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Is 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 w
by derekp7 9y ago
Is 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.
- tmnvix 9y agoWhen I'm not living with others, this problem goes away. I start out with things in the wardrobe and drawers but as I get distracted by the things I actually want to do I gravitate towards a sort of inbox(clean)/outbox(dirty) 'floordrobe' system. It's surprisingly efficient.
- bunfunton 9y agoI do the same but having to hunt for clothes in the inbox sucks, and having to iron extremely wrinkled button up shirts sucks as well
- Qwertious 9y agoSo, join a nudist colony to avoid doing laundry?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- robotresearcher 9y agoI wear a suit of armour. Disrupt the folding industry.
- koolba 9y agoRobots? Assuming you already have 7+ days worth of clothes simply hire a maid to come by once a week. With a human you never have to worry about software upgrades, charging batteries, or wake up in a cold sweat in fear of your hired help violating Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics.
- greedo 9y agoHumans are quite capable of violating the laws of robotics too!
- pksadiq 9y ago> Humans are quite capable of violating the laws of robotics too! Well, that could mean that robots may too violate the laws of robotics!
- robotresearcher 9y agoThe question was “why can’t you automate it?”.
- koolba 9y agoAutomate doesn’t have to mean a machine is handling it. It means you don’t have to handle it. Human automation is a valid tool, in particular for things like housework.
- robotresearcher 9y agoAutomate usually does mean to use machinery. I open a car factory. It is fully automated. See? Besides, the original question is totally boring if you allow human automation. Of course I can hire someone to do labour. No one needs that explained to them.
- mac01021 9y agoSeriously? Cooking, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, driving to places, filling out tax returns, shopping for clothes or household goods.... Fully automated solutions for any of the above either do not exist or are prohibitively expensive.
- js8 9y agoWhy have kitchen/house/lawn/car at all when you don't actually enjoy using them? The alternatives are not prohibitively expensive, on the contrary. You have restaurants, apartments, parks and public transport as alternatives. It seems to me that quite some people here want to get rich to afford hiring people to manage things that they don't actually want to own. That's why I think more money doesn't make you more happy, as happiness comes from the sense of accomplishment, not from being able to command an army of workers to work on things you don't care about.
- bhaak 9y ago> It seems to me that quite some people here want to get rich to afford hiring people to manage things that they don't actually want to own. That's often due to them actually wanting those things but not for themselves but for showing them off as status markers.
- flukus 9y agoHow many of those do you hate simply because you're time poor? If other necessities were met so you didn't have to work would you still hate them? I'd still hate the tax returns, but others like cooking and mowing I enjoy when I'm free of time constraints.
- Kiro 9y agoNot OP but I have a lot of time and cooking is probably the thing I hate the most in my life after cleaning. I don't enjoy it at all.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago>Is this net income (after taxes, and possibly after 401k [or equivalent] savings)? No, it's before tax income. Income Variables. Participants were asked to report monthly household income rather than yearly income to facilitate responding. Respondents were asked the question, “What is your total monthly household income in [local currency], before taxes? Please include income from wages and salaries, remittances from family members living elsewhere, farming, and all other sources.” Households were defined as a person’s home that had its own cooking facilities, which could have been anything ranging from a one-room flat to a single house. From the study's supplementary information: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41562-017-0277-0/MediaObjects/41562_2017_277_MOESM1_ESM.pdf https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...
- dgacmu 9y agoIt's also worth noting that it's normalized to household size -- income divided by sqrt(household size). So for a married couple with two children -- a number close to my own heart -- the 105k satiation point would be real dollars of 210k/year. Dollars are also represented as International Dollars, which are adjusted for the local purchasing power, expressed in units equivalent to one USD in the US.
- sjg007 9y agoThat makes sense. It's a lot and doesn't go very far in the Bay area but it makes things better than just 105k-120k for a family of 4 which can work but can be stressful.
- Nition 9y agoI suspect there is another level above that at financial independence, where you have enough wealth that you don't have to work. Where you can lose the fear of losing your job, or go off and work on what you want even if it doesn't make much or any money.
- cortesoft 9y agoThere might be a fine line there; humans need a sense of purpose, and for many people, purpose is tied up in our job. If you no longer have to work, and you choose not to work because your current job isn't ideal, it can be hard to get the motivation to search for a new job. At the same time, without work, it can be hard to find purpose. So you might be stuck in a situation where you aren't working and struggling to find meaning.
- leggomylibro 9y agoThat seems like a cultural thing, though - many Western cultures wrap up personal identity in job description, but there's nothing biological to stop people from just laying out a purpose for themselves and pursuing it. There are plenty of financial reasons, but isn't that what we're talking about? If you have enough money that you don't have to work for the rest of your life, you probably have enough money that you can spend your time on whatever act of creation you find fulfilling.
- Barrin92 9y ago>That seems like a cultural thing, though - there's nothing biological to stop people from laying out a purpose for themselves and pursuing it. Purpose without existential risk of failure is not usually perceived as genuine. If you have enough money and only put a fraction of it to use, you might create things, but you're never really risking anything. I'd wager more people join the military for purpose than the local paintball team, not despite but because the former really puts your life at risk.
- TuringTest 9y ago
- sjg007 9y agoAbsolutely. Money saves time and stress. You can pay people to do other things for you. You can afford to take a vacation. You can also probably afford a temporary job loss (unless you are mortgaged to the hilt). You can afford to start a startup in some cases. Still I am pretty sure you can find people who make $250k that are miserable, possibly because of the working conditions.
- cpncrunch 9y agoOn the other hand, you might have a stressful job to actually generate that $200k, and you might have to live somewhere like SF with very high cost of living, and your commute might be stressful, etc.
- foxylad 9y agoMy last child got a good job today, and as well as a certain pride I feel a sense of relief similar to when we paid off our mortgage.
- O_nlogn 9y agoCongratulations! That is one of life's greatest milestones -- and yet we don't have a common term for it. I'm my parents' last child and am soon to graduate Grad school and enter 'the working world'. I can definitely feel their relief in knowing decades of parental sacrifices and obligations have paid off and finally come to an end. Savour that pride and relief -- you've earned it.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoI would not be surprised if you were exactly right with this: 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. Many people I have talked with about happiness are really talking about non-anxiety. Basically defining being 'happy' as having zero anxiety and being 'un-happy' as worrying about (anxious) one or more things. In that model not having debt relieves future obligation anxiety, owning a house addresses 'where will I live' anxiety, savings address 'what if something comes up' anxiety etc. If that model held true for the survey participants then once you had enough income to offset your anxieties you would not get any more 'happy'.
- tachyoff 9y agoWhat a sad indictment of modern American life that our baseline for happiness is "not destitute". Really, I think that's telling, and as a millennial with lots of student loan debt and friends in a similar boat, it's not surprising one bit.
- matte_black 9y agoWhy should it be any higher? Raise the baseline too high and you may never reach it, and never be happy, despite having a good life. Is that what you want?
- tachyoff 9y ago> Why should it be any higher? Because it can be. Because we’re the richest country in the world and yet for some reason we force people into bankruptcy because they didn’t have health insurance on the day they had a medical emergency. I want: 1. People not to have to worry about seeing a doctor because they can’t afford it. 2. People not to have to worry about having shelter. 3. People not to have to worry about where their next meal will come from. 4. People to be able to provide a solid, basic, decent life for themselves and their families. 5. People to be able receive an education without it being onerously expensive. Among other things. I don’t think these are intractable problems for a civilization that sent people to the moon, perform open heart surgery, and deliver energy consistently and safely to millions of people.