Happy Juneteenth! Lots of new subscribers from the last few weeks. Welcome! If you are new to the Double Shift, here are a couple of recents and classics that I think will give you some good insight into what this newsletter and community are all about.
My most popular newsletter to date:
Other thought-provoking reads:
Now onto the first of my summer swap series, where I’m highlighting some of the great work from other Substackers that I think Double Shifters will love. First up is Abby Davisson, co-author of the great book, Money and Love: An Intelligent Roadmap for Life’s Biggest Decisions. She’s also a Double Shift member and the writer of the great Substack which I recommend you subscribe to, Practically Deliberate.
I’m far from a money expert, but economics and personal finance have a huge impact on so many intersections of my interests in challenging the status quo of work and care. Fortunately for me, I have several smart people in my orbit I can learn from and share some insights with you all. Today, Abby is graciously allowing me to share a post of hers with you all, which I found very insightful.
Unlike so many people peddling “life advice” and “hacks,” Abby shares thoughtful (and research-backed) insights into how to think about decisions. So often, we rush to “just tell me what the right answer is” but Abby’s work allows for all the nuances that life throws at us and helps create frameworks for guiding us through some of life’s biggest decisions, like changing careers, making a cross country move, or prioritizing relationships. She is the queen of helping readers think through the process, which I think ultimately will make us happier with what we land on, rather than making glib pronouncements about what the “right” thing to do is.
The personal experiences she’s sharing does have a level of financial privilege not available to all. But one of the strongest findings she shares in today’s essay relates to prioritizing experiences over stuff, which I think is an important lesson at virtually any budget level. As our childcare costs start to go down as our twins get older, I’ve started thinking more about what more budget flexibility could look like for our family. But I also realize we are constantly making values choices around spending even when it feels like there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room. For years, my husband and I have prioritized a weekly standing date night as a time to regularly connect and have a sense of relationship outside of the daily grind of parenting and managing all the logistics of the household. If you’ve tallied what we’ve spent on that over four or five years, it probably equivalent to buying a way nicer minivan or doing some home improvements or big projects in our backyard. But I’m absolutely sure the experience of spending time together was the right place to invest our resources.
So without further ado, please enjoy Abby’s post!
My family is taking an international trip this summer, and I’ve been knee-deep in planning mode (I have wayyyyy too many browser tabs open right now).
This trip has been a long time coming. We first got our kids their passports in the Fall of 2019 (when they were six and four) in anticipation of taking an international trip the following year. We all know how that turned out!
Earlier this year, we renewed those passports and — fingers crossed — booked tickets to Spain.
This is not only the first international trip we’re taking as a family, it’s the longest since Ross and I both repotted our careers.
It’s one thing to plan a big trip when your paycheck is direct deposited into your bank account regularly; it’s another when you’re working for yourself and your income is less predictable.
But you don’t need to have made a career pivot to be feeling less than flush these days. With prices up significantly in recent years due to inflation, a dollar simply doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Which is why I was intrigued to come across Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending by Elizabeth Dunn (a psychology professor) and Michael Norton (a business/behavioral economics professor). The book outlines five research-backed principles to ensure you’re getting the biggest happiness bang for your buck, which is exactly what all we want to do, especially now.
I found these principles enlightening, so I’m sharing them along with how I’m using them to rationalize guide our vacation spending.
All Practically Deliberate subscribers will receive four tips. Paid subscribers will get a fifth tip (a counterintuitive one that’s caused me to change my planning approach!).
Tip #1: Buy experiences, not things
In the recent course I taught on Big Life Decisions, the concept of home ownership as an aspirational life milestone came up. Despite the fact that home ownership is out of reach of many, it’s still held out as an important marker of adulthood (at least in the United States).1
But the data suggest that this highly anticipated purchase doesn’t necessarily make us happier.
So what does?
Experiences.
