I frequently hear people say ‘More money than sense’ when they speak of overpriced items. A long time before I heard the phrase, I came up with ‘More dollars than sense’. (Not to say I was the first one to say it of course; just that I came up with the phrase without having heard a similar phrase.) The way I say it, it’s a bit of a pun: dollars vs. ‘cents’. Money and ‘cents’ are the same thing. But a quick google search turns up 9,480 hits on the phrase as I say it, and 113,000 hits on the ‘money’ phrase.
So what is the origin of the phrase, and (google aside) which is the preferred phrasing?
Almost. [Having] “more money than sense” aplies to the person who buys something that is overpriced or useless. Using “dollars” makes a cute pun, but clouds the meaning with confusion over whether the last word is “sense” or “cents”. It really isn’t clever or funny enough (sorry) to be worth the corresponding reduction in clarity.