on the plane for three hours is you know, it's not worth it going through the airport. It's not like for me at this age, I'm like, I will, I'll go to Timbuctoo for a day, right, and then fly twelve hours. Right. But as you get older, these things kind of drift off, and so do all the activities associated with them. So
do all the cities. So it was all the movement, right, and some of all the activities and the activities you like to do tend to spend very little money, and so you've then oversaved for your future self.
So part of what you're getting at is the importance of maintaining your health right and that people don't focus on that nearly enough, and that that will actually extend your ability to enjoy the wealth you've accumulated further out into the future. And then the other thing is that maybe you shouldn't care about having the biggest net worth
at age sixty five. How do you help people or yeah, what filter should people run through their likely apex net worth age and what that looks like to start spending it down maybe earlier than they previously thought.
Yeah, I think it's kind of knowing what you like, you kind of understand your future. You kind of look at your parents like what do they do? Right? Like if they had the money, like you give them money, what do they do? But it's really like, at age sixty five or or age fifty, how many years do you have to live and how many healthy years do you have to live? And that's going to be you know, there's people obese, there's people in shape, there's people who
couldn't run up a flight of stairs. There's people who can run a marathon, right, And so that area under the curve, like the utility of money to you, is a function of your health and your future health. You know. I was watching Peter a Tea podcast and he was talking about seven mets is kind of what you need to be able to have sex, right, and it's he
gave an equivalent. He said most people would think that, like most people can have seven mets of energy equivalent to whatever it was walking at this But as you age, your lung capacity declines, and so if you want to be able to have sex later, which requires seven mets, you need to be at this health now, right. So even the basic functions of being a human of physical
love decline with age unless you stay in shape. So if you think like, hey, I got allless money, I'm going to be spending it doing xyz and you can't even have sex because you're huffing and puffing like you ran a marathon, right, it's not as enjoyable. You got to reevaluate that. And I think that's a very personal thing, you know, But the mental model is what shape am I in? And when is my expected death date, which
you can get from your actual tables. There's lots of things now that will like take in all your diagnostics data and adjust it. You know, even the LLLM models are getting pretty good at that. And then you can go, oh, okay, should eighty percent of my production be consumed in the last ten percent of my life or fifteen percent of my life? And that's going to be, you know, to each person his own right, Like, I'm not going to
tell them that. What I'm going to tell them to do is go through that exercise, start thinking about it, and then you're going to come out with a better answer than just autopilot.
All right. I want to dig into that a little bit more, Bill, and I also want to talk about the shortcomings of die with zero and what kind of criticism you get. We'll dig in on a bunch of that stuff right after this. So you're talking to a group of folks who are have have gotten or are getting better at saving and investing. What do you want
them to hear? If that's the place where they're at and they've prioritized that, they're like, man, I'm finally I know what the roth ira is I'm maxing it out. I'm getting the match of my four O one. Kay, I'm putting more money aside for my future? What is that? Holistic? Yeah, I'm thinking about my future self and independence, full financial independence, but I'm also prioritizing the here now.
So the number one rule in trading is know your position, Like, know what position? Are you long? Are you short? Like? Know your position? And so if I was going to translate that to like life advice for these savers, I'd be like, know what you're saving for? Right, know what you're saving for? This is not space invaders, this is not a game. That money is for future you to
do something. Know those somethings. Right. So if I could talk to a person, and this would be impossible, but and I could say, what exactly are the activities you want to do from now to the grave. We can know exactly to the penny how much they need to save, so they do not oversave. They don't need to work anymore. Like we can tell them we can go, hey, quit
right here. Right, But just to go through that exercise, right, you can get closer to getting the most fulfilling life because you're not undersaving, right, which is the worst case and you're not oversaving right, and so knowing what you are saving for and knowing when you are saving for are the two key variables right to have the most fulfilling life. To really loop this whole thing together of getting my money right, it's like, Okay, you're getting your
money right. What are you get what are you getting it right for? Right? It's for something right And a lot of people go with the easy stuff like survival and rent, etc. But after you've covered the survival stuff, what's it for? Being in touch with the when and why is crucial to have the most fulfilling life.
