8 ways to buy happiness: rethinking how we spend our money

Money can buy happiness, but you need to spend it right.

This episode is all about small ways you can change your spending behaviour to maximise your happiness. Here’s the premise of the research report today’s episode is based on, which draws on 100’s of other research papers and studies:

(1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods;

(2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves;

(3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones;

(4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance;

(5) delay consumption;

(6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-to-day lives;

(7) beware of comparison shopping; and

(8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.

Kate & Owen dive into some of the interesting aspects from each of these ideas and share some examples of how you could incorporate these in your own life. Because there’s no point saving and investing and getting to the end of your life, without really living on your own terms.

That’s what we’re aiming for folks, not financial freedom for the sake of it, but to create a life where we get to choose where we spend our time and money.

This episode is based on the research paper: If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right by Elizabeth W. Dunn University of British Columbia, Daniel T. Gilbert Harvard University, and Timothy D. Wilson University of Virginia.