A Price Tag On Happiness

"I've been rich and I've been poor,"said actress Mae West. "Believe me, rich is better."

Everybody says that money can't buy happiness, but the truth is that poverty's not much fun either. A certain amount of money is necessary for peace of mind. Making ends meet and living hand-to-mouth can wear a person down, and psychiatrists have long warned that financial stress can caus depression.

Everyone feels more comfortable with a certain amount of money in the bank -saving for a rainy day. But how much is that certain amount? Perhaps it's what it would take to tide you over if you had no work for one year, or maybe five. Certainly no one would object to having enough in the bank to keep them fed and warm the rest of their lives.

But how much is the magic number? With rent, car payments and college tuition for the kids, many couples are afraid they'll never have a chance to save anything for a comfortable retirement.

Now some researchers in the United States contend that money, in fact, can buy happiness, and they know exactly how much it will takes $1.5 million to move you from a point where you're unhappy to a point where you're happy,"says one of the authors of the study.

That makes sense if you consider that the average American earns and spends over a million dollars over the course of his lifetime. Having an extra half million in reserve is enough of a safety net to provide peace of mind for just about anyone.

So now that we know what number to aim for, how do we go about getting it? Unfortunately, the researchers didn't have any suggestions to solve that problem.