Do you think most folks are working too much and that their lives would be better, that they would enjoy their lives more if they had lesser wants, lower spending habits, and more free time, Like I'm thinking for me personally, over the last three years, it's been a journey of working less and most of that time has been spent doing physical stuff, and I find myself much happier with more freedom because of it. Do you think working less is a big part of the equation for a lot of people?
I think so. I think it's general. Like I have friends that like they're remote working. I'm like, will come at me on the strip and like, no, I got it. I'm like, why bring the thing with you? You know, like work in a better office, you know what I mean? Like, come with me. And it really depends on what you want. And so the reason why I say that people would be better off working less, at least those who work in those who save, is that the data shows that they don't consume it later.
Right.
Of those who save, they save too much the money the network keeps going up in their seventies and then they die. Right. So clearly with that group of people, I can say, Okay, these guys have worked too much. Right, they're thinking of things for their future self that they want that they're lying to themselves. They're lying to themselves about their health, they're lying to themselves about their activity,
or they're really not thinking about an autopilot. And so that's the only reason why I would say that I tend to get the most fulfillment from my interpersonal relationships, not from activities alone. As a matter of fact, I say that almost every activity in life is an excuse to connect with other humans. Football game, baseball game, bar, movie, dinner, party, bar Mitzer, funeral, wedding. Every single thing you do seems
to be an excuse to connect with other humans. Now we remove that connect with other humans part out of it. We just say, hey, I'm going to the baseball game, or hey I'm going to a football game, or hey whatever. What we forget there's all these other humans and humans that we go with, and we like going into restaurants where there's other people. We don't even talk with them, but we kind of have this common experience. Yeah, and
so that doesn't necessarily take that much money. You know, Like a hike is a great activity to do with your friends. Like not only are you giving a gift to your future self in terms of health, but you're enjoying the experience and you're talking with a friend and you're having a great time. So you're having a present and a future experience at like no money. Yeah, right.
And so or board games where you play games with your friends, like you're sharpening your brain and reducing your risk of Alzheimer's and you're having a moment with your friend and you're creating memory divens for the future. And so you know, my life, you know, I think about all the things I splashed on and splurged on. It's like, oh, it's a excuse to create an event for future friends to go hang out my boat, you know, my my houses, everything,
you know. So that's kind of when you like kind of strip it down right, strip all the to like basically like what is happening here during this life? It's like I'm finding new and interesting ways to connect with other humans, and these are all excuses, graduation, whatever, it doesn't matter.
What are the biggest criticisms you hear about Die with Zero? I could? I think I could list a few, just the people who have read the book and they're like, I don't know, I still have some concerns about people running out of money or market swings. Like what are the concerns you typically hear? Which ones do you think are valid?
Okay? Do we want to do with people who've read the book? Who haven't read the book? A lot of people criticize the kind of philosophy the people that I haven't read the book. It's like, what about the kids? And I wrote a whole chapter chapter you know, I think it's chapter six called what about the Kids? About
when you should give money to your kids? If you're going to leave money your kids, when you should give to charity, etc. And so I won't go into that, but like of the people who have read the book, I would think the biggest criticism is I don't know when I'm going to die, right, like the kind of what if I outlive my money? And you know, my retort to that is that if you look at the data, the overwhelm on data is when you die is not
a big determinant here on your net worth. People are not like, oh I lived two years earlier and two years later I ran out of money. They just the the the amount of money you spend in later life goes down so drastically versus people savings that it's not a factor, right, It's just not a factor. So the knowing we're going to die, or I don't like to think about death, you know what I mean, I don't
like to calculate these things, et cetera. I think that's probably one of the biggest criticisms I get, is that kind of uncertainty. The second one is inflation. People are very concerned about inflation, and I point to them that the best inflation protective thing we have going our memory dividends, they actually grow, they inflate, they grow inflation adjusted. They're like tips, they're the best tips, treasury inflation protected securities.
