Happiness is someone else doing your chores

But new study shows that few people actually spend their money this way

If you were given $40 on the condition that you had to spend it on something that would make you really happy, what would you do with the money? Some people might go shopping, others would treat themselves to dinner or a movie, a few might even donate to a cause. But what about using that $40 to buy yourself more free time?

According to a study published Monday in the journal PNAS, people who buy time by paying someone to complete household tasks are more satisfied with life. And it’s not just wealthy people. Across a range of incomes, careers and countries, time-saving purchases were correlated with less time-related stress and more positive feelings.

Yet the researchers’ surveys showed that very few individuals think to spend money in this way.

Ashley Whillans, a social psychologist and the study’s lead author, says we weigh the two all the time: “Do I take the toll bridge, which will save me time but cost me money? Where should I live? If I live far from work I’ll save money, but it will take me more time to commute.”

Whillans and her colleagues at Harvard University collaborated with researchers at the University of British Columbia and two institutes in the Netherlands to conduct seven surveys of more than 6,000 respondents in four countries. The surveys asked people whether they regularly pay someone else to complete unpleasant daily tasks and rated their satisfaction with life.

Across all surveys, life satisfaction was typically higher for people who regularly spend money to save time. This was true regardless of household income, hours worked per week, marital status and number of children living at home (though one limitation of the study was that few people on the extreme low end of the income spectrum were surveyed).

Even after controlling for total disposable income by comparing the amount participants spend on necessary purchases, such as groceries, unnecessary purchases and life experiences, working adults in the United States reported higher life satisfaction if they regularly paid to outsource household tasks, such as cooking, shopping and general maintenance.

If you look at the many scientific studies on how to buy happiness, you find evidence supporting several other ways. Buying material goods can satisfy our need for establishing or expressing our identity. Spending money on others fulfils our desire for human connections. And investing in experiences has been repeatedly shown to increase happiness.

There’s no magic answer for how to stretch our dollars to achieve maximum happiness, but for many people, spending money to save time and improve well-being isn’t even on their radar. And giving ourselves a bit more time could make us a whole lot happier.