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Can money buy happiness?

Pizza

Pizza

Member
My post in the other thread has NOTHING to do with this, so just know that this is something I thought I'd get some input on.

We've all heard it: "Money cant buy happiness". But is that true? Or to ask in another way, "Does lack, poverty, etc. 'buy' or mean that you will be unhappy?

I grew up essentially in poverty. CERTAINLY by today's standards, no, even by the standards in the 60's, we had less than we needed. Dad shot deer illegally to feed us. We had a 1 1/2 acre garden so that we would not go hungry. We had only cold water (no water heater) in the house until I was 12.

Anyway, having money does not mean you are happy. But on the other hand, I don't see how living in poverty can mean happiness.
And I've lived in poverty, and I and my whole family KNEW it. I do think it did me some good, I am easily pleased (and two former girlfriends have marveled at the fact that I am easily pleased and content.

But what do others say?
 
Growing up in poverty has it's good points. You have to learn how to do things the hard way which makes you appreciate every little thing you do have. You learn good things from your hard working parents and you learn to do without the things you want but don't really need.
But you don't want your own children to grow up in poverty. Which perhaps means they miss out on other things.
Whether living in poverty or not, being happy is possible.
 
Money can't buy happiness. Money can buy food and shelter, without which happiness is sometimes challenging. People sojourning in a cardboard box in a dangerous alley are in a situation.

There is maybe a 20 year difference in longevity between the richest 10% and the poorest 10% in this country.

...give me neither poverty nor riches... Proverbs 30:8b KJV

It may be best to be somewhere in the middle. Neither rich nor poor.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God. Proverbs 30:9 NIV
 
No it can't buy happiness and a lack of it doesn't guarantee unhappiness either. The lack of it can complicate life for sure, but I think in a way it can simplify things as you've said. You don't have that materialistic drive that most people have. Like Paul said he can be content in any circumstance, when living well fed or hungry.

Also, I think it the western world, our definition of poverty is still a way better standard of living than most of the world.
 
i think it depends. somewhat poor, but friends and good extended family...do-able, maybe. poor, socially isolated, under-educated, malnourished, oppressed....not so much...

and the 2nd form of poverty is more and more what poverty looks like in 21st century America.
 
In short, money can't buy happiness, nor does it provide happiness coming from material possessions.

I may not have grown up poor year after year, but there were budgets, I did not get everything I wanted, and financial assistance was needes. As a child I remember being happy to play outside, put ants in a bucket, make a mud pie, see some neighborhood kids and call it a great day. I did not need toys. God made the wonderful great outdoors for us to enjoy.

In my life, I have known what it is like to have no money for food and to try to scrape by with bare cabinets..to the point where butter looks like a good meal. I have had to sell things that were important to me in order to pay bills.

Material possessions can be filling a void where we need to be putting Jesus instead. Hoarding, impulsive spending, etc. causes more relationship problems than I want to think about. Many times our happiness with an object is fleeting. After a time we may become bored with it and seek something else instead of being grateful with what God gives us.

I try and remember these verses when it comes to money and happiness:

Phillipians 4:10-14 NIV:

11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Matthew 6:24 NIV:

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:19 NIV:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
 
Pizza said:
My post in the other thread has NOTHING to do with this, so just know that this is something I thought I'd get some input on.

We've all heard it: "Money cant buy happiness". But is that true? Or to ask in another way, "Does lack, poverty, etc. 'buy' or mean that you will be unhappy?

I grew up essentially in poverty. CERTAINLY by today's standards, no, even by the standards in the 60's, we had less than we needed. Dad shot deer illegally to feed us. We had a 1 1/2 acre garden so that we would not go hungry. We had only cold water (no water heater) in the house until I was 12.

Anyway, having money does not mean you are happy. But on the other hand, I don't see how living in poverty can mean happiness.
And I've lived in poverty, and I and my whole family KNEW it. I do think it did me some good, I am easily pleased (and two former girlfriends have marveled at the fact that I am easily pleased and content.

