Tim J Priebe

Die Broke: A Radical Four-Part Financial Plan

Posted on February 27th, 2010 @ 4:21 pm

Recently I read Die Broke, by Stephen Pollan. Well, I read some of it, anyway. The book is broken into four basic concepts:

1. Quit Today
2. Pay Cash
3. Don’t Retire
4. Die Broke

This book had a few good concepts, but unfortunately they were mixed in with some terrible concepts, or at the least, concepts that were inadequately explained. If someone just blindly followed the advice in this book, they would end up having a miserable work life.

Let’s take a quick look at the four concepts:

Quit Today

The basics of this concept is to emotionally divorce yourself from your job, treating it only as a source of income, nothing more.

Really? You want to be emotionally detached from something you spend around 1/2 of your waking weekday hours on? Wow. Sounds like an employee I’d love to have working for me. (That was sarcasm, people.)

Let’s be realistic. Well rounded people are at least somewhat emotionally invested in what they do for a living. Unless you plan retiring young (and Pollan suggests you don’t retire at all), you’re going to spend a huge chunk of your life at work. And what a boring, meaningless existence it would be if your job is nothing more than a cash machine to you.

Pay Cash

Okay, here’s the one nugget that’s pretty much untarnished good advice. Buck the current credit trend and pay cash for everything. You may be self-disciplined enough to pay that credit card off each month, but most people aren’t. And even if they are, most  are living paycheck to paycheck, so if there’s an emergency, the credit card is the first thing to be put off. I personally don’t think anyone should have a credit card.

(Note: My wife slightly disagrees with me on this one, so there is some compromise in the Priebe household for the sake of marital harmony.)

Don’t Retire

So while you’re supposed to emotionally remove yourself from your job, you’re also supposed to work forever. I think you’re kind of dumb if you do both of those things. If your job is a temporary thing where you make tons of money, fine. Just retire early. Or if you love your job, then work forever. But not retiring from a job you hate sounds like a recipe for an ulcer.

Die Broke

The title of the book was interesting, and actually why I bought the book. But the author’s reasoning assumes that his readers are incapable of teaching their children fiscal responsibility. Granted, many rich people lose that somewhere between the second and third generation of rich kids, so I guess spending all your money and dying broke could be a back-up plan of sorts.

If you hadn’t guessed, I think a much better plan is just to be a responsible parent and teach your children about money early on.

To be fair, I only read about a third of the book before putting it down. So it’s possible the author gets much better in the rest of the book. But somehow, I doubt it. Smart readers can probably pick out the good advice from the bad, but really there’s a dozen other places you can go that only have the good advice.

My advice: Don’t bother with this book.

Tags: book review, die broke, money, stephen pollan

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