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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Money won’t make you happy

I have always hated this saying because it's worthless without the context of who is getting the money.

I grew up poor - money definitely made us happy because we could afford to move out of my aunt or my grandmother's house.

Everyone loves to cite the study that "above $75,000/year money doesn't make you happier" - without realizing that it's simply saying that there are diminishing returns above that point (standard economic marginal utility concept), not that overall happiness goes down.

The reality is that more money gives you different problems, not more problems and in fact opens up a world of opportunities that can keep generations beyond you above that $75,000/year mark.

Money is about what it enables and that is where happiness comes from. As a wise man once said:

"Money can't buy happiness [but it can buy] a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner?"

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The whole thing about the "happiness/money metric" is incredibly misleading, because it doesn't touch upon what money really gets you. Happiness as an emotion might (for some people) trail off after a certain point, but that should be considered irrelevant. Money buys you safety, freedom, and the ability to take risks; those things aren't going to show up in any kind of happiness study. If I had a serious amount of money, that would give me the freedom to work on things I want to work on without having to worry about paying the rent, getting downsized, getting my pay cut, and all the rest.

The idea that the artist that doesn't have to spend their life working in a coffee shop to fund their art or that the software dev that would rather write FLOSS all day rather than take on boring contract gigs isn't happier is absurd on its face.

It seems to me as something like, money enables you to go find happiness. But you have to figure out where to find it. Money itself is not happiness.

> without realizing that it's simply saying that there are diminishing returns above that point

But I thought everyone got that point. It's not as if people thought every additional dollar brought them misery. People who quote this understand that you don't need this additional money, and that the effort/sacrifices to get it are not worth it.

Sure, I take it that they don't need it. But they do not know if you, or me, or anyone else needs it, and whether the effort is worth it for others, and really shouldn't pretend that they do.

The point is precisely that nobody "needs" millions of dollars. That kind of money is well beyond the point of having the peace of mind you'll never go hungry or stop having a comfortable standard of living.

>and that the effort/sacrifices to get it are not worth it.

Not quite. Marginal utility means the increase in benefit from an extra unit of some value, is some percentage less than 100% of the benefit gained from the previous unit.

Stated mathematically, its a logistic function.

Again, you're stating things people already know (maybe not in terms of marginal utility, but they do). You say you grew up poor, but the money you needed in order to be happy weren't millions or billions. It was a lot less. Beyond this, more money doesn't mean happiness, which is what people mean when they say it... but you already knew this, didn't you?

If the return in happiness/peace of mind you get beyond $75K (or whatever number) is close to nil, those all-nighters and cheap noodle lunches are simply not worth it by definition. Unless you enjoy living like that, of course, but the implication is that most startup founders don't, it's just stuff they do because they see the gold pot at the end.

Again, you're stating things people already know

I don't think that's true. I think a lot of people want to find a way to think that billionaires are worse off than someone making 75,000/year. They cite that study and incorrectly come to the conclusion that more money past 75,000 means increasing unhappiness under the "mo money mo problems" doctrine. People in this thread doing that in fact.

Your broader point though is uncontroversial that for the vast majority, working an extra hour per day for 100k more a year wouldn't be worth it.

I argue that's because the vast majority of people wouldn't know what to do with ungodly amounts of money, likely because they don't have ambitions that would require it, and thus see it as superfluous or as you state not worth the effort.

Most people, just want to play with their kids, take a vacation and zone out on netflix. That certainly doesn't take billions.

> "Money can't buy happiness [but it can buy] a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner?"

That's not buying happiness - that's just sucking the happiness out of everyone else in the vicinity that isn't on a WaveRunner themselves :)

Your last quote captures the point of the age-old phrase.

The point of "Money can't buy happiness" is that happiness doesn't have a UPC. The connection between money and happiness has tangible intermediaries. You have to spend the money in order to be happy.

The wisdom of it is putting the ball in the hands of the listener.

A lot of times people can get excited just about making money. That's fine because there are so many wonderful things you can buy. On the other hand, I'm sure there is at least an inkling of a further goal behind the idea of making money. No one is trying to be the guy from the parable who dies with a ton of money in the bank (guy has no descendents/will either). Money can be a trap if it is used as a proxy for future desires that are never realized.

"Money can't buy happiness" leads to the question: What is it that you do want?

High scores in video games are effectively meaningless. People still chase them.

IMO, dying with a lot of money is no sadder than devoting your life to packman. It's hard to think of being a CEO as a Hobby, but internally the rewards are similar to a guild leader.

People tend to attach a lot more meaning to cash than it really deserves. It's not a virtue, just a token of exchange and nothing more.

How are video games meaningless? They are entertainment. If someone devotes their life to pacman, they hopefully enjoy it!

It seems to me that we do not disagree. From my point of view the CEO/guild leader discovered that he/she enjoys working and that they do not enjoy anything that is very expensive. That is great!

All I am saying is that making a lot of money should go hand in hand with asking 'What will I use this money for?'.

To your point, if you ask the question and decide that you get a lot of personal fulfillment from activity that makes money, you might not be able to spend it as fast as it comes in.

"Having money isn't everything, not having it is."

> Everyone loves to cite the study that "above $75,000/year money doesn't make you happier" - without realizing that it's simply saying that there are diminishing returns above that point (standard economic marginal utility concept), not that overall happiness goes down.

No, the studies I've seen (though it was at around $200K, not $75K, in, IIRC, early-2000s) that there was no marginal utility above the stated point. That declining marginal utility means only that each additional unit of income brings less additional satisfaction than the last, but there was a point in the study at which there was no additional satisfaction from additional income.

Can you find that study? I have only seen the one with the ~75k number.

> As a wise man once said:

I'm pretty sure this was Daniel Tosh - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RoLdkgjKhs

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