Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

[kenaces]

I found this an interesting read as it has made me reconsider some of what I am doing on my FIRE journey. 

He talks a little about Vicki Robbins idea that we all trade life energy for money but claims we aren't often optimizing how we turn this money back into positive life experiences.

He makes a case for spending while you are still young and healthy enough to get maximum enjoyment.  This hit home for me as I have been diligently saving but have been feeling a little conflicted because I am 50 and really want to go on more hiking/climbing adventures while I still can. 

He stresses how important it is to optimize your spending for each stage of your life.  He thinks many make the mistake of dying with too much money.  In part from 1)overestimating their spending needs later in life due to a fear of running out of money 2)underspending during younger and middle years when you can maximize your satisfaction and compound what he calls the memory dividend for a longer period of time.

Has anyone else read it?  What do you think?

[Simpli-Fi]

thanks for this tip...sounds like a good read for the stage in my life I'm currently transitioning to

[alcon835]

Why not both?

Do work that is mostly enjoyable, pays well, and provides the freedom to do the other things you want to do.

Build your spending around a specific lifestyle. Determine what you want to your life to look like and focus your spending on those things.

Save a significant chunk of what's leftover.

That's, more or less, what I am doing. I earn a high income, but that's only bee in the last two years. Even when I didn't, I basically budgeted for my life first and saved the rest.

Being debt free makes this MUCH easier. No car payment, no credit card bills, nothing like that. I owe some on my house, but that's part of my lifestyle spending and I am okay with it.

On the one hand, this way can make FIRE a little slower. On the other hand, I'm doing most of the things I want to do when I retire, it's just slower and in smaller quantities.

[kenaces]

Why not both?

There are always trade offs to consider - some big and some small.  And this book made me think about these things in a different light.

In my case I can hit lean FIRE in ~10 years with my current savings rate or I can coast to lean FIRE in ~17 years.  My current 10 year plan will mean less trips to the mountains in what might be my last decade of being healthy enough to really enjoy it?  Of course this is simplified but I think you get the idea.

[alcon835]

That makes a lot of sense. I agree there are various trade offs. Like you, I've mostly chosen to do a slightly slower FI plan in order to go on adventures and try out the world while I'm still young enough to enjoy it all.

[Simpli-Fi]

Awesome book, I’m only about 50% through it but has realigned my thinking on spending; most significant thought is...any money I die with = xxxxx hours, xxxxx/40 weeks, xx months, or x years I worked for free.

[norajean]

Why does maximum enjoyment require spending?

[Simpli-Fi]

It doesn’t...but not spending until zero equals working for free.  The book really focuses on spending on experiences when healthy and spending more than you earn earlier (healthier) in life than traditionally thought; net worth needs a peak and not just rise until you die.

[Scio5]

I just finished it last night and loved it! I'm grateful that I paid off debt and saved a lot in my 20s, but in hindsight I do wish I had gone on a few adventures and taken some risks before I got into my current career. The story about his friend going into debt to take a once-in-a-lifetime backpacking trip through Europe especially resonated with me. One of my goals in FIRE is to be able to enjoy slow travel like that, but that experience will be very different even in my early 40s compared to what it would have been in my 20s.

Other things I'm thinking more about now:
- The approach to use insurance (like long-term care insurance or an annuity) to cover yourself long-term vs. trying to save a million or more to cover any life/health outcome and effectively self-insure against those risks. Does anyone else have experiences or opinions about this?

- If your goal is to save a bunch to give to your kids or charity after you die, why not just give them the money now (or in the case of minor children, put in a trust)?

[iris lily]

I just finished it last night and loved it! I'm grateful that I paid off debt and saved a lot in my 20s, but in hindsight I do wish I had gone on a few adventures and taken some risks before I got into my current career. The story about his friend going into debt to take a once-in-a-lifetime backpacking trip through Europe especially resonated with me. One of my goals in FIRE is to be able to enjoy slow travel like that, but that experience will be very different even in my early 40s compared to what it would have been in my 20s.

Other things I'm thinking more about now:
- The approach to use insurance (like long-term care insurance or an annuity) to cover yourself long-term vs. trying to save a million or more to cover any life/health outcome and effectively self-insure against those risks. Does anyone else have experiences or opinions about this?

- If your goal is to save a bunch to give to your kids or charity after you die, why not just give them the money now (or in the case of minor children, put in a trust)?

I can contribute to this thread because it’s something that’s been on my mind this year especially. We are old. We have now drawing  Social Security and pension. Between all of those income sources we don’t need anything from our stash.

So what is our plan for the stash? What is our endgame? We don’t have children and it is not important to me to leave anything to humans. I would love to give large gifts to organizations, I mean large ones, now. But here’s the dilemma: we don’t know about nursing home costs in our future. I do not want to impoverish my spouse.

Were it me alone, with half the amount of money we have? I would be giving bigger gifts. But I’m protecting my spouse now by giving little gifts.

But I will also say that he doesn’t know or understand what I mean when I ask him what is our end game with our assets? What do we intend to do?  It’s his idea that we plug along as we always have, using money “as we need it. “He won’t recognize a large giving plan. This pisses me off.

I am perfectly happy Dying Broke. But that is so much easier said than done because you don’t really know how much you’re going to need in the last few years of life, I.e. skilled nursing/institutional care.And your spouse. Cant use all the stash because part of it belongs to him.

And long-term care insurance is not viable. It’s really not viable for us at this age, and I’m doubtful that it’s viable anymore for anyone at any age.

Read up on it you will find it it’s not much of an option anymore. It worked nicely for my mother but she was a different generation.

I have not read the book this thread is based on, but there are some earlier book called Die Broke. I assume it is the same concept. The same ideas are recycled every few years.

