Money DOES buy happiness because we buy the absolute basic necessities with money. When we don’t take care of our basic needs, we get angry. Hunger and cold makes us feel unhappy. The way to fix these problems is with money.
The most popular study that’s been done whether money buys happiness is this study. It found that well-being rises with income, even above $75k per year, although at a slower pace. The studies that say that money can’t buy happiness is a lie perpetuated by the rich to appease the poor.
It’s so that they can be happy making little money while the rich enjoy their yachts and healthy food from the top. While the bottom people suffer. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and I can confidently confirm that I’m happier that I’m richer than when I was poor.
When I was poor, I couldn’t say no to anything. If an employer wanted me to come into work on the weekends, I had no other choice but to say yes. Even when I didn’t want to. I didn’t have a choice and therefore someone else controlled me.
Money does buy happiness because it’s how we stay independent from the rest of the world. No one can have power over you if you don’t need them for anything whatsoever. Freedom is more valuable than anyone gives it credit for.
Freedom was so worth it that we even declared war against Britain over it.
Money Does Buy Happiness: 9 Reasons Why
Below are the 9 reasons why money does buy happiness. Everyone telling you that money doesn’t is flat out lying against you.
1) We Buy Necessities With Money
Whether we like it or not, we need a roof over our head and food on the table. If we don’t have our basic necessities taken care of, we are not happy. When we are cold when we want it to be room temperature. When we can’t even afford food.
It just makes us so unhappy because we need those things for our survival. Not even for extraneous things like dating and such. But for our actual survival, to exist in the world. Whether we like it or not, we enjoy living and if we can’t live in the way we want, we are not happy.
When I was in college, I lived off triple decker sandwiches I made every single day from H-E-B. That didn’t make me feel so good. I couldn’t buy the foods that I wanted to buy because I couldn’t afford to. I was a poor college student.
These days, I can buy whatever food that I want without worrying about the price as much. This is the power of choice. It makes you happy.
2) Money Does Buy Happiness Because We Like Getting Paid
Think about the last time you were offered a job or a promotion. Weren’t you happy? Not just for the money but someone else saw your value that you’re providing to the world and thought you were worth the increase in costs. Money does buy happiness because we like getting paid.
We like it when someone pays us more money, even if it’s a temporary moment. In my salary negotiation example, my salary increased from ~$86k to $108k. After just one year of work. That felt great. I was only 23 years old and was pulling in six figure income! Yeah!
There isn’t anyone in the world who doesn’t like getting paid more, keeping everything the same. If a promotion causes you to get paid more but work more, then that’s another story. However, all else equal, we like it when someone else pays us more.
It’s how we see our standing in the world.
3) Poverty Buys Nothing
If money can’t buy happiness, poverty can’t buy anything. When you’re rich, you, at the very least, can afford food, rent, utilities, and the like. When you’re poor, you can’t even afford the basic necessities. This is why the saying “money can’t buy happiness” is a lie perpetuated by the rich.
They need the poor to eat that saying up because otherwise, the poor would recognize how bad their life is and revolt. My first year out of college, I didn’t buy anything fancy. All I needed was food and rent and that’s what kept me sustained to live on.
Money does buy happiness because poverty can’t buy anything. It may not buy intrinsic happiness but it buys the things that you need to feel good about yourself. During Black Friday 2022, I bought a brand new MacBook Pro and my happiness level soared since then.
The processing speed on the computer is so fast that it makes me wonder why I kept my 2013 MacBook all these years. It’s allowed me to level up in so many aspects of my life and that made me feel great.
4) We Have Unlimited Desires
Whether we like it or not, we are human with feelings, wants, needs, and desires. We have unlimited desires, if it was completely up to us. When we can’t fulfill those desires to get what we want, we feel unhappy and uneasy. Like someone is dangling the carrot at us but we can never get to the carrot.
It’s human nature to have unlimited wants and desires. There’s always a girl or boy who we want to date. There’s a brand new house or car that we want. It’s why excessive consumerism exists in the first place. Humans naturally want things to better their lives.
For me, personally, I have a deep desire to reach financial independence as quickly as possible. I know that it’s just right around the corner and I’m working hard to get there. As long as my food, housing, and transportation costs are taken care of, I’m content with everything.
However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I would want to buy.
5) Money Does Buy Happiness Because it Secures Our Family’s Future
We want to take care of the ones we love. It’s why we’re willing to spend thousands of dollars for our kids’ education. We even want to send them off to private school and pay thousands of dollars, for elementary school. What! That’s ridiculous!
What can you learn in private elementary school that’s more valuable than what you can learn in public elementary school? 2+2 will always equal 4, no matter where you’re learning from. In either case, we like taking care of our loved ones’ future. Whether it’s about putting healthy food on the table for them.
