I recently had a comment that got me thinkingā¦ āDie With Zeroā gets it half right. š° The idea: donāt hoard money youāll never spend. Enjoy your life. Iām 100% on board with that part. But hereās what the book misses, it treats your portfolio like a fixed pile youāre drawing down. Spend it or lose it. Thatās not how compounding works. If your growth rate is outpacing your withdrawal rate, youāre not choosing between āenjoy lifeā and ādie with a pile of unused cash.ā Your portfolio is paying you more than you need, while still growing. Iām not withdrawing to zero. Iām living well AND watching the number go up. Both at once. š The real question isnāt āspend more or die with money on the table.ā āØāØItās: is your withdrawal rate below your sustainable growth rate?āØāØ If yes, youāre not being deprived. Youāre being paid by your past decisions, and the āsurplusā isnāt waste. Itās optionality. Cushion for bad years. Room to spend more later without fear. Legacy if you want it. Boring, diversified, long-term investing did this. Not magic. Not luck. Just time + compounding + not touching it. š¢ Enjoying the fruits of your labor and having your portfolio outgrow your needs arenāt opposites. You can have both. Just my opinion, dyor
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Catherine @ffcatherine Ā· 15d
šÆ if you spend less than the portfolio grew one year then youāre letting the original capital grow as you skim a % off the top ā¦ If you have children you donāt want to die with zero you want to leave enough from the right accounts that they will have enough left even after paying the capital gains .. Iām hoping to leave the TFSA untouched that can be used to pay capital gains from the non registered assuming I live a long healthy life & have time to compound the non registered to a larger number šš»
Mitchell Muir@mitchell2025 Ā· 14d
Iām a fan of better call Paulās approach, investing a portion to keep it growing and use the rest for lifestyle/bills. Inflation alone wonāt stop but you can get ahead of it. Also for myself. If Iām lucky enough to have a good portfolio I wonāt mind my loved ones to inherit it once I leave this world (while paying as little tax as possible of course š)
Dividend Earner@dividendearner Ā· 14d
I am a big fan of the book and you are mixing the accumulation and safe withdrawal with annuities as a way to never run out. The biggest fear everyone has is running out. So how do you get setup to not run out and spend all of it? Annuities have a bad rep as an investment but strategically let you achieve the goals.
Nicolle @moneymeetslegacy Ā· 14d
Personally I thought that book was super repetitive lol. You took away the most meaningful lesson - donāt forget to enjoy your life while investing and to do it as comfortably as your portfolio allows you to. The most reassuring way to do that, as youāve said, is by withdrawing less than the growth rate. Just have a plan in place for the remaining money so that it goes to where youād like it to go. And maybe some of that is to pay the tax man.
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