Morgan Housel: Understand & Apply the Psychology of Money to Gain Greater Happiness

The trait that you need to do well with money over time, no matter who you are, is a well-calibrated sense of your future regret.

I think a good formula for a pretty good life at the simplest level is independence plus purpose.

What you want more than anything in life is what you want and cannot have. That's what you're going to chase with all of your effort is the thing that you want and cannot have.

Freedom does not mean you do nothing. It doesn't necessarily mean you retire; it doesn't mean you quit working. I want to be free and independent, which means I want to wake up every morning and say, I can do whatever the hell I want today—even if most mornings what I want to do is work and be productive and put myself to use.

Using money as a tool can make you happier. Spending money can make you happier. But it's not the thing that is making you happier. It's just a tool to do other things and acquire other things that are actually making you happy.

Every dollar that you don't spend is money that you are actually spending on independence ... That's why I save money.

There is not one right way to manage money, to save it, to spend it. You have figure out what works for you; and what works for me might not work for you. There's not one answer.

You are very aware of how much you've changed in the last 20 years ... But most people, if you actually dig into it, they think, if you say, 'Who will you be in 20 years from now?,' they think they'll roughly be the same person they are today. It's always this belief that 'I have grown so much in the past, but I'm done growing.'

The average family is richer than they've ever been. But because we manage it in such extreme ways, is it making people happier? Are we happier today than we were 40 years ago or 100 years ago? That there's not a ton of evidence for.

Money absolutely can buy happiness. It's often, though, an indirect path.

No one is really that crazy with how they spend their money or save their money. It makes sense to them in that moment.

All behavior makes sense with enough information.

The reason that you are happier when you were rich is because the reason you got rich is because you found some sort of purpose—you built a business, you were successful in your career, and that gave you a good sense of purpose and identity.

Some of the most money insecure people you'll ever meet are the richest people you'll ever meet.