People who talk about “sacrifice”,”humanity” and other bullshit are the people who are destroying the greatest country in the history of man. Capitalism is all about “me”. Greed is good. Looking out for “me” actually benefits everyone and I did not even intend for it to. I hope the future generations of Americans enjoy the socialism that is coming. We did it all for “ME”. You will do it all for “humanity” and that road will lead you straight to hell and poverty.

That’s why I’m working to start my own business. It’s the only way I can control my working life at all, because gone are the days when showing up and doing a good job guaranteed you anything from an employer. I’d rather face the finicky market forces head on than worry about some human being’s whim du jour keeping me in the black.

It’s really a pity we don’t value life experience more than we do, but that’s how it is.

However, “die broke” is really stupid idea. Sure, you can’t take it with me. But (speaking as an unmarried father of none) I WANT to leave an inheritance behind for my children. If you look at the strong, influential families in society, most of them come from historical wealth. While I want my family to be able to enjoy my wealth, I also want it to provide them with the ability to become influential.

Honestly, I kinda disagree about forgetting estate planning. I don’t like the idea of living behind stuffs for my love ones disorganized.

In my family, it is expected that children will take care of their parents when they are older. It will be a nice arrangement, actually. When I have kids, if my parents came to live with us, there would be someone at home to take care of them. My husband and I can continue to work full time jobs to pay the bills, retirement and fun. Plus my mom is a better cook than me. And a better housekeeper.

I am often named the “king” of procrastination … having fun in life and creating a fulfilling life’s journey are two areas in which I never want to be accused of procrastinating.

I think this is an interesting topic. Perhaps in earlier times this was true. The parent would die and their young children could use the inheritance to help get a head start in life.

With the average US life expectancy hovering near 80 years, the inheritance isn’t going to children. It is going to full grown adults. Hell, much of the time it is going to people well into (or past) their mid-life even.

This worry about dying with “too much” wealth probably stems from people having to support their own retirement now, rather than depending on their employer.

As an estate planner and a probate litigator, I know that having lots of money in your later years makes you a tempting target for thieves (inside the family and out), but older people are also very worried about having enough, especially when medical needs (not covered by Medicare) can eat up $5,000 to $15,000 per month over several years.

I agree that we shouldn’t deny ourselves just for the sake of having an estate to pass to children, but we should put aside enough to avoid having to move in with them.

But I do agree with the overall concept. As my mother-in-law states.. “I’m spending my money, so there’s nothing left for you kids to fight over!” Now both sets of grandparents are always kind generous with gifts and assistance. My mother did a great job of saving for her retirement (and she retired for the job of stay home mom!). She is 65 and for the last 10 years has traveled the world. She spends more time traveling then she does at home. She makes at least 1 overseas trip and year and has been to England, Ireland, Africa, Scotland, and Russia. I honestly don’t expect much of an inheritance from her when she passes, but I couldn’t be more happy knowing that she is fully enjoying her life.

But it also made me realize, I’m not willing to sacrifice today to plan for tomorrow. When we put our debt repayment plan together two years ago, we didn’t cut the corners so tight we couldn’t enjoy ourselves. We maintain our activities, even though they cost money. My families various sports clubs.. I learned to trim the grocery bill for a couple of weeks to pay for soccer cleats, football gear, baseball pants, etc. I learned to negotiate my coaching and referee skills to greatly reduce league fees. I also learned we had to slow the debt repayment to ensure a steady stream into the emergency fund, as a highley active family, we have a LOT of emergencies!

Even still we managed to cut our debt in half over the two years. Could we have been further along had we not spent the near $3,500 in sporting expenses? Sure, but it wasn’t worth it enough for me.

