“If you think money can’t buy happiness, you’re not spending it right.”
The book Happy Money, The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton explores the ways we can use our money to get more happiness from it. Plenty of books have been written on how to earn money but every few talks about how we could spend it in a way that will bring happiness.
She found about seventeen thousand articles on the relationship between money and happiness, many of which seemed to suggest that additional income provides surprisingly little additional happiness.
Happy Money, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
Happy Money provides five principles to follow in order to get more happiness from whatever we spend our money on. I find many of the principles as an eye opener on how I tend use my money. Some are easy to follow. Some are surprisingly unconventional. But I personally try to follow them. These principles surely bring more smile to my face every time I remember where I used my money on.
Below are the five principles from Happy Money.
- Buy Experiences
- Make It a Treat
- Buy Time
- Pay Now, Consume Later
- Invest in Others
Following the principles of Happy Money does not mean you should stop acquiring money, or you should stop spending it as much as you want. The authors’ goal is for us to start asking ourselves if we are spending the money in a way that will bring the biggest happiness.
Our first discoveries were promising: changing the way people spent their money altered their happiness over the course of the day. And we saw this effect when people spent as little as $5.”
Happy Money, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
Will buying a more expensive item make us happier than buying a cheaper one?
Will travelling abroad make us happier than just travelling in our own country?
Will a longer vacation make us happier than a shorter one?
Will giving money make us happier than receiving money?
In the next parts of this book summary, I will discuss each of the five principles from the book Happy Money. Each summary will give interesting examples from researches and the advice on spending money.
Happy Money Book Summary
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
