If money can't buy you happiness, what do you do? If you're Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder, you give it all away, right down to the last penny, or, in his case, euro.

"My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," Rabeder, 47, told The Daily Telegraph of London. "Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.".....

On the block, or already sold, is his luxury villa with lake in the Alps, his 42-acre estate in France, his six gliders, and the interior furnishings and accessories business that got him rich in the first place.

Actually, everyone will get the chance to live the Alpine luxury lifestyle, because Rabeder has decided to raffle off his home at $134 a ticket.

When every penny of his estimated $4.7 million fortune is gone, he says, he intends to move into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a studio in Innsbruck.

Link: http://www.aolnews.com/mo...2F19356181
[Edited 2/17/10 0:58am]

okay....who is gonna get a ticket?

God, he could just donate to charity or start his own...this is like a huge temper tantrum or something. Either that or a bid for attention.

Well let him throw his attention my way. I'm paying for school!

Hmm... If he's giving away his entire fortune, why would I want it? There MUST be something wrong with it.

well, i guess he's going to Heaven for sure...

We Austrians always had a weird sense of humour.

Norm MacDonald, guesting on The Howard Stern Show in 2008, quoted Omar Sharif: "One time, I lose $6 million. I go across the street to a coffee shop - I have one dollar left - and I get a coffee. I feel clean!"

Not that Norm is (nor am I) recommending throwing away all of your money, but I think the gist of it here is, "Mo' money, mo' problems". Having lived (somewhat of) the high life myself, I, too, have found that the simpler my existence, the easier it is to be happy.

Of course, if you have kids you wanna send through college and/or you plan on getting old, you'll wanna squirrel away some dough.

purplesweat said:

Ace said:

I don't know if I agree with the "mo money mo problems" theory.

I do think that no amount of money ever seems to be enough, but I also think that for those who truly struggle, not having enough money always seems like the biggest source of problems.

Maybe once you have a lot of money, other issues come to the forefront, like your morality, your mortality, having a purpose in life, etc.

But it seems that generally it's rich people who have the luxury of deciding to "live a simple life."

Lammastide said:

now why do you have to bring the curses?!

NDRU said:

I think, more accurately, it should be, "Way mo' money, mo' problems". I think the stress comes in when there is an obsession with making more and more or maintaining a high-rolling lifestyle.


See, here I'd disagree. I believe that if you have the dough to put a roof over your head, food on your table and provide for your children's education and your old age, you've got enough.


For me, it was just a realization that the stress involved in accumulating huge amounts of money isn't worthwhile. I mean, what can you buy with it that's going to substantially impact your happiness, long-term? I've experienced that lifestyle and - I'm here to tell ya - the rich are no happier than those of average means. Typical of happiness studies being done now:




I would say it's rich people who've had the luxury of seeing that the grass isn't necessarily greener. The amount who've realized it seems to be the minority, though.

Good points, I'll only add that I said "no amount of money ever seems to be enough"

But we always seem to make due with whatever amount we have, too. So unless we die of starvation, it is always enough! Depends on how you look at it. But it never seems like enough and that's how you get caught up in that very stressful cycle of constantly trying to make more, as you described.

SUPRMAN said:

hate when that happens.