[Scio5]

I started reading more about long term care insurance and annuities, and it looks like you're right that LTC insurance might be going the way of the dodo. I did a quick search on annuities in this forum and I had no idea that they were so divisive, with most people being very strongly anti-annuity in most if not all cases. So that was pretty discouraging.

I don't know enough about how Medicare works in old age either. If you're in a nursing home and you run out of money in your 90s with no heirs, do they just...kick you out onto the street?

I'm only in my 30s and the women in my family tend to live to their 90s, so barring accidents I hope to live a very long life. 60+ years is also a very long time for the health care and elder care system in the US to change drastically, for better or worse.

[iris lily]

We do not have annuities.

I think they may be fine for some people in some circumstances making up some of one’s  income. See all those qualifiers “may” and “some?” They’re probably not universally bad but they’re not the best choice for savvy thoughtful investors.

[iris lily]

I started reading more about long term care insurance and annuities, and it looks like you're right that LTC insurance might be going the way of the dodo. I did a quick search on annuities in this forum and I had no idea that they were so divisive, with most people being very strongly anti-annuity in most if not all cases. So that was pretty discouraging.

I don't know enough about how Medicare works in old age either. If you're in a nursing home and you run out of money in your 90s with no heirs, do they just...kick you out onto the street?

I'm only in my 30s and the women in my family tend to live to their 90s, so barring accidents I hope to live a very long life. 60+ years is also a very long time for the health care and elder care system in the US to change drastically, for better or worse.

First of all, Medicare does not cover nursing home cost for long-term care because Medicare is a health care policy.

When someone needs long-term care, meaning custodial care with some nursing care, they can live in a nursing home. Nursing homes are called several things but “ nursing home” is the old-fashioned term for it Most people recognize that term.

So to your question —it depends on the nursing home. In my experience most of them take Medicaid. See,  Medicaid is the program for poor people, so that means one has to have exhausted all one’s resources before the taxpayer starts to  pick up your tab in a nursing home.

[stoaX]

I started reading more about long term care insurance and annuities, and it looks like you're right that LTC insurance might be going the way of the dodo. I did a quick search on annuities in this forum and I had no idea that they were so divisive, with most people being very strongly anti-annuity in most if not all cases. So that was pretty discouraging.

I don't know enough about how Medicare works in old age either. If you're in a nursing home and you run out of money in your 90s with no heirs, do they just...kick you out onto the street?

I'm only in my 30s and the women in my family tend to live to their 90s, so barring accidents I hope to live a very long life. 60+ years is also a very long time for the health care and elder care system in the US to change drastically, for better or worse.

First of all, Medicare does not cover nursing home cost for long-term care because Medicare is a health care policy.

When someone needs long-term care, meaning custodial care with some nursing care, they can live in a nursing home. Nursing homes are called several things but “ nursing home” is the old-fashioned term for it Most people recognize that term.

So to your question —it depends on the nursing home. In my experience most of them take Medicaid. See,  Medicaid is the program for poor people, so that means one has to have exhausted all one’s resources before the taxpayer starts to  pick up your tab in a nursing home.

Good explanation.  Even though I have FIRE'D I still think about how much I should have put aside to ensure I have enough to get into a high quality assisted living / nursing home if it ever happens.  Preferably one that would keep me if I live long enough to spend down all my assets.

[iris lily]

I started reading more about long term care insurance and annuities, and it looks like you're right that LTC insurance might be going the way of the dodo. I did a quick search on annuities in this forum and I had no idea that they were so divisive, with most people being very strongly anti-annuity in most if not all cases. So that was pretty discouraging.

I don't know enough about how Medicare works in old age either. If you're in a nursing home and you run out of money in your 90s with no heirs, do they just...kick you out onto the street?

I'm only in my 30s and the women in my family tend to live to their 90s, so barring accidents I hope to live a very long life. 60+ years is also a very long time for the health care and elder care system in the US to change drastically, for better or worse.

First of all, Medicare does not cover nursing home cost for long-term care because Medicare is a health care policy.

When someone needs long-term care, meaning custodial care with some nursing care, they can live in a nursing home. Nursing homes are called several things but “ nursing home” is the old-fashioned term for it Most people recognize that term.

So to your question —it depends on the nursing home. In my experience most of them take Medicaid. See,  Medicaid is the program for poor people, so that means one has to have exhausted all one’s resources before the taxpayer starts to  pick up your tab in a nursing home.

Good explanation.  Even though I have FIRE'D I still think about how much I should have put aside to ensure I have enough to get into a high quality assisted living / nursing home if it ever happens.  Preferably one that would keep me if I live long enough to spend down all my assets.

My brother shopped around quite a lot to find the right nursing home for my mom. I always thought it was a perfectly fine place. She paid privately with her own funds supplemented with LT?c insurance.funds.

The only difference  in Medicaid patients versus private pay patients was that private pay patients got their own room. And granted that’s a really big deal. But all other services were exactly the same.

But I do understand the not not all nursing homes are the same that way. I’ve
heard of some that have Medicaid  floors and those are certainly different from the private pay floors.

Edited to insert Medicaid for Medicare. I really do know the difference.

[kenaces]

I have not read the book this thread is based on, but there are some earlier book called Die Broke. I assume it is the same concept. The same ideas are recycled every few years.

I read Die Broke ~20 years ago and while I am sure there is some overlap(Isn't there always in any book on $) - This author's focus was mainly on how to maximize the value of every dollar you spend through the lens of happiness.

It is also interesting to me that this thread has shifted to LTC and annuity discussion.  I don't think the book mentioned anything about LTC, and had an only passing reference to annuities as one method to assure you die with zero.