But what do others say?
Click to expand...
I would like to try the rich and famous for about 1 year, Jet, 300ft yacht, fishing the world, $500,000 a week allowance?

Having the hired servants doing my shopping, cooking, clothes, and house cleaning?

Having my driver taking me around town in the Rolls Royce or Bentley For dinner on the town?

A nice collection of 50's & 60's classic muscle cars?

Then I woke up and pinched myself, it was just a dream :coffee
 
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Money can bring happiness when we can bless others that have not. I grew up with my family being on welfare as my father was disabled after an accident he had at work and with my mother taking care of eight kids she never worked until later on when we were all older. We didn't have much, but yet never went without. We learned how to appreciate what we did have and were satisfied. My husband and I have much (not rich, blue collar) as we worked hard for what we have, but if it was gone in an instant it would not bother me. What is important is that what we do have in fiances is to always help others in need as we pay it forward for what others helped us with when we had nothing in the beginning. I never was a materialistic person and still enjoy the simpler things in life that doesn't cost us anything.

1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
 
I need to a thread on the decietfullness of the way the society makes promises of contentment based on having things. not that things in of themselves are bad. just not a god.

we live in a materialistic society and no matter how hard the left tries to make it seem that we can be compassionate and even the right with charity , as a whole we are selfish. not that the lost cant but only that by God can we have peace and fulfillment but that only will occur if we yield to His will. this doesn't mean we will always have peace, if my wife were to die today, I wouldn't be happy, I would be sad, I would have a hope of a better future but would have to move and grieve as needed. the idea of Peace in the bible isn't the idea of no sorrow, the idea of no sorrow is for the next world when God wipes away every tear and sorrow. the idea of peace that in our life we have the right relationship with God.
 
Looking at some lottery winners...money doesn't buy happiness but it can bring a lot of misery.

And for some of us once the challenge of providing an income is over you find yourself really bored. Nothing to do now that your job is over. You don't need a career any longer.
You can only go fishing so many times before it gets old and boring.
Your friends still have jobs...they can't see you till they get off and if they aren't tired.
You can hang out in bars...but then all your friends are drunks.
You can only play golf for so long as well...then it gets old.
Then...all your family and friends always ask to "borrow some money". Ugghhh

A nice meal is a nice meal... until it becomes the norm...and you get unsatisfied with the mundane restaurants because they can't hire decent cooks.

Strange women trying to flirt so they can get "their share" of your money...and "friends" always seem to have "accidents" and "get hurt" at your place.

No thanks...
I'll be happier just like I am thank you very much. My friends are my friends because of who I am...not what I own.
 
JohnDB said:
Looking at some lottery winners...money doesn't buy happiness but it can bring a lot of misery.

And for some of us once the challenge of providing an income is over you find yourself really bored. Nothing to do now that your job is over. You don't need a career any longer.
You can only go fishing so many times before it gets old and boring.
Your friends still have jobs...they can't see you till they get off and if they aren't tired.
You can hang out in bars...but then all your friends are drunks.
You can only play golf for so long as well...then it gets old.
Then...all your family and friends always ask to "borrow some money". Ugghhh

A nice meal is a nice meal... until it becomes the norm...and you get unsatisfied with the mundane restaurants because they can't hire decent cooks.

Strange women trying to flirt so they can get "their share" of your money...and "friends" always seem to have "accidents" and "get hurt" at your place.

No thanks...
I'll be happier just like I am thank you very much. My friends are my friends because of who I am...not what I own.
Click to expand...
Everytime I see one of those stories about lottery winners who end up broke I think I would be the best lottery winner ever! The example for all lottery winners to come with my fairness and good judgement in handing out all that cash. :) But in reality I'd probably end up just like the rest.
I heard a preacher once say - if you struggle to give Jesus $5 out of a $100 you just earned, you aren't going to handover any of your millions either.
 
