Enough

Recently I’ve been turning down good work


Last year I stopped doing a well-paid part-time job. Last month I turned down a lucrative side project. Why?

I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘enough’. Once you have enough, you don’t need to try and get more.

In some ways it is the key concept in personal finance.

  1. Are you spending more than you need to each month?
  2. How much money do you need to support your lifestyle?
  3. What level of saving/investing will get you there?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions your financial journey will be uncertain.

My personal answers are: 

  1. Possibly, but I’m pretty happy with my spending
  2. I estimate around 4 million yen a year
  3. If we continue saving at our current rate (50%+) we should be there in less than ten years

I also had the opportunity to think about the flip side of this, not having enough. I don’t have enough passive income and side income to give up my day job, and this makes me financially vulnerable.

While I am not really willing to do extra work just for money any more, perhaps I can optimize my spending or build up my income in other ways.

Time to take another look at that list.
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4 Responses

  1. As I got older I have found that what I “need” and what I ‘want’ have aligned themselves well and are now virtually the same. I remember as a child looking through shopping catalogues and choosing something I “want” on almost every page, now I can flip through the whole catalogue and not want anything. So now I don’t spend much more than I need to each month and the money I need to support my lifestyle has gone down.
    Enough? In retrospect I have always had enough. So how much is enough now? Where and to what purpose am I saving and investing my money? This seems like a very personal decision, a decision without a sure outcome.

    1. Hi David
      Sounds like you are in a good place! I too find myself wanting less and less as time goes on.
      For me, I am investing so that I can meet my needs from passive income if I need to. It might be overkill given that I enjoy my job and plan to keep working, but I’ve been burned before so just want some ‘insurance’.

  2. Ha, given the current course of the USD/YEN pair, it seems I’ll never have enough 😛
    My investments are in dollar, and going in the wrong direction right now compared to our expected expenses in Yen :'(

    1. Hi SB
      I feel your pain! Just keep doing what you do and let the markets (that you can’t control) do their thing. Hopefully they will start cooperating soon…