Reply to After what income level does money not buy happiness?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it's when you can buy what you want and don't have to worry about money anymore.

We make about $350K.  We live comfortably but I would definitely like to be able to send my 3 kids to private school and still feel like I could easily pay for their college educations, to have full-time household help at home, to support my parents in their later years so they didn't have to worry about money and take several "big" trips a year (10K+) and make more generous (25K+) yearly donations to causes I support.  We are not able to do this at 350K, maybe at 500-700.[/quote]

So you're not happy unless your life has no obstacles whatsoever, even to vague whims?[/quote]

That wasn't the question, though.  The question as I understood it (though phrased awkwardly, and perhaps seeking to elicit something else), and that this poster answered, is when can money actually buy happiness.  And the answer, which I agree with, is when it [b]eliminates life's annoyances, relieves life's stresses, and adds significant enjoyment. [/b] Nowhere did this poster say she could only be happy with no obstacles - but having the money it takes to eliminate obstacles sure helps.

An old family friend, who is very wealthy, once told me, "Thank goodness for the problems we can solve by throwing money at them." [/quote]

You're saying the same thing again -- only when money is [i]absolutely no object[/i] is happiness achieved.  Because the answers you're providing/cosigning here aren't "when money makes my life easier" they're "when it wouldn't be possible for another dollar to make my life an iota easier."  Someone with a 200k HHI has an easier life than someone with a 50k HHI, but they don't have literally zero money concerns.  But if you need all school costs (at the most expensive option) to not register on your savings radar, full-time household staff, several "big" trips a year (defined not by the level of interest to the poster but rather by a random price tag) ... this isn't just "money smooths my way" it's [i]I have every dollar I can think of a use for[/i].  And that's not what happiness means outside of a warped hedge fund sales pitch, at least to anyone I've ever met IRL.

There's a reason that the studies showed 70k was the tipping point into diminishing returns -- in most places 70k gives you options to choose to order your life according to your priorities.  But apparently DCUM doesn't define happiness by being able to achieve your priorities, but rather by not having to have priorities so that you can have everything you can think of, all the time.  And it should seriously go without saying that that way does not lie happiness.  Never in history has just unfettered wealth and sating every passing desire led to a happy person, it's only led to the craziest and most deranged people history can offer up as examples.[/quote]

I get what you’re saying but I don’t think it’s entitely true. Travel is pensive and it makes me very happy. Many of my best memories in life are the trips we take with our family (I’m the PP who spends 50k or more on travel).

For another person, keeping a horse or sending 3 kids to private school might make them happy.

My husband has an 85k car that he says gives him a pulse of pleasure every day. He is planning to replace it with a 110k car.

Money doesn’t buy happiness itself. But it does enable you to buy things (like travel experiences) that facilitate happiness.[/quote]

If you're the PP who spends 50K on travel, then you're also the PP who says you have to budget and make choices on 750k.  So you're not the first PP (or the parallel PP in the thread) who is equating "happiness" with "the amount of money that gets me whatever I want whenever I want it."  Because although you corrected them on the point, they picked their numbers (500-700K or 750K) specifically because they thought meant they could never think/worry about money again.  That's the mentality I'm pushing back against, not whether travel is pleasurable (it is) or people can find happiness in expensive hobbies (sure, why not).  [/quote]

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