Money doesn’t buy happiness.
What it does is eliminate and prevent most causes of human unhappiness, and practically all unhappiness based in meeting basic human needs.
And I’m sorry, but daddy not being proud of you or mommy dying young when you have means doesn’t equate to the misery of rooting through a dumpster out of hunger or having a pig kick you out of an underpass into the rain to die of exposure.
I think this assumes there is some universal scale for suffering though – Like, if you aren’t physically tortured (or whatever you think worse suffering than you’ve had would be) does that mean you suffer internally less than those that have?
I feel it’s more some internal scale created on your experiences. I wonder if there’s any studies on people suffering objectively vs subjectively.
True. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but being broke causes the sad.
I can say my overall mood radically improved when I got a good salary.
Freeganism: Are we a joke to you? 😂🤣😅
Money doesn’t buy happiness, it buys away the unhappy
Yes it does. I would be extremely happy if I owned 100 acres of land, owned an indoor pool, hot tub, insert whatever thing you want. Seems to me like money would LITERALLY buy me happiness.
For me you’re not quite right.
I own a nice house with a big garden and a decent car. And whilst I’m happy that I don’t have to spend money on subsidising a landlord or have to rely on public transport it’s not the owning of the assets that bring me joy within itself.
I’m at the point where a bigger house or a better car would absolutely not make me happier, they might be nice, but that’s it.
Money only brings happiness as much as it can reduce the causes of stress in your life. Thinking “when I can buy that, I’ll finally be happy” is a dangerous mindset, because unless you’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, there’s always going to be someone that has bigger and better things than you.
Having what you want is nice, but it doesn’t replace connection.
I say, this as someone who can’t afford what they want and sometimes even need. Having enough money is the hardest checkbox to happiness, but material possession alone isn’t the only ingredient unless you’re truly a clinical sociopath.
The joy of stuff is incredibly fleeting.
I used to be on medication for depression until I got a high-paying job. Turns out being poor was the root to most problems in my life.
It’s expensive to be poor. That makes things very depressing indeed.
Same friend! Constant panic attacks that send me to the ER which would leave me with a giant bill. Making 3x my former income and life is good and got off all the meds. Money solves a shitload of problems.
Money does not buy happiness. But poverty sure causes a lot of misery.
Money does buy happiness. A lot of happiness. I am happy as fuck.
You ever been so happy you had to say it out loud so everyone knows? Lol
No i have money. Having no monetary problems and the resulting bliss is happiness
I never said you didn’t, but to clarify, usually you don’t have to say it when you’re happy. I guess unless you’re doing the song and clapping your hands.
I just want to get rid of the whole saying. Money does buy happiness. People saying otherwise just don’t want you to be wealthy
IMO the saying is more about how when you eliminate the struggle to acquire wealth, there’s less meaning in your day to day life. I’m sure folks like Musk and Bezos for example are looking for something that makes them feel purposeful, like going into space. Not necessarily trying to enrich the lives of others.
I agree though that not having to worry about bills or putting food on the table is it’s own kind of happiness. I think there’s a healthy balance.
I think it is that and a bit about not letting envy of other people’s wealth/property interfere with your ability to be happy, eg: keeping up with the Jones’s. Obviously you can be wealthy and still not be happy (see Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, etc) but for the vast majority I think the thing is that money, or specifically the lack of it, is the source of a quite a lot of unhappiness. Now, maybe if I had a million dollars, I’d still be a miserable bastard, but given that most of the problems I have now are either directly money related or significantly impacted by the lack of said money, I kind of doubt it.
With luck, it buys a state in which we can find happiness.
Is it possible to be happy without money? I’d say it’s only possible for extraordinary people, not for the majority of us.
Is it possible to have money and still not be happy? Of course, many people have money but still feel empty, lonely, misunderstood, apathetic, bitter, regretful, etc. And many people have money, but they cannot be happy because their health is bad and it is not solvable, not even with their riches (e.g. treatment resistant depression, terminal cancer).
