speech on money can't buy love and happiness

Speech on Money Can’T Buy Happiness

You’ve probably heard the saying “money can’t buy happiness.” It’s a concept that stirs up quite a debate. Many argue that money, to a certain extent, does influence our well-being, while others insist that joy comes from more profound sources.

Let’s explore this idea together. Is it possible that the richest people are the happiest? Or, does real contentment lie somewhere beyond the reach of dollar bills?

1-minute Speech on Money Can’T Buy Happiness

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let’s talk about something we all know, but sometimes forget – money can’t buy happiness. True, money can buy things we like – toys for kids, a nice car, a big house. But do these things make us truly happy?

Think about it. The richest person in the world can have everything money can buy but still feel lonely or sad. That’s because happiness isn’t something you can just buy from a store. It comes from inside us. It comes from spending time with our families and friends, from helping others, from doing things we love.

Now, let’s consider our friends. We don’t choose them because they have a lot of money, right? We choose friends because they make us laugh, they understand us, they support us when we’re down. This shows that what makes us happy isn’t money, but love and friendship.

Also, think about the best moments in your life. Maybe it was when you scored a goal in a football game, or when you first rode a bike without training wheels. None of these moments required money. They were about achievement, about overcoming challenges, about the joy of living. That’s what real happiness is about.

In the end, remember this – money is useful, it helps us live comfortably. But it’s not the most important thing. Love, friendship, kindness, joy – these are the things that truly make us happy. And the best part is, they don’t cost a thing.

2-minute Speech on Money Can’T Buy Happiness

Let’s talk about happiness and money. It’s true, money is important. We need it to pay for food, clothes, and a safe place to live. But does more money mean more happiness? Many people think so. But this is not the full truth.

Imagine having all the money in the world. You can buy any car, any house, any gadget you want. But will these things make you truly happy? The answer is no. What’s the use of a big house if it’s empty? What’s the use of a fancy car if you’re alone? These things can’t laugh with you, can’t comfort you when you’re sad. True happiness comes from love, friendship, and family. These are things that money can’t buy.

Also, think about the most beautiful moments in your life. Maybe it was the time you played in the rain, or the day you learned to ride a bike, or the moment when your friend shared his lunch with you. They were simple moments. But they made you happy. They didn’t cost a thing. This is because happiness is about experience, not material things.

Now, let’s take a look at people who chase money all their lives. They work hard, often forgetting to eat and sleep. They miss their children’s first steps, their spouse’s birthdays. They don’t have time for friends. In the end, they have lots of money. But they are not happy. Because they missed out on the real joys of life.

Of course, money is not bad. It helps us live a comfortable life. But it’s not the most important thing. Health, love, and time are more precious. They can’t be bought. So, instead of chasing money, we should chase these things. We should live each moment fully. We should love deeply. We should take care of our health. Then, we will be truly happy.

In conclusion, money can’t buy happiness. It can buy comfort, but not joy. It can buy things, but not memories. It can buy a house, but not a home. So, let’s focus on what’s truly important. Let’s appreciate the simple things in life. Let’s cherish love and friendship. Let’s make beautiful memories. Because these are the things that bring true happiness.

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Money can’t buy love. but happiness maybe.

(© stock.adobe.com)

Money might not buy love, but a new study suggests that it is more strongly related to happiness than some people think — particularly when people compare their income with someone else’s.

Writing in the journal Psychological Bulletin, researchers describe an association between people’s subjective socioeconomic status — how they perceive their own income, education, and occupation standing in comparison with others — and happiness.

That association, they say, is significantly larger than the connection between people’s objective socioeconomic status — as measured by income and educational attainment — and their level of happiness.

“ There is a conventional wisdom in social science that relationships and experiences are more important than money in producing happiness,” said co-author Michael Kraus , associate professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. “But we found that when people consider their wealth relative to others, there is a stronger association between money and happiness.”

The study, which was led by Jacinth Tan, an assistant professor of psychology at Singapore Management University, contradicts decades of social science research that shows a weak relationship between money and happiness, particularly in wealthy societies, the authors say.

“ The size of the relationship we observed in our study has policy implications in the sense that lawmakers must acknowledge that the relationship between money and happiness remains consequential and cannot be ignored,” said Kraus. “Policy considerations that help people obtain good jobs and protect people from financial ruin during this pandemic may have an added benefit of improving people’s happiness.”

The new research was motivated by an apparent disparity in previous research that has showed weak links between income and happiness and the idea that many people actively seek out prestigious jobs and higher status, the authors say. Moreover, as inequality has increased in some societies (including the United States), overall happiness has declined. That outcome wouldn’t be expected if wealth and material resources were inconsequential, the researchers say.

This gap between research findings and observation suggests the possibility that objective measures, such as income, do not adequately capture the influence of money on happiness, the researchers said. They wanted to test the idea that happiness is more dependent on what people  think  they have compared with others than how much they  do  have.

For the study, the researchers performed a meta-analysis of 357 different studies that have examined questions related to associations between objective and subjective measures of socioeconomic status and people’s subjective wellbeing — their sense of happiness and life satisfaction. Collectively, those studies involved data from more than 2.3 million participants gathered in publicly available datasets, such as the World Values Survey, as well as in private datasets.

In their analysis, the researchers applied the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Status — a 10-rung ladder in which people indicate their perceived social status — to test the association between comparative resources and happiness. Their findings suggest that that social comparison is an important driver of how much money or material resources will increase happiness.

The researchers also found that the effect of social comparison was stronger in countries, such as Singapore, with high population density. This finding makes sense, the researchers say, since there often is greater competition for resources in places where population density is high.

Tan pointed out that social comparison can lead to unhappiness when a person determines their status compares less favorably to others. She cited a quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Comparison is the death of joy.”

