A review and summary of Die with Zero and 4,000 Weeks

Die Broke is the book where I first encountered the colourful quip about how the last cheque you write should be to your undertaker, and it should bounce. In other words, the closer you can get to spending all your money just as you die, the less you have to fork over to Uncle Sam—and for us, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Problem is, of course, that no one can accurately predict when they will die. As one unknown wag once remarked, retirement planning would be a cinch, if you just knew the day you’re dying.

Summary of Die with Zero 

So, it was of interest to me when an old college friend mentioned how much he enjoyed reading a book titled Die with Zero (HarperCollins, 2021), by Bill Perkins. My first reaction was that it sounded just like Die Broke, but I valued my friend’s opinion enough to check out a free copy on the Libby app and also on the paid book service Everand (formerly Scribd). The books have similar premises: there are trade-offs between time, money and health. Indeed, the Die with Zero subtitle is “Getting all you can from your money and your life.” 

Essentially put, we exchange our time and life energy for money, which can therefore be viewed as a form of stored life energy. So, if you die with lots of money, you’ve in effect “wasted” some of your precious life energy. Similarly, if you encounter mobility issues or other afflictions in your 70s or 80s, you may not be able to travel and engage in many activities for which you had been saving up. The “money as life energy” idea is most memorably articulated in another classic book about financial independence: Your Money or Your Life (Penguin Random House, 2008). 

But, what about the children? The issue of inheritance and leaving money to your heirs is deftly handled by Perkins in Die with Zero. The advice amounts to the old bromide that it’s “better to give with a warm hand than a cold one.” In other words, why not give them some of your money when they really need it, and you’re still healthy enough to enjoy their company, and presumably their gratitude.

Die with Zero review

After I read Die with Zero and started to write this column, I happened to chat with blogger Mark Seed of MyOwnAdvisor. Quite independently, he published a review of Die with Zero on the website Cashflows & Portfolios back in January 2024, along with a book giveaway promotion.

“It was ‘OK’ in terms of content,” Mark told me in an email. “Some of the writing was not very good, but the premise is good: avoid hoarding money you could otherwise gift, spend, enjoy, etc.” The review starts with the following quote from Perkins: “The real golden years—the period of maximum potential enjoyment because we have the most health and wealth—mostly come before the traditional retirement age of 65.” The review further says that most of us know this intuitively, but “so many of us might be giving up years of semi-retirement or retirement enjoyment, only to find out we’ve saved too much or put off many valuable experiences for far too long.” The reviewers liken the main premise and the notion that it’s better to give now rather than later, but they also found it quite repetitive and lacking a real recipe for implementing the Die with Zero mantra. 

Living the Die with Zero mantra

If you read and absorb the thesis, you may find that the book changes your day-to-day behaviour. This happened to me recently, when my wife and I spent a few days in Fergus and Elora, Ont., for a birthday celebration. Initially, we booked a tiny room at a correspondingly tiny price. Once we checked in, we asked to look at a more spacious and luxurious room. We had both read Die with Zero and, having discussed the book, mutually decided to upgrade our room, despite the price being roughly double. It’s a small example, but it may just be the beginning for us.