Money and Happiness

Money and Happiness

There seems to have been a lot of Instagram posts recently about money bringing happiness.

I would say my opinion on this is quite balanced.

I don’t think money and happiness has a linear relationship ie the more you have the happier you are.

An example in my life – one of the moments I have been happiest is on a cold morning selling at a carboot when I was unemployed – happier than when I was working earning a good wage. So this topic has triggered me.

I am reading Steven Bartlett’s book Happy, Sexy Millionaire which has started as a great read. I only started in yesterday. When he wrote down his plan to be Happy, Sexy and a Millionaire he was really talking about fulfilment, love and success. He describes in his book that when his company was listed on the Stock exchange he felt nothing!!!  But rewind 10 or so years and when he found £13.40 down the back of some chairs he was ‘happier’. He talks about how he reflected and he was always happy throughout his life but his beliefs had led him to believe otherwise.

Steven also reflects on the work of Professor Michael Norton who studied the connections between happiness and wealth and asked 2,000 people with a net worth of at least $1m how happy they were on as scale of 1-10 and how much extra they would need to be at a 10. All the way up the scale people said they would need 2-3 times more to be happy. So people with £1m think the’d need £2-£3m and likewise if they had £10m they would need £20-£30m!!!!

So I think the word happiness in all these Instagram posts is the wrong word to use so if I think in the reasoning behind the posts I can see what the people are saying. Money does help peoples lives – it absolutely does!

Having more money can stop anxiety or stress of money worries and can allow for more treats which may drive pleasure. This isn’t the same as happiness.

Happiness researcher Ed Diener (who was known as “Dr. Happy”) in his book Happiness, “Financial resources can serve as a buffer against life's negative events.” Having more money means avoiding the stresses and worries that being poor bring. We evolved during scarcity, so we seek abundance

In a survey undertaken by Salary finance it was found that there was money worries across all salary brackets. The below graph shows the % of people with money worries across all the salary brackets

There is clearly lots of psychology behind this topic which is beyond my simple brain,

Above all I think education is needed – money is a tool we need to equip people with an understanding of how to use it and manage it and the world will be a better place and maybe a happier one.

Laura and Nicola x