“ Our findings also suggest that improving from past levels of material resources alone is insufficient for increasing happiness,” she said. “Even if people today are earning higher wages or attaining higher educational levels than their parents or compared to 10 years ago, there is going to be limited impact on their happiness if they are not doing at least as well as, if not better than others at the present. In people’s minds, social mobility is not simply the ability to ascend one’s own socioeconomic ladder, but also to ascend the ladder of the broader, collective society.”

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Money Can't Buy Love Or Happiness

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Published: Aug 31, 2023

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Why Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

According to kahneman and deaton, money doesn't buy happiness. why not.

Posted August 25, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• It's often said that money doesn't buy happiness, and, in a 2010 study, Kahneman and Deaton show that it doesn't.
• Nevertheless, most people apparently think that it does.
• Kahneman and Deaton found that "emotional well-being" is associated with social interaction rather than with higher income.

The old saw “money can’t buy happiness ” is often used, mostly by people who don’t have much, as a challenge to the importance of wealth in human society. But is it true? Does more money really not make people happier?

In a 2010 study, Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton set out to answer this question. They explored two aspects of what’s known as “subjective well-being.” Importantly, they made a distinction between emotional well-being and life evaluation. Emotional well-being is defined as “…the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience—the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, fascination, anxiety , sadness, anger , affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant." Life evaluation “refers to a person’s thoughts about his or her life.” Here is what they found:

In the present study, we confirm the contribution of higher income to improving individuals’ life evaluation, even among those who are already well off. However, we also find that the effects of income on the emotional dimension of well-being satiate fully at an annual income of ∼$75,000… (Kahneman and Deaton, 2010, p. 16490).

In other words, getting more money makes us think our lives are better, but doesn’t make us feel any better.

To be sure, not having enough money negatively affects our emotional well-being. But once we have enough (about $75,000 in 2010), having more doesn’t positively affect it. So, while we think our lives would be better if we got a raise or hit the lottery jackpot, we’d be no happier than we were before the windfall. Now that’s interesting. Money really doesn’t buy happiness.

But why not? We think that Kahneman and Deaton’s distinction between life evaluation and emotional well-being might provide an answer.

Evolution of Emotional Well-Being

The emotions of well-being the authors identify—joy, fascination, anxiety, sadness, anger, affection—evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in hunter–gatherer bands. There was no money in these bands, of course, and, as we’ve noted in previous blogs, it was more important to use possessions as gifts than hold on to them. Well-being was having enough to eat and interacting with the other members of the band—hunting, gathering, quarreling, fighting, telling stories, dancing, healing.

However, since the agricultural revolution, human history has been in large part the story of acquisition—more land, money, possessions, power. Today, acquisition messages are all around us: Buy more and better things, get a higher-paying job. These messages address post-agricultural thinking but ignore ancient emotional needs.

Thinking about how your life is going or will go is another creation of our old friend and nemesis the neocortex. Given the obvious advantages of wealth and power after the agricultural revolution, the cortex turned them into ideas, things to aspire to, goals . Moving up was good, whether it made you happy or not.

As more and more opportunities to move up were created by the industrial revolution and the market economy, more and more people could rise. It was great to have enough—enough money, enough to eat, and a place to live. And it felt good to rise and have more status.

A Moving Goal

Unfortunately, there was an unintended consequence: The goal kept moving. There was always a better position, a better salary, higher status. Thinking about well-being became associated with making more money. When Donald Trump was asked about what money meant to him, he said “Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score.” He didn’t mention happiness.

So, here we humans are, stuck again between ancient emotions and an environment that pushes us to achieve and acquire. As Kahneman and Deaton note in their study, when asked the question, “What made you happy yesterday,” most people emphasized time with family and friends, taking care of a relative, working on a project with others, etc. When asked what they thought would make them happier, most said, “Having more money.”

Kahneman, D. and Deaton, A. 2010. “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life, But Not Emotional Well-Being.” PNAS. September 21, 2010, vol. 107, no. 38, pp. 16489-16493.

J. Gary Bernhard, Ed.D. has been involved in educational leadership for more than 40 years. Kalman Glantz, Ph.D. has spent nearly 30 years as a psychotherapist in private practice in Boston.

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Does Money Buy Happiness? Here’s What the Research Says

March 28, 2023 • 5 min read.

Reconciling previously contradictory results, researchers from Wharton and Princeton find a steady association between larger incomes and greater happiness for most people but a rise and plateau for an unhappy minority.

• Finance & Accounting

The following article was originally published on Penn Today .

Does money buy happiness? Though it seems like a straightforward question, research had previously returned contradictory findings, leaving uncertainty about its answer.

Foundational work published in 2010 from Princeton University’s  Daniel Kahneman  and Angus Deaton had found that day-to-day happiness rose as annual income increased, but above $75,000 it leveled off and happiness plateaued. In contrast, work published in 2021 from the University of Pennsylvania’s  Matthew Killingsworth  found that happiness rose steadily with income well beyond $75,000, without evidence of a plateau.

To reconcile the differences, Kahneman and Killingsworth paired up in what’s known as an adversarial collaboration, joining forces with Penn Integrates Knowledge  University Professor  Barbara Mellers  as arbiter. In a new  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  paper , the trio shows that, on average, larger incomes are associated with ever-increasing levels of happiness. Zoom in, however, and the relationship becomes more complex, revealing that within that overall trend, an unhappy cohort in each income group shows a sharp rise in happiness up to $100,000 annually and then plateaus.

“In the simplest terms, this suggests that for most people larger incomes are associated with greater happiness,” says Killingsworth, a senior fellow at Wharton and lead paper author. “The exception is people who are financially well-off but unhappy. For instance, if you’re rich and miserable, more money won’t help. For everyone else, more money was associated with higher happiness to somewhat varying degrees.”

