
How Much Money Do You Need To Be Happy? - samratjp
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110009/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-be-satisfied
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byoung2
There's an additional dimension to money not discussed in the article.
Sometimes more important than _how much_ money you have is _what kind_ of
money it is. There have been a few articles posted on HN about the different
kinds of money. I suspect that if you love your career and make little money
doing it, you can be happier than you would with a high-paying career that you
hate.

I'm sure that the basic trend would be the same, that happiness or life
satisfaction would generally increase with wealth, but if you were to look at
people who were happy with their careers, that plateau at $75,000 might
vanish.

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Mz
"They found that life satisfaction rises significantly with household income."

I tend to believe income is really just an indirect indicator of general
competence/underlying well-being rather than somehow causative. My observation
is that serious, unresolvable life problems (such as chronic illness or
special needs kids) tends to significantly curtail earning capacity. For me,
resolving underlying problems has gradually improved my financial situation. I
strongly believe that financial problems are essentially indicators of
underlying real-world problems. So it makes sense to me that, conversely,
financial well-being would grow out general well-being -- which fits with the
detail that 2/3 of lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years. Having money
dumped in your lap doesn't magically resolve any underlying personal problems
and, therefore, doesn't really fix your financial problems all by itself.