I'm saying tips. Maybe some people don't know what that means, but they're the best tips you can buy. Are those experiences that pay memorative evidends, right, Like, nothing is going to diminish the value, and it actually sometimes increases the trip you went on with your daughter or your kids, or the experience you had with your friends. And so
that's one. The second one is inflation and just dealing with uncertainty, right people, really, you know what if I get sick, you know what about inflation and all these things. I say is like, look, and I've said this in the book, you're not the best insurance agent. Basically, you're saying my savings is for me to be the insurance agent of a customer of one, right, And I'm like, look, you're not that great. You're not that great of an actuary.
You really don't understand the odds of this risk, and you don't have the law large numbers to give you like the lower edge on this. And so what I say is that there are better tools out there to mitigate these risks than you over saving and wasting your life.
That's powerful. Yeah, but someone to ask then too about those tools the financial instruments right that allow people to de risk like it die with zero strategy and some of the some of the financial tools that exist can be kind of expensive, come with fees. One of the things that people tend to do is like delay social Security right as long if I take social Security later, I have a bigger monthly check coming every single month.
Maybe that's one way for me to ensure that those later years I can spend more now and take Social Security later. I don't know, do you do you have any thoughts on specific ways to dial it in from a financial tools perspective.
Yeah, I think I think some of those things like there's you know, the market is hyper competitive and financial services it takes a little bit of a work. But if you get off autopilot, whether it's like I want to insure against living too long, like they all love to write you that annuity, right, or if you want to long term healthcare insurance, if you get it early enough, it's actually cheap. You know, you're gonna have to spend an attorney to look through this so you don't get
caught in some edge case that you don't want. But like long term healthcare insurance you're worried about like I'm going to need a nurse or I'm going to need X, Y and Z, which I think that's if you're out of shape and you don't take your body, that need goes up. And so one of the biggest insurance things you could do is stay healthy, exercise, get your VO two max up. I don't want to steal Peter and tea stick, but it's like build muscle mass and have
your VO two max up. Your all cause mortality goes down, but your health goes up and the expense associated with the cascading conditions that happen with being out of shape go away. Then you're really saving too much money.
Well, it's the expense that goes down, but it's also like the joy that you can get from it.
It works on both sides of it's it's probably the most powerful thing you can do. As a matter of fact, I purposely don't talk too much about health because it's so powerful. It just wrecks every single model. A little tweak in your health changes everything. You're fulfillment so much. So Usually you know, the book is really geared towards wealth, wealth, and time, but health is very, very powerful. I had to rewrite chapters to add more into the health about it.
My friend was like, you don't talk about health enough. I'm like, wow, I don't want it to be a health book. Yeah, great, Like I wanted to be like, hey, this is one of the variables and you need to do your best here. But those tools, if you dig into them, you will find even if they cost, like oh, I'm paying six percent edge or whatever, it's way better
than you doing it yourself. You know, you ever heard the You ever heard the saying if you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur. That's what I tell people when they're like trying to do insurance for themselves by saving too much or trying to do whatever. I'm like, guys, you are wrecking your life right by not just paying away the six percent to these guys to give you this product. Yeah, because there's no way you're going to be as efficient as they are.
You can't create the product on your own or what you're giving what you're missing out on if you refuse to avoid if you avoid the expensive product is significant.
Right, So people people are afraid of death, and they don't like talking about these things, so they don't even look at these products. They just go, ah, well what if I die? They just throw this reason up. And I'm not saying the reason is silly. I'm just saying is they throw the reason up as an excuse and then don't try and mitigate it in the most efficient way possible.
And you say to at least try because it perfections the enemy are good in this case. Right where you can you can look for the perfect thing that's incredibly inexpensive and ensures you against all potential downsides. But then you're looking for the non existent product and you're missing out. You're missing something else in the process.
Right, And how about this just going through the exercise, just like going okay, I'm afraid of as whatever it is living too long, and you go down the exercise of like, okay, this is what it costs, et cetera. Then you get to quantify like, oh wow, I'm oversaving by x in order for this eventuality, and then you decide if it's worth it. Yeah, is that really worth it? I mean, life is risk, like you're not gonna life
living the day you were born. Life is risk every single day anybody started a business, go to work, say I love you first. There's all types of risk right every day, emotional, physical, financial, And you have to decide is it worth risking a decade of your life and throwing away your life and not having the most fulfilling life to worry about you know future you you know,
having to scrimp and save a little bit. Yeah, you know that's everybody's got to make that decision and look at the numbers and see what they want to do about it. And different people might come to different conclusions. But I think being deeply aware and visciently aware of the numbers, the risk and thinking about it will lead you to a more fulfilling life than you just throwing reasons out and not looking into them and be living on autopilot.