Mellers digs into this last notion, noting that emotional well-being and income aren’t connected by a single relationship. “The function differs for people with different levels of emotional well-being,” she says. Specifically, for the least happy group, happiness rises with income until $100,000, then shows no further increase as income grows. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group the association actually accelerates above $100,000.

Joining Forces to Ask: “Does Money Buy Happiness?”

The researchers began this combined effort recognizing that their previous work had drawn different conclusions. Kahneman’s 2010 study showed a flattening pattern where Killingsworth’s 2021 study did not. As its name suggests, an adversarial collaboration of this type — a notion originated by Kahneman — aims to solve scientific disputes or disagreements by bringing together the differing parties, along with a third-party mediator.

Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers focused on a new hypothesis that both a happy majority and an unhappy minority exist. For the former, they surmised, happiness keeps rising as more money comes in; the latter’s happiness improves as income rises but only up to a certain income threshold, after which it progresses no further.

To test this new hypothesis, they looked for the flattening pattern in data from Killingworth’s study, which he had collected through an app he created called Track Your Happiness. Several times a day, the app pings participants at random moments, asking a variety of questions including how they feel on a scale from “very good” to “very bad.” Taking an average of the person’s happiness and income, Killingsworth draws conclusions about how the two variables are linked.

A breakthrough in the new partnership came early on when the researchers realized that the 2010 data, which had revealed the happiness plateau, had actually been measuring unhappiness in particular rather than happiness in general.

“It’s easiest to understand with an example,” Killingsworth says. Imagine a cognitive test for dementia that most healthy people pass easily. While such a test could detect the presence and severity of cognitive dysfunction, it wouldn’t reveal much about general intelligence since most healthy people would receive the same perfect score.

“In the same way, the 2010 data showing a plateau in happiness had mostly perfect scores, so it tells us about the trend in the unhappy end of the happiness distribution, rather than the trend of happiness in general. Once you recognize that, the two seemingly contradictory findings aren’t necessarily incompatible,” Killingsworth says. “And what we found bore out that possibility in an incredibly beautiful way. When we looked at the happiness trend for unhappy people in the 2021 data, we found exactly the same pattern as was found in 2010; happiness rises relatively steeply with income and then plateaus.”

“The two findings that seemed utterly contradictory actually result from data that are amazingly consistent,” he says.

Does It Matter Whether Money Can Buy Happiness?

Drawing these conclusions would have been challenging had the two research teams not come together, says Mellers, who suggests there’s no better way than adversarial collaborations to resolve scientific conflict.

“This kind of collaboration requires far greater self-discipline and precision in thought than the standard procedure,” she says. “Collaborating with an adversary — or even a non-adversary — is not easy, but both parties are likelier to recognize the limits of their claims.” Indeed, that’s what happened, leading to a better understanding of the relationship between money and happiness.

And these findings have real-world implications, according to Killingsworth. For one, they could inform thinking about tax rates or how to compensate employees. And, of course, they matter to individuals as they navigate career choices or weigh a larger income against other priorities in life, Killingsworth says.

However, he adds that for emotional well-being money isn’t the be all end all. “Money is just one of the many determinants of happiness,” he says. “Money is not the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a bit.”

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Persuasive speech: Money can buy happiness and love

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Whosoever says money cannot buy you happiness does not know where to shop. Your stand concerning this statement will depend on your level of income and the importance of money for your well-being. Since some might argue that having money is not everything, it then raises the question of what does it take to be happy? What is the government's role in this endeavor? And how can happiness be sustained? This study presents some principles about money and happiness. It suggests that while being rich might not necessarily be the main or only path to happiness, having a higher income will guarantee access to homes in safer neighborhoods, better healthcare, and nutrition, provide access to higher education for your family, give you a sense of fulfillment, work satisfaction, and more leisure time. Note that how you spend, save, and think about money shapes how much joy you get from it. Above all, happiness is a subjective experience. It is about the satisfaction you derive from the way your life is going. Happiness is about personal freedom to make important life choices, such as shaping your life the way you want it.

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I aim to account here for money’s power to influence our minds and social relations. It would be easy, but misleading to argue that money’s ability to persuade is a universal characteristic. The way money persuades is historically relative – very different for Adam Smith than for Maynard Keynes and even more for us who live in the digital revolution and the expansion of virtual society. The fetishism that grants money a quasi-independent role in human affairs needs to be exposed for what it is. People make and use money, not the other way round; but we sometimes fee that we are more acted upon than acting. Money conveys meanings at the same time as it negates them; it has – or is thought to -- both structure and agency at once. As a symbolic medium of communication, money informs our subjectivity and gives concrete expression to our desires, releasing and fixing our imagination in many ways. It is a store of individual and collective memory, the stuff linking persons to their communities. It may be that money’s chief function was once to persuade people to let go of what they already had; but separating people from it has become the chief object of the engines of persuasion mobilized by capitalist economy. The ideas we have of money were themselves disseminated by “worldly philosophers” who devoted a significant part of their effort to persuading people to accept them. It is hard to separate money’s unconscious influence on us through folk discourse from its characteristics as a social force sui generis. If the study of rhetoric makes much of the distinction between the content of a communication and how it is communicated, money’s success as a rhetorical device, its persuasive power, may lie in its seamless ability to synthesize the two.

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This study provides the first evidence that money impairs people’s ability to savor everyday positive emotions and experiences. In a sample of working adults, wealthier individuals reported lower savoring ability (the ability to enhance and prolong positive emotional experience). Moreover, the negative impact of wealth on individuals’ ability to savor undermined the positive effects of money on their happiness. We experimentally exposed participants to a reminder of wealth and produced the same deleterious effect on their ability to savor as that produced by actual individual differences in wealth, a result supporting the theory that money has a causal effect on savoring. Moving beyond self-reports, we found that participants exposed to a reminder of wealth spent less time savoring a piece of chocolate and exhibited reduced enjoyment of it compared with participants not exposed to wealth. This article presents evidence supporting the widely held but previously untested belief that having access to the best things in life may actually undercut people’s ability to reap enjoyment from life’s small pleasures.