Dunn and Norton cite study after study finding that spending on experiences leads to more happiness than spending on material goods — even homes. For example:
“One ongoing study has tracked how much money adults over age 50 spend on just about everything, from refrigerators and rent to alcohol and art. When researchers link these spending choices to happiness, only one category of spending matters. And it’s not refrigerators or even alcohol. It’s what the researchers label “leisure”: trips, movies, sporting events, gym memberships, and the like. People who spend more of their money on leisure report significantly greater satisfaction with their lives. Not surprisingly, the amount of money these older adults reported spending on leisure was dwarfed by the amount they spent on housing. But housing again turned out to have zero bearing on their life satisfaction.”2
The specific study they cite (linked in footnotes) attributes this happiness boost partially to the fact that leisure activities often increase our levels of social connectedness.
My personal experience confirms the study’s findings. Last year, we spent a considerable sum to install new front windows and paint the exterior of our house, which has had little bearing on my own life satisfaction.
However, my weekly tennis class has given me a huge happiness boost (for a fraction of the cost).
This finding validated our decision to spend money on this trip now, even though our first instinct may be to invest in some other aspect of home maintenance that feels more “responsible.”
Tip #2: Make it a Treat
It’s been a few weeks since my younger son’s birthday. The gifts he received from friends at his party, once captivating, now remain mostly untouched (until, of course, his older brother shows even mild interest in them).
We acclimate quickly to what we have or do regularly. Many studies underscore how once we have greater access to something — whether that something is chocolate or an expensive car — the novelty quickly wears off. Dunn and Norton assert, “Abundance, as it turns out, is the enemy of appreciation.”3
The guidance here is to limit our access to indulgences because the “little treats of daily life may provide a purer source of pleasure than people realize.”4 By adding a dose of novelty, we end up appreciating those treats more.
At home, we alternate between “fruit nights” and “dessert nights.” On vacation, that rule goes out the window and every night is dessert night. However, upon reading this research, I’m thinking that maybe we shouldn’t eat gelato every day (though this may make me very unpopular with my family).
Tip #3: Buy time
I’ve long been a proponent of buying time through outsourcing. Dunn and Norton don’t discuss outsourcing (unless you count an anecdote about a family that loves roombas), but they do remind us that “purchases that reduce or eliminate the worst minutes of our day can provide a big happiness bang for our buck.”5
They discuss three activities in detail: commuting, watching television, and socializing, citing studies that conclude:
Long commutes make people unhappy (but taking the train is better than driving)
Watching more than 30 minutes of TV/day is correlated with lower life satisfaction
Spending time with friends and family is a significant contributor to happiness
I read this chapter as we were strategizing about how we’d travel to different destinations within Spain. Reading about how driving makes people disgruntled reminded me of the epic argument Ross and I once had after a particularly stressful drive in Provence (pre-kids).
I promptly booked us high speed train tickets, feeling confident that my train-loving kids would see this as a treat and we’d get the benefits of buying ourselves time.
Tip #4: Invest in others
Given the volume of research on how social relationships contribute to our well-being, I wasn’t surprised to learn that one of the recommended approaches involves spending money on others.
One study found that people who used $10 Starbucks gift cards to treat a friend to a caffeinated drink were happier than those who gifted the $10 card to someone else (but didn’t spend time with them) or spent it on themselves (even when a friend came with them to Starbucks).6
As Dunn and Norton note, ”You’re likely to get the biggest happiness bang for your prosocial buck if you invest in others in ways that help you connect with people, especially people you care about.” 7
The impetus for going to Spain was to visit some dear friends who have been living in Madrid this past year. As luck would have it, we’ll also get to see some other friends who have spent this past year in Barcelona. So we were already investing in spending time with people we care about.
Now we know we should treat them to un café con leche when we see them!
To read Abby’s fifth insight, become a paid subscriber to Practically Deliberate.
It's really sweet and insightful how you recommended Abby. I'm subscribing now. ♥️
Yes, I am a single mom of twin tween girls and I have a housekeeper come every week. That is buying time and sanity and worth every penny. It's the last thing to go when things are tight. Now if I could only find someone to adopt the pitbull I found and might be here forever.. I am the top of a pyramid with 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 kids. Damn right I need a housekeeper.
Also like the point on working for yourself. This has been a slow as hell year financially and patience has been the prevailing virtue. Thank god for my podcast.