How Much Money Do You Need To Buy Happiness?

'Money can't buy happiness' is a saying as old as poverty itself, but is it just something we less fortunate people utter to make ourselves feel better like 'size doesn't matter'? Or is there some truth to it outside of the self fulling sense that is me saying it while I'm keying my ex's new boyfriend's Lamborghini? (If you're reading this Claire, I'm just kidding, Mark's a top notch guy and I'm truly happy for you both and the slashed tires could have been anyone!)

Yep, I can think of at least two reasons why money can buy happiness

In a day and age where we're being incessantly bombarded by celebrity endorsed advertisements, it is difficult for any of us to imagine how it could possibly be true that money can't buy happiness. Just thinking about it conjures up mental images of 70 year old men with their 20 year old girlfriends on a fancy yacht; her large diamond earrings, almost as expensive as her boobs, glistening in the noon sunlight. Now of course, why a young millionaire spinster would seek these gold digging grandpas is a mystery to me (if you assumed anything else you should be ashamed of yourself you sexist pig!), but they do look happy together. However, some studies have shown that after a certain point money no longer adds much joy to one's life.

The Price of Happiness

If you lack money for basic food, shelter and bubble wrap then you're unlikely to be very happy. So at least to some extent money is necessary for happiness. But conversely we recognize that, all else being equal, a person with $50 billion is unlikely to be much happier than a person with $10 billion, especially if the all else part includes happiness. Well if that's the case, then is there some magical number we can all aim for after which diminishing returns in general contentment really start to kick in?

Knowing the crypto crowd, this picture is probably more clickbaity than the one above

In 2010 a Princeton University team was happy to be funded $75,000 to undertake a year long study to find the precise price of happiness which they conveniently discovered to be around $75,000 a year. This is approximately 60 bitcoins at the time of writing for those of you who've been here a while and no longer recall what the $ sign denotes. Their paper suggests that after this point more money makes very little difference. Accordingly, if you make more than this amount then at least some of your work hours could be better spent going on family vacations or loitering besides a glory hole in a public bathroom.

How to Best Spend Money to Maximize Happiness?

Others suggest that it's got less to do with how much money you make and more to do with how you spend it. By others, I don't mean some random guy off the street, unless he happens to be Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton who claims 'it's got less to do with how much money you make and more to do with how you spend it'. 'So how do you spend this money, of which the amount you make has less to do with the happiness you seek than the way you spend it, in a way that provides the greatest happiness?' I hear you ask. Well the secret is simple: don't spend it on yourself.

Aww you shouldn't have. Really, you shouldn't have robbed that bank

Many studies have shown that those who buy a gift for others register higher levels of happiness than those who spend the same amount of money on themselves. This is why I believe the 'giving a goat' idea really took off - you give the gift of a card to a friend which tells them that you've given a goat to a someone in the developing world. The aggregate warm and fuzzy feelings of happiness accrued from both tiers of gifting would surely surpass the relatively low level of happiness that buying the goat for yourself would have brought.

So instead of buying yourself a new pair of shoes, you're far better off, happiness wise, donating to a worthy charity or giving all your Steem to that really funny, handsome and modest Asian comedy writer you've seen from time to time on Steemit.

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Image Sources 1,2,3

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Ok, you don't have to send me your Steem, but do Upvote, Resteem and follow me @trafalgar if you liked this article