There seems to be a reasonable amount of research out there now suggesting that over the level of meeting our needs, money is going to have a less direct impact on our happiness. And once above that level, we're better to focus on satisfying wants of experience, rather than "wants' for more expensive versions of the same thing (larger houses, cars, refrigerators etc).
The WSJ pointed out some interesting points raised by recent research (Can Money Buy Happiness? Here’s What Science Has to Say - WSJ). “What we find is that there’s this huge misforecast...People think that experiences are only going to provide temporary happiness, but they actually provide both more happiness and more lasting value.” And, crucially, we tend not to compare our experiences with other people so much. “Keeping up with the Joneses is much more prominent for material things than for experiential things,”
Experiences are perhaps more personal, and as such are harder to compare with friends, colleagues and rivals. Unfortunately, the ubiquity of our social media tools to record those experiences perhaps drives us to try to keep up with the Joneses more than we used to.
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