Money Can Buy Happiness Part 1 - Does Freedom = Happiness?

You Can Buy Happiness
from This Is Your Life (Original Version) by Adult Cinema
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Season 2 of the Brunch & Budget podcast will share 3 part arcs of big topics:
Part 1 is KNOW - what are the key things you need to understand about the topic, the bigger systemic picture around it, and where the racial wealth divide fits in
Part 2 is FEEL - how do you integrate the topic into your personal relationship with money and unpack the behaviors, reactions, and habits around it
Part 3 is DO - we take you through Brunch & Budget’s 5 Stages to Financial Legacy so you have clear action steps for what to do at every stage of your finances

Hosts - 

Pamela Capalad is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Accredited Financial Counselor™ and has been in financial services since 2008. She founded Brunch & Budget to help people who felt ashamed or embarrassed about money have a safe place to make real financial progress.  Pam has been featured in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Vice Magazine, and was named New York Magazine’s Best financial planner of New York 2019.

Brian "Dyalekt" Kushner has been a hip-hop MC, theater maker, and educator for nearly 20 years. He’s the director of pedagogy at Pockets Change, where he uses hip-hop pedagogy to demystify personal finance and help students take control of their relationship with money. He is the recipients of Jump$tart’s 2022 Innovation in Financial Literacy award. He’s rocked (performed/taught/keynoted) everywhere from conferences like AFCPE and Prosperity Now, to stages like SXSW and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to classrooms that range from Yale to your cousin’s living room.

Pam & Dyalekt host the Brunch & Budget podcast and cofounded Brunch & Budget's group financial planning program for POC called See Change. They regularly keynote on how art, culture, and media are used to perpetuate racial wealth inequality.

For services check out our website 

https://brunchandbudget.com/seechange/
Follow us on Instagram @brunchandbudget

Thanks for listening to the Brunch and Budget podcast. Please feel free to rate us, debate us, hate us, on Apple podcasts or anywhere that lets you subscribe. Add us to your archives and feel free to share an episode you think can help somebody out. If you've got questions, corrections or a song about money financial systems or how you feel about either please send it to letsbrunch@brunchandbudget.com We'd love some indie artists. Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter by texting BRUNCH to 33777. 

Transcript

Dyalekt: 0:00

a happy moment is a boulder that you push up a hill you kind of juggle it it sucks when you refuse to chill they be faking it on social service happiness real let go let's explore what that can reveal. This is the brunch and budget podcast your hosts Pamela Capalad, a certified financial planner and accredited financial counselor, founder of brunch and budget pockets change and sea change. He's here to take the bite out of your budget

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 0:25

and your other host Dyalekt director of pedagogy at pocket change and co founder of See Change. He's here to change the way we talk about finance

Dyalekt: 0:32

recorded live ish from Green House studios deep in the heart of planet Brooklyn. I didn't think Okay, I gotta leave this in. This is kind of fun. Let's talk about brunch. Let's talk about you and me. Let's talk about all the budgets all the branches that may be let's talk about let's talk about branch a little bit a little bit. Let's talk about, you know, a lot of us talk about

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:10

I love it. Yeah. Pull it out. Hi, everyone. Today we are talking about

Dyalekt: 1:18

Well, another fundamental existential difficult question. Yeah. Can money buy happiness?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:24

Yeah. And we're here to argue that money can buy happiness. Maybe money can buy happiness, like

Dyalekt: 1:32

money can buy happiness. I think the whole thing about money can't buy happiness. First of all, the idiom itself is a little bit overwrought, where I think it doesn't even mean like, literally what it meant. But taking it literally and taking it figuratively over this arc, we're going to be going over whether it can make us happy what the statistics say what the parameters,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 1:52

right of what happened is to have money in order to get to the point where you're happy, and there's money and happiness inextricably tied to other things.

Dyalekt: 2:01

Yeah. And then at the end, we will talk about what to do about and how to get shameless about it. But this is the first episode in the ark. This is about what we need to know.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:10

Yeah, part one in our Ark is the no part. What are the key things you need to understand about this topic, the bigger systemic picture around it, and where the racial wealth divide fits in?

