Are You Wasting Your Life Saving Money?

0:00Bill Perkins:Have you read this book? Die With Zero is by Bill Perkins, a trader who became a millionaire before the age of 30. Me and Tomein have recently, and we're going to discuss it in detail today because of a question that we got from a listener called Susan. First of all, thank you, Susan, for sending in this. Tomein, you're going to read it out for me, mate? For sure. Shout out, Susan. What do you think of the Die With Zero philosophy by Bill Perkins? I know many people working so hard that they never get to enjoy retirement. There were three widows in my gym group in their 50s. I know many people holding their money in their late 70s, frightened to spend anything.

0:35We're really going to get into the details of the book and the core philosophies, but I guess you could sum it up in one sentence as Bill Perkins thinks that if you die with money, you've wasted an opportunity because you've essentially worked to earn that money. And then you didn't need to work as such if you've got money left at the end, right?

0:53Bill Perkins:Yeah, and you could have spent it on experiences. Yeah, you could have. Yeah, yeah. or you could have just not worked because if you die with a hundred grand and it's taken you five years to save that up you work five years longer than you need to exactly what were your first impressions mate of the book when you read it how did it make you feel it made me feel great um for once i mean you know me i'm i've been a bit spendy in my life like i like to enjoy experiences travel the world um and only since we started the podcast i've really started looking long-term investing and since i've had my kid looking at the future so for me die with zero kind of like reaffirmed how I've lived my life.

1:25Bill Perkins:We always have people on the podcast talking about invest for long term, start investing your pension, start early, compounding. But Die With Zero kind of says, enjoy life, maximize your experiences. And because I've had like, you know, one of them, but I've had like my first girlfriend passed away in a car crash. My best friend passed away in a car crash when I was like 16 and like 14. So I had like death young from, I knew life was short. And me and you have a friend that passed away. We've had a few mates that have killed themselves. Exactly. And like when we're a bit older. So life is short.

1:55Bill Perkins:So I've always wanted to like, if I die tomorrow, I know I've lived a full life. I've had loads of experiences. I traveled. I spent time with my friends and family. So for me, the book really affirmed a lot of how I've lived my life. How about you? If you're worried that you've started too late, this is a great book to read to reassure you that what you've done is the right thing. Exactly. You know, if you're the person who's gone book wild in your 20s and 30s, this is the book that will make you, oh yeah, I did it right. I did it right. Enjoy experiences while you're young. yeah i think um so at first reading the book i read the book in two sittings like in full uh and the first half of it i was kind of like all right mate yeah i get it like die with zero yeah yeah it's important to die with zero it's like one of those books where it's exactly what it says on the tin in terms of the title alone could make you think okay i know what that book's about yeah and i was kind of i was thinking he's just like filling the pages it's it's quite a short book but it felt like it was dragging on but then the second half he gets really into the weeds and the practicalities of how to actually die with zero and at that point i was like this is a good book i really enjoyed it and it has reshaped some of the ways that i think about certain aspects of my life and what dying with zero means and not just like the death but i think it's a book about life it's not a book about death yeah do you know i mean it's a book about how to live your life definitely which the title might not give away yeah um and it has lots of nuances and like practical tips in it so really practical financial tips around certain types of products and things and he is uh an american but i think he's structured it in a way that applies to everyone definitely let's let's okay the book starts with a fable the ant versus the grasshopper now this unlocked like core childhood memory for me when i heard the fable so just to summarize the fable this is like the is it like an aesop's fable is it one of those where they're basically there's an ant and a grasshopper and the ant every day gets up and basically saves because he knows winter's coming so he's like burying food or working working working and the grasshopper's like manana manana jumping around life's too short i'm gonna live for today long story short winter comes the ant like retires into his luxury like abode with all his food and the grasshopper freezes to death yeah it's like a cold hard end for the grasshopper um the one thing i want to say first of all is how deep are these fables as kids like i remember hearing that as a kid and i think it deeply impacted me as in i was like oh my god i don't want to be the grasshopper because i grew up in a situation where we didn't have much money and i felt i i am the grasshopper if i don't save I need to save.

