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How much money do people need to be happy?
- sharemywin 9y ago- geography probably plays into that. - family size. - at around $2-5 Million in assets you could live off the interest and do what you want for work or not.
- robotresearcher 9y agoThe numbers are normalized for geography and family size.
- tsomctl 9y agoTo quote my grandpa (who started off with nothing and retired as a millionaire): money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure makes it easier.
- CodeCube 9y agoIf you don't mind me/us asking ... what did your grandpa do to acquire his wealth? Was he an entrepreneur?
- tsomctl 9y agoOwned his own small plumbing business. Built a reputation of doing excellent, reliable, honest work and was certified to do unusual things, like medical gas in hospitals.
- sjg007 9y agoThe trades are undervalued I think as a career choice these days.
- TaylorGood 9y agoA friend operates a boat cleaning business. One harbor and all sizes. Last year he grossed $800k while netting $500k after paying out a floating crew of 5-10 guys, supplies etc. Vastly under the radar yet a perfect fit for his boating interests.
- derekp7 9y agoI like Weird Al Yankovic's version: Money can't buy happiness, so I guess I'll have to rent it.
- derekp7 9y agoIs this net income (after taxes, and possibly after 401k [or equivalent] savings)? I would say that having no debt, or at least having manageable debt, along with knowing you are saving enough for retirement, and making enough that you don't have to second-guess if you can afford every purchase you make, is the real cutoff. For example, if you don't have mortgage debt then you are probably renting. So I consider mortgage "manageable" debt, along with any short-term debt that you can pay off within a year. The other thing to consider, is life is full of stress-inducing "things" (situations, people, material objects, etc). Often times throwing money at the stress makes the stress lower or go away. So if you make enough where you can throw money at most of your stress and not break the bank, then that would greatly impact your happiness.
- fhood 9y agoI can't agree more. My ultimate financial goal is to have enough money to pay other people to do all the things I hate for me.
- Density 9y agoWhat do you hate and why can't you automate it?
- robotresearcher 9y agoFolding laundry. Robots are miserably bad at this, so far.
- spodek 9y agoThere are clothes that don't need folding and lifestyles that don't need clothes that need folding.
- rconti 9y agowell, I take "folding" to mean "putting away". Eg, putting your socks in a drawer (usually balled up together, but I guess you could just toss individuals in there).. hanging up tshirts and sweatshirts, putting away your jeans and workout clothes.. Some kind of organization is ideal, because I often live out of the clean laundry hamper and it's a chore to hunt for stuff every time you need clothes.
- monkeyfoop 9y agoLet's ask all the employment wage slaves how happy they are and then conclude that they do not become happier above 105k based on self report. What a joke. A person making 500k or more or someone with high net worth is going to have a more full life (not needing to work, help community, help family)
- CodeCube 9y agodepends on how that person got to making 500k or more ... they could be working like crazy, and taken out tons of loans to give their family a fancy life, thus being miserable and stressed out (golden handcuffs) ;)
- monkeyfoop 9y agoIt is true that massive debt could do that. However, it depends on what the debt is for. If the debt is for a huge mortgage owning a 10 unit apartment building, but you are making a couple hundred bucks a month in net profit... then you do not feel pressure as compared to someone who took out a 30k loan to build a swimming pool. These discussions about "income" are so skewed towards a certain type of income, namely wage income. The people conducting these studies have their own biases: justifying taking other people's wealth via forceful means such as taxes.
- antisthenes 9y agoThey're skewed towards wage income, because that's how the majority of people in this country make their living, so it's automatically more relevant. Just because 1-2% of people make their ends meet with their wealth working for them doesn't mean their presence requires them to be represented with equal weight in research. Not sure how this isn't self-evident to you. > The people conducting these studies have their own biases: justifying taking other people's wealth via forceful means such as taxes. Uh-huh. Taxes are theft, government is bad? Are you sure you're not the one with the biases?
- monkeyfoop 9y ago
- plg 9y agoThis cutoff where more money doesn't bring any more happiness ... maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Personally, I would like to do the experiment and then find out.
