How you spend your money is a key to happiness.
The universal human quest for happiness just got easier and cheaper. Put off the shopping trip to buy more stuff in hopes of feeling good today. Don’t bother working unpaid overtime in hope of getting a raise that will make you happy. Instead, take the money you would have spent on stuff you don’t need, use the time you would have worked fruitlessly hoping for recognition, and spend both generously on others.

Positive Psychology Research
Positive Psychology researchers find that giving is a key to happiness. Generosity, it seems, brings more happiness than selfish indulgence. Giving just a few dollars or a few minutes to someone else may help you live longer, be happier, and be healthier.

It really is better to give than receive. No longer just a mother’s admonition, but a guide to happiness according to research findings.

“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.” ~ Winston Churchill
Spending Money: How, Not How Much, Counts

In a March 21, 2008, article, AP writer Randolph E. Schmid reports on research by Elizabeth W. Dunn, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. Dunn, reflecting on studies of how people spend money and how that relates to their happiness “was struck by how big the effect (of giving) was and that how people spent money was more important than how much money they had.”

Another research study conducted by Dunn indicated that giving as little as $5 brought happiness to study participants who used that money to purchase gifts for others, while a corresponding group of participants who used $5 for themselves reported no increase in happiness.

Generous Spending and Happiness
LiveScience staff writer Jeanna Bryner, reporting on this same research in an article of March 20, 2008, indicated “Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no link with a person’s happiness, while spending on others and charity was significantly related to a boost in happiness.”
It appears that those shopping trips to accumulate more stuff are fruitless and unnecessary in the quest for happiness. Instead of buying something spontaneously for oneself, it’s better to spend that same amount on a gift for someone else or to give the equivalent amount to a charitable cause.
Stephen Post’s Research Findings

A Christian Science Monitor Internet article of July 25, 2007, reports some 500 studies have shown the power of unselfish love. “It’s abundantly clear from a number of studies that people who live generous lives also live happier lives,” says Stephen Post, bio ethicist, Case Western Reserve University.
Post’s recent book, Why Good Things Happen to Good People, describes research findings showing that doing good not only brings happiness, but it is linked to living a longer, healthier life.

“Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.” ~ Thornton Wilder

A Philanthropy Experience
In a Primer in Positive Psychology, research psychologist Christopher Peterson indicates that an orientation to the welfare of others is, in the long run, more satisfying than an orientation to one’s own pleasure.

You can experience this for yourself with the following: In the next week, undertake one pleasurable activity for yourself and one philanthropic activity that will benefit another person.

A pleasurable activity is anything that you regard as fun for yourself without being harmful or harmful to others, while a philanthropic activity is something that you do for another that is difficult for the person you’re helping.

Spend about the same amount of time on each activity during the week and at the end of the week jot down your reactions and feelings as a result of each activity.