How much money do you need?

I don't mean how much do you need right now in order to keep you from dipping into the red for Christmas - although that would be nice - I'm talking about how much you would need to earn in order to feel truly secure.

For most of us the idea of doubling our income would more than do it. Twice the salary - even after the massive tax bill - would see us comfortable that we could make ends meet, and even finally give us the chance to put away a decent chunk of money for our retirement and a rainy day.

But apparently, if we actually had that kind of bump in pay, it still wouldn't be enough.



A new survey has found that most people with incomes of nearly £100,000 do not consider themselves to be well off. Around 2.5 million people have a household income of around £93,000 but 95% of them don't consider themselves to be rich.

They certainly don't seem to be struggling. The survey, by Hiscox, found that one in four has savings of more than £25,000 and 35% take at least two holidays abroad a year.

But when asked how much money they needed to be secure, they said they'd need £150,000.

So what does this tell us? Does it really take far more than we think to make ends meet?

Nope.

It shows us two fundamental flaws in being human that we will have to overcome if we are ever to get our finances on the straight and narrow.

The first is that there's always a good reason for doing the wrong thing. We can always tell ourselves we don't have enough money to save for ourselves or our kids, to put money aside for emergencies or our retirement, and no matter how much we are earning, we can still come up with these excuses.

And the second is that we will always succumb to temptation. People who earn more spend more. They don't need to. They just see they have a bit more in their account, and they spend it. They buy a bigger house, or stock it with all the latest gadgets. These people probably don't need that sixth bedroom or the five TVs, but they convince themselves that they do, and they are tempted into it. Only when we can look at any extra cash and decide not to spend it will we ever be on the path to financial security.

And from the look of these statistics, it's more than most of us can muster.