- mobilemidget 9y agoI think it’s more realistic saying under a certain amount, your financial situation negatively affects ones’ happiness
- propelol 9y agoHow does ones partner affect this? Does both need to earn the maximum, or earn the double combined?
- jk2323 9y ago"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." Arnold Schwarzenegger
- gowld 9y agoWill Arnold agree that he was just as happy with $1m? I'm happy to help him find out.
- howeyc 9y agoKind of makes sense to me, once you get to a point where you're set. That is you can easily afford the main things (housing, food), plus the extras (electronics, vacations, hobbies) you need a much larger income to "move the needle" so to speak. You still need to work 40 hours a week or whatever, and only get X weeks of vacation. Having a 180K salary instead of 150K doesn't change any of these obligations, or change your life in any significant way, you just put away more money into the bank. Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. That's one thing I've always wondered. Unless you can reach super high incomes, the "buy/rent a jet" incomes, your life isn't that different from "all the rest." You still commute to work daily, have a house, etc. I mean sure, the house and car may have higher price points, but the lifestyle is still the same. Maybe I'm wrong and all those luxury brand commercials are right, spending 30 minutes (or however long) per day in a 80K car is so much more rewarding than spending those 30 minutes in a 40K car.
- _dark_matter_ 9y agoThere are still lots of QOL improvements to be made above, say, $150k. It may depend a lot on if you have kids and where you live. This is especially true when compounded with typical retirement savings and kid expenses. For example: - Housekeepers who come often - Paying someone to manage the yard - Private school and college funds for kids - International vacations for the whole family - Paying for family to visit you if you are working adults
- ryandrake 9y agoDefinitely depends heavily on region and your family situation. Using just actual dollar values makes this discussion difficult. A $150k lifestyle in the Bay Area with a spouse and 2 kids is vastly vastly different standard of living than $150k as a single dude in an apartment in a suburb of Atlanta. In the Bay Area for example, you’re not doing ANY of those things you listed making just $150k.
- 9y ago
- aidenn0 9y agoI've seen it suggested elsewhere that there is no saturation point, it's just that the relationship is logarithmic, and truncated logarithmic datasets look asymptotic.
- endymi0n 9y agoYou‘re probably referring to this research: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/05/daily-chart-0 https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/05/daily-... ...which by the way I find extremely plausible, just judging by the fact that most of our senses (hearing volume & frequency, light intensity, etc.) are perceived in a logarithmic way. That being said, my personal opinion is that money does not make people happy, but it definitely prevents a lot of causes of unhappiness.
- antisthenes 9y ago> That being said, my personal opinion is that money does not make people happy, but it definitely prevents a lot of causes of unhappiness. I generally have found this to be a tautology. Being less unhappy means being more happy. In fact, I've found that being content with things has improved my happiness significantly. It's not just about maximizing every positive experience, but minifying the negatives as well.
- majos 9y agoOr as Kanye West put it, "having money's not everything, not having it is".
- conception 9y agohttps://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ https://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ This is another great link on debunking popsci like 75K is where people are happy sort of headlines that points to your point.
- aidenn0 9y agoThat's the article where I first encountered that idea indeed.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- trevyn 9y agoYes, without limit, barring some sort of severe mental disorder. 1) Most people don’t know how to buy more happiness past some point. 2) There’s also a point at which you’re ridiculously ecstatic 24/7, so you’re really more interested in self-actualization than “happiness”. I should clarify that I don’t yet know a good way to get instant long-term happiness, there is some work and time involved.
- sl0wboat 9y agoCan confirm pretty miserable on 25k
- glangdale 9y agoI always feel compelled to introduce people to the sage words of that great philosopher, Arnold Schwarzenegger, on this topic: "Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million."
- petethomas 9y agoYears ago a real estate agent driving me around to look at property relayed a somewhat pessimistic aphorism he'd picked up from his father: Life's a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less it tastes like shit.
- mdorazio 9y agoI feel like that would be better paired with the "dough" double meaning instead of bread. "Life's a shit pizza, the more dough you have the less it tastes like shit."
- ryandrake 9y agoThe real test for me is: Do I have sufficient assets to quit my job and still maintain my current standard of living and spending habits? It has nothing to do with wage income.
