How Much Money Do You Need To Buy Happiness?
'Money can't buy happiness' is a saying as old as poverty itself, but is it just something we less fortunate people utter to make ourselves feel better like 'size doesn't matter'? Or is there some truth to it outside of the self fulling sense that is me saying it while I'm keying my ex's new boyfriend's Lamborghini? (If you're reading this Claire, I'm just kidding, Mark's a top notch guy and I'm truly happy for you both and the slashed tires could have been anyone!)
Yep, I can think of at least two reasons why money can buy happiness
In a day and age where we're being incessantly bombarded by celebrity endorsed advertisements, it is difficult for any of us to imagine how it could possibly be true that money can't buy happiness. Just thinking about it conjures up mental images of 70 year old men with their 20 year old girlfriends on a fancy yacht; her large diamond earrings, almost as expensive as her boobs, glistening in the noon sunlight. Now of course, why a young millionaire spinster would seek these gold digging grandpas is a mystery to me (if you assumed anything else you should be ashamed of yourself you sexist pig!), but they do look happy together. However, some studies have shown that after a certain point money no longer adds much joy to one's life.
The Price of Happiness
If you lack money for basic food, shelter and bubble wrap then you're unlikely to be very happy. So at least to some extent money is necessary for happiness. But conversely we recognize that, all else being equal, a person with $50 billion is unlikely to be much happier than a person with $10 billion, especially if the all else part includes happiness. Well if that's the case, then is there some magical number we can all aim for after which diminishing returns in general contentment really start to kick in?
Knowing the crypto crowd, this picture is probably more clickbaity than the one above
In 2010 a Princeton University team was happy to be funded $75,000 to undertake a year long study to find the precise price of happiness which they conveniently discovered to be around $75,000 a year. This is approximately 60 bitcoins at the time of writing for those of you who've been here a while and no longer recall what the $ sign denotes. Their paper suggests that after this point more money makes very little difference. Accordingly, if you make more than this amount then at least some of your work hours could be better spent going on family vacations or loitering besides a glory hole in a public bathroom.
How to Best Spend Money to Maximize Happiness?
Others suggest that it's got less to do with how much money you make and more to do with how you spend it. By others, I don't mean some random guy off the street, unless he happens to be Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton who claims 'it's got less to do with how much money you make and more to do with how you spend it'. 'So how do you spend this money, of which the amount you make has less to do with the happiness you seek than the way you spend it, in a way that provides the greatest happiness?' I hear you ask. Well the secret is simple: don't spend it on yourself.
Aww you shouldn't have. Really, you shouldn't have robbed that bank
Many studies have shown that those who buy a gift for others register higher levels of happiness than those who spend the same amount of money on themselves. This is why I believe the 'giving a goat' idea really took off - you give the gift of a card to a friend which tells them that you've given a goat to a someone in the developing world. The aggregate warm and fuzzy feelings of happiness accrued from both tiers of gifting would surely surpass the relatively low level of happiness that buying the goat for yourself would have brought.
So instead of buying yourself a new pair of shoes, you're far better off, happiness wise, donating to a worthy charity or giving all your Steem to that really funny, handsome and modest Asian comedy writer you've seen from time to time on Steemit.
Ok, you don't have to send me your Steem, but do Upvote, Resteem and follow me @trafalgar if you liked this article
Technically he was off the jetski before getting sad !!
yea, that was sad for sure.
When you try and jump up last second. lol
Hahaha! WTF with that guy?
Good reply!
Good answer!
Hahaha! Man jetski are so freaking fun!
Where's the Tosh reference??!?!!??
Hi, how do you post the 'Image Sources 1,2,3' like that?
[1](website
if you close the bracket
[1] (www.google.co.uk) sorry can you explain further lol?
In French, we say:
L'argent ne fait pas le bonheur, mais il y contribue.
Money does not make happiness, but it contributes to it.
Your post illustrates this exactly.
I agree, money is just a tool that enables and enhances other things if used properly. Nice philosophy.
haha thanks for reading :)
agree
Sometimes people ask me what I think is more important, to be rich or to be happy. Most of the time obviously the expected answer is "to be happy", and I agree with that, but I think the more interesting question would be: "What makes us happy?"
