<p>"Psychological research suggests that, in the long run, experiences make people happier than possessions.</p>
<p>That’s in part because the initial joy of acquiring a new object, such as a new car, fades over time as people become accustomed to seeing it every day, experts said. Experiences, on the other hand, continue to provide happiness through memories long after the event occurred.</p>
<p>Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, presented his findings this week at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting…</p>
<p>The most striking difference was in how participants said others around them reacted to either the purchased object or experience. Experiences led to more happiness in others than purchases did. A sense of relatedness to others – getting closer to friends and family – may be one of the reasons why experiences generate more happiness.</p>
<p>“When people spend money on life experiences, whether they also take someone with them or buy an extra ticket or whatever, most of our life experiences involve other individuals,” Howell said. People were fulfilling their need for social bonding while having these experiences, he said. Visit CNNhealth.com, your connection for better living</p>
<p>But if you do not possess $$ how you can afford experiences? I love and cherish all my experiences and all of them require $$. As of right now I am fully enjoying the class that I am taking after work and … I have to pay for it. No job will result in no more classes. I am enjoying living in my house which I would not be able to afford without $$. I enjoy raising my kids and that is the biggest expence of them all. I guess, the original reserach goes over my head, beyond my understanding.</p>
<p>I think one can have experiences without spending money loads of money. I do a<br>
60-mile (3-day) walk for a local charity almost every year. That’s not something expensive; yet it’s become an important part of my life. I’ve made lifelong friends while training for the walk and I’ve learned quite a bit about myself in the course of the training and walking. I enjoy testing myself and seeing how far I can go. The woman who started the walk has inspired me in many ways. I feel as if the walks were a gift that she gave to all of us who participated. I’m not naive, and I do know that one does need money for some kinds of experiences, but I think that if you think about those experiences that mean the most, they often don’t require huge expenditures.</p>
<p>Loads of great experiences are free or low cost. Camping, hiking, biking–just taking a walk–all these things make me happy. Libraries make reading free. Tons of cultural events are free or low cost (maybe not Broadway, but sometimes better.) Get togethers with family and/or friends–just the price of the food, which can be shared. </p>
<p>Hobbies–cooking, writing, making stuff, sports, martial arts, arts, beer-making, gardening, to name a few.</p>
<p>meditation, spiritual explorations, church activities. Volunteering.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, I think the article is saying that it’s better to choose to spend discretionary money on experiences rather than on things. Of course it takes money in either case; the difference is how you choose to allocate your money.</p>
<p>“But if you do not possess $$ how you can afford experiences? I love and cherish all my experiences and all of them require $$.”</p>
<p>Most experiences require little or no money. For instance, I’d rather celebrate my birthday by having friends over for a potluck than by getting expensive presents. I get more pleasure out of being in a book club than I’d get by buying lots of expensive first editions.</p>
<p>I get great joy from participating in community theater productions. Cost is next to nothing: gas to and from the theater. </p>
<p>Instead of buying more expensive homes and cars, H and I spent discretionary income on travel. Similarly, instead of buying an expensive wedding dress, I had a $60 wedding dress and a marvelous honeymoon abroad.</p>
<p>Bromfield,
I walk 4-5 miles every day and exersize for at least 2 hours every day and made most of my friends during these activities. However, this is not the only experience that I would like to remember in my life. Actually, take it back, the reason that I can walk every day in my neighborhood is because I have bought a house in a safe place. I also have to buy special shoes on a regular basis, and they are not cheap. If I did not live where I do, I would need to drive to other place in a car (needed car and gas - $$$ again). So, as far as I can tell even my walking cost me a lot of $$. And I even did not count opportunity cost for not earning additional income while walking (like having a second job)</p>
<p>“Instead of buying more expensive homes and cars, H and I spent discretionary income on travel. Similarly, instead of buying an expensive wedding dress, I had a $60 wedding dress and a marvelous honeymoon abroad.”</p>
<p>Wait, but you still needed $$ for travel and honeymoon. Was it free? I would like to know how? Can you tell us?</p>
<p>Sure, I needed money for travel and honeymoon. But my point is that given a choice between spending money for a possession and spending money for an experience, I’d choose the experience.</p>
<p>H and I spent money to go to Europe. We had a rock bottom cheap wedding, however. Some people spend lots of money --thousands on wedding dresses and stuff like that. We did not, but spent our money on something that meant more to us.</p>
<p>If we hadn’t been able to afford Europe (a trip we used credit cards for), we would have still used whatever money we could have scraped up for an experience, not a wedding dress, even if that experience had been a local camping trip.</p>
<p>Most of the experiences that give me lots of joy, however, cost nothing or next to nothing:</p>
<p>Acting in community theater: gas for the car
Spiritual retreats: contribution to potluck
Acting workshop: free or $10 a week
Twice weekly acting class at local community college: $110 a semester. I also get to attend plays on campus for free, and I get to use the campus fitness center for free, and I get the student discount price for tickets at other local events.
