Money makes things a little easier by providing you with a bit more self-esteem and confidence, but despite the fact that I earn above the national average I still couldn't get a girlfriend to save my life (not that I want one anymore or ever again) as not only would any that I'd approve of not love me back, but I am also useless at advanced social skills (which is what this comes under) I only have intermediate at best. In this instance money has probably accounted for 12% of the 13% adequency that I have/had to be able to date or be a good boyfriend.
Money allows one to cover all the basics in order to be in the group that is “most happy”.
How much do you need to earn to be happy?
Likely the ability to fend off problems that not having money can cause: a leaky roof, a broken furnace, or an inoperable automobile.
Money allows one to hire other people to do the things that you may not want to do: a cleaning person, a gardener, a cook.
Money allows one to hire experts to do things that you cannot do: a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.
When rearing children money can be extremely useful in hiring tutors to help overcome areas of study where there is a deficit.
The extreme extension of this hiring people to do things for your children would be a boarding school. Boarding schools greatly increases children's chances of economic success, by a whole lot (food, shelter, safety, structure, tutors, eyes on the kids at most times). Those rich folks have it figured out, and it works.
Money makes saving or earning more money profoundly easier.
Earning money from stock dividends and the like is as close as you can get to free money, in my experience it is really nice. Compound interest is mind-boggling crazy powerful.
Buying in bulk when a staple, like toilet tissue, is on sale saves people who can afford to buy in bulk some money, while the poor folks need to buy the item at whatever the given price is when they choose to buy it. The poor folks suffer from lack of money to take advantage of opportunity.
Money allows one to spend it on leisure activities, and reduces stress.
Now there is a point where money can no longer fend off otherwise stressful random life events like a broken car. Fending off stress normally leads to being happy. At some point you have the money to rent, or buy a new car . . . or likely have extra cars about. It would seem that from the story above that point of money having a diminishing return towards buying happiness is ~$75,000 per year.
A guy (or girl) with a nice expensive house, that is immaculately clean via a cleaning person, nicely decorated by a tasteful decorator, has some expensive furniture, and has pictures of trips to seven-wonders-of-the-world type places hanging on the wall would impress a girl (or guy).
That rich guy (or girl) will have a greater chance of second date than that guy living in a one bedroom apartment right next to the elevated train, strewn with pizza boxes, and smelling of old socks.
Picture the parents of a nice young lady (or gentleman) visiting both homes, and how they would react differently to each. The young lady (or gentleman) will likely be given many positive reinforcements about the rich guy (or gal), and not nearly as many as the poor guy (or gal).
Women have it easier because men chase women and lesser so the other way around. You go on a dating site (I never will again in my life) men chase women and rarely the other way around.
I was watching some teenybopper television show on Netflix, out of sure curiosity. It perplexed me that it was somehow possible for a show to be on for five seasons, yet be rated 1.5 / 5.0 stars. The Secret Life of the American Teenager, I think.
In the show they were talking about how 25% of 15-year-old boys have sex, and 20% of girls. That made me think that perhaps those 25% of boys are hooking up with the 20% of girls.
An ugly woman is still beautiful to and pursued by many ugly guys but an ugly guy still has to go far out of his way for a lover (not that I consider myself ugly by any means). Many aspie men just aren't mentally equipped for romantic relationships, other than myself I can think of 2 or 3 other aspies who've struggled with a gf or never dated.
Money makes women settle for less attractive guys. There is a study I watched where they would show pictures to girls, and say would you date him? And then say would you date him if I told you that he earned $100,000 a year? No's became yes's.
I have Asperger’s Syndrome and I have the ability to blend in like a chameleon . . . most of the time. When stressed or tired I lose my chameleon. I have seasonal affective disorder so mostly in the winter it becomes an issue. Not so much now that I am being treated for Asperger’s Syndrome and seasonal affective disorder.
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I am married to a special education teacher, and she has a great deal of patience. I still have my moments where I cannot remain calm, and I panic.
[I would recommend taking some teaching classes, lots of strong willed opinionated (bossy) extroverted women, and those seem like they would go well with guys with Asperger’s Syndrome.]
I have been working a great deal of overtime selling seasonal insurance, to earn some money while I can. So most of my time is spent at work. I normally sell items on eBay to make some money, and try to contribute to the household.
I needed to get some eBay packages shipped, or they would be late. This is stressful for me because my eBay score was ruined by a friend helping me list items while I had a pinched nerve that made it difficult to type.
He listed an item that I have multiples of on eBay for $50, when I explicitly told him that the item of which I have multiples of was to be listed for $200. I even used the words, “I do not care if it takes 7-years to sell them, they will all sell for $200 each”. This item was a rare find, a lucky find, and is a treasure to me . . . hands-down my best Kickstarter item yet. I likely will not be able to spend $260 and turn it into potentially $5,200 again any time soon.
Sixteen of them sold overnight. I was pissed, and cancelled the sixteen eBay orders. The buyers buying the $200 items for $50 were then pissed at me, and were claiming that I was somehow taking advantage of people by trying to sell them for $200. eBay said it sucks to be you. My score dropped, I have to pay more to ship items, my items are at the bottom of the list, they keep telling me that they can hold my money in PayPal for something crazy like 21-days, and I sold less items DURING CHRISTMAS when I should have been selling things like crazy. It was a mess, and it still is a mess.
A friend (she has Asperger’s Syndrome as well) would have been able to help me pack, if my wife was home to help bring items up from the basement. Not many, maybe six, and the rest were packs of cards in a Target bag (I had to pack seven packs of Cards Against Humanity expansions, that were Target exclusives, that I drove all over buying all I could find when they went on clearance).
My friend cannot maneuver in my basement. I need to clean it, and organize it. It is a mess due to moving a table from the basement to upstairs for a board game night. It had some stuff on it that is now stacked on the floor, in the basement. We have a bed frame in the basement I need to do something with that is in the way. I also got a shipment of Kickstarter board games in the mail that I need to sort and store for selling on eBay. I also have some Lego's I bought that need to be sorted and stored for eBay.
My computer desk (where I sell eBay items from) is covered with stuff that was not mine, thus making using the computer difficult and uncomfortable to use for my eBay business.
My wife volunteered to clean up my desk (none of the mess was mine). This made me quite happy.
The next day instead of cleaning up my desk, she and my two children were invited to go to the arcade with another family, and let the kids play. This was okay, but I was just too tired to pack after work.
The day after my wife, along with my two children, planed to go skiing with her brother at the last minute. This is okay, but I need to pack, and I am too tired from working overtime.
She said that she could help me pack before work, and before they went skiing.
I was panicking in the morning as I needed to mail a bunch of packages. She said that she would help me, but the children were waking up and wanted things that children want.
I could not find my favorite scissors I bought especially so that I would always have a pair on hand. This is a common theme in my life, buying extra things so that I know where they are, and having people use them anyway, and never putting them back.
So I was panicked, and upset, and rushing off to the post office, and the rushing off to work so that I would not be late and loose my seasonal bonus (come on time for these three months and get a higher commission bonus, and an extra $500).
But all in all I try to make sure to apologies if I become frustrated. Frustrated looks like anger to many people. No matter how many times I say that I am frustrated, she reads it as anger. They are not the same thing. All the same I apologize to everyone. We need to keep this frustration seeming to be anger confusion in mind, and in check.