Stop Moving Your Goalpost So Often

Over the years of managing my money, I've noticed a factor that often keeps us from being satisfied with our financial situation.

And that's not knowing how much is enough for us.

In this blog post, we'll explore this angle and then work on arriving at a number that gets us out of this eternal unhappiness.

Let's start by understanding:

The cost of a moving goalpost

I had a colleague at work who had the “I'll be happy when I earn more than what I earn right now” mindset.

He regularly spent way more than what he could realistically afford, and not only blew his entire salary but also piled up massive debts.

His solution to this problem was not controlling his extravagant spending, but increasing his salary.

And so he did.

He hopped jobs within months of starting one, got a generous pay raise and returned to the same level of desperation like clockwork.

He was always short of money, even while earning a top-tier tech salary, and resorted to asking his friend circle to repeatedly bail him out of difficult financial situations.

You might interpret this situation as lifestyle creep.

And in some sense that's true.

The more he earned, the more he upgraded his lifestyle, sometimes too rapidly.

But what I like to take away from his story is a moving financial goalpost.

He didn't know how much was enough for him, and that kept him in a perpetual hamster wheel of chasing more money.

His goalpost kept moving far away, and he was never at peace with his financial situation.

Now, I'll admit:

For quite an extent throughout my career, I, too, had opted into this mindset.

The life I wanted was perpetually only one pay raise away.

But that changed:

When I seriously started planning to quit my job

In 2023, I decided I wanted to quit my job and work full-time on a side business I'd been nurturing for years.

It didn't pay enough to match my salary, but I figured if I could save myself a year's worth of runway, that should give me a good enough launchpad.

The thought that immediately followed this wish was that I had to stop moving my financial goalpost.

I had to pick an amount that I could live off comfortably and support my family every month, and be at peace with my finances to be able to work on growing the business undistracted.

So, I started totalling my usual spends for the last 6–8 months, added plenty of buffer to the average spend and arrived at a number that was “enough”.

Three years later, I'm still happy with that number.

If you're in the same boat and want to find the number that's enough for you, this is:

Where you can start

Firstly, there isn't a one-size-fits-all number here, and you don't need to live too frugally either.

You just need to figure out a number that lets you live comfortably, enables your “realistic” wishlist, and protects you on rainy days.

Often, that number is far smaller than what we usually estimate and is well within our reach.

Secondly, make a habit of tracking your expenses if you don't already.

Once you've been tracking your expenses for at least a few months, either in a spreadsheet or a dedicated app like Ducat, take some time to review your spending.

See how much of your monthly expenses are fixed costs, such as rent, utilities, approximate grocery bills, etc., and take into account any recurring expenses that come around once or twice a year. For example, insurance renewals, yearly subscriptions, travel, etc.

Ducat makes this easy in the reports section, where you can tweak the time range to see all transactions within the period, category-wise breakdowns and recurring subscriptions:

With this data, calculate your average monthly spend and add around 30–40% buffer to that number for unexpected expenses.

You can also keep, say, 20–30% of your monthly spend as an additional buffer for fun purchases or travel, if you can afford to.

The goal here is not to stop enjoying life. It's to pick a number that works for you and stick with it, at least for a while, instead of continuously moving it to a higher number every few months.

The former will bring you financial stability and a calm life. The latter will keep you in a Sisyphean quest for more.