4:38Honestly, it was like someone, it was like a core memory, like inside out kind of thing. Someone stuck it in the block and showed me a little version of myself, listening to this grasshopper and the ant story. And I feel like maybe a lot of my over saving comes from that kind of story. And I really worry about the kind of, the viciousness of the stories that we tell kids.

5:01Bill Perkins:I mean, I think it's great. See, this is how we sort of book in different, I love the first half more than the second half. You know, the second half more than the first half. But I am the grasshopper. You are the ant. And he does say that it's not about trying to be the grasshopper. It's trying to be more like the grasshopper. So enjoy yourself, enjoy the summer. But we can take parts from both the ant. You've got to look after yourself for retirement or for the winter. But everyone's trying to be too much like an ant. And we need to be a bit more like a grasshopper. So it's like finding the balance in the middle.

5:30Yeah. So the fable is the grasshopper is the bad guy or the idiot. you know the grasshopper's having fun no in the fable the fable he dies mate he freezes yeah but he has a great time before he dies a brutal cold death he has a great time of winter the fable is

5:46Bill Perkins:definitely yeah but that's forward mate that's having started he's had no fun he's alive but he had no fun yeah all he did was work work work work work yeah just to eat his little measly stuff in the winter yeah i mean if you took it that way that's wild but like i think the original fable set up in the book he says no i'm not talking about the book like listen to what i'm saying you grasshopper like the original fable is structured to suggest that the grasshopper is doing something wrong that his approach to life is wrong bill challenges that by saying no i think we need to be a bit of van and a bit of grasshopper yeah and what i mean is that the initial fables that we tell kids are a bit one-dimensional in the sense of it's like be the ant be the save you save up your money so that you don't die cold and miserable in in the depths of winter like the grasshopper bill is a bit more balanced with it right yeah he has the a good way to illustrate it with the story of uh his friend who was 20 they were both working in i think they're getting 18k a year uh so not not lows but they were they were well off um back and back in those times and one of their friend his friend took some time off and went on traveled Europe, took a loan from a loan shark, 10 grand, traveled Europe, had the best time ever, and came back to the same job, and their careers kind of stayed in trajectory.

7:05Bill Perkins:And he says, his friend said he would never give up that experience for no amount of money. So like going to travel Europe when he was 20 was like amazing, life-affirming, great experiences. But then Bill said that he went to travel like later in life, and he didn't have as much fun, and he would have, he didn't want to backpack and stay in hostels like we did when we were like in our 20s. he wanted to you know he didn't have the same experience so there's some experiences you can only really enjoy when you're younger which is um kind of like the grasshopper like you can enjoy it when you're younger you can't go skiing when you're 70 but you can go skiing when you're 30 you know so that's kind of uh a story that related to me that he gave to explain that yeah yeah risky behavior taking out uh alone with a loan chart to go live it up in in europe for three months um i wonder if that trip had gone badly you know have you ever seen euro trip the school's here the school's holding his leg with the train you know the fluggen they wonder if he'd come back go yeah that was worth it and then always take grand to loan shop yeah yeah yeah yeah so like you know if he had a great trip by the sounds of it um and he said he was jealous right and there is this thing of in our earlier years when we're in our 20s i think we're like all on this race to set ourselves up and get ahead and what we don't realize is we can actually take time out and still kind of re-enter the workforce and not much happens he was talking about three months wasn't he yeah it's like an extended summer break and then he comes back and all that happened he got the job straight away again and was just like oh i've got that experience now and yeah yeah one a reverse of that for me is a bit like university of i entered the workforce and i looked around and i was like all these people here are like four years ahead of me three years ahead of me i went do you know what i mean like they they just went straight into work straight from school to yeah yeah yeah kind of i felt i felt in a reverse of that i went to university and i just messed about for three years didn't get much out of it got a load of debt and then went into the workforce and everyone was like four years ahead of me maybe that's the right that's the ant way of thinking about it you've got to think like a grasshopper experience you got to meet this guy that was a highlight of your that was worth every penny of your university Mate, when winter comes and you're dead, you're dying.

