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Comment by karyon | Hacker News Reader

but what about maybe another yacht? some island? that limited edition lamborghini? oh you could collect art. use your bonus to get more of that. i think this "if i had this specific amount of money, then i'd have everything i could possibly desire" is unlikely to be true, you'll find more things to spend your money on.

another thought: you could donate all of it. the perfect money sink. it actually helps, and more of it helps better. so with an altruistic mind you can get motivated with that no matter on which salary level :)

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Obviously I can't answer for anyone but myself, and I personally wouldn't be motivated to get a second yacht given how much work keeping one up is (not that I have one).

But how about you? Do you feel better about yourself if you have more art? or more cars? a bigger house? a staff? And if so, why does that make you feel better about yourself?

Personally I feel better when I worry less about money. Once I reached that point money became less of a motivator. Career promotions and title changes are now my primary motivator.

Sure my family with an extra 100k could do a handful of extra things in life but quality of life isn't going to change because of it.

Personally I have no interest in such luxuries and hope I never will have. My goal is to keep my expenses to the (relatively low) level it is now, and save excess money for kids (which i don't have yet) or donate it. But I'm not there yet, I'll leave university in a few months, and what do I know what my future self will do.

My experience - having gone through times where a week before the end of the month, I had to calculate very carefully what food I could buy so I could welcome the next month without an empty stomach - is that money itself does not make me happy, but having to worry about money is an exquisite torment.

Whoever said that money was an obedient servant but a cruel master pretty much nailed it.

There are, of course, plenty of things to worry about that money cannot solve. But having known the kind of worries brought on by too little money, I very much appreciate that none of my current worries are about money. Anything beyond that is nice to have, but I doubt anything could beat that feeling of not having to worry about money any longer.

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