Money Can’t Buy Happiness But…

Money can’t buy happiness; we know that! It can’t buy you into, or out of, anything that would give you real happiness at any rate:

Love, emotion, sadness, grief, stability of the mind, aggressions, addictions… It can’t pay for the existence, or removal of those things, and therefore, the statement is true. “Money can’t buy happiness.”

But…

It can buy you an ease of life which, in turn, can absolutely give a bit of happiness!

For example:

Parking at the station when you’ve a train to catch instead of streets away, on a free road, which, after getting home in the dark is a little bit dodgy. With money one can spend the extortionate fee on the ease of being right outside on the forecourt for an arrival home and that doesn’t make me a happy person overall but it makes me happier that night.

That’s always been the benchmark of my theory, the station parking example, and I think it’s a good one.

When I’m working for a client, one paying my travel expenses, I simply waft off a peak time train, into the safety of my car, and am home in a jiffy. Parking from my own pocket, when attending a press show which may, or may not give me future work, and I’m on the red eye, or the last train of the day (otherwise known as the vomit comet) for the reduced fares, before dodging the undesirables on the permit free streets within a “just about reasonable” parking distance.

That’s ok, we women are well versed in feeling scared and vulnerable, so nothing’s new there and we all have strategies. But I can’t help then, to say, while I understand money cannot really buy you true happiness, by making life easier, it certainly feels sometimes like it can.

Deep sighs.

I want to say it’s not fair.

And it’s not.

It’s not fair that some have, and some have not. I mean, sometimes I guess it is, but the staple mantra that will come in response to that statement, often from the wealthier in society, is that the poor simply don’t work hard enough.

Maybe they’ve misunderstood.

Maybe they’re just selfish.

I often hear things like “they don’t deserve it.” I wonder why they get to be the judge and jury.

Because:

There are all sorts of circumstances which could mean some don’t earn as highly as others, and why the others have to make do with taking a danger drop with their car park instead of somewhere safer.

In my eye that’ simply not fair.

A nurse, for example, who’s worked a 16 hour shift every day for the past week, and is stupidly tired, going home to their children who they single parent because a partner recklessly left them for a so called friend, is their safety less than? Compared to a self made millionaire?

Much like I feel every child deserves the same level of education, regardless of their parent’s income (having to accept my ideal doesn’t change anything doesn’t mean I won’t say it), I feel here that the nurse needs to be in safety just as much as the CEO who walked straight out of a salon, into a West End show, and caught the train home sat in First Class, avoiding the riff raff, because it is the last train of the day after all, and you know what they call that!

Alas.

The world isn’t fair in many directions.

It probably never will be.

Even when we really want it to be.

There will always be the “haves”, and the “have nots”.

And while we fight for fairer pay and equality, taxes to encumber the higher earners over the lower, and all sorts of other socially conscious ideals, we have to live and make do. There is nothing else.

And I’m lucky, you know?!

We have a house big enough for all of us thanks to a savvy (lucky) house move. We are able to feed, water, clothe ourselves and keep warm and safe. There are many, many, many worse off than me. I remind myself of this often because living in the real world it’s mighty hard to remember it all the time. While life, lifes, and curve balls are thrown in different directions, sometimes in abundance, I do keep telling myself how lucky I am.

Mr Walsh in “The Goonies” saying to Mikey “But with you and Brand safe, it makes us the richest people in Astoria” always comes back to me. There were a lot of moral lessons in “The Goonies” actually, who knew?!

However, I’m not perfect. And sometimes those curve balls have spikes on them, with dinomote ready to explode on the edges. And though I know it, though I honestly, honestly do, occasionally it does get the better of me and I fail in my plight to never get bogged down, sad, frustrated or angry about money. I know there’s no point but I’m human and sometimes I have to internally scream “but I work hard, hard, hard, and I juggle, juggle, juggle, I’m doing all the right things but everything is exploding anyway and I don’t want it to be that way”.

My usual demeanor of “it’ll work out, it will be fine” has waned today I’m afraid, and I am more than thinking that while money wouldn’t make me happy in any real emotional sense, it sure would stop the tightness I’m feeling in my chest, absolute nausea and worry I have for the future, and fear that we are going to sink the dingy we so carefully do keep sailing on, repairing at every puncture, keeping it just about afloat regardless of opposition fire coming from the hands of God.

We watch the yachts sailing past us at speed and can’t help but feel annoyed even though we shouldn’t. In the waters we happen to be in, despite our own personal circumstance, there’s a lot of the expensive, shiny boats, and it’s hard to not compare. It’s also hard not to wish it was us on the galley of the brand new one floating just in front of us with seeming ease, even though the passengers already have another couple of similar boats that they’re not even using today.

