Does Money Buy Happiness? Let's Talk About It

Does money buy happiness, or is there something deeper at play? Let's talk about it. Join Hixon Zuercher Capital Management's Josh Robb and Austin Wilson, along with table guests Tony Hixon and Chase Rose, as they dive into this age-old question. They'll talk through the difference between contentment and complacency, why humans are bound to chasing the next big thing, and how happiness and joy aren’t really the same. Whether you’re navigating your financial future, wealth, retirement, or just trying to find purpose, this episode offers real conversation on what actually leads to a fulfilling life. 

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You are listening to The Wealth Mindset Show, where Hixon Zuercher Capital Management’s team of finance professionals, portfolio managers, and a life coach come together to tackle complex topics in finance and retirement planning, so you don’t have to. From investment strategies and wealth management to tax planning, retirement income, and aligning your money with your values and purpose, the Wealth Mindset Show offers the tools to thrive.

Austin Wilson:

All right. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to The Wealth Mindset Show, where the Hixon Zuercher team will have conversations on managing wealth, navigating retirement, and making smart decisions for a secure, meaningful future. I’m Austin Wilson, Director of Investments at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management.

Josh Robb:

And I’m Josh Robb, Director of Wealth Management at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. And we are joined today with two other people for our podcast. And kind of like we talked about in our intro, is that while Austin and I are going to be here together talking through different topics, when we have something that we’d love to hear some other opinions on, we’re going to bring people in that have something really important and insightful to say. So today we have with us Tony Hixon and Chase Rose. So Tony, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Tony Hixon:

Absolutely. So you like opinions. I’m the chief opinion officer.

Josh Robb:

There you go. That’s right.

[1:22] – Introducing Our Rotating Guests of the Week: Tony Hixon & Chase Rose

Tony Hixon:

We got many to share today. So Chief Executive Officer. Founded the firm (Hixon Zuercher) in 2002. Excited to be a part of the show, so thanks for having me.

Josh Robb:

All right. And then we have Chase Rose. He’s one of the other financial advisors, but Chase, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. So I am an Associate Wealth Advisor here. Started 20 years after Tony, so 2004 after-

Josh Robb:

It’s one way of looking at it.

Chase Rose:

Yeah. So I started here in January of 2022, the start of the most recent bear market. So I got a lot of laughs from you guys about-

Austin Wilson:

Until recently. Yeah.

Chase Rose:

Causing that bear market. But yeah, so that’s what I do. Wealth Advisor here.

[1:49] – Defining ‘Happiness’

Austin Wilson:

Awesome. Well, thank you guys for being here today. We are going to be answering the question that everyone’s wondering. Does money buy happiness? And this is a loaded question, right? Because there are a lot of ways we can go about talking about this, but we’ve got some different areas we’re going to delve into together here as a team. So let’s just kind of go one by one. Tony, how would you define happiness?

Tony Hixon:

Well, does money buy happiness? Yes, it does. That’s a wrap.

Austin Wilson:

Okay. See you next week.

Tony Hixon:

Yeah, I guess happiness… The way I kind of think about it is happiness and joy. And I don’t know if this is right or wrong. I’ll let you guys weigh in, but happiness seems to be a reaction to something good that’s happened. And event occurs and you’re happy about it. Whereas joy is a state of mind and it’s a conscious decision that you make when you navigate your life and you choose abundance, you choose gratitude, you choose to have a joyful outlook on life and be optimistic about things. So there might be just a little slight difference between happiness, event-driven, joy, state of mind. What do you guys think?

Josh Robb:

Yeah, I would agree. The term happiness is more of an emotion than it is anything else. And so you can be happy in situations and you can also be in situations that are happy, but someone may experience that and not feel the same emotion. If you’re at a large group event, we just came out of the holiday season and there are people that are dealing with loss and things like that, that in a time when normally you would be happy, they may not be experiencing the same thing. So you’re right, it is more of an emotional reaction.

I kind of look at it in contentment and joy, in that is the situation I’m in is this, a spot where I appreciate and am happy. I like where I’m at. So I think you’re right. That’s a better way of defining it.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. I kind of took that as when I look at the question, does money buy happiness? What is happiness in that? Well, can money bring happiness? Well, I thought, yeah, of course money can. Money can be that event that you win the lottery. That’s the example we’re going to talk about here in a little bit. But a big inflow of cash can make you happy. But does that determine your ultimate reason for being happy? No, not necessarily. So that’s the kind of way I went about that. Anything on your mind, Chase?

