There's definitely something pure about not having much money. Improving your life is in some ways elusive, because your standards go up. When you make these improvements in terms of like your health and your growth as a person, I think it has an effect that kind of snowballs on itself and does make you happier. Money though is just one-dimensional, where you pretty quickly just get used to it and have different standards to feed.

And then if you expected things were going to be better with more money, you probably were ignoring other things that might have done more for you.

I think getting your hands on money is perfectly good and can be used to make you better off. You just can't see it as more than a tool. Those people who said they were happier when they were struggling probably were looking towards money as something it is not. And when they were poor in their garage, they were at least defaulted into not having that distraction.