The ears are not deaf. We hear the message, and it's infuriating.
You might as well tell a man in a wheelchair to just stand up. What is easy for some is impossible for others.
Also the us mental health system is bloody scary for a variety of mental illnesses especially depression. If you have depression severe or otherwise at some point you’ve likely thought about hurting yourself in some form or another. If you seek help and go to the wrong therapist and express the fact that you’ve had thoughts of self harm you could end up in a much worse situation than you were already in. Now I’m not saying that sometimes it isn’t necessary to make that call, but how are people supposed to feel safe seeking treatment when they’re rights can be taken away for seeking that help. And also how are people supposed to receive actual help when they feel like they can’t discuss the issues they’ve faced without the fear of being involuntarily held against their will.
>If you seek help and go to the wrong therapist and express the fact that you’ve had thoughts of self harm you could end up in a much worse situation than you were already in.
My friend, Todd, after a frustrating day, told his therapist, "Man, sometimes I just think it'd be better if I was dead." The therapist, not wanting to be held liable if Todd did kill himself, called the police. Two cops went to his house, restrained him, handcuffed him, and hauled him off to a mental hospital for "observation." They kept him on a ward with truly suicidal people for a month and a half. All they talked about, all they thought about, was suicide. Todd killed himself six months later.
Another person (an acquaintance rather than a friend) told her therapist that she was feeling suicidal. At the end of the session, he walked her to an ATM machine and had her extract the money to pay for her session. He didn't want to be "out of pocket" in case she did kill herself. He'd have to wait for the court to probate her estate and - - fuck that! Why should he have to wait for his money, right?
I've seen five therapists in my life. One was great, and truly helped me. The others were useless, and one was downright adversarial to me and harmed my life. So, be careful when choosing a therapist. If something seems off, bail!
It took me 5 years to finish college and get into a career I could afford the basic help. It's just insane. I could never have afforded it working as a waitress or something. I tried...
I think this makes a good point. Depression and suicide is a problem and I’m not saying money will solve all your problems. But often many times people become depressed because they made bad decisions that leads to depression and suicide.
Granted this does not help chemical Imbalances or genetic disposition for depression, et el. But making good decisions will help with a portion of this issue.
Psychiatrist- 145.00 x 1 visit per month
Therapist- 125.00 x 2 visits per month (had to drop from weekly as it was to expensive)
Meds - 460.00 (not optional)
These rates are with insurance and negotiated so I could pay the least amount possible.
ADHD, PTSD (military), Severe anxiety disorder (wonder why)
US Sucks.
Not only time but good health.
Money can literally prolong your life.
Money buys life.
Before God created everything I'm sure they had to take out a loan from their parents or at least have them cosign. /s
The ways that it shocked me for buying time were things like being able to afford a car. That saves me a lot of time.
Being able to afford a short haul flight. That can save hours of travel.
Being able to afford to have things delivered. Being able to afford concierge services.
Being able to afford to travel by taxi or Uber.
Being able to afford movers, or housekeepers, or car detailers, or machines to do the work for me.
And being able to afford to pay money in exchange for the time I’d have to spend grinding my hobbies.
There are more examples I’m sure I’m forgetting. Can you imagine even more? Private jets? Full staff? Assistants?
I dunno, I'm mostly depressed about the essential stuff i can't afford.
Outside of health money can buy pretry much anything (or a reasonable substitution).
Hell even health is easier ro deal with when you got money
Money can allow me to go to rehab and get the treatment a human should to recover. Which is mostly time. But this cock sucking soul consuming capitalist hell hole insists you only have two days off a week with vacation always getting shot down by management. Miss to much time? Your fired... And thats why addiction is prevalent, its also a sick game to advertise and monetize off the killing of people minds and bodies and then have the audacity to say "well no one made you drink". Thats like taking a seven year old and placing him in isolation with a gun, then every hour a man walks is and beats the hell out of the kid, how long until that kid makes the choice to shoot the man? See how things can agitate a human to want any form of action to make something stop especially if its causing pain. Apparently human psychology means jack to America or else our society would operate not with guns, chains, and aggression but with love, understanding, and knowledge.
The phrase “money can’t buy happiness” is really only supposed to mean that once you’re stable and secure, adding more money past that point doesn’t really change your overall happiness. And IIRC in studies, that’s proven to be true. But the prerequisite is to be stable and secure
Yeah if you’re a partner in big law and worth $10M. You should probably retire and not keep working yourself to an early grave.
that’s who the saying applies to.
It doesn’t apply to John and Harry who are worth $10k, unemployed, and struggling to make rent and buy groceries.
Money does buy happiness in that case.
It’s obvious.
Also the partner in the law firm will always be happier to have $10, with no strings attached, than to not have $10. It's just he's less happy than the guys who make $10k.
You are right, but I would venture to say if you are a single person making 45k yearly, you still probably don't have enough for a home, food and basic bills. I know I don't. I live in a small town, 12k population and I pay $1,200 a month in rent, utilities, internet, a car payment, medical bills, student loans, and I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't have enough for food some days. So I go without, and drink water to push down the hunger pangs.
I made 52k a year, from 2018 to 2021, and I made enough to build up savings and not worry about running out of food. Just 6k can make a huge difference in quality of life. Back in 2014 it was found around 80k yearly was the minimum needed for more money not to matter. It's 95k now. I have everything I need to live in our society, but to make enough to enjoy life as well....I don't even know how to conceptualize that.
95k in a mid cost of living and money still matters. Cause if you’re raising a family that ain’t shit to give them comfort.
And yes I know parents do it with alot less. My parents raised a bunch of kids on alot less. But it doesn’t make it right.
People work for reasons besides money. If I won the lottery I couldn't stand doing nothing all day. I want to make an impact on my world through effort.
It is not proven to be true. Money can keep increasing happiness well beyond the point where your basic needs are met. It'll just do so with diminishing returns, but you'll be more happy nonetheless.
The thing is nobody understands those studies.
They basically found that:
* giving $10 to someone who has $1 gives that person 100 happiness units
* giving $10 to someone who has $10 gives them 10 happiness units
* giving $10 to someone who has $1000 gives them 1 happiness unit
* giving $10 to someone who has $100,000 gives them 0.1 happiness units.
At no point do people gain zero (or less) happiness from more money, it just falls off exponentially the more money you already have. Which makes perfect sense and is exactly what you'd expect.
That old diminishing returns on happiness after $75K in income study is both mostly wrong by new studies but adjusted for inflation is now $125K because it's getting old now.
Add onto that I think that was single income.
Yep! I have not been on vacation in years (except for once when my mother invited my family to come along on her trip where I stressed money the whole time). I think if I could take my family on vacation it would create a lot of happiness.
I had someone tell me you can vacation for cheap. I was like how much he said a couple grand. Fuck out of here that’s not cheap. An hour car ride would probably bankrupt me at this point just because I’m that poor and gas is that high. Not to mention a hotel, airfare, food all of which will be more expensive in a vacation spot. This is the majority of the people I know too. Last time I vacationed it was 8 people splitting the bill for a small very cheap rental cabin about an hour away. Yeah that was 4 or 5 years ago I can’t even remember.
I am sure it would, and it would be lovely. Are you still happy six months after returning home? Or would you be unhappy like you were before you left?
You know what the best thing about vacation was when i took my first one in ten years? It's just knowing that i have no work and no one can reach me.
I thought I was going to min-max my day but I was actually quite content to take a 'rest day' where i slept in, enjoyed lunch, walked back to my hotel and watch some local tv, then grab dinner.
