Your Money: The Missing Manual

by J.D. Roth

life well-lived is rich in: Security. It’s hard to be happy when you’re constantly worrying about how to pay the bills. If you have money, you don’t have to worry about those things. (But, as you now know, you don’t have to be rich to be happy.) By living below your means and avoiding debt, you can gain some financial control over your life. Relationships. True wealth comes from relationships, not from dollars and cents. Wealthy or poor, people with five or more close friends are more apt to describe themselves as happy than those with fewer. A long-term, loving partnership goes hand in hand with this. And as you’ll learn later (Social Capital), social capital can be worth as much as financial capital. Experiences. As explained in the Note on How Money Affects Happiness, memories tend to grow more positive with time, but Stuff usually drops in value — both actual value and perceived value. As Gregory Karp writes in The 1-2-3 Money Plan (FT Press, 2009), “Experiences appreciate, assets depreciate.” And in Your Money and Your Brain (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Jason Zweig notes, “Doing and being are better than having.” Remember these three pillars of happiness and you can build a rich life even on a limited income. To further improve your relationship with money,