Die With Zero — Net Fulfillment Over Net Worth · Bill Perkins Skip to main content
DIE WITH ZERO
A book by Bill Perkins · 25 languages
As featured in
The Wall Street Journal Fortune CNBC Forbes Bloomberg The New York Times Yahoo Finance
Net Fulfillment Over Net Worth

You've been told to save for the future. What if the future steals your life?

Die With Zero is the international bestseller, translated into 25 languages, that gives you the math and the mindset for spending your money and your time on the experiences that actually pay dividends.

Median U.S. net worth at age 70–74: $225,390. Most people don't run out of money. They run out of time to spend it on their lives.

Buy the Book 🇺🇸Amazon US Watch Bill on Die With Zero

Translated into 25 languages. The movement is global by default.

FEATURED · April 26, 2026

Bill Perkins in The WSJ Money Interview

Read the interview →
The Book

Most people optimize the wrong number.
It isn't net worth. It's net fulfillment.

The math on retirement assumes you'll need every dollar you save. But research on actual retirees says otherwise — most reach their final years with too much money and too few good experiences left to spend it on. Die With Zero gives you the framework to fix that: spend deliberately, save with purpose, and turn money into the experiences and relationships that actually pay dividends.

Memory Dividends

Every great experience pays you back, again and again, in the recall of it. The earlier you spend on memorable experiences, the more dividends compound. The book makes the math explicit.

Time Buckets

You can't ski at 80. You can't backpack with toddlers at 60. Time-bucketing forces you to plan experiences against the windows of life when they're actually possible — not just when they're affordable.

Net Fulfillment Curve

Your peak life-experience years aren't the same as your peak earning years. The Net Fulfillment Curve shows you when to draw down — and why dying with $200K of unspent savings is a measurable life loss.

Chart: People who save too much — median net worth at age 70-74 is $225,390
Median U.S. net worth at age 70–74: $225,390. Most people don't run out of money. They run out of time.
Chart: Net worth optimization curve
The accumulation-then-decumulation curve most retirement plans are built around — and the one Die With Zero proposes instead.
Chart: 7-year time bucket examples
Time-bucketing in practice: a sample 7-year horizon mapped to physical, financial, and relational windows.

Watch Bill on Die With Zero

Memory dividends, time buckets, and the question Bill keeps getting asked: "How do I actually do this?"

Global by default, US by accident

Die With Zero is in 25 languages.

The book has met its readers everywhere — Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Poland, Estonia, North Macedonia, Turkey. Buy it where you live; read it in your language.

★ Translated into 25 languages ★
🇯🇵 Japan · #100 across all books

本要約チャンネル · 726K views · DIE WITH ZERO 人生が豊かになりすぎる究極のルール

ダイヤモンド社 THE BOOKS · 230K views · Featuring Fuyuko Setsuyaku-Otaku (publisher's official channel)

🇹🇼 Taiwan

艾爾文 · 961K views · 賺錢的目的，是讓人生體驗最大化｜《別把你的錢留到死》解讀

Buy it where you live.

Geo-aware paths to your local edition, your local retailer.

Die With Zero US edition
🇺🇸United States
Amazon B&N Hudson Powell's IndieBound
Die With Zero Japan edition
🇯🇵Japan
amazon.co.jp Kinokuniya Rakuten Diamond
Die With Zero Taiwan edition
🇹🇼Taiwan
books.com.tw eslite Kingstone momo
Die With Zero
🇨🇦Canada
Amazon CA
Die With Zero UK
🇬🇧United Kingdom
Amazon UK
Die With Zero AU
🇦🇺Australia
Amazon AU
Die With Zero — Korean edition
🇰🇷Korea
알라딘 Yes24 Kbookstore Interpark
Die With Zero — German edition
🇩🇪Germany
Amazon DE Thalia Weltbild Buchkatalog
🌐
🌐25 languages total
See full international router →

In the press

WSJ Money. Fortune. One week.

April 26–30, 2026 — back-to-back features in The Wall Street Journal and Fortune walked through the thesis: net fulfillment over net worth, memory dividends, time buckets.

The Wall Street Journal

April 26, 2026 · WSJ Money

Bill Perkins on memory dividends and giving while you live

"Whatever money you decide to give to your kids, you should probably give the money to them where it has a maximum impact in their life. Not when you're 60, when you die."

Read the feature
Fortune

April 30, 2026 · Fortune

Why hedge fund manager Bill Perkins says he's spending all his money before he dies

"My money philosophy is that money is a tool to drive your fulfillment, and that's it. And if you don't have these big, expensive dreams, you don't necessarily need that much money."

