Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year

Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by Waterluvian on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:06PM (#25894745)

Anecdotally, there was a point somewhere between $x and $y where I just stopped looking at the bank account when making minor purchase decisions.

This fed into an attitude of buying the right thing the first time. It is a contributor to my ability to spend money to eat better and the resulting health improvements that further feedback into a better life.

Furthermore, my attitude has shifted from "get wealthy" (20s) to "optimize for time." (30s) and that too has impacted my perception on what career and lifestyle I want.

All this is to say: I do believe there is a soft cap on what money does for your wellbeing. I think the cap probably varies from person to person, and that everyone should try to figure out how to detect what it is for them, lest they burn non-renewable resources going past it. No amount of money makes you or your kids young again.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by Judgmentality on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:47PM (#25895149)

> Furthermore, my attitude has shifted from "get wealthy" (20s) to "optimize for time." (30s)

I always thought the reason for being wealthy was having free time.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by hombre_fatal on Sunday January 24, 2021 @03:18PM (#25895484)

I live on a beach in my 30s with relatively meager income compared to other people on HN and I constantly meet expats aged 60+ who live at the beach, happy to finally retire after 40+ years of grueling work so they can finally live at the beach.

I'm glad I snapped out of the delusion that you need to waste your youth working so that you can finally enjoy life when you're old and have trouble getting a boner.

We have a cultural problem where we don't use money to buy time. We instead use money to buy everything else. You're usually looked down on for making the time trade, like some sort of deadbeat who doesn't want to work hard. We make day to day decisions as if we were immortal.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by dilap on Sunday January 24, 2021 @03:40PM (#25895732)

Beach bum lifestyle seems appealing, except if you want kids. I'm guessing you don't?

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by potions on Sunday January 24, 2021 @04:54PM (#25896536)

do kids hate the beach? I feel like 'relatively meager compared to HN' could be low 100k and that would be plenty livable, 2-3x the household median income at non super fancy beach towns in the east/south US.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by nostrademons on Monday January 25, 2021 @12:12PM (#25905776)

As someone whose kid loves the beach - beach time with small children is very different from beach time as a childless couple. You have to constantly watch the kid to make sure they're not running into the waves, or eating sand, or throwing sand at other beachgoers, or about to fall into the creek. It's not at all as relaxing as going to the beach as a single person or couple is, for reasons entirely unrelated to how much going to the beach costs.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by dilap on Sunday January 24, 2021 @06:16PM (#25897216)

good pt

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by Fricken on Sunday January 24, 2021 @04:08PM (#25896065)

There's a leisure class at both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by nullsense on Sunday January 24, 2021 @03:10PM (#25895401)

Wealthy people have less free time. Most time is spent acquiring the wealth, right?

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by alexpetralia on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:56PM (#25895238)

I'd say a good amount of it is for status.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by winphone1974 on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:15PM (#25894835)

And yet rich people live significantly longer. Money is important for a lot of things impacting life expectancy

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by benmaraschino on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:55PM (#25895231)

The causation arguably goes in the other direction too. You can't make money if you're unhealthy at baseline. Nor can you as easily acquire more education or new skills.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by Waterluvian on Sunday January 24, 2021 @03:03PM (#25895322)

Yeah. Which is why I'm personally huge on paying plenty of taxes and having lots of social systems. If someone's time is spent fulfilling basic needs, it will take generations for them to get out of that.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by bch on Sunday January 24, 2021 @02:37PM (#25895047)

I think part of what you’re qualifying as “and yet...” may be exactly what GP is talking about. They worry less and get on with things, comfortable that they can, rather than harming themselves with 1000 “economical” cuts. See too the boot metaphor[0] that is a real impediment to getting to somewhere comfortable. There’s a potential tipping-point that’s personal to each person.

[0] https://moneywise.com/a/boots-theory-of-socioeconomic-unfair...

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by throwawayhacka on Sunday January 24, 2021 @07:14PM (#25897586)

It's very likely that since IQ comes from good Gene's, that a least some of the effect is the other way around ; you make more because you are more intelligent, and you're more intelligent in part due to better genetic qualities. a huge part of having average IQ is just being healthy enough to get there.

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Re:Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,... by cortesoft on Sunday January 24, 2021 @03:50PM (#25895868)

I think it is also about being smart in what you spend your money on. Being rich doesn't help at all if you buy things that don't actually improve the quality of your life.

Now, what will improve the quality of life varies from person to person, but I don't think it is the case that everyone is getting the most out of their money.

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