Does Money Really Buy Happiness?

Foreign. Welcome back to the show. Today's show is episode 101 and I want to talk about something that, and I don't know if it's just my, my algorithm for my social media or the podcast I listen to or what, but it seems to pop up a lot. And now that I'm talking about it and my phone's right here, it's probably listening so I'll get more of, more of this content.

But does money truly make you happy? And I've heard a lot of opinions and I've heard different thresholds, amounts of money that you have to make to kind of get there. I agree with some of it. Some of it I don't think is talked enough about on in my opinion, what's actually the truth. So we'll start with one. Appreciate everyone, everyone for listening. It's still kind of crazy. I'm episode 101 and we'll see where, how much further we'll go here.

But excited for changes we have coming somewhat soon, relatively soon. Still working on my podcast environment here if you're watching on video. But let's dive into the show.

So I do believe that you can be happy with a little amount of money. And you know that's, that's relative, right? So when I was 18, 1819 I think I was making actually 18 summer going into my college, college, I was making $8 an hour and I was crazy happy. I don't want to say crazy as far as money wise, I thought I was rolling in money, right. Making $8 an hour.

But my needs, my needs were met because I was still living at home with my parents, so I still had, I didn't have to pay for food, clothing, shelter, those were already met. So my $8 an hour was going towards trying to remember at least gas money and then fun things, experiences, right. So my needs were met and I was basically using that. That was fun money for me. So if you kind of look at it like that, your needs need to be met in my opinion to then be happy.

Now can you be happy without those needs met? Sure. It's probably gonna be harder if you don't have shelter. It's probably gonna be harder if you don't have clothing. It's probably gonna be harder if you don't have food. Right. And my guess is a lot of people that are listening to this or most people are listening to this probably have those met. But are you living day to day? Cause in my opinion that creates stress if you are living day to day, paycheck to paycheck, week to week. That's tough.

You know, you've got to, in my opinion. And I've been there, I've been there a lot and relatively not that long ago to where we were living paycheck to paycheck, maybe stashing a little bit of money. But I learned and I didn't want that feeling. Right. So I learned how to save, how to invest, how to grow, how to kind of control, I guess, my own money in a way. So that's kind of what spurned all that was. Yeah, I didn't like being paycheck to paycheck and learned how to kind of get out of that.

So that's kind of step one is you have, have to have your needs met. Once those are met, can you stash some money aside, do you have some money in savings for a rainy day? Because it's going to happen. I mean, right now feels like the past couple months, not that we've had rainy days, but just a lot of things have been going out and issues with our house and just general things that, that happen that just seem to happen all at once.

But do you have a rainy day fund that, you know, it doesn't matter if, if the AC goes out, which right now it's 95 degrees outside, our AC is not kicking the way it should be. So we've got to get that fixed. But are you able to. Able to do that and not stress yourself out or put that on a credit card and they have to pay that off. Now you're paying more and just kind of a cycle. So I don't want to say you can't be happy in doing that, but it can create some stress living paycheck to paycheck.

And then after that, you know, there's a threshold and I don't know exact dollar amount. And obviously depends if it's just you or if it depends if it's just there's two of you or three of you or a family of 10. Right.

All these factors come into play because I've heard something about if you make, what is it like 50 grand and granted it changes and in the Midwest is way different from the coasts in the US but something like 50 grand a year by yourself, I think you can get your needs met and be happy. I've heard something like that. And obviously with inflation, those numbers rise. With a family, it's probably going to be tough to do that. And it also depends on.

I'm in Columbus, Ohio, it's a bigger city, you Go outside, you know, an hour away from Columbus and can probably make half of what you have to make in Columbus to kind of survive, I guess. So all those things come into play. But, yeah, it's needs met. And then can you stash away some money? And then it kind of grows from there. So in my opinion, can you have fun experiences? Can you travel? And then kind of the third layer there is time, freedom, and you can do those things.

I don't think there's a dollar amount you can do those things more so how you've kind of shaped yourself and finances. So do you have a lot of overhead? Do you have a lot of expenses? Do you have student loans that are two grand, three grand, four grand a month? That's going to. That's going to derail you a little bit, right? And you're going to be kind of stuck in the hamster wheel for a while trying to pay those off. So all those things go into it.

