Frittering money away on material goods will never bring lasting contentment to anybody; ill or well. It just provides temporary diversion from the real issues. That's why people are always buying new things, most of it useless junk. It's like a drug, they have to get their fix of a latest purchase. If they're not spending, they're being downloaded by TV, yapping pointless gibberish in to mobiles, or blasting their minds out with music. They never just STOP. If they did, they might have to think, and that's far too scary.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it does give you options, as I think PDW was expressing ie you could get away from annoying co-workers, live in a preferred neighbourhood etc.
The system we live in isn't intended to aid personal contentment. Money makes the world go round, and that's certainly true, because we live in a world controlled by those who control the money. The vast majority of ordinary people were born in to this system, and accept it as natural. They never question it.
Everything in this system came in to being through labour (which is the system of the 'elite'). It's like training a rat to pull a lever to get a reward. Money is the reward for the expenditure of labour. Then they tax you a percentage of that labour so they can pay for other labour to keep the system going, or pay for police/army to keep you in check. So money keeps the system in place.
Luke 20:21-26 So the spies questioned Jesus: "Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" He saw through their duplicity and said to them, "Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?". "Caesar's," they replied. He said to them, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent. (NIV translation)