That's great. Yeah, I want to talk about too, just the how you think about life in seasons and how that should impact what die with zero looks like that mantra in Our Lives. We'll talk about that in just a secon bill. You you talk about the importance of living your life in distinct seasons, and you just have I had another kid in your mid fifties. It's been
six years since you published the book. Are you in a new season and do you do you have a different perspective on what you wrote and on the die zero mentality than when this book first came out.
I definitely have a more visceral feeling of like appreciation of the time. Like I wrote about, like you know in the book, about reading watching Winnie the Pooh with my kids and then one day they're like that was for babies, and how wow, had I really thought about that day coming, I might have spent more time with my kids watching that and reading books with them. And now I have kind of that wisdom of like, you know, past bill messing that up a little bit and really
savoring this moment. And so the mental models I think are the same, but the you know, I'm erasing you know what I mean, my time buckets, right, Like I'm like, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do, you know, at this age, and this is what I'm going to be doing, and these are the experiences I want to have at whatever.
And I'm like, I'm having a baby, let's erase that and start over, right, So the the process is the same, the inputs are different, right, Like you know, now I have a Kay Perkins, my son, and and the activities have radically changed for me. But like the way I'm thinking about those activities and how to get the most fulfillment for me, for him, for my loved ones is still the same same methodology.
Yeah, how how often does your mindset migrate away from your own principles? Like what do you have to do? Because it were humans? Man, We just like we forget stuff all the time, even stuff that we feel like is deeply ingrained.
Yeah.
Yeah, how do you get back in touch with that philosophy when it starts to slip?
My wife saw me, and my friends they held me accountable. Like I said, I wrote the book to save my own life, and then I hope other people would get value out of it, you know. And I think you've heard me say this, Like what are you talking about save your life? I'm like, well, the example I use is if somebody was drowning and you you yanked him out of the river and give them out them out. Often they go, oh my gosh, you saved my life. Guess what's going to happen? They for sure are going
to die one hundred percent. They're going to die. They're just going to not die that day. So what did you actually give them? You gave them more time, more activities, more fulfillment, more I love you, use more spending time with Grandma, out their kids, et cetera. And so if I write a book about optimizing your life such that you have more I love you, more time, more fulfillment, etc. I'm basically doing the same thing in my mind. And so I wrote it so I didn't waste my life.
But I'm not the guru. I'm not the like the you know, I'm not the boodh. I wrote it to like, hey, don't waste your life. And I'm human. So I have my wife who's like, hey, who are you doing? Get off your phone? Hey, you know, like you know you want to go. You fell in love with writing on trains. It's a wonderful thing. I thought I'd hate it, and then I wound up loving it. Long story. And then I'm like, we're gonna ride train all the time. She's like, hey,
you could write trains in your seventies and eighties. Let's do other activities like walking cities, et cetera.
You know that's a really good point too that she's pushing in, saying, listen, you those are the activities you totally can do way down the road, right And you could bride trains to your heart's content right now, but you'd be missing out on other stuff that you won't be able to do at that age.
Yeah, And she's on me like, hey, you're really working hard on this deal and this startup and thing whatever? Do you really do you really need to work on that heart? Does that? Is that really? Like when is this going to end? You know, like this is a very intense period for you, Like when is this going to end? And you know, I'm the type of person if I like get into something, I could just keep coming, you know what I mean? Like you know, people like
I'm eat a whole bagg of chip. She just you know, humans beings are that way. It's like put put a bowl of pretzelism in front of them. They never even asked for the pretzels. They'll eat the whole bowl, right, Like put a put an interesting work project in front of me, an I got to solve the puzzle, right, Like we love solving puzzles, right, We can get addicted to puzzles. I'd get addicted to puzzles, right. Their work is a puzzle, they get addicted to that puzzle. Right.
