book's central idea
well the whole book "die with zero" by Bill Perkins is centred around the idea of living with the goal of dying with 0 money.
why should we die with zero?
the author argues that life is the sum of all your experiences. And the better and more experiences you have the better your life quality will be.
money buys experiences. experiences make life more fullfilling and enjoyable. therefore one should spend his money on experiences.
the definition of experience
experiences can take many forms from buying a house, a car or a new smartphone to things live travelling, making friends or simply reading a book.
some experiences require no money to be lived. therefore money is not a requisite for having experiences or living a fullfilling life.
money is a tool that we use to buy experiences. we work to get money. we spend energy and time to get money. therefore all of the energy and time that one spends working in the pursuit of money, is energy that one uses to live more experiences...
(this might not be true for every individual. unfortunately, there are people who work just for surviving... however even in this circunstances one is still working so that he can live another day, therefore one is still working to obtain experiences)
why dying with zero is the rational decision
well when you don't die with zero it means that you've worked more than you needed to.
Per example let's say that someone dies with $100 000 and that same person got paid $3000 every month. this means that this person worked almost 3 years working for nothing.
that is, this person wasted time that could have been used on living more experiences...
but what about the kids?
but what about the kids?
well the author argues that waiting until one dies so that one can give his heritage to his family is dumb.
most people need money when they're young. the younger you are the less money you have. the older you are the more money you have...
the younger you are the more experiences you can live. the older you are the less experiences you can live.
this is to say that giving your heritage when you're alive and when your childs are like 25 or 30 years old is much more fullfilling to them.