The other day, I caught myself calculating how much I would need to stop worrying about money forever. I came up with a figure so big that even my calculator sighed and fell out off my hand. 😂I laughed and said, “Maybe ₦500 million will do it.” But then I paused and thought who am I kidding? If I had ₦500 million today, I would probably still want ₦500 million more tomorrow. That’s the funny thing about money, it behaves like puff-puff at a party; no matter how many you have had, there is always room for one more.🤣
Drum rollsss..........
*This is my response to Indiaunited Weekly contest Prompt:“How Much Money Do You Actually Need to Stop Worrying About Finances and Live Freely?” @indiaunited/indiaunited-new-contest-and-last-f235bb0fecac6
Okay.. let's continue:🙂
We humans are like that. We tell ourselves, “Once I get this, I will finally relax.” Then we get it… and immediately want something else. When I first started working 5 years ago, I told myself, “Once I earn ₦50k monthly, I will be fine.” Well, I got there, and somehow ₦50k started looking like pure change, bills piled up, family responsibilities added, my taste upgraded, and suddenly, my new target became ₦500k. (Can you imagine?😂) You can probably guess how that ended.
Our wants are insatiable. It’s just human nature. We keep stretching the goalpost; today it’s a new phone, tomorrow it’s a car, next tomorrow it’s “I think I deserve a house with a pool.” Even billionaires are not exempt. They don’t stop working because the need for more never really ends and that also applies to finance.
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I once had a friend, Victor, who swore he would be content if he could just make ₦300k a month. Fast-forward two years—he is now making over ₦800k, yet he still complains that “Lagos is hard.” I asked him, “I thought you said ₦300k was enough?” He laughed and said, “That was before I realized how much rice costs now.” and if you are living in Lagos, you already know how high the cost of living is.
That’s exactly the point that needs and wants grow as fast as your income. If you are not careful, you will keep running on that treadmill of “just one more step” and never really rest.
But over time, I have learned that the real freedom I crave isn’t about hitting a particular number. It’s more about how I feel when I think about money. Freedom, for me, is being able to say, “I have enough for now,” and actually mean it. It’s walking past something shiny and not feeling like I’m missing out. It’s scrolling through social media and not comparing my life to people who might just be pretending anyway.
So, how much money do I really need to stop worrying? Just enough to cover my needs, handle my responsibilities, and still have peace of mind. At the end of the day, peace is the real luxury.
I don’t want to spend my life chasing numbers that will only keep increasing. I want to live, breathe, and enjoy what I have while I still can. True wealth, I have discovered, isn’t how much I have, it’s how content I am with what’s already in my hands.
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