Rethinking Our Legacy: When Spending Your Retirement Beats Leaving a Fortune

For years, I approached retirement planning with a single mission: maximize savings and leave my sons as substantial an inheritance as possible. That mindset felt responsible, even noble. Then I read a book that fundamentally shifted how I think about money, time, and what we actually owe our children.

From Accumulation to Experience: A Book That Changed Everything

The turning point came when I discovered Die with Zero by Bill Perkins. I’ll admit—I picked it up initially because the title seemed almost heretical. The premise that we should spend down our retirement accounts to near-zero rather than leave behind bulging bank accounts struck me as completely counterintuitive.

But Perkins’ core argument reframed something I’d been getting wrong: money isn’t a scoreboard. It’s a tool for creating experiences. The author introduces the concept of “memory dividends”—the idea that meaningful moments don’t just happen and fade. They compound. They return to us as lasting memories that enrich our entire lives.

As I read through passages and marked key insights (much like the careful annotation we do when something truly resonates), I realized I’d been solving the wrong problem. I wasn’t planning for a life well-lived; I was planning for a pile of cash to remain when I was gone.

Why I’m Rethinking the Traditional Path

My husband and I didn’t start from a position of wealth. We married young, paid for our own college education, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Like 42% of Americans, we had no emergency savings. A flat tire or a flooded basement felt catastrophic. That history made me determined: our children would never feel that vulnerability.

But here’s what I didn’t expect: when I finally told our sons about this book and my changing perspective, they were relieved. Both are well-educated, financially independent, and didn’t want us sacrificing our senior years for their sake. Their wives echoed the same sentiment—they wanted us to spend our money, to travel, to enjoy life rather than defer it.

The inheritance dream I’d protected so fiercely? That was entirely mine. They’d never actually expected it.

The Inheritance That Actually Matters

For the longest time, I calculated withdrawals conservatively, always planning to leave the principal untouched. I imagined our sons thinking of us every time they spent that money—as if a financial gift could be a final message of love.

Then I asked myself harder questions: Would they love us less if we’d never accumulated significant wealth? Would they doubt our devotion if we lost everything? The answer was obviously no.

The truth is that children—at any age—don’t need our money to know they’re loved and accepted. They need us present. They need us to show them, while we’re still here, what a life well-lived looks like. They need memories of us actually living, not just a statement showing how much we saved.

Rewriting Our Retirement Story

We’ve decided to withdraw more from our retirement accounts than we originally planned. We won’t be wealthy by any measure, but we should have genuine comfort and freedom. And yes, it feels strange to deliberately spend down what took decades to build. Intellectually and emotionally, though, I know it’s right.

What we’re gaining isn’t visible on a balance sheet. It’s the experiences we haven’t had yet. It’s permission—real permission—to enjoy this season of life rather than indefinitely defer it.

The inheritance that will actually matter to our sons isn’t what’s in the account when we die. It’s having parents who lived fully, who modeled that money serves life rather than the reverse. That’s a legacy no financial planner can help us build, and no amount of careful accounting can replace.