Money is Everything

We’re constantly told that money isn’t everything. It’s said confidently, as if dispensing ancient wisdom. Sometimes it’s said smugly, by people for whom money exists only as an abstract concept, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. For them, money fades into the background, like plumbing. It works. It’s assumed.

Sometimes it’s said bitterly, by people who know money matters but have decided pretending otherwise hurts less. These souls live in quiet resignation, repeating the phrase like a spell. They say it the way one says “it builds character” after losing something that mattered. It’s a coping mechanism. A way to survive a system that keeps raising prices while lowering expectations. Convince yourself that money doesn’t matter, and you don’t have to face how badly you’ve been cornered. Either way, the line is delivered with the same airless assurance, as if it settles the matter for all time.

It doesn’t. It never has. And today, it sounds obscene.

Money may not buy happiness in the abstract, but neither does oxygen guarantee joy—and you notice quickly when it’s gone. In an era of rising rents, shrinking wages, exploding grocery bills and medical costs, money forms the foundation beneath almost every aspect of modern life. Not luxury. Not indulgence. But stability, dignity, freedom from constant calculation.

What money buys now is not yachts or champagne fountains. It buys time. The luxury of not panicking every time an email subject line reads “Important update.” It gives you the ability to handle a medical emergency without losing the roof over your head. A broken boiler becomes an inconvenience, not a catastrophe. A sick day doesn’t trigger a financial spiral. A day off becomes possible rather than perilous.

This is the part vague platitudes carefully avoid. Money buys insulation—from stress, chaos, the grinding humiliation of living one setback away from disaster. And stress isn’t a harmless inconvenience. It relentlessly degrades the body, driving blood pressure up, straining the heart, weakening immunity, distorting metabolism. and shortening life expectancy.

Sometimes people spiral because they’re weak. More often, they spiral because scarcity rewires the brain. When every decision is filtered through fear, life becomes Sisyphean, an exhausting repetition with no sense of progress. Try meditating your way out of overdraft fees. Try gratitude journaling when the electricity is about to be shut off. Money may not buy happiness, but its absence reliably purchases misery.

Raising a child in the United States now runs north of $20,000 a year, which sounds manageable until you remember that today’s children often stay on the payroll into their 30s. This doesn’t mean money guarantees fulfillment. Plenty of wealthy people are miserable. But notice the nature of their misery. They’re bored, restless, unfulfilled. They’re not choosing between insulin and avoiding eviction.

For everyone else, money determines the shape of daily life. It determines how much sleep you get, how often you see a doctor and a dentist, how much patience you have with your children, how much energy you have for your partner, creativity or your faith. When money’s tight, everything shrinks. The future becomes a threat instead of a plan.

We pretend it’s vulgar to say this. We dress the denial up in the language of humility, strength, and resilience. We warn against materialism while quietly constructing a society where material security is the prerequisite for almost everything good. Then we scold people for noticing.

Money isn’t everything. Try explaining that at the checkout. In this moment, with prices soaring and safety nets breaking, money’s become less about status and more about survival with your sanity intact. To deny that is dishonesty rooted in ignorance. The American dream still exists, but only for those earning six figures. And even then, one bad year can undo it. The irritating phrase survives because it flatters those who don’t need it and consoles those who can’t escape its absence.