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This isn’t anonymous enough for me to give any details. Nearing retirement so I’ll just say I can buy almost whatever I want, especially if I raided the retire

by DougN7 1y ago

This isn’t anonymous enough for me to give any details. Nearing retirement so I’ll just say I can buy almost whatever I want, especially if I raided the retirement account, but have finally discovered those things don’t bring happiness. There’s a great cartoon I lost track of that shows a person walking around with a huge hole in their chest, and how different people try filling it with various things (sex, drugs, drinking, money, fame, other people, hobbies(?), etc). While that gaping hole is there, money means very little. How to fill it? Still trying to figure that out.

vertigolimbo 1y ago
Here it is: https://imgur.com/gallery/we-are-all-born-with-hole-chest-AnnBa https://imgur.com/gallery/we-are-all-born-with-hole-chest-An...
wijwp 1y ago
That's pretty reductive. Having enough money to buy "almost whatever" allows for real happiness to happen. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it opens the door for it. Family, friends, love, hobbies. - Financial hardships are one of the top reasons for divorce. - Building and keeping loving relationships and friends is a lot harder when you have to work 60-80 hours a week. - Funds to have hobbies so you can do what you truly want to do rather than what pays the bills. A good fulfilling life is simple (but usually not easy).
- robocat 1y ago
  Your answer is rather reductive. And unfortunately you seem to be strawmanning since your comment is replying to something that DougN7 never said. I would summarize your point as: we need some money to be happy. DougN7 said "[I] have finally discovered those [costly] things don’t bring happinessis". I think lots of money doesn't make you happier. I strongly suspect that most people don't really understand that, because they don't have lots of money and therefore they have not learnt about the lies we are taught about money by our money focused societies. Let's view your divorce argument from https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/04/divorce-rates-and-income/ https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/04/divorce-rates-and-income/ : Divorce rates are tied to job security, age, and occupation, so it should make sense that we see a pattern when we plot divorce rates against income There’s a tight decrease in divorce rate for incomes between $10,000 and $200,000 per year, and then rates seems to flatten out around 30 percent after that I suspect your assumptions about divorce money and unhappiness are incorrect. And you were definitely ignoring the confounders mentioned.
kgwxd 1y ago
IMO, the hole metaphor is terrible. Mountain of trash feels more accurate. Problem is, after it's all cleaned up, there is no hole to fill. There's just nothing more to do, except whatever comes at you. That gets boring pretty quick in a relatively non-hostile environment. Playing Minecraft in peaceful mode never made me happy. Trying to figure out why that is is what I'm working on now. I think that's just creativity for it's own sake but, even though I find joy in other people's creativity, I find little point in doing it myself. Now that I'm typing this out, maybe something like "challenges" and "achievements" is what I should be "creating". Craft my own trash pile.
scarface_74 1y ago
Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions. It gives me enough to know that I could be out of a job for a year without being homeless and hungry (not counting retirement assets) It means that even though we live in Florida, I can still say “let’s go to Costa Rica and Panama City for the entire winter”. And even locally when I want to fly back to my former home for a weekend every quarter just to play cards with my friends and hang out I can or if we just want to rent an Airbnb back home for a couple of months during the summer to spend time with friends and our adult sons. When our friends suggest we get together and go on a cruise during Christmas we don’t think about it, we just say “yes”. When my younger adult son calls us and tells us he is going to be temporarily laid off during Christmas we just ask how much he needs and don’t think about it. Notice I didn’t say “buy things”. We live in a 1200 square foot condo and everything we own besides our car can literally fit in four suitcases and we have actually traveled around the country with everything we owned in suitcases. Even the furniture in our condotel came with it and if we do sell it, it stays with it. We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices and we even downsized those. If you can’t tell - we really hate “stuff”. Our one car is the cheapest thing that we could buy that was the base level of comfort we could deal with. We use money for experiences, spend time with friends and family to allow my wife to pursue her passions and do her volunteer work. Even before she retired she was able to get a lower paying job (with the benefits we needed then) working with special needs kids.
- DougN7 1y ago
  I think you won at life and I’m genuinely happy for you. Though I’m of a similar mindset, circumstances don’t allow me to do similarly, but it’s not the money.
- sshine 1y ago
  > Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions. I told my wife the same. I'm currently on a $97k/year salary as a CS teacher with very few hours; I make about half of what I normally do, so I can have a lot of time with our firstborn. We're not pressed for money, but we also save less than $1500/mo. We spend most money on food, and second-most on travelling to my wife's home country. I'm 39, and she's 32. My point is that you don't have to be very well off to make that choice. > We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices Wow. Just wow. That sounds so liberating, but I could never do it. I have a laser printer that I use a few times a year. I have two kind of belt sanders, even though I hardly do woodwork, because I imagine that I will, and I don't think I'm wrong. I have fitness equipment for a dozen sports. I have a collection of wires so that friends and family can ask for any kind of wire, and I can give it to them. My wife has three moving boxes of shoes that I've never seen her wear. I really wish it didn't take up so much space in our tiny apartment, but I wouldn't want to lose any of it.
apwell23 1y ago
> especially if I raided the retirement account, but have finally discovered those things don’t bring happiness. I see lot of retirees buy ski condos and live skiing lifestyle
- scarface_74 1y ago
  And I think this is really dumb. We are definitely going to start wintering in Costa Rica next year. But why commit to a second home when we can just get a nice AirBnb and preserve optionality?
  - apwell23 1y ago
    ppl i've met seem to ski 100+ days and live there all winter.