Dyalekt: 2:20

So I guess we should start with the the beginning. Yeah, right. Where they're like money can buy happiness comes from

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 2:30

Yeah. It's so interesting, because we tried to research where the phrase money can't buy happiness comes from and there's like, no real origin. But I feel like that it is a phrase that you hear all the time you hear it? I don't know. There's there's this negative connotation around money. And, you know, I think that there is this backlash around like, hey, like, money can buy you things, but it can't buy you what you're really looking for, right? And you know, all those rich people have all that money, they're not really happy.

Dyalekt: 3:03

Yeah, well, I guess we're gonna get into all of the rationalizations and around all that stuff around it, I want to pull it back real quick and give you the quote. So somewhere in the 1700s, he said, money can buy material things, but real happiness must truly be earned. And also in 1750, they have like an exact date for this one. He said, money buys everything, except for morality, and citizens.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 3:29

Oh, wow. Okay, so yeah, so the quote evolved from there?

Dyalekt: 3:32

Well, there is an understanding that this quote predates him. This is just the first time someone of note has it written down. So like, maybe this is attributable to Rousseau, and it's spread from it, or maybe this is 100 years older, it seems like one of those things that people have been saying, for a while, as an excuse, more. So I think the things that have codified it into something interesting, and some useful stuff is the great stuff about people and where we just do that. But I really think that this is more of a rationalization than anything, this idea that I'm unhappy because I didn't get something I wanted. Yeah, that had to do with money, and someone putting an arm around your shoulder and be like, it's okay. It's okay. Money can buy happiness, can't buy happiness. Look at this other thing that you have that you didn't buy. Yeah, nice look

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 4:21

at this thing that, you know, was non monetary, right, that you figured out? Well, and it's interesting because we I remember when you're talking about this, and we were talking about a lot of a lot of popular culture, a lot of popular stories and media are about this very thing that money can't buy happiness, right? You mentioned Ebenezer Scrooge in the car, right? And this whole concept like this guy was super successful. He's super rich. He's the richest man in town, but he doesn't have happiness. You know, he gave up his first love. He gave up all his friends, just so we could have all these material things. Yeah,

Dyalekt: 4:52

well, you know what, let's get right into it with these images that they like to create because like we think of the Christmas story as like a positive story. That's like, don't be be greedy and all that stuff. Yeah, the lesson that it tells her kind of insidious. It talks about Ebenezer Scrooge being this rich cat who did have a rich decayed version. A rich dude who has earned all of these things, you know, even making my joke about Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge McDuck is like this hard working swashbuckler who remembers the first dime here and out of nothing. You know, they present this idea that you are sacrificing the fun of life the

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 5:28

all the things that really matter, right like family

Dyalekt: 5:31

will Tiny Tim in them. Yeah, love. Yeah, had family. They just didn't have you no money to deal with, you know, the whole silly things like filling your belly or dealing

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 5:41

senior leg,

Dyalekt: 5:42

like Polio, or something. Oh, the application, I don't think it was like, you know, implied polio. So you know, you don't have health stuff.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 5:49

You have health care,

Dyalekt: 5:50

but you have family. So you know, you love love. And they spent a lot of time and energy you showed the poor people partying, loving, laughing, laughing, hanging out. Those were things that lazy people do, because they love and have fun. And there's like an inherent value to them. But it was presented as something that was different from being a hard working, efficacious, and someone who's successful. So you can either be happy, or you can

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 6:22

be successful. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you know, when we get into binaries, that's when we get into trouble, right? Yeah, and I think that story is like the perfect example of how so much pop culture is based around. Hey, like, if you're poor, it's okay. Right? You have all these other things. Money is not the reason. Yeah, money is not the reason why you're happy or unhappy? Yeah,

Dyalekt: 6:47

I mean, it's something that I think happens a lot in media, whenever we get the reality that there's not going to be a lot of money for folks to have whenever rich folks start to consolidate more and more. It's why people find it ironic that you'll have Amazon or Disney or whatever, put together a piece of art that is all about the underdog taking out a big system. Yeah, people are talking about the Star Wars Show. And I've even seen it but like, apparently, is a really good, rebellious story about heads who are trying to make a difference and how you can take down these evil corporations when the evil corporations are presenting them, because they're showing the virtue of being poor, or being outside or being the one who's not rich so that we don't want that stuff. Yeah, you know, the man bites dog thing, right? Where they don't write a story about rich people being happy, because plenty of them are plenty more content or neutral about their lives. But if there's a story about a rich person who is unhappy, since that is a rare, a rare occurrence. We write stories about them. Because we write stories about them, we assume that they're not rare occurrences.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 7:54

