Die with Zero Pt. 2

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thirteen ten WIB This is straight talkfrom the House with certified financial planner Tracy
and Ton. Tracy of course comesto us from t Anton Investment House,
a fee only fiduciary with offices rightin Middleton. You can learn more about
Tracy and the team all on thewebsite Tantoninvestment House dot com. That's t
A N. T O N InvestmentHouse dot com and the telephone number for

(00:21):
the office six oh eight five zeroone, fifteen forty nine. That's six
oh eight five zero one, fifteenforty nine. And joining us this morning
is certified Financial Planner Tracy and Ton. Tracy, how you doing this week?
I'm doing great? Sjohn? Howabout you doing really good? It's
great to talk with you, greatto see you. And full show ahead.
Almost going to be a little bitof a book club. What are
we talking about this this week?Tracy? Right? I mean it's a

(00:45):
little bit of a change up today. So today we're going to have a
two part show featuring a recently publishedbook called Die with Zero, and it
has one title, Die with Zero, but then the second title is called
Getting All you Can from Your Moneyand Your Life, and the author is
Bill Perkins and he details kind ofa thought provoking framework for maximizing your net

(01:07):
fulfillment over your net worth, andhe says basically in this book he talks
about, you know, well whydo we you know, why do we
save so much? And then inthe end we basically you know, die
with a lot of money. Imean, that's his premise there. And
I personally wanted to read this bookbecause I do find that many people kind

(01:27):
of follow the category that they havesaved most of their life, so they're
used to being savers and investors evenand accumulating wealth. But then when it
comes time to spending it, sean, it's really a struggle. And you
know, obviously some people go,oh yeah, I won't have a problem
with that, but you'd be surprisedthat I do find that people are kind

(01:47):
of used to spending within a certainrange and then their resources are growing,
like perhaps they're invested really well andthey're they're not they're surprised at how much
they're accumuls money. So I wantedto talk about this today because again,
I feel like it's a bigger issueif you have saved some significant dollars and

(02:08):
I'm just talking you know, amillion to two million or more, and
I just see it over the decadesand I want to bring it up.
And I'm not suggesting I believe inhis premise of dying with zero because we
don't know when we're going to liveto right, But you know, at
the same time, I think hebrings up some points that I've seen with

(02:30):
clients over the years, and Ithought, you know, this is this
is a fun different kind of atopic. It's usually we're worried about,
you know, not saving enough.So now we're gonna switch gears and say,
well, what if you've saved toomuch, or how do you how
do you use your assets the bestyou can without not running out of money,
but at the same time using itto your fullest, living your life

(02:52):
really to the fullest. Oh,this will be absolutely fantastic, as we
talked this morning with sort of finefinancial planner Tracy Anton. You can learn
more about Tracy and the team thewebsite Tea Anton Investment House dot com.
You can also listen to this inprevious shows podcast right online also Prime Opportunity.
If you're looking for money management orportfolio management tracing, the team would
love to get to know you.They'd love to talk with you again.
All I gotta do is head onover to Tanton Investment House dot com.

(03:14):
From there you can schedule appointment ata time and a date that's convenient to
you. The website Tanton Investment Housedot com. Delph Uber six oh eight
five zero one, fifteen forty nine. That's six oh eight five zero one,
fifteen forty nine. Before we gettoo much into the book, let's
talk a little bit about the author. Who is the author, Bill Perkins?
What's his background? Well, apparentlythe Wall Street Journal calls him the

(03:34):
last Cowboy, So I don't knowexactly what that means, but I thought
that was interesting, and I guesshe's a successful hedge fund manager and entrepreneur.
And he said, they said afterstudying electrical engineering at the University of
Iowa, Bill train on Wall Streetand later moved to Houston, Texas,
where he made his money as anenergy trader. And currently he's the CEO

(03:55):
of Briza Max Holdings, which apparentlyis a consulting firm and it's based in
the US Virgin Islands. So what'skind of the background. Where do we
know where he came up with theidea for the book for the ideas.
Yeah. Apparently Perkins developed the approachand Die with Zero through his personal experiences,
observations, and reflections and a relationshipbetween money, happiness, and time.