Read the feature
"Bill Perkins, the 'Last Cowboy' of the trading floor — a hedge-fund manager who keeps making outsized bets on energy and outsized bets on living."
The Wall Street Journal →
"Going through life like it lasts forever is suboptimal. It's really about living intentionally in each phase of our lives."
Bill Perkins to Iowa Magazine →
"Bill Perkins's Die With Zero opens up a completely different avenue of thinking to realize that your life can be maximized through memorable experiences."
— Kevin Hart
WSJ Fortune CNBC Forbes Finance Council Bloomberg Yahoo Finance The New York Times

The author

Bill Perkins.

Bill Perkins, author of Die With Zero

Bill Perkins is the author of the international bestseller Die With Zero, translated into 25 languages and featured in 2026 by WSJ Money and Fortune. He is the founder and principal at Skylar Capital Management, an energy-focused investment firm; co-founder of SkyFi, a commercial satellite-imagery platform; and co-founder and president of SynMax, an energy and maritime intelligence company. A film producer and longtime philanthropist, Bill writes and speaks about the difference between net worth and net fulfillment — the idea that life is a sum of experiences, and that the optimization most people get wrong is not how much they earn but when they spend it. He lives in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Skylar, SkyFi, and SynMax aren't separate ventures from Die With Zero — they're proof of it: for Bill, building is the highest-fulfillment use of time.

Readers

Three reader voices that captured it.

Pulled from public Goodreads reviews, professional finance blogs, and the r/Fire conversation. Real readers, real reactions — verifiable at the linked sources.

★★★★★

It changed the way I think about money.

This is a thought-provoking book about how to use your money during your lifetime. The book really changed the way I think about money… What is your most valuable possession? It is your memories! Your memories are your most treasured possession, the one thing that defines who and what you are. Consequently, spending money to build up memories is the best use of your money… I highly recommend this book—it was quite an eye-opener for me.

David Rubenstein · Goodreads · Feb 15, 2021

★★★★★

More about the emotional response than the numbers.

WOW! Ok, as part of the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) Movement, I was eagerly awaiting to read this book. I grew up in extreme poverty. I am a saver due to the circumstances in which I was raised… It's a great idea and made me think a lot about aging, gift giving, and money in a new way… Overall a great financial book that doesn't necessarily tell you the numbers of retirement, but more the emotional response to get out and make memories.

Jen Juenke · Goodreads · Jul 29, 2020

★★★★★

Delaying joy is not financial discipline. It's just bad math.

It made me rethink how I guide clients, too. Yes, I'm a CPA and tax strategist—but I'm also in the business of helping people live well. Die With Zero by Bill Perkins makes a compelling case for why delaying joy is not financial discipline, it's just bad math.

The Scale Collective · CPA & tax-strategist · Read full review · Oct 20, 2025

r/ r/Fire · top post

"Hot take: spending money to create 'memory dividends' is the single most groundbreaking aspect of Die With Zero."

Read the thread on r/Fire →
Beyond the book

Bill is living the philosophy. So are tens of thousands of readers.

Spend Curve App — calculate your personal optimal spend curve

diewithzerobook.com · interactive tool

Time Buckets App — plan experiences by life stage

Interactive planner · open in any browser

"What Bill Would Change about Die With Zero"

The Iced Coffee Hour Clips · YouTube

Mad Fientist — Memory Dividends, Time Buckets, and Maximizing Net Fulfillment

Mad Fientist · long-form interview
The mental models

Six frameworks that change how you think about money.

The full toolkit behind Die With Zero — illustrated, with one exercise per concept. The same frameworks Bill uses with traders, founders, and his own family. Free PDF, in your inbox.

Buy Die With Zero

Available in 25 languages, in physical, ebook, and audiobook formats. Pick your storefront.

🇺🇸

United States

Amazon B&N Hudson Powell's IndieBound iBooks Google Play
🇯🇵

Japan

Amazon JP Kinokuniya Rakuten Diamond
🇹🇼

Taiwan

books.com.tw eslite Kingstone momo
🇨🇳

China (Mainland)

Dangdang Jingdong EasternEast books.com.tw
🇨🇦

Canada

Amazon CA
🇬🇧

United Kingdom

Amazon UK
🇦🇺

Australia

Amazon AU
🇩🇪

Germany

Amazon DE Thalia Weltbild Buchkatalog Pustet Rupprecht
🇪🇸

Spain & Latin America

Casa del Libro Amazon ES Amazon MX Kobo
🇰🇷

Korea

알라딘 Kbookstore Interpark 예스24
🇪🇪

Estonia

Äripäev Apollo Adlibris
🌐

All 25 languages

See full international router →

Audiobook: Available on Audible (US, UK, AU). Narrated by Bill Perkins.

One decision. A different life.

Stop saving for a future that may never come.

The book is $14.99. The reframe is yours for life.

Buy the Book Get the free Mental Models PDF

🇺🇸 Amazon US · 🇯🇵 amazon.co.jp · 🇹🇼 books.com.tw · 25 languages total