I’d say, for almost everyone, money is a necessary condition for happiness, but it is not a sufficient condition.
I have money and am miserable lol. Congrats tho
Then go to therapy. You have the funds to buy happiness.
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Can I have some happy please?
Venmo
Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly reduces suffering.
Money maximizes the opportunity for happiness.
Getting it as a tattoo on my ass.
Oh, I like that one.
Money can’t buy me happiness, but I’m happiest when I can buy what I want, any time that I want, get high when want…
“To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in that suffering.”
That said: It takes a good deal of money to fund any search, especially enough time to actually contemplate meaning… Thus, money, to some extent or another, is necessary to truly survive - and the extent of that money greatly contributes to the extent of survival. It does not guarantee survival - but it is required to have the opportunity.
Since money of course is just the means of exchange, having it prevents the suffering resulting from deprivation being imposed.
I grew up dirt poor. It wasn’t until I worked my way into a better career and now make decent money. Let me yell you, having enough money to cover bills and eat healthier does solve most problems.
Yep. Not being constantly petrified of an unexpected bill is a type of happiness!
Please don’t yell at me
Who would have thought it took a little work?
Probably my father who had everything handed to him in his (still objectively shitty) upbringing before kicking me out with nothing and expecting me to flourish because it’s apparently just a matter of putting in some elbow grease.
I’ll just do that with the lack of knowledge they provided me and the lack of skills that the education system gave me.
Thank heavens I’ve met tons of understanding people that provided me the tools and support I needed to uplift myself without money. I can be much more productive to society and the people I love and care about within without having to worry about garbage like money or failing; I can keep getting back up and learn from my mistakes without suddenly going homeless one day.
But no, I was just “lazy”. Still apparently am.
It is almost as if everyone’s successes or failures are formed in and dependent on the framework of the world around them.
I guess the homeless people working 60+ hours a week are just lazy
Guess they’re just people for you to support. And you wonder why the cycle continues. 🙄
Relevant study: https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf
tl;dr: Happiness increases logarithmically with income, leveling off at about $75,000/year (at least in 2010).
That’s about $105k in today’s dollars.
You know, typical middle class income. /s
Lol in some places that’s considered low income.
NO IT’S NOT, THESE ARE TWO DIFFERENT PHENOMINA.
Diminishing returns: My first dollar buys a loaf of bread necessary for my survival, my millionth buys me 0.01% of a sports car.
Hedonic treadmill: Neither my sports car nor loaves of bread seem as wonderous to me after they’ve become a part of my routine.
Not to be contrary, but the last line of the summary in the wiki article is:
The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness
I would infer from that, that increased wealth has increasingly diminishing returns after a certain point.
I did try to follow the link, but Investopedia broke it on their end and I can’t seem to find it (aside: wooof, that is a bad layout). Any good sources for me?
Oh. Just over the median income in America. So literally half the population of the most powerful country in the world is insulated from the problem.
EDIT: okay, looks like I was looking at median household income and not median personal income. Meaning my math is off.
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I mean, cost of living is higher than america than other parts of the world and other parts of the world have state-funded security programs that take some of the anxiety away from living.
Here in (western) europe I’d wager at half of people (including me) are insulated from “poverty induced misery”. There are an awful lot of stupidly big and expensive cars on the road.
Am I glad that ~400 million (200 mill in north america, 100 mill in europe, 100 mill everywhere else) people now live in that state of relative freedom? absolutely, but it is depressing to think about what a minority of humanity it really is.
Yeah… It’s a tiny sliver of the species.
I feel like the mean is rather skewed in the US. It’s almost certainly less than half that are insulated.
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You’re right, I was off on a weird thing. Was thinking about the skew between mean and median indicating this or that, but starting in median keeps us in population counting territory. I was just wrong. Derp.