Right? When the reality is the reason why you tell a story is because it's something exceptional, right? It's something out of the ordinary. And so I wow, that's real. You're right. Today's episode is sponsored by us, French and budget, French and budget is not just a podcast, it's a financial planning practice with a team of certified financial planners, and accredited financial counselors, ready to work with people who need a safe space to talk about your finances. Many of our clients come to us because someone or something made them feel bad about their money. We are the antidote to that. We do all our financial planning and coaching through a racial wealth equity lens. And we'll use our very own five stages to financial legacy to show you how far you've come and where you're headed. go to brunch and budget.com. To learn more. I want to get into the research around money being able to buy happiness, or, you know, this notion that money can buy happiness, there was a stat that came out out of a research study in Princeton, in 2010, you might remember this where the numbers 75,000 was thrown around were printed in this study where they found that like, once you hit $75,000 worth of income, then everything else after that is just diminishing returns or like every dollar after that point, like doesn't make you any more happy. Right. And so 75,000 became this magic number that people wrote about for years, actually,

Dyalekt: 9:19

yeah, yeah. No, I'm very familiar with it. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why what's the Dan price company?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 9:26

That's exactly why No, he raised everyone. gravitas. Dan prices company? Former I guess he stepped down as CEO but but he he increased every he increased the minimum salary this company to 70,000 and decreased his own salary to 70,000 as well. Yeah, so

Dyalekt: 9:49

everybody else got to find that extra five somewhere else?

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 9:51

Well, probably health insurance. Okay. All right. 5000. There

Dyalekt: 9:54

you go with the insurance. Right, because it's 70,000 in real salary.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 9:58

Yeah, yeah. So In that sense, like he, and you know, they get hundreds of applications for every position, maybe even 1000s for every position, and people are happier at that company. But that magic number was recently debunked and a 2021. Study by Penn University. Yeah, this pen study is dough. Yeah, it's really interesting. So the pen study came from Professor, Professor Killingsworth, who gathered data over a seven year period in real time, from 10s of 1000s of people across wide ranges of income. I'm reading this from a CNN article that detail the study. And what's interesting about this,

Dyalekt: 10:40

and by the way, the ranges of income is was from minimum wage to 500. Grand. Yeah,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 10:44

so it was a lot, right. What's interesting about this is the way that you collected data one, it was from 30,000 different people. So it was a pretty huge sample size. And also, he created a happiness tracking app. So what he did was the app will just ping you at random times, throughout the day or throughout the week and ask you, are you happy? Right. And what he wanted to try and quantify was day to day happiness. So what you found and they have this, this thing that I thought was really interesting. There's a vice article that delineates experienced wellbeing versus evaluative wellbeing,

Dyalekt: 11:21

for like, the experienced is what happens in the moment, right, like, Oh, I'm experiencing it

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 11:25

right now. Yeah, like day to day happiness. Exactly. Yeah. And so you're like, okay, and then the, the other measure was evaluative well being

Dyalekt: 11:33

so that's like, am I serving my existence? Yes. Why generally happy, right. Am I a happy person that's like, Oh, that's such a harder one to say.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 11:43

Yeah. And so Princeton study, measured both experience and evaluative and kind of lumped them together, right. And Killingsworth study, the Penn University study, actually focused on experience well being. And he found in his data, that every dollar does make you more happy, there is a level of diminishing return. But the way that he described it was, you know, each dollar buys a little less happiness. So if someone earning $20,000, you're getting a 10% raise, and someone earning $200,000, a year gets a 10% Raise, these data predict that they'll deliver the same increment of happiness. And what that means is like, you know, a jump of $2,000 for someone who makes $20,000 is a game changer. Right? But another $2,000 for someone who has $200,000 of income.