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Can Money Buy You Happiness?

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Michael Norton: Can Money Buy You Happiness?

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The Money Paradox

Part 5 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Money Paradox .

About Michael Norton's TEDTalk

Social scientist Michael Norton researches how money can buy happiness — when you don't spend it on yourself. The key is social spending that benefits not just you, but other people.

About Michael Norton

Michael Norton is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Prior to joining HBS, Professor Norton was a Fellow at the MIT Media Lab and MIT's Sloan School of Management.

His work has been published in a number of academic journals, including Science, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. His article "The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love" was featured in Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2009.

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Happiness Articles & More

Can money buy happiness it depends on why you’re spending it, according to new research, our purchases may make us happier when they're motivated by goals we care about..

Imagine that someone gives you a cash gift and tells you that, instead of saving or investing it, you need to spend it right now. What should you put your money toward if you want to make yourself happiest?

According to past research , we’ll be happier if we spend money on an experience than if we buy a material object—like traveling or going out for a meal instead of buying the latest product we see on social media. For example, people report more gratitude when they spend on experiences rather than possessions.

On the other hand, we can all probably think of times when we’ve spent money on an experience that ended up not being worth it. Maybe you bought pricey event tickets to avoid missing out, only to realize on the day of the event that you’d much prefer a cozy night at home. Or perhaps you went out to dinner with a friend at a fancy restaurant, only to find that your friend was more focused on posting the meal to Instagram than having a deep conversation.

It turns out that there might be another factor at play beyond whether we spend money on an experience or a material item: According to a new study published in the British Journal of Social Psychology , it may also matter how our purchases align with our goals.

In the study, researchers asked 452 participants in an online survey to describe a recent purchase. They were asked to write about something they had spent money on in the last three months (ranging from about $60 to $1,200), excluding everyday expenses such as bills and groceries. After describing it, people were asked to indicate the extent to which the purchase helped to fulfill different goals. They also noted how much they felt the purchase contributed to their happiness and life satisfaction.

According to self-determination theory , goals reflect our intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Extrinsic goals are things that other people expect for us: for example, working hard at a job not because you’re passionate about the work, but because you need the money or want a high-status job to impress others. Intrinsic goals, on the other hand, are ones that we have a strong internal motivation to pursue. In the survey, extrinsic goals included gaining wealth or social status, whereas intrinsic ones included cultivating relationships, helping other people, and contributing to growth, learning, and development.

The researchers found that, the more a purchase reflected people’s intrinsic goals, the more they thought it improved their well-being. In other words, the greatest well-being occurred when people spent money on something that was personally important to them.

To compare this finding with past research, the current study also asked participants to indicate to what extent their purchase was an experience or a material item. As in past research, participants did report higher well-being from experiences. However, when the researchers looked at both factors together, they found that how much a purchase reflected intrinsic goals explained more of the differences in well-being than whether something was material or experiential.

So, what does this research mean for our spending habits? Olaya Moldes Andrés, lecturer at Cardiff University and the study’s author, points out that we’re under a lot of pressure to spend money these days; just think about the number of targeted ads you see each time you open social media. However, this pressure to spend has a downside: In past research , Moldes Andrés has found that people who are exposed to more materialistic messages have lower well-being.

Before purchasing something, she recommends pausing to think about the reason for our purchase, and what use we will get out of it. If we’re spending money on trying to impress people or project a certain image (in other words, extrinsic goals), the purchase may not actually be worth it.

So, next time you’re planning to buy something, take a moment to think about whether it’s something you’re buying because you feel it’s what’s expected of you—or whether it’s truly something that you want.

About the Author

Elizabeth Hopper

Elizabeth Hopper, Ph.D. , received her Ph.D. in psychology from UC Santa Barbara and currently works as a freelance science writer specializing in psychology and mental health.

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Love of Money Can’t Buy Happiness

The relationship between happiness and income is complicated. Many believe that more money will lead to happier lives, while others believe that more money translates to more problems. In Socius, Naoki Sudo explores how attitudes about money are the driving force behind individual happiness. He works to uncover why individual happiness seems to be tied to income, while a wealthy society like Japan tends to be less happy overall.

The author used a Japanese national survey to analyze the relationship between individual happiness and income. He then developed a computer simulation which uncovered two dominant and opposing attitudes about money. One attitude could be classified as materialistic and the other as anti-materialistic. He found that those who were materialistic were much more likely to tie ideas of happiness to income. Among this group of people, there was a high correlation between income and level of happiness. Among those who were anti-materialistic, there was a much weaker association between income and happiness. He determined there were many more materialistic-minded people within Japanese society than anti-materialistic.

Sudo then applied computer simulations to look at overall happiness in Japan. He found if anti-materialism was reduced, happiness on average goes down. These findings are puzzling, considering that decreasing the high association between income and happiness among those who are materialistic should increase overall happiness. Sudo says people dominated by materialistic values are more likely to incorporate income as a primary criterion of happiness and will seek increased income. Therefore, average incomes in the society will rise, and the association between income and happiness will become stronger. However, he argues it will then become difficult for people to meet their criteria for happiness because materialistic values raise the level of income the group expects. For this reason, Sudo concludes that materialistic values explain the paradox between income and happiness.

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Gertrude Stein: 'Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.'

Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.

