Bill Perkins' Die With Zero: What Holds Up and What Doesn't

Bill Perkins’ Die With Zero (2020) argues that money exists to be converted into experiences, and that many people convert too little, too late. The useful half of that is the timing idea: some experiences are better at 28 than at 78. The weaker half is the money logic, where a critic with a retirement-planning background found the book’s formula and data shaky.

What are time buckets and memory dividends?

A time bucket is a window of life when a particular experience fits best. Chris Hutchins’ summary of the book describes the contrast with a bucket list: a list says what to do, a time bucket says when. His examples include backpacking in your 20s and a big work retreat in your 40s or 50s. Perkins held his 50th birthday party at 45, because he would get more from it then, per the same summary.

A memory dividend is the return an experience keeps paying each time you recall it. Reviewers describe it as joy at the time and again every retelling, which is why earlier experiences accumulate more. The Physician on FIRE review gives the age sketch: 20 to 40, high energy and little money; 40 to 70, more money and less time and energy; 70 and over, less mobility but more wealth and time.

I could not read the book itself. These ideas come from reviews and a summary, so the exact wording is theirs.

What part of the argument is sound?

The ageing intuition is reasonable, and it has a respectable partner in the research on experiential spending. Van Boven and Gilovich (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, volume 85, pages 1193-1202) found in two surveys that people rated experiential purchases as more satisfying than material ones, and in an experiment that thinking about experiences produced more positive feelings. The authors credit experiences with being easier to reinterpret positively, more tied to identity, and more social. That supports the “experiences over balances” direction. I read the abstract only.

There is also data that retirees do slow down. David Blanchett’s Journal of Financial Planning article (May 2014, volume 27, issue 5) found real spending falls by roughly 1 percent a year in retirement, and one summary of his “smile” attributes the early dip partly to younger retirees travelling more. Blanchett himself says it is hard to tell whether the drop reflects choice or lack of resources. The sources I read did not claim a decline in capacity to enjoy things.

Where does the logic fail?

The data used for “people die with too much.” Karsten of Early Retirement Now (October 2023) says Perkins cited 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances figures showing the 75-plus group richer than people aged 65 to 74, while the 2019 data he left out reverses it: median about $254.8k against $266.4k. Karsten also says the 75-plus group usually had less wealth than the younger group across survey years from 1989 to 2019. I took these numbers from his post and did not check them against the survey. The point is that the overaccumulation story is contestable.

The savings formula. Karsten reports Perkins’ target as horizon times annual budget times 0.7, and shows that this scales linearly when real-world safe withdrawal curves do not. For a 60-year horizon it gives 42 times annual spending, against about 31 times for a 75/25 portfolio at a 3.25 percent withdrawal rate. It also ignores Social Security and pensions. His summary: “the innovative parts aren’t intelligent, and the intelligent parts aren’t innovative.”

Risk. Depleting capital is not new; he points out that the 4 percent rule already counts ending with $0.01 as success. The harder issue is that nobody can aim at zero. The White Coat Investor critique, which I only saw in a search listing, raises sequence-of-returns risk as the practical obstacle. Perkins’ answer, per the Physician on FIRE review, is annuities and life insurance. Karsten disagrees with the book’s view that care costs are unaffordable for most people, and argues that precaution is rational.

Who the advice assumes. Reviewers note that it presumes a surplus. A time bucket is a good idea for anyone, but “spend down” is meaningful only after the costs are covered.

What can you do with it this month?

Take the part that survives the critique and leave the formula alone. A time bucket costs nothing to draw. Write down five things you want to do and for each one, the year of life in which it is easiest. Anything whose window is closing, like a trip with a parent or a hike your body allows now, goes first. A post on where the bucket list idea comes from suggests turning such items into small dated plans, and the Harvard Grant Study evidence on relationships and ageing is a reminder that many of the best buckets involve other people.

The weak point in most lists is not the choice of experience. It is that the plan sits there while ordinary mornings go by. A dated first step, written down and told to someone, is the cheapest dividend on offer.