Dyalekt: 12:32

Yeah, but like, Isn't diminishing returns the law of literally everything? Yeah, basically, there's nothing where you're like, Oh, I'm gonna continue to everything has a point where Okay, well, you're getting too much of this.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 12:42

The thing about the Princeton study, I think that was debunked was that 75,000 was like the hard line after that it completely plateaued. And Killingsworth was like, No, it doesn't not really at all. It's still like, pretty in lockstep. It's just that the diminishing returns that Princeton claimed, this pen University study said, it's not that diminishing, it doesn't plateau, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't fall off a cliff.

Dyalekt: 13:07

It's funny, I read a lot, a bit of a study, reader cat, and a thing that I've found from scientists is, they talk a lot about how there are many published popular studies that go along with what the status quo desires. And it's so ill when I see stuff, like, I remember that came out, and they're like, all you need is 75 grand, just, you know, set your ambitions to like a low point, you know, just want to get a good coding job, and then you're going to be okay. And there was this chilling effect with it. And it just just looking at the study itself, it looks baked in it looks like alright, excuse me a second here coming from, you know, being an underground rapper, but like, it looked like a pop song. Oh, it was symmetrical. And even in ways that this other study, this pen study isn't this pen study is messier. Yes, Rowling, it deals with a lot more easy to have problem with things like, Oh, you ask them their happiness at random moments. But what about all the other variables that could be happening? Blah, blah, blah. There's so many data points and so much stuff. It's a big, messy study that feels more real. Yeah, it feels like that great underground song where there's a 37 bar verse that, you know, maybe it's a little too long, but they would speak and they feel it's right. That's what it feels like in the other one very much. Sounds like what I've read about a lot is something that worked backwards from we have they wanted to get to a number. Yeah, we have this idea of, or like a range of, wouldn't it be great if there was just like a number and, you know, mixing together the experiential and the evaluative and taking the idea of diminishing returns and setting a hard line makes it easier for a story.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 14:54

Yeah, does. Well, totally. It's like a great headline, right? And it's one of those things that feels concrete like that study was over a decade ago. And I feel like I haven't forgotten that number. Yeah, I knew that number. As soon as I was starting to research this episode, I knew to look that up, you know. And so I think that that's, that's one of the things, there's a couple of things about this whole idea of income in general, uh, you know, in looking at it through a racial wealth divide lens is it's not taking into account wealth at all. Like when I read these studies, I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. But like, you don't take into account someone's net worth, you don't take into account someone's debt load, right? You don't take into account the other circumstances in their finances that have to do with this, you're just measuring one thing. And when we talk about the racial wealth divide, the reason why that word is so important wealth, is because when you have more resources that are just ready for you, regardless of your income, then you are able to take care of more things.

Dyalekt: 15:59

Yeah. And you know, I think about the 75 Grand and black parents, because they'd be telling you, I mean, maybe other ethnicities, y'all y'all be getting this too, but like, I think about the government jobs, I think about the garbage workers and in the mail delivery, being being a truck driver, all these jobs that and although truck drivers can make you more than this kind of money, but like, um, you know, also thinking back my old behind when that was considered good money. These were considered the types of jobs that you should do, instead of dreaming dreaming. Yeah, I was gonna say frivolous. And I'll say it once frivolous, dreaming, dreaming. So being frivolous, dreaming, thinking of things outside your station, these are attainable, good things that will make hay on

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 16:51

that. Well, and you know, what's interesting now that you say that is the average household income in this country is $69,000. So they're like, just a little bit more will make you happy. That's it. That's all you just ask for a little bit more money and you'll be fine. Right? When the reality is that so many things in terms of social services are currently getting taken away from us, although the

Dyalekt: 17:14

averages mean it's it's skewed right? That's not

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 17:17

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how they I think it's median household income. Okay, median household. Yeah, I have to double check. I have to double check. But I wrote that in an article somewhere.

Dyalekt: 17:26

Today's episode is sponsored by us pockets change at pockets change. We offer in person and virtual workshops for students from grade school to grad school professional development for educators and administrators and jams for the whole family to learn, unlearn, and unpack. We use Hip Hop pedagogy in the classroom to meet students where they're at and hip hop performance in the communities to dispel myths and create new common sense around money. For some free resources, go to pockets change.com/toolkit and sign up for our newsletter. Let's change the way we talk about finance.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 17:54

So you looked it up?

