How Much Money is "F*** You Money"?

Author

Jamil Vanheyningen
August 18, 2024

The idea of “F*** You Money” (I’ll call it FUM from here on) is a popular casual finance term, but also one of the most abstract.

What exactly is FUM?

The brilliant author and professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb gives the best explanation I’ve come across:

It’s a psychological buffer: the capital is not so large as to make you spoiled-rich, but large enough to give you the freedom to choose a new occupation without the excessive consideration of the financial rewards.

It shields you from prostituting your mind and frees you from outside authority — any outside authority…

While not substantial by some standards, it literally cured me of all financial ambition — it made me feel ashamed whenever I diverted time away from study for the pursuit of material wealth.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan)

In short, FUM is more about what the money buys you — the freedom to pursue the opportunities you want to pursue, with money bearing little to no weight on your decision.

Taleb wanted to make FUM so he could spend his days “meditating”(thinking) in cafes, sleeping as long as he needed to, and reading voraciously.

This brings up an important question: Why do you want “F*** You Money”?

Do you want to…

  • Spend weeks at a time traveling and exploring the world?

  • Start an even bigger business?

  • Volunteer at your kid’s little league, or at a local non-profit?

In other words, what is important is that you have a goal to work toward. That’s because if you don’t know why you want to make FUM, you won’t even know when you get there!

FUM is a different number for everyone. That’s important to work out what kind of lifestyle you want to have and, more importantly, what you don’t want to do for money.

For example, If you really want to teach but don’t want to rely on a teacher’s salary to support your lifestyle, then you won’t have to work as hard as someone who wants to buy a mansion or have a yacht that takes out every day.

Start at the end. Work your way backward from a lifestyle and dollar amount so you know how much work you have to do, how much money you need to make, and when you’ve reached it.

After all, like Taleb says: “The designation f*** you corresponds to the exhilarating ability to pronounce that compact phrase before hanging up the phone.”

In other words, if you don’t know what your FUM will buy you, then how will you know when you’ve reached it?

How will you know when to hang up the phone and say f*** you?