BREAKING NEWS: MONEY != HAPPINESS

That's a not-equal sign, for those of you not crazy enough to be a web guy doing JavaScript.

This article from Penelope Trunk collates some interesting research answering an even more interesting question: How much money do you need to be happy? Turns out it's somewhere around $40,000 per year:

To someone who just spent four years in college living off nine-thousand-dollar loan stipends, an increase to forty thousand means a lot – moving from poverty to middle class. But it’s a one-time rush. After you hit the forty-thousand-dollar-range money never gives you that surge in happiness again.

But what is it that can most affect your happiness? It's not money, if you're looking at all the factors. Turns out it's really about relationships...kinda...

And by social relations, most researchers mean sex – with one, consistent partner. So consider giving your career aspirations a little less weight than you give your aspirations for sex. For those of you who like a tangible goal, David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College says, “Going from sex once a month to sex once a week creates a big jump in happiness. And then the diminishing returns begin to set in.” He adds, to the joy of all who are underemployed, “It’s true that money impacts which person you marry, but money doesn’t impact the amount of sex you have.”

Maybe all this research simply justifies the twentysomething tendency to hold a series of entry-level jobs and put off having children. Says Karo: “All we really want is to get paid and get laid.”

Those researchers - always saying something frighteningly true and blunt, all at the same time.

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