In her famous quote, "Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping," Gertrude Stein challenges the conventional wisdom that money cannot bring happiness. At first glance, the quote may seem materialistic, suggesting that happiness can indeed be purchased through shopping. However, upon closer examination, this quote unveils a deeper philosophical concept about the complexities of happiness and the role that material possessions may play in our well-being.Summarizing the quote, Gertrude Stein suggests that the key to buying happiness lies in knowing where to shop. On the surface, this may imply that acquiring material possessions can bring joy. Yet, there is more to it than meets the eye. Stein's statement can be viewed as a lighthearted critique of the notion that material possessions are inconsequential in the pursuit of happiness. Instead, it invites us to explore the different ways in which money can, in fact, contribute to our overall well-being.Considering the unexpected philosophical concept that arises from this quote, we can delve into the idea of individual values and the subjective nature of happiness. While some may argue that true happiness comes from the fulfillment of non-materialistic experiences, such as relationships, personal growth, and self-actualization, it is crucial to recognize that material possessions can align with different people's desires and needs. Happiness, it seems, is multifaceted and varies from person to person.When discussing the relationship between money and happiness, it is important to reflect on the potential benefits and drawbacks of material wealth. Research has shown that money can indeed provide a sense of security, freedom, and improved living conditions. It allows access to quality education, healthcare, and the ability to pursue passions and interests. For some individuals, material possessions may contribute to their sense of self-worth and provide a means to express their personality and identity.However, it is essential to acknowledge the limitations of relying solely on material wealth for happiness. Possessions come and go, and the pursuit of materialism can lead to a never-ending cycle of desire and consumption. True happiness should not be solely dependent on external circumstances but should stem from a deeper sense of purpose, contentment, and inner fulfillment.A balanced approach must be taken when considering the relationship between money and happiness. While material possessions can enhance our quality of life and provide temporary satisfaction, true and lasting happiness requires a focus on the non-material aspects of life as well. Personal relationships, experiences, personal growth, and a sense of community all contribute to a holistic understanding of happiness. It is through a harmonious integration of material and non-material aspects that we can achieve a deeper and more meaningful sense of fulfillment.In conclusion, Gertrude Stein's quote challenges us to reconsider the dichotomy between money and happiness. While it may appear to advocate for materialism, it carries a deeper message about the complexities of happiness and the role that material possessions can play in our lives. Understanding the subjective nature of happiness and the potential benefits and drawbacks of material wealth allows us to adopt a more balanced approach towards finding joy and contentment in life. Ultimately, the pursuit of happiness goes beyond mere shopping; it is an exploration of our values, relationships, and inner selves.

Gertrude Stein: 'Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.'

George washington carver: 'i would never allow anyone to give me money, no difference how badly i needed it. i wanted literally to earn my living.'.

More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

When we wonder whether money can buy happiness, we may consider the luxuries it provides, like expensive dinners and lavish vacations. But cash is key in another important way: It helps people avoid many of the day-to-day hassles that cause stress, new research shows.

Money can provide calm and control, allowing us to buy our way out of unforeseen bumps in the road, whether it’s a small nuisance, like dodging a rainstorm by ordering up an Uber, or a bigger worry, like handling an unexpected hospital bill, says Harvard Business School professor Jon Jachimowicz.

“If we only focus on the happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something,” says Jachimowicz, an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at HBS. “We also need to think about all of the worries that it can free us from.”

The idea that money can reduce stress in everyday life and make people happier impacts not only the poor, but also more affluent Americans living at the edge of their means in a bumpy economy. Indeed, in 2019, one in every four Americans faced financial scarcity, according to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The findings are particularly important now, as inflation eats into the ability of many Americans to afford basic necessities like food and gas, and COVID-19 continues to disrupt the job market.

Buying less stress

The inspiration for researching how money alleviates hardships came from advice that Jachimowicz’s father gave him. After years of living as a struggling graduate student, Jachimowicz received his appointment at HBS and the financial stability that came with it.

“My father said to me, ‘You are going to have to learn how to spend money to fix problems.’” The idea stuck with Jachimowicz, causing him to think differently about even the everyday misfortunes that we all face.

To test the relationship between cash and life satisfaction, Jachimowicz and his colleagues from the University of Southern California, Groningen University, and Columbia Business School conducted a series of experiments, which are outlined in a forthcoming paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science , The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life .

Higher income amounts to lower stress

In one study, 522 participants kept a diary for 30 days, tracking daily events and their emotional responses to them. Participants’ incomes in the previous year ranged from less than $10,000 to $150,000 or more. They found:

• Money reduces intense stress: There was no significant difference in how often the participants experienced distressing events—no matter their income, they recorded a similar number of daily frustrations. But those with higher incomes experienced less negative intensity from those events.
• More money brings greater control : Those with higher incomes felt they had more control over negative events and that control reduced their stress. People with ample incomes felt more agency to deal with whatever hassles may arise.
• Higher incomes lead to higher life satisfaction: People with higher incomes were generally more satisfied with their lives.

“It’s not that rich people don’t have problems,” Jachimowicz says, “but having money allows you to fix problems and resolve them more quickly.”

Why cash matters

In another study, researchers presented about 400 participants with daily dilemmas, like finding time to cook meals, getting around in an area with poor public transportation, or working from home among children in tight spaces. They then asked how participants would solve the problem, either using cash to resolve it, or asking friends and family for assistance. The results showed:

• People lean on family and friends regardless of income: Jachimowicz and his colleagues found that there was no difference in how often people suggested turning to friends and family for help—for example, by asking a friend for a ride or asking a family member to help with childcare or dinner.
• Cash is the answer for people with money: The higher a person’s income, however, the more likely they were to suggest money as a solution to a hassle, for example, by calling an Uber or ordering takeout.

While such results might be expected, Jachimowicz says, people may not consider the extent to which the daily hassles we all face create more stress for cash-strapped individuals—or the way a lack of cash may tax social relationships if people are always asking family and friends for help, rather than using their own money to solve a problem.

“The question is, when problems come your way, to what extent do you feel like you can deal with them, that you can walk through life and know everything is going to be OK,” Jachimowicz says.

