We've all heard the old adage that money doesn't buy happiness. Most of us have probably doubted it at one point or another. After all, happiness does stem in part from a certain level of security. If you're so broke you can't eat or sleep with a roof over your head, it's going to be tough to keep from being miserable most of the time. Money doesn't buy peace of mind directly, but it does help build up that hierarchy of needs that supports mental well-being. But exactly how much is necessary for that baseline comfort?

 

In the United States, it's apparently $75,000 a year on average. That's the amount shown in a study to provide a good general state of mind. A salary less than that would typically invite too much insecurity to allow for real happiness. It does seem like a lot--I feel like a lot of people get by okay on far less than that--but keep in mind that we're talking about average household income. Different people need different things in order to stay afloat emotionally. For example, if you're the sole breadwinner in a family with four kids, you're going to need to hit closer to that six-figure mark in order to feel okay about yourself on a day to day basis. You need to be making enough money to feed your family, to house them in a place that's comfortable for six people, to put enough away for college and retirement. On the other hand, if you're only supporting yourself with no immediate plans for a family or a house, your baseline happiness salary would be much less. 

 

What's interesting is that the study found that happiness doesn't increase much past that baseline. Someone making the average needed for them to be happy will be exactly as happy, fundamentally, as someone making half a million per year. Once your basic needs are taken care of, the luxuries don't do much more for your emotional well-being. It's not that richer folks are less happy on average, either. More money might cause more problems in some instances, but really the basic happiness to wealth relationship is that if you've got enough to get by, you're good. So even if the guy cruising around in his BMW seems like his life is way more awesome than yours, he's probably in about the same place as you provided you're not struggling excessively to stay afloat.