So, About That “Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness” Thing…

There is a phrase I have grown increasingly annoyed by as I have gotten older: money doesn't buy happiness.

Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I have never had enough money to conduct a proper experiment.

What I do know is that money buys security, and security has a pretty significant impact on my happiness. Money buys the ability to handle an unexpected expense without immediately wondering which other bill will have to wait. It buys the luxury of knowing that if the car breaks down or the cat gets sick - the situation is going to be inconvenient rather than catastrophic. It buys choices. It buys breathing room. It buys the ability to make a decision based on what you actually want or need instead of what you can afford.

And when you don't have much breathing room, money has a way of becoming a constant companion.

I think about money almost every day, and if I'm being honest, probably almost every hour. I think about what has cleared my account, what is coming out next, what I can put toward debt, what I should leave in savings, and what might happen if something unexpected comes up before the next paycheck. Sometimes I'm not even consciously thinking about it. There is just a little calculator running somewhere in the back of my brain, quietly keeping score.

It is exhausting to realize how much of your mental energy can be consumed by something as mundane as money.

I have been trying to make progress toward financial stability for a long time. I have made changes. I have paid things down. I have learned things I wish I had known much earlier. I have tried to be more intentional about spending and saving and debt. I have increased my income and made choices based on what I thought would give me a little more stability.

And yet, one unexpected crisis can undo months of progress.

I was reminded of that recently when my sibling needed to have their wisdom teeth removed.

For almost a year, we had been trying to navigate the public healthcare system to get the procedure done. We finally secured an appointment, then waited months for it. When that appointment finally arrived, we were told that they would have to wait even longer for the actual procedure.

Except by then, they were in pain.

There is a particular kind of helplessness that comes with watching someone you love hurt while simultaneously knowing that the system designed to help them is asking them to wait. We had already waited. We had already made the appointments and followed the instructions and done everything we were supposed to do. But the pain did not care about the waiting list.

Eventually, the choice became pretty simple. We paid out of pocket. Thousands of dollars.

I don't regret getting them the care they needed. I would make the same decision again. That is not really the point.

The point is that I shouldn't have to pretend that spending thousands of dollars doesn't have a financial consequence simply because it was the right thing to do.

Both things can be true. I could be grateful that I was able to find a way to get my sibling out of pain, and I could also be angry about what that choice does to my finances. I could be relieved that the problem is finally being addressed while staring at the bill and wondering how long it will take to recover from it.

That is what financial insecurity does. It turns ordinary life into a series of calculations.

You don't just ask whether something is necessary. You ask whether you can afford for it to be necessary.

You don't just replace the thing that broke. You figure out what else you can postpone.

You don't just make a medical appointment. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you are wondering what the appointment, the testing, the prescription, or the procedure might cost. Even good news can come with a price tag.

I have spent years learning this lesson in different forms, including through student loans, which I sometimes think of as the financial equivalent of agreeing to something in fine print when you're twenty years old and then discovering a decade later that you are still living with the consequences.

I wish I knew ten years ago what I know now.

I wish I understood how much interest matters. I wish I understood how long debt can follow you. I wish I understood that the amount you borrow is not necessarily anything close to the amount you will ultimately pay. I wish someone had explained what it means to build a life while simultaneously carrying a financial obligation that can stretch across years of that life.

When you are young, you are expected to make decisions that can affect you at thirty, forty, or beyond, often with very little understanding of what those decisions will actually mean.

And then you grow up.

You get a job. You pay your bills. You make your monthly payments. You try to save. You try to have some kind of life. You try to make better decisions than you made when you were younger.

But the old decisions are still sitting there waiting for you.

This is the part about debt that I don't think we talk about enough: it isn't just the money.

It is the mental space.

It is the constant awareness that there is a number attached to you somewhere. It is knowing that some portion of your future income already belongs to something that happened in your past. It is trying to celebrate financial progress while knowing that the finish line can move every time life happens.

And life is going to happen.

People get sick. Cars break down. Jobs disappear. Rent increases. Teeth need to be removed. Pets need veterinarians. Families need help. Sometimes you are the person who needs help, and sometimes you are the person who has to figure out how to help someone else.

There is no budget category for every possible version of real life.

I think that is why the idea of financial freedom has become so meaningful to me. I don't dream about being wealthy. I don't need a mansion or a closet full of designer bags (couldn’t be me).

What I want is really so simple.

I want enough money in the bank that an unexpected $5,000 expense is a really annoying Tuesday instead of a financial emergency.

I want to be able to make a car repair without wondering whether this is the next credit card balance i'm going to carry.

I want to be able to help someone I love without immediately calculating how many months it will take me to recover financially.

I want to look at my bank account without doing math first.

I want to make plans for the future without having to account for every dollar that is already spoken for.

Mostly, I want money to occupy less space in my head.

Maybe that is what has bothered me about the phrase “money doesn't buy happiness.” It feels dismissive of the reality that financial insecurity can make it incredibly difficult to experience peace.

Of course money isn't going to fix loneliness or grief or heartbreak. It can't make someone love you. It can't give you a sense of purpose. It can't repair every relationship or answer every existential question.

But money can pay the electric bill.

Money can keep you housed.

Money can get your sibling the medical care they need when the system fails them.

Money can keep an unexpected expense from becoming a debt that follows you for years.

Money can give you the freedom to leave a bad situation instead of staying because you can't afford to go.

Money can let you sleep a little better.

And I think there is a difference between saying that money doesn't guarantee happiness and pretending that money has nothing to do with our ability to feel safe.

I am still trying to get to the other side of this.

I am still paying things down. I am still trying to save. I am still learning how to make better financial decisions while living with the consequences of some of the decisions I made before I knew better. I am still doing the math.

I don't have a tidy ending for this because I am not at the end.

Maybe someday I will write the triumphant debt-free post. Maybe I'll sit down and realize that the numbers finally work in my favor, and I'll wonder what it feels like to have all that mental space back.

For now, I am somewhere in the middle, trying to build financial freedom while also living an actual life, and those two things don't always cooperate.

So no, maybe money doesn't buy happiness.

But I am increasingly convinced that having enough money to feel safe, to absorb a crisis, to care for the people you love, and to make choices without fear buys something pretty damn close to peace.

And right now, that sounds pretty good to me.

[Want to support my quest for financial freedom? Shop my Etsy at https://beenthicc.etsy.com]