(04:20):
And he says he noticed that manypeople accumulate wealth at the expense of
meaningful experiences, and he was influencedby a behavioral economics and psychology which suggests
experiences bring more long term happiness thanmaterial possessions. And he repeats that over
and over in the book, andhe says, you know what brings you
happiness, what brings you joys experiencesinstead of having things. That's a good

(04:43):
point. And he recognized that differentlife stages offer varying opportunities for enjoyment and
that money really should be spent maximizinglife satisfaction over one's entire life. And
Perkins combines these insights into like astructured approach that encourages individuals to rethink traditional
financial advice, which I thought wasinteresting, and he focuses instead on balance

(05:09):
and intentional use of resources to createa fulfilling life. And basically the premise
of this book is you know howto maximize your life enjoyment rather than maximizing
your wealth, and he advocates formaximizing total life enjoyment and use He says,
use this mantra as a guide likeevery decision you make, like how
will I maximize my life enjoyment?And he says that you should tell your

(05:31):
fee only financial advisor that you're tryingto get as much as enjoyment out of
your savings as possible without outliving yoursavings, so they can help you kind
of create a plan to do this. And again I find that Hut,
I don't know that people say thatto me, but I think it's an
assumption I've made for most people thatthey want to enjoy their life, you

(05:54):
know, enjoyment. So that's interesting. But he starts off the books and
what the way he talks about ishe his uh, he was like living
on hardly anything. I think hewas in New York at the time,
and he was a trader. Buthe was young, you know, like
probably twenty something and you know ramennoodle's like you know, pizza eating,

(06:15):
you know, him and him andhis buddy were sharing a very small apartment
and they couldn't afford anything. Theydidn't have any money, and but his
buddy ended up going to overseas andtaking a backpacking trip and apparently he borrowed
money from one of the loan sharks. He called him a loan shark.
And he kept saying to his buddy, you know what are you doing,

(06:36):
like that's that's a bad decision,like you shouldn't leave work at this time,
and you also shouldn't, you know, borrow money from this loan shark.
And it was going on and on. Well, the buddy came back
and you know, had this reallygreat time and he thought to him,
you know, he thought to himself, maybe I made the wrong choice.

(06:56):
And then he was talking to anolder guy at work and you know,
maybe an older trader, and hewas saying he was he was really proud
of himself. He was saying,well, I'm saving money. I'm saving
money for you know, my future. And the trader just looked at him
and said, you know, you'renever you're going to make more money as
you age, so stop saving somuch money. And he thought to himself,

(07:18):
you know, I never thought aboutit like that. And one of
his big points, and this ismore for the younger people out there,
I think, is that you know, as we age, like you'll never
be able to take that backpacking experiencethe same, you know, And he
said when he went, his buddywent, and he stayed, you know,
in youth hostiles. Well, atage thirty and on, you're not

(07:41):
going to want to stay in ayouth hostile anymore. So it's not the
same trip as if you took itwhen you were twenty, right, And
so he makes the point that throughoutyour life, take the experiences when they
come to you, versus you know, delaying them in delayed grendification at every
age. So he encourages even youngerpeople to use their assets instead of keep

(08:05):
saving and saving and saving always.I thought that, you know, it's
a great point. You know,did you take the backpacking you know experience?
Did you do that? Did I? Ever? I think I've told
I may have told you this.If not, it's it's probably very applicable.
So a number of years ago,I had been working at a job
where I had a contract and thecontract the job was ended before the contract

(08:28):
over, so they paid me towork not work for a year. So
at the time my wife and Isaid, why don't we just buy an
URV and travel around. We spentan entire summer just driving around the country.
We had no address. We justhad an RV and a cat and
we went from campsite to campsite anddrove all out the western half of the
United States. Started out in Arkansas, followed kind of Route sixty six up

(08:50):
through California, over to Utah,up towards Oregon and Washington and Tracy and
as as we're talking about this,that is literally was kind of our mindset.
It was like, we are weare at an age. I think
we're under thirty, like I mighthave been twenty nine. If I do
the math, I can figure thisout. My wife's a couple of years
younger than me. Were like,we'll never have an opportunity like this again.

