Money is a product of culture rather than nature, but people use money to satisfy many of
their most basic and natural desires. Being able to buy the things one needs had a significant positive
relationship to happiness but was irrelevant to meaning. Another item that asked about being able to
buy the things one wants (as opposed to needs) yielded quite similar results. Scarcity of money
reduced both meaningfulness and happiness, but the effect was considerably larger on happiness
than meaningfulness. In terms of variance accounted for, monetary scarcity was twenty times more
detrimental to happiness (5%) than to meaning (0.25%). Overall, then, having sufficient money to
purchase objects of desire (both necessities and luxuries) was important for happiness but made little
difference as to whether life was meaningful.