After a certain point, additional money is about ambition and happiness

[FIREin2018]

https://lifehacker.com/money/how-much-money-is-enough-to-make-you-happy

when it comes to our happiness, many of us falsely believe that if we had more money, certain good things would happen.
Bryan-Podvin gives some examples of the sort of thinking she sees in her financial therapy practice:
 “If I had more money, I’d be physically healthier,” or “If I earned more, I’d have a closer friend circle.”

After basic needs are met, more money tends to be spent on wants rather than needs.
The happiness gained from extravagant vacations, flashy cars and expensive homes offers less of a lasting impact than the happiness that comes from pursuing goals, relationships and community.
Money can buy a lot, but it can't buy meaning.

focusing less on amassing possessions and status items and more on fostering meaningful relationships, pursuits and generosity is likely the best formula for turning money into happiness.


FiRE buys independence and free time.
Wished the author elaborated more on money and ambition.

[Chris Pascale]

After basic needs are met, more money tends to be spent on wants rather than needs.

By process of elimination, this makes sense. Need for underwear covered? Additional underwear purchases are to satisfy wants. Same for shoes, cars, etc.

You bring up a good point on where the article could have dove a little deeper.

[Metalcat]

To be fair, the article talks about spending on wants as a key part of being happy.

Her point is to try and understand what will make you happy and that that is "enough."

It's not a very well constructed article, in one paragraph it talks about travel and eating out at restaurants as sources of happiness, but then uses extravagant travel as an example of unnecessary spending.

But what constitutes "extravagant" travel is pretty relative.

I suspect this therapist said a lot and the writer had a hard time distilling it down to catchy tidbits, because the article is kind of all over the place, IMO.

It's also not as simple as just figuring out what is "enough" and being cool with that. I'm betting that she was explaining a pretty complex process of helping people work through what feels like enough and what doesn't, where consumerist impulses come from, and how to work through them and modify those thinking patterns.

The kind of pathological money beliefs she's reporting come from some pretty deep, entrenched value systems, which I imagine are particularly pathological in the population of folks willing to invest in therapy specifically for their issues with money.

I would assume that someone with a specialized financial therapy practice probably has far deeper insights than just "rampant consumerism is bad."

But I get it, I spend a TON of time talking to therapists and they're not generally very sound-bitey people. They deal with so much nuance and *individual* human complexity, I can see it being hard to distill a snappy article from talking to one.

[2sk22]

About 4 years ago, I posted this thread about the science of happiness: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/money-and-happiness/msg2485347/#msg2485347

Turns out this is quite an active field of research - I collected a lot of references here.

[roomtempmayo]

There's been a lot of energy spent trying to attack the original happiness research findings (i.e. dollars have a declining utility around $75k), but the attempts that claim success have done so by altering the definitions or measurements. 

Saying that it's been "debunked" as the linked article does seems to be a pretty large overstatement.  I'd say it's been qualified, but there's still a lot to it.

[Metalcat]

There's been a lot of energy spent trying to attack the original happiness research findings (i.e. dollars have a declining utility around $75k), but the attempts that claim success have done so by altering the definitions or measurements. 

Saying that it's been "debunked" as the linked article does seems to be a pretty large overstatement.  I'd say it's been qualified, but there's still a lot to it.

Yep, the whole article was messy