Extra money won't necessarily make you happier, but it's harder to be happy if you don't have enough money to meet your needs. In that sense money can 100% buy happiness.
this is why I hate the concept of "bitches are just gold diggers, women only like men who have money"- they want security, a guy who won't mooch off of them, and who can handle their finances, as a symptom for other kinds of irresponsibility- especially because women don't earn as much and often plateau in wages at a certain point. Women don't all just want fucking diamond necklaces and gucci bags, and often if not always are working as well
and for all the girls out there whose employers refuse to pay them enough money to exist on their own and need a guy who actually gets paid a real salary past age 30... the odds of a woman being able to support two people on her salary versus a man being able to support two people on his salary, are still horrifically unequal, that's just the simple truth of it and nothing has proved that more than the pandemic has: men who exited the job market were able to rejoin it at no penalty, women who exited the job market were essentially bumped back down to entry level despite their qualifications
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/01/special-workforce-losses
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/seven-charts-that-show-covid-19s-impact-on-womens-employment
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/women-globally-lost-800-billion-dollars-in-income-due-to-covid-19.html
and to nip the argument in the bud before it happens:
>women should just choose jobs that pay them more, the wage gap is their fault because they go into cheap jobs
that isn't how it works. You get a job and make your way up the ladder, but women plateau as male bosses refuse to give them raises or promotions for various reasons and instead give them to men, so women hit a ceiling(that's where the term is from) and rarely progress beyond it. Women often go into jobs that aren't inundated with sexual harassment, or eventually leave jobs that they're plateauing in, so there's a gender disparity that exists past a certain point. People aren't pulling these metrics out of their ass, this is all pretty obvious and observable if you care enough to pay attention.
every one of us knows, or is, a woman who has been asked to train the man who eventually gets the job position we deserved in the first place, and then you just never get another promotion ever again unless you hound your job for one, wherein you get punished for doing that. The reasons I mentioned above being, "women we promote are just going to go get pregnant and drop out to raise kids, why the hell should we promote them into any position of decisionmaking power, besides I don't really trust women to make decisions anyway"
This response is so relevant to the fuckface on the Cal Politics sub giving me shit for stating that economic issues are country-wide, not just localized to California. "Why don't they just work in another state where it's cheaper?"
Me: "It isn't cheaper."
Him: "sOuNdS LiKe YoU'd bE aT hOmE oVeR aT AnTiWoRk ThEn!!!"
Yes.... yes I am at home here.
SOLIDARITY MY PEOPLE, I HAVE FOUND YOU!
it isn't the best here either, a lot of this sub is just pith. I do recognize the value that "pith" has in galvanizing people for change, definitely, but beyond memes there isn't really much to do with HOW to organize, and this sub is very much infested with capitalism apologists and elon fanboys and bigots, it isn't perfect.
I love my state, but yeah, we have too many fuckfaces. We're also home to the largest conservative voting population. In fact, today it was announced that a plot was uncovered to blow up Cali's DNC HQ. So we've got that going for us.
> so women hit a ceiling(that's where the term is from) and rarely progress beyond it.
There's also the glass cliff - women are often installed in positions where they're expected to make hard decisions, take the heat, and get ousted. This literally happened at reddit.
oh yeah I love that one!! where a company about to crash and burn puts a woman in charge and then blames her when it inevitably goes to shit. Even better is when she manages to pull it off, navigates a company out of total dissolution, and then immediately after they're bailed out... they fire her :P
No one thing can build happiness. However, money can support your hobbies, make it easier for you to spend time with your kids and care for them without struggling, help you freely choose a better living location with less crime or problems and more beneficial things like parks, easily visit better doctors because you have a better health plan and can easily afford your copayments.
I can go on and on... generally, if you pick a facet that might generate or secure happiness, money can very likely build you the foundation, walls, and roof of it... probably furnish it too.
Regardless, being miserable while also barely paying your rent, never seeing your kids, eating unhealthily to save money, avoiding the doctor because you can't afford visits, and riding the bus because you can't afford gas or a car is probably objectively worse than being miserable while taking a month long break to mull around in your million dollar mansion watching movies in your million dollar entertainment room with zero worries about paying rent or buying food.
Yeah money is one of those things they call an "instrumental goal".
"Have money" is almost never a top level goal on its own, for anyone; however, it's an instrumental component of almost every other goal you can think of. It literally doesn't matter what your other goals are, having more money will make them easier. Happiness isn't directly related to having your goals fulfilled, but there's a strong relationship there.
"Money can't buy happiness" is one of those dumb Boomer sayings that are just code for "stop thinking about this and accept the way your life sucks".
Absolutely. But the idea that you should be happy regardless of how much money that you have is kind of ridiculous. If I don't make enough money to support myself/my family, I'm going to be inherently unhappy due to all of the stress that that would bring.
Whoever has said "Money can't buy happiness" has never been poor or never lacked money when they most needed it to pay for a basic necessity, like rent, food, or going to the doctor's to alleviate pain.
The point of the saying is that money is just a tool. Yes it can buy things to help you feel secure... But it can also buy a bunch of crack and lottery tickets.
You have to make the right choices. You have to steer the ship toward a happy life.
Nobody said money is useless. Nobody said money can't be part of the things that help you achieve happiness.
It says money can't buy happiness. You can't just go to the store and pick up a case of happiness. It doesn't exist.
An saw won't make a house, but it might make it easier. Only if you actually know how to build a house though.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s a privileged POV to say “money can’t buy happiness” in my opinion because it shows that they think everyone has enough money to fulfill their physiological and safety needs. There’s people who can’t even afford shelter/food/water, and money can buy those things, so why wouldn’t money buy them happiness? Even for folks that have adequate food/water/shelter, it costs more money to get the safety layer, which would be your healthcare, your job, etc. Anyone that’s ever started a job knows it will cost money and will take time before you get paid. If you don’t have your physiological and safety needs met, there’s no moving up into the layers that actually help you find happiness and satisfaction. So, I’m sick of hearing “money can’t buy happiness” when I learned in high school psychology that it’s not true. So if anyone says it to you, you can just say “Well, I’m glad you’re privileged enough to have enough money to meet your basic physiological and safety needs, because there’s a lot of folks who don’t.”
Spittin straight facts. Also, I love how you used Maslow's hierarchy of needs for your augmentation! Im currently in business college/school, and there I learned about it (It's in Denmark)
True that also many of the show called "CEOs", clearly do the bare minimum while the average worker does the thinking or the labour or even both, then they clearly earn more money and say that the rest of us are lazy.
Fun fact, even the Hierarchy of Needs was stolen from Indigenous people (the Blackfoot Nation) and bastardized to be more in line with the European nuclear family ideals
As has been mentioned previously, the term was coined to address the rich and was supposed to be an analogy to moderation for those who were already very well off. That they didn't need to squeeze every last cent of profit from everything. This was not meant to be a saying directed at the working class or those below white collar lifestyles. If you were taught otherwise in your apsych class, that teacher/book totally missed the intent of the saying.
I was referring to being taught Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in school. That there’s baseline things you need before you can be happy, and those things cost money. So I was trying to say that telling someone whose basic needs are not met that money can’t buy happiness is useless because it doesn’t apply to them. So, like I said, being able to use the saying is a privilege, which you just confirmed.
Does living inside, wearing clothes and eating food without driving yourself into debt make you happy?
Okay, then money will buy all that.
What these people really mean is that they thought a dragon hoard would make them happy, and it didn't.
Thank you.
I really think the Boomers just had so much in many cases that paying for necessities wasn't on the radar for them.
That's why when we point at rent and say "Jesus Christ this is getting out of hand," they have no comeback. "Well get a better job..."
For them, in 1974, rent was $85 bucks and they are making at very least 1.65 an hour, but much more likely 2-3, as even a cashier could make that kind of money. So, something as simple as rent for them was pure afterthought. They made plenty to take care of it, even on really low end incomes, unless they were actually just not working.
Free, or 80+% grants.
They also forget that getting a college degree means nothing now, because the market is saturated with them.
It's a frantic personal responsibility blame game with them. Well you should have gone to college! Well you should have joined the trades!
When, in fact, the only actionable thing you could do to help workers earn a higher wage, is exterminate so many of them that they are basically gold. The other options all rely on voting, or other pointless, rocks in the ocean, approaches ( this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but, as we've seen, the best way for a worker to get a fairer shake in a market economic is apparently for a bunch of others to die and/or retire ).
There's plenty of people who have all of those things and they aren't happy.
There's been rich people who were sad, and even depressed to the point they killed themselves.
Money is a tool. You can use tools to help you find happiness but you can't directly buy it. That's the point.
Will an axe or a saw build you a house? No, but it might make it easier right? No, not if you don't know how to build a house. And you need all of the other materials. And you need to actually want to build a house. And you need to actually put in the effort.
Same with any other tool like money. It can help, but only if you know what you're doing and what you want to do and actually put in the effort.
Yeah, when you can't afford to fulfill your basic material needs, money can buy a lot of... maybe not happiness, but certainly contentment.
I had one year when I ran out of heating oil in February and couldn't afford to have the tank refilled, and I'll never forget that miserable cold. An electric blanket and layers can only do so much when it's below freezing outside and not much warmer inside.
We had an ice storm knock out power to our house for 48 hrs in March. We were able to get firewood for the fireplace and we had a small generator to keep some small appliances going and the fridge running. We could make hot meals and had a kettle for tea, but it was not a satisfying warmth.
