How much money is enough? Enough to not have to work at something you don’t want to do.
Each person or family is different. It also depends on how much you enjoy your work. Maybe, you’re lucky and really enjoy what you’re doing and you’d keep doing it even without being paid to.
Others, most people, are working until they have enough money to stop working and start doing whatever they’ve been dreaming of doing. Who knows what people dream of doing after they stop working? Maybe it’s selling sauerkraut at the farmer’s market, volunteering with kids, hiking the Appalachian trail, or maybe riding your motorcycle across China.
Riding your motorcycle across China is what got me thinking about how much is enough. Jim Rogers made the trip from 1990 to 1992. He’d worked on Wall Street (before it was glamorous) made millions before quitting when he was 37. He’d made enough money, more than enough to pursue his traveling.
So, what’s enough? How do you figure out how much money is actually enough for you?
The answer is simple, though implementing it isn’t so easy.
“Enough” is 25 times the money you spend in a year.
Or put another way, Enough = 25 x your yearly cost of living.
By investing that chunk in an indexed stock fund, you can take out 4% of the chunk every year for the rest of you life. There’s backup for this simple idea if you’re curious.
To aggressively save up that chunk of money, you can earn more or want less. Or probably some combo of those two. And don’t carry any debt.
It’s up to you. Everyone needs money to live in our world, but after a certain point you really don’t need as much as we’re all led to believe. You just need enough.