Chase Rose:

Yeah, I think the thought of being happy is a very relative term because nobody ever… I think the question itself is very general. Let’s say if I ask you, Tony, are you happy? You could respond and say, “Am I happy right now? Am I happy with this month in general? Am I happy with this year? Am I happy with my life?”

Austin Wilson:

In general?

Tony Hixon:

“Am I happy with you?”

Chase Rose:

Exactly. “Am I happy with you?” It’s a very general statement. And so when we talk about the question, does money buy happiness? Yeah, it might buy happiness when you win the lottery and you have money for the next year or so, but in the long-term, and this is why it’s so relative, the timeframe is undetermined. You could also ask how long does money by happiness for? That would be an even better question.

But as far as the term happiness, I agree with Josh. I think contentment. Despite what’s going on in your environment, are you content with where you’re at? Are you happy with where you’re at? I think that’s a great way of looking at it. And obviously when you’re happy, you feel joy. So I think those are great comparisons as well. Those are my thoughts.

[5:12] – How Does Money Fit into Happiness?

Austin Wilson:

So yeah, we kind of just touched on it a little bit, but how does money fit into the happiness picture?

Josh Robb:

And there was the survey back in 2010 that said that there’s a cap of income, that above that, it doesn’t really increase your happiness. And that back in 2010 was $75,000 and this is the research showed. And there’s a lot of debate on that again.

Tony Hixon:

So inflation-adjusted.

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, $120,000 or something. Yeah.

Josh Robb:

But the idea is that up to that point, it does increase your satisfaction, your enjoyment of life, but beyond that, it can help, but it really doesn’t move that needle long-term.

Chase Rose:

More money, more problems, right?

Austin Wilson:

Yeah, that’s right.

Josh Robb:

Not only that, but up to one point, and I think this is where it really comes to, the stress points are now relieved. Your cash flow up to, again, back then it was $75,000, which was higher than the median salary in the US. So that’s kind of that point is for a lot of people there, beyond their normal needs, they have excess cash. And so their happiness was able to move up because they could do things beyond just take care of their food and housing and car and all the things they needed.

So I think there is a point where if you have cars, three more cars doesn’t really increase your long-term happiness. You may be happy that day you bring it home, but when they all sit in the garage and you only drive one at a time, does it really long-term affect your happiness? So I think that’s that point.

Chase Rose:

That’s a great point. A common reference to, on the spectrum of… Have you guys ever heard of Haslow’s or Haslow’s Hierarchy?

Josh Robb:

Haslow’s.

Austin Wilson:

Haslow’s Hierarchy.

Josh Robb:

Maslow’s, with an M.

Chase Rose:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Sorry, the name was slipping my brain. I was actually just talking with a prospective client about this this morning. You have that hierarchy of needs where your most basic needs are at the bottom, and then you work your way up to more intrinsic needs. And I think there’s a hierarchy of financial needs associated with that as well. If you’re basic needs, if you don’t have food on the table, if you don’t have a roof over your head, you will probably be unhappy because of that. You can tell yourself that you’re happy despite that, but most people-

Josh Robb:

And you can have happy moments.

Chase Rose:

Correct. Correct. But most people, if they don’t have food on the table and a roof over their head, they’re not going to be happy. So you’re right. To a point, money probably does buy happiness.

Josh Robb:

Increase your happiness.

Chase Rose:

But then I think once you start to move up that Hierarchy of Needs, I feel like that’s where it starts to diminish the effect.

Austin Wilson:

It’s the law of diminishing returns.

Tony Hixon:

Not to have you memorize the pyramid, but what was at the top of that? Do you remember?

Chase Rose:

I think the top of that was… Well, the hierarchy of financial needs, that’s where you get into legacy giving and afterlife stuff.

Josh Robb:

It becomes an outward… Yep.

Tony Hixon:

And I think that’s where happiness can really take place once you get there. So to the question, does money buy happiness? Kind of.

Austin Wilson:

If money buys happiness, to the point that you can stop worrying about your day-to-day survival and you can focus on other people and giving and being generous. Right?

Tony Hixon:

Yeah. And maybe even being generous is more of a state of mind of joy that we started our show with. So yeah, you can be very joyful in being generous with others.

