Is it all about Money Honey?

When I came to the US as a student I found that my roommates and friends were a lot more generous in their spending than the folks I hung out with in the UK who were working professionals in IT companies. It was odd to find that these professionals who earned more than the students did, tended to be a lot more stingy and tight-fisted and in turn appeared to extremely dissatisfied, harried and unhappy. I would wonder if it was money that made them the way they were.

It also reminded me of the maid who used to work in our house a long time back. When she had no money to get through the month she would lavishly spend on her son's jeans (she once bought a pair of jeans worth her monthly salary) and take her daughters out to the fair without any sight towards the future in terms of savings. She seemed to be the happiest person in the world despite her drunk husband and her abusive mother-in-law. As the wheels of fortune turned, after the death of her husband she acquired a huge ancestral farmland worth over a crore and she transformed from a poor yet happy maid into a rich, unhappy, vexed and now bored crorepati. Money does have that effect on people who did not have much of it: they know the power it brings and are unable to deal with it.

For some people it is aspirational: they dream about a lifestyle that comes with it and turn bitter when their dreams don't come true. In a world that is now reeling under the repercussions of bad investments, instant gratifications and a complete disregard towards saving, it might seem bad advice to be investing in one's happiness. There was a time I used to tell my mom to advice our maid on saving, but now I realise that she was happier blowing it up on a 1000 rupees jeans for her son! That goes for my student friends too. They might have crossed their credit limits long back but I saw contentment on their faces on that rafting trip and when they bought yet another $20 fish for their fish tank! They were not going to buy a condo saving that $200 rafting trip. I am not advocating being a spendthrift and going bankrupt is great.

I believe that investing in happiness once in a while reaps more rewards than seeing your bank balance rise. A good friend of mine recently accused me of putting myself on a higher pedestal than others because money was not a #1 priority for me. I am pretty sure I wasn't being 'elitist' about it or for that matter being condescending towards others to whom it is important. I realize that some people know what money can buy and see it as an instrument to fulfilling their own dreams and that of their families, while others know its value because of the dearth of it in their lives and therefore acquiring it becomes a huge priority in their lives.

Having said that, I have grown up in an environment learning to spend within my means and being happy with it. I don't have a car in the US and I am not unhappy about it. It is a capitalist conspiracy to keep enticing people to seek 'happiness' in possessing things that are not really necessary. They tell us that we are the next big dud on the block if we do not own that plasma screen TV or that iPod nano or iPhone or Macbook air and they charge a bomb for it because it was probably manufactured out of a single block of moonstone! If our happiness is contigent on these capitalistic aspirations then unhappiness is the sum total of our experience because everyday there is going to be a new iGizmo to covet our attention and entwine us into a vicious cycle of endless desire.

And now that I am done extolling the virtues of saving, wish me well on my skydiving adventure.

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