I grew up poor. Money scares me. Whenever I buy something, even essentials like groceries, it makes me flushed and dizzy and kinda sick to my stomach. But now that I have the means to buy non-essentials, I feel compelled to optimize. Sometimes this is fun, most of the time it is not. When something gets destroyed, my first thought is how much it cost. When I see something that is incredibly expensive but poorly made, it's personally offensive -- like someone, somewhere thinks I'm a sucker.

It was easier, in a way, being poor (and, later, homeless). Everything was off limits, so I didn't need to waste any thought on it.

There is one silver lining, though. We can do things for our kids that my parents could not do for me, like pay for martial arts lessons, musical instruments, movies and new clothes. Nothing gives me greater pleasure.

Don't you? http://www.neatorama.com/2010/02/10/money-cant-buy-happiness...

Really? I would argue quite the opposite.

Obviously anecdotes mean little, but I can definitely think of examples from my own life of those who enjoy a sense of pride in _not_ having to spend money to increase their own happiness (or not spend as much as they perceive others find necessary).

My own parents, for example, have much happiness and not a huge amount of money. And I don't honestly think that having it would really make them that much happier.

Not really, it can buy you comfort - but that is not really what this article seems to be aiming at.

I grew up poor: went to school with holes in my clothes, had the electricity turned off, etc. (But because my poor-ness was due to my mother's infelicity with money, not because we didn't have any at all, we also had some finer things like a computer.)

I can tell you that money can't buy you happiness. Money doesn't even buy a sense of security. Your attitudes about money can make or break your happiness.

Example: If you are in the Sustenance Driven mindset defined by Abraham Maslow, you will always be motivated by "getting enough" and "keeping it" - even if you have a comfortable middle class lifestyle, you will be kept awake at night, afraid you will lose it. While most descriptions you find online will equate the feeling of Sustenance with actual Sustenance, you can hold this mindset no matter how much you have.

My (divorced) parents, no matter their earnings, were always in that category.

I was, too, until I actually did lose it all - I got scammed out of 2 months of work, had my car stolen, got mono, couldn't work for months, lost all my other clients, came within a hairs' breadth of being sued by one of them... if not for some guy I was only casually friends with on IRC, who up and gave me my rent one month, I would have been evicted and homeless.

Then I realized: it sucked, but I didn't die, and I recovered, got a job, bought a car, paid off that angry client, paid off my credit card debt.

Now I know exactly what money is worth to me.

That's why I quit a job where I could have stayed forever, never been fired, and got profit sharing that increased every month - by the time I quit, it was already equal to an additional pay check a month, and I was earning over $150,000 a year. Because I was unhappy there and knew what money was worth to me, and it wasn't worth that unhappiness.

So, there you go. Money can't buy you happiness. It can't even buy you the feeling of security, it can't even make you free from worry, because you can have lots of money and still feel insecure and worry about losing it all. It is, literally, all in your head.