How I Spent My Summer: The Influence of “Die With Zero”

Spoiler Alert: It was spent with friends & family.

Busy, Busy, Busy

As a family we traveled to 10 different states, attended 9 concerts (4 of which were out-of-state), visited 2 Hall-of-Fames (Pro Football and Rock & Roll), and bought season tickets to a Midwest amusement park. We spent 4 weeks traveling in addition to all the activities in our area. When we were home we made a conscious effort to catch-up with friends & family we hadn’t seen in a while, usually having dinner together with great conversations. Needless to say, we had a pretty busy summer.

Not Who You Think I Am

I consider myself to be rather humble, yet this probably all sounds like boasting. So then why would I mention any of this? Because for those who know me (or those who have read about my background), none of this is what you’d come to expect of me.

As an introvert, I preferred to spend time alone instead of socializing with others.
At my job I was always working with my head-down, rarely taking any time off.
I was a huge saver, stashing away money whenever & wherever I could.
I was frugal, so I hated to “waste” money on experiences like vacations.
When I did spend money, I tended to lean towards physical “things” instead of “experiences”. In my mind physical items held value because they could be used repeatedly, whereas experiences were fleeting since once it was over there was nothing tangible left.
To summarize the old version of myself: Over the years I endured many pleas from my wife & parents to take my kids to Disneyland, but I always rebuffed it because it felt like a lot of money for a limited-time experience. Plus, I didn’t have any time because I was busy at work.

So what changed? Three words: Die With Zero.

A New Trend That Spread Like Wildfire

I can’t remember exactly where I first heard of Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, but I do recall that it was mentioned on numerous podcasts circa 2021-2022. From there it seemed to spread rapidly throughout the Financial Independence community and started changing the zeitgeist of how many of us thought about & approached money. Years later Die With Zero seems to continue impacting the FI community as many still seem to discuss it on a regular basis along with implications it’s had in their lives – Brad Barrett (ChooseFI) has been a huge proponent as well as Carl Jensen & Doug Cunnington (Mile High FI), just to name a few.

For those who are not familiar with the book, the core tenet is a shift in focus from maximizing wealth to living the best life possible. Once enough money has been saved (to fund retirement, pass along to heirs, and/or give to charity), attention should then be placed on generating memorable experiences, which Perkins calls “memory dividends”. Life is the sum of these experiences. Life should be lived to its fullest, not continuing to work beyond what is necessary, socking away more & more money that won’t or can’t ever be spent. We need to consciously decide when to stop working and start living.

Most Impactful Lessons

There are 9 rules presented in Die With Zero, but 3 really stood out to me.

Rule 1: Maximize Your Positive Life Experiences. The unfortunate reality is that we all have finite time here on earth and we should figure out how to make the most of this limited time. One way to maximize our life is to create memorable experiences. Perkins states that “unlike material possessions, which seem exciting at the beginning but then often depreciate quickly, experiences actually gain in value over time: they pay what I call a memory dividend.” He goes on to suggest, “start actively thinking about the life experiences you’d like to have, and the number of times you’d like to have them. The experiences can be large or small, free or costly, charitable or hedonistic. But think about what you really want out of this life in terms of meaningful and memorable experiences.” Also, because we won’t be around forever, it’s important to not wait until retirement (or even delay gratification indefinitely) to start doing things we enjoy; start doing them NOW. We need to figure out what makes us happy then convert our money into the life experiences we want to have.
Rule 2: Start Investing in Experiences Early. Life is the sum of our experiences so everything we do each moment, each day, each year, etc adds up to make us who we are. Perkins states that “when you look back on your life, the richness of those experiences will determine your judgment of how full a life you’ve led.” Comparable to the power of compound interest when it comes to money, the aforementioned memory dividends can also compound in a similar way, leading to exponentially more enjoyment over time. This is especially true when the memory of the experience is shared with others. He goes on to suggest, “think about the people you’d like to have experiences with – and picture the memory dividends you stand to gain from having those experiences sooner rather than later. Think about how you can actively enhance your memory dividends”. So let compounding work its magic and start creating those experiences/memories as soon as possible.
Rule 7: Think of Your Life as Distinct Seasons. As we go through life, we need to remember that we’re constantly changing – not only are we changing physically due to increasing age & declining health, but other aspects of life are also evolving such as changes in marital status, having kids, differing financial situations, developing new hobbies & interests, etc. Each of these changes can be considered a different phase, and we become different people at each phase. Perkins equates these phases to seasons or “mini-deaths” throughout 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.” There are distinct experiences throughout life that are more suited for one season over another, so we should plan accordingly, rather than assuming we can do anything at any point in time. For example, it’s probably not realistic to plan for extreme physical activities such as mountain climbing at 80 years old. For those with kids, what activities would you plan when they are little (playgrounds & zoos) vs. when they are older (hiking & roller coasters)? Perkins describes this as “time bucketing” and provides the following strategy: “Draw a timeline of your life from now to the grave, then divide it into intervals of five or ten years. Each of those intervals – say, from age 30 to 40, or from 70 to 75 – is a time bucket, which is just a random grouping of years. Then think about what key experiences – activities or events – you definitely want to have during your lifetime.”

