Die With Zero

Very hard not to interpret this book as permission.

I've never been particularly good at resisting the urge to spend money. I'm susceptible to retail therapy in a big way, no matter how many products, once owned, cease to spark joy. I know, fundamentally, that experiences (and your memories of those experiences) are the only thing you can really take through life with you. (Maybe relationships too.) Reinforcing what I already know is what this book is about.

Although I think that this book is for someone just slightly more wealthy than me, the main points make a lot of sense—to wit:

• The point of your life is to accumulate as many experiences as possible.
• You can accumulate experiences by living your life, and spending your money, deliberately.
• Any money left over when you die is wasted: you could have turned that money into experiences.

Arguments that sound right, that you feel like you already know.

The rest of the book sort of props up and explores these themes: how your earning potential increases with age, so you can borrow from your future when you're young and have little to lose; how to balance your three main resources of health, money, and time at various points in your life; how to determine which experiences you want to have, and at which points in your life to have them. It's a short book, more a guide to turning your resources into experience.

Very good. I recommend it if your first financial priority is penny-pinching.