[8:18] – Does Happiness Solve Dissatisfactions?

Josh Robb:

I would say it’s, probably the better way of asking is, does happiness solve your other dissatisfactions? Because money can bring happiness. I think we all agree on that, but money doesn’t fix all the other problems. And I think that’s where we run into is you’ll see somebody who has what you think, man, they have it all together. They have a great life. They have multiple homes or boats or whatever it is that you define, but they could be miserable because although they’re buying things that bring them happiness, it’s not solving all of their needs and problems. There’s still a hole there that needs fixed.

Tony Hixon:

Yeah… And you brought up the word contentment. That’s a hard word. How would you guys define it and have you experienced it in your own lives?

Austin Wilson:

I don’t think it’s an easy thing to find as humans, especially in this consumer-driven culture we live in right now. All the advertising we see, which is literally everywhere. It’s on your social media feed or TV or whatever, is pointing you to not have contentment in what you have. But ultimately, you will always be on that wheel of searching for the next thing. It’s never good enough until you say, it just doesn’t matter. I don’t need another car. I don’t need a bigger house. I don’t need an XYZ. You name it. And I think that it’s a tough thing.

So have I found it? Sometimes I think yes, but oftentimes I’m guilty as everyone is in this culture of saying, “Oh, I want a nicer pair of shoes, or I want this or that,” when it’s not really a need. So contentment’s a hard thing. What about you guys?

Chase Rose:

I would say to your point, I’ll kind of just emphasize something you’ve already said. I think it’s a double-edged sword, the word contentment. Because there’s a part of being a human where we want to advance, we want to improve our way of life, and having too much contentment will prevent us from doing that. Whereas if you’re not content, if you’re not even a little content, maybe you won’t be happy,

Because there are plenty of examples out there, people who have always strived for self-improvement or the betterment of others around them, and what do they sacrifice? They sacrifice their own personal life, their family because of that. And that leads to a lot of unhappiness or a lot of dissatisfaction. So I think contentment in and of itself, like I said, it’s a double-edged sword. I think you need a little bit. You need contentment in moderation to be truly happy, but you also shouldn’t be too content because that can lead to you not reaching your full potential.

Tony Hixon:

It’s almost like what words you’re searching for is complacency.

Chase Rose:

There you go. Yeah.

Tony Hixon:

So contentment I think is a good quality, but complacency is what you need to fight against.

Chase Rose:

Correct. Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And a lot of these values have that. It comes back to my favorite thing about moderation is-

Tony Hixon:

Always moderation.

Josh Robb:

There’s a sense of pride that can be healthy in that you’re proud of what you’ve accomplished, the skills and gifts that you have, that you work for, but you can be proud to the extreme where then it becomes a hindrance to who you are. The same with here. You could be content in that this is what I have and I need to be appreciative of it, but you don’t want to be complacent where you don’t want to move forward. Because you could be content with the path you’re on, which includes growth. Here’s the career I chose and here’s where I’d love to see it go. And I can be content in that, but that includes advancement and movement up. So yeah, there’s a balance. Humbleness, you can be extremely humble, but if you’re constantly putting yourself down, you’re actually hurting yourself. And that’s not humility. That’s tearing yourself down to just avoid acknowledging any kind of gain, gifts or credit that you deserve.

Austin Wilson:

We’re going to take a quick pause in this episode. Before we get back to today’s topic, I want to take a quick moment to share something that could really help you on your retirement journey.

At Hixon Zuercher Capital Management, we are all about making sure your financial life aligns with what truly matters to you. That’s why we created the assessment Are You Retirement Ready? Over at hzcapital.com/quiz. It’s a quick and easy quiz that helps you figure out how prepared you are for retirement. It only takes a few minutes and you might discover some great insights into what you need to do before you retire, both in the financial and non-financial aspects. So if you’re curious about how ready you are to embrace this new phase, head on over to the website and check it out. Again, that’s hzcapital.com/quiz. Now let’s jump back into our conversation.

[12:39] – The Stress of Success: Does Money Cause More Problems?

Austin Wilson:

One thing I was just thinking about is that I think most people think if you were to say, “Here’s a problem you have, what do you need to fix this problem?” Their default answer is, “Well, if I just had more money, I can probably buy what I need to fix this problem.” And I don’t think that that’s always the answer because I think that… And I see this in people like Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos and these people, having money beyond what you need is actually a hard thing. A lot of these people can’t give money away fast enough.

