#004 I hit my original FIRE number in 2024 - the one I’d been chasing for years - and the spreadsheet basically said: congratulations, you’re free!

But I didn’t feel free. Instead I felt a kind of panic.

Because almost immediately my brain went: What if it’s not enough? What if the future is more expensive? What if something unexpected happens?

That’s when it clicked: financial enough isn’t just a number.

It’s a relationship. A skill. A mindset. And most of us never learn how to build it.

In this episode, we go deeper than the spreadsheets and talk about what “enough” actually looks like in real life. Its especially relevant if you’re the kind of person who keeps moving the goalposts, adding “one more year,” and calling it responsibility.

We cover:

• Why hitting your FIRE number doesn’t always feel euphoric (and why that’s normal)
• The real reason “one more year” is so seductive and what it’s actually costing you
• How lifestyle creep quietly rewrites your definition of enough without you noticing
• Sequence of returns risk (and practical ways to build resilience: buffers, diversification, dynamic withdrawals)
• How to build emotional readiness alongside financial readiness, so the numbers can actually land
• A practical framework to define your floor and ceiling (stable vs “rich life”) and find your real enough in between
• Why your FIRE number should evolve as you do, and explore why changing it isn’t failure, it’s growth
• A simple reality check to assess whether you’re financially and emotionally ready for freedom

If you’ve ever thought, “I should feel safe by now… so why don’t I?” then this episode is for you.

The goal isn’t to chase safety forever. It’s to recognise when you already have it, and then learn how to live from there.

🎧 Follow Life After Enough for the next episodes as we keep building the full picture: money, meaning, identity, and what happens after the number.