9:13I was going to be like, tough titties, mate.

9:15Bill Perkins:No, mate, I'm the grasshopper. I'll be like, you're right, Ant. Can I get some of that grub you've stored away? That's what I mean. I know what's coming. You're going to be like, oh. But conversely, he did have a nice story that counteracted that. Because I like this book because he gives two arguments on both sides. He doesn't just say, be like the grasshopper. Go spend money in Europe. Because he said some experiences like Vegas. He said he had more fun at Vegas at 40 than he couldn't have gone to Vegas at 20 because he wouldn't be able to afford it. Two years and then we're doing it. We're going to Vegas, yeah?

9:42Bill Perkins:We'll do a podcast episode for Vegas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. No, I don't want to do that. Let me lose. I don't want to document anything that happens in Vegas. The losing money podcast. So, yeah, he said, like, you can't go to Vegas when you're 20. Well, you can, but you can't have as much fun as 40 because you can spend more, you can gamble more, you can... He loves poker. So, yeah, he said some experiences are worth waiting for, but a lot of them you should enjoy when you're younger. Yeah, there's these elements of experiences that are moments in time. you know, backpacking around Asia is probably something for, you know, your 20s, because when you're in your 30s and 40s, you don't want to sleep in sweaty hostels.

10:22His, central to his thesis is this idea that you've got to balance health, time and money. And that at different points, we have more of each asset, and that we need to spend them accordingly. And some of it's quite contrarian in the sense of, you know, I think the notion is, for most 20 to 30 year olds is you've got lots of time you need to work lots really hard grind to get yourself ahead whereas he would say no you've got a section of time here now where there's certain experiences that you should enjoy that you'll never get that opportunity again so go do that because you've got your whole life to work you've got your health and you've got time when

10:58Bill Perkins:you're younger but you might not have the money but when you're older you've got you might have lots of money but no health like your health is deteriorated or if you're in the middle like me you might have lots you have money or you have tight health but you don't have time because you've got kids you've got jobs you're busy busy busy so throughout your life there are different stages where you have more of one than the other one one pushback on this point that i was reading and i was thinking was i had no ability in my 20s to really go traveling in a big way like that not not like the kind of stuff that he's talking about you know like backpacking and things i was skint mate but i mean a lot of my holidays weren't that expensive like you go to europe like we're so lucky living in europe you can just pop up pop over to like germany france i went on some holidays i had some experience you went to china yeah yeah yeah i haven't been anywhere i was i was late 20s then the different kind of lifestyle right you can always jump in an easy jet or a jet to holiday when you're like in your 20s with your mates you know go go on a large trip go with your friends go wherever no and i did that but i think he's kind of got this you know like go to machu picchu the holidays of a lifetime backpacking around south america kind of vibes and i think i don't think that that's that's still an expensive thing to do he was he's quite wealthy though that's what i mean i think there's a fair bit of privilege we'll get into him as well because as part of this we looked into good old bill and he's got some wild behaviors of his own mate he's definitely trying to die with zero quickly yeah but this thing about balancing health time and money i do think is an interesting way to frame it i mean we'll go into the different sections but let's talk about health as as one interesting section people will save up their whole life to spend loads of money on health care at the very end of their life extending their lifetime when they can't basically move and you're in a bed and you've got a very poor quality of life Yeah, so you've essentially given up a period of life of like in your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, where you have great health to extend your health when you can't leave a bed, which just seems ridiculous, right?

