You may be fine with $1000 a month. You have everything you need: food, bed, apartment, electricity, etc.
Now you get a new job and have $2000. You try out more expensive food options and realize you like them better. You move into a bigger apartment and start enjoying the freedom.
You may never wanted this if you didn’t try it, but now that you have, you don’t want to go back. You may not have noticed that your mental and physical health was degraded due to your previous living conditions until you get better after raising your standards.
I’m like mid-career and I can’t afford vacations. There’s always some other priority for the money and I would feel guilty for spending it on something that is by nature temporary and ephemeral.
That question isn’t the best way to frame it, because yeah… 2x “enough” is pretty reasonable. That’s still well within the high returns of happiness phase.
Do you need 1000x enough, though? Or 1000x that? I’d love a high end espresso maker, or a nicer car, or to be able to afford to take more time off, but there comes a point where more is just pointless.
This is brilliant!
Tangentially related, I heard another about enough money:
When you already have enough money, do you really need 2x enough money?
Your baseline can change.
You may be fine with $1000 a month. You have everything you need: food, bed, apartment, electricity, etc.
Now you get a new job and have $2000. You try out more expensive food options and realize you like them better. You move into a bigger apartment and start enjoying the freedom.
You may never wanted this if you didn’t try it, but now that you have, you don’t want to go back. You may not have noticed that your mental and physical health was degraded due to your previous living conditions until you get better after raising your standards.
I interpreted enough as really enough, when you are really well off and can afford the good stuff/vacations/good cars whatever.
But you are right. The definition of enough changes through ones lifetime quite a bit. I would have a really hard time going back to broke (student).
I’m like mid-career and I can’t afford vacations. There’s always some other priority for the money and I would feel guilty for spending it on something that is by nature temporary and ephemeral.
As a person with enough money, yes, I would love double my income.
That question isn’t the best way to frame it, because yeah… 2x “enough” is pretty reasonable. That’s still well within the high returns of happiness phase.
Do you need 1000x enough, though? Or 1000x that? I’d love a high end espresso maker, or a nicer car, or to be able to afford to take more time off, but there comes a point where more is just pointless.