The 1/26/09 release of the Vanguards Plain Talk on Investing Podcast is titled "Can thrift make a comeback?".

The one snippet from this podcast that I am still thinking about has to do with when money does help happiness. The academic being interviewed stated that while more money (stuff) doesn't making people any happier, people with more savings do tend to be happier. Presumably this is because they don't have to spend as much time worrying about potential financial disasters.

Savings as peace of mind strikes me as an under appreciated reason to be thrifty. Maybe JD could hunt down this research and give us a follow up?

David

There are a lot of studies on the link between happiness and money, and many of them are seemingly in conflict with each other. I think part of the issue is that happiness is very hard to measure. Personally I don't think of money as something that brings me happiness, but more as something that helps me avoid negative emotions like stress or fear. Since the money doesn't directly contribute to my enjoyment, it doesn't really increase my happiness, however my life is significantly happier overall when my financial house is in order.

Here are two articles on studies about money and happiness, both reaching completely different conclusions based on varying methods of measuring the impact of money.

http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/savings ... id=5034329

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/arch ... topstories

All things aside: "Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." - Nathaniel Hawthorne