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Someone pointed out an article called When Money Buys Happiness recently, which discussed the results of a request by Dr. Geoffrey Miller to:

List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists.

Well, I didn’t read any further than that before deciding that I wanted to try it for myself. First I tried to think of the 10 items, services, or experiences that I’d spent the most money on. Ever. Here’s what I came up with, in the order of when I bought the items/experiences:

• First condo (long since sold)
• Trips to Germany & surrounds.
• Miata
• Our current house
• Graduate school
• Rental condo (sold too)
• Cruise
• Trip to Hawaii
• Rental duplex (also sold)
• Trip to Italy

And here’s my list of the things I paid for that brought me the most happiness:

• Our wedding
• My son (if you count associated expenses!)
• Trips to Western Europe, Vancouver, Hawaii, Eastern U.S., Italy, cruises, the beach, to visit family, etc.
• Miata
• Our house & home-related projects
• Pets
• Cameras
• Therapy
• A painting
• Flowers

Quite a few of my items appeared on both lists, which was what the responders also reported.

But then I wondered if the things in my first list were really what I’d spent the most money on. It would be easy to forget stuff, so I fired up Quicken for 15 years of data that’s pretty inaccurate for various reasons, but still much better than my memory.

This is what Quicken told me I’d spent the most on, from most to least expensive (and even the least expensive amount is enough to make me choke):

• Housing
• Auto-related expenses
• Credit (ow, glad that’s no longer the case, but ugh)
• Taxes of many types
• Medical
• Groceries
• Dining
• Wedding photography business
• Travel & Electricity, tied at the same amount
• Childcare
• Graduate school

Clearly my memory was pretty faulty. What’s funny to me is that four out of the ten truly most expensive items appear in some form on my “happiness” list, but six of the things on my happiness list are actually very inexpensive (at least compared to the other stuff I’ve spent money on.)

What do you think? Are you spending on the things that you really enjoy? Or is too much of your money going to things that you don’t?

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