Why £80,000 a year may not make you happy — but spending your money on others will!

When were you at your happiest? Was it as a carefree child, a boisterous teenager, a happily married mid- lifer, or someone, like me, in the later stages of their life?

I can remember lots of moments of intense happiness, from falling in love to watching my kids being born, but now that I’m 66, I am as contented as I have ever been. And that chimes with the findings of a recent study called the World happiness report: that your later years can also be your most carefree.

This report is an annual survey of more than 1.6 million people, carried out in 156 countries. The citizens of Scandinavian countries such as Finland, denmark and norway normally top the charts, mainly because of high income, good health care and trust in each other; the UK is currently in 20th position.

As part of the latest report the researchers decided to look, for the first time, at which age groups in a country were the happiest, or the unhappiest.

They found that in the UK it is people who are 60-plus who are the happiest; those aged 30 to 44 are the least happy.

The report also confirmed earlier research showing that happiness tends to follow a U- shaped curve, with rates of happiness falling as you pass from being a teenager to becoming middle-aged.

Typically people reach the bottom of the curve in their late 40s, after which the curve starts to rise — until old age, when ill- health and loneliness take their toll and the happiness curve flattens out.

There are some obvious reasons why the over-60s in the UK might be happier than the rest of the population, including the fact that we tend to be more financially secure, with less work and family pressures.

The report found, for example, that the over-60s felt they had more freedom to make important life decisions than in earlier years.

It also showed that as people grow older, they tend to become less self-obsessed and attach more importance to remembering and celebrating the positive aspects of their lives, both of which are key to increased happiness.

It seems we also become more trusting as we get older, which is good for mental health. But that doesn’t mean we become more gullible — the report points out that, although scammers frequently target older people because they assume that they’re vulnerable, it is the young and middle-aged who are more likely to actually get scammed.

That’s because, according to the report, although older people tend to be more trusting, they are also more careful about where that trust is placed. But it’s not all good news for the over-60s. Poor health takes a toll on happiness, though it’s not how serious the health problem is that matters, but how much it impinges on daily life.

A study of 383 older patients, published in the Journal of happiness Studies in 2012, found that patients with cancer, whose daily functioning was not seriously affected by their condition, scored higher on the happiness scale than people with urinary incontinence, which can really add to daily misery.

What about money, does it buy you happiness? The comedian Spike Milligan once claimed ‘money can’t buy you happiness — but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery’, yet in fact there’s plenty of evidence that the higher your income, the happier you are, though this is not necessarily the case for everyone.

A 2023 study by the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. concluded that the impact of income on happiness depends on your emotional wellbeing. If you’re a misery guts, then rising income will make you happier, until you reach an income of £80,000 a year, when it plateaus.

For the rest of us, however, it appears that more income means more happiness, with no obvious upper limit, though the researchers hasten to add that ‘money is just one of the many determinants of happiness’. So apart from growing older and getting a pay rise, what else can you do to boost your happiness?

researchers at Bristol University recently published a study, based on questionnaires of people who’d done their ‘science of happiness’ course, showing that you can learn how to be happy but to keep your levels up you have to keep working at it. here are some of their happiness-boosting tips:

TAlK to strangers; despite the fact that most of us ( myself included) shy away from doing this, there is evidence that short chats, maybe just with the person selling you a coffee, will boost your mood. That’s because we are social creatures and benefit from even short social interactions.

SPend more of your money on others, rather than yourself: studies have shown that giving gifts activates reward centres in our brains, providing a bigger boost than spending on ourselves.

SPend time in nature; this switches off parts of the brain linked to negative ruminations, where you get caught in a loop of negative thoughts.

Be KInd to others: research shows that being kind and compassionate improves the wellbeing and happiness of both the giver and the receiver.