Book Club: free, plus potluck dish. My raucus, fun book club doesn’t even mind if members don’t read the book.
Having friends over for a party: Potluck dish, otherwise, free
Taking pictures in my neighborhood: Free. (Have had the camera for a long time)
Participating in writing group with friends: Free except for gas to get there
Going to a local art gallery openings: Free except for gas costs
Weekly local meditation group: Free except for cost of gas.</p>
<p>Lots of people think that having expensive things brings happiness. The point of the research is that experiences, not objects, are what bring the most happiness. For example, baking cookies with one’s kids probably would bring more lasting happiness than would giving them an expensive toy to play with by themselves instead of using a relatively little amount of money to buy baking ingredients. </p>
<p>A person who goes on a camping trip with their family or enjoys a family movie night at home may be getting more lasting pleasure than does the person who buys an expensive house.</p>
<p>I guess my taste is expensive. I would not enjoy camping trip, I want Caribean vacation or I would rather stay home. I like my reliable car, do not want trouble and experience of fixing it often, I liked to be able to send a child to private school and so forth. I need to posses lots of $$$ to be happy, which is now in jeopardy. I have been very poor in some period of my life and it prevented me from being happy. If I go back to be poor, I will be extremely unhappy and probably die of severe depression.</p>
<p>What’s “a lot of $$” is obviously relative just as the value one places on different experiences. While I enjoy my daily workouts, they are nothing at all like the charity walk experience. I don’t think the research (and we’re only reading a synopsis of it, so we might all be wrong) said experiences have to be free to bring more happiness than purchasing objects. Obviously there are costs associated with experiences–not much in life is free. Is that your point?</p>
<p>The research wasn’t about how much money you have, or if your tastes veer to the expensive. The point of the article was to look at how people allocate their discretionary funds. </p>
<p>Sending your child to private school means that your child has the experience of private school. You may have chosen to not give your child other things, such as video game systems or an extensive wardrobe, in order to pay the tuition bill. You might save your money towards a Caribbean vacation by buying more modest cars. In both examples, you’d be giving up “things” in order to have experiences. This doesn’t mean that you should be taking lots of camping trips because that would give you lots more experiences than saving up for one caribbean vacation. The tradeoff would be between a Mercedes versus a Honda + a caribbean vacation.</p>
<p>I have difficulty separating experience and possesion into 2 different categories. The only common denominator is $$$ and that is my reason to use it. In my view what constitutes posession for one, would be an experience for another or for that matter both. However, I know from my life story that it is very depressing not possess $$ because it limites you of either buying experiences or things or whatever makes you happy. It is also very easy to judge when you never have experience of not having any $$$.</p>
<p>Certainly, it’s depressing not to have $ particularly for basics. No one is disputing that.</p>
<p>The research, though, I think is pointing out that if-- for instance – one was considering whether to pay for an experience or whether to get a piece of jewelry, a new clothing item or some other material good that wasn’t essential, it would be best to pay for an experience.</p>
<p>The material good will give less lasting pleasure than would, for instance, spending the same amount of money or less doing something with people whom you enjoy.</p>
<p>For instance, given the choice between buying a magazine or treating a friend to coffee, most people would get the most lasting pleasure out of the latter experience. They might get the same amount of pleasure out of even doing something free with a friend such as taking a walk with their friend.</p>
<p>Another good reason to spend today and worry less about saving every dime for tomorrow. The way things go that dime will become a nickel and won’t buy much anyway 20 years in the future. Today’s good times are good for a lifetime of good memories that can never be taken away by some Wall Street crooks.</p>
<p>LOL, 07DAD. The article addressed that a bit:</p>
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<p>MiamiDAP, I’m fascinated that it’s difficult for you to make a divide between experiences and possessions. They’re very distinct things for me. I’m not judging here, I’m just finding it interesting that people can have such different views of one aspect of life. This is making me think about the different long term nonessential savings goals I’ve had through life. It would be interesting for someone to do a longitudinal study of this, following people through decades (the referenced study looked at 25 year olds, asking them about purchases from 3 months ago).</p>