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Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

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Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#151
post #2

I wonder if this is behind the greater happiness of people with incomes over 75K per year. They actually have enough money to pay for goods and services that save them time.

I think most people tend to buy bigger houses and more consumer goods that require more of their time to maintain.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#153
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: Get a high-paying software job in a high COL area, work for a decade or so while minimizing your expenses (live cheaply/with friends) and investing as much as possible in a diversified stock market portfolio. Then when you're sick of it, move to a cheaper area, get a part-time job and sell 3-4% of your assets every year to make up for the deficit. If you're lucky, the safe withdrawal rate of 3-4% will eve…

At what point during this sequence do you expect to have children? In what kind of area are you going to raise them?

You don't have any...

Having children is possibly the stupidest thing anyone could ever do (for their happiness or bank account).

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#154
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just as well say that the cent that buys you a soda has a bigger marginal utility than the previous one. Sure, maybe in the context of that one transaction, but not in any general way.

Except that paying off your proximate debt and securing a place to live is far more important, from a Maslow sense, than buying a soda?

People you should be talking about time.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird stance. Startups are not really about money. They are about greater risk. For a startup founder it is not unusual to spend a lot of time, and still make zero money. And it is also possible to spend only couple of years, and make so much money that you can leisurely work for couple of days a month, and go surfing for the rest of the month. And do that same thing for the rest of your life. As an employee you will…

If I'm not mistaken parent is talking about 'working for a startup' that IMHO isn't as risky as 'co-founding' the startup, which of-course has its whistle bells. Why would a 10th employee join a startup for the risk and not for the money ?

The OP as well talks about "founding a startup". I agree it is unclear what he is talking about.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird stance. Startups are not really about money. They are about greater risk. For a startup founder it is not unusual to spend a lot of time, and still make zero money. And it is also possible to spend only couple of years, and make so much money that you can leisurely work for couple of days a month, and go surfing for the rest of the month. And do that same thing for the rest of your life. As an employee you will…

I'm not sure I understand your position. They entail risk, but they aren't motivated by risk, they don't exist because of risk. > Startups are not really about money I agree, > Only do it if... you believe you're changing the world in the greatest way you can They are about pursuing a vision. Even YC has said they dislike opportunists, and for good reasons (they make bad startups).

I like opportunists, they don't necessarily make great startups, but ethical and hardworking opportunist usually does good for the world.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#157
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: Get a high-paying software job in a high COL area, work for a decade or so while minimizing your expenses (live cheaply/with friends) and investing as much as possible in a diversified stock market portfolio. Then when you're sick of it, move to a cheaper area, get a part-time job and sell 3-4% of your assets every year to make up for the deficit. If you're lucky, the safe withdrawal rate of 3-4% will eve…

At what point during this sequence do you expect to have children? In what kind of area are you going to raise them?

This is exactly my strategy. I'm a developer and I invest my savings. My three kids keeps my away of applying the rest of the strategy right now :)

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#158
post #2

I wonder if this is behind the greater happiness of people with incomes over 75K per year. They actually have enough money to pay for goods and services that save them time.

> They actually have enough money to pay for goods and services that save them time. I think you are missing the point. There isn't a magical device the upper classes buy that saves then time (maybe this is the case for poorer people, e.g. having a washing machine is quicker than washing clothes by hand), but once you earn so much, get comfortable and achieve your own level of success, you start to value things other…

An additional point is that more money allows you to take more risk. At some income, when you buy a commuting car, you'll want something that can get you to work. You don't need to worry as much about how dependable the manufacturer/model is, because you have the resources to take it to a mechanic as soon as problems appear. You could just buy it with the help of regular advertising (mpg, features, etc) instead of doing further research into common issues with $MODEL (whether not doing this is responsible or not... that's another issue). Whereas someone with a much lower income might be scouring craigslist and forums for hours each night trying to find a beater to replace their car that's experiencing death by a thousand cuts.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#159

So higher interest rates mean greater happiness? The interest rate is essentially what you will exchange your time for.

Interest is what you exchange your money's time for, not your time. That difference matters here.

That argument is kind of like how in asset forfeiture cases they don't charge a person with the crime, they charge the person's bag of hundred dollar bills with a crime.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#160
post #141
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. If you look at table 3, which is a study of the museum going group, you can actually see that SWB (subjective well being) is mostly correlated with household income and material affluence. However in table 3a, we can see that SWB is negatively correlated with material striving. In other words, people who are concentrated on making money are the people who don't have money and are also unhappy. People who value t…

Which happens to correspond with an old saying: "Money doesn't make you happy, but lack of money does make you unhappy."

> Mr Micawber's famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness:

>

> "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

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