I think that there is a major difference between pleasure and hapiness. Pleasure is temporary and is mostly connected with the physical world (property, sexual satisfaction, drugs etc) while hapiness is a continuous condition as a result of the correct fullfilment of physical,mental and emotional needs.
When it comes to money, as a result of the monetary system and an imaginery story which connected everyone through their common belief in it, we have to recognize the importance of it since it is possibly the most effective way to aquire the necessary services in the modern society. So having money allows you to purchase the physical objects needed to satisfy your needs. So the real question is how can you define the needs of every different individual? You cant. Every person has his own thoughts, experiences and desires (except the biological ones). But what you can do is to bombard them with thousands of messages in a daily basis affecting their subconscious (not the conscious part, otherwise we would just choose not to see). In that way you can indirectly connect the physical world with specific emotions, experiences etc. This is how you get people thinking about Love as a materialistic circus with chocolate, flowers, expensive honey moon trips and so on.
So in the end I would pressume that money is an essential tool to accomplish some of your needs and experience pleasure while your conscious rejection of them and the focus on other amazing spiritual searches will eventually lead into hapiness.
The trick is to find the golden ratio (Χρυσή Τομή aka Φ as we call it in Greek) between the time needed to aquire the necessary money/resources and the time spent relaxing without worrying about numbers printed in dirty papers ;)