The Price of Happiness: $75,000

Whoever said that money can't buy happiness turned out to be flat wrong. Researchers have now proven that indeed money *can* buy happiness ... up to a point.

In the study, researchers tried to evaluate the effect of money in two ways: One was on how people think about their lives and the other was on the feelings they have as they experience life. Responses from more than 450,000 Americans, gathered in 2008 and 2009, were evaluated.

The study found that people's evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences -- their feelings -- did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one.

"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain," the authors wrote. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

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@rick c often the more money leads to more stress because of all the responsibilities that come with the money and, usually, the more stressful job more money brings so one cannot simply state "more money more piece of mind". In fact all the super-rich friends I have are constantly in battles with relatives over who deserves what. Constantly in a state of anxiety over being kidnapped. Constantly depressed that their friends only like them for their money.
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@Factoidalism

I guess that's why happiness increases up to a point.

This study makes me glad that I'll be earning around $75,000 in a few years when I finish studying, but sad that I'll probably never reach $75,000 US.
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I've been broke and I've had decent-paying jobs. Although I've always lived simply, I can honestly say I was infinitely happier when I KNEW my paycheck would cover my bills and I didn't have to worry about scrimping, saving, cutting back, shuffling payments around just to make ends meet.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but the right amount buys security -- and that makes me happy.
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That's fairly accurate from my experience. Doing similar work as an engineer for 10 years, I remember my satisfaction increasing significantly as I reached and went past the $75k mark. That was the point where I could live comfortably while putting money in the bank or travel and do fun things with ease.

Around $95k things got far less exciting. More money was great but each raise wasn't as pivotal.
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A few years ago they set the happiness level at $50,000. Inflation, I guess. Below that, you have stress about money. Above that, more doesn't make any difference. I've always been happy with much less. If I ever reached the comfort level, I might be spoiled.
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anybody who didn't already know that money = happiness is either naive or delusional.

money is not the root of all evil. people are just dumb and mean. even if there was no money people would still be dumb and mean.
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75?

Hm, so I guess the thing I now perceive as happiness and contentment is an illusion, because my wife and I earn about 2/3's of that and we feel perfectly happy with it.
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I would be happier if I made $75,000. I know to a lot of people (sadly, not me) it may not seem like that much. For my readers, I broke it down into quantity costs of household goods. You wanna know how many pounds of Gerber baby food you can buy for 75K? Click the link. http://8poundpreemie.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-would-be-happy-for-75000.html
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