Die With Zero

• Most of us go through life as if we had all the time in the world.

• Too many people delay gratification for too long, or indefinitely. They put off what they want to do until it's too late, saving money for experiences they will never enjoy. Living as if your life were infinite is the opposite of taking the long view. It's terribly shortsighted.

• What I am an advocate for is deciding what makes you happy and then converting your money into the experiences you choose.

• You should choose your experiences deliberately and purposefully rather than living life on auto pilot, as too many of us do.

• By planning how you will spend your time and money to achieve the biggest peaks you can with the resources you have -is how you maximize you life-. By taking charge of these crucial decisions, you take charge of your life.

• Money represents life energy. Life energy is all the hours that you're alive to do things -and whenever you work, you spend some of that finite life energy-. So any amount of money you've earned through your work represents the amount of life energy you spent earning that money.

• So even if you're earning only 8$ an hour, spending that 8$ also means spending an hour's worth of your life energy.

• I'd see a nice looking shirt, do the mental math, and think: No, you cannot get me to work two hours just to buy that shirt!

• Your life is the sum of your experiences.

• Frugality: choosing to live simply so that you don't need a lot of money.

• Experiences don't have to cost a lot of money, and they can even be free. but worthwhile experiences do usually cost some money.

• Many psichological studies have shown that spending money on experiences make us happier than expending money on things.

• Material possessions, which seem exciting at the beginning but then often depreciate quickly.

• Experiences actually gain in value over time, they pay what I call a memory dividend.

• Delaying gratification at the extreme means no gratification.

• To convert all of your life energy directly into experiences, you often have to take the intermediate step of earning money. You have to spend at least some amount of your life energy working, then using your earnings to gain experiences.

• Start actively thinking about the life experiences you'd like to have, and the number of times you'd like to have then. The experiences can be large or small, free or costly, charitable or hedonistic. But think about what you really want out of this life in terms of meaningful and memorable experiences.

• The ruchness of those experiences will determine your judgement of how full a life you've led.

• The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that's all there is.

• Some of these memories, upon repeat reflection, may actually bring more enjoyment than the original experience itself.

• Buying an experience doesn't just buy you the experience itself, it also buys you the sum of all the dividends that experience will bring for the rest of your life.

• Invest in your life's experiences! Start EARLY, EARLY!

• Think about the people you'd like to have experiences with, and picture the memory dividends you stand and to gain from having those experiences sooner than later.

• Once you're in the habit of working for money to live, the thrill of making money exceeds the thrill of actually living.

• People who save tend to save too much for too late in their lives.

• When you look around and do what everyone else is doing, you'll be coasting on autopilot just like everyone else.

• Don't wait until you're dead to give your money away.

• The purpose of making money is to have experiences.

• Starting sometime in you 20's, your health very subtly starts to decline, causing a corresponding decline in your hability to enjoy money.

• Instead of saving 20% of your income throghout your working years, some people would be better off saving almost nothing in their 20's, then gradually ramping up their savings rate during their late 20's and 30's as their income begins to rise.

• It maje sense to spend more of your money at same age than others; so it makes sense to adjust you balance of spending to saving over the years accordingly.

• If your networth keeps climbing, rising from your 60's-70's and beyond, then there is no way you will die with zero.

• Your health massively changes your hability yo enjoy all kinds of experiences.