13:08He argues instead that we should spend more on our health when we're younger, so that it kind of compounds. And you get the dividends when you're older, so that you have a longevity of life. when you're in your 80s you're more mobile and you don't have this like kind of thing of oh i'm i'm just kept together by drugs and and like nurses and stuff so it's like yeah compounding

13:30Bill Perkins:health is like a really good point he talks about um like if you're overweight you're putting more pressure on your knees so like eventually you're going to need knee surgery or so these are things that you can work on you can like stay active and then it means you have a better quality of life for longer and you can do more things for longer you can go go on hikes when you're older rather than you can't walk from the age of 70 like you want to be able to be active get to enjoy the world i i um i recently went out with my uncle i probably told this story before and like obviously i've seen my uncle age over the years you know he looks older today than he did 30 you know you've got that mind's eye of what your family are and then normally it's like in that they're in their 30s and you were like little like you you have this image of your parents or whatever and you've seen them age a bit um but i also know some of his friends and and i've seen them you know in ducks throughout my life we went out with one of his friends the other day and i could just see the difference in them in terms of oh you know my uncle looks great like it's really good skin and all of this stuff my uncle has been vegetarian for years because he doesn't like the taste of me makes a meal and um he's he's always been super fit and active he ran like triathlons i don't know if you do you run a triathlon you do everything in a triathlon you swim run and engage in a triathlon complete compete in the first one yeah yeah he well he did he did the iron man's to be precise not just triathlons like big boy ones um and i think like health and compounding the way wealth compounds it all happens at the end yeah so it like hockey sticks the the because the 10 return say that you might average you know past performance is no guarantee of future results but it it all happens in the last few years health is like that of you you trundle along and then all of the bad things all the bad behaviors hit you at once like a like a bus but i think you kind of fall off a cliff in terms of like you deteriorate really quickly you can you can get away with it in your 20s 30s maybe your 40s but then if you've been hammering it all those 50s you just and i can see the separation in him versus his peers because of a lifetime of good health decisions definitely He still drinks and things.

15:38He always says, you can either drink, smoke, or not exercise. Like, you can only have one of those things. You can't do all three. I like that. Well, it's that cuff there, mate.

15:49Bill Perkins:That's from the smoking side. Yeah, that's the smoking side, man. I think that, yeah, that's such a good point. My godmother, she's, I think she's around 60, 70. She tripped over at work, fell over, broke her hip. And just like a normal fool, not like down the stairs or anything, broke her hip. I went to go see her. She's like in bed. and I the reason I really got into calisthenics is because there was this guy who was like 75 and he was just there banging out muscle ups and like press ups and pull ups I'm like how old are you he's like oh I'm 75 I'm like and he looks ripped like way more ripped than me and I'm like how long have you been doing this for he's like I've been doing this for about 40 years and he looked in impeccable shape and you would never have guessed he was 75 but because he's been at the calisthenics his whole life he's just like he he looks like a 40 year old who's in like peak condition that's why i like calisthenics because you get the mobility and the joint movements yeah but it's not you know if you want to get big and swell you lift weights you go to a gym but there's such static movements you miss like the kind of mobility and the balance and the kind of the like the tendon work the joint and the ligaments yeah which i think is yeah to main i know you've been setting up your business recently so how's that been going pretty cool t unlimited is out and about um one thing i have found i was looking for a bank account and a lot of the big players in the game they don't they're not uh covered by the financial services compensation scheme so a little bit worrying because i wanted my money to be safe so i think i'm gonna go with tide because they cover up to 120 000 pounds it's a little bit worrying to me that you think you're ever going to have 120 000 i use tides instant saver account because i can earn interest on the money in my business account that i don't need day to day With a tied instant saver account, you can get up to 4 % AER variable.

17:29Plus you'll get£100 cash back if you deposit£5 ,000 into your account in the first 30 days. If you want to try it out, you can use the code MAKINGMONEY, or one word, or just use the QR code that's on screen. We've also left a link in the description where you can find the terms as well. Variable rate is correct as of the 15th of January, 2026. So T, tell me the riskiest thing you've ever done.

17:52Bill Perkins:Mate, the cameras are rolling. I can't do that. You're trying to get me cancelled. I mean, most of my risky things were probably in my teenage years. But one thing I could say about finance risks, definitely invested in stocks with zero research, just because my friend told me to, his research was, trust me, it didn't go well. Wow. So clearly risk affects you in both your personal and business life. And that's why we're really happy today to be partnering with Vanta. They automate a lot of risk processes and help you see the risks in a centralized platform so you know what really needs your attention.

