Retired Money

By Jonathan Chevreau on July 24, 2024
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

By Jonathan Chevreau on July 24, 2024
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

According to the book Die with Zero, we should all run out of money just as we run out of life. Here’s a summary of that book and a few others that explore this theme and variations on it.

Before I dive into a review of Die with Zero (Mariner Books, 2021), I recognize that, while dying broke may not seem to be a worthy goal for most readers of my column, there are nonetheless a handful of financial books that advocate just that philosophy. The classic book of this genre bears the exact title: Die Broke (Harper Business, 1998), by Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine, which I read shortly after it was first published. As you can see from the cover in the above link, Pollan is billed as “America’s most trusted financial advisor,” so surely there must be something to this.

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.

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.........

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