Or whether it’s about providing them with warm clothing that they need. Whatever the case is, money does buy happiness because we feel good taking care of the ones we love. I hope to be rich enough one day to give my parents the life that I know they deserve.
However, as time passes, I don’t think I’ll have the financial capacity to provide that life for them. In either case, I’m still trying to earn as much money as I can not just for myself but for them also.
6) Money is How We Keep Score
Whether we like it or not, we compare ourselves to others. We ask ourselves why our neighbors can afford a Tesla while we’re still driving the same 10-year old beater car that doesn’t even run well anymore. Money is how we keep score against others competing in the game of life.
That’s why money does buy happiness. We don’t keep score so we can keep up with the Joneses but we do keep score to see where we stand in the world. Millionaires and billionaires fascinate us because they are winning against others in the game of competition.
We, deep down and secretly, like it when we find out we’re doing better than someone else. When we see someone else doing better than us, it triggers something inside us. I personally do not feel this way anymore because I can only imagine the sacrifices they made to get to that level.
However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen for others.
7) We Spend Time Chasing Money
We wake up, go to the bathroom, work on projects that don’t interest us, sleep, and do the same thing all over again the next day because we chase money. If money truly didn’t bring us joy, then we wouldn’t spend another second doing things that we don’t like or are passionate about.
We chase money because we know money does buy happiness. If money didn’t buy happiness, why save money in the first place so we can grow that money to bigger amounts? Time is the most valuable commodity and resource we have in our life.
Why would we spend the most important commodity and resource that we have in exchange for money? Because we know how integral money plays in our lives and well-being. Money buys things that directly contribute towards our happiness and sense of well-being.
Otherwise, we wouldn’t sacrifice our time and freedom for it.
8) Money Buys Time
If you have money, you don’t have to spend time cleaning, mowing the lawn, or taking care of your car. You can just pay someone else to do it for you. Money does buy happiness because it buys us time that we can spend on more important projects that give us more joy and enjoyment of life.
I highly dislike doing the laundry and cleaning the house. If I outsource those tasks to someone else, that buys me more time to create more good content for my readers and provide value. Money does buy happiness because it buys you more time to do more enjoyable things.
Time is the most valuable source that we have. How we allocate and spend our times matters significantly to us. There is something else that we would rather be doing instead of going to a job that we don’t like doing, working alongside coworkers we don’t respect or like.
We value and treasure our time tremendously. Many are willing to spend money if it saves them time.
9) Money Does Buy Happiness Because it Breaks Our Limits
We are working with scarce and limited resources. However, the one with unlimited money does not work under the same constraint. Money does buy happiness because it breaks our limits and constraints out of the water. We don’t like having limitations in our lives.
We don’t like it when someone or something tells us we can’t do something It’s reverse psychology at play. When someone tells us we can’t do something, we spend our time proving that someone wrong, for better or worse. Money breaks almost all of the limits that we have.
We don’t like someone? We don’t have to spend another time with them. So on and so on. When we move up in life and break the barriers that we have, we feel better. I lived in a cockroach infested house in Birmingham, Alabama as my first apartment.
Once I moved up from that environment and slowly started achieving upward mobility did I start to feel better.
Money Does Buy Happiness, No Matter What Others Say
There are so many people who say money doesn’t buy happiness. The ones who say that are rich themselves and don’t know what it feels like to have no money. To be so poor that you have to keep your food budget to less than $5/day. To be so poor that you have to skip meals.
Money does buy happiness because it’s who we are as a human. We are biologically wired to have wants and needs and when those wants and needs go unfulfilled, we feel unfulfilled. We work hard every single day in exchange for money in the hopes it achieves our goals.
When I was young and naive, I believed that money didn’t matter to my sense of well being. I no longer believe those lies anymore because I know better. No matter what others say, money does buy happiness and we like it when we have more of it.
That doesn’t mean that money is the most important thing in the world. It’s not. Money isn’t everything. There are much more things that are more important than money in our lives. However, that doesn’t mean that we dismiss money as a valuable source of happiness.
Money gets you out of trouble more than anything else can. We just pay someone else to do our work for us while we relax and sip Mai Tais by the beach. That is the life. Although trying to become the richest person in the world is a fruitless venture, trying to have more money is not.
You will become happier, as time passes.
Money Does Buy Happiness: 9 Reasons Why Shortlist
- We buy necessities with money
- Money does buy happiness because we like getting paid
- Poverty buys nothing
- We have unlimited desires
- Money does buy happiness because it secures our family’s future
- Money is how we keep score
- We spend time chasing money
- Money buys time
- Money does buy happiness because it breaks our limits