- jadedhacker 9y agoThis is a little higher than I remember from a few years ago, but inflation is also a thing. Many will quip that money doesn't buy happiness, but it certainly helps or some variant of this pithy phrase. Here's the real interpretation of these results: people need their fundamental goods satisfied, beyond that all you can buy are toys. Fundamental needs are housing, food, education, a social life, a sense of purpose, a sense of control, and healthcare. Notice that nowhere in this is money mentioned. That means that society can in theory be organized around principles of universally delivering these foundational goods and values without needing to produce toys for the rich and we might all be happier for it.
- thedirt0115 9y agoI feel like this is basic economics... money, like most things, has diminishing marginal utility. From a common sense standpoint, it's not so much that having money makes you happy, but having to worry about money definitely can make you unhappy. Probably bad analogy: Eating a meal that I'd rate 9/10 doesn't make me much happier than a meal that's 8/10, but having to worry about whether I'm going to be able to eat today at all would definitely make me sad.
- vinceguidry 9y agoI think people vastly underestimate the happiness potential that convenience offers. Time is our scarcest asset, and wasting it is extremely distressing. Stress is a big factor in perceived happiness. So yeah, spending money to save time can have a large impact on how happy you are.
- sremani 9y agoIf money does not buy you happiness, then you don't know where to shop! - a wise man.
- Francute 9y agoDoes anyone think this may be related to the fact that you don't have a hard goal to seek for the money you are working? For example; I want a new PC, so I work for 6 months working and thinking on that new pc. Then finally, when I have enough money to buy it and do it, I love it. The effort that cost me gives it an extra value to me. Exactly like when you worked as a kid for the game you really wanted to have. Didn't matter if the game ended being horrible, for you that game was special, and also you could continue playing it after some years with nostalgia feelings. If I have enough money, this effort is allmost zero. At the moment i get a new need i could satisfy it. Of course, this is just another hypothesis, and could explain why some people says aren't happier with more money, probably they want something harder to get and still achievable with money/work.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wenc 9y ago> the psychologists who conducted the study find that the one making $200,000 is probably no happier than the one making $120,000. This is because both the $120,000 and $200,000 women have incomes above $105,000, which according to their research is the point at which greater household income in the US is not associated with greater happiness. The technical term for this cutoff is the income “satiation point.” Sounds like satiation point is where the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy have been satisfied. This article [0] makes the point that mastery, belonging, and autonomy contribute to happiness, as well as the worldview of abundance vs one of scarcity. [0] Why so many smart people aren't happy https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/why-so-many-smart-people-arent-happy/479832/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/why-so-...
- gowld 9y agoThis research, like so many others,ignored the possibly that people want to retire before they die, so need to amass savings.
- AstralStorm 9y agoExactly, incomplete results being similar to Odds Ratios in medicine not based on endpoint mortality, morbidity and ratings. Not to mention subject to massive binning effect. You might have binned single people with married couples with kids, both of which have different requirements.
- dsacco 9y agotl;dr - A new study finds that $105,000 is the income level at which people no longer feel happier earning more money. This updates the previous number, $75,000, from a 2010 study. Personally, I’m deeply skeptical of any psychology or sociology research that relies on magic numbers like “105,000”. As far as I can tell, the study doesn’t even account for cost of living.
- adventured 9y agoI've never understood the absolute premise of: money can't buy happiness. It very obviously can. I'm happy when I'm not living in a ditch. When I'm warm in Winter. When I have food and I'm not afraid of starving to death. When I can afford to pay my rent or mortgage. And those are the primitives. I'm extremely happy when I can spend a month at the beach (say I live in the mountains or midwest), or hop on a plane and enjoy the glorious creations of cultures from Paris to Rome to Tokyo to Buenos Aires. Up to a point? I call bullshit on that too. That's a lack of creativity. Assuming we're not talking "point" = the scale of the universe or something beyond reasonable human potential. I'd be very happy spending my life trying to figure out how to benefit humanity with the $127 billion Bezos is sitting on. It'd be an immense joy, it'd be challenging, it'd be rewarding, it would fundamentally further my happiness. There are various types of personal happiness, some are more core than others. Articles that discuss the up to a point benefits of money always collapse due to that.