Tony Hixon:

It’s a stress of success.

Austin Wilson:

It’s a stress of success. And I think that having well over excess of what you need actually leads to more problems than it might solve. And that’s something that… I’m not saying don’t try and invest your money wisely and grow it. I’m not saying that at all, but I’m saying the search for money and that driving what you’re doing in every single way is going to ultimately cause problems. That’s a hard thing.

Tony Hixon:

And the belief that it’s out there somewhere. Happiness is over there. It’s always-

Josh Robb:

Just out of reach.

Tony Hixon:

Just out of reach. And once you finally get the amount of money or whatever the word is, that’s not enough either. And you’re constantly just never being content.

Josh Robb:

Well, think back if you guys were a lot like me, maybe when you were a kid, you always thought, “Oh, when I can get my license, that will make me feel like I’m there.” And then, “Oh, when I graduate college or I get my first job.” And there’s always something that you think completes that picture. But when you get there, there’s again, something else on the horizon that says, “Oh, that’s actually where I’m heading.” And having a path and a direction’s great, but if you miss that contentment along the way that you look back and say, man, I wish I really would’ve enjoyed those college years instead of just trying to get to the next phase. You can miss out on a lot of it.

Austin Wilson:

One thing that I was just thinking about is if you think about some of the people with the most financial assets in the world, these are probably celebrities, right? Celebrities, big sports stars or whatever. These people have ultimately, whether they’ll tell you it or not, they have mostly found out that money does not buy happiness because they’re some of the most discontent people in the world. They’re some of the people with the most substance abuse and mental health issues in the entire world. And you hear about it all the time. So-and-so is back in rehab because they were off the road and they started doing drugs and yada, yada, yada. But these people have more money than any of us will ever have. And that is proof that it’s not the end-all, be-all. It’s a good thing. It’s a tool. It’s something that can be used. It can obviously be used for good, but it is also not the answer.

Tony Hixon:

It’s like the quote from Jim Carrey, my favorite comedian actor. He’s once said, “I wish people had as much money as I do so they could find out like I have that it doesn’t buy happiness.”

Austin Wilson:

Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Hixon:

Yeah.

Josh Robb:

And I think in the end, I think we’ve all kind of hit on that, that money is a tool that can help you progress towards contentment, joy, happiness, but in and of itself, it doesn’t provide that. And most people find that out if they do get to that stage is they think that little extra, that bonus, that extra raise will get them right to that point and then find out, no, it was just this grass is always greener on the other side idea that it just looks better, but there’s more problems that show up on that end.

Austin Wilson:

What other thoughts do you guys have?

[16:01] – Can Money Buy Freedom?

Chase Rose:

As far as the basic concept of does money by happiness? I think this is quite literally what we do as a profession. So we have clients and people from all walks of life come into our office and they ask for our advice on how much money do I need to retire. And why are they wanting to retire? Nobody’s wanting to retire just to just because everybody else does it. They’re wanting to retire to move away from something into something else, something that they enjoy more than the job that maybe they’ve been working at for a long time.

There’s a book that I read once. I can’t remember who referred it to me. It’s a book called So Good They Can’t Ignore You. And the thesis of that book is that you shouldn’t necessarily do what you love. You can. You can certainly do what you love, but maybe you should focus more on doing what you’re really good at. And when you’re doing what you’re good at, that allows you to be in a position with whoever you work with to kind of buy your own freedom as time goes along. And then with that freedom, you choose to do the things that you want to do. There’s a lot of aspects of what we do that kind of tie into that. We’re going to tell someone to save this much money so they can invest it and ultimately supply their freedom, their financial freedom one day. So I think money buying freedom is a really big aspect of being happy.

Austin Wilson:

Well, I think that you kind of just hit on it. What we do in our industry and in our business and specifically here at Hixon Zuercher, is we’re trying to work with you so that the money that you have can be used to buy happiness. So we’re trying to take the assets that you’ve accumulated over many years of working, working very, very hard, and we’re trying to use that and put that and invest it in such a way that you can use that to find fulfillment outside of work. You can find that second-half life. And that’s something we’ve talked about and we’re going to talk about many times in the future episodes, about finding purpose in the second half of your life. But I think you can use that money to do that. So money can buy you happiness in a way. You just have to have a plan for it, right?

