No partner, no kids: the financial challenge of a man with no goals

Single and directionless: the unsettling financial plan to avoid thinking

What do you do when the life you were sold — partner, mortgage, kids — never arrives, and you don't even miss it? The answer circulating in certain financial analyses is as simple as it is unsettling: invest in yourself, earn €3,000 or €4,000 a month, and build a gym body. The rest, they say, will trinc. A perfect formula for turning an existential void into an income plan.

Money as a substitute for goals

The advice is nothing new: focus on your career, your hobbies and your fitness as a way to solve the romantic side of life too. The logic has some merit — anyone who exercises and earns enough is less of a turn-off — but it's worth not confusing income with purpose. Some respond to this crisis with brutal pragmatism: if there's no family, let there be muscle and a bank account. Others take it more calmly: you can enjoy life without setting big goals, and well-managed leisure is also a strategy.

The margin of an adult with no dependents

It helps to keep perspective. An adult without a partner or children has fixed costs very different from those of a typical family, and that leaves a cushion that can go towards what truly fulfils you. The recommendation to earn between €3,000 and €4,000 a month is not a magic figure, but the labour market calls the shots. If the goal is merely to fill the hours, there will always be the option of lowering your standards and living one day at a time.

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And in the end the question remains that no one dares to fully answer: if three or four thousand euros a month and a defined body aren't enough for the rest to come, what on earth does it take?