This is a dangerous book.

The ‘zero’ in the title of the book refers to money. The concept is simple – by the time you die, you must have zero wealth against your name. Optimize for life, not for wealth. Account for all your needs & wants & wishes till a reasonable estimate of life expectancy & spend the difference sooner than later as in almost all cases that would give you a better value for your money.

It was counterintuitive for me.

Saving & investing has been a huge part of my life since undergrad when I bought my first few stocks. Books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, Richest Man in Babylon & later Psychology of Money cemented my belief in this philosophy. Most of my salary doesn’t see the light of day & directly ends up into my broker’s account.

However, rarely there’s been a book that has forced me to consider such starkly contrasting perspective on such a fundamentally rooted subject. It has forced me to do to one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – TO UNLEARN.

Delayed gratification, the book says becomes indefinitely if not permanently delayed. I’ve seen this first hand. People who said they were saving for retirement haven’t really been able to spend once retired – either out of habit or because of lack of energy.

One statement in the book that has stuck with me says that you can extract the maximum value of money in your youth – in your 20s or 30s or maybe 40s even but once you’ve crossed a certain age it becomes difficult to extract full value from your spending.

Bought a new Nike? Great! At 25 you’ll run in those. What would you do with them at 55?

A couple months back I went on a (grossly)expensive trip with friends & I later realized that I probably won’t be able to do 80% of all the activities I did there 10-15 years down the line. So if I had decided to delay the trip by a few years I might not even have gotten half of my money’s worth then if at all!

It frustrates me to watch how we grossly underestimate our potential for a reasonable growth in future earnings – all credit to the fear of a doomsday scenario! But we forget there are financial instruments specifically designed to cover that. The book goes on to address (in a far more convincing manner) all such skepticism one could imagine.

I’ll admit there’s an unwelcoming morbid tone to this book with the overarching theme of death and mortality but that’s not why it’s dangerous. This is a dangerous book because hand it to an extravagant spender & you’ll watch them spiral down into a financial misery of their own making.

The disclaimer is pretty clear:
If you are not good with money, steer away from this piece of kryptonite.

But if saving and investing and delaying gratification is all you’ve done in life at the cost of actually living it, then grab this book before you execute your next SIP payment!