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On today’s episode of The Personal Finance Hour, I joined Jim from Bargaineering to discuss the relationship between money and happiness. Will more money make you happier? Are we happy when we get the things we want? Does happiness have a genetic set-point? And just what can we do to make ourselves more fulfilled?
Our discussion — which included calls from Neal and Baker — covered some of the material from my review of Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, but also delved deep into the things I’ve learned while conducting research for the first chapter of my upcoming book.
Though the show is over now, there are a few ways you hear it as a podcast. You can listen through an audio feed at the show page, or you can also listen through this widget:
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Jim and I do this every Monday — and we hope you’ll join us. We think this is a fun way to connect with readers and to help everyone learn more about money management. You can catch The Personal Finance Hour live at 3pm Pacific (6pm Eastern) every Monday.
This article is about Administration, Psychology Monday, 5th October 2009 (by J.D. Roth)
October 5th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Shoot, totally forgot about this even today. Too busy at work. I enjoyed speaking to Baker and Jim last week.
I was going to ask you JD, do you feel happier now that you have much more money than you did just several years ago? A lot of folks are stressed simply b/c of the fact money may be tight. By not having that stress any more, it must be a relief no?
Woud you have go back to your day job again JD, if say you made 3X what you make now from GRS?
Best
October 6th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I think Money is not having much relationship with happiness, Anyway I want a good software to manage my money.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Interesting question!
I believe it’s not possible to make a general statement on whether money makes people more or less happy. Money comes with a whole set of new elements that may have good or bad impact on our happiness, and depending on how susceptible we are to every one of them, the conclusion will go one way or the other (i.e. different from person to person).
I recently made an effort to provide a more comprehensive picture of what these ad- and disadvantages are. I invite you to have a look at http://www.spreadinghappiness.org/2009/08/money-how-much-should-we-strive-for-it-to-become-happy/ and tell me what you think!
Thank you,
Nick
October 7th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
According to a 2004 paper titled “What Do Investors Want?” by Meir Statman of Santa Clara University, “Money does buy happiness. Investors pursue high returns because high returns bring wealth, wealth brings status and status brings happiness. But the effects of increases in wealth on happiness fade.
Increases in wealth do not increase happiness for long, and the average level of happiness in a country ceases to increase once average wealth reaches moderate levels. So the average level of happiness in the US was no higher in 1998 than in 1975 despite significant increases in average wealth. But high status within a society continues to bring high happiness.
Layard (2003) reported that 39% of Americans in the top quartile of income were very happy in 1975 but only 19% of those in the bottom quartile were as happy. Only 37% of Americans in the top quartile were very happy in 1998 but only 16% of Americans in the bottom quartile were as happy.”
October 9th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Some may agree that money will bring happiness while others will not. Money is just a tool to enable one to have a good financial freedom but happiness comes from within the individual. We should never place our happiness on money.