I think the amount of improvement to your life, money brings is on a logarithmic curve. The more you have the less it matters. So it seems logical to take from those where the impact on life is least and give some of it to those it matters most
Not having enough money makes you unhappy, but money does not make you happy.
There’s a study done a while ago that said something to the effect of: you need at least 100k (USD) per year. Up until then, the money increases your ability to be happy. But after that point, it doesn’t make you any more happy.
Happiness comes from being able to take care of your body, mind, and spirit (spirit not in the religious sense, but in a feeling of having purpose and understanding oneself).
I read it was 70k, even.
I would argue it depends where you live, and the cost of living in that place. There isn’t a specific dollar value, but it’s simply the ability to live comfortably and take care of yourself properly. If you made $100k USD/year in one of the more poor countries of the world, you’d be considered fabulously wealthy and could buy pretty much anything you could ever want. That would be well in excess of being able to live comfortably.
Yeah if you live on 70k in my home town that is far more than just comfortable. I actually know of people who can take remote jobs with a high salary then move to less wealthy countries to just become the top 1% there also.
Ah yeah definitely. I’m assuming this study was done somewhere like California.
Nationwide in the year 2010, but I’m sure inflation has massively impacted the actual number since then! https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1011492107
There seems to have been more recent researches that removed that cap altogether: https://www.verywellmind.com/happiness-doesn-t-top-out-at-usd75-000-study-says-5097098
inflation
I would love to see more intelligent conversation around this topic.
There’s absolutely rock solid research that money contributes happiness to a point (I think it’s $75k household income per year, but that’s likely outdated now).
Beyond that, it’s not a key differentiator. People take the second half and generalize it, which is incorrect.
Change the narrative. Once people are paid a fair living wage, incremental happiness comes primarily from other places. But until that point, money absolutely brings happiness.
Excess money may not buy happiness, but lack of money causes a lot of unhappiness.
The study you’re referring to was basically that. There has been some follow-up, including https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2016976118 that suggests any plateau, if one exists, is more like $400-500k. The latter study used continuous sampling via https://go.trackyourhappiness.org, where the former did retrospective, daily, binary sampling, so they’re not exactly comparable. i.e.: if you ask someone 6 times a day to rate their happiness 1-10 right then, you’re going to get different results than if you ask them whether yesterday was a good day.
There’s a whole weird thing people do where they can be quite satisfied with their life at any particular moment, but dissatisfied when asked about their life overall. I suspect that the $75k plateau is more of the latter, where the lack of plateau is more of the former.
A lot of people have brought up the point that money can buy safety and security. I just wanted to refence Maslow’s heirarchy of needs as that solidified my understanding some time ago.
Happiness is a constant struggle, and if your foundation is weak and crumbling the whole pyramid will suffer for it.
As a nurse, the reactionary response of anti-vax conservatives to the pandemic really put the lie to Maslow. Human beings absolutely prioritize belonging above their basic survival needs.
Didn’t the instant they actually got sick they were demanding that all the stops be pulled out to treat them, even demanding that they be given higher priority over vaccinated patients? Hell they were even willing to try horse and cattle medication. Seems to me they’re just the perfect combination of stupid and privileged to the point where they forget the lower tiers of the pyramid exist, but as soon as those become unfilfilled for the first time in their lives they suddenly change their tune.
Yeah but they only wanted treatments that were compatible with their social paradigms. And that’s actually so common that we account for it in people’s care plans. People refuse good treatments because of their own social or cultural interpretations allllll the time. Belonging matters more to humans than survival. And I don’t think that’s really surprising when you think about it.
I think the HoN is useful as a rough guide for how people often feel, think, and act in various conditions.
I doubt it may be useful for a making any firm predictions, or for asserting any unalterable quality of humanity.
interesting that ‘belonging and love’ comes before ‘esteem’
It’s not unusual to desire love of family and friends before the respect of the community and colleagues.