The Transformation

I can’t point out exactly why the book’s message hit me so hard – perhaps because the author was so relatable (a fellow engineer) or the content was presented in such a convincing narrative. Regardless, I was blown away instantly and took the lessons to heart. In fact, I consider Die With Zero among the most influential books that I’ve read and would perhaps even label this as my “Fortuitous & Life-Altering Financial Moment #4”. (Reference My Origin Story Part 1 & Part 2 for the 3 other Fortuitous moments)

I rarely do this, but I convinced my wife to read the book as well and she too was enthralled. Although she had always been pushing for more vacations and experiences (such as Disneyland), there seemed to be an increased sense of urgency & energy after reading the book. Both of us realized that we didn’t want to let life drift by blithely. We wanted to intentionally make the most of life by creating experiences & memories NOW, especially before our kids grew older. Personally I wanted to make up for lost time, fully admitting that I had been too focused on work & aggressive saving in the past at the cost of truly living.

Perkins Points

From that point forward my wife and I looked at life through a different lens; being more open to fun & exciting opportunities, especially those experiences that are rare or unique. We put our own spin on “memory dividends” and call them “Perkins Points”. Whenever we come up with a fun idea and debate whether or not to pull the trigger, we remind ourselves that we should be racking up “Perkins Points”.

Lest you think that we’re creating experiences just for the sake of it or for purely self-indulgent purposes, we are also acutely aware of how time is constantly moving forward, without a way to stop it or even slow it down. We know that our kids won’t be living at home forever or there may come a time (hopefully not soon) when they may not even want to spend time with us anymore. Because of this, we are actively implementing the time-bucketing strategy to determine which activities we really want to experience as a family before it’s too late.

We’ve even run through an exercise where we’ve listed all the years before each kid goes to college, written down all the vacations/big activities we aspire to, and then mapped out when we’d potentially do each one (mostly based around school breaks – Christmas/New Year’s, spring, mid-winter, & summer). It’s been very sobering to realize that we now only have 6 summers left before our oldest child goes off to college. And of these 6 years, the last 3 might not be full-length summers because she will probably be working a part-time job.

Spending is Still a Struggle

Even with this new outlook on life and a goal to accumulate “Perkins Points”, it hasn’t necessarily been easy to start spending more on experiences. As a natural saver and one that aggressively pursued FI, let’s just say that my first inclination is to always save rather than spend money. I’ve found it beneficial to consult with my wife, so that we can constantly remind ourselves about what sort of life we’re hoping to lead and how we want to look back on the sum of our experiences when we are older.

Positive Early Returns

In the past few years the Die With Zero philosophy has already resulted in a couple trips to Disneyland (both CA & Paris), a trip to Hawaii, a trip to Europe & New York, and this past summer’s extravaganza that I mentioned at the start of this post. We’ve also attended numerous and sometimes costly concerts in other cities (Taylor Swift & Olivia Rodrigo).

All of these experiences have added up to a LOT of money, however I don’t regret it one bit because these experiences have also added up to a LOT of memories for myself, my wife, and most importantly, my kids. We are happily already seeing many positive returns of these accumulating memory dividends – at the dinner table someone will randomly talk about a past trip or when we’re out & about it’ll trigger a good memory. These recollections are priceless and undoubtedly worth the monetary value we paid to create them.

Life is like a game and our plan is to continue collecting “Perkins Points”, all in hopes of achieving the highest personal score possible.

Links/Resources

Reader Questions

Have you read Die With Zero? If so, has it had any influence on your life?
Are there any areas of your life where you could potentially increase spending in order to create more memorable or enjoyable experiences?

Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com