[Die with Zero] Buckets Lists are so passe ! Use this instead.

 

The book Die with Zero has also put the traditional notion of the Bucket List to death, and this makes sense whether you are a believer of the FIRE movement or a subscriber to the conventional ideas of a commissioned financial advisor. 

For the older generation, there is this idea that retirement is a reward for a life well-lived, so most of Gen X engaged in their careers believing that by delaying gratification and working hard, they will be rewarded with a life of casual travel with their teenaged children after being able to take out their CPF money.

But this form of delay of gratification can be risky :

• A Gen-X career no longer lasts until you can get your money out at 55. A cynic once said that an engineer's career is basically doing MNC work in his 30s, working for a government agency in his 40s, driving Grab above his 50s, and selling cardboard in his 60s.
• If you raise children and if they find creative ways to disappoint you by being unable to enrol in a local degree program, a significant drain on your CPF may result in you not making a proper withdrawal from your CPF at age 55. 
• You may not have the stamina to go through the bucket list you came up with while in your 20s and 30s.

My life is actually not oriented toward personal happiness as I see achievements as my primary reason for existence. But there are some things I regret that I was unable to do when I was younger. The Cranberries came twice into Singapore to give a concert and I missed both events, figuring out that the Cranberries would still be around when I am in better financial footing. A few years ago, the lead singer of the band Dolores O'Riordan passed away, taking this possibility off the table. 

When it comes to travel, I initially wanted to see the Aurora Borealis but struck it off my list after a friend paid thousands of dollars but did not see it due to stroke of bad luck. My fear is that I may no longer be able to visit Lhasa Tibet because it is located at high-altitude and I may develop breathing problems going there.

For women, regardless of the reproductive technologies available, it is generally unwise to defer having a family beyond her 40s. ( Ask yourselves, what kind of guy would be willing to help? )

 

The solution to the problem is to do away with bucket lists all together in favour of Time Buckets.

Divide your working life into different 5-year periods and create one or two items for each life period.

An example for my BBFA readership might look like this:

25-30:  Backpack for 20 days in Europe. Have sex with 100 different prostitutes in Geylang and Prague.

30-35: Go to Fanxipan in Vietnam. Settle down, marry someone, and start a family.  

35-40: Visit US for Gen Con. Visit Japan for an Anime festival. 

40-45: Start a small business. Visit Australia to see if can emigrate there. Hire a sugar baby.

45-50: Start assembling all your spare Gunpla. Start a photography hobby. Visit Switzerland

50-55: Participate in a senior citizen singing competition. Write a book about having sex with 100 different prostitutes.

55+: Watch Netflix anime and play MMORPGS all day. 

Have fun figuring out which ones actually do belong to me!

Distributing key bucket list objectives to different 5-year period of your life can effectively balance your life and allow you to take on objectives that require a lot more energy of youth. This can minimise the regret that you will have at the end of your life and raises the number of memory dividends that you will be able to get throughout your life.