Money can buy happiness because everyone needs money to survive, at a bare minimum. We take care of our basic needs first before we focus on extraneous things like happiness. When we don’t, we experience unhappiness. Not a good spot to be in.
I’ve been there before. As a broke college student, I couldn’t even afford a decent meal. I lived on triple decker sandwiches and cooked spaghetti and broccoli for my meals. I couldn’t even afford to go to a restaurant and eat because I was broke.
It was a miserable life for me. That’s because I didn’t have any money. Even though I was working 2 jobs and worked every summer, I still didn’t have enough money to achieve upward mobility. You have no idea how unhappy I was, living like that.
While those days are behind me, I can honestly say that money can buy happiness. When I couldn’t even afford food, insurance, and transportation is when I felt miserable. It’s a hard life when you don’t have any money. Others can easily take advantage of you by dangling money in front of you.
Money is power and if you don’t have any money, others WILL take advantage of you to no end. They’re not going to pay you AND be nice to you. Others will use money to assert power over you. And you’re not going to like it every time they do it.
Having more money just feels great.
Money CAN Buy Happiness: 10 Reasons Why
Below are the 10 concrete reasons why money can buy happiness. I experienced the reasons myself, personally.
1) Money Buys Necessities
Whether we like it or not, we have to pay for essential expenses like food, rent, insurance, utilities, transportation, and the like. The necessities cost money. When we don’t take care of our basic needs like hunger, safety, and thirst, we get angry. It’s when citizens revolt.
We look for someone or something to blame and chaos ensues. Money can buy happiness because it buys the necessities in life. You can’t even think about the extraneous things like self actualization, happiness, and love if we can’t even take care of our own selves.
I’ve been there where I had to scramble to satiate my hunger. Where I had to be intentional and plan out where I would source my food instead of food being a given human right. It was a complicated time because I had other important things to think about as well.
It was a dark time for me. Not having money didn’t feel good.
2) Money is a Way to Keep Score
Whether we like it or not, we see money as a score for how well we’re doing in life, compared to others. Yes, you should stop comparing yourself to others. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t do it. There are billionaires who feel inadequate compared to multibillionaires.
Then there are millionaires who feel amazing compared to their $500k counterparts. Whatever the case is, money is a way to keep score on how well we’re doing in life, comparatively. When we don’t feel like we are doing better, we feel unhappy, whether we like it or not.
Money can buy happiness because we want to be doing well compared to others in the world. We, deep down, see life as a competition to some extent. Some don’t mind leaving the rat race, which is a great thing for them. However, for the vast majority of us who can’t escape it, it’s a competition.
And we want to “win” by the end.
3) Money Can Buy Happiness because it Secures Your Family’s Future
We want to look after and take care of the ones who are important to us. That’s much easier when we have money. It’s why money can buy happiness. We don’t want to see our children, significant other, and parents suffer.
We want them to lead even better lives than we did. It’s impossible to make do without money. Money dictates our standard of living more than anything else in the world. Bear markets make us unhappy when we lose money hand over fist.
The great financial crisis of 2007 – 2009 made many people unhappy. The bear market of 2022 made millions unhappy, as well. We lost many millionaires that we gained through the 2020-2021 madness. People were happy in 2020 – 2021.
Not so much in 2022. The bear market shook people’s confidence because their future was jeopardized.
4) Money Gives you the Ability to Walk Away
When we don’t have money, we are at the complete mercy to who is supplying the money. It’s mainly corporations and companies that we are at the mercy of. Money can buy happiness because when we have the ability to walk away, we are happy.
When we’re poor, no matter how badly our bosses and coworkers are treating us, we have to take it and say yes to everything. We could go to another company and work another job but that also comes with risks that the new place could be even worse than the current one.
Whatever the case is, money gives you the ability to walk away. It feels freeing to know that you can say no to anyone you’re talking to right now and you won’t even care in the slightest bit. We cherish the ability to walk away more than we know.
You don’t ever want to feel like you’re stuck in life.
5) You Only Hang Out with People You Want To
Money can buy happiness because you don’t have to work or associate yourself with anyone you don’t like or respect. Many of us have “friends” in our network because we think they’ll help us down the road. Imagine not caring to have friends in your network who you don’t like.
Adidas famously ended its partnership with Kanye West, effectively losing millions and millions of dollars in revenue. That’s true happiness. When you don’t have to tolerate anyone’s opinions and thoughts with whom you don’t agree with and can rather cut them out of your life without caring.
It just doesn’t feel good when you associate yourself with people whose ideas you don’t like, respect, or agree with. It feels like you’re betraying who you are as a person. When you have enough money, you can easily cut them out of your life without thinking twice.
That’s how you stay true to yourself.
6) You Have No Limitations
Whether we like it or not, we dislike limitations. We don’t like it when someone holds our limitations against us. As humans, we take great steps to test our limitations and see how far we can take ourselves. Whether it’s through sports, business, or space exploration.