18:22Bill Perkins:Besides risk, the main thing Vanta does is automate compliance with security protocols that you need if you want to do business with larger companies or grow internationally. This is stuff like GDPR, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and SOC2. The beauty of Vanta is they make it easy to prove you're compliant with these standards, saving up to 90 % of the time it takes and on average half a million dollars. You can get started at vanta.com forward slash making money. There's a link in the description. okay let's talk a bit about relationships because he's got a lot to say there hasn't he i mean i think one point that he mentioned is that um it kind of ties into like giving we want to we'll touch on that more later but like he says a lot of people will i swear when i was in boarding school a lot of people their parents would just give them a big big like pocket money give them loads of money but they never spend time with their kids so they don't really have a relationship the dad might be in america they send their kid to school in england for boarding school and then they see their parents like in holidays for like a couple of days and they get loads of money and then the parents die and they leave them loads of money but they haven't had any experience with their parents they don't have a relationship so a lot of people want to just wait and leave it to their kids but really it's about the relationships it's time you spend with your kids those are the memories they're not going to remember oh my dad left me 200 grand cool but i i don't know what his favorite color was we never have any any holidays any memories whereas if you spend time with your kids that's that's a different type of memory dividends you're giving them memories and like stuff to build on and something tangible and like making them helping their development so a lot of times we don't focus on relationships we just think let me save up loads of money and i'll give it to my kids when i'm older and then they'll be set but you've missed a whole lifetime of spending time taking them on holiday experiences and i'm very lucky because my parents my grandparents always like let's go on a cruise family holiday family lunch on sunday so like i've got all those memories of life and even if they leave me nothing i'll be like they gave me so much during my life so it doesn't really matter so i think a lot of people think i've got to save loads make loads and then leave my kids a million leave my kids 10 bitcoin leave my kids whatever but what about when they're there and you're there and you can actually give them something experiences yeah there's like there's this image a cartoon and it's a it's a dad and a son sat on a park bench and they're both thinking about there's like a thinking bubble above them and their dad is thinking about work so that he can provide his better life for his son and the son is just thinking about sitting on the bench with his dad not thinking about work and it's just like a deep and it's and and i think what bill says in the book is adults justify hard work by saying it's for my kids and often it's not it's for your own ego it's for your own view of yourself because actually if you said what does my kid want all your kid wants is your time yeah and to have some fun with you and you know how many people actually think back to their childhood life and go oh you know i'm so glad my dad did all that work and bought us a nice house they just think oh i remember that time we made a box fort you know like i remember my dad teaching me how to drive like my first time i got in a car yeah okay we're gonna take you it was new year's day and he's like all right this even learned to drive and i was like 13 and then he just took me in the car in nigeria we're driving around a school playground like school play not playground playing fields playing fields yeah move the kids out sorry no around the play playing field and nigeria just driving around in loops and that's my first experience driving age 13 you still can't drive so he's a bad teacher bro need to have a word with uh senior a carolet yeah the stat that i think of is if you've got a child that's 12 you've already spent 75 of all the time you'll ever spend with him wow he talks about time buckets and that's like the last time like i've got i've got three or the last we used to watch a show called mr tumble and he's like oh mr tumble and like it was really cool we watched it when he was like one two and then i'm like oh he's like i want to watch tv i'm like you want to watch this stuff i don't like that anymore and i was like what and so for me it was like a shot that was the last time we watched that show together he's like grown out of it but you don't realize and in life you have a lot of time buckets the last time you see your teacher your favorite teacher before they die the last time you get on a plane the last time you play basketball but at the time you don't realize it's the last time so it could be the last time your kid wants to play football with you or the last time your kid wants to watch a tv movie with you and at the time it's insignificant you don't notice but then one day you look back and you're like oh my kid doesn't uh use the potty anymore my kid doesn't you know he doesn't like this show anymore so you have to um bill says in life you should look at these time buckets and be like okay what do I want to do in this time bucket and split your life into different buckets even in retirement be like what do I want to do for the next five years next 10 years of retirement because people think they retire oh it's cool I'll just travel the world and after a year they're bored they want to go back to work they're depressed they don't know what to do with themselves and so yeah he said it's really important to have time buckets be like what do I want to get out of the next five years you should um hold your son's hand a lot mate I do but why because that there'll It'll be a day where they want, doesn't want to hold your hand anymore.