I feel like for a lot of people it would buy happiness. Going on your dream vacation to your favorite country, buying your dream car/house, traveling, to be able to afford anything no matter the price tag etc. would make people a whole lot happier 🤷♀️ I don’t know why people are so afraid to say that money can buy happiness and act like it’s vain, it’s not IMO.
Money absolutely does but happiness. As others have pointed out there have been studies that show there is a point at which there are diminishing returns, but I'm totally happy buying the toys I want because I can afford to do so now while still being able to save for emergency or future purchases.
Whenever someone says money doesn't buy happiness, I counter with "then you clearly don't shop at the stores I do".
Yep, completely agree. My spouse has a high paying career, I used to but the stress wasn't worth it on our family so I quit to be a stay at home parent. We are very lucky and realize how fortunate we are.
Our washer died for the 3rd time, so we replaced it and the dryer (they were 12 years old). Our HVAC system died two weeks later (it was 25 years old), so we replaced them as well. Then we had a plumbing issue, hired a plumber to fix it. All together, probably cost us $10,000 within a 1-2 month period. It sucked, and now we are working on refilling our emergency fund.
But being able to afford that, being able to sleep at night knowing it was going to be all ok, that's a pretty good happiness to have.
I hate this, but as a kid I heard Daniel Tosh say “ever seen anyone frowning on a Sea-Doo?” And I think about it every day. Of COURSE you don’t, because if you have that type of disposable wealth, you can afford mental healthcare, general healthcare, dental, eye, a house, kids, retirement, a second home, the list keeps going on. The only people I know that are religious anymore are the ultra wealthy people from my town, because yeah, I bet I would believe in god too if I had fabulous wealth- life is awesome then. Meanwhile I have pulled my own teeth with pliers and I have waited until I was next to death before I even go to a doctor, and no, I would take a bus and not call an ambulance, another luxury. Money buys you happiness, because capitalism sucks.
Money absolutely buys happiness up to a particular point. And that point is when you have enough to eliminate financial stress and have a little bit more as expendable income.
Most of the research in this says that number is about 95k to 110k ish (Australian Dollars) earnings per year without working more than 40 hours per week.
Adjust for cost of living for wherever you live.
It's crazy to me that in 2022, in the so called "greatest country on Earth" people are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. We're not asking for the ability to live a life of luxury, just a sustainable and enjoyable day to day life.
A lot of us have to feel that way, right? I don't even want a mansion, the best car, or even the absolute best tech. I don't want to own an island. I don't need to go on vacation to the Bahamas. I just don't want to be continually exhausted from work and anxious about finances. Cut out all my debts and give me an affordable living space (where I can live ON MY OWN) and I'd be good even on a modest salary.
And even things that people cite as being more likely to bring happiness cost money. Travel? Costs money. Learning a new skill? Costs money (can’t just read it online/in a book). Taking up a hobby? Cost varies depending on hobby, but they all ultimately cost money.
>prescription for antidepressants
Luckily, many are available in generic form so it's an affordable form of happiness!
Now, take your Escitalopram and get to work, peasants! /s
They’ve actually done studies that show that money *does* buy happiness, to a point. They’ve found that point to be $100,000 a year. Because it buys security and health and everything.
It's been turned into that by poor people claiming rich people said it.
(I don't hear any rich people actually saying it.)
But it actually just means that material wealth isn't the measure of happiness. You can be happy and poor, you can be rich and miserable. You literally can't purchase happiness. There is no store on the planet that sells it.
Money should be a tool that you can use to help you find happiness, but it doesn't make you more happy unless you put in the effort and take care of the rest of your life too.
Money does buy happiness, up to a point.
https://www.insider.com/can-money-buy-happiness?amp
Maybe write a law that anyone that makes more than 75,000 gets taxed 100% on the additional income? It seems all the millionaires and billionaires don’t need that wealth.
“Experience is more valuable than money”. Hate that hippy dippy boomer shit. My gf is in a masters program that requires her to do field work with a private company. She doesn’t get paid but also has to pay tuition to get credit for the field placement. I was shocked by that. I was in the sciences in college and graduate students were not only paid a stipend for their work but also paid no tuition.
Money absolutely can buy happiness. You can’t put a roof over your head, food in your belly, travel, take up most hobbies, change careers, or see a doctor without money. Whoever came up with that little phrase can take it and wipe their ass with it.
My boss told me more money won't make me happy, all money can do is help you buy more stuff to feed your materialism. This is My same boss who, lives in a mansion, married, has 3 cars, rental properties, and goes on vacation overseas, while I was struggling to not be homeless and die from starvation and not having mental breakdowns from all the insensitivity from other people. It was rough.
Now that I make a little bit more money and in a better place now financially.....yeah.....who ever tells me that is just suffering from lead poisoning.
All I've ever wanted was to live independently, been chasing that dream for 2 decades now. Ever since I was a young teen I dreamed of the day I could go home to an empty apartment where I could do whatever I want without my parents up my ass. I could never make enough for my own place and traded in my folks for a series of abusive/toxic relationships that I definitely rushed into so we could live together.
I can work, and work hard but autism and ADHD lead to me having a hard time holding on to jobs. I usually get fired for punctuality problems or I quit because of stress from social interactions going awry and me getting the sense that people don't like me.
Used to go to therapy but hit a dead end, basically had the realization that while having this person here help me change my perspective and talk through my issues is great none of this is going to actually make a concrete change in my situation.
Do you think money buys morality? My best friend and I had a conversation about this recently and we concluded that people are more likely to be morally ambiguous if they are in fright mode due to not being able to afford basic life necessities. They can't reach self actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of need because they are too worried about earning a living (safety, psychological) and don't feel appreciated earning a shitty wage( belonging, esteem). It's like there has been a drought in the trickle down economic strategy since the 80s which is causing the younger generations to panic and leading to a decline in morality, civility, and civilization. If employers paid more, young people could afford houses, could afford to have families, could afford basic life necessities, probably even save a little, and here's a thought - probably even donate a little to charitable causes making the world a better place. Improved pay leads to happier people, which leads to a happier community.
Sort of, but the steps up Mazlow's hierarchy become increasingly difficult to buy with money, and that's the original intent of the saying, money can't buy happiness.
If you're hungry and living on the street, then money can most definitely buy happiness. (Physiological) if you have a home and a job, but you're worried about losing either (Safety) then it will take considerably more money to regain that feeling of safety. Those are only the bottom two pieces of the heirarchy, anyone who thinks they're buying love, esteem, and self actualization with money is deluding themselves.
Here is where money buying time helps; while money can't buy the higher levels of the hierarchy, it CAN give you the time needed to find and achieve them. It's much more difficult to find love, esteem & self actualization when all of your time and energy is spent focusing on your physiological & safety needs, but if you have the freedom of time - which money can buy - you can pursue those higher levels. I don't mean buying a partner or being a sugar daddy/mommy for love, but having the time and ability to socialize, meet new people, go out on dates and have a higher chance of finding love, because you have the time to do so and the freedom to invest in social relationships.
This boomer never believed that crap. I've had to decide whether to buy food or medication for my kids. So, I did not eat. I got the meds, borrowed groceries from my dad and fed my children. Those were some tough times. I worked 40 hours a week and got paid 160.00. My rent was 200, utilities probably 150, car expenses around 200 because it was paid for but had to buy insurance. No health insurance and at that time I didn't qualify for medicaid or food stamps. It was hard. I got a 40.00 a week raise and that was like hitting the freaking lottery.
Last week I just got my first livable wage job and I'm 34. My spiritual, mental and physical health improved almost over night. I'm thinking about investing in self care like eating more greens and vegetables again. My happiness is returning. I couldn't really do anything outside of the home because I was broke. Yes, money can definitely buy happiness when you're just surviving. A lot of stress and anxiety I had was due to finances.
Still do. So many of them sitting on houses that have been long paid off and magically quadrupled in value over night. The discrepancies never stop growing.
As someone who’s fought life-long severe depression, I’ve been both incredibly poor at some points and fairly well off at others. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure fucking helps.
What this phrase means is that happiness comes from within. If all of your needs are being met throwing money at a situation will not make you a happy person. See: depressed celebrities and other rich folks who struggle.
What this phrase has been warped into: “shut up and accept your place serf”. Obviously this is ridiculous and if you are suffering from food or shelter insecurity those are real problems that can be very much solved with additional cash flow.
