Having grown up in a poor household with a single parent who worked multiple jobs to get ends to meet, you'll forgive me if I don't feel a whole heck of a lot of sympathy for you and your "gilded cage".

Money itself does not buy happiness.

A lack of money, though, makes it a heck of a lot harder to find it.

The goal should be to reach a point where you don't have to actively worry about money, and that includes some buffer to allow for luxury expenses... travel, eating out, entertainment, that sort of thing.

Beyond that, additional money will, at best, provide an increment in terms of overall life satisfaction.

Less than that, and money has a major impact on happiness, and anyone who says otherwise has clearly never experienced the stress of living paycheck-to-paycheck. That is a cage, and trust me, it ain't gilded.