The Pursuit of Happiness
Key Takeaways
A certain study calculated that happiness in Singapore will cost around S$62,233/year ($5,186/month).
However, many international studies across time, reinforced by research from from the Lee Kuan Kew School of Public Policy, found that higher incomes did not necessarily mean higher levels of contentment.
Personal wellness will undoubtedly have many different considerations and it’s one of the main reasons why some people need a financial advisor. The right advisor will help you to find the integration between wealth and worth.
Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.
How much money does it take to make you feel rich? What about contented or fulfilled? How much money does it take to bring you happiness?
Some look at salary or earnings as a means of comparison; others, their material possessions. Some compare how much wealth they had last year to how much they have now.
There can be a big difference between how much you think you need to feel wealthy and you actually feel once you have reached those levels of wealth. Obviously a lot of it depends on your personality.
A lot of studies have been done over the years to study an interesting phenomenon — called the happiness-income paradox or the Easterlin paradox; it found that improvements in socio-economic conditions did not necessarily equate to an increase in quality of life or happiness in the long run.
A 2021 study by a group of researchers from the Lee Kuan Kew School of Public Policy titled ‘Lived experiences in Singapore: Key Findings from the World Values Survey’ did a study on Singaporeans and they found similar results — that a higher income or a better home did not necessarily mean higher levels of contentment or feelings of control over one’s life.
You can see from the table above that whilst the percentage of unhappy people declined slightly, there was no significant increase in happiness as income levels rose.
In another study published in Nature journal titled ‘Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world’, the authors tried to quantify the cost of happiness — it seems that happiness in Singapore will cost around S$62,233 (US$46,078) a year or around $5,186 per month.
It is quite easy to calculate how much money and assets you have nowadays, by using banking apps linked to the SGFinDex system for example. The number it generates for you is your wealth. But is it your net worth? Worth is probably a little more complex to calculate. If you celebrated your life well, made it better for others, then maybe your ‘net worth’ is higher than those who didn’t make manage to make that happen.
So what is your true net worth?
This is a difficult question with many different considerations and it’s one of the main reasons why some people need a financial advisor. An advisor with the right process will help you deepen the connection between your life and your money, making sure that they are working together to meet your goals — that is finding the integration between wealth and worth.
As you can see from the flowchart above, this is one of the main processes that we undertake with everyone who is a client. We need tight integration amongst all the parts — investment, planning, and also knowing “you” better, in order to discover where in your life do you place the most value, things that encompass both wealth and worth.
It starts with talking about what’s important to you. What are your goals? Which are your most important relationships in your life? What are your values? How do you see yourself in 20 or 30 years time? Everyone has a different answer, and that’s because everyone is different. As a result, every plan is different and is built to the specifications of each person.
Together, we help you build that plan that gives you the best shot of reaching your goals. But this isn’t the type of plan that’s set in stone, because life happens, and certain events might require you to adjust your plan. In fact, the plan is really more of a process that helps you think through a range of possible outcomes — all the way from preparing for the worst to hoping for the best.
Investing, like life is complex and full of uncertainty. This is why in our core portfolios, we endeavour to construct it based on financial science and evidence-based methodologies. These type of strategies provide the best chance of long-term investment success, as well as providing us with the boundaries of best and worst cases.
While helping you to experience investment success is definitely one of our goals for you, we have other goals as well. We want to lower your anxiety so as to help you feel better about your life in the now, so you can spend more time — and better time — with the people you care about most, with a focus on what you value in life.
Money can be a route to happiness, but there is likely much more outside of that. If you can achieve your goals, have peace of mind, and feel comfortable with the memories and legacy you want to leave behind, then maybe that’s part of true happiness. And we are here to help you accomplish that.