(09:11):
It's kind of like a dry runfor a retirement. But also,
you know, we've still got theability to you know, I a couple
of times climb some real, realsteep and you know, we're in this
place called Palladuro Canyon in Texas andclimbing the canyon walls. I'm not going
to be able to I probably couldn'tdo that today, let alone Yes,
twenty years so, right, Andthat was another great thing in this book

(09:33):
is that you know, he describesit and says, you know, one
thing he points out is like howmany experiences do you still want to have
in your life? Like what arethe experiences? Like? Write them down
and then how many times do youwant to have them? So let's say
you're somebody who really is into hikingor you know, and you you want
to do kill Majar for exactly why, I don't know, you know what

(09:54):
I mean, how many times canyou do it? And how long?
And how many times do you wantto do it? And I think that
it's a great point because as weage, right, we're just not physically
going to be able to do thosesame things. So you know, I
give you credit for taking that opportunityto go and do that. And in
LIKELCE, I was like late twentiesand my girlfriend was in a peace corps

(10:16):
and you know, I asked myboss at the time, I said,
you know, I would really liketo go and see her, but it's
going to be like three weeks andthat's a long time in a small office.
And you know, she she said, yeah, I think you should
go and do it, because youknow, again, when am I going
to get the opportunity again? Andit was a trip of a lifetime.

(10:37):
It was an experience. You know, it wasn't a vacation. It was
an experience, right, it was, you know, but I saw things
and experienced things. We were inSenegal, we were in Ginnecanacry. We're
in countries that you know, aI wouldn't travel to today but be you
know, as an older person,I wouldn't either. I was naive and
fortunately it was all good, butI also wouldn't have been able to rough

(10:58):
it like I could have back then. You know. It was. And
my friend and I, my bestfriend and I, we still talk about
that trip. We laugh, youknow, we laughed to tears come out
of our eyes about some of theexperiences we had on that trip. So
yeah, I think some of thethings that he talks about in this book
are real kind of eye openers.And it's a good book for not just

(11:22):
older people, it's a good bookfor younger people. Here you know how
to use your resources and when towhen to say, but when to spend
as well. Fascinating perspective and Idid not know that that is such a
cool, cool thing you got toexperience there. As we're talking this morning
with certified financial planner Tracy Anton righthere on thirteen ten WIBA the website to

(11:45):
get to know Tracy in the team. Also listen back to this in previous
shows podcast as well as if wewant to schedule appointments right at Tanton Investment
House dot com. That's t AN t O N Investment House dot com.
The telephone number for the office inMiddleton six oh eight five zero one
fifteen forty nine. That's six soheight five zero one fifteen four. Now
we're get some more details about thebook from Tracy. We're going to talk

(12:05):
a little bit more about Die withZero. Does this apply to everyone?
Well, we'll find out from Tracy. We'll do that next as Straight Talk
from the House continues right here thirteenten, Double you IBA. This is
straight Talk from the House with certifiedfinancial planner Tracy Anton right here, thirteen
ten, double ui BA. Talkingwith Tracy this week about an interesting book,
a book called Die with Zero byBill Perkins. I'm kind of a

(12:26):
different perspective on things. We talka lot about, you know, saving
on this show, and we spendall of our life saying, you know
what, I'm going to sacrifice nowfor a treasure later, a lot of
times we've saved so long, weget in that habit. When it comes
time to kind of take a littlebit of that treasure, a little that
that gold, we say, ooh, it's hard, hard to do.
And Tracy, as we talk aboutthis concept in this idea, does this

(12:48):
idea apply to everyone? Yeah?Perkins emphasizes that experiences naturally obviously vary from
person to person, and everyone hasdifferent preferences in circumstances that are unique.
But he asserts that meaningful experiences arereally subjective shape by individual desires and stages
of life. And then obviously it'smore complicated that knowing you know just what

(13:11):
makes you happy. It's it's howto spend the money on those different experiences.
And it's again, like we justtalked about our ability to enjoy things
changes throughout our lifetime. Something thatwe would have thought maybe was fun at
age twenty, maybe at fifty,we think, you know what, I
don't need to do that anymore.I'm done with that, you know what
I mean, I don't have nodesire. I was just talking to a
friend of mine and he's another advisorand just has always been a super healthy

(13:37):
guy. And you know, he'sseventy I'm trying to remember how old he
is, early seventies, maybe seventytwo, seventy three. And he says
he was on a board out outwest right in Colorado, and the people
are looking at him on the skilift like, wow, you're on that
board, you know what I mean. And he's been doing it obviously for

(13:58):
you know, decades, So tohim it wasn't a big deal. But
he said to me, this year, he goes, you know what,
I think I might be done withthat now. He goes. Just this
year, he goes, I fella few couple times, he goes,
and you know, it's really itwas more harder on my body this time
than it had been. And soagain he just acknowls me. But he
said, you know what, I'mgonna do something different. I'm gonna go

(14:20):
where. I'm still gonna go outwest with the group because he brings his
kids and even people from work,he said, you know, and they're
all younger. He goes, theycan hit the slopes and I'm gonna I'm
gonna check out cross country skiing upthere. I thought that's the way to
age, right, that the wayto age is to always look for the
next fun thing that's going to keepyou engaged. And he was telling another