- musage 9y ago> I'm happy when I'm not living in a ditch. When I'm warm in Winter. When I have food and I'm not afraid of starving to death. When I can afford to pay my rent or mortgage. Yeah, but I'm even happier when that applies to others, too. I can't even imagine how grand life would be if it applied to every last person on the planet. But how does money as such figure into that? The value of my money doesn't just depend on the amount of money I have, but also on the amount of money others don't have. If everybody had a billion dollars, it would be the exact same situation than if everybody had one dollar. That's why the whole money obsession seems a bit silly, to put it mildly. > I'd be very happy spending my life trying to figure out how to benefit humanity with the $127 billion Bezos is sitting on. If you totally ignore the accumulation part of it, and you pretend it's money that was magically "made" where there was no money, and then added as some kind of gift to the economy, then such mental gymnastics can be fun. I'm with Nietzsche though, the need for power which is implied in the need for money is based on inability, and by the same token, the lack of need for it based on ability and knowledge of self. You can't easily be happy when you're hungry or otherwise suffering, true. But I'd say I mostly need health and agency, and even then my main happiness comes from the universe existing. If I got bored with my toys, I could just stare at clouds or the skin of my hand or a billion other things and be happy, at the very least content. Do people even know how cool and pretty a rain drop is? How many there are when it rains? And that's even before animals and people. I know this sounds like advice from a hippie calendar, but it's the best way I can describe how I actually do live my life "on the inside". Heather B. also put it well: "it's the simple things that please me" :) Money is just a tool, like being able to measure weight or distances. It's that we pretend that doing useful things well is proportional to the amount of money someone "makes", and in turn that gives people the idea that just having come by money in any way at all bestows usefulness and importance on them. But they can't even convince themselves, and not me either. It's orthogonal. You need food, shelter, medicine, rights and respect, maybe books and a few other things, but nothing fancy, no jet planes; maybe that's not enough for everybody to be happy, but it'd be enough for a lot of people I dare say, because it might be enough for me. But in so far any of those are tangled up with money, which is just a symbol, a placeholder, that's just us being confused and kinda lame, but says nothing about money doing anything per se. > This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. -- Douglas Adams
- Stanleyc23 9y agothis study appears built off the assume that everyone has the same "satiation point". that doesn't seem like a good assumption to me.
- beegeezuz 9y agoHow much money do people need to be happy? How wide the roads need to be to get rid of congestion?
- mcgarnagle 9y ago1,000,000 dollars, source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKHSAE1gIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKHSAE1gIs
- justherefortart 9y agoMy number was 2.25m out of college, it's more like 6-8 now. Fortunately, I'll likely never get there so my continually failing startup streak will continue in perpetuity!
- Kluny 9y agoAnyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does? In my case, as soon as I started making decent money, I got a hearing and glasses (I didn't have them before), started taking physiotherapy to fix my shoulders, going to the dentist, changing the oil in my car on schedule, buying shoes as they wore out instead of pushing them until they gave me hip and knee problems, etc... I wouldn't say I was "unhappy" about any of those things before I could afford them, but I simply didn't spend money on them.
- sdrothrock 9y ago> Anyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does? I've definitely experienced this. There are lots of things that you ignore when you're poor because they're just not feasible, but once you've got the money, they're not only feasible but foolish to not do.
- marcosdumay 9y agoAt some point the growth in expenses goes into things much more trivial than those you are enumerating. Things that you can obviously cut without any loss. At some other point, either your expenses fail to keep up or you start to have such blatantly unneeded expenses that it is obvious that you can same some money with minimum effort. And none of that even require a very large salary.
- JBlue42 9y agoYes. Waiting on new job to start then might get new tires (tread is good but they're 8-9 years old). Might get some basic household stuff I've neglected (new pillow). Haven't been to a dentist in a while so...yeah, scared to do that but nothing is wrong as far as I can tell knock wood.
