Financial Autonomy

Episode 69 – Money can’t buy happiness ... or can it? In his thought provoking book The Geometry of Wealth, author Brian Portnoy observes “Does money buy happiness? The answer to that question can be summarised as Yes, Not really, It depends”. Intuitively none of us like ambiguous answers like this, but here, it successfully illustrates the complexity inherent in the question. After all, what is happiness? There are plenty of sayings we get brain-washed with, that actually don’t stand up to scrutiny. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Really? If I lose a limb or suffer a stroke, I doubt I’m stronger. Or how about “slow and steady wins the race”. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success that Usain Bolt applied. Likewise, we all know the saying money can’t buy happiness. But I’m quite sure that if you’re on the pittance known as Newstart, some extra money would almost certainly add some happiness to your life. If we really believe money can’t buy happiness, why do so many people buy lottery tickets? In