New polling shows nearly three-quarters of Americans say saving and investing would make them happier than spending. The happiest people prioritize financial security and time control over material purchases. Once basic needs are met, buying experiences and freedom tends to increase well-being more than buying stuff.
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Money and Happiness New data shows Americans don't want to spend more, they want to save. According to new polling for Market Watch, Americans are telling a very different story about money and happiness than the consumer economy around them. Only about half of respondents say the way they use and manage money makes them happy. But when asked what actually makes them happier, nearly 3/4 said saving or investing more. Only a fraction said spending more would do it. This new data arrives as the Gallup World happiness report shows us happiness dropping to a record low. MarketWatch interviewed people who actually feel good about their financial lives and found a pattern. The happiest people aren't chasing bigger purchases. They're finding satisfaction and freedom in control over their time and in the small moments that money can can enhance rather than dominate. Author Morgan Housel, in his book the Art of Spending Money, says savings aren't about deprivation, they're about independence and the ability to live life on your terms. For many Americans, that appears to be the missing ingredient. What's the real message here? If you don't have enough food to pay for your rent or feed your kids, you're going to be unhappy. And the solution for you is you got to have more money. But for so many Americans, the issue is not more money, it's what you do with the money. Just spending on more stuff doesn't generate happiness. Saving, investing, having that peace of mind, knowing you can do whatever you want to do tomorrow, this weekend on vacation. That's where real happiness comes from. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. So I don't know everyone YouGov Marketplace queried for this poll. Certainly I've seen a lot of polling data showing an incredibly high percentage of Americans are one paycheck away from being insolvent, of being homeless, not being able to pay their rent or mortgage. So I don't want to make light of that real issue. It's been a great time in America. If you're in the top 10%, certainly the top 1%, and even better for the top 0.01%, bottom 90%, the last decade, 15 years, not so much. Let's not kid ourselves. But I do think the report is on to something in that simply spending more money isn't the key to happiness. Once you have very important caveat. Once you have basic, basic needs met, if you have a roof over your head, if you have some form of reliable transportation, if you have healthy, nutritious food to feed your family and yourself, more money to buy more stuff at the mall doesn't generate happiness. Again, to reiterate the key findings of this survey, when they actually talked to people who said I am happy, it wasn't correlated to having a 10 or 20 or 30,000 square foot home. It wasn't correlated to having that third car or fourth car or fifth car. It was quite often correlated to having more money in a savings account, in investments, in a 401k. If you're here in the United States and owning stocks, knowing that you, your future will be paid for, knowing that you can retire when you want to, know when you can take a vacation, knowing you can perhaps do a shift in your career and not worry about that immediate income, this is essential because I know, and you may know people too, who make $2 million a year, but they're on a treadmill. They're not happy because they're spending $2.2 million a year. So every single year they go into more debt. Every year they got to do more billable hours at the law firm or at the investment bank where they work. And they're never really happy because they always feel like they are treading water, barely keeping up. On the other hand, there are people who make below the average income in America, an average American family, depending on what stat you use, about $6,000 a year. There are people who make $50,000 a year and are perfectly happy because they've consistently saved, consistently invested. They didn't buy the biggest possible house that they could afford. They bought the smallest possible house where they could feel comfortable and safe and they banked the rest. I could tell you I've personally been poor in my life. I had a stretch from the age of 25 to about 39 where everything I touched failed. Talk radio shows, syndicated TV shows, web website, news websites, everything I touched, failure, failure, failure. I had years where I had $2,000 of income. So I've been there. I'm not someone who, oh, look, I had a lot of privileges growing up and had a, we call middle, upper middle class background. My father was an engineer. So I faced no deprivation whatsoever as a child and through college, none whatsoever. So I'm not asking for sympathy and I'm definitely not facing any deprivation now, nor have I in the last quarter century. But I did have a chunk of about 15 years where it was really touch and go. It was crashing on friends couch. It was back to mom and dads when I was out of college for a while. So I'm not just giving you this perspective from a purely academic perspective. I've been there. I've also been on the other extreme of things. And I can tell you that the research from this organization resonates is truthful with me as well. It gives me great peace of mind to know that every single month I am putting not insignificant sums into more holdings for my family, principally in AN S&P 500 and low cost index funds. In my, my case, a lot of technology, information technology, low cost index funds. Do they go down sometimes? Yes. Oh boy, did they ever as recently as April this year, but over time they go up and it gives me a lot of peace of mind. Here's what I like, and you can say this is weird of me and I am a big proponent of minimalism in a lot of aspects. But I could tell you I get a lot of joy walking through the mall looking at pretty things. And here's the feeling like, wow, there's nothing here I particularly want or that would make me happy. Now I will say that only happens when once you get to the point, at least for me, where I knew I could buy this. If you absolutely can't have something because you have no money, every single thing in the store window is going to seem tantalizing. And maybe you're different. Maybe you're a better person than I am. Maybe you are someone of very limited means and you can walk through them all and see beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry, knickknacks, and think, I don't care. For me, it didn't really happen until I did get a certain level of economic security. So what, what does this all mean? What do you do if you have your basic economic security and you're still not happy? The results of this survey shows you've got to spend your time on experience. It doesn't mean a first class ticket around the world on the most expensive cruise line that would cost $200,000. It may mean simply working part time instead of full time because you want to spend more time playing pickleball or starting a marathoning routine where you're trying to compete in marathons, it's preserving your time. Ultimately, the thing money does that people value the most is it gives them their time back to do what they want. And if what you want is to spend more time in malls buying stuff, taking care of stuff, unpacking stuff, installing stuff, hiring someone to install stuff, that gets old very quickly. And I realize it may sound tantalizing if you don't have a lot of stuff. We live in a culture where everything on Instagram and Facebook is like, hey, look at my new stuff. Look at my private jet. Look at my jewels. It seems glamorous, but ultimately it's not what creates more happiness. Maybe for you it means spending even more time seeing friends and family in other cities and using your money to get you there. Maybe it's spending more money treating other friends. Maybe it's using your money to take care of needy people in your own community. There's no one set way of doing it. There's no one size fits all. Except for this. If you are fortunate enough to have money beyond the immediate needs of your shelter, your food and your safety, spend more time really thinking about how you can use your money to create experiences for yourself. And I don't mean just a check mark. Oh, I saw the South Pole and penguins. I mean experiences that are meaningful to you, to other people. If you do that, chances are you will actually become happier and your money can be a source of happiness, not a source of dread or annoyance.
