Are you aware of what money can buy you? Did you know that money can buy happiness?
The average American’s salary is $905 per week or $47,060 yearly. This is the median wage in the first quarter of 2019. It’s based on a 40-hour work week and it’s 2.7% higher than wages from the past year.
Depending on where you live and what lifestyle you have, the money may not be enough.
With bills to pay and necessities to buy, it can be difficult to put money aside. With wise money-saving tactics, it’s possible to enjoy yourself too. Read on below for some material possessions that you can buy for happiness.
1. Material Possessions: Do Instead of Have
Most people like the idea of having material possessions. Owning certain materialistic items give them happiness. There’s nothing wrong with that but others may find it better to buy experience instead.
A trend with today’s culture for finding the self is to travel. Even when you are not on a quest to discover yourself, traveling is still a fun experience. Thanks to airlines and travel companies, it’s much easier to access plane tickets now.
The plane tickets already offer the experience of leaving and arriving at a new place. If you are a first-time traveler, you may find the experience of leaving the country exciting on its own. The new culture, the different environment, and unfamiliar people make the experience more exciting.
Now, you may think, where’s the material happiness in there? It’s your plane tickets and your cab fare, your camera, and your travel gear, and much more. Travelers could find happiness in receiving a backpack that can hold all they need for a trip.
If you aren’t the traveling type, you can still get material possessions that allow you to have fun. These could be in the form of ski equipment, a faster CPU, or cooking utensils. Books bring you to a new world; a skydiving ticket can show you a chunk of the world.
These are all very different things that can bring happiness to different people who enjoy through doing.
2. Shared Experiences
We talked about getting material possessions that allow you to do rather than have. Now let’s talk about sharing these things with others. Often, the presence of friends and/or family are what make them fun indeed.
This applies well to people who want to try their hand at traveling. Heading to an unfamiliar place can be intimidating. With someone you trust at your side, it doesn’t have to be.
This also ties in with sharing the happiness you feel from doing with someone else. A lot of people share the good things that happen to them to their loved ones. Thus, they buy an extra plane ticket, concert ticket, or piece of equipment so a loved one can join them.
Express your identity through your spending. Spending on others and for others can bring happiness and good karma your way. Even if you’re the loner type, there are some things better undergone with friends.
Experiencing happiness with your friends and family makes the experience more fulfilling. Sharing with others is one of the many goals in life, after all. Share the fun with loved ones or even strangers.
With that said, you must choose the right people to spend money on. Not everyone around you will appreciate your kindness. Be wary of the people you choose to be with.
3. Things That Give You Comfort
We can measure happiness through the comfort we get from something. When we buy something that will help us get through the difficulties of life, it becomes priceless to us. This can range from items we use for outdoor hobbies to items for relaxation.
For example, you decide to buy a brand-new queen-sized mattress. Unlike a ticket to a concert, the mattress won’t be able to provide a thrilling experience for you. Yet, it will be able to give you relief and warmth when you need it.
It’s not only comfort items that you can buy. If you like to create comfort foods, you can get cooking or baking utensils. If making crafts gives you comfort, get yourself some arts and crafts equipment.
4. Meaningful Things
You want to know how to get happiness from material objects and not only from experiences. It’s possible to gain happiness from material objects alone. The key is to attach yourself with things that are valuable and meaningful to you.
There will be times when experiential happiness becomes harmful. This is truest when you gain pleasure from the act of buying things. Shopping is a very problematic addiction for many people, for example.
Instead, it would be better to buy things that make you happy. For example, you enjoy luxury items like watches with leather quick release. See here for the design feature from Barton Watch Brands.
Focus less on spending and more on what you spend money on. It’s not always about accumulating possessions but gaining those that you’d appreciate most.
Be Happy Even with Material Goods
To conservative believers, this may seem like a foolish belief. The truth of the matter is the decision to “buy” happiness boils down to what kind of happiness one desires. Everyone has different desires and different things make them happy.
It could be either material happiness or experiential happiness. Do you value the material or the experience? Whether you should invest in material possessions to become happy is up to you.
Remember this when you regret buying something. Next time, you’ll know what you want to get or do. Also, it’ll do you good to assess what kind of happiness other people chase when you buy gifts for them.
Are you interested to live a neutral way of life? Check out our post about living in duality vs living in neutrality.
