is the book where I first got here across the witty saying that the last cheque you write ought to be to the undertaker and bounce. In other words, the closer you get to spending all of your money while you die, the less you could have to go away to Uncle Sam – and in our case, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
The problem, in fact, is that nobody can predict exactly when they’ll die. As an unknown wag once observed, when you only knew while you were going to die, saving for retirement can be child’s play.
Summary of
So it was interesting to me when an old college friend mentioned how much he enjoyed reading a book called (HarperCollins2021), by Bill Perkins. My first response was that it sounded similar to that, but I cared enough about my friend’s opinion that I borrowed a free copy on the Libby app and likewise from the paid book service Everand (formerly Scribd). The books are based on similar premises: there are trade-offs between time, money, and health. In fact, the subtitle is “Get the most out of your money and your life.”
Essentially, we trade our time and life energy for money, which may subsequently be considered a type of stored life energy. So when you die with quite a lot of money, you could have actually “wasted” a few of your precious life energy. If you could have mobility issues or other ailments in your 70s or 80s, you could not have the ability to travel and do most of the activities you saved up for. The “money as life energy” idea is most memorably articulated in one other classic book on financial independence: (Penguin Random House2008).
But what concerning the children? The subject of inheritance and leaving money to heirs is skilfully handled by Perkins. The advice boils right down to the old truism that it’s “better to give with warm hands than with cold”. In other words, why not give them a few of your money once they actually need it and you might be still healthy enough to enjoy their company and presumably their gratitude.
review
After reading that column and starting writing, I happened to speak with blogger Mark Seed of MyOwnAdvisor. Completely unrelated, he published a review on the location in January 2024, together with a book giveaway.
“Content-wise, it was ‘OK,'” Mark wrote me in an email. “Some of the writing wasn’t very good, but the premise is good: avoid hoarding money that you could otherwise give away, spend, enjoy, etc.” The review begins with the next quote from Perkins: “The truly golden years – the time of maximum possible enjoyment because we are at our healthiest and most prosperous – tend to come before the traditional retirement age of 65.” The review goes on to say that almost all of us know this intuitively, but “so many of us may forego years of part-time or retirement enjoyment, only to find that we have saved too much or put off many valuable experiences for far too long.” Reviewers liken the essential premise and the concept that it is healthier to offer now than later, but in addition they found it quite repetitive and lacked an actual recipe for implementing the mantra.
The life Mantra
If you read and internalize the thesis, you could find that the book changes your on a regular basis behavior. That’s what happened to me recently when my wife and I spent a couple of days in Fergus and Elora, Ontario, to rejoice a birthday. Initially, we booked a tiny room at a correspondingly tiny price. When we checked in, we asked for a more spacious and opulent room. We had each read the book and after discussions, we decided together to upgrade our room, although the worth was about twice as much. This is a small example, however it might just be the start for us.