(14:43):
advisor too that was retiring, thatwas kind of sad about retiring. And
this guy was like eighty, youknow, and he said, he goes,
he goes, I don't know whatyou're gonna do, because the advisor
was sad, and he goes,I don't know what you're gonna do.
He said, but just don't stop, you know, And and what he
means is, don't stop in life, don't stop finding enjoyment. So Perkins

(15:05):
brings up that, you know,this this idea of how to use your
resources and the best way to findthat enjoyment does happen, you've got to
kind of work at it. Yougot to kind of look for those opportunities.
And he said, of course,you know, health is one of
the most important things. So spenda little extra money and time on keeping

(15:26):
you keeping yourself healthy so that youcan keep enjoying these things. It's not
just about living, right, it'sabout being healthy so that you can enjoy
those things. And again, youknow, he does strike a balance between
having a balance life, you know, between spending and saving. But he
again tries to say, health,you got to try to maximize your health

(15:48):
to enjoy those experiences. So isit for everyone? Absolutely, it's for
everybody. It's for the twenty yearold, it's for the seventy five year
old that's still looking forward to unlessseventy five year old in my office saying,
you know what I haven't I wentto Europe for the first time last
year. She goes, and Ireally want to travel more. I said,
go do it, you know,go do it. Absolutely well,

(16:11):
that is fantastic. And one ofthe quotes you shared with me from the
book was what good is wealth withouthealth? Which is which is a nice
memorable line, but it is absolutelytrue. And as you know, as
we're talking about some of these experiencesand enjoying life, we live longer,
we have the potential to live moreactive lives as we get older as well.
But it all depends on and justlike everything, it seems like planning

(16:33):
and preparation is is same thing.Financially, planning and preparing physically as well
is a big part of this.And there was a term called consumption smoothing
Tracy what exactly does and how doesPerkins explain the idea of consumption smoothing.
I guess it just means that it'sthe practice of evenly distributing one's income and

(16:57):
expenders throughout your lifetime to ensure aconsistent and fulfilling quality of life. He
believes again this is essential for maximizinglife satisfaction because it allows individuals to enjoy
meaningful experiences at every stage of life, rather than deferring enjoyment to an uncertain
future, he says. Perkins arguesthat by strategically planning and using resources when

(17:22):
healthy and energy levels are optimal,individuals can avoid the common pitfalls of accumulating
wealth without reaping its benefits. Thisapproach helps prevent regrets about missed opportunities and
ensures that most life's most valuable momentsare not overshadows by financial caution. So
one of the things in the bookJohn he talks about is, you know,
putting the things that you want todo in your life, like do

(17:45):
a timeline. And I've never donethis obviously, but it would have been
kind of neat to have done itand put it into stages. So let's
say, you know, if you'reolder, maybe you do five year time
horizons and then put put your bucketlist in those top five your time horizons,
so again to make sure that ithappens. And again, you know,
using your money over time is whathe's talking about over the decades,

(18:08):
not just you know, Okay,I'm retired. I foundly now I can
say, but you're not used tospending. I got to turn around.
The biggest thing that I see,and you know, I coach a lot
of people on this is because Ido a financial plan and I kind of
insist on, hey, this isreally good to do this financial plan because

(18:29):
you can see how your money changesover time. And of course we make
assumptions, but they're they're not youknow, they're based on things, right,
they're based on what typically has happened, so you never know for sure.
But on averages, when you lookat where money is going, people
are shocked at a couple of things. One thing, they require minimum distribution,

(18:52):
how much they're going to have totake out when they have to start
withdrawing money. That's surprising to them. And also how much their money accumulates
over time, even if they're livingoff of their assets. It's really surprising
for most people. So, youknow, I had a good conversation with
a family member, and I said, you got two million now, but

(19:14):
it's going to grow to about fourmillion in X number of years. I
can't remember the number years, butyou know, and I said, hello,
you know, like they were justthere was dead silence, you know,
and it's like I get it.I mean, you know, we
don't even most people who have amillion or two million dollars, they don't
think they're wealthy at all. They'relike, you know, I'm just getting
by kind of idea and that's whatit took to get you there. But

(19:37):
now you have to turn around andgo, how am I going to use
my resources? And again, headvocates for gifting now, he advocates for
giving children money now, he advocatesfor you know, living your best life
now and what does that look like? So again, I think it's about
a balance. He's more he's moreadvocated, you know, truly dying with

