For about 35 years of my adult life, I was chasing a number I'd never defined. More. That was the number. Just more. More income than last year. More in the ISA than last quarter. More growth than whatever the market average was. More than my neighbour — or at least, what I imagined my neighbour had. The goal was always 'more' and 'more' is not a financial plan. It's a treadmill.
Then I came across a question that stopped me cold. It was in a book about financial independence — one of those books you read in your 50s and wish you'd found at 25. The question was simple: what's your 'enough' number? Not 'how much do you want?' Not 'what's your target?' What is enough? The amount — the specific, calculable amount — at which you have what you need, plus a reasonable buffer, and everything beyond that is... optional. A choice. The pursuit of more for its own sake stops making sense once you've defined enough, because you've already won the game. Everything after that is just playing for a higher score that doesn't change your life.
That question changed how I thought about money completely. It shifted the frame from fear to gratitude. From 'I don't have enough' to 'I passed enough a while ago and didn't notice because I never stopped to define it.' And here's the thing: most people never define it. They spend decades accumulating, monitoring, worrying, comparing — and they never ask the one question that would give them peace. What is enough for me?
Let's get practical. How do you actually calculate your enough number? It's not complicated, but it does require honesty with yourself — more honesty than most of us are used to when thinking about money. Here's the framework I use. This is not advice. It's a framework for thinking — what I use to make sense of my own finances.
Step one: know what you actually spend. Not what you think you spend. Not what you should spend. What you actually spend. For me, this meant tracking every pound for a month — something I'd never done properly despite writing about spending habits for years. The number that came out was different from the one I'd had in my head. It was lower. I'd been overestimating what I needed because I'd never bothered to measure it. Most people who do this exercise discover they need less than they thought. That's not a reason to cut spending. It's a reason to get accurate about what 'enough' actually costs.
Step two: figure out your annual 'enough' number. Take your actual spending and adjust it for the life you genuinely want — not the life Instagram thinks you should have. Add a buffer for healthcare costs as you age, for the holidays you actually enjoy (not the ones you take because other people do), for helping family if that matters to you. Subtract the things you spend on now that are work-related — commuting, work clothes, convenience spending driven by being busy and tired. The number you end up with is your 'enough income' — the annual amount you need to live a life you're genuinely happy with.
Step three: multiply by something sensible. This is where the famous — and controversial — 4% rule comes in. The rough guideline: you can withdraw roughly 4% of your invested portfolio annually with a reasonable chance of not running out of money over a 30-year retirement. It's a guideline, not a guarantee. Investment returns are unpredictable, inflation is unpredictable, and your personal circumstances are unique. But it gives you a starting point. If you need £25,000 a year, that translates to roughly £625,000 invested. If you need £35,000, that's roughly £875,000. If you're more conservative — and I am, at my age — you might use 3.5% or even 3% instead. The point isn't precision. It's having a number to aim for.
Step four: subtract your guaranteed income. The State Pension in 2026 is about £12,547 a year. If you have a defined-benefit workplace pension, add that. If you have rental income, add that. Whatever guaranteed, inflation-adjusted income you can count on, subtract it from your enough income. What's left is what your portfolio needs to provide. For most people, this step dramatically reduces the size of the portfolio they need. The State Pension alone covers a significant chunk of basic expenses for many retirees — not enough to live on comfortably, but enough to meaningfully reduce the investment target.
Step five: that's your enough number. The specific amount you need invested, after accounting for guaranteed income, to fund your actual spending with a reasonable buffer. It might be smaller than you expect. It might be larger. But either way, you now have a number. And having a number — a specific, calculable target — is infinitely better than chasing 'more' forever without knowing where the finish line is.
There's an important psychological shift that happens once you know your enough number. Chasing 'more' feels like running in fog — you can never see how far you've come or how far you have to go. Chasing a specific number feels completely different. Every contribution moves the dial. Every quarter you can see yourself getting closer. Progress becomes visible, and visible progress is motivating in a way that abstract accumulation never is.
And there's an even more important shift that happens once you reach it. Once you've passed enough — once your portfolio could, in theory, sustain your actual needs — the nature of work changes. Not because you stop working. But because you work because you choose to, not because you have to. You can take a risk on a new project. You can go part-time. You can leave a toxic situation without having another job lined up. You can spend more time with family, or on hobbies, or on whatever actually matters to you. Financial independence isn't retirement. It's options. And options are what money is actually for.
This connects to a concept I've written about before: Coast FI. Once your portfolio is large enough that, even if you never add another penny, compounding at historical-average returns would carry you to your enough number by a reasonable retirement age, you've hit Coast FI. You don't need to stop saving. You don't need to stop working. But you can ease off. You can redirect new money toward enjoying life now rather than hoarding for later. You've front-loaded the saving. Time will do the rest.
The danger of not defining enough is real and it's everywhere. I know people with multi-million-pound portfolios who are terrified of running out of money. I know people who could retire comfortably tomorrow and are still grinding 60-hour weeks because they've never sat down and asked 'how much do I actually need?' The fear of not having enough doesn't go away just because you have more. It goes away when you define what enough is, calculate what's required to get there, and realise — often to your genuine surprise — that you're closer than you think. Or that you're already there and didn't know it.
I passed my enough number a few years ago without realising it. I'd never calculated it, so I had no way of knowing I'd crossed the line. When I finally did the maths, the feeling was extraordinary — not euphoria, not 'I'm rich', but something quieter and more valuable. Relief. The low-grade anxiety about money that I'd carried for decades — Is there enough? Will there be enough? What if there isn't enough? — just... quieted. The number had a name, and the number had been reached. Everything after that was just playing for points.
Your enough number will be different from mine. Your version of a good life will be different. Your guaranteed income sources, your buffer preferences, your risk tolerance — all yours, all personal. But the act of defining it, of doing the calculation, of replacing the vague anxiety with a specific target — that's universal. That's the question that changed everything for me. And it's the first question I'd ask anyone who feels like they're running on the treadmill without knowing where the stop button is.
What's your enough number? You might not know yet. But the act of asking the question is the first step toward answering it. And the answer might just change how you think about money forever.
For educational purposes only. Nothing here is financial advice. The 4% rule is a guideline, not a guarantee — investment returns are unpredictable and personal circumstances vary. The State Pension rules can change. Coast FI and financial independence calculations depend on assumptions about market returns that may not materialise. All investing carries risk — you may get back less than you put in. Past performance does not predict future results. Speak to a qualified financial adviser for advice tailored to your situation.