And again this summer, we opted to free some of the debt repayment money to allow for a summer of camping. We’ve had a ball and discovered that there is something very rejuvinating about getting disconnected from the world and allowing us to reconnect as a family. Worth every penny we spent and yet we still paid off 3 CC so far this summer (one more will be gone next month)

Admittedly, all this was possible because we opted to take on student loans (on top of the bad debt we already owed) to send my husband to school to get his degree, which allowed him to land a job that has litterally tripled his income over the past 5 years.

Now our debt plan allows us flexability to enjoy life now, save for retirement and still will have us debt free in another year and a half. Though there is always balance. While we have done a lot of things we liked to do, we still have had to say no to many other opportunities. The balance is finding what you’re budget allows you to do and stick to it. But it’s easier to stick to it, if you allow a bit of enjoyment in the whole equation.

Again, thank you for your reviews. I hope your readers will benefit from reading these books. (Remember, Die Broke doesn’t mean you have to live broke!! LOL!)

The paradox of saving is that we sacrifice now for some unforeseeable future — a destination that we may or may not reach. In the extreme, it is not unlike “killing ourselves now so that we may live later.” The unintended consequences revolve around the ignorance of our inability to predict our own happiness.

We are “taught” and we convince ourselves that money will give us security and we pursue the acquisition of “financial freedom” with little or no effort to pursue meaning or purpose.

Balance truly is the answer. Of course it is foolish not to save money now but it is equally as foolish to rely on money to provide for for an unforeseeable future, especially one without meaning…

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” ~ Victor Frankl

Great post…

Kent (The Financial Philosopher)

That is the key to being able to afford what you need to survive during difficult, economic times and in retirement. I am exploring this concept of free fun in a light-hearted way on a blog I started at http://whyspendmoney.blogspot.com

Please let me know what you think.

“Don’t retire” sounds good. That’s also a Dave Ramsey thing. However, that is not a reasonable thing to say. Maybe “don’t retire just because you turned 65″. Many people in our profession (ministry) say fervently that they will stay in the pulpit until their dying day, but thats not always possble. Illness and old age, even just plain old crankiness can keep some from working until they die.
My grandma worked until she was 80, and she misses her work! But she was physically unable to do her job.

Balance is the key!

Balance is key. I wouldn’t ever say “Die Broke” because you don’t know how long you’ll live or whether you’ll be able to work until you die.

Burns and Kolitikoff very much want people to worry about their retirement. However, they think it’s important not to sacrifice the present for the future. The “consumption smoothing” idea is key to their philosophy. They think that it’s a good thing to try to make your lifetime standard of living as smooth as possible.

Like many of you, I’m not sure if I agree. In fact, I’m not even sure that Scott Burns agrees.

In one of my favorite passages of the book, Burns writes about how he owns his home, has saved plenty for retirement, etc. He has everything he needs, but isn’t willing to stop working and live a life of leisure. In other words, he’s not putting consumption smoothing into practice.

And I think that gets to the problem with consumption smoothing. It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure it’s really practical to real life. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to aim for an equal distribution of spending power throughout our lives. I’m not sure how we’d even do it (especially without access to the $150 ESPlanner).

Make no mistake: the book contains good advice, and I think most GRS readers would find it matches their philosophy. But certain points — like the slavish devotion to consumption smoothing — do seem questionable.

Again, Spend to the End offers some good advice, especially about firing your broker and gong with no-load index funds. But do not fixate on paying off the mortgage too soon in your financial plan, wait until step 6 of 7.

The best thing is to do is pay cash and establish an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months living expenses to keep Murphy away and not go into debt. It has helped this father of 10 stay out of debt.

This is overstating it a bit, I think. It’s critical not to invest ONLY in your company’s stock (this is what sunk a lot of Enron employees, if I recall). Diversification and proper asset allocation are always the most important considerations for any individual investor. This is why it makes more sense to fund your 401k first. Still, the typical employee stock purchase program offers enough perks that it makes sense to participate on some level — it just shouldn’t be the primary focus of your portfolio.

(I hope what I’m saying is true, because I just started participating in my own company’s ESPP as of the beginning of this month!)