But jealousy is an evil creature, so as I continuously bail the water from the bottom of the dingy, I also see that there are folk clinging to bits of driftwood the best they can.

That brings me up short sharp that does.

Get a grip Ruth, you are fine.

I try not to look away.

I try to offer a hand of help.

But it’s not good enough, not really.

Not in my position. What help can I be when our dingy has a massive puncture already and we don’t have the capacity to pull anyone else aboard. If I was on a yacht I can hand on heart say I’d be pulling people aboard, maybe that’s why I’m not on one?

I don’t understand why the yachts and the speed boats, the cruise liners and their pals, don’t stop to offer a lifeline from the safety of their balcony.

Not to me of course, I’m fine bailing water out of the dingy.

But the people on bits of driftwood.

At least I could stop worrying about them drowning, and be able to say it’s ok to worry about drowning myself! Because I know it isn’t. And me coming up for the air I am afforded to gasp every now and again shouldn’t have time wasted complaining – I’m breathing for goodness sake, is that not enough?!

But what’s this all about then? This riddle of metaphor and floral speech?

Well…

Our car went into the garage last week. It’s very poorly and as a very big car (we are a family of 6) it’s very expensively gone wrong. It was a ticking time bomb and we knew it.

We might have put some money aside to stem the flow of cards falling down once it inevitably broke down with more than just a simple patch up required to get it going again. But there’s been no meaningful pennies we could have afforded in this direction. This what I told my Dad when he said I should have prioritised the car service we’d disregarded. Because paying for a car service is a luxury.

“A false economy to not have one” he said.

But he says that from a very different financial position to me.

And that’s ok.

It’s OK to not understand.

I’m 100% sure I often don’t understand things too.

But it’s frustrating all the same, when others assume things about your financial situation, when all you’re ever doing is figuring out ways to make it work.

We constantly fire fight with money, me and Jonny. We have four children and we, of course, prioritise them. Their safety and wellbeing, their education when it comes to extra curricular activities (we cant do it all but we do our best) and their birthdays too.

We don’t go wild.

We can’t.

But to feel special, on your birthday, is very important to me.

I suspect looking in, people might say “why didnt you have the service instead of buying the kids a present or treat for their birthday?” But I am careful with all these things. I never buy anything without careful thought or without having a contingency pot of money should something go wrong. I’m the Queen of coupons, deals, ducking and diving.

And actually, a lot more “thought” and “effort” goes into birthday celebrations in our house than money anyway.

“But it’s not just birthdays!” you’ll be saying I’m sure. And it’s true, there are occasional treats too. We have chocolate or an ice-cream, maybe a can of coke on a Saturday night. very Saturday night actually. Yes, those things might be considered frivolous too, but my reckoning is that joy makes life worth living, so there has to be some of that as a priority, just as much as paying for the mortgage. Not a lot, but a bit!

Things that bring us joy, like my gym membership, could (and will also very soon actually) be cut. My justification for having it thus far is that it keeps my mental health in check, and also affords the children free swimming on my pass. I’ve kept it going as long as possible because it feels important but it might be time to call it quits.

Sometimes we don’t put out the right fire.

Sometimes we do.

And with the big car so poorly it has wiped out our contingency pot entirely so I’m really having to worry about what fire to put out next.

There’s absolutely nothing in the bank now, any more money spent will be debt giving, so we’d been keeping our fingers crossed that we’d get a few months reprieve on the “hands of God” shit hitting the home fans.

However, with no control over that, Jonny’s car also decided yesterday was the day it too would curl up and die.

Maybe in sympathy with the big car.

Our second car (I do know how privileged we are, that statement alone says it all) is in the poo too it seems, and though we don’t all fit into it, it was the only way we had to get from A-B right now. We have it as a hangover from when my husband prioritised his health over a higher earning job. He wouldn’t have survived the pressure of the job he was in before following his true vocation and becoming a teacher (a job no one does for the money) so he retrained for a better work/life balance. In order to train he had to travel 35 miles away every day, and with a bit of money aside at the time, the small car was a necessity, and has been required ever since.

You live to your means I guess.

Do I deserve to feel down in the dumps about having no car right now? About having to spend possibly hundreds more, after having spent hundreds already (that we didn’t really have in the first place)?

No.

But I do.

It’s not a real problem, sure.

But it’s all relative isn’t it?

So today I’m feeling down in the dumps because sure, money can’t buy you happiness, but I’d sure as heck feel happier if I had enough money to own a reliable car.

But…

I’ll pull myself together about it don’t worry. And at the end of the day “Goonies never say die” so we’re going to be ok. I’m just going to have a little cry about it though, and lick my wounds for a while, is that ok?!