23:26And it's heartbreaking. Oh no. Don't, don't set me off again, mate. Three months ago, I held my son's hand for the last time.

23:32Bill Perkins:mate, don't get me crying two days in a row on the podcast. Little bitch. Go on, let's cry, little bitch. Anything to do with the - I'll be there licking your tears, mate. I get stronger. They sustain me. They sustain me. Your tears sustain me. Yeah, cry for me, little bitch. No, yeah. Yeah. Now, now it's like, he won't hold my hand. Yeah. And I knew it was coming. biggest kind of like fears is like my son growing older now just like you feel like the it's like sand slipping through your hands yeah sand slipping slipping away you know that song no time slowly slipping never mind go on keep going you know the song no yeah no i'm just making it up okay i think um before we carry on let's talk about bill himself because uh i kind of got a vibe from the book of this is a rich man talking about rich man things you know like a different tax bracket buddy yeah yeah yeah well it's the ability to die with zero most people don't live live at zero do you know what i mean like he's he does say problems he does say at the start but anyone can read this book and benefit from it, but it's really for people that have the ability to, that have got money, not loads of money, but they, you know, if you're hand to mouth in, you know, in sub-Saharan Africa, the idea of dying with zero is like, I might die because I've got zero.

25:00Whereas, you know, the average person in the Western world might be faced with a situation of like, oh, I've got a pot of money at retirement. Like, how do I deploy that? So he does try and cover that, but he certainly is a rich man so we've got some facts and stats written down about him here so he was a trader he's made a lot of money in his life he was a millionaire before 30 uh he's a poker player he likes to travel the world to play poker which is like the most expensive version of

25:27Bill Perkins:traveling pretty much uh on his 45th birthday he had a huge party on an island and flew out his parents all his friends his family to just have a big party because he's like i can do it when i'm I might not be able to enjoy as much when I'm 15. Just blew loads of money. I had a sick party. Who else do you know makes, throws sick parties for people, mate? Where are you going this weekend? Oh, yeah. Christmas party. Yeah, in February because it's cheaper. Yeah. Making money, not spending money podcast. Yeah, yeah. No, it's not that much cheaper. But yeah, we're upping it a little bit from last year.

25:58Bill Perkins:Excellent. Yeah. We're playing poker. We're not playing poker. We're playing roulette. Oh, I like poker. Yeah, yeah. But I'll do a bit of poker. Yeah, yeah. We've got roulette tables. Um, sorry, there's the next door neighbor inconsiderately decided to book some building work on the exact day that we filmed the podcast. If you hear a bit of hammering and drilling, um, going on, that's, that's what it is. He bought a painting. So Bill Perkins is a black man. Can I say that? Your brother. He's a man of color. I don't know what I can, can I say? You can say black man. Yeah. Yeah. You can say black man.

26:30Yeah. That's, that's. Cancel him.

26:32Bill Perkins:Yeah. I'm offended. 2026 black man's okay. yeah okay cool well he is a black man you might not guess that with a name like bill yeah feels like a white man's name um and he bought a painting by a black artist that was valued at 250 000 how much did he pay did he pay 12 million something i think it was 12 years and his justification was like i'm supporting the black cause so bill's got money yeah that's excessive but he does say one point he does say that like you can exceed obviously you should have some money but he says you can experience some things when you're broke so like you know yeah going for a hike you know yeah these things running around going um dancing these are things you can like you don't need money for that you should do more of when you're when you're young because you can't really go on hikes when you're 80 yeah but i do wonder like what is bill's version of dying with zero if he goes from a point of being worth say 50 million quid and and when he dies he's got 100 grand in the bank he might be like yep did it but most people might only have 100 grand for their whole retirement so like his version of zero or near zero, he's coming from such a high base that I wonder how detached he is from reality.