Dyalekt: 17:55

I looked it up. The census we got okay. So in case you want to know with the census, people miss reported that they did it to the Census. It's official, it's official. It's yeah, it's 69,600. And it's the median

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 18:10

not average, I was a little bit wrong, not the means the middle, it's the very middle is a type of average. So I think it is it is it is but it is a very important distinction. Because I like the idea. I think median is a more accurate measurement, especially when it comes to income,

Dyalekt: 18:27

let me will ask Diedrich about this. Because either Mohammed Walters down, he is a real solid expert on like, Why? Why would

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 18:35

you be in and not average, but regardless, 69,000 is very close to 75,000 is the very suspiciously close to 35,000.

Dyalekt: 18:47

Well, it's basically because when we look at the the numbers here across America, there are some states doing better than others. And by the way, they only checked out one territory it was Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico's is 21,000. That's their median income y'all. Wani 1000. That's, that's really not great. And, you know, I grew up in Virgin Islands where we look up to Puerto Rico. So those numbers are probably not as good. Yeah. The point I'm making is, you look at a number of states where they're not being served as well by the people who run them by the businesses by the government. You'll see the 50s Yeah, you know, low 60. So it looks like for most of America, it's not that this is just a little bit ahead. It's that yes, that big array.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 19:34

Yeah, that's 20k More one promotion.

Dyalekt: 19:37

Yeah. Better job across the way. Yeah, it's not a dream. It's not the lottery ticket. It's not knocking out the heavyweight champion. You're rocky No, it's getting one step further. Yeah. So that's what you're talking about what you're suspicious about. I think that's the thing. Yeah.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 19:54

Well, and I think the thing overall that kind of bothers me about these studies is They don't look at your whole financial picture, right? Like we were talking about the difference. We talked about the difference between income and wealth a lot. And I feel like that when you don't take into account what someone's existing wealth is, right, because when someone is making $50,000 a year, but has their family as a safety net, like someone, they have a trust fund, like they have these other resources, they don't have any debt, they'd have to take out student loan debt, right? They have these other resources available to them that make $50,000. doable,

Dyalekt: 20:32

yeah, there's stuff that is monetary and non monetary, around a $75,000 income person where they can be happy, and if not happy, at least content with what they have going on, or they can be in the space. You know, maybe I'm jumping the gun a little bit on this. But like, I think it's less important to whether to know whether or not you're happy. And it's more to understand if you're in a space where you can even think about whether or not you're

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 20:59

well, that's it. That is exactly it. Like I feel like one of the articles that really resonated with me, was this article from Harvard Business School. That is not about it's interesting that they titled it more proof that money can buy happiness, or a life with less stress. And I'm like, the article is not about that the article is about how money can reduce your worries, right? The article is about you being able to like easily like without thinking about it, like catch an Uber if it's raining or pay an unexpected medical bill or like pay a parking ticket, or whatever it is, is you're able to like move through life differently because you have money. I don't know if that necessarily leads to happiness. But it does lead to less worries or less financial worries. In that sense.

Dyalekt: 21:45

I guess that's a question for you, dear listener, is free from worry. Something you can equate with happiness? Yeah. Or I mean, I guess more importantly, is there a distinction that matters,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 21:58

right? Well, because the article delineated three things. One thing they said is we, if we only focus on the money, the happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something, we also need to think about all of the worries that it can free us from right

Dyalekt: 22:11

so money can reduce intense stress, right? Money can bring greater control. And higher incomes oftentimes lead to higher life satisfaction. And what's interesting about that is not only do they lead to higher life satisfaction, but they also lead to, you know, this longer lives. There's higher life expectancy for people who are older. And I mean, you could posit that it's because they are happier with their life. So they want more of it.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 22:43

Right? And they think that that is right. They I mean, there's there's not an indirect correlation to that, right. And one of the quotes that I love is, it's not that rich people don't have problems, but having money allows you to fix problems and resolve them more quickly. Right? And the question is, when problems come your way, to what extent do you feel like you can deal with them, you can walk through life and know everything is going to be okay. And that is certainly a piece of happiness, right? is knowing that things are going to be okay, and having that understanding. But, you know, I'm curious, like going back to the Scrooge McDuck example, right, and this implication that like this family, regardless of their income, or their wealth, there was a sense that they knew everything was gonna be okay. Right, even though you know, the guy got fired by Scrooge lost his job, lost his income, he came home to a loving family, and they were depicted as very happy. And so there's just there's, I feel like the complexity of this, and like, what happiness means or what happiness is, is also something to consider. Yeah, let

Dyalekt: 23:45

me let me Can I do one of my things

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 23:46

do you want to your thing?