The answer to this question may strongly vary from person to person. In my case being happy means also to be free and independent, to decide myself when to sleep, when to wake up, when, where, how long and if at all to work, also where I want to live ... to be able to decide all these things myself, as well as living independently from exterior constraints, it is necessary to have enough financial resources ...
I am not one of the persons who like to be wealthy in order to live a life of luxury, I don't want to be rich just because of being rich, but nevertheless I would like to be rich because I want to be free ...
If at all such a "magical number" exists, one has to consider the different costs of livings in the different parts of the world as well ...
This assumed amount of money (let's say the mentioned $75,000 a year in a country like the USA) would fulfill all material needs. So maybe for most people it wouldn't increase happiness significantly to get even more money. However even if this percentile is statistically correct, it need not to be accurate for every single individual. For example it would not be enough to live as free as I described above, which for me personally is a key factor of being happy.
Yes this is definitely true, everyone is on a different utility curve.
Where do I find this really funny, handsome, Asian guy to donate some Steem to?! :)
hahaha didn't take long for some smartass to come along :)
@trafalgar you definitely manipulated your audience into sending all steemit to you, i send 1 steem to you ;D
hahaha thanks a lot lynx, here I voted you up for 25c, i'll owe you 1c
You are so funny. I love the misdirection humor! Good to have your skills here @trafalgar!
thank you very much for appreciating some of my jokes :)
I don't have a single lesbien tendency, yet I would still prefer to look at that woman's boobs then that graph ;)
My husband and I used to play a game in college called "What will we do with it?" We were dirt poor at the time, so fancy dates were out of the question causing us to be creative. One of our regular dates consisted of buying a lottery ticket, grabbing a twelve pack of beer, hanging out in the car (to add that rebel "open container" element) and talking about all of the many things we were going to do when we won the twenty million (or whatever it happened to be at the time).
On one of these occasions, when we got to the part of who we were going to do what for, I was talking about paying off my cousin John's house and giving them a half a million on top, and something occurred to me. What if the struggles of life were a big part of what held him and his wife together? What if instead of this huge help I imagined I was being, I would actually cause the downfall of one of the cutest relationships I knew of?
It was actually the last time we had that particular date, because for me more than half the fun of it was imagining what we'd do to help others. The possibility that we could cause more grief than happiness shifted my perspective to the degree that I realized we were already playing a better game called "What can we get out of life without money?"
Incidentally, we've never stopped playing that game, lol! And I'm thinking I might make an entire post about this...if I do, I'll give you credit for the inspiration.
haha graphs not a turn on eh?
I think you instinctively reached the same conclusion as A LOT of research on the issue:
1 - pass a certain point money has diminishing returns in happiness
2 - spending it on others makes us a lot happier than spending it on ourselves
3 - the anticipation of a reward (eg, money) gives us far more pleasure than receiving the reward itself
I didn't get to the 3, or any of the criticisms of these views. It's sort of difficult writing a joke or punchline every sentence or two and still trying to stay informative. Every comedy piece I write I get a little worn out and just end up posting it prematurely lol
That's strange, I don't think this showed up in my responses. Yes, I agree with three, lol. And I can see how it would be tough to balance comedy writing with informational pieces. I think it's tough to write comedy pieces period. I can be funny...usually in comments, but that's brief. Having to be "on" for an article would be a whole different thing. Which is why I'm always impressed with those who do it such as you ;)
Edit: Nevermind, it's there, I just missed it somehow ;)
haha I like your writing
probably wait until it's near done and binge read it =)
I'll keep voting on each chapter as they're out though
What's the use of a lot of money when you're not healthy? Because that's the most important thing in life..
Yea, good point. However, sometimes people need a lot of money to be able to stay healthy, In many cases money can buy better treatment and better care.
Amen to that, lady. You can't enjoy money or make money if you have illness or not physically well.
Agreed, most of what I wrote were just jokes :)
no sense being the richest person in the ER or the biggest bank account in the graveyard.
VryGd Food 4 Thought .. Up'd & Resteemed!
haha, hard to say which is safer :)