Book Review-Two Books with the Same Title
How lucky can a healthy wealth geek get? Two books with the same title: Happy Money. Both are good – One deals with the science of happier spending and one to the good energy and attitude that creates peace with money.
1) Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
2) Happy Money: The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money, by Ken Honda
First up, 1) Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending, Dunn & Norton
Elizabeth Dunn is an associate professor of psychology at UBC Vancouver, and Michael Norton is an associate professor of marketing at Harvard Business School.
Overall impressions: There is a boatload of useful research cited by these authors on the science of how favorable spending works. A great collaborative force, these two have an upbeat writing style and a good sense of humor. Like others before them, they show that after about 75,000 dollars of income, more money, bigger houses, fancier cars and things don’t increase happiness. How you spend your money though, will make or break that good mood.
Important takeaways include the fact that “most of the action in human thought and emotion is under the level of conscious awareness”. The old under-the-radar stuff. Efforts to understand spending habits that will most increase human happiness? Maybe it’s just as complicated as understanding the stock market! Today though, relying only on winging it, or intuition – isn’t enough to increase the happy.
The exhaustive review of the research – some done by grad students, maybe not quite as solid, but still useful – is likely worth the purchase price for some of you. Having scientifically validated suggestions helps with this grey area, of how people can create the most happiness per dollar spent.
Norton and Dunn name five principles that are shown to lead to happier spending. Use these five tenets together and in tandem for even better results. Get more bang for your buck, versus more bucks, right? That hunger for bigger and more doesn’t turn out to increase happiness. Rather, happiness comes from using your money well. And sharing it.
The five tenets they suggest, and some personal experiences that validate them:
1) Buy experiences. People tend to have more enjoyment and positive memories from buying experiences, rather than buying goods. The buzz from purchasing goods fades quickly. Buying the fam tickets to the World Series or a vacation though? That will create bonds and memories that last much longer.
2) Make it a treat. Versus a “daily necessity”. Limit access to your favorite things for more enjoyment. I make my own cold brew, but the coffee shop’s is so much better. Plus it’s great to get out of the home workplace. But it gets costly, and before reading this, underappreciated. My making it a treat? It cut the bill, and made me savor the café writing days. (I admit, I’m likely to get more done at home, too. Still. If treated like a treat, that $5 is happy money.)
3) Buy time. In this case, the discriminant purchasing of services that give you back more well-spent time, or that helps you fulfill passions or genius work, is happy-making. Are there tasks you dread, that can be delegated? I finally hired a housecleaner. Sure I’ll still keep things tidy, but knowing I’ll see Will every three weeks brings sanity. And I’m very happy to come home on cleaning day, to a fresh clean house. Think of this as time affluence versus money affluence. Most see time as more valuable once the basics are covered.
4) Pay now, consume later. While our plastic and shopping habits of the day encourage the pay later mode, reverse this for more joy. Pay ahead on a gift card for your lattes. (I mean regular coffees and that special weekly latte.)
5) Invest in others. Spending your money to help others increases your happiness. Contributing to a cause or people you care about makes you feel healthier and wealthier. See DonorsChoose.org.
Another operating principle from Norton and Dunn:
Before you spend $5, stop and ask – is this happy money? Am I spending this money in the way that will give me the biggest happiness bang for my buck?
Common Earnings and Spending of “Consumer Units” aka Humans
Consumer Units (aka Human): Common Earning and Spending Areas
The authors suggest looking at how you might reallocate if needed, without sacrificing much happiness. If you use an app for tracking, it’d be easy to see how your yearly spending, and if anything can be tweaked for your wealth balance.
The average “consumer unit” earned $62,000 before taxes. $48,000 was spent on the following:
Housing: 16,500
Transportation 7,700
Personal insurance and pensions 5,300
Food (at home) 3,600
All other expenditures 3,400
Healthcare 3,200
Food (away from home) 2,500
Entertainment 2,500
Apparel and services 1,700
Donations (e.g., charities, churches) 1,600
Note: Savings are also happy-making. Having enough money as a buffer provides cushioning from the unpleasant shocks of life. I can vouch for this – having that emergency fund transformed my life.
All righty then – there you have the Norton and Dunn update on Happy Money. Now, what are 1-3 actions you can take to create more happy money in your life? If money ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. Yes, that was yo’ mamma noted there. No worries. Happy money makes mamma happy too.
2) Happy Money: The Japanese Art of Making Peace with Your Money, Ken Honda
I’ll keep this brief. If you’re a healthy wealth geek like me, you’ll want to read this one. Ken Honda is Japan’s bestselling “Zen Millionaire”. The interesting thing from his life experience is a successful dad who was kind of abusive. He also has made fortunes and lost them. He was able to find an amazing mentor who taught him a lot about having happy (good energy with) money.
One experience Ken had nineteen years ago led him to taking a leap into his true work. He had a dream about his daughter, who asked him why he wasn’t doing more to change the world. He made excuses; she wasn’t convinced. He saw her disappointment clearly. It was a bitter feeling he woke up with. This dream stuck him, he didn’t want to disappoint her. He examined his skills and abilities. A few years later, he began writing his books on happiness and money. His books had broad appeal and now have a large audience.
Our gifts call to be used. He suggests, “Take a risk when you feel like you are being called to do so. It is usually the right direction and lifts you to the next level.” Another quote, “You have the freedom to choose your life. You can do whatever you want. Don’t let money stop you.” Our fears usually don’t become real – and it’s such a waste of time, talents and potential to let fear stop you.
Here are the five steps to having more Happy Money
1) Shift out of the scarcity mind-set.
2) Forgive and heal your money wounds
3) Discover you gifts and get into the flow of Happy Money
4) Trust life
5) Say arigato (thank you) all the time
There’s critical intel in this book for the soul savvy tribe. Like Ken, they are on the path of creating their best work that is also well-paid. Ken emphasizes doing work that you love. Also having gratitude, and giving / sharing with others. Though a bit rambling and repetitive at times, this is a supportive read. It makes you curious about his other books and his ‘Happy Money’ community. “Creating flow and happiness with money is most easily done with others”, he notes.
That attitude, and the healing treatment of money fears and negative history, will do a lot to contribute to create more loving energy around one of the last taboos – money money money. Let the healing in. We know there are plenty of resources available to grow into the planet that supports all of its creatures. One thing that will need to be done: turning dark money into happy money. Let the happy money games begin! Thanks Ken, Elizabeth and Michael for your most help with ways to spend money that really contribute to happiness – and the importance of healing the wounds here.
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What idea grabs you the most from these Happy Money books? Start the conversation below.
And here’s one example of a Healthy Wealth step that a person (ha, me) might do to increase their healthy wealth quotient. After you done your assessment and gotten your “score” – you take an hour a week to lean into those “dread” zone. For me, that’s looking at health insurance bills. I put it off indefinitely. But in a walking-my-talk-moment (lol – “how rare!” brain jokes), I called about a weird bill received. And the kind helper, rather “told-you-so” at first, said in fact, that bill was paid by the provider and was no longer due. Ha! Bring on that healthy wealth feeling! Get your game changer kit today… OK – sometimes it’s the little steps/things/silliness that increase your happiness and wealth.