Enoughasaurus: “The beast within each of us, he/she that must be satisfied. Slaying or at least satisfying your Enoughasaurus is a matter of deciding what’s enough for you and then designing your priorities and life around it.” 

I love this concept, but I think it’s one of those things that is very hard to do.

I came across this word a few years ago when I read  Jeff Yeager’s book, The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less. 

The book itself is very humorous and easy to read. It’s all about personal finance and the main point is that spending less than you earn and investing the rest will get you to financial independence. I highly recommend it more as a personal development book that focuses on being content with less. Yeager makes frugal living look really fun and enjoyable. I admit to being a frugal person, but not really a cheapskate.

I define frugal as somebody who is willing to spend a lot of money on something they think has value. They then don’t spend money on other things they consider frivolous. A cheapskate is someone who is always trying to save money on everything.

But the one thing from the book that stuck with me was the word and the concept of Enoughasaurus. According to Yeager, once you can clearly define what enough looks like, then you’ve slayed your Enoughausarus. You have come to a point where enough makes sense, that there is no need to earn or acquire anything more.

Though it’s easy to say, it’s not as easy to do. In my case, this was difficult to achieve when it came to savings. I really thought that when I had X amount saved in the bank, I would be okay. However, when I got to that point, I didn’t feel any less anxious. When I was first trying to save $10,000, I was very motivated to save and get to the goal. When I got to the goal, instead of being happy, I felt like I needed more. Even though having that amount of money in the bank was an achievement that should have been celebrated, I felt like it wasn’t enough. To this day, I don’t feel like I have enough savings.

When it comes to my income, it becomes even more complicated. I think this depends a lot on the amount we spend on our expenses. In general, our expenses come out to be about $3000 a month. That doesn’t include any type of savings or investing. I know in my heart that we could do better to get that amount down, so I always feel disappointed that I can’t. Maybe I’m focusing too much on my failure, which is why I don’t feel like it’s good enough.

In my mind, bringing in about $4500 a month was enough. This was supposed to be the amount that covers our expenses and some extra change to have fun and play with. However, I don’t really feel like it’s enough.

I want to do more fun things, like travel to more expensive places or eat out some more at fancy places. I am okay with not owning a lot of stuff, but I definitely would love to travel more.

I then wonder whether I have slain my Enoughasaurus?

The fact that I want to do so many things that require more money makes me feel like I am still dissatisfied and discontented with the amount of money that we earn. Even though I’ve quantified in exact terms the amount of money I say I will be happy with, I haven’t really felt satisfied when we got to the amount. Maybe I should up the amount then?

I think I am still motivated by fear of the unknown. There’s still a part of me that wishes that we were earning more money. I have yet to analyze the why of that because we are not struggling at all. Our life isn’t hard. We’re doing good, and I am grateful. I have all that I think I need, but maybe the feeling of not having enough lies with the small amount in our retirement accounts. I think I still need to quantify what that amount needs to be before I feel secure about it.

I guess still have a long way before my Enoughasaurus can be tamed.