“People are unhappiest in elegant palaces.”

Written by Ece Yildirim – CNBC

to Charlie Munger Living in a relatively modest house was no accident: it was a conscious decision.

Munger, the billionaire investor and longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, He died on Tuesday at the age of 99. before I recorded an extensive interview with CNBC News journalist and anchor Becky Quick, which aired Tuesday, in which Munger explains her reasons for living in the same house in California for the past 70 years.

[Los estadounidenses dicen que el dinero sí compra la felicidad: cuál es su precio según una nueva encuesta]

″[Buffett y yo] “We’re smart enough to watch our friends build these very luxurious homes,” Munger said. “I would say that in almost every case, they’ve made people more miserable, not happier.”

There’s a benefit to a “basic home,” Munger explained, acknowledging that a larger home can help you entertain more people, but that’s about it. “It’s very expensive and doesn’t do you any good.”

Another disadvantage of owning a huge mansion is that such an ostentatious display of wealth can spoil children by urging them to “live in grandeur.”

Munger had nine children from two marriages, including two stepchildren and a son who died of leukemia when he was 9 years old.

″[Buffett y yo] “We were both thinking about bigger and better houses. I had a lot of kids, so it was justified and I still decided not to live a life where I looked like the Duke of Westchester or something,” he said. I was going to avoid that and I did it on purpose. I didn’t think it would be good for kids.“he added.

[El 60% de adultos en EE.UU. viven de cheque a cheque y 1 de cada 4 está peor de dinero que en 2022]

As Munger alluded to, he and Buffett lived similarly: the 93-year-old billionaire He bought his home in Omaha, Nebraska, for $31,500 in 1958, and has lived there ever since. His quality of life “would be worse if he had six or eight houses,” he said in 2014 at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.

Munger often preached the advantages of modest living, offering advice such as “Don’t be too envious” and “Don’t waste your income.” In the interview, he attributed his success and longevity to his long-standing sense of caution and his ability to “avoid all common paths to failure.”

“Avoid madness at all costs,” he said. “Insanity is more common than you think, and it’s easy to fall into insanity. Just avoid it, avoid it, avoid it.”