Spend Your Money To Buy Time For A Happiness Boost!

How to get full value.

- Sudha Chandrasekaran

I dislike house cleaning in general and more so the office room at home, with innumerable files, papers etc strewn around with dust accumulated between them. I also feel that I am always hard pressed for time. So whenever I delay cleaning duty, it just means I end up feeling more stressed than ever before. But there may be a solution. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, I can buy some happiness and peace of mind...if I’m willing to pay someone else to do my most monotonous chores. Money can't buy happiness, right? Well, some researchers beg to differ. They say it depends on how you spend it. New research is challenging the age-old adage that money can't buy happiness. But there’s a catch – what you’re actually buying is time!

Money used to buy me stuff but now it buys me time! Beatles, the famous singers of 1970s, may still be right: money can’t buy you love – but it could buy you happiness! Researchers surveyed more than 6,000 people in four countries and found that people who doled out cash to save them time by doing jobs that include housekeeping, grocery delivery, driving etc were much happier compared to those who did not spend money on getting help for their monotonous chores. Rather than splashing out on material things in the pursuit of happiness, you’d be better off paying someone to clean your house, do your food shopping or carry out home repairs…. By paying to delegate household chores, you just bought time. This applies to a large number of chores or duties. In some countries people can under some circumstances pay money instead of doing mandatory military service. Mowing the lawn can be good exercise, and is fun for some people.