Breaking the ‘shame spiral’

In another recent paper , Jachimowicz and colleagues found that people experiencing financial difficulties experience shame, which leads them to avoid dealing with their problems and often makes them worse. Such “shame spirals” stem from a perception that people are to blame for their own lack of money, rather than external environmental and societal factors, the research team says.

“We have normalized this idea that when you are poor, it’s your fault and so you should be ashamed of it,” Jachimowicz says. “At the same time, we’ve structured society in a way that makes it really hard on people who are poor.”

For example, Jachimowicz says, public transportation is often inaccessible and expensive, which affects people who can’t afford cars, and tardy policies at work often penalize people on the lowest end of the pay scale. Changing those deeply-engrained structures—and the way many of us think about financial difficulties—is crucial.

After all, society as a whole may feel the ripple effects of the financial hardships some people face, since financial strain is linked with lower job performance, problems with long-term decision-making, and difficulty with meaningful relationships, the research says. Ultimately, Jachimowicz hopes his work can prompt thinking about systemic change.

“People who are poor should feel like they have some control over their lives, too. Why is that a luxury we only afford to rich people?” Jachimowicz says. “We have to structure organizations and institutions to empower everyone.”

[Image: iStockphoto/mihtiander]

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Can Money Buy Love and Happiness?

Money is everything, but it’s also not everything.

We know… That’s a little confusing, but hear us out.

We love and need money. Whether we like it or not, our world revolves around it, both on a planetary and individual level. Though money both prompts and funds most of our life choices, there are also non-economic elements; things like health, purpose, love, peace, and happiness within the human experience that motivate us to behave in certain ways. Though they are separate from money, and are achievable without, achieving these non-economic goals can be, and typically are, integrated somehow with having money.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, many of us have love and happiness on our minds, as those factors seem to be associated quite a bit — especially this time of year.

And, since we’re advocates of strong personal finances, it seems prudent to discuss money’s role in achieving these important goals.

Money and Dating

Most of us want to have lots of money, love, and happiness. For the single population especially, one or all of these elements could be missing or in need of improvement. So, can money buy love and happiness?

The answer is: yes and no.

According to one study , money can buy happiness. Money buys happiness when used to purchase free time, e.g. a vacation, certain days off, and having more time to explore oneself and one’s interests. Removing (even temporarily) or reducing daily time stresses can increase happiness. Since “time is money”, cash is typically involved in buying time.

So, sure, money can and does buy happiness, but only to do a degree. Another study  on the relationship with money and happiness determined that higher income  is associated with less daily sadness, but not more daily happiness.

“Money buys freedom from worry about the basic things in life” ( Psychology Today ); it creates circumstances that induce happiness, but it is not completely fulfilling.

Unlike happiness, research does not show that money is able to purchase love itself. However, according to an article by Psychology Today , money might not be able to buy  love, but it can increase the chances of love.

There are two reasons why:

1. Attraction

There are two genres of money-related attraction.

First, there are those who are attracted to people with money. Money makes life easier. For those who seek stability or a comfortable lifestyle, money is an attractive element that can eventually lead to a loving relationship.

Next, there are those who are attracted to similarity (most people). Studies show that not only are we more attracted to those who are similar to us, but also to those with whom we share similar attitudes and habits about money. Essentially, we are hard-wired to be attracted to financially compatible partners . This makes sense because money habits are related to personality traits , and strong couples tend to have compatible personalities.

2. Favorable Circumstances

Money generates circumstances that are more favorable to love such as stability and lack of concern over basic needs.

Dating Big Picture

Money, in fact, cannot make you fully happy or fall in love, but that it can help you get there. So, if you’re single, here are some tips to help you attract what else you’re seeking.

• Maintain or build your income.
• Develop good financial habits and budgets.
• Seek those who do, too.
• Buy happiness in stability, free time, and life experiences.

Good luck out there. Love is in the air!

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Money can buy happiness: Here's how much you need and how to spend it, according to a financial therapist

• Money can buy happiness up to a point — studies indicate emotional well-being rises with income up to about $75,000.
• Researchers have also found that experiences make people happier because they enhance social relationships and are a bigger part of one's identity.
• Spending money on experiences or items that align with your values can increase your potential for happiness.
• This article was  medically reviewed  by  Alisa Ruby Bash , PsyD, LMFT, in Malibu, California. 

You know the phrase: money can't buy happiness. It turns out, that's not entirely true. Money can buy a certain degree of life satisfaction, depending on how much wealth you have and how you spend it. 

Research shows that emotional well-being rises along with income, up to a point. A 2010 study looked at surveys of 450,000 Americans and found that participants with higher incomes reported higher emotional well-being, up to an annual income of $75,000. After that, it drops off. 

Beyond simply having money, here's why being able to meet your basic needs, enjoying life experiences, and having social ties are also important factors for satisfaction and happiness in life.

Basic Needs

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, LMSW , a financial therapist and author of "The Financial Anxiety Solution" says an annual income of $75,000 may not be the threshold for everyone. Being able to meet basic needs like food, housing, and healthcare are top priorities.  Then, the amount of satisfaction derived from income varies depending on factors like the cost of living in your area and your personal interests.

"The data is pretty clear that when we can financially take care of ourselves, our mental health is better," says Bryan-Podvin. "It's stressful to be on the grind all the time."

In fact, according to the CDC , adults living below the poverty level were three to four times more likely to have depression than adults living at or above the poverty level. 

The ability to meet basic needs without working multiple jobs also means you are more likely to have time for your friends and family, which is important for happiness. A Harvard study , which started in 1938 and tracked hundreds of men for nearly 80 years, collected data on both physical and mental well-being. The researchers found that close relationships, more than money or fame, keep people happy throughout their lives. 

Experience vs materials

Once you cover basic needs, whether money buys happiness may depend on what you spend it on, says Bryan-Podvin. 

There is a common theory that spending money on experiences will make you happier than spending money on material objects. Some studies back this up. A 2014 review found that experiences make people happier because they enhance social relationships, are a bigger part of one's identity, and are less likely to be compared to other people's experiences. 

