Life beyond money
Buy back your time
Research on money and happiness keeps finding the same thing. Spending on time and experiences does more for you than spending on things.
The point of getting richer is not a number. It is a life with more of what you value and less of what wears you down. A growing body of research suggests how to spend toward that.
Spending to save time
In 2017, Ashley Whillans and colleagues published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences surveying thousands of people in the US, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands. People who spent money to buy back time, by paying for chores they disliked, reported greater life satisfaction, across income levels. In a follow up experiment, people felt better after spending $40 on a time saving purchase than after spending it on a material one. US review
Yet few did it, even among the wealthy. Many of us feel we should do it ourselves.
Experiences over things
Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich found that people get more lasting happiness from experiences than from possessions. We adapt quickly to new things; memories, and the stories we tell about them, keep paying. US review
How to use this
- List the hours you dislike most in a typical week. Is there one you could pay to remove?
- Price it per hour. If a cleaner, a meal service or living closer to work costs less per hour saved than you earn per hour, it may be worth more than another gadget.
- Plan experiences with people. A shared trip, a class, a dinner. The planning and the memory are part of the return.
- Give. Research by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton found that spending on others lifts happiness more than spending on yourself. US review
Where this fits
The Wealth Ladder names each level by what it frees you to do: groceries, restaurants, travel, where you live. On the way up, spend deliberately on what you value and cut ruthlessly on what you do not. Share what a rich life means to you in the forum.