Chase Rose:

Yeah.

Tony Hixon:

For sure.

Josh Robb:

Now, I know Chase, you had kind of a story that you thought of kind of this idea of money and whether or not it leads to more satisfaction.

[18:10] – Money Can Sometimes Lead to Happiness & Other Times Not: A Client Example

Chase Rose:

Yeah. Well, there’s always the success stories of someone pulling that trigger to ultimately retire. We work with people who do that on a daily basis. People retire all the time. In our line of work, that’s what they’re working towards.

There was a recent story, Jessica Hinks, another advisor here. Her and I were in a meeting with a client who she had kind of expressed to us, she likes to help out these causes and these different charities in town, but she had made the point that maybe they don’t always seem as thankful as they should be for the gifts that people are giving to these organizations. And so she’s in a financial position where she has a lot of assets that she won’t use in her own life. So that put her in a position to make a very generous donation to an organization that she’s passionate about. And she got all of the recognition that she could have wanted and more, and it was truly a blessing in her life.

So for that specific scenario, she was just someone who you wanted to be for the gifts that she was giving to people who needed the money, and she wasn’t really getting that, but her having enough money to make a sizable donation… I’m not saying that small donations don’t mean anything because they do, but she was in a position to give a large amount of money to a cause that she was passionate about, and I think she really was happy with how that turned out.

Tony Hixon:

Yeah. I was a guest on another podcast and the individual asked, “Which is more important, the financial side of planning for retirement or the non-financial side?” Where’s happiness at? Make sure you have enough money? Or where is it more important? Is it 50/50, 51/49?” And my response was, “100/100.” It’s important that we do have enough money to be able to have that freedom, and it’s also important that we have that future, that future hope, that future step that we can take to bring us that joy of being generous, paying it back to others and living a future that’s bigger than our past.

Austin Wilson:

No, I was just going to say, so yeah, we’ve kind of answered the question here, right? Doesn’t many by happiness. And the answer is, it depends.

Josh Robb:

It depends.

Austin Wilson:

It’s a good answer. It’s a good answer.

Tony Hixon:

That snuck into this episode.

Josh Robb:

Every time.

Tony Hixon:

I thought that was behind us.

Josh Robb:

Every time.

Austin Wilson:

Nope. Every time. It depends. Money can buy happiness if there is more to it than that. Money is not the end-all, be-all in terms of happiness. So any closing thoughts? Any final thoughts from any of you guys?

[20:35] – The Importance of Staying Present

Josh Robb:

I would say that contentment, that idea of setting goals, setting dreams, working towards the end result is great, but don’t miss out on the stage you are right now just by always looking forward. And that’s something, the biggest regret I always hear is someone saying, “I wish I would’ve appreciated those phases of life because they’re each different and had more awareness of where I was instead of just always striving forward.”

Austin Wilson:

I actually just saw a video of someone who said, “When you’re looking at your finances, provided you’ve got your basic needs covered, it’s okay to take some money and enjoy today and it’s okay to set some money aside and plan to enjoy in the future, but you don’t know there’s going to be a tomorrow.” So it’s like you said, don’t regret not doing something today. So money is meant to be exchanged for goods and services, so exchange it for goods and services here in America.

All right. Well, thank you Chase and Tony for joining Josh and I today on the second episode of The Wealth Mindset Show. If you found value in our conversation, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on whatever platform you’re on so you don’t miss any episodes. Also, you can visit us at thewealthmindsetshow.com for more resources or if you’re ready to invest with us, head over to hzcapital.com. And go ahead and follow us on all social media platforms. We’ll be on there. We can stay connected and thank you for listening. We will see you in the next episode.

Josh Robb:

All right. Bye.

Austin Wilson:

Bye.

Tony Hixon:

Bye.

Thank you for joining us at The Wealth Mindset Show, where we the complexities of finance and life planning to help you align your wealth with your values. We hope today’s conversation provided value and clarity as you navigate your financial journey.

Your hosts work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management, and all opinions expressed by them or any podcast guest are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that statements, opinions or forecasts provided herein will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment. And any investor attempting to mimic index performance would incur fees and expenses that could reduce returns. Securities investing involves risks, including the potential loss of principle, and there is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.