TIME AND SPENDING

÷ HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY MATTERS What you spend your money on can have a big part to play in the amount of happiness it can or cannot bring. Using your money to indulge in bad habits — such as gambling and excessive drinking — will clearly make you, and others close to you, unhappy. Furthermore, buying material things is unlikely to make you happy, but spending your money on experiences could. That’s according to Eoin McGee, principal of Prosperous Financial Planning and the financial advisor on RTE’s How To Be Good With Money show. This is because an experience is likely to have a greater positive emotional impact on you than a material item.

“The anticipation of an experience, such as a holiday, is at least half of the experience itself,” said McGee. “On top of that, you have the enjoyment of the experience, and the memory of that experience. This is very different to using your money to buy something tangible. You probably don’t remember the iPhone you bought a year ago, but you would remember the holiday.”

Using your money to buy things can often trigger anxiety, according to McGee. “If you buy a brand new car, you could be worrying about scratching it,” said McGee. “If you order something online, you might worry if the item will live up to your expectations when it’s delivered. This anxiety can take the good out of buying something.”

Another way which McGee believes that money can buy happiness is if some of it is spent on others. This tallies with the findings of a study conducted in the US a few years ago. The study, by the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School, found that spending as little as $5 (€4.40) a day on someone else could significantly boost an individual’s happiness. ÷ TIME MATTERS Many of today’s workers class themselves as cash-rich but time-poor. This lack of spare time can have a bad impact on health and wellbeing. When making decisions about money and time, it’s important to think about the longterm consequences of those decisions for your happiness, according to Dr Ashley Whillans, assistant professor at Harvard Business School in the US.

“If we choose a job in which we make a lot of money but work 80 hours a week, our personal relationships and happiness could suffer in the long-term,” said Whillans in an article published in the Harvard Business Review last month. College students who pursue careers which enable them to have more money, rather than time, experience big falls in happiness one to two years after graduation, according to research by Whillans. “Over the span of many years, the negative effects of such major life decisions could really add up,” he said.

One way to deal with the challenge of being cash-rich but time-poor is to use your money to buy more ‘happy’ time. This doesn’t just mean to go on holidays more. Whillans advises people to use their money to eliminate negative experiences from their day. Hiring a cleaner to clean your home, for example, could free up a few of your hours over the weekend. Ordering something online and paying for delivery of the item to your home could save you a few hours’ travel and shopping time. “Once you have outsourced chores, devote your new free time to things that are most likely to promote happiness, like activities with your friends and family,” said Whillans.