- ppeetteerr 9y agoIf you look at the happiness income in East Asia, you'll note it's higher than in the US. This indicates that the value is not absolute (things you need to be happy) but it's relative to the area. The best indicator of happiness related to income I have seen concluded that the income is relative to the income of your peers: if they make more money, you will be less happy, if they make less, you will be more happy. This goes well with the idea that people feel more fortunate when they are around people who are less fortunate. In short, if you want to feel happy about your life, hang out around people who earn less.
- moveyourmouse 9y ago> In short, if you want to feel happy about your life, hang out around people who earn less. This doesn't match my experience at all. I feel best when I'm around those who are equal to me (in both income and wealth, because income alone is kind of less interesting). It's an empathy/social norms thing. I work about half the year, sometimes less, and spend the rest of the year on a mix of personal projects and travel. Explaining that to someone who works a checkout 50 hours a week, who learns their rota a week out, and might have a few weeks off in a year, is frustrating. (I was there, once). It doesn't make me feel lucky - it makes me feel that most people are in a terrible place - it makes me unwilling to engage socially for fear of appearing an out of touch prat (the reality is that I'm almost too in-touch...!)
- ntsplnkv2 9y agoDo people really care that much about the people they're around? I've always wanted nicer things-not because I have to compete with my neighbor, though...
- gowld 9y agoHaving wealthy friends creates wealth for you. Wealthy professional friends means free medical/legal/financial advice, fancy homes to visit, fancy tools and toys to borrow, all things you can't get from poor friends.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
- petercooper 9y agoIf I were single, it'd be no more than whatever lump sum would semi-guarantee I could have $5000 turning up every month for the rest of my life (so about $1.5m, I'd say). Since I'm married with kids, however, it might as well be an infinite amount :-D
- gowld 9y agoWhy isn't it $4m for the family? Why do your family spending so much?
- subrat_rout 9y agoJoking aside, I guess as a person with such amazing credentials, making $20k+ per month for you should be a cakewalk. By American standard it should be a decent mount of money to raise family with kids. But if you want to travel the world, eradicate poverty, leaving trust fund for kids then yes the number can be stretched infinitely. As a married person with kids I would be very happy making the amount of money you have mentioned passively.
- intralizee 9y agoCapitalist society requires a lot of money for happiness if you are not privileged at birth. I'm a transgender woman at 27 and I cannot afford surgery. I realize most of my youth or best years are gone and had to live a fake image to survive through university. I don't see my finances changing anytime soon. Loans to repay, it's hard finding job out of university and mental health suffers cause society sucks. Send BTC to 3BsgeDZH9RsEpfxJ58sKbpEyb2sNSFb52v and I'll show you happiness. I'm not the average person as targeted for the article but to me the piece is garbage.
- Bucephalus355 9y agoThere are a lot of posts, articles, and general interest over the last 15 years (compared to before) on “being and maximizing happiness”. At face value, this seems very natural. However I think a lot could be gained by tackling the necessity of even asking that question. Nietzsche has this really interesting point that every philosopher since Plato was most interested in “the truth” without seriously considering if “the truth” was a bad thing, worth all the effort, or perhaps not as valuable as other concepts. In the same way, a lot of religions invert the happiness question, to great effect. In Christianity, suffering is turned into a much more worthwhile and meaningful pursuit; other religions distance themselves from happiness and instead take more stoic and detachment-based paths. All of them don’t tend to address “maximizing happiness” though because I think, being the product of thousands of years of experience, any religion that tried to do that failed in the face of life and history and would not succeed in gathering adherents.
- Scarbutt 9y agoChristianity, suffering is turned into a much more worthwhile and meaningful pursuit Can you elaborate on that? not a christian, just curious.