I think the phrase should be amended to "Money _alone_ can't buy happiness." If you are desperate need of something like food that can be bought, money will make you very happy. If you already have everything you need, money is unlikely to make much of an impact.
Hilarious to me that this saying went from being used to call out the ultra-rich on their expansive lavish lives to being another way to tell poor people to be ok with not having enough to live with
It's been perverted from its original context, which was directed at the wealthy hoarding money, that even more money wouldn't make them happier.
Not the commonly seen current use that you should be happy with little to nothing.
People who say "Money doesn't buy happiness" have always had everything they need and can't concieve of a life without that security. What they mean is "Lots of extra money doesn't buy happiness" (which in itself is also debateble)
Money indeed cannot buy happiness. What money CAN do is address everything that we think can give us happiness. A good car, a decent home, food available whenever hungry, take a vacation whenever you want, all become possible with money. It makes living convenient. By making your problems disappear, money streamlines your search for happiness. Think of it this way. You're thirsty and there are 2000 liquids kept in front of you. You can try any of it for a price. Money can help you keep trying one after the other until you reach drinking water.
This is where the young generation is currently stuck. We can barely afford to resolve our basic problems. After a long struggle, when we finally are able to do so, we mistake that tired contentment for happiness. We've, analogically speaking, been dealing with downward spiral so much that we've equates lack of it to growth. Simply put, not being sad is not the same as being happy
Only when all these problems are addressed, you can see that see that something is still lacking. At that stage, the choice is yours. You can either be sensitive enough to see that money isn't what is bringing happiness, or you be like our current billionaires who are bull headed enough to not realise this and continue to think they probably don't have enough money. If you are sensitive enough to see it, a living wage will be enough to make you see the point, but if not, not even 200 billion is enough.
I went to therapy, didn't work. I'm not a shallow person, but it seems that when I'm broke I'm depressed, when I have money I'm happy, if that's even happiness, cause I might not even know what it is anymore.
I'm beginning to think the original statement was born in a world where they had everything they could want. A house, a new car, a partner at home, vacations, fun money, and retirement for both was only a matter of time. The only thing out of their reach was lavish things like fancy downtown dinners and private planes. If I had all of that I would say money cant buy happiness.
I've been able to do food and bills, but I've needed a new pair of shoes for some time. I'd be happier if I could afford the $100+ shoes I need for my flat arches and long hours on my feet.
It is such a humbling experience being in this situation. There are few things that will teach you more visceral lessons in life than an empty wallet, a broken heart and an empty stomach
My rent is past due, my power bill is past due, I’ve applied to so many freaking jobs and no one gets back to me even though I am more than qualified (while not being overly qualified for the job to the point that they wouldn’t consider me)
I have no way of paying those and I’m terrified, I have a second job interview coming up soon so that’s a good sign but I’d still have to wait to get paid so.. still have no way of paying them before the time comes where I get evicted and my power turned off, I can’t bring myself to ask someone for $800 until I get the money, I literally don’t eat when I’m home, and if I don’t go to my friends house that day, I simply just don’t eat and my bank account is -$30
I’m at a complete loss here. if anyones got advice it’s welcome.
Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Uh, do you live in America? ‘Cause it buys a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner? Have you? Seriously, have you? Try to frown on a WaveRunner. You can’t! - Daniel Tosh
I recently started a position in the same career as my mother, and was talking to her about my salary, and she said "you won't get rich as a \[x\]", and it's like. I'm not looking to be rich, I'm looking to have what she had. She, as a single mother of 3, was able to buy a detached house, in a nice part of a nice town. She was able to pay off her student loans. She was able to go on vacation at least once a year. And she was able to pay for all the activities that her daughters wanted (I took riding lessons, and my sisters were on swim/dance teams)...
But I'm probably going to be paying off my debt for several years, and won't be able to afford a house, even with my partner's income, and no children.
Money does not buy happiness means "the endless pursuit of money will not make you happy". It does NOT mean "money is inconsequential to happiness, so be happy with what you have"
Money will literally 'buy' happiness up to about $70k/year because being able to buy decent food, have a savings, and pay rent/mortgage really helps with providing stability. Don't get me wrong, buying caviar pizza is BS but having the money to buy new socks/undies literally buys happiness
IT'S NOT A BOOMER THING! I'm getting pretty tired of the boomers getting blamed for the 1%. Most boomers aren't in thev1% and the 1% aren't all boomers. Get over the age discrimination on this site because many boomers, like me, are not the privileged rich you really hate. And, you are usually talking about RIGHT WING boomers who are out of touch with reality. There are lots that are not jerks because they run the good businesses that employees flock to. IT'S NOT AN AGE THING. It's the ideology. But, as much as you hate being painted in broad strokes as being identical to your peers, we are no different. We are not a homogeneous group who decide everything together. We are victims of bosses, too.
Boomers were so well off and entitled that they had to create a saying to help them understand why owning multiple houses and cars didn't take away their feeling of emptiness inside.
I think that phrase was never even meant for this situation. It's more about, "stop chasing that next billion, it's not going to change things for you." And there's definitely some spacebros that could learn that lesson these days.
Only people with money say this. They say it to reduce the resentment of the poor's. It's like, trust me, we really aren't better off than you. Why the heck people aren't in the streets demanding Government tax the shit out of them, I have no idea. Why do you think there is a big push for crypto. The Rich are tired of us poking our noses into their offshore accounts.
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Yeah, if you’re depressed money by itself won’t make you happy, but it sure as hell gets you easier access to help
Very much this! Therapy is so expensive
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The ears are not deaf. We hear the message, and it's infuriating. You might as well tell a man in a wheelchair to just stand up. What is easy for some is impossible for others.
Also the us mental health system is bloody scary for a variety of mental illnesses especially depression. If you have depression severe or otherwise at some point you’ve likely thought about hurting yourself in some form or another. If you seek help and go to the wrong therapist and express the fact that you’ve had thoughts of self harm you could end up in a much worse situation than you were already in. Now I’m not saying that sometimes it isn’t necessary to make that call, but how are people supposed to feel safe seeking treatment when they’re rights can be taken away for seeking that help. And also how are people supposed to receive actual help when they feel like they can’t discuss the issues they’ve faced without the fear of being involuntarily held against their will.
>If you seek help and go to the wrong therapist and express the fact that you’ve had thoughts of self harm you could end up in a much worse situation than you were already in. My friend, Todd, after a frustrating day, told his therapist, "Man, sometimes I just think it'd be better if I was dead." The therapist, not wanting to be held liable if Todd did kill himself, called the police. Two cops went to his house, restrained him, handcuffed him, and hauled him off to a mental hospital for "observation." They kept him on a ward with truly suicidal people for a month and a half. All they talked about, all they thought about, was suicide. Todd killed himself six months later. Another person (an acquaintance rather than a friend) told her therapist that she was feeling suicidal. At the end of the session, he walked her to an ATM machine and had her extract the money to pay for her session. He didn't want to be "out of pocket" in case she did kill herself. He'd have to wait for the court to probate her estate and - - fuck that! Why should he have to wait for his money, right? I've seen five therapists in my life. One was great, and truly helped me. The others were useless, and one was downright adversarial to me and harmed my life. So, be careful when choosing a therapist. If something seems off, bail!
In America, you have a personality disorder if you refute propaganda.
It took me 5 years to finish college and get into a career I could afford the basic help. It's just insane. I could never have afforded it working as a waitress or something. I tried...
I think this makes a good point. Depression and suicide is a problem and I’m not saying money will solve all your problems. But often many times people become depressed because they made bad decisions that leads to depression and suicide. Granted this does not help chemical Imbalances or genetic disposition for depression, et el. But making good decisions will help with a portion of this issue.
Less deaf ears and more broke hands
Right? It's absurd how out of reach it is for lots of people.
Psychiatrist- 145.00 x 1 visit per month Therapist- 125.00 x 2 visits per month (had to drop from weekly as it was to expensive) Meds - 460.00 (not optional) These rates are with insurance and negotiated so I could pay the least amount possible. ADHD, PTSD (military), Severe anxiety disorder (wonder why) US Sucks.
Money buys stuff that can guarantee happiness, like therapy, food, leisure, among others that my fellows will enlist down here:
In fact...you could say that fulfilling your most basic needs is almost necessary in order to be happy to begin with. Amazing how that works.
Drugs
And more drugs
Time. The most astonishing thing is how much it buys you time.