Michael74 said:
...give me neither poverty nor riches... Proverbs 30:8b KJV

It may be best to be somewhere in the middle. Neither rich nor poor.
Click to expand...
I probably should not have clipped as much out or your post as I did, but the above is where I am at. The idea that money buys happiness is, of course, absurd.

But the idea that living in poverty, or even in today's 'welfare class', is any way to be happy is also nonsense. I remember living without hot running water, without sufficient heat in the winter, without clean clothing much of the time. I remember too much of it all.

Sure, it HAS meant that I am easily pleased and way less materialistic than the very vast majority of the population. But the scars of poverty at a young age, even at age 58, are still affecting me. There is really nothing to be thankful for in my childhood past.

But the responses here have been helpful and interesting.
 
Pizza said:
I probably should not have clipped as much out or your post as I did, but the above is where I am at. The idea that money buys happiness is, of course, absurd.

But the idea that living in poverty, or even in today's 'welfare class', is any way to be happy is also nonsense. I remember living without hot running water, without sufficient heat in the winter, without clean clothing much of the time. I remember too much of it all.

Sure, it HAS meant that I am easily pleased and way less materialistic than the very vast majority of the population. But the scars of poverty at a young age, even at age 58, are still affecting me. There is really nothing to be thankful for in my childhood past.

But the responses here have been helpful and interesting.
Click to expand...
i never had to live like you did but i did know folks who did. i am gonna go out on a limb and say this helped make who you are today
 
Pizza said:
But the scars of poverty at a young age, even at age 58, are still affecting me.
Click to expand...

Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty; Proverbs 20:13a NKJV

This Bible verse says not to do something that leads poverty, suggesting that we are commanded to avoid poverty when this is doable. For most people, the ideal seems to stay industrious, and be in the middle somewhere.

...give me neither poverty nor riches... Proverbs 30:8b KJV
 
.poverty -does- scar people. mama grew up poor. actually, she grew up poor relations. until her parents split in the 70s, her mother was from a farm family (not poor, not rich) and her dad was from an affluent WASP family. I don't know why they got married, why they had kids, or why they stayed married, but...

yeah. i learned long ago not to ask anything about her years growing up at night. personally...

ive never lived in -that- kind of poverty, but poverty was used as a weapon against me, by Mental Health, Inc. true story. as if the shock 'treatments' and the lobotomy weren't enough, I was expected to "move out into a TRAILER PARK! HAHAHA!," because I'd been psychiatry-ized. even now, me living in a decent, no frills apartment is perceived as an act of defiance against some 'professionals' around here.

so, im not big on poverty. i am big on anti-poverty programs, not simply charities, either. charity is good. other than that...

at a personal level, im trying to figure out how i can get a job or otherwise bring in enough of my own income to stay free and safe, especially as my parents get closer to retirement age. :)
 
Pizza said:
I probably should not have clipped as much out or your post as I did, but the above is where I am at. The idea that money buys happiness is, of course, absurd.

But the idea that living in poverty, or even in today's 'welfare class', is any way to be happy is also nonsense. I remember living without hot running water, without sufficient heat in the winter, without clean clothing much of the time. I remember too much of it all.

Sure, it HAS meant that I am easily pleased and way less materialistic than the very vast majority of the population. But the scars of poverty at a young age, even at age 58, are still affecting me. There is really nothing to be thankful for in my childhood past.

But the responses here have been helpful and interesting.
Click to expand...
The "comfort zone" as my wife tells me from studies she has read is somewhere around $200,000/yr.

That seems a bit high to me...
But I drive beaters that regularly need fixing and some things don't work on them...

I work construction so I don't have a lot of nice clothes...the ones I wear the most come from Goodwill.

I live in a nice apartment...but it's not a house. (But it makes it easier to move)

I need more money in my retirement account...I'm racing to retirement age.

Soooo,
I dunno...$200k/yr would probably be about right.
 
A slice of bread is great. It can be used for a sandwich, hotdog bun, hamburger bun, and garlic bread. You don't need a million dollars.
 
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