Rethinking Wealth: Why the Most Valuable Legacy Isn't Always Money

For decades, I approached retirement planning with a single-minded focus: accumulate as much wealth as possible to leave my sons. The financial goal felt noble, even loving. Surely, I thought, transferring a substantial inheritance would demonstrate how much we cared about their futures. Then a book forced me to reconsider everything I believed about money, security, and what truly matters in life.

The Philosophy That Changed My Perspective

The turning point came through Die with Zero by Bill Perkins. The premise initially struck me as radical: the money you spend a lifetime saving could be better used to fund experiences you won’t have the chance to enjoy later. Rather than dying rich, why not die fulfilled?

Perkins introduces the concept of “memory dividends”—the idea that meaningful experiences don’t just happen once. They pay dividends throughout our lives in the form of cherished memories. A vacation becomes more than a moment; it becomes a lifetime of stories. Time with loved ones becomes more than days on a calendar; it becomes permanent imprints on our hearts.

The author frames money as a tool for creating experiences, not a scorecard for measuring success. This distinction fundamentally reoriented my thinking. I’d been treating accumulated wealth as proof of a life well-lived, when it might actually represent years of deferred joy.

From Theory to Practice: How My Thinking Evolved

My husband and I married young and spent years living paycheck to paycheck while putting ourselves through college. We understood scarcity. Like approximately 42% of Americans, we lacked even a basic emergency fund—a reality that made every unexpected crisis feel catastrophic. Building retirement savings became our obsession, partly from necessity and partly from fear.

When I mentioned Perkins’ book to our adult sons, their response caught me off guard. Neither expressed disappointment about inheriting less money. Both noted that they’re educated, financially stable, and entirely capable of managing their own futures. Their message was clear: they don’t want us sacrificing our quality of life to fund their inheritance.

Our daughters-in-law reinforced this message. They emphasized how important it is to them that we enjoy our years in retirement, that we spend our money, that we live fully. They’re managing their own retirement planning and didn’t ask for—or expect—a windfall from us.

The realization hit hard: the inheritance dream was mine alone. Not theirs.

What Children Really Want From Their Parents

For years, I calculated how much we could spend while leaving the bulk of our retirement savings intact, viewing the remainder as a final love letter to our children. I imagined them feeling our affection every time they touched that money.

But questioning this logic revealed its weakness. If we hadn’t accumulated sufficient wealth for a retirement fund, would our children somehow love us less? If we lost everything tomorrow, would they interpret that as diminished parental love?

The answer is unequivocally no.

No parenting expert, but this truth seems self-evident: children of all ages need to know they’re loved completely and accepted wholly. No dollar amount can communicate that message more powerfully than our presence, time, and genuine engagement while we’re still here.

Money can’t teach what presence teaches. Wealth can’t convey what shared experiences convey. A substantial inheritance can’t compete with the feeling of being chosen and prioritized during a parent’s limited remaining years.

The Decision: Choosing a Different Kind of Legacy

We’ve decided to withdraw more from our retirement account than originally planned. We won’t become wealthy in our later years, but we’ll be more comfortable than we anticipated. It feels slightly unconventional to spend savings intentionally rather than hoard them, yet intellectually and emotionally, it’s the right choice.

This shift represents a different kind of inheritance—one based on values rather than dollars. Our sons inherit our example of people who chose fulfillment over accumulation, experiences over security theater, and presence over posthumous gestures.

The true legacy isn’t what’s left in an account. It’s the stories they remember about time spent together, adventures taken, problems solved through conversation, and most importantly—the unwavering message that they were loved deeply while we lived.

That inheritance money can never buy.