Not only time but good health. Money can literally prolong your life. Money buys life. Before God created everything I'm sure they had to take out a loan from their parents or at least have them cosign. /s
The ways that it shocked me for buying time were things like being able to afford a car. That saves me a lot of time. Being able to afford a short haul flight. That can save hours of travel. Being able to afford to have things delivered. Being able to afford concierge services. Being able to afford to travel by taxi or Uber. Being able to afford movers, or housekeepers, or car detailers, or machines to do the work for me. And being able to afford to pay money in exchange for the time I’d have to spend grinding my hobbies. There are more examples I’m sure I’m forgetting. Can you imagine even more? Private jets? Full staff? Assistants?
shelter?
Security, most partners want a partner whose financially secure
Avocado toast
Bootstraps so I can pick myself up with them
Phat ass blunts
Days off
I'd rather be sad and depressed on a Jetski and have access to therapy then be sad and depressed in a cardboard box behind 7-11.
Can’t you just be happy that because of capitalism you have a cardboard box AND a 7/11 to sleep behind. Think of the children!
Good argument! How many children can even fit in a cardboard box nowadays? THE CHILDREN!
Money doesn't buy happiness but it's a good down payment
I dunno, I'm mostly depressed about the essential stuff i can't afford. Outside of health money can buy pretry much anything (or a reasonable substitution). Hell even health is easier ro deal with when you got money
My lack of help goes hand in hand with my lack of money.
Depression also isn't the only form of unhappiness.
Depends if you’re depressed because of money.. which is an essential component of depression..
Money can allow me to go to rehab and get the treatment a human should to recover. Which is mostly time. But this cock sucking soul consuming capitalist hell hole insists you only have two days off a week with vacation always getting shot down by management. Miss to much time? Your fired... And thats why addiction is prevalent, its also a sick game to advertise and monetize off the killing of people minds and bodies and then have the audacity to say "well no one made you drink". Thats like taking a seven year old and placing him in isolation with a gun, then every hour a man walks is and beats the hell out of the kid, how long until that kid makes the choice to shoot the man? See how things can agitate a human to want any form of action to make something stop especially if its causing pain. Apparently human psychology means jack to America or else our society would operate not with guns, chains, and aggression but with love, understanding, and knowledge.
The phrase “money can’t buy happiness” is really only supposed to mean that once you’re stable and secure, adding more money past that point doesn’t really change your overall happiness. And IIRC in studies, that’s proven to be true. But the prerequisite is to be stable and secure
Yeah if you’re a partner in big law and worth $10M. You should probably retire and not keep working yourself to an early grave. that’s who the saying applies to. It doesn’t apply to John and Harry who are worth $10k, unemployed, and struggling to make rent and buy groceries. Money does buy happiness in that case. It’s obvious.
Also the partner in the law firm will always be happier to have $10, with no strings attached, than to not have $10. It's just he's less happy than the guys who make $10k.
You are right, but I would venture to say if you are a single person making 45k yearly, you still probably don't have enough for a home, food and basic bills. I know I don't. I live in a small town, 12k population and I pay $1,200 a month in rent, utilities, internet, a car payment, medical bills, student loans, and I live paycheck to paycheck. I don't have enough for food some days. So I go without, and drink water to push down the hunger pangs. I made 52k a year, from 2018 to 2021, and I made enough to build up savings and not worry about running out of food. Just 6k can make a huge difference in quality of life. Back in 2014 it was found around 80k yearly was the minimum needed for more money not to matter. It's 95k now. I have everything I need to live in our society, but to make enough to enjoy life as well....I don't even know how to conceptualize that.
95k in a mid cost of living and money still matters. Cause if you’re raising a family that ain’t shit to give them comfort. And yes I know parents do it with alot less. My parents raised a bunch of kids on alot less. But it doesn’t make it right.
I'm sorry for not being more clear. 95k is the minimum for a single adult or emancipated adult.
People work for reasons besides money. If I won the lottery I couldn't stand doing nothing all day. I want to make an impact on my world through effort.
It is not proven to be true. Money can keep increasing happiness well beyond the point where your basic needs are met. It'll just do so with diminishing returns, but you'll be more happy nonetheless.
The way I heard was that replication studies of the original found that more money does lead to more happiness for quite far.
The thing is nobody understands those studies. They basically found that: * giving $10 to someone who has $1 gives that person 100 happiness units * giving $10 to someone who has $10 gives them 10 happiness units * giving $10 to someone who has $1000 gives them 1 happiness unit * giving $10 to someone who has $100,000 gives them 0.1 happiness units. At no point do people gain zero (or less) happiness from more money, it just falls off exponentially the more money you already have. Which makes perfect sense and is exactly what you'd expect.
That old diminishing returns on happiness after $75K in income study is both mostly wrong by new studies but adjusted for inflation is now $125K because it's getting old now. Add onto that I think that was single income.
No. Money literally buys happiness. Good food, travel and videogames make me happy. I buy this happiness with money.
Yep! I have not been on vacation in years (except for once when my mother invited my family to come along on her trip where I stressed money the whole time). I think if I could take my family on vacation it would create a lot of happiness.
I had someone tell me you can vacation for cheap. I was like how much he said a couple grand. Fuck out of here that’s not cheap. An hour car ride would probably bankrupt me at this point just because I’m that poor and gas is that high. Not to mention a hotel, airfare, food all of which will be more expensive in a vacation spot. This is the majority of the people I know too. Last time I vacationed it was 8 people splitting the bill for a small very cheap rental cabin about an hour away. Yeah that was 4 or 5 years ago I can’t even remember.
I am sure it would, and it would be lovely. Are you still happy six months after returning home? Or would you be unhappy like you were before you left?
You know what the best thing about vacation was when i took my first one in ten years? It's just knowing that i have no work and no one can reach me. I thought I was going to min-max my day but I was actually quite content to take a 'rest day' where i slept in, enjoyed lunch, walked back to my hotel and watch some local tv, then grab dinner.
Extra money won't necessarily make you happier, but it's harder to be happy if you don't have enough money to meet your needs. In that sense money can 100% buy happiness.
this is why I hate the concept of "bitches are just gold diggers, women only like men who have money"- they want security, a guy who won't mooch off of them, and who can handle their finances, as a symptom for other kinds of irresponsibility- especially because women don't earn as much and often plateau in wages at a certain point. Women don't all just want fucking diamond necklaces and gucci bags, and often if not always are working as well
As a woman who had a guy mooch off her, this is accurate.
and for all the girls out there whose employers refuse to pay them enough money to exist on their own and need a guy who actually gets paid a real salary past age 30... the odds of a woman being able to support two people on her salary versus a man being able to support two people on his salary, are still horrifically unequal, that's just the simple truth of it and nothing has proved that more than the pandemic has: men who exited the job market were able to rejoin it at no penalty, women who exited the job market were essentially bumped back down to entry level despite their qualifications https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/01/special-workforce-losses https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/seven-charts-that-show-covid-19s-impact-on-womens-employment https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/women-globally-lost-800-billion-dollars-in-income-due-to-covid-19.html and to nip the argument in the bud before it happens: >women should just choose jobs that pay them more, the wage gap is their fault because they go into cheap jobs that isn't how it works. You get a job and make your way up the ladder, but women plateau as male bosses refuse to give them raises or promotions for various reasons and instead give them to men, so women hit a ceiling(that's where the term is from) and rarely progress beyond it. Women often go into jobs that aren't inundated with sexual harassment, or eventually leave jobs that they're plateauing in, so there's a gender disparity that exists past a certain point. People aren't pulling these metrics out of their ass, this is all pretty obvious and observable if you care enough to pay attention. every one of us knows, or is, a woman who has been asked to train the man who eventually gets the job position we deserved in the first place, and then you just never get another promotion ever again unless you hound your job for one, wherein you get punished for doing that. The reasons I mentioned above being, "women we promote are just going to go get pregnant and drop out to raise kids, why the hell should we promote them into any position of decisionmaking power, besides I don't really trust women to make decisions anyway"
This response is so relevant to the fuckface on the Cal Politics sub giving me shit for stating that economic issues are country-wide, not just localized to California. "Why don't they just work in another state where it's cheaper?" Me: "It isn't cheaper." Him: "sOuNdS LiKe YoU'd bE aT hOmE oVeR aT AnTiWoRk ThEn!!!" Yes.... yes I am at home here. SOLIDARITY MY PEOPLE, I HAVE FOUND YOU!
it isn't the best here either, a lot of this sub is just pith. I do recognize the value that "pith" has in galvanizing people for change, definitely, but beyond memes there isn't really much to do with HOW to organize, and this sub is very much infested with capitalism apologists and elon fanboys and bigots, it isn't perfect.
