The key ideas

Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

Bill Perkins, 2020

We are taught to work and save now, and live later. Trader Bill Perkins believes many people die with money they never got to turn into life. His book is about why experiences have their own age, how memories pay you back, and when it is time to stop saving.

Who it is for

For anyone who works hard and saves, but keeps putting what matters off until later. And for anyone who wants to know how much to save and when to start spending.

The thing to fear is not whether you will have the right amount at eighty, but that your life and your time will go to waste.

A fable worth reading to the end

Everyone knows the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. All summer the ant hauls food into storage while the grasshopper sings and dances. In winter the ant is fed and the grasshopper perishes. The moral seems obvious: work and save, and the fun can wait.

Bill Perkins, an energy trader and the founder of a hedge fund, asks an awkward question: so when does the ant get to rest? If he works every summer, his whole life goes into a winter that never quite comes. Die with Zero looks for the middle ground between the ant and the grasshopper.

Perkins's main idea is simple. Life is made of experiences, and money is there to buy those experiences. If you die with a large sum in the bank, you spent hours of your life earning money that never turned into life. Hence the book's motto: die with zero.

This is not a call to blow it all. In the pages ahead you will see why experiences have a shelf life, how memories pay you back, when it is time to stop saving, and why you should help your children while you are still alive.

The friend who borrowed from a loan shark

In the early nineties, Perkins and his roommate Jason Ruffo worked as clerks on an exchange in New York and earned very little. Jason decided to go backpacking around Europe for three months. He had no money, so he borrowed about ten thousand dollars from a loan shark: someone who lends without collateral at a huge rate of interest.

Perkins was horrified. He thought his friend would get his legs broken, and that while he was away, the promotions would go to other people. Jason went anyway. He sat with friends in a Paris park, made it to the Greek islands and fell in love. When he came back, he and Perkins were still earning almost the same, but Jason had far more stories.

Perkins himself only got to Europe at thirty, and realized he was too late. He was too old for the youth hostel scene and the loud crowds of twenty-year-olds. A trip like that belongs to its own age, and that age had passed.

The mistake is thinking that putting an experience off costs nothing. Perkins shows the price: some experiences simply disappear with the years, and no amount of money will bring them back.

Read in Livria

About the author

Bill Perkins is an American energy trader, hedge fund founder and poker player. He started out as a clerk on a New York exchange in the early nineties.

All books by this author: Bill Perkins

Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life Quiz

Terms from the book

  • Hedge fund
  • Autopilot
  • dividend
  • Trader
  • Fed
  • Fulfillment curve
  • Ruffo: Jason Ruffo, Perkins's roommate when they were young. He borrowed money from a loan shark to travel around Europe for three months, and never regretted it.
  • Loan shark: Someone who lends money without collateral at a very high rate of interest, often outside the law.
  • Hostel: A cheap place to stay with shared rooms, popular with young travelers.
  • Farrell: Joe Farrell, young Perkins's boss. He called him an idiot for saving money out of a small salary.
  • Annuity: A contract with an insurance company: you pay it a sum and receive regular payments for the rest of your life. Perkins calls it a tool, not a must.
  • Peak net worth: Perkins's idea: the year after which you stop growing your savings and start spending them. It is a date, not a sum.
  • Time buckets: Perkins's tool: your life is split into stretches of five or ten years, and each one holds the experiences best had in exactly that period.

All terms

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