Can we ever have enough “stuff”?

Christmas sometimes feels as though someone has looked at our capitalist system and said, “OK, it’s not bad, but what if we really revved it up once a year, just to see what it can do? What would happen if we opened all the taps and let this machine really run? How much could we actually produce, transport and consume in just a few weeks?”

And that is how we can end up sitting in a sea of wrapping paper on Christmas day wondering what it’s all about. Many people will be cutting back on the wrapping paper and its contents this year out of economic necessity. Others will make the same decision but mainly from a feeling that maybe we now have enough “stuff”.

Christmas has been for a long time now proof of abundance, showing to ourselves that we can have whatever we want, whenever we want it. Maybe this year, for the first time in decades, we are wondering if there will be enough energy, eggs or tomatoes. There are shortages of many things from computer chips to cucumbers. If and when you do find what you are looking for, it can be twice as expensive as the last time you bought it.

This can lead us to ask, how much is “enough”? Can we ever have enough “stuff”?

“Enough” means something different to all of us and it is a moving target. Once we reach what we thought would be “enough,” we may then think that maybe just a bit more would be better. It’s also hard to admit when we have enough because it leaves us with a nagging feeling that perhaps we are settling for something that is not as much as we deserve or need.

Society doesn’t help either as it tells us that more is better and pushes us to be richer, prettier, stronger, thinner, and younger, and buy the stuff that’s bigger, fancier, costlier, and flashier. And of course, we have to keep up with our peers and our neighbours. It can be argued that we can never have enough because those around us will always be striving to have a bit more.

This Christmas should remind us that we are lucky to live in such a world of abundance, but that life can also sometimes be about scarcity that requires us to make choices and trade-offs.

Financial Life Planning asks us to think about how much is enough and, if we aren’t already there, then it allows us to set a target for when we should have enough of whatever we are chasing. It also reminds us that we can never have enough time and, as another year ticks by, that planning is also about making choices of how we can spend the scarce amount of time we have on the things that matter most.