The premise of “Die with Zero” sounds provocative: Bill Perkins argues you should plan to spend all your money before you die, optimizing for maximum life experiences rather than maximum wealth at death. Not “die debt-free” — that’s a different book. Perkins is talking about people who will almost certainly die with millions in unspent savings because they never gave themselves permission to spend it on things that actually mattered while they were healthy enough to enjoy them. The title is deliberately extreme. The actual argument is more nuanced than it sounds.
I picked it up because I’m interested in the other end of the FIRE question — not just how to achieve financial independence, but what to actually do with it.
I read his blog from beginning to end once and then just his Stock Series a second time. And then when I read the book I didn’t get much new (it was my third time reading the material after all) but the book is better organized (obviously) and is a bit more succinct (Collins tends to be a bit verbose in his blog), so if you read a few of his posts and they “click” then you may want to try and read the book. Also, having the book makes it easier to share with friends that could benefit from the knowledge (kind of part of my idea when I bought it).