But in my opinion, money doesn't make you happy. Money is a tool, and not. Not a lot of people. In fact, I don't know if I've heard anybody really talk about this.

And I was listening to podcasts the other day. That's why I want to do this show today, because I don't think they hit on what money truly is in terms of can it make you happy or not. You know, buying a shirt will give you a quick dopamine hit, and maybe you're happy in the moment, and maybe you're happy the first few times that you or happier first few times that you wear it. And listen, I've been there. I do that still. You know, there are times where it's like, you know what?

I just want to buy a couple shirts and feel a little bit better. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But you also can't spend your way to happiness. To me, money is. And this is going back to my point of the whole thing, money is. It's a tool and can be a goal, right? So if your goal is to. If it just stays the same, right. Maybe let's just use a round number.

If your goal is to make $50,000 a year and it's just going to stay like that and you're happy, or you just want to stay that amount and you're not going towards anything else, I think that could lead to maybe not being as happy. If you flip that and you're like, all right, I'm at 50 right now, two years. I want to be at 73 years, I want to be at 80 and then maybe five years from now, I want to be at 150. To me, as humans, we need something to kind of go after, have goals to chase.

So if you've got that goal to chase, you could take the money out of it. To me, it's about the process of getting there. So whatever those goals are, it's about hitting those goals. One, having those goals, two, hitting those goals and then who and what you become along the way, I believe that is what makes you happy or happier. And that's more along the lines of fulfillment, being fulfilled. But it's more about the person that you become along the way.

And obviously it does help to, you know, be able to go on vacations. But even with that, you're becoming a different person. Seeing different cultures, traveling different cities, different countries. So even with that, I think you're just becoming a different person, hopefully a better person. That's funny experiences.

And then once you throw in time freedom, and I've learned this over the past few years, I've really been able to work on myself a lot more and hopefully our family as well, because I do have time, freedom and I'm able to think about, I'm able to get out of the day to day of work and think about one, the, the bigger picture of our business and then two, the bigger picture of myself, my health, what fulfills me.

And then that kind of overflows to my family, I hope, at least, and friends and everything else. But to me that's more about what money does in terms of bringing you happiness. Money directly doesn't bring you happiness.

I mean, you can, you can talk to anybody that's had it for a while, they're not going to say, yeah, you know what, buying, you know, a Lamborghini, a Lamborghini every week really makes me happy, you know, you know, you're going to have a short term of dopamine hit that that makes you feel good for a little bit. But there's a, it's an emptiness, right, as far as setting goals and being productive and who you become along the way while doing those and reaching those.

That's, there's, it's not empty, right? You can always do that and there's always a new goal or new kind of thing to chase to make yourself better, to make whatever it is better. So in my opinion, that's what, that's the kind of correlation between what makes you happy in terms of money and related to that. So it's not money Directly, but.

But indirectly, yes, I do believe money can make you happy, but it's the things along the way. As you're making more money, who you're becoming is truly what's making you happy and making you fulfilled. So that's my two cents. Never heard that. But I was thinking about that when, and I'm sure people have talked about it. I just haven't heard it. I'm not making anything up here, but that's what I was when I was listening to this podcast. They were talking more about real numbers and net worth.

And I'm like, wait a second. That's not what makes people happy. Net worth doesn't make people happy. It's a goal, right? And it's who they're becoming along the way to get there. So if their goal is to become a millionaire and they hit it, yeah, they're probably pretty happy. It's a celebration, right? But then it's like, all right, what's the next goal? Where do I want to get to? Maybe I want to get to 5 million in the next two years. So now they've got something to chase after.

And also who are they becoming during that time period?

And that's what makes you happy and fulfilled and all those things. So, yeah, that's my two cents. And hopefully if this is valuable to you, please let me know. Appreciate everyone for listening. It's so crazy to think this is episode 101. Feels like yesterday when I started. It still feels like I. Well, I am complete amateur doing this. So I appreciate everyone that's been holding on and listening and following along. But yeah, it's been. It's been a fun ride.

We are, we do have some plans of changes, some type of changes coming up relatively soon and looking forward to diving into those. But again, appreciate everyone for listening, following along, watching, and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks for following, subscribing and listening to this episode of the Do More podcast, hosted by John Farling. To learn more or ask questions, go to L4Investing.com.