Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton’s 2010 finding—that emotional well-being levels off around a $75,000 annual income—got overturned when Matthew Killingsworth tracked real-time moods of 33,000 people and saw happiness keep rising past $200,000. When all three re-analyzed the data in 2023, they confirmed money does buy happiness for nearly everyone. The lone exception: those starting from the lowest levels of well-being. Beyond roughly $100,000, extra income stops lifting their mood. Happiness, the author argues, is really the absence of worry. He walks you through a mental exercise: picture your ideal life, then notice it’s mainly your current life minus dread, inbox stress or looming deadlines. Epicurus called this ataraxia, freedom from disturbance. Schopenhauer noted we notice pain immediately but take its absence for granted. Once you see happiness as worry deletion, money becomes a tool for erasing stress—and it does so in predictable layers: first rent, food and emergencies; then healthcare and job-loss buffers; next obligations like bosses or irksome meetings; finally time you owe others. The catch comes when you start tying your self-worth to your bank balance. Praise for sales numbers or that first bonus can program you to equate earnings with identity. As income climbs, so does the fear of losing it. Every revenue dip or client departure feels like a personal failure. The agency I ran once hit €50,000 a month and I slept worse than I did at €10,000 a year. When it collapsed, the real sting wasn’t just the financial loss—it was the collapse of my self-image.