Dyalekt: 23:47

So a lot of the stuff that they're basically saying about that we're gonna connect a few idioms about you know, this is gonna be an idiom kind of

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 23:54

art. I mean, this is an idiom money can't buy happiness, right?

Dyalekt: 23:57

Yeah, you know, and the, this is also, when you're saying about like, they're fine, they feel like they're gonna be fine. There's another idiom that correlates with this is that ignorance is bliss. There's this idea. And this has been going on at least as long as there's been colonialism, because there's been a lot of writing from colonialists about how happy these indigenous people are and how pleased with their little lives they are because they don't know that there's more out there. The concept of more money, more problems, is the idea that I mean, the reality all the problems exist, whether you have money or not. But when you are poor, not only do not have to deal with them, because you don't have the money to engage in these situations, but you don't even know that they're real. They're all just dragons flying overhead. And you don't get to see the actual airplanes and air traffic control and smog and pollution and all that stuff until you have money because money people are educated and smart and care about the world. Poor People are keen to animals and whatever type of way that we can put poor people in a place where they feel like that their animals where they think that they shouldn't do more, then it's funny, like, as we started off, you're talking about duck, and anthropomorphize duck, right. But that duck is considered more of a real person than all the poor people whose stories we never hear. Yeah. When I get on the mic, and I'm like, Alright, let's get down. I mean, let's Yeah, let's

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 25:31

lower what that is, you know, I think that when we think about this phrase, and why we're trying to question it is in this place that we've decided to live in, right, we are not, you know, tribes that are not connected to, to this system, right? We're not over here at this other extreme, like you mentioned before, right? That we talk about all the time of like, you can disconnect, you can choose to leave this world. But if you haven't, and you're still here and you want it, then money is I don't know what the amount is. It's so interesting that we did that how much is enough Ark like a couple months ago, but just like, money in some, in many measurable ways does lead to a level of happiness, right? Because not having worries, like you just said, means that you can think about what does make me happy, not what do I need to do to survive? But what do I need to do to thrive?

Dyalekt: 26:25

Well, this is maybe an education thing, but engaging with being happy or unhappy. It may feel on the surface, like I'm experiencing more unhappiness, because I'm engaging with it directly more, but what you're creating are happier outcomes by engaging directly with the moments and the systems that make you less happy. Yeah, to try to like, you know, really whittle it down to when you're poor. There's the you know, the idea that like, you know, people aren't thinking about it anyway, which we all know isn't true. But you don't have the time and the energy to deal with your unhappiness. So you have the unhappiness and or you have a lack of happiness, but you wouldn't be likely to state it for a couple of reasons for you know, the reason that you're just holding it all in so you can get through the day. And also, because you grew up reading that story, you saw every version of A Christmas Carol, no matter what your denomination was. So you're like, Yeah, well, then I should just be happy with those things that they told me because I got those things.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 27:28

It makes me think of like, be grateful for what you have, right. So you can give other idioms speaking of other things that people say, and I think that one thing that was really nice about that $75,000 number, and hearing the median income of a lot of states, right, and the medium income, the US is like, it gave you like a very clear answer to how much is enough. Because when we talked about how much is enough, and we talked about, like needing to have more needing to have more, there's a level of like unhappiness, and we're going to go into this more in the next couple of ARCs when it comes to your feelings and what you can do about it. There's a great time article about like, about, you know, figuring out what your happiness level or what actually makes you happy and what what money can do to get you there. But ultimately, it comes down to like how much is enough to make you happy.