A poll of more than 2,000 millennials in 2014 found that 78% prefer spending money on experiences or events compared to a material object. It's not just millennials. The same poll found that consumer spending on experience and events is up 70% since 1987. 

For some people, though, it may be buying a tangible item that brings the most happiness. "What research shows is if we have a very strong affinity for something, then we do get a lot of happiness out of buying that thing," says Bryan-Podvin, who gives the example of someone passionate about cars. 

When money doesn't buy happiness

One reason more money doesn't always equal more happiness is a tendency for what Bryan-Podvin calls "lifestyle creep." Meaning that when you are making more money, your expenses often go up.

For instance, you may end up spending money on things like a country club membership or dinners at more expensive restaurants. If this is happening, you may not feel like you don't have enough money even though you are making a substantial salary.  

Happiness also depends on how much you have to work to make that money. "You might be pulling in $300,000, which sounds great in theory, but if you are working 80 hours a week and can't enjoy the money you are earning, then what is the point?" says Bryan-Podvin. 

Bottom line

How much money a person needs to be happy varies. Happiness may depend on how much money is required to cover your own basic needs and what brings you joy personally.

For one person, that might be season tickets to the Yankees. For someone else, it might be a massage once a month or a new pair of running shoes. 

Ultimately, money can increase the potential for life satisfaction, depending on how you spend it. If you spend money on experiences or items that align with your values, you will increase your happiness, says Bryan-Podvin.

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Faculty & Research | 2.14.2018

Money Can’t Buy Love, But Here’s What Can

New research proves that couples should spend money to increase quality time spent together..

Photograph by LuckyBusiness/iStock

After the shopping buzz around the holiday season fizzles out, Valentine’s Day is a much-needed boost for businesses, which bombard consumers with gift ideas for spoiling their loved ones. But as it turns out, no box of chocolates or bouquet of roses can outweigh the ultimate bliss of time spent together, according to new research from Harvard Business School.

Previous research  by assistant professor of business administration Ashley Whillans indicated that spending money on time-saving purchases can increase individual happiness. To figure out the secret to happy relationships, detailed in a new working paper, Whillans surveyed more than 3,000 individuals who were married or in marriage-like relationships and who spent money on time-saving purchases. One couple paid movers $200 to handle the labor and time-intensive task of moving all their belongings from their old apartment into a new one. Another couple outsourced their laundry to a service that handled the tiresome washing and folding for between $40 and $50 a visit. But Whillans found that it wasn’t simply the act of minimizing the number of chores that led to relationship bliss. For example, moving to a professionally managed apartment and therefore no longer needing to mow the lawn isn’t enough to bring couples closer together. Only when couples consciously elect to turn the time saved from outsourcing a task into quality time spent together—by going out to the movies or cooking dinner together—does Whillans’s study show a positive correlation between outsourcing chores and relationship satisfaction.

The study also found that couples who elected to spend part of their income on time-saving measures were more resilient when it came to dealing with the inevitable conflicts associated with any committed relationship. “It’s sort of like a social-support idea,” Whillans says. “If you’re stressed, a healthy coping response can be to seek out a friend or family member to help you deal with that stress. Time-saving purchases are like another kind of social support––maybe your in-laws are coming over and the house is a mess, so you need a cleaner. Or maybe you and your partner are both working really hard and don’t have time to clean. We find that when couples respond to those kinds of stressors by purchasing support, they experience greater relationship satisfaction.”

 She warns, however, that time-saving purchases are not the be-all-and-end-all key to relationship satisfaction. The benefits of time-saving purchases appear primarily when couples are faced with controllable stressors, such as too much laundry to fold. When faced with an uncontrollable stressor, such as a death in the family, couples who spend their money instead on distracting, uplifting experiences––a dinner date, a short vacation––are likely to be happier.

 Of course, hiring cleaners, signing up for a laundry service, or outsourcing lawn-mowing can all end up costing much more than material gifts. Ximena Garcia-Rada, a doctoral candidate in marketing, has good news for couples who wish to achieve higher degrees of relationship satisfaction but have limited disposable income. Based on research done by working with Brierly professor of business administration Michael Norton, Garcia-Rada posits that relationship rituals are highly valuable in and of themselves. The researchers define a ritual as a task that is repeated over time, but continues to have symbolic meaning for the couple. Bringing one’s significant other coffee every day doesn’t count if he or she takes that coffee for granted, but going to the movies together every Friday night can establish a romantic ritual. Garcia-Rada says that her preliminary findings have interesting implications for the commonly held notion that scheduling intimacy is less romantic: “Couples who actually schedule time to cuddle, for example, end up developing a ritual to do so. That indicates a commitment to the relationship, and commitment is a key driver to satisfaction.” 

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When Money Can — and Can’t — Buy Happiness, According to Research

Money does make us happier — at least to an extent.

Let’s talk about money and joy. Some years back, a Lexus ad boldly claimed: “Whoever said  money  can’t buy  happiness  isn’t spending it right.” The message seemed to hint at the possibility of a good life, the road to which has money growing on trees along the way. The currency to a happy life required tangible, monetary currency. Then there is the more abstract, philosophical argument about chasing happiness through other immaterial means; the quixotic notion of finding the happiness within you sounds quite blasé and tiresome by now.

It is a question most enduring in the science of human wellbeing: Can money ever buy happiness? Surely, it can — money can solve tangible problems that come with the ordeal of survival. Money pays rent, buys food, and puts a roof over our heads, among other things. But if it could indeed buy happiness,why would billionaires, with their fat bank accounts, ivory towers, and space vacations, feel lonely and/or try to fill their lack of contentment at the expense of people, environment, and ideas that build a civilization?

