Does money make you happy? Poll discussion

FATBALLZ

This poll is misleading, people who earn higher salaries may well not be as happy as they might be as their jobs are more demanding and this reduces their quality of life. However income and wealth are not the same thing - in our society often the wealthiest people are the baby boomers and to a lesser extent generation x - who have made a fortune from the property boom and access to generous pension schemes, despite never having to commit to demanding and high earning jobs. I'd imagine wealthy people who don't have to work that hard to get by are probably quite happy in general, whereas those slogging their guts out are having a harder time of things.

MasterPJ

I produced an essay on this once and concluded: "Money gives choice. Choice produces depression."

People with money aren't depressed, they are just confused. People without money are not depressed, they are just ill. Both of which are a choosen mindset. Be neither and be neither. Raise and lower the bar accordingly.

LCS1871

I think there is an optimum annual salary of between £28k and £42k in terms of happiness.
Much less and you'll be worrying about paying the bills or feeding and clothing your family, much more and you'll be too worried about work stress to really enjoy like (difficult to say where this starts as you go up the income scale, mind).

staircase2

Its not that money makes you happy - but that POVERTY makes you UNHAPPY...

And true poverty is living without the things we NEED...

In order to literally live we have physical NEEDS which need to be met for reasons of survival - food, shelter, clothing, warmth, water & also love (of these love could be said to be the greatest need simply because even if we are without the other things we can often survive longer simply by strength of the love we have/we feel for things outside ourselves)

Once those needs are met then we are 'free' to concentrate on higher functionality like happiness.

People living without those basic needs being met are constantly struggling just to keep their heads above water - survival.

Whilst it is in theory possible for someone to be happy even in those circumstances it is actually far harder and therefore less likely

Someone who has all their physical needs met is far more likely to thereby have their energy in the right place to be happy - and able to thrive

Augustus_the_Strong

Is this true? how many people earning over £150K are going to be reading Money Saving Expert? I think some pollees are letting their imagination run away with them.