I've seen it suggested elsewhere that there is no saturation point, it's just that the relationship is logarithmic, and truncated logarithmic datasets look asymptotic.
> I've seen it suggested elsewhere that there is no saturation point, it's just that the relationship is logarithmic, and truncated logarithmic datasets look asymptotic.
If it's truly a logarithmic relationship (rather than asymptotic), this would imply that billionaires are an order of magnitude happier than everyone else.
That's a level you can contribute to by being frugal. It's tough to get to but easier than you'd think. The barriers to moving to this level tend to be as much social and psychological as financial e.g. families, mortgages, need for security. The next level above financial independence is financial freedom (you can just get whatever you want, from shoes to houses) - off the top of my head I would guess this is probab…
>That's a level you can contribute to by being frugal. J suspect that ceteris paribus, being frugal reduces happiness - by definition, it's not getting things you want to get.
Who is happier, the person who always wants, and always buys what they want? Or the one who learns to not want so much, and is therefore always satisfied?
Is this net income (after taxes, and possibly after 401k [or equivalent] savings)? I would say that having no debt, or at least having manageable debt, along with knowing you are saving enough for retirement, and making enough that you don't have to second-guess if you can afford every purchase you make, is the real cutoff. For example, if you don't have mortgage debt then you are probably renting. So I consider mort…
My last child got a good job today, and as well as a certain pride I feel a sense of relief similar to when we paid off our mortgage.
Congratulations! That is one of life's greatest milestones -- and yet we don't have a common term for it.
I'm my parents' last child and am soon to graduate Grad school and enter 'the working world'. I can definitely feel their relief in knowing decades of parental sacrifices and obligations have paid off and finally come to an end.
I suspect there is another level above that at financial independence, where you have enough wealth that you don't have to work. Where you can lose the fear of losing your job, or go off and work on what you want even if it doesn't make much or any money.
There might be a fine line there; humans need a sense of purpose, and for many people, purpose is tied up in our job. If you no longer have to work, and you choose not to work because your current job isn't ideal, it can be hard to get the motivation to search for a new job. At the same time, without work, it can be hard to find purpose. So you might be stuck in a situation where you aren't working and struggling to…
> At the same time, without work, it can be hard to find purpose.
Volunteering and creative experimentation fills that gap just fine.
Personally, there was a point where I had / was making enough that I felt the need to conceal that fact from people, particularly when I first met them. This meant that I had to go as far as to conceal much of what makes me who I am from people, as some of my hobbies are rather expensive. That was the point where making more meant that I became progressively less happy.
There are a lot of posts, articles, and general interest over the last 15 years (compared to before) on “being and maximizing happiness”. At face value, this seems very natural. However I think a lot could be gained by tackling the necessity of even asking that question. Nietzsche has this really interesting point that every philosopher since Plato was most interested in “the truth” without seriously considering if “…
Just arm chair speculation, but it seems like any religion that promised happiness or how to be happy wouldn't be wildly successful. Not many people turn to religion when they're happy, and promising happiness to a bunch of sad people isn't going to turn out very well. Telling people that their lives sucks for a reason, we just don't know it yet, and that at least when they die they'll be happier than they could ever imagine is a pretty easy promise to keep to the living. It also gives people hope which in turn can produce happiness or at least a sense of purpose.
Anyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does? In my case, as soon as I started making decent money, I got a hearing and glasses (I didn't have them before), started taking physiotherapy to fix my shoulders, going to the dentist, changing the oil in my car on schedule, buying shoes as they wore out instead of pushing them until they gave me hip and knee…
> Anyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does?
I've definitely experienced this. There are lots of things that you ignore when you're poor because they're just not feasible, but once you've got the money, they're not only feasible but foolish to not do.
Anyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does? In my case, as soon as I started making decent money, I got a hearing and glasses (I didn't have them before), started taking physiotherapy to fix my shoulders, going to the dentist, changing the oil in my car on schedule, buying shoes as they wore out instead of pushing them until they gave me hip and knee…
At some point the growth in expenses goes into things much more trivial than those you are enumerating. Things that you can obviously cut without any loss.
At some other point, either your expenses fail to keep up or you start to have such blatantly unneeded expenses that it is obvious that you can same some money with minimum effort.
And none of that even require a very large salary.