The marriage of money and happiness has intrigued psychologists and economists alike. There is a canon of research dedicated solely to answering how financial security impacts our mood, and if it indeed, makes us happier. The long and short of it is money does make us happy — to an extent — and that extent is never a well-defined threshold.

Money guarantees bliss especially for people impacted by poverty or economic turmoil. We go back to 2010, when an important study based in the U.S. anchored much of the debate, arguing that money can make you happier but not beyond an annual income of $75,000 (north of Rs. 58 lakhs after inflation adjustment). The exact limits of money aside, other research to come after, concurs with this largely: in 2017, a  Gallup poll surveyed people from around the world, and found a sweet spot: people found emotional wellbeing when they earned something between $60,000 and $75,000 (Rs. 46 lakhs and 58 lakhs). People also attested to feeling a sense of satiation — the peak of happiness, if you will — if they earned somewhere around $95,000 (Rs. 75 lakhs).

In 2018, a study looked at the emotional benefits of regular cash transfers to women in poverty-stricken households in Zambia. Over the next two years, the women reported greater satisfaction in life, both their own and their children. Money meant access to nutritious food, homes, healthcare, and dignity of life that could improve physical and mental health — simplifying the pursuit ofhappiness. We know poverty is both a cause and consequence of poor mental health, but the true extent of mental health conditions in marginalized communities remains underresearched.

Related on The Swaddle:

Why Are Indians So Unhappy?

According to Jayshree Sengupta, economist and author, India’s chronic unhappiness is a result of congestion in cities, concerns about  food security  and  water safety , rising  costs of healthcare ,  women’s safety , and environmental degradation which itself is linked to poor mental wellbeing. Thisexplains why India remains at the bottom of the happiness index rankings.

A consensus thus arises: income matters. If one has money, they have the luxury and logistical wherewithal to pursue things they desire, or just meet basic survival needs. But the exact degree depends on this distinction between “day-to-day” happiness (experienced wellbeing) and overall life satisfaction (evaluative well-being). A sizeable literature shows that people with larger incomes tend to report greater evaluative well-being. One limitation of this canon of research is just how much can you truly measure someone’s experienced well-being, from a daily lens?

In 2021, Matthew Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, provided a more comprehensive and slightly contrarian outlook onthis relationship. “…researchers have used surveys to ask people how they remember feeling during some period in the past, such as the last day, week, or month. This requires people to accurately remember how they felt across the various moments of the past and then accurately integrate those memories into a single estimate, an approach that is vulnerable to memory errors and biases in judgment,” the study noted.

Published in PNAS , the research showed that money correlated with happiness, irrespective of what the income levels looked like. The conclusion was based on data gathered in real-time over the course of seven years; looking at 33,391 employed adults in the U.S. earning as little as meeting the minimum wage to making more than $500,000 a year. Happiness never plateaued for people who were earning more than $75,000; “higher incomes are associated with both feeling better day-to-day and being more satisfied with life overall,” he wrote.

Then one may wonder, why exactly is money even linked to misery? Psychology and behavioraleconomics come under the spotlight here. “We always think if we just had a little bit more money, we’d be happier, but when we get there, we’re not,” Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College, told TIME. This paradox of joy is familiar: the more we earn, the more we want, and the less satisfied we feel overall. According to one research, a person is twice as likely to be happy if they go from earning $20,000 a year to more than $50,000; but the levels of happiness kind of flatline after the $90,000 mark. So incomes over $75,000 bought life satisfaction, but happiness not so much.

How Languages Reflect a Culture’s Idea of Happiness

Perhaps, because people always overestimate how much joy can be found by having more money, we forget that as adaptable creatures, people adjust to variations in wealth. A new house, a YSL bag, a shiny new car are all great, but we are bound to get used to them — a phenomenon that economists call the “ hedonistic treadmill .” Money is also linked to greater stress and even conflicts in relationships. “Materialism is not an isolated life priority; as the pursuit of money and possessions are prioritized, it appears that other dimensions of life, such as relationships, are deemphasized,” as the researcher of one such study noted . The pursuit of money creates a scarcity of time for more emotionally rewarding things in life, thus impacting satisfaction in relationships.

Beyond income levels, money correlates with happiness in other aspects too. According to one s urvey from 2011, when people spent money on “experiences” — such as a visit to an adventure park, a vacation, or buying a gift for someone you love — over tangible goods (the pair of shoes you’ve been eyeing), they reported feeling greater feelings of happiness.

This is also linked to something called the “appraisal-tendency framework.” A review of literature about emotions and decision-making found how we value something based on the outcome we expect to come out of a said thing. “For example, if you’re afraid of your house being broken into, buying a state-of-the-art home security system may reduce your level of fear, which can then improve your happiness or emotional wellbeing,” as Healthline explained . Wealth earmarks not all kinds of possibilities, only some.

Then there is a theory to happiness oft-ignored. People may find joy when they turn objects of their purchase into experiences. “A book that sits unread on a bookshelf is a thing; a book you plunge into with gusto, savoring every plot twist, is an experience,” David Futrelle wrote in TIME. Futrelle spoke to psychologist Tom Gilovich, who further argued that “people who are happiest are those who are best at wringing experiences out of everything they spend money on, whether it’s dancing lessons or hiking boots.”

A more sustainable way of finding money and bliss, then, seems to be by way of investing in relationships and people. Any human connection is linked to unquantifiable benefits on moods and happiness. So, spending on dinners and dates is quite literally an investment in this pursuit of happiness.

I think of bell hooks, and her treatise on joy: “Loving friendships provide us with a space to experience the joy of community in a relationship where we learn to process all our issues, to cope with differences and conflict while staying connected.”

Saumya Kalia is an Associate Editor at The Swaddle. Her journalism and writing explore issues of social justice, digital sub-cultures, media ecosystem, literature, and memory as they cut across socio-cultural periods. You can reach her at @Saumya_Kalia.

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