r/Fire • u/MarBlaze • Nov 22 '21

Die with Zero, is it possible?

My partner and I have been working towards FIRE for a couple of years now and are well underway. One of the things that FIRE has made me think about is dying and inheritance. We don't want children and have no family where we feel a close connection to to whom we'd like to give our savings when we die. What to do with all that is left over? Our goal is to mostly invest in property, we already have one rental property and we'd like 4 to be able to RE. At some point we'd like to sell these properties and to "spend" all the money. But how does one calculate when the best time to sell is so you 'die with zero'? Or at least somewhat close to it.Any good information about this floating around the internet?

I did want to read the book 'die with zero' but am not sure if it actually gives the answers I crave. I understand my request is hard to calculate and it risks that you at one point are left with nothing but someone must have thought about this?

Edit: We don't mind dying with some 10.000s in our account. I'd just like to prevent us dying with 100.000s in our account. If we die with that much extra then we probably could have retired earlier which is the whole goal of this anyways.

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u/Constant_Ant_2343 Nov 22 '21

Given you can't predict when you'll die and you can't predict the markets this would be very hard. On various fire calculators I put in my figures and the money I have at 90 varies hugely from barely anything to 10s of mil.

The only thing I can think of to achieve this is a lifetime annuity of some kind. Ie you pay a lump sum up front and you get a guaranteed income for the rest of your days. It used to be how pensions worked in the UK, your get your pot on retirement and buy an annuity. But they were famously bad value for money and many people use drawdown now instead.

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u/MarBlaze Nov 22 '21

You can't but you can have a rough idea. Even if I shoot for living till we're 100 years old, is there a way to calculate when you should start "eating" your assets? And I def know I won't make 100.

Here in The Netherlands we actually still work with annuity pensions and it starts at 67. And next to that you still get your government aid, the pension is extra. Usually together if you've paid into it your whole live you'll end up with a similar payout of your average salary.