> Having work life balance is somewhat of a luxury, and it's a luxury to be able to say "money doesn't make me happy". It's a luxury to come to that conclusion.
Exactly. Any time anyone says "money doesn't make me happy" what they really mean is "I already have enough money that it's no longer the limiting factor in my happiness."
The vast majority of peoples' lives and happiness could be markedly improved by giving them more money.
I think this is unnecessarily cynical. I’ve been through multiple periods of both success and extreme hardship in my life. I can confidently say that money doesn’t make me happy, because I’ve managed to be happy at my lowest points of financial stability. If losing financial stability robs somebody of all their happiness, then I’d say they should question whether they were really happy to begin with, or just comfortable. But to say that anybody who has financial stability can’t say ‘money doesn’t make me happy’ denies the possibility that they’ve lived experiences that genuinely brought them to that conclusion.
I've gone long stretches unemployed because of chronic health issues.
Money helps reduce anxiety. Health insurance even more so.
Once you have responsibilities, mouths to feed, it's no longer just about you. Now that I'm an empty nester, I care about money a lot less. I'm practically happy-go-lucky.
> I can confidently say that money doesn’t make me happy, because I’ve managed to be happy at my lowest points of financial stability.
I'm not saying that being poor makes it impossible to be happy. I'm saying that money can remove many stresses which make it harder to be happy.
Also, there's 'low income' and then there's 'financial instability'. If you get paid $100/week, spend $50/week on rent, and $25/week on enough food to keep you well fed, and have $25/week spare, and you have a reasonably reliable job (or can easily find another one) then you're financially stable.
If you're on $2000/wk but you have $1500/wk in rent/loans/whatever and $450/wk in food and transport costs, your boss is constantly threatening to fire you, and you know you can't get another job if you do get fired, you're going to have a very hard time being happy.
> If losing financial stability robs somebody of all their happiness, then I’d say they should question whether they were really happy to begin with, or just comfortable.
I'd flip that around and say if your happiness levels aren't affected by 'losing financial stability' then you've lost income but not financial stability.
That's totally fair, and I think many people can identify with what you're saying, with a caveat. I think you're talking about a different kind of happiness... I'm not you, so I can't say for sure, but it sounds like you have what I would call "joy" no matter what. Where "joy" is a sense of purpose, of maybe self worth and other things that stay with you even when you may not actually be enjoying yourself at any given time, you can even be sad, and still have an overarching sense of "joy".
I think the other posters mean happiness as the more run of the mill enjoying the moment, enjoying life, am happy about X kind of happiness.
Also, when we talk about happiness vs income, we should actually look at what many people actually say about it themselves, in data (pardon the pun :):
This isn’t at all what people by money not buying happiness. Even if your life objectively improves, it’s just a matter of time until your brain adjusts to the new normal and you’re back to the same levels of happiness you were at before the money. It’s pretty much the crowning “feature” of our biological wiring - because if an animal like us in ancient times was blissfully content the moment their lot in life improved, they would stop trying and not end up spreading their genes. So we’re pretty much doomed to never be truly happy/content because of how natural selection works.
If you're hungry, or cold, or have no safe place to sleep, money will fix that. If you're just managing to make ends meet and in constant fear of losing your job, money will fix that. If you're overworked and stressed from your high pressure job, money will fix that. In fact, until you're rich enough to be way off the pointy end of Maslowe's hierarchy, money will fix pretty much anything that ails you.
From what I've seen, there's a clear line of demarcation below what you're implying. If I remember correctly, the research says it's around $60k-$75k in the U.S. where the happiness levels out in response to money. I'd have to look it up again to make sure I'm not misremembering
Yep, that lines up with what I've read and what I've personally experienced. Beyond $75k (or your local currency equivalent), more money is more of a theoretical "can do more nice things", "drives a nicer car", "can go skiing for holidays instead of rent a beach shack." It's nice, but it's a change in degree, not a change in kind.
Below $75k combined income is where those "do I want X or Y because I can't have both" situations come about increasingly frequently. Below $45k it becomes "do I want to pay the electricity bill or the rent?"
This is commonly misreported. A 2010 study found that answers to questions like "Did you experience a lot of stress yesterday?" leveled out between $60,000 and $90,000. How satisfied people said they were with their lives continued to increase.[1]
Kahneman actually speaks to this pretty well in his TED talk about the two types of happiness, but the parent comment seemed to be speaking to the first type (the 'reducing stress' happiness, not the 'reflecting' happiness). You're right; I was trying deliberately not to get lost in the weeds on the details but it probably just looks lazy instead.
According to what? There are plenty of fairly trivial counterexamples to this. If what you say here is correct, what is mental illness? What is a solid marriage vs a terrible one? What is a good job vs a bad job?
For instance, lots of peoples' mental states improve when they are able to not live with their parents, for various reasons. That requires money.
Exactly. Any time anyone says "money doesn't make me happy" what they really mean is "I already have enough money that it's no longer the limiting factor in my happiness."
The vast majority of peoples' lives and happiness could be markedly improved by giving them more money.