Believing money is evil ruins your life.
Your relationship with money becomes toxic and, therefore, you distance yourself from it, destined to live a life of doom and gloom without the boom.
Destined to hate capitalism, business, side hustles, working hard, and making money online. Sad.
Money actually makes you ridiculously happier.
The biggest battle of my life
Over the last 6 months I’ve fought a quiet battle.
I haven’t spoken about it much because people think of me as some successful money guru when the reality is there’s still a lot I don’t know.
The battle I’ve fought is to buy a home for my young family.
I’ve spent all my free time inspecting homes, researching suburbs, speaking with sleazy real estate agents, and doing building inspections.
Despite being a long way from broke and earning a good income, it’s been near-impossible to buy a house in Australia.
We have record-high inflation and immigration. This means there aren’t any homes to buy even if you have the cash.
So you go from auction to auction trying to get a home, only to be outbidded by some overseas investor who sees the property as an investment they can exploit.
In the process, I became someone I didn’t like. I went to auctions with a huge ego and aggressively bidded against my opponents.
I even engaged in a bit of trash talk with an 18 year old girl who stole a home from my family with overseas money that clearly wasn’t hers.
Just typing that makes me feel bad. I feel like this whole ordeal may have even made me a little judgemental.
If I’m being honest, this real estate situation has made me deeply depressed in the last 6 months. It’s all I could think about. I just wanted to provide for my daughter and buy her a shack with a small backyard.
I could have complained about house prices or thrown a nuke at the government for letting this happen and not taxing all these investors robbing our society. But I didn’t.
The only solution to the problem was to make more money. So I did. Yesterday I bought my first house.
The takeaway here is simple. When you don’t have enough money to buy the basics or afford a simple home, it robs you of happiness.
You’re forced to struggle and occupy your mind with all sorts of negative thoughts.
The strange money trend that has lied to us
“Money doesn’t make you happy.”
This statement is plastered all over the internet. But it’s not true. Money makes your life easier. You have more options and don’t have to take up mental space making every decision based on how many dollars it costs.
Money doesn’t fix all problems but it can fix a lot of problems.
Money can pay for external help. It can buy expertise. It can save you time. It can even buy you a business that makes you more money, or gives you a sense of purpose or fulfillment.
Saying money doesn’t contribute to happiness is wrong. Money is not part of the whole happiness story but it’s definitely a big piece.
Without money life sucks. It’s a never-ending struggle I wouldn’t wish on my biggest LinkedIn troll haters.
The cutesy remark people love to make
People love to say money is evil and life is about family, purpose, and love.
What they forget is money helps buy you the time to make those things happen. When I was single I felt lonely and depressed.
I wanted a partner but had no time to go on dates because of my banking job. If I didn’t have to hustle so hard for that annual bonus, I would have had the time to finish work at a reasonable hour and go on dates.
Instead, I was chained to my stand-up desk like a hound dog.
If money doesn’t buy happiness, what it 100% buys you is freedom. And how free you feel bizarrely contributes a lot to your happiness.
The reason people love to diss money is that they want to virtue-signal. That’s right, hating on money is a weird form of status game.
“Look at me, I’d never care about money because, like, I’m so cool.”
Don’t fall for it. Money buys freedom that buys happiness.
Money makes you happier up until a point
Wait, what?
Some people go overboard. They go the opposite end and think money is the meaning of life. It’s not.
Money makes you happier to a point. The research says the tipping point when money doesn’t matter anymore is $75,000 USD.
I’d argue the number is way higher thanks to what the grandpa politicians did by secretly devaluing the hell out of our currencies.
But I don’t think the financial happiness number is the same for everyone. For me it’s not a number. No. It’s owning a basic home. That’s what financial success looks like for me.
My standards are low because millennials like me can mostly only dream of home ownership, thanks to record house prices and asset bubbles.
Now I have a home I feel financially complete. I’ll continue to own my 8 year old Honda Civic and eat 99% of my meals at home in a $10 unbranded grey t-shirt.
And I’ll continue to reject luxury so I can make room for my daughter and all the joy she brings.
Money contributes to your happiness because it gives you time freedom. Stop getting lied to by virtue-signaling haters.