Dyalekt: 28:21

Now, this is, I guess, journalistically failings, but we're not actually journalists. So it's okay, if we fail. Looking at the census, it hasn't been thinking about the markers for happiness. And we the ways that people in certain states vote in terms of grievances in terms of uplifting your community to make things better in terms of fixing problems. And these states just super anecdotal. This is not, you know, don't quote me on this about it. But the states that I'm seeing, oftentimes southern states, oftentimes, red states, these are the ones with really low, they have really low medium income. And they're known for again, this is not something that I have the stats on, but they're known for a lot of grievance voting, a lot of voting to blame, some group for hardship, a lot of voting to remove a problem, and not a lot of voting for things like infrastructure. These are often the areas where I've had difficulty convincing people about things like the way that they give charitably. These are oftentimes, again, I'm speaking super broadly, and I don't have the stats to back up that like, these are the places that just do this more. But what I've experienced is these is often the kind of cats when you're saying, Hey, can you donate to this thing that's going to help out people you'd like? Well, I want to make sure it's being given directly and doesn't go to the receptionist. Yeah, and those folks were grievance is at the top of their mind. So again, not scientifical we didn't do a study on that, but just looking real anecdotally it looks like even if they're not able to state a lower level of happiness that's apparent in their actions. Yeah, so I really think that the median income, John, like you're saying is a lie. Yeah. If Yeah, even though the 75 isn't a hard and fast number, I think it's a good. Not a baseline, but a nice place to start.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 30:13

Yeah. A loose game. Well, and I think that the Penn University study, what they just proved is that 75,000 is the peak. Yeah, right. And I feel like 75,000 in, in looking at all of the infrastructure that doesn't doesn't exist, right. And the system that do and don't exist, is a good minimum, right? It's a good starting point. Because even the you know, the gravity payments company, we're talking about where the minimum income is 70,000. That's not where people stay.

Dyalekt: 30:40

Yeah, I don't think that there is a state in this country where 75 is a terrible starting salary. Yeah, I think no matter where you are, even like New York, Connecticut, California, all the like the biggest and the their medium incomes are higher than 75 in those places. But having lived in New York, most of my adult life, if I was starting to get 75 as a starting salary. Yeah. Go for so yeah, yeah.

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 31:06

So money can probably buy happiness is where we're at,

Dyalekt: 31:10

when he might be able to money might be might be able to by exploring? Well, I think that the big thing of it is, in this episode, we're getting to the nitty gritty of what happiness can be. Yeah. Is it momentary? Is it a long term thing, and we found that in both cases, having more money gets you to a place where it's not just that you can be more happy,

Pamela Capalad, CFP, AFC: 31:32

you can start to think about it, you can be more real. Yeah,

Dyalekt: 31:35

I talk a lot about how people like to attribute things to sports, and how sports isn't real life, but sports gets to do its thing. The reason why sports are great, y'all, despite what everybody tells you, because everybody tells you, it's about the hustle and the hard work. The reason why sports are awesome is because of money. There is so much money, that people can have integrity. They get really mad at cheaters and gamblers and stuff like that. Because they're like, Dude, you're all millionaire. Yeah, all y'all are millionaires. So y'all straight. So since y'all are good, then we can be real about this. We can be honest about who won and who lost and who's cheating and who's trying to do this and the other stuff, because we've taken care of what they need. Yeah, gotten them to hear the money. That's that you have the opportunity to be happy in a way that you wouldn't have that opportunity. Here we go. Money doesn't guarantee happiness. Poverty or lack of money definitely does not guarantee happiness. And it restricts your opportunities for happiness doesn't mean that it's impossible, but it restricts your opportunities for happiness, having money and increasing the amount of money and with no end, maybe some diminishing returns, enables opportunities for happiness. And I think that's where we're at right now. Yeah, we can talk more about how we feel in the next episode of The Arc and we're gonna see what we can do about it for now let's let's get out let's get let's get to some music. So we do some music. Let's do some music. All right, so this first one I'm gonna go a little differently than I usually do. Which y'all we're gonna play a song that is not a rap song or even an r&b song it's rocking and rolling. This person describes himself as a classic rock One Man Band This is adult cinema at a London in the UK with you can buy happiness I just thought what they were saying was really on theme with what we got going on and the vibes wasn't too out of ours so check that out and we'll get back with you next time so we can get more money and more happy

Unknown: 33:57

you can buy happiness, but it don't come cheap yet no Chukka Wait. Oh you life for the things that never show. You can spend days and nights when there's someone right next ship customer. Base love the person you are For better

Dyalekt: 36:02

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