- tachyoff 9y agoNot a Christian, but I spend a lot of time at church (long story). Anyway, self-sacrifice is one of the central tenets of Christianity, the idea being that Jesus Christ took on human form to suffer and die on the cross to save humanity from its grievous sins. As a result, self-sacrifice and martyrdom come up all the time in the Bible [1]. I'm not particularly good at actual theology, and I'm sure different sects of Christianity have different interpretations, but as I understand it, because of Christ's sacrifice, personal suffering is seen as something noble, or even venerable. I think it's easy to take this too far (e.g. people not accepting help because it's "noble" to suffer, or that they "deserve it"), but I digress. [1] https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Self-Sacrifice https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Self-Sacrifice
- RobertRoberts 9y agoFrom my personal experience, you are going to have misery no matter what in life. But it's amazing how often times some misery is bimodal, either you choose your misery, or it's forced on you. As an example, you work and get paid (a form of misery because you don't have control over your own time), or you don't work and have all the time you want in the day (the misery is you are hungry cold and wet). I found that self sacrifice in relationships almost always pays off, and is very biblically based concept. For example, being patient with a spouse you are angry with actually hurts emotionally (chosen misery), but you resolve things this way. The opposite would be to blame or fight back, and extend or lose control of the misery (ie, forced on you). I've learned to chose my misery. Save now (misery chosen), spend now (misery forced later), etc... Maybe suffering would work equally well with misery.
- mancerayder 9y agoPeople need enough to not feel, or be, materially insecure. It's somewhat subjective (I might have high demands with regards to caviar and champagne) but usually not (groceries, roof, education, doctor). What's interesting is that there's no mainstream concept for not-materially-insecure. Perhaps, if there were, it would turn into a demand by the population. And we can't have that.
- tachyoff 9y agoI thought that's what the middle class was supposed to be (not-materially-insecure, that is).
- chapill 9y agoTrick question. People who waste their money never have enough money to be happy.
- throw7 9y agoHappiness is what you give.
- stevedekorte 9y agoUnless income is randomly assigned, how do we draw any causal conclusions? For example, what if being predisposed to certain kinds of anxiety tend to cause one to both make more money in order to have more security, and never be satisfied with that security?
- jhall1468 9y agoBecause that variable is likely insanely small. High paying jobs generally have a lot of anxiety associated with them, whether it’s difficult interviews, a great deal of education or whatever.
- 908087 9y agoPersonally, there was a point where I had / was making enough that I felt the need to conceal that fact from people, particularly when I first met them. This meant that I had to go as far as to conceal much of what makes me who I am from people, as some of my hobbies are rather expensive. That was the point where making more meant that I became progressively less happy.
- chii 9y agowhy do you need to conceal your wealth, esp. if it was causing you unhappiness?
- 908087 9y agoFirst and most importantly, because I want to be sure people aren't dating/befriending me because of what I have. This is unfortunately something I've already experienced a couple times. Second, because my experiences with many other people in my wealth/income bracket have driven me to try to avoid being anything like them or having other people view me the way I view some of them.
- habosa 9y agoIsn't the real number just more than the people next to you? Wealth is completely relative. You could feel rich in a poor area with your brand new Camry and feel poor in the Hamptons with your brand new Mercedes.
- RikNieu 9y agoJust a little bit more.
- lph 9y agoAlright, but let's revisit the polled people when they're 80 and see who's happy... those who were able to save for retirement, or those who weren't. "Are you happy?" is such a first-world-problems question. I'd settle for being able to answer "yes" to "are your basic needs met?" for myself and my family in perpetuity...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dingo_bat 9y ago> where 0 is the “worst possible life” and 10 is the “best possible life.” (This author would give himself an eight.) I guess the author is really satisfied with his life. I'd give myself no more than 5.
- beegeezuz 9y agoI don't think $150k is enough to be happy. Just in caviar alone every week sets me back about couple grand. Jewellery for my girlfriends costs me about $5k a month. Not to mention other QOL expenses: - $500 having someone coming over to cut my toenails every 3 weeks - $1200 having someone reading books to me 2h every evening - $2800 caviar - $6000 having Gordon Ramsey cook me dinner once a week - $4000-5000 travelling once a month and staying in a decent hotel - $800 insurance for my Bentley - $2500 private tuition for my kids ... Only for this I'll need $17800 a month, not counting in rent and other stuff. I can barely survive on a $500k salary. So there are a lot of things that can be improved with a higher salary and I think there's a big difference between making $500k and $1mil in terms of Quality of Life. I don't understand people that make $40k, how can you be happy?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cdoxsey 9y agoI'm always struck by this proverb: > “Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. One thing I didn't see in the comments here, though I may've just missed it, is that with more money you have more of an opportunity to give it away. You can make a real difference for people in need. I suspect not many in the HN crowd tithe, by which I mean giving 10% of your income to charity, but perhaps it's something to consider, and probably more fulfilling than a slightly nicer car.
