BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

MONEY CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS — BUT SPENDING IT THOUGHTFULLY CAN ENHANCE YOUR WELL-BEING IN UNEXPECTED WAYS.

Researchers agree we all need enough money to cover basic needs like housing and food, but there’s little scientific consensus about how much money is enough to make humans happy. One 2010 study suggests an annual income of $75,000 is the magic number (at least, it was at that time); after that, higher incomes didn’t necessarily lead

to greater happiness among the participants. But other research finds no such cutoff point. Money may not be a path to absolute bliss, but it can certainly help — though not always in the ways we think. Here are a few research-supported suggestions on how to get the most happiness out of your spending:

EXPERIENCES MAKE US HAPPIER THAN THINGS

A new dining room table might seem like a better (and more permanent) investment than a fleeting experience like a vacation, cooking class, or even a nice meal. But Cornell University psychology professor Tom Gilovich says that buying an experience will probably result in a bigger happiness bump.

For one thing, humans have a pesky habit of adapting to new situations. That’s great for surviving after a major change like an amputation, or the loss

of a sense like sight or smell. But that adaptation is not so helpful if you’re looking to boost your well-being. Humans will get used to that dining table, or the bigger house or the fancier car. But experiences remain novel — and connect us to other people.

Beyond that, our tendency to compare material objects is more pronounced than our tendency to compare experiences. It’s easy to compare the size of a house or the price of an outfit, but experiences can be more personal. “You [build] your experience around you,” says Gilovich, which means you get your own, unique memories to cherish and your own, special social connections to foster. And these experiences contribute to our overall sense of ourselves. “We are, in some meaningful sense, the sum total of our experiences,” says Gilovich. “We aren’t the sum total of our stuff.”

TIME IS WORTH THE MONEY

Don’t want to clean your bathroom? Hate vacuuming out the car? If you can afford to buy your way out of the tasks you most dislike, you should. Buying back time allows people to indulge in tasks and activities that do bring them joy. And compared to other ways to spend money, buying time yields consistent emotional rewards, according to a study published in PNAS in 2017.

SPEND ON OTHERS

Just like spending on experiences, “prosocial” spending — giving to charity or treating a friend to coffee — taps into our evolutionarily honed need to be connected. “It’s one way in which we build and support our social relationships,” says Lara Aknin, a social psychologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. It might not be our first impulse, but spending on others triggers a positive feedback loop. “Giving to others makes us happy,” Aknin says. “And the happier you are, the more likely you are to do it again.”