5 Ways to Be Happier with Money


An article from the Wall Street Journal this week cites scientific research to show how to get the most happiness from your money.

Here are the five suggestions:

  1. Buy experiences — vacations, concerts, etc.
  2. Don’t adapt to what you buy — delay gratification, be grateful, etc.
  3. Buy time — live close to work, outsource tasks, etc.
  4. Give money away — find a good cause and witness the results of your charity
  5. Have lots of it — preferably more than $500k a year

What stands out the most to me is the tension between #2 and #5. It makes sense that you’ll be happier if you have lots of money, but it also seems like the pursuit to obtain riches can lead people toward ingratitude, particularly since the pursuit is often coupled with what’s referred to as “the hedonistic treadmill.” Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside puts it this way:

Human beings are remarkably good at getting used to changes in their lives, especially positive changes. If you have a rise in income, it gives you a boost, but then your aspirations rise too. Maybe you buy a bigger home in a new neighborhood, and so your neighbors are richer, and you start wanting even more. You’ve stepped on the hedonic treadmill. Trying to prevent that or slow it down is really a challenge.

Before seeing the research in the article, I leaned toward the idea that the pursuit of extreme wealth is a fool’s task. The more you have, the more you want, and you get no real utility from it all. But now I’m starting to second guess that theory — mostly because of this graph that shows that the higher your income, the more likely you are to say you are very happy:

Now I don’t know what to think. Is happiness really that simple? This seems to suggest that if you’ve got gobs of cash, then you’re guaranteed happiness and if you don’t then you aren’t. In light of this evidence I have to wonder if gratitude actually plays a major role in finding happiness, or if it’s mostly all just about the freedom that money brings.

This is part of a November series about gratitude. To read the October series, which is about death, click here. Or see the full list.

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