Health, Wealth and Time Allocation
Three depleting resources, one output — stop optimising money and start optimising fulfillment.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Perkins reduces life planning to three variables that change continuously across your lifespan: health, wealth and time. In your twenties you have health and time but little money; later you have money but the health and time are draining. Each is a tool in service of one output — fulfillment — and none is the goal. The practical move is to get off autopilot, identify what experiences actually fulfill you, then layer them onto whichever resources you currently hold in surplus. Crucially, an experience need not cost money: a hike with a friend counts. The failure mode is optimising for money while the two non-renewable resources quietly run out.
Origin
Emerging from Perkins' seesaw between extreme saving and extreme spending, he stopped chasing an exact savings rule and concluded the concept mattered more than the details: three variables interplay across life stages, and how you allocate them determines fulfillment.
Core principles
- 01Money, health and time are tools — fulfillment is the goal.
- 02The three variables trade off differently at every life stage.
- 03Young you has health and time but not wealth; older you has wealth but not health and time.
- 04The summation of your experiences is who you are.
- 05Autopilot in either direction — hoarding or consuming — misallocates all three.
How to run it
- 1
Audit the three variables
Honestly assess your current health, wealth and time. Note which period of life you're in and which resource is abundant versus scarce.
- 2
Get off autopilot and name your fulfillers
Deliberately think about which things and activities actually drive your fulfillment, rather than defaulting to what you've habitually done.
Pro tip Include free experiences — going to the park, hiking with a friend — not just purchases.
Watch out Habits are tough to break, and people habituate themselves out of a life.
- 3
Layer experiences onto the resources you have
Match fulfilling experiences to the resource you currently hold in surplus. Rich in time and health, poor in money? Choose the time-heavy experiences.
- 4
Spend the resources down to zero
Aim to reach the end of life having used all your resources on the most fulfilling life possible, rather than leaving any variable unspent.
In the wild
Hala notes she meets many finance people earning millions a year who insist on the lowest-budget airplane ticket and generally live frugally on principle.
→ Perkins' read: they're optimising for money while he optimises for a full life — the frugality is only correct if that specific spending actually maps to their values.
Perkins is explicit that an experience doesn't have to be a trip or cost money — it could be going to the park and hiking with a friend, or charitable work.
→ Broadens the framework beyond spending, making it usable by people whose binding constraint is money rather than time.
Common mistakes
Treating money as the goal
Money is a tool for driving fulfillment, as are health and time. Making it the objective inverts the whole system.
Delayed gratification as a habit
Deferring for its own sake calcifies into a habit that is hard to break, and people habituate themselves out of the life they were deferring for.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone at a life transition where the health/wealth/time balance has visibly shifted.
Not ideal for
People who need a single prescriptive savings rule rather than a shifting allocation judgment.
From the transcript
“certain periods of your life okay you're going to have more health and more time than wealth and certain periods of your life you're going…”
“the money is a tool right is not the goal... my health is a tool to drive fulfillment my time is a tool to drive…”
“get off autopilot and really think about what are the things and activities that drive your your fulfillment”
From the episode
Bill Perkins: I’m Planning to Die with Zero Dollars in the Bank and You Should Too
Bill Perkins