This is a personal finance book that challenges the conventional advice about saving, spending, and retirement. The main idea is that people should aim to maximise their life experiences rather than hoarding all their money for the future. Perkins highlights that many people fall into the trap of over-saving, only to die without fully utilising their money. This book implores us to treat money as a tool to maximise meaningful life experiences and, instead of postponing enjoyment for a future that may never come, we should thoughtfully spend and allocate our wealth across different life stages to make the most of our lives.
My main takeaways from the book are:
- Prioritise experiences over aimless saving - Money is a tool to create memorable life experiences, not just something to accumulate.
- Aim to “Die With Zero” - Leaving behind excessive savings means we traded our valuable time for money we never got to use.
- Optimise for different life stages - Certain experiences are best enjoyed at specific ages (e.g. adventure travel and living abroad is easier when we’re young. He even suggests taking out a loan when we’re younger to spend on more experiences as we will usually make more money as we get older).
- Invest in experiences early - Experiences also pay “memory dividends” so the earlier we invest in experiences, the longer we get to enjoy the memories, especially when our physical health declines.
- Give money to loved ones early - Helping our children or family financially in their 20s-30s has a much bigger impact than leaving them an inheritance at 60+.