(20:00):
zero, but I don't know ifthat's possible, and he's even it admits
in the books it's probably not possiblebecause you don't know when you're gonna die.
But he does talk about using yourassets more so. And my job
is to try to, you know, look at your bucket list with you
and say, Okay, where arewe at. What you know and this
is what your return was, andthis is what I think is a healthy

(20:22):
spend, right, and how canwe do that? I've gotta ask real
quick, trace, So we've gotjust under a minute left in the program.
I got to ask you. Iknow, you get a chance to
meet with other with other certified financialplanners, other advisors across the country.
Obviously, here Madison, Dane County, southern Wisconsin, folks are pretty healthy.
Do you hear from people in otherareas of the country where people are
even other areas in the state wherepeople may not take as good care I'm

(20:45):
trying to say this, say thiswithout offending to it, but you know
where people may not take as goodof care of themselves and maybe slightly different
priorities for how they plan on alotting or or spending their retirement money.
Well, that's a really good question, you know. I think it's really

(21:06):
hard because when you have like aspouse, you tend to you tend to
have, you tend to take careof yourself a little bit better. And
I think the statistics prove that upto be. And I also think there
are people that we're not really we'renot really true with ourselves, right,
So it's like we're a bit heavier, and yet you know, we think

(21:29):
we think our time horizon is stillreally long, you know. So,
like I think there's sometimes where we'rejust it's hard to see it, you
know, it's hard to see itplay out. I've seen that, you
know, I've tried to coach people, even on the health stuff, saying
Okay, well swimming might be good, you know what I mean. But

(21:49):
overall, I think I think peopleare generally healthy. You have the outliers,
like I have an iron Woman that'syou know, phenomenal. You know,
she's just you know, super superhealthy in that respect. And and
then I have the opposite too,where you know, people are just kind
of struggling and and and it's alwaysbeen a struggle, right, So sometimes

(22:15):
jeans play a role in here.But I really think a lot of times
it's not as much genes as aslifestyle, and it's the attitude that makes
a big difference to like I canyou know, there's always there's always little
circumstances obviously, you know, ifyou if you can't, you know,
so it's not always one hundred percentlifestyle. It's not always these things,
but in general, and I thinkwe're getting healthier over time, that's my

(22:38):
thought. And the people that Isee, you know, they seem like
because I say to them, well, you know you've got this money,
now go and joy and spend itand you know, get out there and
do things. I think some peoplewhen they're working, it's also so hard
because they're they they're in jobs theydon't love. There are jobs they don't

(23:00):
love, and there's still there's somuch fear around letting go of that job
and can you can you let goof it? So they're they're thinking they
need an absolute number and maybe theydon't. And again that's the beauty of
financial planning. It's like you makesure you talk to somebody way before though,
before you make assumptions like that,because they you might be able to

(23:22):
retire before you can. And becausethat's the most heartbreaking stories that I see
is when people are in really hardjobs and they're not happy and they haven't
been happy for a long time.And those are the ones that you know,
it's either like let's find a differentjob, let's see what you can
do different, or let's see ifyou can retire, you know. And
one of the things that we talkedwith certified financial planner Tracy Anton, it's

(23:45):
it's probably a great day to dayto go back and listen back to some
of the previous shows podcast cause Iknow a couple of times, Traces,
we've talked about folks who you've hada chance to who have just new folks
that have come in to see youand you've had a chance to work with
them, and they find out Icould retire now. And that's one of
the amazing things. We talked thisweek about an interesting book called Die with

(24:06):
Zero, and of course we're goingto pick up we'll probably do a couple
more shows on this book because it'ssuch a fascinating thing, and we'll continue
our conversation with Tracy on that.But you hear these stories time and time
again of folks taking those steps andstarting that conversation. Today is a great
day to do just that. Ifyou're looking for money management or portfolio management,
all I got to do is headon over to the website Tanton investment
House dot com. That's t AN T O N investment House dot com.

(24:27):
From there, you can schedule appointmentat a time and a date that's
convenient to you. I also mentionedlistening back to the podcasts. They are
available to you as well at TantonInvestment House dot com. It's ef A
over for the office right in Middletonsix eight five zero one fifteen forty nine.
That's six soh eight five zero onefifteen forty nine. Tracy, it's
always great chatting with you. Youenjoyed this fantastic day you too, Sean,

(24:48):
Thanks so much. Bye,