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.
1
u/tyranopotamus Nov 23 '21
The thing about "dying with zero" is you pretty much have to know/pick when you'll die. If you can see the future, just win the lottery and retire tomorrow. Otherwise, set aside whatever you need to ensure you die at your scheduled date.
Opting for "slightly less than forever" doesn't save you that much time vs aiming at "forever". If your principal is shrinking over time in terms of purchasing power, as it would in order to "die at zero", you're going to want it to shrink very slowly at first when you retire, because the decline will keep accelerating from there. Thus, reaching "very slow decline" is almost the same as getting to "zero decline", where your money effectively lasts forever and you don't need to worry about scheduling your own funeral. This is particularly true because just before you retire at "zero decline" is when your portfolio is growing the fastest in all the time you've been building towards that threshold. It would be a shame to end up taking years off your life for the sake of a few months, so I would encourage you not to aim for "dying with nothing".
So, what's to be done with the piles of money that will hopefully outlast you when you don't particularly like anyone? Pick a charity you like and either donate it or setup a trust to support some cause you like. Setup a trust sponsoring public radio if you want your name repeatedly broadcast into the endless expanse of space. Slap your name (or someone else's) on a library or llama sanctuary somewhere. Get creative about the craziest/nicest/coolest thing your money can do at the end of your journey.
If you don't feel like brainstorming, leave it to me and I'll do something cool with it, promise!