27:45Yeah. And also I think like this guy's a gambler. He plays poker. His friends describe him as living like a billionaire when he's not. You know, so he lives above his means as well. clearly has a really high appetite for risk because of the poker and stuff and i wonder if he understands that there's certain people in the world that really gain a lot from like stability and buffers and knowing that they have money in their bank account do you know what i mean like i feel like you could take everything away from bill and he'd be like oh well let's let's go again i i feel that's a very that's a personality trait and i wonder you know i imagine there's lots of people listening myself included right i take a lot of like peace and like mental pressure off myself by having money in the bank yeah you know but do you think when you get older and it gets

28:40Bill Perkins:to retirement you're you're still gonna have lots of money because he says like people find it really hard to go from saving and stacking money to spending yeah and that's like a big transition in life when you get towards retirement or towards the later age you need to start spending and people keep accumulating. I have some stats for you. Go on then, mate. All right, so pensioners, a lot of people, he says, don't spend enough money in their first 20 years of retirement because as their income decline, their spending declines as well. And he said people with over half a million on average spend 11.8 % of their capital before death.

29:16And when was this book written? I think like you could probably inflation adjusts some of these numbers but I think you get the vibe

29:24Bill Perkins:but more worrying for you a third of retirees increase their assets rather than spending which sounds like you sounds like a dream you're like 95 you're like oh I've doubled my net worth in the last year yeah yeah you're outside in the cold mate yeah I'll be outside in the cold please sir can I have some more you'll be like here's a little mill mate yeah okay you got any more stats or is that no that's it but I think oh pensioners spend the least of their wealth so if you have a pension so like a lot of people in the western civilization if you've got a pension you're even less likely to spend because you've got that and then you don't spend your wealth as well so the main issue i think this really highlights the main issue in the book like if you get to retirement and you're spending 11.8 percent of your capital before death like it's not ideal yeah we've left a lot of food which comes back to the question from suz and it's this people people really struggle to decumulate and i think we've seen that with financial advisors many times haven't they that if you've spent your whole life accumulating 180 and that is a tough challenge so some of the spending aspects in my life that i struggle with at the minute and i'm really annoying me and i'm trying to get over since reading this book are tax inefficient spending i i'm like hemmed in by the fact of you know like the 100 grand cliff yeah for earnings things like this like these tax cliffs where it's like oh if i take any more money out of my business past this point, it's going to be taxed at 60%.

30:49So it feels to me like I shouldn't do that. Or, you know, I would like to buy myself a house, like a nicer house, but like ripping the money out of the business. It's like, I struggle to make the decisions that are not about money, like having a place that you love to live or a nicer car or whatever. I always view them through like a tax lens. And I know that at the end of my life, I'll get there and be like, why did you give a shit about the amount of tax you were paying? Why didn't you just do the things that were nice? Do you know what I mean? I'll spend loads of money on holidays. I'll spend loads of money on meals.

31:21I'll spend all of these things. But like stamp duty on a property and I'm like, oh, like, you know, I'll just stay where I am, thanks. Do you know what I mean? And that's what I'm trying to get past, that kind of spending.

31:32Bill Perkins:Yeah. I think like whatever you spend, it's the experience. I think I never regret any money I spent unless I've lost it in like, you know. Rat token. When I got scammed. Yeah. when I got scammed but yeah apart from that like I never get any money I spend like it's you know it's part of he says all these experiences in life make you who you are so like every time you spend every time you enjoy something that's adding towards your your your personality your character your experiences your outlook on life so it's never wasted I think time isn't wasted when you're getting wasted yeah philosopher philosopher Asher Roth that was remember the song how much of your like how much of your don't care attitude do you think comes from the fact that you you are you have wealthy parents

