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After $75,000, Money Doesn't Buy Day-to-Day Happiness

From HealthDay News. We knew this--it's called "the fulfillment curve." If the $75k is NET income, it can begin to buy AMT trouble for single filers.

"Money can help buy happiness -- at least if you're bringing in about $75,000 a year, new research shows.

While happiness increases along with annual household incomes up to about $75,000, beyond that, earning more money has no effect on day-to-day contentment, according to the study."

...

"While making more won't help your emotional state on any given day, people who had household incomes above $75,000 were more apt to say they were satisfied overall with their life."

But what did they have to sacrifice to make that money, and what could they have done instead to achieve similar happiness? We frugalites know the answer, and are probably smiling satisfactorily right now.

"Social scientists and psychologists have long grappled with how to measure happiness, said James Maddux, a psychology professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who was not involved with the study.

The new study does a good job teasing apart the different aspects of emotional well-being, including more immediate emotions vs. bigger-picture life evaluations, Maddux said.

"This study is consistent with a lot of other studies on the relationship between income and happiness or overall life satisfaction," Maddux said. "What other studies have also shown is that money matters up to a point. But after a certain point, having additional money doesn't make people like their lives better or feel better about themselves on a day to day basis."

This holds true in other countries around the world as well, he noted. Once per capita GDP rises to a point in which people are no longer struggling to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter and healthcare, additional increases in overall national wealth don't seem to make much of a difference in happiness, Maddux said."

Posted by Cute at 6:41 PM

Labels: financial (non-tax)