{"id":2896,"date":"2012-04-05T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T16:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=2896"},"modified":"2012-03-07T15:03:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T20:03:54","slug":"can-money-ever-buy-happiness-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/04\/can-money-ever-buy-happiness-yes.html","title":{"rendered":"Can Money Ever Buy Happiness? Yes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I write a lot about how money can\u2019t buy happiness. Having it won\u2019t substitute for unhappiness inside you. But Laura Vanderkam<\/strong><\/a>, my guest today, has an interesting take on it. She\u2019s the author of several books, including her new one, All The Money In The World: What Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending<\/strong><\/a> and 168 Hours: You have more Time Than You Think<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

How Money Can Buy Happiness?<\/strong>
\nby Laura Vanderkam<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

When it comes to money, we tend to think a lot about context. Consider this: you see a sign advertising that some neighbor kids a few blocks away are selling lemonade. You decide to walk over, figuring it will cost 50 cents for a cup. When you get to the booth, though, you see they\u2019re charging $25.50. Outraged, you walk home.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say you are going to a nearby mall to buy a $500 chair. You have a $25-off coupon for the store, but once you get there, the clerk points out that it expired. Would you refuse to buy the furniture?<\/p>\n

For many of us, the answer to the second question is no. We\u2019d still shell out the extra cash, because in the context of a $500 chair, $25 seems like a small amount. In the context of a glass of lemonade, it seems ridiculous. But in both cases, you\u2019re out $25 more than you intended to spend. Money is money. It is completely fungible. A dollar spent on one thing can always be spent on something else, and the $25 you deem a rounding error on the chair can buy the exact same amount as the $25 you view as price gouging on the lemonade. Now, to be sure, there may be psychological justifications you go through (the $25 loss on the chair will be amortized over multiple uses, whereas you\u2019re just drinking the lemonade once). Still, the point is, you\u2019re a lot more unhappy about the lemonade than the chair.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s just the way our brains work. As I\u2019ve been thinking about how we earn and spend our money, though, I\u2019ve realized that there are some big upsides to learning to think differently about money and context. Here\u2019s another insight into how our brains work: it\u2019s really fun to splurge. But what is a splurge? In the context of a mortgage payment, an extra $50 doesn\u2019t seem huge. Spread out over a 30-year mortgage, it is the difference between a $300,000 home and a $310,000 home at 5% interest rates. In the context of such a purchase, particularly in this market where the house was likely listed for $350,000, this difference doesn\u2019t seem big — possibly to the point where you and your real estate agent aren\u2019t negotiating that hard.<\/p>\n

But in other contexts, $50\/month can buy a lot. That\u2019s $600 a year, which could buy you family memberships at four area attractions: a zoo, an aquarium, a children\u2019s museum and an art museum. That could keep your family entertained for a long, long time. And even if it\u2019s not a trade-off for you — you\u2019d do the memberships and the $50 extra on the mortgage — that $600 could let you buy memberships for another young family that you know is struggling. How fun would that be? Or let\u2019s say you\u2019re home with little kids, and you love movies. An extra $50\/month could buy you a babysitter and a blissful solo matinee (with popcorn!) An extra $50\/month at the grocery store can buy you a once-a-week culinary adventure: king crab legs one week, filet mignon instead of cheaper cuts another, some sort of fancy cheese plate the third, and so forth.<\/p>\n

And did I mention that you\u2019d get to continue that weekly culinary adventure for 30 years? That\u2019s the opportunity cost of not negotiating hard on that last bit of your mortgage. Oh, sure, the house may appreciate. But it might not, too (and, of course, more appreciation is possible on a lower base). If it doesn\u2019t, at least you got a lot of joy out of splurging on your cheese plates.<\/p>\n

When it comes to buying happiness, here\u2019s a way to use context to our advantage: fight hard on the big stuff. Try to keep recurring monthly payments low. And then splurge on the varying pleasures of everyday life. Maybe not $25.50 lemonade. But a big bouquet of supermarket flowers every week for a loved one, and not just on Valentine\u2019s Day? That sounds smart.
\n***************
\nCheck out Laura Vanderkam<\/strong><\/a>‘s new book, All The Money In The World: What Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

***************<\/p>\n

Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Challenge<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. And you can post your loving acts HERE<\/a><\/strong> to reinforce your intention to love yourself. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I write a lot about how money can\u2019t buy happiness. Having it won\u2019t substitute for unhappiness inside you. But Laura Vanderkam, my guest today, has an interesting take on it. She\u2019s the author of several books, including her new one, All The Money In The World: What Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[325,973,133,324],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-self-empowerment-confidence","tag-can-money-buy-happiness","tag-happiness","tag-laura-vanderkam","tag-money"],"yoast_head":"\nCan Money Ever Buy Happiness? 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}