Maybe money can buy happiness after all
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Shopping
Money, it seems, just might be able to buy you a bit of happiness this holiday season. Or so says research from the University of British Columbia and Harvard University. The good news: It doesn't matter how much you make, because you can spend as little as $5 to get happy. But there's a catch: In order for your money to make you happy, you've got to spend it on others. Not yourself. Sounds like the perfect reason to pick up a little "extra something" for a loved one or co-worker.
What's the link?
The connection between your wallet and your happiness isn't as complex as you might think. "We found that while it might make you happy 'in the moment,' despite popular belief, spending money on big ticket items like new cars, jewelry or on vacations doesn't contribute to sustained happiness," says lead researcher, University of British Columbia assistant professor Elizabeth Dunn, PhD. And, using a year-end or holiday bonus to pay off bills isn't the path to happiness either.
Dunn's team found people are "significantly happier" when spending "pro-socially" on gifts for friends and family, or in charitable donations. Much more so than when spending money on bills or big-ticket or luxury items. An added bonus: This kind of spending creates happiness that lasts six to eight weeks, says Dunn, much longer than other forms of spending, which can make you happy for just a few weeks, or even a few hours.
"Spend pro-socially a few times a month, to double, triple or quadruple the happiness effect," says Dunn.
Affording happiness
Tight budgets and overstretched dollars might leave you feeling like you can't afford one thin dime on yourself, let alone someone else. However, the researchers say you don't have to blow your budget all in the name of happiness.
"As little as $5 now and then lifts spirits," says Dunn. So buying a co-worker a sandwich or a loved one their favorite candy bar can make you happy.
Timing really is everything since Dunn and her team found the best time of day to spend depends on you. "If you're a morning person, spend pro-socially then," says Dunn. You receive the biggest happiness boost if give when you're most alert and aware of what you're doing.
Gina Roberts-Grey is a freelance writer specializing in health, celebrity and consumer issues.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-16-2009 @ 3:49AM
Nick1254367 said...
Hi,
interesting thoughts!
I believe it’s not possible to make a general statement on whether money makes people more or less happy. Money comes with a whole set of new elements that may have good or bad impact on our happiness, and depending on how susceptible we are to every one of them, the conclusion will go one way or the other (i.e. different from person to person).
I recently made an effort to provide a more comprehensive picture of what these ad- and disadvantages are. I invite you to have a look at Money and Happiness and tell me what you think!
Thank you,
Nick
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12-21-2009 @ 7:50PM
Sarah said...
If people would just to the right thing they would know happiness, but too many just refuse to do it because they're so selfish. For instance, even the unemployment office told me 95% of the jobs in the area I lived are only obtainable through nepotism, and I don't claim this place as my home. The advice given out is to "network" - to use anyone to get a job by pretending to be friendly with them, but strictly for your own benefit. I've never taken this advice, because it's the wrong thing to do; to strike up a repore to use a social transaction to obtain a job out of them. Everything should be a surprise.
For instance, I never network, but out of sincere and genuine interest I befriended someone many years ago and took her out for a meal and showed her my proudest and happiest accomplishment in life, and through no effort on my behalf, many years later she is a customer of mine, because she knows I am good for it. This was never my thought, goal or intent. It is now a gift. A surprise I never expected. I'm at peace and happy about it. She benefits as well.
People have just come to expect too much and are too smart for their own good. (which means they aren't very smart or they'd be benefitting). The expectations have got to GO! We don't all deserve to live like a doctor for no reason. I'm thrilled that what I saw in her years ago, she obviously reciprocates with me. You shouldn't even be telling yourself to be nice, you just should be naturally. Course in this world people take that to mean that you are stupid, and let them screen themselves out and save yourself in the process. We live in a very superficial and shallow world that is too focused on how much money people make and what people can offer them as a guarantee. No one owes you a guarantee; life is a risk. If you don't pay in one way you will in another, you don't do the right thing and take that woman out to dinner when you should, and you will get a hefty parking ticket!
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12-21-2009 @ 8:00PM
Sarah said...
In one area of the country,particularly bad for women giving themselves away for free, the men do nothing for you (unless you are offering alot of money for a marriage). Then, they will marry you; when you pay for them. They want everything for free. They won't even take you out for a coffee let alone a dinner...but don't worry, they will pay at least four times over for not doing the right thing, because they are stupid and selfish. For instance that person they didn't take out to coffee just happens to have all the answers for a major financial decision they will soon make in the future, and make all the wrong choices, dig such a bad troubled hole they have to hire a lawyer to dig them out of it, all because the fool wasn't about to pay for my $4.00 cup of coffee after initiatiting MUCH.
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12-21-2009 @ 8:05PM
Sarah said...
Then I get to hear these unhappy losers whine to me about all the results and high costs of their penalties for being bad people. I have no sympathy. It's interesting for me to hear the outcome. They just won't do the right thing, so fate forces a loss on them; the question is, do they get it and learn? I'm afraid they don't.
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12-21-2009 @ 9:04PM
Sarah said...
And I don't want them to do something good so that they will have good fate. I want it to be because they care about me but that's too much to ask. With this in mind I'll take things real slow.
Recently I was told by someone they had to buy Christmas gifts for all the teachers of their kids because everyone else was, and if they didn't they were afraid their kid would be treated worse. The gifts were not given in freedom and choice and good will, but by force and resentment, and were not cheap. Does anyone want such gifts? And that will be all the less for a gift that should really be due elsewhere but won't happen.
There's alot you'll get screened out on for a being a nice person. There's alot of misconceptions out there about it. It's not enough in this world to be that and survive. But for major deals that are life transforming as well, it pays to be nice.
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12-21-2009 @ 9:22PM
Sarah said...
Honestly my form of well being is not at all due to my paycheck. It's due to jumping in what I believed in and giving it everything. It's due to never feeling I deserved a particular lifestyle. Some of it is due to the way I treat people. But the job was only to pay the immediate. The first time I had a latte was after major accomplishments, and then I wondered afterward, how in the world did I do that without this....just think what I could have done. But then again it would have been out of my nature and inappropriate to pay for a latte in my position in life. Now, now problem, if I have to vs. using my own machine. No restaurant is a problem either. It's about waiting, for the stuff that will always be there for you, and jumping on the stuff that will not.
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12-21-2009 @ 9:42PM
Sarah said...
It's about putting things in perspective and realizing you're lucky if you can even get 3 top things of importance down in a particular deal. That's saving you from alot of pain later. You have to be happy with that. And with that you can make it better and better. The important thing to do instead of thinking you should have all these things you really don't deserve just for being born, is to say, whew, I got myself out of being controlled by whatever for the rest of my life....whew, I got a view that fills me with happiness...whew,...I just controlled expenses for the rest of my life and create an escape hatch.....it's about continuing on and letting the seeds grow. It's about patience. If you don't have patience, move on to other things to improve. It's about jumping in and there's plenty that will say no, and it can be justified logically, but if you want something important out of it, you have to put up with the adverse conditions which is why the opportunity was open for you, because everyone else said "no way". Of course all of it will be very inconvenient and very traumatic, but the reward comes much, much later. If you don't want the inconvenience and trauma, your freedoms and lifestyle and money will be taken away from you anyway by someone else who will abuse the power that you refused to create for yourself and you will probably be poorer with less of everything in life, and a slave to making someone else wealthy. There is no easy way out.
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