a fifo wife {fifo life: something I wish some one had told me: money doesn’t buy happiness..

My father said to me as we walked around Big W I bet you would buy the whole store if you could. I didn’t stop walking to answer but kept striding towards the checkout because when shopping with my father it’s a never a stroll or a browse it’s a get in get out scenario. No I said I want for nothing in life. Really he said doubting me. Actually no I said that’s a lie. Ah he said thinking he was about to get the answer he was predictably waiting for. What I want is for you and mum to move here and be here for the boys and I followed that up with I want FIFO husband and I to be the first ones to show the boys the world. Those are my wants in life. Not any of this I said pointing to the aisles this is just stuff to me. Is that all he said? will that make you happy he said? Yes I replied. I’m the same he said..so what was he surprised I thought.

Whilst I like the latest fashions, newest gizmo’s I don’t have any of them my 15 year old analogue that we have repaired three times TV says that. Things they don’t make me happy. I learnt that long ago and as much as money can make things easier let’s be honest being poor is not good for your health or happiness having money or more of it makes you no happier than if you had just an average income.

I remember as child driving through an affluent Darwin neighbourhood and saying I wish I was rich as I looked at a house overlooking the Casuarina Beach cliffs. A friend of my father who was in the car and was visiting said to me no Deb the more money you make the more troubles you will often have. Money brings with it its own problems and I have found the more money we make the more troubles we have and whilst it’s not in comparison to someone else who has less than I; still they are problems that don’t make bring me happiness.

Researchers say people are most happiest when they are have learnt to be grateful for the good things in their lives, have fulfilling relationships and are optimistic. I am happiest when we are all squeezed in driving our beat up old truck. I’m happiest when I’m eating dinner with my family, picking my husband up from work. I learnt to be grateful for what I have for things money can’t buy. To take notice and appreciate what makes me smile and its moments like the end of another day and dawn of another morning. The smile I get when I collect my boys from school. I am grateful for my husband arriving home from work safely. I appreciate the people in my community both online and off. I am grateful for hearing my neighbours’ infectious laugh almost every single morning. I could go on but you get the gist. Money can’t buy those things that make me smile; make me feel safe and content. It can’t buy my ultimate happiness.

Yet I wasn’t always this way this grateful or unmaterialistic I would be lying if I said I was. Like most when I was young things and money meant a lot. They made me happy. Buying stuff made me happy and I thought having money was the key to happiness. I wish someone had told me different but perhaps they did and I was to arrogant to listen and so I learnt the hard way. It was a simple lesson learnt but with a lot of heart ache. My husband my then boyfriend took a posting to the to the West which ultimately was a deployment to Afghanistan. He was amongst the first deployed when the word war was being thrown around. Deployed and weeks of semi regular phone calls had passed  it was midnight one night when he called. He and I were chatting…then there was a bang…then there was nothing for ten days. Nothing from nobody. The dark is never more scary. Ever.

If I could I would have put all that money back into the defence forces account just for a phone call from someone. I was alone in city where I knew no one. All I had was my posses of dogs. I wasn’t happy. Nothing I brought made me happy. None of the latest gizmos we had made me happy. The stuff that surrounded me that we had brought together made me happy. Nothing. It was just stuff. We had done this deployment for the money to buy more stuff it was simple as that and In knew it and only after the fact that bang did I hate that idea. This deployment was worth $30 000.00 dollars to us. That money brought me nothing but unhappiness and it was during those days of not hearing from him knowing nothing of his safety that I vowed I would never consider money as a route to happiness ever again because without him happiness was non existence. Happiness in my world now and then can be described as the sound of his voice something money can’t buy.

Happiness is more a learnt behaviour it’s not dependent on what’s in your bank account. Research says 60% of person’s capacity for positive emotion is due to their nature and the rest can be learnt. Self taught and I had a lot of self teaching to do. I have failed many times but finally I am at point in my life where I can honestly say my happiness stems from the little things not by the big things money has brought. Studies by a generation of behavioural scientists show that material goods often fail to deliver lasting happiness and it’s true currently I am cash poor I have exactly $232.00 left in my bank account to last me until next fortnight and this must feed and water us but I couldn’t be happier because I don’t require anything else.  Researchers in a recent study followed thousands of people in Germany who moved to a new home because there was something they didn’t like about their old home. In the five years after moving, the residents reported a significant increase in satisfaction with their home, but not their lives. Buying a new home a grand new thing did nothing to make them any happier.

Yet to say I want to take my kids around the world? Slightly hypocritical? It cost money however experiential purchases — such as my longed dreamed trip of around the world, concerts and parties are more about making us who we are and its comes with the benefit that money can buy. These experimental purchases tend to make us closer to other people, develop understandings of each other and the world as a whole and decades of research point to the importance of social contact for improving mental and physical health.

So can money buy happiness? Ultimately no but perhaps when used in the right way it can. My trip is a gift to my children. To show them the world and in experiments conducted around the world it’s been proven thousands of times over people always are always happier when paying it forward, buying something for someone else or  giving back than treating themselves to the latest Gucci heels.