by DougN7 1y ago

vertigolimbo 1y ago

Here it is: https://imgur.com/gallery/we-are-all-born-with-hole-chest-AnnBa https://imgur.com/gallery/we-are-all-born-with-hole-chest-An...

wijwp 1y ago

That's pretty reductive. Having enough money to buy "almost whatever" allows for real happiness to happen. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it opens the door for it. Family, friends, love, hobbies. - Financial hardships are one of the top reasons for divorce. - Building and keeping loving relationships and friends is a lot harder when you have to work 60-80 hours a week. - Funds to have hobbies so you can do what you truly want to do rather than what pays the bills. A good fulfilling life is simple (but usually not easy).

robocat 1y ago
Your answer is rather reductive. And unfortunately you seem to be strawmanning since your comment is replying to something that DougN7 never said. I would summarize your point as: we need some money to be happy. DougN7 said "[I] have finally discovered those [costly] things don’t bring happinessis". I think lots of money doesn't make you happier. I strongly suspect that most people don't really understand that, because they don't have lots of money and therefore they have not learnt about the lies we are taught about money by our money focused societies. Let's view your divorce argument from https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/04/divorce-rates-and-income/ https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/04/divorce-rates-and-income/ : Divorce rates are tied to job security, age, and occupation, so it should make sense that we see a pattern when we plot divorce rates against income There’s a tight decrease in divorce rate for incomes between $10,000 and $200,000 per year, and then rates seems to flatten out around 30 percent after that I suspect your assumptions about divorce money and unhappiness are incorrect. And you were definitely ignoring the confounders mentioned.

kgwxd 1y ago

IMO, the hole metaphor is terrible. Mountain of trash feels more accurate. Problem is, after it's all cleaned up, there is no hole to fill. There's just nothing more to do, except whatever comes at you. That gets boring pretty quick in a relatively non-hostile environment. Playing Minecraft in peaceful mode never made me happy. Trying to figure out why that is is what I'm working on now. I think that's just creativity for it's own sake but, even though I find joy in other people's creativity, I find little point in doing it myself. Now that I'm typing this out, maybe something like "challenges" and "achievements" is what I should be "creating". Craft my own trash pile.

scarface_74 1y ago

Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions. It gives me enough to know that I could be out of a job for a year without being homeless and hungry (not counting retirement assets) It means that even though we live in Florida, I can still say “let’s go to Costa Rica and Panama City for the entire winter”. And even locally when I want to fly back to my former home for a weekend every quarter just to play cards with my friends and hang out I can or if we just want to rent an Airbnb back home for a couple of months during the summer to spend time with friends and our adult sons. When our friends suggest we get together and go on a cruise during Christmas we don’t think about it, we just say “yes”. When my younger adult son calls us and tells us he is going to be temporarily laid off during Christmas we just ask how much he needs and don’t think about it. Notice I didn’t say “buy things”. We live in a 1200 square foot condo and everything we own besides our car can literally fit in four suitcases and we have actually traveled around the country with everything we owned in suitcases. Even the furniture in our condotel came with it and if we do sell it, it stays with it. We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices and we even downsized those. If you can’t tell - we really hate “stuff”. Our one car is the cheapest thing that we could buy that was the base level of comfort we could deal with. We use money for experiences, spend time with friends and family to allow my wife to pursue her passions and do her volunteer work. Even before she retired she was able to get a lower paying job (with the benefits we needed then) working with special needs kids.

DougN7 1y ago
I think you won at life and I’m genuinely happy for you. Though I’m of a similar mindset, circumstances don’t allow me to do similarly, but it’s not the money.
sshine 1y ago
> Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions. I told my wife the same. I'm currently on a $97k/year salary as a CS teacher with very few hours; I make about half of what I normally do, so I can have a lot of time with our firstborn. We're not pressed for money, but we also save less than $1500/mo. We spend most money on food, and second-most on travelling to my wife's home country. I'm 39, and she's 32. My point is that you don't have to be very well off to make that choice. > We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices Wow. Just wow. That sounds so liberating, but I could never do it. I have a laser printer that I use a few times a year. I have two kind of belt sanders, even though I hardly do woodwork, because I imagine that I will, and I don't think I'm wrong. I have fitness equipment for a dozen sports. I have a collection of wires so that friends and family can ask for any kind of wire, and I can give it to them. My wife has three moving boxes of shoes that I've never seen her wear. I really wish it didn't take up so much space in our tiny apartment, but I wouldn't want to lose any of it.

apwell23 1y ago

> especially if I raided the retirement account, but have finally discovered those things don’t bring happiness. I see lot of retirees buy ski condos and live skiing lifestyle

scarface_74 1y ago
And I think this is really dumb. We are definitely going to start wintering in Costa Rica next year. But why commit to a second home when we can just get a nice AirBnb and preserve optionality?
- apwell23 1y ago
  ppl i've met seem to ski 100+ days and live there all winter.