Let’s ask you a question. Do you know how much money there is in this world?
The answer is US$ 36.8 trillion!
Now what if you were to get all this money? Imagine waking up one day with your bank balance showing an amount of $ 36.8 trillion. However, you also find that you are the only person left on the planet. All the kiosks, shops, malls, showrooms, movie theaters, entertainment parks, restaurants, real estate, agricultural lands etc are fully intact – sans the people/ the populace!
So what use is all that money going to be for you? The answer is: no use at all!
You cannot do anything with all that money because the money that belonged to all these people populating the world now belongs to you and you can only exchange money with something or some goods & services. You cannot do anything with this money because everything in this world is lying out there and is available to you already. So the money loses its role completely. The $36.8 trillion don’t count for anything!
This is what happens when you have too much, yet it counts for too little. To an extent, money is over-valued. Look at the following example:
When a person starts off with little or no money, he has great value for money. With the passage of time, as he moves from having ‘little or no money’ to ‘some amount of money’ to ‘decent amount of money’ to ‘a lot of money’ and then slowly to having ‘huge sums of money’, the importance and value of money loses its lustre for him as his monetary wealth and financial assets grow.
It seems we are all conditioned since childhood that money is everything; the race for earning more & more money starts as soon as we have crossed the age of learning and entered the age of earning. We become subconsciously inclined to want more – more always seems to be better. So the more money we have, the better it is for us. Atleast that’s the general mindset. However, as mentioned above, a time also comes when all this money loses its sheen, shine, and lustre and we go back to square one where we value(d) the simpler things in life. It is here when we begin to realise that money isn’t everything.
To elaborate the above, take this for example:
You might be able to buy…
But there is/are only…
So against the backdrop of the above discussion wherein money can be over-valued, lose its lustre with the passage of time, where more can mean less, you can conclude that too much money is not what you really need. Hence the question arises:
How much money is enough for you? How much money do you really need?
Fifty million/ ten million/ five million?
It is strongly suggested that you set a target or range of amount of money that defines how much money would be enough for you to lead a comfortable lifestyle. As a side-note, this definition alone will set you on a path of taking measures to achieving the end of making that much money.
When a famous scholar was once asked about what surprises him most about humanity, he said:
“Man:
Man, because he sacrifices his health to make money.
Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present nor in the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
So it is important to define how much money you need in your life and what is going to be the role of that money. After all, you have to sacrifice your time and energy to earn all that money. Time, which could be well-spent with your family, taking care of your health, taking a long overdue vacation, attending family/ social events and going abroad with your family etc. All this to rejuvenate yourself & your family, to enjoy life, to relax and to build memories.
So is your target earning going to be 1000 times your monthly expenses? Or less/ more?
A simple estimation tells us that when you accumulate 400 – 500 times your monthly expenses, you have enough to last for another 30 years. So if your monthly expenses are about Rs 100,000, then Rs 40 Mn to Rs 50 Mn is a reasonable amount to last a few decades for you if you were to spend it on daily expenses. However, if you are to consider the multiple of 1000 times against your monthly expenses (Rs 100,000), then you have an amount of Rs 100 Mn. This amount of money can last you a lifetime against expenditure on your daily expenses.
Setting such a target of money for yourself will lead you to work on how to achieve this target. And once achieved, you can either take rest from your work/ retire and spend good amount of time with your family & friends and build your health/ life etc. On the other hand, you can continue working or become self-employed, but at a pace of your own choice meeting your own health & life requirements.
So we would like you to start thinking about how much money do you really need to lead a happy, comfortable and contented life. What is the range of amount that will set you free; that will allow you to meet your expenses while at the same time permit you to work at your own pace, maybe in your own business, giving you time to take care of your health, your family, and your life as a whole.
Note: It must be clarified that at no point it is being suggested that money is not essential. We understand and acknowledge the importance of money in that it brings a sense of security, peace of mind and makes us feel empowered. Yet, at the same time, we are trying to emphasize that the importance of money must not be overestimated; that we must define how much money we really need and what will be its role in our lives. The ultimate objective being happiness, contentment, comfort and good health for ourselves and our families.
