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Or you can earn $150k a year, put the excess into savings, and retire N years earlier. Which is part of the reason I find the "once you hit $75k a year money do

by seibelj 10y ago

Or you can earn $150k a year, put the excess into savings, and retire N years earlier. Which is part of the reason I find the "once you hit $75k a year money doesn't make you happy" arguments meaningless. Please, anyone with too much income, shoot me an email.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hjaved 10y ago
If the goal is to retire early at any cost,even if unhappy getting there, then yes.
whamlastxmas 10y ago
You're missing the point. You're happier at a job making $75k than $150k. Having more money in a bank account doesn't offset the unhappiness caused by the $150k job. Human brains are like that. The total NET happiness over a lifetime might be higher with the $150k, because like you said you could retire much earlier. However, happiness is an odd topic, and overwhelmingly people always have a baseline happiness they return to. And the $75k figure is sort of the number that allows you to have that baseline happiness (i.e. no overbearing negatives in your life due to money). So I would think it'd very probable your lifetime happiness would be higher with the $75k job. Everything in this comment is a generalization and obviously doesn't apply to every single person. Really smart people working at Google don't necessarily fall into the generalizations of numbers like these because on the large scale (billions of people) Google engineers are outliers.
- seibelj 10y ago
  I just disagree with the entire argument. What is "baseline"? I would be so much happier if I had a private sushi chef who made me dinner every night. I would be so much happier if I had a personal trainer who gave me a workout twice a day, every day. I would be so much happier if I had enough money to only work on topics that interested me, and quit anytime I feel like it. I would be so much happier if I could pay for college for everyone in my city so that everyone had equal access to higher education. My answer to "how much money would make you happy" is infinite. There will always be something I spend money on to make myself happier.
  - bigchewy 10y ago
    Essentially no researcher has found that your anecdotal belief matches the data they analyze. Why do you think all of the studies that indicate diminishing returns of income on happiness are wrong?
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    The research in this area overwhelmingly disagrees with you. The concept of a baseline happiness is very well studied and supported. It's not difficult to search for. I think you'd probably be surprised if you had billions of dollars how much less happier you would be than you expect. There is a reason billionaires don't act like they're high on heroin 24/7. Money isn't some magical happiness generator that ramps up with every extra dollar available.
  - nucleardog 10y ago
    The finding of the research (which is abundant and disagrees with you, as others have mentioned) basically boils down to: Yes. Getting a private sushi chef will make you happy. But after your 1,000th straight day of having your own personal sushi chef make you meals, it starts to become mundane and no longer provides much of a net positive effect on happiness. What will significantly effect your happiness long term is negative things happening to you. Not being able to pay your bills, not knowing if you're going to lose your home next month, eating ramen because it's all you could afford - these sorts of things eat at you. The $75k figure people throw around is the point where, supposedly, you're making enough money that you will avoid most of the stresses/negatives of not having enough money so there's nothing dragging you down from "baseline". Adding more money after that will allow you to make marginal increases in your happiness, but nothing significant relative to removing those negatives.
  - cryoshon 10y ago
    >My answer to "how much money would make you happy" is infinite. There will always be something I spend money on to make myself happier. the point of contention with the other responders here is probably one of terminology wherein they are discussing previous literature (which really amounts to "reducing causes of unhappiness" more than "actually increasing happiness") and you are discussing actually increasing happiness beyond the "baseline" discussed in their cited studies. i'm in agreement with both lines of thinking; after a certain point, money doesn't reduce the major causes of unhappiness much further, but it probably does provide more reasons to be happy, if only transiently. the hedonic set-point is far from a settled concept.
darkerside 10y ago
There's a point here being missed by many commenters. People have trouble realizing future happiness today. The extra $75k/year you're putting in the bank is essentially going to be paid back to you after you stop working. This is going to contribute to your happiness (in the future!) at the same rate as going from $0 to $75k does now. So the study is reflecting that people undervalue their future happiness. Which makes sense, as you could get hit by a truck tomorrow, so future happiness isn't as valuable as the same amount of happiness today. That said, there are clearly diminishing returns involved as well, so I don't discount the study in its entirety.

