Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

Putting your kids first means you give to them much earlier, and you make a deliberate plan to make sure that what you have for your children reaches them when it will make the most impact.

So, for example, if the peak utility of money (the time when it can bring optimal usefulness or enjoyment) occurs at age 30, then at age 30 every dollar buys you one dollar’s worth of enjoyment. By age 50, the utility of money has declined considerably: Either you would get a lot less enjoyment out of that same dollar or you would need more money (

you purchase to guarantee that you won’t run out of money if you live a long time.” In fact, thinking of annuities as insurance makes them a lot more sensible than thinking of them as investments—because as investments they are not good at all. But that’s not their goal—their goal is to insure you against the risk of outliving your money.

Start actively thinking about the life experiences you’d like to have, and the number of times you’d like to have them.

There is one very accessible tool their Web site recommends: the Actuaries Longevity Illustrator (http://www.longevityillustrator.org/). Based on your answers to just a few questions, it produces a chart that shows your probabilities of dying at different ages.

We get a return on all our experiences. That’s why we spend money on them. It is also why we invest in financial instruments—to help our money grow, with the ultimate goal of generating more or better experiences.

Money is nearly worthless at the very beginning and the very end of life.

cases, this sense of aimlessness can even lead to anxiety and depression.

If you wait until you’re 65 or even 62 to dip into your nest egg, you will almost certainly end up working longer than necessary for money you will never get to spend. What a sad thought: to slave away at a job and never get the gold.