The Economics of Enough

It began on a hotel balcony in Istanbul, watching one of the best sunsets I had ever seen while looking at a spreadsheet. I had flown five thousand kilometres to stand somewhere beautiful and had managed to miss it entirely. The more uncomfortable thought arrived a moment later: I do this every day. I just do not usually have a sunset to measure it against.

The book is what came out of the year that followed. I went looking for someone to blame and found the arithmetic instead.

What is in it

• Why the hedonic treadmill scales with income, so no salary ends the feeling on its own
• What FIRE actually says once you scroll past the drone footage, and why the four percent rule breaks in India on four separate assumptions
• How to find your own number, and why almost nobody knows the single most important input
• The two inflations: your life expanding to fill your income, and your self expanding to fill your title
• Why where you live is the largest financial decision you will ever make, with a twenty-city scorecard
• The fifty crore fallacy, taken apart
• What happens if it all goes wrong, honestly

Retire was always the wrong word. You do not stop. You slow down.

If you have read this site and want the long version of where the thinking started, this is it. Exit power is the sequel to the question this book asks.