In the simple cases of lottery winners, I think the sudden appearance of money rarely buys true lasting happiness. OTOH, if you're struggling to support your family and not making stupid decisions (you know, living beyond your means) then happiness can be a tad harder than if you have some surplus.
The real issue for DW and I, and I think others here from the posts, is balancing the happiness of spending money and the relative security of hoarding it. We spent about 5 years struggling through college, then the next 30 or so gradually increasing income and savings, and when one major career change happened we committed the newfound income to what was then a generic deferred income plan. Over the years I'd guess we saved an average of 20% gross income, most of it in tax deferred 457 and 401k. Never any real matches. Look out minimum WD.
As my career lost its appeal (and I did enjoy it up until last few years) I started to realize we'd probably overdone the LBYM thing, yet we didn't seem to be denying ourselves anything we truly wanted or saw value in. The ability of accessing a pension appeared (although there was a steep buy in for time) and given all sources we simply can't spend more than about 70% of our income on things that have meaning for us.
Now that we're both retired almost 4 years, we're adjusting to a much less frugal life, and what's interesting is that it in fact does seem to be bringing more happiness. While I still tab all the expenses every few days and watch the portfolio every so often, I'm just learning to not care so much about it. When you can buy stuff and do things that cost money but you finally become comfortable that yes, we DO have enough money to cover this with a good cushion, it does lead you (at least us) to more happiness. Not that we were ever Unhappy before in any way. We got a boost in our efforts the day we placed MIL in hospice, and as we lunched discussed how at 89 she had outlived the other 3 parents by15-19 years. Both my parents smoking related, but regardless, time is limited.
We're all different, I'm sure buying new cars every year, making payments, and not saving for retirement can make some folks ecstatically happy. For us, if we'd spent money to buy happiness (that statement doesn't make sense; we were happy and didn't really want anything) then we wouldn't have the financial security that .... makes us really happy. Which I guess means money can buy happiness; spending money is a different thing. We're learning how to do the latter slowly.
Just re-read this. What a ramble
