Optimal Timing of Inheritance (Give at 28-33)
Your kids' money decays too — hand it over when they're 28, not when they're 60.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 87%
Perkins takes the standard objection to Die With Zero — 'if I die with a lot, my kids get it' — and turns the utility curve on it. Your children are subject to the same decay you are: mental maturity around 28, physical maturity around 33, then plateau and decline. If you die at 86 and your children are 60, most of their useful life has already passed and you have handed them money at its lowest utility. Worse, the willy-nilly bequest isn't a plan at all: it's the absence of intentionality dressed up as care. The deliberate version is to time transfers into the 28-33 window where they buy the most life.
Origin
Perkins developed this as the direct answer to the most common pushback on Die With Zero, applying the same declining-utility logic he uses on his own life to the recipients of an inheritance.
Core principles
- 01The same laws of physics that govern your body govern your children's — their money utility declines too.
- 02Mental maturity arrives around 28; physical maturity around 33; then plateau and decline.
- 03Dying at 86 means handing money to 60-year-olds whose useful life has largely passed.
- 04Bequest-by-default is not planning, it's abdication.
- 05Deliberate, timed giving is more generous than a large will.
How to run it
- 1
Name the intended amount
Decide explicitly how much you want your children or chosen causes to receive. Turn the vague residual into a deliberate number.
- 2
Compute the recipient's age at transfer
Work out how old your children will be if the money moves at your death. If you're 86 and they're 60, most of their useful life is gone.
- 3
Move the transfer into the 28-33 window
Time the giving to land when mental maturity has arrived and physical capability is still at peak — roughly 28 to 33.
Pro tip The same logic applies to charity: give when the money can do the most, not when you happen to die.
Watch out Leaving it to the will is not thinking about your kids, it's not thinking at all.
In the wild
Perkins contrasts American consumption with Japan, where he describes everyone saving and passing money to the next generation, who save and pass it on again — nobody ever parties.
→ He labels it generational non-fulfillment, or more precisely suboptimal fulfillment: a whole chain of lives that could have been more fulfilling but never converted the wealth.
Perkins runs the arithmetic: you die at 86, people are having kids later, so your children are 60 with maybe 20 to 26 years left — and they receive the money then.
→ He calls this asinine, arguing it's much more optimal to give between 28 and 33 when the money still buys experience.
Common mistakes
Using 'my kids will get it' as a savings justification
It's a rationalisation for autopilot accumulation, not a considered plan — and it delivers the money at its point of least utility.
Assuming a bequest is generous by default
An untimed transfer isn't deliberate or intentional; the same dollars given decades earlier would produce far more fulfillment for the recipient.
Is it for you?
Best for
Parents and would-be benefactors who justify over-saving with 'my kids will get it anyway'.
Not ideal for
Situations where early transfer would demonstrably harm the recipient, or where legal/tax structure forbids it.
From the transcript
“the same laws of physics that govern my body will govern my kids's body... so the utility of money for them declines just like it…”
“it's much more optimal to give him the money between 28 and 33 than it is to will nilly”
“that's not really thinking about your kids right that's not planning that's not deliberate that's not intentional it it's kind of asinine if you ask…”
From the episode
Bill Perkins: I’m Planning to Die with Zero Dollars in the Bank and You Should Too
Bill Perkins