clifp
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2006
- Messages
- 7,733
"Does happiness continue to increase with income, as some have found, or is there a threshold, as others have found? The answer is that there's a threshold for the least happy people, but for the happiest, happiness continues to increase."
I found this to be a really fascinating study for a couple of reasons.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120. It is relatively short and you can skip the math and still get the essence of the study. The study found for all but unhappiest 20% of people. having more money increases happiness. Second, they used an interesting adversarial approach to settle a disagreement between two studies that found seemingly opposite conclusions. Income increase happiness only up about $75k, and other another study found it didn't plateau. Rather than look at happiness it looked unhappiness
One of the most popular post I've ever made on this forum, is discussing happiness and early retirement. I said that I found the most fulfilling and happy weeks of my life, were while working. The external validation, being a part of team, and something greater than yourself, were all hard for me to replicate post-retirement. On the flip side, my most miserable MONTHs were all while I was working. The stress, dealing with a bad boss, or having to sacrifice family or personal time, for work are all pretty horrible feelings.
I think what that study shows is that having a more money, doesn't make you happier, it just makes it easier to deal with bad days.
Imagine the day you have a car accident or a major appliance breaks like AC or furnace. If someone asks you how your day one unless you have a grandkid, or a daughter getting married that day, you are almost lead with the bad news. Unless you are crazy rich and have a head housekeeper, you are going to spend the next day or two, dealing the hassle of getting car/AC fixed arranging for alternatives, and talking to repair people.
But there is also the expense, if it costs $2K fix and you make $50K, that 2 weeks pay and if you don't have saving, you face the added worry of struggling how to pay for it. If you make $500K/year or have $5 million portfolio, then the expense is pretty much immaterial.
This is one of the reasons I'm still actively involved in managing my investment, is because having more money, just means there are fewer things I have to worry about paying for.
I found this to be a really fascinating study for a couple of reasons.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120. It is relatively short and you can skip the math and still get the essence of the study. The study found for all but unhappiest 20% of people. having more money increases happiness. Second, they used an interesting adversarial approach to settle a disagreement between two studies that found seemingly opposite conclusions. Income increase happiness only up about $75k, and other another study found it didn't plateau. Rather than look at happiness it looked unhappiness
One of the most popular post I've ever made on this forum, is discussing happiness and early retirement. I said that I found the most fulfilling and happy weeks of my life, were while working. The external validation, being a part of team, and something greater than yourself, were all hard for me to replicate post-retirement. On the flip side, my most miserable MONTHs were all while I was working. The stress, dealing with a bad boss, or having to sacrifice family or personal time, for work are all pretty horrible feelings.
I think what that study shows is that having a more money, doesn't make you happier, it just makes it easier to deal with bad days.
Imagine the day you have a car accident or a major appliance breaks like AC or furnace. If someone asks you how your day one unless you have a grandkid, or a daughter getting married that day, you are almost lead with the bad news. Unless you are crazy rich and have a head housekeeper, you are going to spend the next day or two, dealing the hassle of getting car/AC fixed arranging for alternatives, and talking to repair people.
But there is also the expense, if it costs $2K fix and you make $50K, that 2 weeks pay and if you don't have saving, you face the added worry of struggling how to pay for it. If you make $500K/year or have $5 million portfolio, then the expense is pretty much immaterial.
This is one of the reasons I'm still actively involved in managing my investment, is because having more money, just means there are fewer things I have to worry about paying for.
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