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 wil

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.