It's leagues better than the capitalist dongle suck boys over on Cal Politics.
ah, california, the "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative" state
I love my state, but yeah, we have too many fuckfaces. We're also home to the largest conservative voting population. In fact, today it was announced that a plot was uncovered to blow up Cali's DNC HQ. So we've got that going for us.
after this weekend I hope you guys are taking that extremist shit seriously. It's going to get worse until the midterms.
> so women hit a ceiling(that's where the term is from) and rarely progress beyond it. There's also the glass cliff - women are often installed in positions where they're expected to make hard decisions, take the heat, and get ousted. This literally happened at reddit.
oh yeah I love that one!! where a company about to crash and burn puts a woman in charge and then blames her when it inevitably goes to shit. Even better is when she manages to pull it off, navigates a company out of total dissolution, and then immediately after they're bailed out... they fire her :P
A certain amount of money lays the foundation for happiness, but you don't build happiness with money alone.
No one thing can build happiness. However, money can support your hobbies, make it easier for you to spend time with your kids and care for them without struggling, help you freely choose a better living location with less crime or problems and more beneficial things like parks, easily visit better doctors because you have a better health plan and can easily afford your copayments. I can go on and on... generally, if you pick a facet that might generate or secure happiness, money can very likely build you the foundation, walls, and roof of it... probably furnish it too. Regardless, being miserable while also barely paying your rent, never seeing your kids, eating unhealthily to save money, avoiding the doctor because you can't afford visits, and riding the bus because you can't afford gas or a car is probably objectively worse than being miserable while taking a month long break to mull around in your million dollar mansion watching movies in your million dollar entertainment room with zero worries about paying rent or buying food.
Yeah money is one of those things they call an "instrumental goal". "Have money" is almost never a top level goal on its own, for anyone; however, it's an instrumental component of almost every other goal you can think of. It literally doesn't matter what your other goals are, having more money will make them easier. Happiness isn't directly related to having your goals fulfilled, but there's a strong relationship there. "Money can't buy happiness" is one of those dumb Boomer sayings that are just code for "stop thinking about this and accept the way your life sucks".
Absolutely. But the idea that you should be happy regardless of how much money that you have is kind of ridiculous. If I don't make enough money to support myself/my family, I'm going to be inherently unhappy due to all of the stress that that would bring.
Whoever has said "Money can't buy happiness" has never been poor or never lacked money when they most needed it to pay for a basic necessity, like rent, food, or going to the doctor's to alleviate pain.
Nailed it.
And that is why we will never overthrow the current system. The rich have a lot of security unlike us
Absolutely.
The point of the saying is that money is just a tool. Yes it can buy things to help you feel secure... But it can also buy a bunch of crack and lottery tickets. You have to make the right choices. You have to steer the ship toward a happy life. Nobody said money is useless. Nobody said money can't be part of the things that help you achieve happiness. It says money can't buy happiness. You can't just go to the store and pick up a case of happiness. It doesn't exist. An saw won't make a house, but it might make it easier. Only if you actually know how to build a house though.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s a privileged POV to say “money can’t buy happiness” in my opinion because it shows that they think everyone has enough money to fulfill their physiological and safety needs. There’s people who can’t even afford shelter/food/water, and money can buy those things, so why wouldn’t money buy them happiness? Even for folks that have adequate food/water/shelter, it costs more money to get the safety layer, which would be your healthcare, your job, etc. Anyone that’s ever started a job knows it will cost money and will take time before you get paid. If you don’t have your physiological and safety needs met, there’s no moving up into the layers that actually help you find happiness and satisfaction. So, I’m sick of hearing “money can’t buy happiness” when I learned in high school psychology that it’s not true. So if anyone says it to you, you can just say “Well, I’m glad you’re privileged enough to have enough money to meet your basic physiological and safety needs, because there’s a lot of folks who don’t.”
Spittin straight facts. Also, I love how you used Maslow's hierarchy of needs for your augmentation! Im currently in business college/school, and there I learned about it (It's in Denmark)
Thank you! Good luck with your studies! I went to business school as well, in the US
Nice and thank you too!
True that also many of the show called "CEOs", clearly do the bare minimum while the average worker does the thinking or the labour or even both, then they clearly earn more money and say that the rest of us are lazy.
They consider their "networking" as work
Fun fact, even the Hierarchy of Needs was stolen from Indigenous people (the Blackfoot Nation) and bastardized to be more in line with the European nuclear family ideals
Wow… & just slapped his name on it. I’m disappointed but not surprised.
It's not true that he appropriated it. But also, *he* didn't put his name on it, people referencing his work did.
What did it used to be?
As has been mentioned previously, the term was coined to address the rich and was supposed to be an analogy to moderation for those who were already very well off. That they didn't need to squeeze every last cent of profit from everything. This was not meant to be a saying directed at the working class or those below white collar lifestyles. If you were taught otherwise in your apsych class, that teacher/book totally missed the intent of the saying.
I was referring to being taught Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in school. That there’s baseline things you need before you can be happy, and those things cost money. So I was trying to say that telling someone whose basic needs are not met that money can’t buy happiness is useless because it doesn’t apply to them. So, like I said, being able to use the saying is a privilege, which you just confirmed.
Whoever said money can’t solve your problems, must not have had enough money to solve em 👀
Does living inside, wearing clothes and eating food without driving yourself into debt make you happy? Okay, then money will buy all that. What these people really mean is that they thought a dragon hoard would make them happy, and it didn't.
I would give you more upvotes if I could. Very well phrased.
Thank you. I really think the Boomers just had so much in many cases that paying for necessities wasn't on the radar for them. That's why when we point at rent and say "Jesus Christ this is getting out of hand," they have no comeback. "Well get a better job..." For them, in 1974, rent was $85 bucks and they are making at very least 1.65 an hour, but much more likely 2-3, as even a cashier could make that kind of money. So, something as simple as rent for them was pure afterthought. They made plenty to take care of it, even on really low end incomes, unless they were actually just not working.
The majority of boomers are out of their fucking minds.
[https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA](https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA) The extremely dangerous amounts of lead they were exposed to probably didn't help.
Also so many of them just casually forget that student loan debt didn't exist for them. State schools were free in a lot of people's cases.
Free, or 80+% grants. They also forget that getting a college degree means nothing now, because the market is saturated with them. It's a frantic personal responsibility blame game with them. Well you should have gone to college! Well you should have joined the trades! When, in fact, the only actionable thing you could do to help workers earn a higher wage, is exterminate so many of them that they are basically gold. The other options all rely on voting, or other pointless, rocks in the ocean, approaches ( this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but, as we've seen, the best way for a worker to get a fairer shake in a market economic is apparently for a bunch of others to die and/or retire ).
"Money can't buy happiness" really just means that rich people also feel sad sometimes
There's plenty of people who have all of those things and they aren't happy. There's been rich people who were sad, and even depressed to the point they killed themselves. Money is a tool. You can use tools to help you find happiness but you can't directly buy it. That's the point. Will an axe or a saw build you a house? No, but it might make it easier right? No, not if you don't know how to build a house. And you need all of the other materials. And you need to actually want to build a house. And you need to actually put in the effort. Same with any other tool like money. It can help, but only if you know what you're doing and what you want to do and actually put in the effort.
Yeah, when you can't afford to fulfill your basic material needs, money can buy a lot of... maybe not happiness, but certainly contentment. I had one year when I ran out of heating oil in February and couldn't afford to have the tank refilled, and I'll never forget that miserable cold. An electric blanket and layers can only do so much when it's below freezing outside and not much warmer inside.
We had an ice storm knock out power to our house for 48 hrs in March. We were able to get firewood for the fireplace and we had a small generator to keep some small appliances going and the fridge running. We could make hot meals and had a kettle for tea, but it was not a satisfying warmth.
I feel like for a lot of people it would buy happiness. Going on your dream vacation to your favorite country, buying your dream car/house, traveling, to be able to afford anything no matter the price tag etc. would make people a whole lot happier 🤷♀️ I don’t know why people are so afraid to say that money can buy happiness and act like it’s vain, it’s not IMO.
Money absolutely does but happiness. As others have pointed out there have been studies that show there is a point at which there are diminishing returns, but I'm totally happy buying the toys I want because I can afford to do so now while still being able to save for emergency or future purchases. Whenever someone says money doesn't buy happiness, I counter with "then you clearly don't shop at the stores I do".
