Happy Money, 5 ways
Ask me on a good day and I’ll tell you how much money can make me happy. Spas, wine, good food, presents for my nephew. A better place, one day a palace, who knows. Buy, hey, I’m only one, and that makes my opinions anecdotes. And, what do we do here? We try and base our newsletters on theory, evidence, or at least believable supporting statements.
Thus, let us review 5 points that increase your likelihood of having a nice healthy loving relationship with money.
To summarise, these are:
Share the love
Buy more experiences than things
Buy Time
Pay Now, Get Later
Treat Yourself
Oh! Share da love, baby!
People who say that money can't buy happiness were never broke. But it’s not that simple.
Setting aside extreme cases of poverty or below the acceptable quality of life conditions, money is more emotional and complicated than it is rational. Humans own money, and humans are not always rational. Mo’ money doesn’t relate to mo’ problems, and neither to mo’ happiness.
Humans are also social animals. At times, pro-social. In a Ted Talk, Michael Norton explains that when we are selfish without money spending, happiness is fleeting. In other words. When we only spend money on ourselves, we are not happy for long. We feel disconnected from people, and we lose emotional connection--and happiness-- with money and the products we buy.
Let’s consider the opposite. Spreading the love, buying stuff for people, or with people. Now, in this lovey-Dovey scenario, we feel happier, we feel connected. Mind you, this does not mean buying presents for people all the time. Money could go to charity, to buying a coffee for a friend, or…yea, presents. Now, we feel happy.
I’m not trying to speak in the voice of Norton, but I don’t think the suggestion is to give away all of your income. That’d be naive. Just keep in mind to share the love.
Experiences over toys
Take this point with flexibility. After all, some products come with experiences.
However, often objects are just what they are. Objects. The pleasure of owning a new object is fleeting, it doesn’t linger as much as memories do.
What are the chances of you talking highly about the pair of shoes you bought in June 2022 in 2044? Now, what are the chances you’d be talking about that trip to Thailand?
Be creative. Solution-based mind state. What’s on your bucket list?
Take that hedonic treadmill to the curb. Throw it in the trash, and take your car to the rock climbing place in town.
Time after Time
This goes to those with a bit of a bigger budget. Money can make you happy if you use it to outsource.
Ramit Sethi talks often about this. The best way to improve your quality of life is to buy back time. How? Depending on budget, that might be an app to automate some parts of your life, or a driver, a cleaner, or order good food instead of cooking. You get the drift, but after all, it depends on you.
Me?
I’d start with a coffee maker that knows when I wake up and lets me find a hot cup of coffee.
Afterpay? More like After-NAY
Regardless of the perceived convenience of buying now-paying later, these tactics more often than not lead us to feel anxious, and start doubting our purchases. Not to mention all the possibilities of biting off more than we can chew…
Instead, pay now and get later seems to be the solution to the post-purchase dissonance.
You spend the money and feel bad for a second, but when your purchase is in your hands you have forgotten all about it and it feels like a present.
You just enjoy your toys…oops, I mean purchase (Who am I kidding? Yes, I collect toys).
Can this be the reason for the success and pleasure of what we know as unboxing? Ah, Amazon, Amazon. Always getting it right.
Don’t forget yourself.
If you eat at that fancy restaurant every week, it stops being special.
You find yourself on a Sunday morning crying over all the money you lost on sushi, and an empty bank account mocking you.
Make it a treat, buy things just once in a while. Do something nice for yourself, buy something nice to wear on your next sushi date. Make it special.