- johnmax 9y agoi agree in general. i think it has been proven in studies that being altruistic gives you more happiness than doing something fun (see martin seligmans boom on authentic happiness). HOWEVER, from my personal experience, I do not derive happiness by giving just money away (eg to a stranger who asked me), but rather through helping her at an errand or bigger problem
- afewbob 9y agoI like your post. As a Christian myself, I've always found it likewise fascinating. God's teachings on money are sprinkled throughout scripture. You are right: God expects us to give from what He provides us with. One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. Proverbs 11:24-25 Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. Proverbs 11:28 Better is a little with righteousness than great income with injustice. Proverbs 16:8 He who oppresses the poor to make more for himself or who gives to the rich, will only come to poverty. Proverbs 22:16 Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. Proverbs 23:4 Basically, the concept of sacrificial giving is that it does hurt to give it. Jesus made it clear that giving from your surplus is fairly meaningless. Trusting in God and being obedient are what He expects. When you feel led to give, give. The more you sow, the more you reap. But Jesus is very plain in telling us to give in secret so as to please God. Men you give in public to be seen and approved by men is wrong. Tithing is something that is largely forgotten in the post-Christian world we now find ourselves in. Peace.
- latchkey 9y agoLiving in Ho Chi Minh City for the last 1.5 years (from San Francisco) and seeing how dirt poor people are, yet smiling and living their lives, the answer is 'not much'.
- badpun 9y agoIsn't it a strong norm in a lot of East Asian countries to always present a happy/polite front, regardless of how you feel inside?
- IkmoIkmo 9y agoTo be honest, I'm kind of tired seeing this 'research finding' pop up over and over again. It feels the whole world is familiar with it. What I'm lacking is a thorough study of determinants and causal effects. Not just intuition that we're satiated, but something deeper. For example, where is the study that compares a $200k wage earner vs a $200k capital earner, to provide indications that money merely be an approximation for 'freedom' or 'lower stress'. Where's the study that looks at whether diminishing returns to happiness from money are due to social isolation the richer you get? i.e. making $100k a year makes you look great in an $80k crowd, and still allows you to mingle with a $40k crowd. But making $5m a year detaches you completely from being able to have meaningful relationships with 95% of people without eventually being viewed as different, unable to understand their daily plight and always doubting whether people envy you or dislike you. I don't know if any of those things are true, but they are interesting to investigate. Not another superficial article talking about 'researchers have found the most basic correlation and share superficial 100 year old intuitive ideas about why that might be which they never investigated'.
- golergka 9y agoThe region chart is almost meaningless: "Middle East/North Africa" lumps together Sudan, Dubai, Syria and Israel as if these countries have much in common in terms of economic development.
- johnmax 9y agoMy life experience fits with those studies. You get used VERY FAST to money (and sensory pleasures which come with it), which is why they dont make me that happy (anymore). However, I am very grateful for the additional free time that I can buy with my money, eg by working less. The latter would of course not hold for someone earning 2m USD per year, but constantly working 70+h/week to keep it that way.
- ivanhoe 9y agoI think the correct definition is: "When you have enough to survive and you make as much money as people you compare yourself with". That's why back in the days of socialism in Eastern Europe most of the people were quite content with being relatively poor, as long as they had the sense of social security and everyone else around them was as poor as them. On the other hand, nowadays many freelancers from poorer countries (me included), who are making a lot of money compared to their compatriots, are still not really happy as they don't make as much as their colleagues on the West. As long as you know you could be doing better you'll not be happy about the present situation... and soc. media is not helping with this...
- croon 9y agoIs it possible to reach a point where you won't experience comparison inflation? After the house it's a bigger house, after the fancy car it's a super fancy car, and then a pilot's license, then co-owning a private plane, then your own one, etc. When you get enough for the house you move into a new neighborhood where there's always someone richer than you, and when you get enough for that you won't buy his, but a similar one in a fancier neighborhood because you don't want to live with the plebs in the small houses. This problem can't be solved before we stop measuring ourselves by money. Unfortunately that solution is always paired with being to accomodating on salary negotiations. If I stop caring about money, no one will willingly pay me more, even if I might "deserve it". I definitely haven't solved it, but my goal is being content with what I have, while not being a doormat, financially. I'm better at the latter than the former.
