Happiness Hack #32 Buy Happiness

There is a way money can buy happiness. It is found in how we spend the money. Research has shown that spending money on other people makes us happier than spending it on ourselves. It creates a virtuous circle where we spend the money on someone else and become happier which makes us want to spend more on someone else which further increases our happiness. More good news, we don’t have to spend a lot of money on someone else. The amount of money is not as important as choosing someone besides ourselves to spend it on.

5 Ways your money can buy happiness:

1. Buy coffee for a friend and spend a few minutes talking – you are giving and building positive relationships which give you a double dose of happiness.

2. Pay for the person in line behind you – random acts of kindness are fun and make us happier.

3. Donate money to a charity – even small donations make you feel good about giving.

4. Spend money on experiences like vacations – they create memories that add to your happiness for years to come. Especially if they include friends and family.

5. Plan your experiences months in advance. The anticipation of spending your money on a great experience will provide happiness before the money is even spent.

Small amounts of money spent in the right ways can buy you happiness.   So don’t wait on a financial windfall to be happy. Find ways today to budget happiness into your current income level. It is not how much, but how you spend it, that makes you happy.

“Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you ice cream and that is almost the same thing.” Unknown

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About Ray White

My Passion is helping people become successful and happy. I have found that many people want to be successful but just don’t know how. More importantly, people want to be successful because they feel that reaching some success pinnacle will result in them becoming happy. The research and my experience has shown that just the opposite is the case. Success does not lead to happiness. Happiness leads to success.