Money CAN Buy Happiness....You Just Need to Know How to Shop

Even Forbes magazine says that money can't buy happiness.
But The Raving Lunatic begs to differ.

It isn't so much that money can buy you happiness, but being flat dead broke is certain to put you on a path to misery. If you've ever been in the situation where you have to decide whether to pay bills or to eat, it's not a fun place to be. Certainly not a happy place to be....unless you have the right drugs, but even those cost money lest you want the dopeman on your doorstep at 4 in the morning with a shotgun.

I'm not talking about those times in college that you ate Ramen noodles and drank 99 cent 40 ounce bottle of Lucky lager from the discount grocery store that sold green meat (and I mean rotten "green" not eco-hippie "green"). No, I'm talking about actual survival. If you have ever lost a job, or had a spouse lose their job or been in the situation where your income was either drastically reduced or cut off entirely, THAT is the kind of broke I'm writing about.  The kind of broke where your stuff begins to get repossessed or your lights get turned off.

THAT kind of broke.

Thanks to our wonderful New Economy (I love that marketing term. Government speak for "all the billionaires are fucking you), this has become a very real situation for many who never thought they would be in that situation.

I've been there myself.
It ain't fun.

Currently, I work in a pretty affluent suburb of Seattle. While running some errands the other day, I saw a woman holding a sign on a freeway off ramp: "Lost My Job. Kids to Feed. I Never Thought I'd Be Here."
I would guess that she was in her mid to late 20's, dressed as many middle-class women in that age group dress. Designer jeans, nice blouse, those ballet style shoes that bug the crap out of me.

But she was balling her eyes out as she paced up and down the on ramp with this sign. She was crying the kind of tears one might cry after watching their family get butchered by O.J.

There are thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, are finding themselves having to resort to things they never thought they would have to do as a result of our New Economy while the billionaires continue to profit off of everyone else's struggles.

We've all heard the stories of the Depression era people who have money in shoe boxes or curtain rods because they don't trust the banks or the market, the people who are so cheap you can hear them squeak when they reach into their pockets.

That's me.

I drive a car that's almost old enough to have it's own driver's license. I wash it and wax it and maintain it religiously so that it will last another decade.....besides, just because your car is old doesn't mean it has to look like shit. On the rare occasions that I buy new clothes, it's always off the sale rack or from the discount stores. I buy my outdoor in the off seasons. When I do go out on the town it's because I have a Groupon to someplace.

Why?

Because I've been on the brink of losing what I have. I've had my car repossessed. I've been evicted because I couldn't pay rent. Granted, many of those situations were due to the fact that I didn't manage my own finances very well. But I guarantee that when the repo man drags your  car off in the middle of the night, the feeling is still the same no matter whose fault it is. You get sick inside when you come home to the little boot thing that prevents you from opening the front door of your apartment and the big yellow eviction notice no matter whose fault it is.

While it may be true that money can't buy happiness, having enough money to live on without having to worry about your next meal or paying the bills certainly relieves a lot of stress, and that in and of itself is happiness. Having enough financial well being to be able to do things you enjoy is happiness.

While I might be happier with a brand new Porsche parked in the garage of my beach front bungalow, it isn't about the things. It's about knowing that you can afford to get by day to day without having to stand on an off ramp in the suburbs holding a sign up and crying your eyes out to feed your family.

That is the kind of happiness that only money can bring.