For the very rich, all the Rolexes and rare Labubus in the world may still fail to fill whatever void they are trying to patch. But for everyone else, the idea that money cannot buy happiness can sound less like wisdom and more like a luxury belief.
Eleanor Margolis, writing in a column for the i newspaper and Diva, argues that the familiar saying rests on a narrow view of what money is actually for. If money is used only to buy objects, she suggests, then the pleasure it brings is likely to be shallow and short-lived. But that is not the same as saying money has no power to make life better.
Her point begins with the everyday realities of modern life. With wages having stalled for nearly 20 years, even ordinary shopping can feel absurdly punishing. Margolis points to the experience of seeing a tube of toothpaste priced at nearly £7 in her local Sainsbury’s as a reminder that basic necessities are no longer always cheap or simple.
From that perspective, the claim that money cannot buy happiness feels detached from the pressures many people face. A person paying too much rent, she argues, would almost certainly be happier if they owned a home outright. The value of money, in other words, is not only in what it purchases, but in what it removes: stress, instability and the constant strain of having too little.
Margolis also pushes back against the idea that a meaningful life is built mainly through possessions. She accepts that spending money on expensive watches, designer items or other status symbols is not the route to lasting satisfaction. By comparison, time with the people you love matters more. But even that, she notes, is not free. In a world where more and more basic human needs have been commodified, free time itself has become a scarce resource.
Money, time and the modern version of happiness
This is where her argument becomes broader than simple consumerism. Under the current stage of capitalism, as she describes it, more money often means more time. It can mean fewer hours spent worrying about bills, less time tied up in exhausting work, and more room to pursue interests, relationships and activities that actually give life meaning.
That does not mean wealth guarantees happiness. Margolis is clear that buying more things is not the answer. But she challenges the assumption that money and happiness are unrelated. If money can buy safety, space, leisure and the chance to focus on what matters, then it can certainly improve a person’s life in ways that go well beyond the temporary thrill of a purchase.
Her case is a pragmatic one. For the super-rich, another luxury watch or an impossible-to-find collectible may make little difference. For most people, however, financial security has a more direct and tangible connection to wellbeing. It can mean not having to choose between comfort and crisis, between work and rest, or between surviving and living.
The argument is not that money solves everything. Rather, it is that the old phrase about money not buying happiness leaves out too much. In a time when even toothpaste can feel like a splurge, money may not be enough on its own, but it can still buy the conditions that make happiness more possible.