That's why we love games. We love the interesting games. We love these puzzles. And so she's like, hey, pay life is going by. It's okay that you're doing this puzzle, but let's think about this. And so that really helps me.
Important to have somebody in your corner who reminds you about that stuff and helps you try to live up to your own ideals. Yes, well, Bill, thank you so much for taking the time work. Can how the money listeners find out more about you and more about your book, which is kind of legendary at this point.
Wow. Well, the book is sold everywhere. I think it's in like ten different languages, so that shouldn't be a fun problem for anybody who prefers to reading in a different language. It's in Barns and Nobles, it's in Amazon, it's in small booksellers. We try and make it available everywhere. I'm kind of a crazy guy. You can find me on Instagram at Bill Perkins and on Twitter. I'm at BP twenty two. But please that stream of consciousness I
don't recommend it. I don't recommend it for everyone. You know. I wrote this book really, like I'm really honest about that is like to get these thoughts out of my head, almost like a diary, and then hopefully it would have an impact on everybody else in the world and having a more fulfilling life. So I didn't write it to become the guy, you know what I mean. I don't
want to be the guy. I just want to live life and have you know, I'm winging life just like everybody else, and I wanted a guidebook to help me have the most fulfilling life. And so you're you're welcome to come follow me at BP twenty two on Twitter and look me up on Instagram. But I don't recommend it.
I love it. I think that's like, actually the perfect recipe they probably get more followers is to say, don't follow.
Up that you're like, this guy's an idiot, Like it's crazy.
You know, Thanks Bill, I really appreciate your time.
Man, Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been fun.
All right. Man, If you were hoping for a lighter episode, that wasn't going to give you much to think about. This wasn't the right one to tune into. And Bill Perkins, He's definitely he's nothing if not opinionated. But I just really appreciate his passion, his enthusiasm, and how this whole concept of die with zero came not from his desire to be a guru, but from his his want, his
need to kind of create a framework for himself. And I think that framework is helpful for it can be helpful for a lot of us, and I think it can be particularly helpful if we find ourselves in the
hyper frugal category. And I think especially as people who listen to a personal finance podcast, someone who creates a personal finance podcast, it can be really easy to think about the x's and o's, to think about seeing the net worth go up on repeat, year after year, and I do think there is there can be some satisfaction
gain from that. Right. Like we talked about Warren Buffet for a second, I do think Warren in some ways gives a lot of joy from the way he lives his life, and what he wants out of his life is different than what Bill wants, and it is different than what I want. But I think what Bill is also prompting us to do is to say, take the food for thought, be viscerally aware of the trade offs you're making, because is there's a chance that that might not be what you want, Maybe you do need to
do some experimenting, and maybe you do. Maybe you are in the place where you need to try to spend some more money to see what's going to offer some payoff, or at least what he would say is to know what you're saving for. And if you're just saving and investing to see the number grow up, but you don't have ideas and thoughts of what that money is going to be used for, how it's going to facilitate a better life for you down the road, then maybe there's
a connection that needs to be made. I also love to what he said about how so often events or spending money is He said it was an excuse to connect with other humans, and I think that is so true. Like I have a concert that I'm super stoked to go to have an extra ticket and inviting a friend to that is like so exciting, and part of it's because the music's going to be great, very excited about that, but it's also the whole kitten kaboodle of getting to say, hey,
you come do this experience with me. I want to take you along for the ride, and it doesn't have to be terribly expensive, as are one of the other things. I think sometimes Bill is criticized for his He lives a different lifestyle than I do, and people think, oh, man, it's like this die with zero. It's only for the uber rich. And I think, if you want to do it the way he's done it, you got to have more money, right. But I think what he's getting at too is a philosophy and an approach to money that
doesn't mean having to be a multi millionaire. And we can implement some of that wisdom in the here and now. So it's a great book. It's a compelling book, and I think it'll change the way you view your own finances and maybe even reorient some things in your life. All Right, thanks as always for joining, and we'll put links to some of bill stuff, including his Instagram that he doesn't want you to follow, in the show notes
up on the website at Howtomoney dot com. Until next time, Best Friend Out.