Money is a funny thing. As a unit of exchange it is the raw material for consumption (or, if you prefer, the deferral of consumption). We express who we are through our spending. It’s no surprise then that the answer to “how much is enough?” varies wildly from person to person. But really what it boils down to is an optimization problem.
Contrary to what people think, the hard thing about answering “how much is enough?” is not calculating a dollar amount. The hard thing is deciding what constraints to apply to optimization. Once you do that, the calculations pretty much fall into place on their own.
At a high level, we are looking at the following function (let’s call it the Enough Function):
Enough = Present Value of (Future Lifestyle Spending + Future Basic Needs Spending + Desired Margin of Safety)
Obviously you can disaggregate each component (Basic Needs Spending would break down into line items like “Housing” and “Essential Food”). For the purposes of this post I’ve opted for brevity.
In principle optimizing the Enough Function is pretty straightforward. In practice people find it difficult for a couple of reasons. For one, most people live like sheep. They follow the examples set by advertisers, movies, TV shows and the people around them.
We can partly blame evolution for this. A million years ago if you didn’t fit in with the rest of your tribe you would be ostracized and could look forward to dying cold, hungry and alone. We are a long way from those days and yet our evolutionary programming dies hard. Most people have not spent much time thinking what actually gives their lives meaning. So they look for meaning elsewhere.
On a more mundane level, quantifying a margin of safety can also be tricky. There is just no way to gain absolute certainty. Margin of safety is best addressed with scenario analysis, which is beyond the scope of this post. In fact, for people who are totally lost when it comes to this stuff, a good reason to hire a professional financial planner is to delegate the analytical work to someone with expertise.
I don’t have a position on whether it’s “better” to live frugally or not. If we’re looking at the continuum of spending patterns, with Mustachianism on the frugal end and Kardashian-esque conspicuous consumption on the other, I suspect most people plot somewhere in the muddy middle.
Personally, I tilt a little more toward the frugal end of the spectrum. The main reason for this is that most of the things I enjoy doing (reading, writing) are not particularly expensive pursuits. But do I think people who want to drive nice cars and live in big houses and spend lots of money on clothes and jewelry are “doing it wrong?” No. Their Enough Functions are just optimized for a different set of constraints.
The Root Of All Most Financial Problems
Financial problems result from mismatches in the optimization of the Enough Function and the financial resources at hand.
It is okay to make a ton of money and live the high life. It is not okay to make very little money and live the high life. Unless you are optimizing for a crushing debt load and eventual bankruptcy, of course. Fortunately, if you find yourself in this position there are a couple levers you can pull: spend less or make more money.
Like I wrote above, this stuff is really simple in principle. The challenge comes in the implementation, but it’s mostly a challenge of self-discipline (on the spending side) and hard work (on the income side).