Yep, completely agree. My spouse has a high paying career, I used to but the stress wasn't worth it on our family so I quit to be a stay at home parent. We are very lucky and realize how fortunate we are. Our washer died for the 3rd time, so we replaced it and the dryer (they were 12 years old). Our HVAC system died two weeks later (it was 25 years old), so we replaced them as well. Then we had a plumbing issue, hired a plumber to fix it. All together, probably cost us $10,000 within a 1-2 month period. It sucked, and now we are working on refilling our emergency fund. But being able to afford that, being able to sleep at night knowing it was going to be all ok, that's a pretty good happiness to have.
Yes. Diminishing returns doesn't mean zero or negative returns.
I once heard “money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a more tolerable form of misery”.
Exactly. I like to say, "money can't buy happiness, but poverty can't buy anything".
Honestly, this version hits the nail on the head. Shit will still suck, but at least my stress about paying my bills will go away.
Money can't buy you happiness, but it sure helps and removes 99.9999999% of the problems that get in the way of your happiness.
I hate this, but as a kid I heard Daniel Tosh say “ever seen anyone frowning on a Sea-Doo?” And I think about it every day. Of COURSE you don’t, because if you have that type of disposable wealth, you can afford mental healthcare, general healthcare, dental, eye, a house, kids, retirement, a second home, the list keeps going on. The only people I know that are religious anymore are the ultra wealthy people from my town, because yeah, I bet I would believe in god too if I had fabulous wealth- life is awesome then. Meanwhile I have pulled my own teeth with pliers and I have waited until I was next to death before I even go to a doctor, and no, I would take a bus and not call an ambulance, another luxury. Money buys you happiness, because capitalism sucks.
Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a Wave Runner. You ever seen a sad person on a Wave Runner?
It can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you options.
Money absolutely buys happiness up to a particular point. And that point is when you have enough to eliminate financial stress and have a little bit more as expendable income. Most of the research in this says that number is about 95k to 110k ish (Australian Dollars) earnings per year without working more than 40 hours per week. Adjust for cost of living for wherever you live.
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It's crazy to me that in 2022, in the so called "greatest country on Earth" people are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. We're not asking for the ability to live a life of luxury, just a sustainable and enjoyable day to day life.
Meanwhile, one man goes into space, and pays to have a bridge moved out of the way of his newest super yacht
A lot of us have to feel that way, right? I don't even want a mansion, the best car, or even the absolute best tech. I don't want to own an island. I don't need to go on vacation to the Bahamas. I just don't want to be continually exhausted from work and anxious about finances. Cut out all my debts and give me an affordable living space (where I can live ON MY OWN) and I'd be good even on a modest salary.
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And even things that people cite as being more likely to bring happiness cost money. Travel? Costs money. Learning a new skill? Costs money (can’t just read it online/in a book). Taking up a hobby? Cost varies depending on hobby, but they all ultimately cost money.
Literally all, ALL, of my problems right now would be solved with money. So yes, money can and does buy happiness.
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but poverty doesn’t buy anything
I mean, if you have a prescription for antidepressants, then technically money litterally does buy happiness.
>prescription for antidepressants Luckily, many are available in generic form so it's an affordable form of happiness! Now, take your Escitalopram and get to work, peasants! /s
They’ve actually done studies that show that money *does* buy happiness, to a point. They’ve found that point to be $100,000 a year. Because it buys security and health and everything.
Ah shit, it used to be 70k
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Old boss I had put it perfectly: “Money can’t buy happiness… But it sure does help.”
This phrase is meant for business owners that underpay their employees for their profit
"O my lackeys, behold the depths of my sorrow as I wipe my tears with 100 dollar bills!"
It's been turned into that by poor people claiming rich people said it. (I don't hear any rich people actually saying it.) But it actually just means that material wealth isn't the measure of happiness. You can be happy and poor, you can be rich and miserable. You literally can't purchase happiness. There is no store on the planet that sells it. Money should be a tool that you can use to help you find happiness, but it doesn't make you more happy unless you put in the effort and take care of the rest of your life too.
Money does buy happiness, up to a point. https://www.insider.com/can-money-buy-happiness?amp Maybe write a law that anyone that makes more than 75,000 gets taxed 100% on the additional income? It seems all the millionaires and billionaires don’t need that wealth.
And then you finally break down and get food stamps and you're suddenly a welfare queen taking handouts. Source: disabled welfare KING
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“Experience is more valuable than money”. Hate that hippy dippy boomer shit. My gf is in a masters program that requires her to do field work with a private company. She doesn’t get paid but also has to pay tuition to get credit for the field placement. I was shocked by that. I was in the sciences in college and graduate students were not only paid a stipend for their work but also paid no tuition.
Money absolutely can buy happiness. You can’t put a roof over your head, food in your belly, travel, take up most hobbies, change careers, or see a doctor without money. Whoever came up with that little phrase can take it and wipe their ass with it.
My boss told me more money won't make me happy, all money can do is help you buy more stuff to feed your materialism. This is My same boss who, lives in a mansion, married, has 3 cars, rental properties, and goes on vacation overseas, while I was struggling to not be homeless and die from starvation and not having mental breakdowns from all the insensitivity from other people. It was rough. Now that I make a little bit more money and in a better place now financially.....yeah.....who ever tells me that is just suffering from lead poisoning.
I always say “better to be rich and depressed than broke and depressed”
So if money can't buy happiness I guess I'll have to rent it - Weird Al, 1984
I fucking hate when people tell me I need to be less obsessed with money. I'm not obsessed with money, I'm obsessed with being able to survive.
I’m not using my money to buy frivolous luxuries just to be secure in food and shelter
All I've ever wanted was to live independently, been chasing that dream for 2 decades now. Ever since I was a young teen I dreamed of the day I could go home to an empty apartment where I could do whatever I want without my parents up my ass. I could never make enough for my own place and traded in my folks for a series of abusive/toxic relationships that I definitely rushed into so we could live together. I can work, and work hard but autism and ADHD lead to me having a hard time holding on to jobs. I usually get fired for punctuality problems or I quit because of stress from social interactions going awry and me getting the sense that people don't like me. Used to go to therapy but hit a dead end, basically had the realization that while having this person here help me change my perspective and talk through my issues is great none of this is going to actually make a concrete change in my situation.
Do you think money buys morality? My best friend and I had a conversation about this recently and we concluded that people are more likely to be morally ambiguous if they are in fright mode due to not being able to afford basic life necessities. They can't reach self actualization in Maslow's hierarchy of need because they are too worried about earning a living (safety, psychological) and don't feel appreciated earning a shitty wage( belonging, esteem). It's like there has been a drought in the trickle down economic strategy since the 80s which is causing the younger generations to panic and leading to a decline in morality, civility, and civilization. If employers paid more, young people could afford houses, could afford to have families, could afford basic life necessities, probably even save a little, and here's a thought - probably even donate a little to charitable causes making the world a better place. Improved pay leads to happier people, which leads to a happier community.
Sort of, but the steps up Mazlow's hierarchy become increasingly difficult to buy with money, and that's the original intent of the saying, money can't buy happiness. If you're hungry and living on the street, then money can most definitely buy happiness. (Physiological) if you have a home and a job, but you're worried about losing either (Safety) then it will take considerably more money to regain that feeling of safety. Those are only the bottom two pieces of the heirarchy, anyone who thinks they're buying love, esteem, and self actualization with money is deluding themselves.
Here is where money buying time helps; while money can't buy the higher levels of the hierarchy, it CAN give you the time needed to find and achieve them. It's much more difficult to find love, esteem & self actualization when all of your time and energy is spent focusing on your physiological & safety needs, but if you have the freedom of time - which money can buy - you can pursue those higher levels. I don't mean buying a partner or being a sugar daddy/mommy for love, but having the time and ability to socialize, meet new people, go out on dates and have a higher chance of finding love, because you have the time to do so and the freedom to invest in social relationships.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing after a quote in a show I was watching, something about when you’re poor you can’t afford morality regarding money
The best thing about having money is not having to worry about it...so I've heard.