Money can buy happiness because it removes limitations that are making you miserable. When the Cook at Chipotle asks you, “Guac is extra, is that OK?” You can confidently say absolutely. Limitations make us unhappy. The barriers that are preventing us from getting to where we want in life.
I would love to buy a house right now. However, because I don’t have enough money to buy overpriced houses at 20-year high mortgage rates, I can’t buy a house right now. The limitation that stops me from buying assets that will make me wealthy is my Achilles heel.
Limitations make us unhappy.
7) We Have Unlimited Wants
A human, biologically, has unlimited wants in life. We want to buy this, that, and everything else. Not just for us but for our family’s safety and future as well. The amount of things we want in the world is infinite. Money can buy happiness because money can satiate those unlimited wants.
One day, we are OK with our 600 sq. ft. apartment. The next year, we need a 750 sq. ft. apartment. Then the year after that, we need a 1,000 sq. ft. house. And the cycle continues on and on. For some reason, we never know what “enough” is. Even if we set an artificial line on when enough is.
Once you get there, you always want more and more. For me, my artificial line was reaching 10,000 followers on Twitter. Once I got there, I needed more. The good part is, I actually think my enough number of followers is 20,000.
But that doesn’t mean that I won’t want more once I cross that threshold.
8) Money Can Buy Happiness Because it Makes us Feel Good
When bosses tell you that you’re getting a raise, it makes you feel good. When bosses tell you that you’re getting a promotion, it makes you feel good as well. Whether we like it or not, we like it when others pay us more money. It makes us feel good.
It’s how much others are valuing our time.
Money can buy happiness for that very same reason. When I found out I was getting a whopping 30% raise with just one job change in 2022, I was happy as I possibly could be. It was validation and recognition that someone sees the value that I bring.
Now, I don’t have to worry about money at all, barring a layoff news. All I have to worry about is doing a good job for my employer and making sure they’re happy. The ones who say money can’t buy happiness are wrong.
It doesn’t make sense why they smile when they receive news someone wants to pay them more.
9) Money Buys You Time
The most valuable and precious commodity we have is our time. We absolutely cannot stand it when someone wastes our time. Money can buy happiness because it buys time. We don’t have to clean our own house, we can just outsource it.
We don’t have to make our own food, we can just outsource. Whatever the case is, money buys you time, which is even worth more than any amount of money. Many billionaires and millionaires around the world constantly look for ways to save or buy more time.
There’s a reason why employees exist. CEOs know they can’t accomplish everything by themselves and need outside help to grow their business even further. We only have a limited 24 hours in a day. When we can buy someone else’s time to make us richer, we jump at the opportunity.
When we outsource the mundane tasks to someone else, it makes us feel better.
10) We Enjoy Spending Money
The final reason money can buy happiness is because we enjoy spending money. In Black Friday of 2022, I bought a brand new MacBook Pro from Costco for $899.99. That was a steal! When I bought my first MacBook in 2013, I bought for $1,100, and that was even with a student discount!
I bought a superior product at a cheaper price, which was mind boggling for me. Spending money during the holidays actually made me happy. Especially when I needed to buy those products. I didn’t know what I was missing when I was working from my iPhone 5s.
The processing speed is far superior with my latest iPhone and I live a much better life as a result. Money can buy happiness because we actually like spending money. Even if we don’t spend extravagantly, we still enjoy spending money.
Many forget this. They think about what they give up to acquire the money instead of what they get in return.
Money Can Buy Happiness, No Matter What Others Say
There are many articles that say money can’t buy happiness. That’s not right. That’s a saying used to appease the poor and gaslight to believe that they should be happy with the little they have. While the billionaires and the multimillionaires happily use their private jets and chefs to their desires.
Money can buy happiness because that’s just the truth. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and I can honestly say that I’m happier as a rich person than as a poor person. I’m supposed to be happy even when I couldn’t even afford a decent meal? That’s not right.
Money takes care of our family, buys better food, and is an integral part of society and life. We can’t get brainwashed by the media telling others that they should be happy while being poor. Besides, being happy is the goal, right? Not being rich? Wrong.
While being rich is not the end goal, being happy is the goal and money is the tool we use to get there. Money isn’t everything, there are things that money just doesn’t buy. Genuine friends, loyalty, intelligence, and the like. We have to work for them and invest time into them.
However, for all the other things in the world we need in our lives, money solves those problems. We love it when we have a good home to come home to in a reliable car. Not the most expensive ones but the ones we are proud to live in and want to live in.
This is the message that society misses the most.
Money Can Buy Happiness: 10 Shortlist Reasons
- Money buys necessities
- Money is a way to keep score
- Money can buy happiness because it secures your family’s future
- Money gives you the ability to walk away
- You only hang out with people you want to
- You have no limitations
- We have unlimited wants
- Money can buy happiness because it makes us feel good
- Money buys you time
- We enjoy spending money
