Die With Zero: Retire With Memories, Not Money

I reflect on Charlie Munger’s wish for more time and share three ideas from Bill Perkins’ Die With Zero that changed how I think about money and life.

First, you don’t retire with money—you retire with memories, and some experiences have real physical expiry dates, so postponing them can mean missing them forever.

Second, I reframe retirement planning by treating net worth peak as a date, not a number, and explain how dying with unspent money can represent thousands of hours worked for nothing, while the fear of running out is often bigger than the math.

Third, I walk through Perkins’ “time bucketing” exercise—mapping life in five-year blocks and assigning goals to realistic windows—plus my own buckets for travel, family, and work changes, to stop drifting and start choosing intentionally.

00:00 Munger’s Wish for Time

00:27 Book That Changed Me

01:05 Retire With Memories

02:06 Experiences Expire

03:19 Peak Net Worth Date

04:11 Fear of Running Out

05:09 Time Bucketing Method

06:16 My Time Buckets

07:07 Bucket List vs Buckets

07:54 Closing Takeaways

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