The Trouble with "Die with Zero": Why Memory Dividends Are a Myth

Bill Perkins wrote a great book. But the culture around it has created a dangerous financial trap.

I’ve gotten a lot of pushback on my recent post about Die With Zero.

A lot of commenters told me I was taking Bill Perkins a little too literally. They said I misunderstood the book, or worse, that I hadn’t actually read it.

Well, I did read it. In fact, I reread it this weekend. I wanted to look at it with fresh eyes and address the skepticism directly.

After going through it again, I don’t want to rehash the specific comments from last week—you can read those in the thread. Instead, I want to make three distinct points about why I still deeply question the Die with Zero ethos.

1. I’m Not Criticizing the Book. I’m Criticizing the Culture.

First and foremost, I never said Die With Zero was a bad book. It’s actually a great read. What I am pushy about is the Die with Zero ethos—how people have interpreted the text and applied it to their lives.

While Perkins includes a reasonable amount of nuance in his chapters, the real-world application of his philosophy has absolutely none.

The cultural ethos that has grown around this book is simple: Spend, spend, spend, so you can hit zero right as you slide into your grave. It encourages an aggressive race to maximize consumption. I firmly believe this modern interpretation is far more extreme than Perkins’ actual text, but it’s the reality of how the message is being consumed. I’m not criticizing the author’s precise words; I’m criticizing the weaponized lifestyle that has been built around them.

2. Yes, He Actually Means It Literally

The second critique I received was that Perkins wasn’t being literal—that “dying with zero” is just a thought experiment designed to nudge over-savers into spending a bit more.

I disagree. When I reread the book, I noticed that while Perkins acknowledges how incredibly difficult it is to time your death perfectly, he absolutely wants you to shoot for the bullseye.

He is being literal. His argument is that if you leave money on the table, those dollars represent experiences you missed out on. To him, any leftover capital is a tragic waste of life units. He admits we won’t hit zero perfectly because life is unpredictable, but the goal remains absolute: get as close to the line as possible.

I don’t think it’s unfair of me to treat his core premise as literal when the book explicitly argues that failing to spend down to zero is a structural failure of your life’s portfolio.

3. The Myth of the “Memory Dividend”

This brings me to my biggest disagreement with the book, and something I want to look at more deeply.

The Die with Zero philosophy operates on the premise that peak experiences reign supreme and are the ultimate source of human happiness. While I agree that spending money on experiences is generally better than buying material things, the book places far too much weight on them.

Perkins introduces the concept of the “memory dividend”—the idea that a massive experience pays psychological dividends for the rest of your life every time you look back on it. He uses the example of throwing himself a massive, $100,000 (this number is a guess) 45th birthday party, arguing that the memories continue to fuel his happiness decades later.

But let’s be completely honest about human psychology: memory dividends are mostly a myth.

If you throw a $100,000 party, how much time do you actually spend actively reminiscing about it over the next fifty years? Twenty-five hours? Maybe fifty hours, total? These are fleeting, momentary wisps of thought. You remember a toast, you smile for a second, and then you immediately return to the reality of your present day. The happiness is real, but it is short-lived and rapidly diminishing.

There is an experiential treadmill just like there is a hedonic treadmill. If you base your life on chasing the next great peak experience to fund your future memory bank, you will constantly feel the need to one-up yourself.

Purpose vs. Experience

If experiences aren’t the end-all-be-all, what is? Purpose.

Let’s look at a quick comparison:

Purpose is finding something that lights you up in the present tense and doing it consistently.

Consider the person who loves pickleball and plays it a few times a week for decades. That routine doesn’t require a massive financial liquidation, but it provides thousands of hours of flow, connection, and genuine happiness.

When you look at what truly fulfills us as human beings, it isn’t the recollection of a lavish trip we took twenty years ago. It’s having a clear sense of meaning today. It’s doing work or engaging in hobbies that make us feel alive right now.

Instead of worrying about how to optimize every dollar for a future memory, we should focus on becoming the best version of ourselves in the present. And the reality of human nature is that becoming the best version of yourself usually doesn’t cost very much money at all.

Final Thoughts

I stand by my critique. I believe the Die with Zero ethos leads to unnecessary financial anxiety and a superficial chase for peak experiences. I believe the author’s intent was literal, and I think his reliance on the value of memory dividends is fundamentally flawed.

True wealth isn’t about draining your accounts to chase fleeting moments so you can peak before you die. It’s about using your resources to build a stable, quiet life filled with daily purpose.

But that’s just how I see it. Let me know where you stand in the comments. Are you actively trying to hit zero, or are you focusing your energy elsewhere?

Did you catch this week’s episode of Earn & Invest (Click to listen)?

Buy The Healthcare Heist