How much money do people need to be happy? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#161

Post by LaurensBER » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:29 AM UTC

howeyc wrote: post #17

Kind of makes sense to me, once you get to a point where you're set. That is you can easily afford the main things (housing, food), plus the extras (electronics, vacations, hobbies) you need a much larger income to "move the needle" so to speak. You still need to work 40 hours a week or whatever, and only get X weeks of vacation. Having a 180K salary instead of 150K doesn't change any of these obligations, or change…

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc.

I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal?

People here in general don't have any debt (except for mortgages) and a vacation to an Asian country is 1-2k/month'(yes people sometimes do take 2 months vacations here). Even a month of Australia is only 3-4k. Hobbies? I don't know what kind of exotic hobbies people have in the bay area but even flying drones (relative expensive) is relative affordable if you get started with a cheap Chinese drone before you buy an Expensive one.

Rent, family size, location, etc probably makes a huge difference but I really don't think 100k is the magical number that you need to become happy.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#162

Post by chii » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

908087 wrote: post #116

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.

why do you need to conceal your wealth, esp. if it was causing you unhappiness?

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#163

Post by aldanor » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:50 AM UTC

LaurensBER wrote: post #161

howeyc wrote: post #17

Kind of makes sense to me, once you get to a point where you're set. That is you can easily afford the main things (housing, food), plus the extras (electronics, vacations, hobbies) you need a much larger income to "move the needle" so to speak. You still need to work 40 hours a week or whatever, and only get X weeks of vacation. Having a 180K salary instead of 150K doesn't change any of these obligations, or change…

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal? People here in general don…

I guess that is the whole point? I.e., you stop needing to be frugal and/or don’t have to count € when spending money on basic things like food or transportation. Also, more things become ‘basic’.

Another point that makes a difference is that if you ever want to get a mortgage and buy a house, the maximum the banks will give you is a constant multiplier times your annual salary. In Ireland it’s 3.5x — good luck trying to buy a house on a €140k budget in Dublin.

In my case, my total effective comp increased about 8x in the last 5 years after being corrected for taxes and CPIs of the countries I lived in, and I kind of concur with the OP in that it’s more of a log curve than linear. Things get progressively ‘easier’ but less lifestyle-changing over time.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#164

Post by fujiters » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:52 AM UTC

LaurensBER wrote: post #161

howeyc wrote: post #17

Kind of makes sense to me, once you get to a point where you're set. That is you can easily afford the main things (housing, food), plus the extras (electronics, vacations, hobbies) you need a much larger income to "move the needle" so to speak. You still need to work 40 hours a week or whatever, and only get X weeks of vacation. Having a 180K salary instead of 150K doesn't change any of these obligations, or change…

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal? People here in general don…

A month in Australia for 3-4k? I want a cost breakdown for this. Say you get a deal and airfare is $500, that leaves about $100/day for the month. You could probably find a hotel at that rate, but then you're left with nothing to spend on food and activities. What am I missing? Friends and relatives who'll let you stay with them?

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#165

Post by Godel_unicode » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:53 AM UTC

AFNobody wrote: post #114

cortesoft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For you. Parent clearly disagrees.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#166

Post by maccard » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #27

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still lots of QOL improvements to be made above, say, $150k. It may depend a lot on if you have kids and where you live. This is especially true when compounded with typical retirement savings and kid expenses. For example: - Housekeepers who come often - Paying someone to manage the yard - Private school and college funds for kids - International vacations for the whole family - Paying for family to visit…

Definitely depends heavily on region and your family situation. Using just actual dollar values makes this discussion difficult. A $150k lifestyle in the Bay Area with a spouse and 2 kids is vastly vastly different standard of living than $150k as a single dude in an apartment in a suburb of Atlanta. In the Bay Area for example, you’re not doing ANY of those things you listed making just $150k.

I've brought this up multiple times before, but even on 150k in the bay area, you're still living well. After tax, and rent at 4k/month, your remaining pay is greater than the gross income of most mid level software engineers in Europe. If you can't manage to survive on that, you're doing soemthign wrong.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#167

Post by beegeezuz » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

I don't think $150k is enough to be happy. Just in caviar alone every week sets me back about couple grand. Jewellery for my girlfriends costs me about $5k a month. Not to mention other QOL expenses:

- $500 having someone coming over to cut my toenails every 3 weeks - $1200 having someone reading books to me 2h every evening - $2800 caviar - $6000 having Gordon Ramsey cook me dinner once a week - $4000-5000 travelling once a month and staying in a decent hotel - $800 insurance for my Bentley - $2500 private tuition for my kids ...

Only for this I'll need $17800 a month, not counting in rent and other stuff. I can barely survive on a $500k salary. So there are a lot of things that can be improved with a higher salary and I think there's a big difference between making $500k and $1mil in terms of Quality of Life. I don't understand people that make $40k, how can you be happy?

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#168

Post by AstralStorm » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #155

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of principle required to sustain $1 of annual real consumption in perpetuity costs between $25 and $35. $50 is far beyond enough - you'll die with far more money than you started with.

in which case, you get to put your kids in a great position.

That is presuming you weren't essentially forced to pay this early to help your kids in the first place. Say, housing, education (incl. extracurricular), incidentals.

The truth is, most people can barely afford to save due to aforementioned high costs.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#169

Post by jon_adler » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 9:09 AM UTC

fujiters wrote: post #164

LaurensBER wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal? People here in general don…

A month in Australia for 3-4k? I want a cost breakdown for this. Say you get a deal and airfare is $500, that leaves about $100/day for the month. You could probably find a hotel at that rate, but then you're left with nothing to spend on food and activities. What am I missing? Friends and relatives who'll let you stay with them?

I believe it would only be possible to maintain yourself as a backpacker on $100 per day. This might be lower in the bush but true in most urban locations in Australia.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#170

Post by withdavidli » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

LaurensBER wrote: post #161

howeyc wrote: post #17

Kind of makes sense to me, once you get to a point where you're set. That is you can easily afford the main things (housing, food), plus the extras (electronics, vacations, hobbies) you need a much larger income to "move the needle" so to speak. You still need to work 40 hours a week or whatever, and only get X weeks of vacation. Having a 180K salary instead of 150K doesn't change any of these obligations, or change…

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal? People here in general don…

student loan debt. there are many that graduate with $20k-$100k+ of debt. I'm frugal/cheap, got by with 30k salary in big city a year out of school was tough. Many coworkers that were more normal in spending habits were breaking even or using savings to make ends meet.

At 30k salary, I was able to save $400-$500/month in Boston. It would have been near zero if I had student debt (6%+ interest). Frightening thinking back, but I was always one major repair on my car or mid level health issue away from spending an entire years worth of savings.