4 Ways Money Really Can Make You Happier, Backed by Science

Money won’t necessarily make you happier, but research shows how you spend it certainly can.

EXPERT OPINION BY JEFF HADEN @JEFF_HADEN

Want to be happier? As the authors of a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology write:

Most people don’t know the basic scientific facts about happiness –about what brings it, and what sustains it — and so they don’t know how to use their money to acquire it.

Most people don’t know the basic scientific facts about happiness –about what brings it, and what sustains it — and so they don’t know how to use their money to acquire it.

Turns out money can make you happier, as long as you spend it the right way.

Here are three of the ways the researchers found, plus one from another study, that you can spend your money to be happier.

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Spend money to buy time.

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research surveyed thousands of people who sometimes paid other people to perform tasks they didn’t enjoy, or didn’t want to do. Cleaning their house. Working in the yard. Running errands. Tasks that needed to get done, but they didn’t really want to have to do themselves.

The result? People who were willing to spend a little money to buy a little time were happier, and felt greater overall life satisfaction, than those who did not.

Correlation isn’t always causation, though. People who spend money to buy time could be happier because they have the money to be able to buy time; maybe having money is the cause. 

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