"How much is enough?”
It’s one of the most common questions in finance. But underneath the spreadsheets and calculators, it’s a deeper human question: When can I stop? When do I have enough to live, to breathe, to be free?
I’ve wrestled with this question myself. I once tried to stop working altogether. I hit a number I thought was “enough,” and I checked out. It didn’t quite work. Coming back to work, I realised enough isn’t just about capital. It’s about meaning, conversation, comparison, ambition, patience, and practice. It’s a wrestle, and one that doesn’t end.
Buffers vs. Enough
A buffer is not enough.
A buffer is what gets you off the treadmill of hand-to-mouth living. It’s the first breath. The early noise absorber. A one-month cushion, then three to six months of expenses tucked away. That’s not financial freedom, but it gives you space to look up, to stop panicking every time something goes wrong.
But “enough” goes beyond the buffer. Enough comes when capital itself starts carrying the load. My friend Richard Fleuriot talks about “chocolate transitions”: the moment when your money shifts from being a silent passenger to becoming part of the household. At first, you’re the only breadwinner. Then gradually, capital chips in. One times annual spending. Ten times. At some point, the money becomes the primary caregiver, and you can start asking different questions. Questions about meaning, not survival.
Comparison: Tool and Trap
We can’t escape comparison. Our minds work through frameworks. Benchmarks, scoreboards, neighbours. They all give us orientation. Even investing is a team sport.
Comparison has value. It motivates, keeps us honest, and holds us accountable. That’s why we measure against benchmarks. But it’s also dangerous. We see only thin slices of other people’s stories. The car, the promotion, the holiday snaps. Rarely the anxiety, trade-offs, or debts that came with them. Even our own stories are incomplete, stitched together from selective memory.
So the task isn’t to kill comparison. It’s to use it lightly. Like price: a blunt signal, not a definition of value. Benchmarks are conversational tools, not existential truths.
I often think of the story of Alexander the Great and the yogi on a rock. Alexander represents drive, ambition, competitiveness. The yogi represents pause, detachment, perspective. Both are true. Both are necessary. Enough lives in the wrestle between them.
Ambition vs. Contentment
Ambition pulls us forward. It’s the heartbeat of progress, the engine of meritocracy. Without it, nothing compounds. But ambition without awareness becomes a whip, not a compass.
That’s where Wu-Wei comes in. The Taoist idea of “action through inaction.” To Western ears, it sounds like giving up. But it’s not. It’s starting from where you are, acting out of reality rather than illusion. It’s detachment not from life, but from ego.
Enough sits right here, in the tension between striving and letting go. It isn’t contentment without ambition. It’s ambition with awareness. It’s recognising the drive matters, but so does the breath. Enough isn’t a number or a destination. It’s a conversation, an evolving relationship with yourself and your money.
The Danger of Binary Thinking
One of the biggest mistakes is to see “enough” as binary: working vs. retired, striving vs. done. Life isn’t that neat.
A salary is more than a paycheck. It’s structure, rhythm, culture. It’s the scaffolding of life. Walking away from that can feel liberating, but it also starts the clock. Suddenly you’re counting sustainability. Will this last? What happens if something big comes along?
I’ve lived that anxiety. Fertility treatments, living abroad, unexpected costs, weddings. They don’t check whether your spreadsheet says “enough.” They just arrive. And you rarely want to say no.
On the other side, too much creates its own unease. Universal basic income debates often raise the “Malibu surfer problem”: will people just give up? I don’t think so. Work is more than money. It’s purpose, contribution, connection. Capital doesn’t remove the need to act; it just changes the filter.
The truth is, there is no upper bound. You’ll never dig your five holes and be told you’re done. There will always be another hole, another benchmark, another sense of falling short. That’s not failure. It’s being human.
Practice, Not Perfection
All advice is autobiographical. I don’t have this sorted. I wrestle with it daily. And that’s the point. Enough is not a finish line. It’s a practice.
Tim Minchin talks about “micro-ambitions”. Small, achievable goals that add up. That’s how enough works. Milestones, not miracles. Patience, not shortcuts. Patience is undervalued. You won’t settle this in a year. You’ll wrestle with it for life. And that’s okay.
That’s why conversation matters. Even if you’re technically skilled, you need someone else in the room. Another set of eyes. Another perspective. Life is like theatre: the play is never the same twice, and every seat shows a different angle. We’re built in conversation, and money is no exception.
Get Your Money a Job
If I have one mantra, it’s this: get your money a job.
The moment you separate yourself from your money, it stops controlling you and starts working for you. Your money becomes a colleague, a partner, a caregiver. That’s when the filter shifts. That’s when the questions you can ask yourself change. From survival to meaning.
Enough is not an answer. It’s a conversation. It’s practice. It’s a daily wrestle with ambition and contentment, comparison and detachment, scarcity and abundance.
And the fact that you’re asking the question at all is proof that you’re already on the path.
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