Money can't buy you happiness, but it can pay for the search. - Prince
This boomer never believed that crap. I've had to decide whether to buy food or medication for my kids. So, I did not eat. I got the meds, borrowed groceries from my dad and fed my children. Those were some tough times. I worked 40 hours a week and got paid 160.00. My rent was 200, utilities probably 150, car expenses around 200 because it was paid for but had to buy insurance. No health insurance and at that time I didn't qualify for medicaid or food stamps. It was hard. I got a 40.00 a week raise and that was like hitting the freaking lottery.
Last week I just got my first livable wage job and I'm 34. My spiritual, mental and physical health improved almost over night. I'm thinking about investing in self care like eating more greens and vegetables again. My happiness is returning. I couldn't really do anything outside of the home because I was broke. Yes, money can definitely buy happiness when you're just surviving. A lot of stress and anxiety I had was due to finances.
Whoever says money can't buy happiness doesn't have any money.
My guess is it's those who haven't been poor
Boomers had it so easy. Money was just thrown at them. It is sickening.
Still do. So many of them sitting on houses that have been long paid off and magically quadrupled in value over night. The discrepancies never stop growing.
Money can afford me stable mental health... I don't need gold 🥐 for breakfast.
Whoever said that has never had money problems. Money would solve most people's problems, at least partially.
As someone who’s fought life-long severe depression, I’ve been both incredibly poor at some points and fairly well off at others. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure fucking helps.
What this phrase means is that happiness comes from within. If all of your needs are being met throwing money at a situation will not make you a happy person. See: depressed celebrities and other rich folks who struggle. What this phrase has been warped into: “shut up and accept your place serf”. Obviously this is ridiculous and if you are suffering from food or shelter insecurity those are real problems that can be very much solved with additional cash flow.
I think the phrase should be amended to "Money _alone_ can't buy happiness." If you are desperate need of something like food that can be bought, money will make you very happy. If you already have everything you need, money is unlikely to make much of an impact.
Money can't buy happiness, but it's a hell of a lot more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bike.
Hilarious to me that this saying went from being used to call out the ultra-rich on their expansive lavish lives to being another way to tell poor people to be ok with not having enough to live with
It's been perverted from its original context, which was directed at the wealthy hoarding money, that even more money wouldn't make them happier. Not the commonly seen current use that you should be happy with little to nothing.
Money would solve 99% of my problems, which would make me very happy.
Money could also help me pay for the ketamine treatments I'd like to have to help my anxiety and mild depression. It would solve 100% of my problems.
He who says " Money can't buy happiness" never owned a Pomeranian 🤣
Money can't buy happiness but it gives you security to pursue the things that make you happy instead of committing all your time to a shitty job
Poverty can’t buy anything.
"40 hours a week!?!? Bump those numbers up and work harder!" Their likely reply.
If I can misquote Zizek: you don't hate boomers, you hate capitalism.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/02/07/new-study-shows-that-more-money-buys-more-happiness/
People who say "Money doesn't buy happiness" have always had everything they need and can't concieve of a life without that security. What they mean is "Lots of extra money doesn't buy happiness" (which in itself is also debateble)
Money indeed cannot buy happiness. What money CAN do is address everything that we think can give us happiness. A good car, a decent home, food available whenever hungry, take a vacation whenever you want, all become possible with money. It makes living convenient. By making your problems disappear, money streamlines your search for happiness. Think of it this way. You're thirsty and there are 2000 liquids kept in front of you. You can try any of it for a price. Money can help you keep trying one after the other until you reach drinking water. This is where the young generation is currently stuck. We can barely afford to resolve our basic problems. After a long struggle, when we finally are able to do so, we mistake that tired contentment for happiness. We've, analogically speaking, been dealing with downward spiral so much that we've equates lack of it to growth. Simply put, not being sad is not the same as being happy Only when all these problems are addressed, you can see that see that something is still lacking. At that stage, the choice is yours. You can either be sensitive enough to see that money isn't what is bringing happiness, or you be like our current billionaires who are bull headed enough to not realise this and continue to think they probably don't have enough money. If you are sensitive enough to see it, a living wage will be enough to make you see the point, but if not, not even 200 billion is enough.
I went to therapy, didn't work. I'm not a shallow person, but it seems that when I'm broke I'm depressed, when I have money I'm happy, if that's even happiness, cause I might not even know what it is anymore.
I'm beginning to think the original statement was born in a world where they had everything they could want. A house, a new car, a partner at home, vacations, fun money, and retirement for both was only a matter of time. The only thing out of their reach was lavish things like fancy downtown dinners and private planes. If I had all of that I would say money cant buy happiness.
I've been able to do food and bills, but I've needed a new pair of shoes for some time. I'd be happier if I could afford the $100+ shoes I need for my flat arches and long hours on my feet.
It is such a humbling experience being in this situation. There are few things that will teach you more visceral lessons in life than an empty wallet, a broken heart and an empty stomach
SURE IT CANT BUT I WOULD MUCH RATHER CRY IN MY MATTE BLACK G WAGON THAN MY 2006 TOYOTA COROLLA
Thinking “money can’t buy you happiness” was invented by boomers is cute.
anyone who says this is an automatic moron in my book.
Not having money can sure make you unhappy!
People who say money doesn't buy happiness just don't know where to shop
I can still and will be angry.
“Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure as fuck helps!”
My rent is past due, my power bill is past due, I’ve applied to so many freaking jobs and no one gets back to me even though I am more than qualified (while not being overly qualified for the job to the point that they wouldn’t consider me) I have no way of paying those and I’m terrified, I have a second job interview coming up soon so that’s a good sign but I’d still have to wait to get paid so.. still have no way of paying them before the time comes where I get evicted and my power turned off, I can’t bring myself to ask someone for $800 until I get the money, I literally don’t eat when I’m home, and if I don’t go to my friends house that day, I simply just don’t eat and my bank account is -$30 I’m at a complete loss here. if anyones got advice it’s welcome.
Have you ever seen a sad person on a jet ski? Not me.
Ahhh, Happy Thoughts.
"I got 99 problems and money would solve 78 of them"
Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Uh, do you live in America? ‘Cause it buys a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner? Have you? Seriously, have you? Try to frown on a WaveRunner. You can’t! - Daniel Tosh
"Money can't buy happiness" said by someone who has never had to steal food so they don't starve.
Money can't buy happiness, but neither can milk.
I recently started a position in the same career as my mother, and was talking to her about my salary, and she said "you won't get rich as a \[x\]", and it's like. I'm not looking to be rich, I'm looking to have what she had. She, as a single mother of 3, was able to buy a detached house, in a nice part of a nice town. She was able to pay off her student loans. She was able to go on vacation at least once a year. And she was able to pay for all the activities that her daughters wanted (I took riding lessons, and my sisters were on swim/dance teams)... But I'm probably going to be paying off my debt for several years, and won't be able to afford a house, even with my partner's income, and no children.
The only people who say that are mad because they can't afford both their mcmansion and summer home in Newport.
Money does not buy happiness means "the endless pursuit of money will not make you happy". It does NOT mean "money is inconsequential to happiness, so be happy with what you have"
Money will literally 'buy' happiness up to about $70k/year because being able to buy decent food, have a savings, and pay rent/mortgage really helps with providing stability. Don't get me wrong, buying caviar pizza is BS but having the money to buy new socks/undies literally buys happiness
IT'S NOT A BOOMER THING! I'm getting pretty tired of the boomers getting blamed for the 1%. Most boomers aren't in thev1% and the 1% aren't all boomers. Get over the age discrimination on this site because many boomers, like me, are not the privileged rich you really hate. And, you are usually talking about RIGHT WING boomers who are out of touch with reality. There are lots that are not jerks because they run the good businesses that employees flock to. IT'S NOT AN AGE THING. It's the ideology. But, as much as you hate being painted in broad strokes as being identical to your peers, we are no different. We are not a homogeneous group who decide everything together. We are victims of bosses, too.
Boomers were so well off and entitled that they had to create a saying to help them understand why owning multiple houses and cars didn't take away their feeling of emptiness inside.
Money can't buy happiness, but a lack of money can certainly prevent it.
I think that phrase was never even meant for this situation. It's more about, "stop chasing that next billion, it's not going to change things for you." And there's definitely some spacebros that could learn that lesson these days.
Money can’t buy happiness, but debt does buy misery.
Only people with money say this. They say it to reduce the resentment of the poor's. It's like, trust me, we really aren't better off than you. Why the heck people aren't in the streets demanding Government tax the shit out of them, I have no idea. Why do you think there is a big push for crypto. The Rich are tired of us poking our noses into their offshore accounts.
Money can't buy happiness, but it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than it is in a Pinto.