MONEY & LIFE LESSONS

Experiences or Stuff — What Gives You Real Happiness?

In search of a happier life that money can provide— Part 1

Ever since money has been invented, there had been different philosophies on the relationship between money and happiness.

A group of people would argue that money can’t buy us happiness and the other group would defend the value of money and how it can improve the quality of our lives.

Now money is precious and limited, to most of us at least, so spending it wisely is definitely not even a topic of discussion. Even my 11-year-old daughter knows it well.

The question is though, how do you define what’s a wise expenditure? How do you decide a purchase is worth it or not?

I have been through different stages of having money, from no money to limited money, then to enough money to a lot of money, and then again to not having enough money.

My wants and needs have evolved according to the money that I have or I don’t have. After I have accumulated a bunch of stuff to run my life without much hassle, I asked myself — am I happy?

I wasn’t sure.

Happiness Through Money

To find happiness, a couple of years ago, I took a course on The Science of Wellbeing offered by Yale University. In the course, Professor Laurie Santos points out that happiness can be found through money but it should be spent on experience and not on stuff.

She explains — experiences like travel or a hot air balloon ride will give us real happiness, something we will keep on cherishing, will help us make memories, and hence has a way higher return on investment.

Stuff will give you momentary happiness, like a new car or a new house, but that happiness will fade over time.

I had a eureka moment.

I decided that is what I was going to do for the rest of my life — create memories through experiences. A great idea no doubt.

Unfortunately, experiences didn’t always make me happy either. There were some experiences which I would rather like to forget, or some I even regret like this recent trip to Paris.

On the contrary, there were times when spending money on stuff became more needful and made life easier.

Experiences vs Stuff

After we moved to The Netherlands, we didn’t have a dryer. In this cold and very rainy weather, drying our clothes had been a challenge from the very beginning, especially in the rental house where there was no extra room to dry the laundry.

There were only two rooms — our bedroom and our daughter’s room, apart from the living room. During the warmer months, I could hang the clothes outside on the small balcony, but the winter months were really challenging,

Besides, in the Netherlands, it rains a lot, even in the summer.

After we bought our own home, we still managed to do without a dryer, because I was a proponent of this philosophy that we should spend our money on experiences and not on more stuff. Didn’t we already have enough stuff?

Besides, it’s more environment-friendly to dry your clothes on a clothesline.

Also, I learned from my neighbors in Germany that they didn’t use dryers much because, unlike the USA, energy bills are quite high here.

So instead, I could spend that money on experiences like a trip to a spa hotel where I could get sweaty in the sauna, or just dip my foot in the swimming pool and order margarita from the tiki bar.

Or perhaps book that hot air balloon ride that I have been yearning for ages.

This way I can make memories — memories that I will cherish for the years to come. A very high return on my investment.

Challenges

But one winter morning right before Christmas, I got a sudden call from India that my father has just passed away. It was a shock because I wasn’t expecting it the least.

On the contrary, I was busy making plans for our vacation to the Mediterranean that Christmas.

I immediately booked a ticket for India for the very next day.

However, most of my clothes, especially all the undergarments, were in the laundry hamper.

I did four loads of laundry throughout the day to wash and clean as much as possible before I left the next morning. I hung my necessities on the heater, blew hairdryers, Used hot iron, but despite all these, I couldn’t dry them.

More importantly, I wanted to have the time to process the grief, talk to my mother and my family, pack my luggage, make my arrangements for the next day’s travel. But I was busy washing dirty laundry and finding innovative places to hang and dry them.

I didn’t want to be busy with mundane chores, not at that point in my life, at least.

So I went out to the mall to buy some more clothes and especially undies because they were all wet.

I didn’t remember my spa time or margarita from the tiki bar by the swimming pool. All I wanted was my clothes to dry. I just needed some fresh clean clothes. Nothing else mattered.

Summary

All this time, my husband had been trying to convince me to buy a dryer but I kept on showing him scientific reports and statistics about the value of minimalism and how experiences give us real happiness, not some stuff.

After I came back from India, we bought a dryer.

Now I had been using this dryer for the last couple of years and I am grateful that I don’t always have to plan my washing chores, especially during the winter months or when the guests come.

I am still concerned about the environment and use a clothesline most of the time especially for the delicates, but when there are too many loads and I don’t have enough space, I know the dryer is there.

I also don’t have to plan my washing chores and worry about hanging undergarments when guests come.

I wonder why I didn’t think of this before and ignored my everyday challenges in favor of experiences or special days to make memories.

Sometimes a wise decision is not always wise.

To be continued….

This is a way bigger and broader topic that can’t be covered in just one post, so I decided to divide it into several articles that I will be publishing shortly.

In the meantime, I would like to give a shout-out to KL Simmons for her story where she buys a massage gun for her partner.

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