- nickpp 9y agoPlease do not put your propaganda in people's mouths. I lived back in communist Eastern Europe and I can assure you nobody was content in any way. It was a nightmare.
- Gustomaximus 9y agoI feel the missing piece is income security. If your earning $200k and sweating bullets to keep a high pressure job your not going to be as happy as the $120k job for life middle management. Also as the higher your income goes the few jobs at they bracket exist. Whereas if the $200k job is for a person largely guaranteed a job at that pay somewhere I feel that would provide more opportunity to do things you like and increase happiness. I've come across of a few of these studies. Has anyone separated out 'income security'?
- raister 9y ago"There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little." - Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
- JepZ 9y agoI think money is just a something like food: you need it to some amount to have a good life and having a bit more than you need increases your happiness slightly. Having much more, doesn't change much. There are two very important things to make you happy: 1. Reason and Prospect 2. Freedom (to execute) Money can increase your level of Freedom (e.g. so you don't have to spend your time working for someone else). A Reason doesn't have to be the reason of your life. It just has to be something you want to accomplish (be rich; be a good parent; be admired; etc.) in combination with an idea to get there (prospect).
- CuriouslyC 9y agoIn my experience you only need enough money not to have to think about money. If you have simple tastes, that isn't necessarily a lot.
- vectorEQ 9y agoyou 'need' money for your wants. so basically you don't need money, unless you want things. there's plenty of people who are happy as can be, who have never even heard of money :s
- sjapkee 9y agoEnough.
- icc97 9y ago> Respondents across the world were asked to rate their lives on a scale of 0-10, where 0 is the “worst possible life” and 10 is the “best possible life.” I don't think the study properly correlates to 'happiness'. As the article describes, it's more like 'satisfaction'. These are not the same [0] [0]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-distinction-between-happiness-and-satisfaction https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-distinction-between-happin...
- blahfuk 9y agoUsed to be 75K, now it's 105K. When will we finally admit that there is no satiation point, and rich people generally live better lives?
- leetcrew 9y agoprobably never. in a way, this broadly applicable quote applies: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" 80% of people in the US make less than $75k. the idea that people experience diminishing returns on income is a strong argument in favor of redistribution, and is a couple notches more sophisticated than just saying outright that rich people don't deserve what they have. how many people are likely to seriously interrogate the claim that they deserve more than they are paid and/or would use it more efficiently?
- tortoise1 9y agoI am making 105K and i am not sure about happiness. I am happy some part of the day, then i am sleeping then i am working and then i am not happy for some reason for few mins and then i am happy again for some other reason. Sometimes mins are hours and some times day are days. Is there anyone who is happy 24/7/365? Why is there such measurement of happiness? When it cannot really be measured. Some times when there is one kid playing with me i am happy and when some times there are 10 kids around me screaming i am not happy. I think these days we really need a down vote and dislike buttons as i don't understand why money and time is being wasted into such misleading research efforts. You can be happy with $0 and happy with $1,000,000. and also you can be not happy with $0 and not happy with $1,000,000. It is the amount of time you are happy, and i don't think anyone on this planet can be happy 24/7/365. The number of happy moments may be something that is measurable but that also cannot be tied to any other factor. I think if the AI is built on top of such false big data then its just going to result into artificial stupidity. We don't need more of those.
- WheelsAtLarge 9y agoThe real answer, a little more than the people around you. Here's a simple example, the upper middle class in Manhattan will need enough to keep their lifestyle plus however much more so they are not at the bottom of the social class. Let's guess $350,000 a year. Now go to Nigeria where the per capita GNP is $1,200 a year and you give a person $5000 a year then that person would jump up with joy. There's not one number. The number is relative to where you live. Here's a quote I like: "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute — and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." A. Einstein It doesn't fit 100% but you get the idea.