If money doesn't make you happy, you probably aren't spending it right (2010) [pdf]

Because you seem content with this path, may I ask how old you are, or at least how long you've been on this path? I'm also curious to hear examples of the 2% you mention.

I'm young but I try to have this same approach of taking the time to buy nice things which will last (furniture, kitchenware, camping gear), and tend to be a bit obsessive about ratings + reviews. I sometimes wonder if this is the "right" approach or if I would be happier buying cheaper crap and spending less time doing it. I do find strong intrinsic value when I'm confident I bought the thing which best fits my needs after doing hours/days of research.

Indeed. It's somewhat durable, too -- while I certainly experience a lot more luxury since I left Davao, I'm no longer comfortable with even LA-without-a-car level extravagance being treated lightly.

I think it's worth pointing out the mirror of your thoughts (which are completely correct -- if you haven't had cheap and simple options, there is a deep luxury to it): If you're going to buy nice things -- which are the only options in America, truly -- enjoy them.

Food and housing seem so obvious to me. Like, you can get a chicken sandwich here, and eat something that is recognizably made of chicken (you can in the Philippines too, it's just that's more fancy than normal). I guess it never struck me how much of a luxury even the low-end of American foodstuffs are.

And I can get an apartment near Detroit that (1) can be air-conditioned to exactly the temperature I want, and not just a tolerable temperature, and (2) is, well... nice. Not falling apart, no holes in walls or things, consistent electricity, internet speeds exceeding 100kb/s (often by 30x).

Now, I don't need all this luxury, but man, the modest increase in expenses (maybe 2x? I live pretty cheap in America) definitely increases quality of life. If it didn't, I would probably not live here.

I saw a good TED talk[1] a while ago about this topic, and the speaker made the interesting point that people use the word happiness to mean different things. You can ask someone how happy they are feeling at a given moment, or you can ask them how happy they are with their life in general. And we evaluate those two feelings in very different ways.

He mentions at one point that studies about how people feel in the moment were very correlated with money, but only up to the point that they didn't need to worry about it anymore. After that, it had little bearing on their experiential happiness. But when asked how happy they were with their lives, the more money, the better, with no limit. Which seems to me more like pride in an achievement.

I wonder if the happiness that wasn't "your own" was because part of you was happy when you thought about where you were in life, but you were also aware it wasn't really improving your day-to-day experience. Kind of a cognitive dissonance between the two ways you were evaluating your happiness.

I don't know, you think that's even close?

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...

That's somewhat accurate. I'd not seen this TED talk either, so thanks.

The day-to-day didn't really change above a certain income, and that income limit (at least for me) was pretty low. Even living in both Manhattan and San Francisco where things are expensive.

All the things I enjoy aren't really that expensive. You don't need millions of dollars to read a book, watch a movie, listen to an album, or have sex. These things are only very marginally improved above let's say, the $75K mark. You don't even need millions of dollars to go out to eat every night.

Money can give you more discretionary time. But that free time can't be spent in any way (at least none that I found) that feels rewarding while everyone else you know or care about is at work. You are still bound to rest of the world. I think that's what I like about more European, or day I say socialist, lifestyles. I need other people to spend time with. I've found hanging out with extremely wealthy people who don't do anything to be extremely boring and almost uncomfortable.

If I woke up tomorrow and suddenly had $10 million I'm not sure I'd be any happier. I'd go out and buy some new clothes I guess, a bigger apartment maybe. I'd still wake up in the morning and turn on the radio to listen to NPR. I'd still eat the same yogurt, same strawberries.

People start to do silly things with money I don't understand. Giant TVs they don't know how to work, fancy cars they never drive. Or buy some house with rooms that sit empty. I'm just like, why? Why would you do that? When people say these things make them "happy" I wonder if we actually feel completely different emotions.

> How do you know what programs you need to run? Why would we think all the good ones are low-RAM? I'd need to see a profile of apps and RAM to even begin to conclude anything.

Wisdom, aging, getting to know yourself. I sure love a $300 meal, but eating out 5 times a week isn't going to make me any happier than going to that place once a month and cooking on my own the rest of the time; maybe ordering a cheap dish at my favorite Chinese place.

If you enjoy looking good and your wardrobe already has everything you could reasonably wear on a day-to-day basis and some special events, the chances that an additional piece of clothing will make a marked difference on your happiness is extremely low.

If you have sex with your lover as much as you could possibly want, more sex will not increase your quality of life; most likely it will be a negative.

There's a point where we just saturate on the hedonistic aspects of life, even the ones with supposed higher purposes.