Kids these days fantasize about becoming a billionaire instead of becoming a millionaire, because a million bucks doesn’t even buy you a whole house in many California neighborhoods. Not even the fancy neighborhoods, but just the kind-of-nice ones. Inflation and all.

Dr. Evil, pinkie on lower lip, demanding a ransom of one million dollars!

But a billion is still way too much for most people. Not in a moral sense, but in a “you couldn’t spend it on your own needs and wants if you tried” sense. Well maybe you could, if you’re really into luxury yachts or personally owning a spaceship. But most of us don’t even want those things.

I’m taking a new approach to my financial planning by creating a wealth cap. I hereby commit: anything I earn beyond that cap instantly gets given away, MacKenzie Scott-style. My personal wealth cap is the equivalent of 700lbs of gold (gold as a unit for inflation resistance–I don’t actually want to own that much gold). In today’s US dollars, that’s about 38 million. I do have a reason for that number, but it’s not important. The important thing is that I have a cap.

Now, I will tell you right now, it’s highly unlikely that I will ever reach that number. Currently, as a family, we’re nowhere near it. We’re nowhere near near it. Our family is solidly middle class, and likely to stay that way unless one of us “hits it big” in one way or another. Which would be great. But I’m not counting it.

Nor do we need anything close to that amount. I have a different number defined for “financial security”. It’s much, much lower. Enough to keep us all housed, fed, educated, insured, some vacations, a modest retirement. More would be nice, but in no way necessary for maximizing health and happiness.

Even though it’s unlikely I’ll ever hit my self-imposed wealth cap, I still think it’s important to have a number. To commit to it, and help popularize the idea.

Why? Because if everyone had a wealth cap number, maybe we’d have fewer billionaires in society. And we’d have it voluntarily, instead of via taxation.

Now, I realize that’s a pipe dream. Billionaires never want to give up their money. Taxation is the only way.

But maybe, just maybe, if enough people created and committed to a wealth cap, they’d have a sense of enough far before their wealth accumulation and capitalist wealth extraction became massively damaging for society as a whole.

And it’s a good mental exercise. What’s enough for you? What’s too much? At what point would additional wealth cease to add value to your life, and start becoming a burden?

Make your cap as high as you want! But be realistic. Do you actually want to be chauffeured around in a Rolls-Royce like a fucking <insert preferred insult for pretentious rich people here>? Do you actually want a gilded bathroom? C’mon now…

How many pounds of gold?