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Does Money Buy Happiness? I say YES!

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

How would winning $100 million affect your happiness level?

  • Short Term Only - I'd be happy until I got bored again

  • Short and Long Term - I'd be happy for the rest of my life

  • Money could never buy me happiness

Results are only viewable after voting.
My barber use to be a big wig back in the early 70's and was making a ton of $$$. He got burned out in the mid 80's walked away from that job and has been cutting hair ever since. He went from driving a Ferrari to driving an older Accord. He told me he's happier now than he's ever been in his life. And this is a little hole in the wall barber shop that charges $8 a hair cut so at best he's probably making pretty shit money
 
I say yes and I'm willing to prove it. Anyone with the nerve to take that bet can give me $100 million and monitor my happiness. If I fail to be happy I will give them every penny I have left over.
 
FoBoT said:
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I was wondering if anybody would get the reference. 🙂
 
Imp said:
Money also buys you charity... like being able to commission and sponsor your very own pilgrimage/charity thing to Africa. Long story short, it can you smiles from children.

Meanwhile, the "poor" people have to compete to get a spot on one of those teams to "make a difference".
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You don't have to have money when you are poor to make a difference.
 
Of course it does. The only people who say it doesn't are those without money or the ability to make much. It is not that money actually buys happiness directly but it reduces or eliminated most problems which will contribute immensely to someone's mental state. Being able to spend money to solve problems is a nice position to be in, period. Of course there are those rich people that are miserable but that has more to do with their own flawed character than anything else. Some people are just going to be miserable.
 
gigahertz20 said:
Disagree, it depends on the person. Some people are not happy with just their basic living needs fulfilled. You may not require money to make you happy, but having millions would definitely make you MORE happy for at least a period of time. So can money buy happiness? I think for most people, like 90% or more, it would make them happier for at least a period of time, so yes it could buy them happiness for an indefinite period.
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What you are describing isn't true happiness, it is a diversion. When someone who is miserable spends money on something and it makes them happy for a short time that isn't happiness , it is a diversion from their lives that gives them the illusion of being happy. It is like when a marriage falls apart because of money the people say things like " everything was fine until we lost our jobs", examine that marriage and every time you will find clues that the marriage wasn't fine and the money was just allowing them to do things that allowed them to avoid the problems they had with each other.

That old man in Kenya probably never had anything to begin with and has been around people his whole life that never had anything themselves. You can't miss what you never had, but if this Kenyan grew up a rich man and then everything was taken away, I guarantee he wouldn't be sitting beside the road happy after losing all his money and knowing what he can't do now because of having no money.
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Wrong. There are plenty people that won lotteries and were miserable and are actually glad the money is gone because they learned that money doesn't buy happiness. If you really want to know how happy you are ask yourself the question if you lost every penny, every possession you had tomorrow would you cope okay with it and believe you could start over, or would it be like most Americans lead to you thinking the world had ended ?
 
Ronstang said:
Of course it does. The only people who say it doesn't are those without money or the ability to make much. It is not that money actually buys happiness directly but it reduces or eliminated most problems which will contribute immensely to someone's mental state. Being able to spend money to solve problems is a nice position to be in, period. Of course there are those rich people that are miserable but that has more to do with their own flawed character than anything else. Some people are just going to be miserable.
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Yeah. With money you can focus on things that make you happy instead of spending so much of your time and energy in the rat race. And with $100 million if you can't find ways to pave the road for your happiness, well there's no way you'd be happy anyway.
 
goog40 said:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/happiness-is-earning-60000-a-year.html

“Below 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I’ve rarely seen lines so flat.”

“Clearly… money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery,” he said. But the real trick, Kahneman said, is to spend time with people you like.
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I was about to post this. Of course $60k a year with health insurance is more than the vast majority of the world's population will ever make.
 
preslove said:
I was about to post this. Of course $60k a year with health insurance is more than the vast majority of the world's population will ever make.
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If a family of four only made $60k a year it seems to me that they may be rather unhappy at times.
 
Short term happiness, aka entertainment/distraction, not real happiness, because that comes from within /deep

But seriously, I always notice my mood is all over the place for no reason at all... One day I wake up and feel everything is awesome and I can take over the world, the other day I feel completely unmotivated and think nothing is worth doing

Money has absolutely no effect on this whatsoever
 
A while back I sold a company that I had started up. Got an obscenely large amount of money. It was fun having money. Alas, I lost it all in the divorce. The divorce lawyers that got most of that money seemed to be quite happy.

One reason I was really happy with that money is that it was my confirmation that I was talented.
 
Money is another tool that can be used in the persuit of happiness but it doesn't mean happiness just by itself.

There is something to be said for the sense of satisfaction you get when you have a chance to admire/enjoy something you worked hard for. There are several things that come to mind that I know I would not enjoy as much if I hadn't worked as hard for them. While money provides a means to an end it also can remove that sense of satisfaction trough ease and expediancey
 
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Not having to stress about bills, worrying about my mother, taking care of my family, hell yes money will buy me happiness.
 
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