by seibelj 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

hjaved 10y ago

If the goal is to retire early at any cost,even if unhappy getting there, then yes.

whamlastxmas 10y ago

You're missing the point. You're happier at a job making $75k than $150k. Having more money in a bank account doesn't offset the unhappiness caused by the $150k job. Human brains are like that. The total NET happiness over a lifetime might be higher with the $150k, because like you said you could retire much earlier. However, happiness is an odd topic, and overwhelmingly people always have a baseline happiness they return to. And the $75k figure is sort of the number that allows you to have that baseline happiness (i.e. no overbearing negatives in your life due to money). So I would think it'd very probable your lifetime happiness would be higher with the $75k job. Everything in this comment is a generalization and obviously doesn't apply to every single person. Really smart people working at Google don't necessarily fall into the generalizations of numbers like these because on the large scale (billions of people) Google engineers are outliers.

seibelj 10y ago
I just disagree with the entire argument. What is "baseline"? I would be so much happier if I had a private sushi chef who made me dinner every night. I would be so much happier if I had a personal trainer who gave me a workout twice a day, every day. I would be so much happier if I had enough money to only work on topics that interested me, and quit anytime I feel like it. I would be so much happier if I could pay for college for everyone in my city so that everyone had equal access to higher education. My answer to "how much money would make you happy" is infinite. There will always be something I spend money on to make myself happier.
- bigchewy 10y ago
  Essentially no researcher has found that your anecdotal belief matches the data they analyze. Why do you think all of the studies that indicate diminishing returns of income on happiness are wrong?
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  The research in this area overwhelmingly disagrees with you. The concept of a baseline happiness is very well studied and supported. It's not difficult to search for. I think you'd probably be surprised if you had billions of dollars how much less happier you would be than you expect. There is a reason billionaires don't act like they're high on heroin 24/7. Money isn't some magical happiness generator that ramps up with every extra dollar available.
- nucleardog 10y ago
  The finding of the research (which is abundant and disagrees with you, as others have mentioned) basically boils down to: Yes. Getting a private sushi chef will make you happy. But after your 1,000th straight day of having your own personal sushi chef make you meals, it starts to become mundane and no longer provides much of a net positive effect on happiness. What will significantly effect your happiness long term is negative things happening to you. Not being able to pay your bills, not knowing if you're going to lose your home next month, eating ramen because it's all you could afford - these sorts of things eat at you. The $75k figure people throw around is the point where, supposedly, you're making enough money that you will avoid most of the stresses/negatives of not having enough money so there's nothing dragging you down from "baseline". Adding more money after that will allow you to make marginal increases in your happiness, but nothing significant relative to removing those negatives.
- cryoshon 10y ago
  >My answer to "how much money would make you happy" is infinite. There will always be something I spend money on to make myself happier. the point of contention with the other responders here is probably one of terminology wherein they are discussing previous literature (which really amounts to "reducing causes of unhappiness" more than "actually increasing happiness") and you are discussing actually increasing happiness beyond the "baseline" discussed in their cited studies. i'm in agreement with both lines of thinking; after a certain point, money doesn't reduce the major causes of unhappiness much further, but it probably does provide more reasons to be happy, if only transiently. the hedonic set-point is far from a settled concept.

darkerside 10y ago

There's a point here being missed by many commenters. People have trouble realizing future happiness today. The extra $75k/year you're putting in the bank is essentially going to be paid back to you after you stop working. This is going to contribute to your happiness (in the future!) at the same rate as going from $0 to $75k does now. So the study is reflecting that people undervalue their future happiness. Which makes sense, as you could get hit by a truck tomorrow, so future happiness isn't as valuable as the same amount of happiness today. That said, there are clearly diminishing returns involved as well, so I don't discount the study in its entirety.