Makes sense I suppose
“Money doesn’t buy happiness” was first coined when people could afford a house with an average income. We’re starving and that one time our grandparents over-ate at a buffet is being shoved down our throats.
If you are starving, I can suggest several resources.
I’m curious what’s at the other end of your analogous remark, go on.
Given the community, I’m guessing it’s eating the rich.
That would have been such a great answer. Unfortunately my previous statement was just taken too literally and I got referred to ebt 🙃
Snap/ebt, local food and clothes closets, WIC, feeding america has a lot of helpful links, a lof christian churches have a shared meal on sundays that are open to anyone.
It was a metaphorical starving Jake, we’re not really being punished for the time our grandparents went to a buffet. Thank you for your sincerity though god bless.
Money don’t buy happiness, but no money buys a lot of misery!
Yep; money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness. It also removes very common cause of unhappiness (financial stress). But it can’t unconditionally make someone happy.
Source: I have money but am miserably depressed.
This is exactly it. It doesn’t really buy happiness to a large degree, but it does remove so many problems and worries that you get to spend time on your happiness.
Nah. Money buys physical security. Happiness comes from within.
Oh and everyone should have a fair wage and physical security.
Happiness can be elusive and multidimensional, but money sure gets rid of a lot of daily stress. Like most of it. And when you get rid of stress, that relief can sure feel like happiness by comparison to what you’re used to.
100% true. The absence of pain can feel like pleasure for a time. All senses including our emotional sense work by contrast.
Anyone with rich friends knows that money doesn’t buy happiness. I have two friends who retired with $70 million in the bank 10 years ago. They are miserable. They spend money like mad trying to feel happy and it does not work. Meanwhile I work full time and have a fairly good salary for my area and feel happy more often than not.
Happiness comes from within only after your basic needs are met. I don’t care how Zen and optimistic you are. At a certain point chronic hunger makes it too hard to feel happy.
Thanks for agreeing with me. :)
Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does remove money related stress.
Regardless everyone should be paid a fair wage and in an ideal world money should not be a concern for day to day life.
Idk man, money would make me real happy rn. I resigned from my job a month ago cuz they wasn’t paying my salaries on time and I still haven’t been paid for the last two months. I’m really unhappy right now.
This has been studied pretty extensively and it turns out that money definitely does buy happiness, but only to a certain point after which you get diminishing returns and eventually no increase in happiness.
It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at the literature, but if memory serves, most people max out on happiness with an upper middle-class income, so probably 3-4 hundred thousand/year for a couple in the US. After that you don’t get any increase in happiness and are actually better off giving any extra money to charities and/or sharing with friends and family.
Looks like this one says it’s closer to 500k: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-happiness-study-daniel-kahneman-500000-versus-75000/
In the past, I’ve been misled by one saying 75k mentioned here.
Yeah, there was a study that found a cap at 75k, there was also another that didn’t find it afterwards: https://www.verywellmind.com/happiness-doesn-t-top-out-at-usd75-000-study-says-5097098
That’s totally believable. I don’t claim any expertise in this matter and would never claim to be anything even remotely like an economist.
Daniel Kahneman is useful to neoliberals. 75k would allow me to live very comfortably. 500k I would want for literally nothing ever again.
You get to a point where basic needs and standard luxuries don’t move the needle and all the things you can’t afford are just exponentially more expensive. This phase literally never ends. There are things Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk desire that they cannot afford. But even if you are making like 200k or so, “normal” living cost quickly become trivial, and it becomes about how much you have for crazy vacations and home upgrades. But you can be perfectly happy “just” getting a high end item and not a super lux item if you are a well adjusted person
You also have to understand they grew up differently and see life differently. Not that it couldn’t happen to me, but when I say money can buy happiness I do not believe buying those luxuries is not happiness. Thats why I argue the 70k a year income is more likely than 100k, or 500k.
Also more equal societies tend to be happier and healthier. Reducing overall wealth and income inequality is a net gain for everyone.
