How Much Money Is Enough?

Earning enough money to live comfortably is a goal of many people.  But how much money is “enough”?  And what is comfortable? One answer is, it depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to live and what type of “comforts” you crave.  One person with a modest lifestyle could live comfortably on $90,000 a year.  Another person with an extravagant lifestyle would find $90,000 as being not enough money to enjoy life the way they want to.  A life filled with luxuries and always wanting to experience the “best” does cost more.  That does not mean you can only enjoy life if you are wealthy.  It does mean you may have to pick and choose when to experience life at the extravagant level. 

If wealth was the primary indicator of happiness, there would be many depressed people in this world.  Money is power.  Money does buy you access to people and things, there is no doubt about that.  The material nature of the world supports money being a force to be acknowledged.  Our material desires dictate how much we will spend and how much money we “need” to enjoy life.  Our desires lead us to pursue our level of “enough”.  Most people can settle for having a level of enjoyment that does not require that every experience must be a lavish one.  So their income needs are not as major as a person who must have the lavish lifestyle.

How much money is enough?  We all need enough income to support our basic needs.  Food, shelter, companionship, entertainment are among the basic needs of people .  It is the level of enjoyment that we want to experience in each of those categories that determines what our “enough” is.  If our income level is not enough to achieve our dream levels for food, shelter, companionship, and entertainment, we have to “settle” for lesser levels that do not cost as much.  Settling for less does not mean you enjoy an experience less.  It’s all relative to how important the level of experience is to you. 

We all create levels in life that we want to achieve.  My enough is not your enough.  It comes down to personal preference and making sacrifices to reach the level of preference you desire. Many things we do are not necessary.  It all comes down to that simple statement.  We do things because we can.