Interesting way to think. I'm taking kind of the opposite approach; instead of a target income I'm focusing exclusively on getting my expenses as absolutely low as humanly possible. Then I think: okay, how can I earn the money to meet those expenses by doing the bare minimum amount of work?
But I'll try to do the math:
Right now I'm making between $800 and $1500 a month, depending on my gig schedule. That'll probably go up a bit now that I'm in this extra band. My expenses generally sit a little under $500 a month, although there was one instance in the past 12 months in which it came to just under $600. So in order to hold things at the present level I need to make $600 a month, or $7200 a year. That's way too high! I'd like to get out from under the lot rent (yes, I know, property taxes... still a whole hell of a lot less than the $3000 a year this absurd situation is costing me), and if I can talk my wife into it I want to get rid of the internet connection at that time as well. Perhaps at the same time we can ditch the car, depending on the circumstance. I always ride with the drummer to gigs, anyway.
Just at a guesstimate, we'd still probably be shelling out between $200 and $300 a month but what the hell... our lot rent alone costs us that much now. So if you figure $300 a month, that puts the whole shmolie at $3600 a year. Wonder what else I can chop...