32:21um is there like a peace of mind that you know is coming no i mean probably when i was growing up

32:25Bill Perkins:but now i'm not okay so probably when i was growing up uh subconsciously and also because of the school i went to like they told us we're like oh you guys are all really smart you guys can like rule the world you're the best so like there's always been they told you that i'm i don't really want to say what they said like skull and bones i mean i'll be honest they said like you guys are like i don't know say it yeah say it they said like you guys stop pushing my chair what are you doing stop you're still pushing it stop pushing um they used to say in winchester uh boarding school they say you guys are smarter than 99 of the country so you guys will be all right pretty much and they like it was like this you know boarding school english boarding school stuff they just drill into your head they're like you guys are you guys are better than everyone else and it's just like yeah this is why you get people coming out of boarding school who are absolute that's why every hamish i've ever met is a knob because they they're told from the age of 13 you're smarter than everyone else it's like yeah i don't think that's the best thing to tell 13 year olds because then it goes to their head yeah they literally look down on me at durham university yeah look at me now bitch little bitch crying hamish little bitch why is hamish getting it so hard because he's a little bitch the funny thing is i know about three hamishers I've never had Hamish in my life, mate, never.

33:37Got to Durham. Every other white boy is called Hamish. Hugo or Hamish. I was like, what is going on?

33:43Bill Perkins:I know a lot of Hugos, a lot of Hamishes. What is going on there? Yeah, I know, it's crazy, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, there's going to be Hamishes listening to this. You ain't little bitches. Just the ones we knew. Yeah, just the ones from Durham. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, I think it's, I mean, also because, I wouldn't say it's because of that. I think it's, I'm like a Peter Pan. I'm just carefree. because even how much of that comes from the fact that there's like like behind it all you know that one day that you're gonna be there's this block of money coming i mean it's yeah i like to think that but i mean as you get older it's like as you get old when you're a kid you think you're sorted yeah but then as you get older you realize things like the life like you realize my parents sold their house they downsized like you notice they rented for a bit they had to pay stamp duty all these different things so it's like you realize that like the pot isn't as big i've got two siblings also one thing they've never given me money like they are they'll help me out here again but my dad's like you met my dad he's like you will work go and get your own money this is my money go get your own money but like he'll help me with like he bought me my first car um they gave me health insurance but they don't just like give me money did they did they they're like you've got to work for it is that your sister like the princess or something yeah she's the only girl so yeah and then me and my brother and my brother's the youngest so he gets like you know oh you're the youngest and i'm just like yeah you're the oldest get to work go go set an example for your siblings so yeah um so for me it's more like i know i'll be all right generally just because i'm like an optimistic guy but i think i'll leave me something but not buy me a house or like leave me like half a million or anything like that but maybe that realization is kind of why you've been saving more it is literally honestly because i thought i would be saying and as i got older i'm like wait a minute they have they have their own bills to pay they've got their own medical staff they might have to yeah they're thinking about getting a place in the countryside so yeah i don't want to be like leaning on them i remember asking my mom when i was like younger once um have you saved any money for me because like there was other kids at school they were like oh yeah my parents have tucked away the child benefit every month and there's there's like 20 grand in an account i'm gonna buy a house or so i don't know it was like 14 15 i remember asking my mom my mom was like no she's like i don't i didn't have any money to save and fair enough but yeah yeah it's like uh all these generations that have come before me and you're telling me there's no generational wealth no one put a little bit aside no one put anything aside how many generations have been here i've got nothing hundreds of generations to lead to me and not a single person for oh you know what i'll i'll tuck something away for the generations i'm going to be the guy that creates the generational wealth i think it's reality especially living in london like you think you have so much more money um because you get big salaries that's what i thought when i was young oh look how much they're getting paid but like the outgoings they had a business in chelsea medical center on fulham road and like just like business rates like going up every year and like the cost of running a business in london is so high so they sold it now but like it's when you actually look into the details like someone might seem rich but then you realize all their outgoings are not actually as so as liquid as you'd like to think so james smith who's a big like fitness YouTuber.