Fact: money can buy happiness. Financial educator, author and podcast host Kate Campbell discusses research-backed ways to use your money to give you a big fat mood boost.
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Well hello, they're Extra healthy Ish listeners. You have tuned into the Big Sister podcast to healthysh from Body and Soul with me your host Felicity Haley. What do you think Do you believe that money doesn't buy happiness? Well, my guest today has the research to prove that yes, money can actually buy happiness. Financial educator, author and host of the Australian Finance podcast, Kate Campbell is here today to discuss the research to prove that yes, you can use your money to give yourself a big fat mood boost. Kate, thank you for joining us today on Extra Healthy Ish.
Thank you very much for having me.
Now, before we get into how money can buy happiness, I have to ask you how do you stay extra healthy ish in your life?
The main way I do it is finding regular community groups that I can join, whether it's my weekly running group, doing an eight week improv class, When you see the same group of people on a weekly basis and you get to do something whether it's outdoors or creative or learn something together. Because I think that gives me a great sense of community and I get to do something fun and meet new people as well.
Oh I like that. I don't think I've had that answer before. Do you try different ones or do you stick to the same sort of groups or are you just up forgiving anything ago.
I'm usually down to try anything twice. But I've been in the same running group for about a year now, so that's a really nice thing to do on a Saturday morning to get to see familiar faces and have a coffee after. But I like trying different classes. Like last year I did an eight week improv class, which was challenging but a fantastic way to push yourself out of your comfort zone. But I began to try something new over this summer as well.
Oh I like it. Okay, watch this space. We might have to tune back in and hear what you've given a go now. For those who didn't tune into healthy issue, talk to us about this whole concept of money can buy happiness. This is controversial.
Well, it's true. You can't just walk into the supermarket and buy happiness and life will just be good forever after. There are a lot of small changes you can make with the way you spend your time and money right now to give your happiness a boost. Because having more control over our finances does give us a greater sense of satisfaction and control over our lives. So I've spent the last year looking into some of the different ways that research has shown, mostly in the US because it's still an emerging field in Australia, but research has shown that we can use our money in just a slightly different way to we're using it right now, and we're probably doing many of these things already to give our happiness a boost.
So one of the things you know you talk about first, which I one hundred percent agree with, is an emergency fund. I think this first and foremost can alleviate stress. Talk to us about this and importance of building one of these.
I am very passionate about the topic of an emergency fund. So what it is is three to six months of your basic living expenses stashed away in a high interest savings account, and for many people that is the first financial goal. Potentially it's getting out of debt, but it's something that they've got put aside that if any curveballs come up in life, you've got that money and you know that if things go wrong, you can rely on that, and it gives you a huge sleep at night factor. It gives you a lot more confidence to make decisions day to day. And I think it's a huge foundation in helping money improve our lives because we can make a lot of career decisions, financial decisions decisions about what we want to do in our lives from a position of strength once we know we've got some finances put aside. And if you want to learn more about building emergency fund, I talk about that quite a bit on the Australian Finance podcast. But the importance of having an emergency fund a financial blanket was really brought home for me a few years ago when my mum got sick. She got breast cancer for the second time, and I knew that she had some money put aside and that she had a lot of peace of mind that while she couldn't just buy her way to getting better and she had to go through the process, she had money put aside to make everything a little bit easier because she didn't have to worry about if she was going to be able to pay her mortgage next week, and she didn't have to worry about all of the bills that she was having to pay out of pocket, and that gave her a lot more breathing room to focus on getting better, and so having a strong financial foundation gives us the ability to make financial decisions from a position of strength, and I really hope that everyone can get to that point. And for many people, getting to point of having three to six months put away is actually a huge challenge, and so I spend a lot of time helping people on our show get the basics sorted out and how to figure out how to create a plan and start sorting out their finances so they can get that foundation in place.
I hope your mum's okay, but it was good to hear that she does have an emergency fund. Talk to us about this whole concept of using money to smooth the road ahead, because this sounds sweet to me.
There's a lot of things that we can do, and you've probably already experienced some of them to make life a little bit easier. And whether that's when you moved house you might have used a moving company and not actually had to do everything manually like you might have done back in the UNI days. There's a lot of things you can do and using money as a tool rather than it doesn't have to be a good or a bad thing. It's just something that you can use to help make life a little bit easier. And so one way that I use money to smooth life is just with groceries and shopping. So I might get a food, fruit and veggie box delivered each fortnite and that just takes one less decision off my plate. So there's different things we can do with our money to make our life a little bit easier. Of course, we can go too far in the other direction and smooth too much and take all of the friction out of life. And sometimes the friction is where the best things happen when we're in moments of discomfort and challenge. And one of the examples that Oliver Berkman talks about in four Thousand Weeks, which is a great book if you want to learn more about time and the finite.
Nature, I highly recommend that as well.
Yeah, writing birthday cards to people and we could send a text that would be the quickest option, but there's a lot to going to the store, buying a card, writing a handwritten letter and posting it out. There's more cost involved, it's more friction. It's probably inconvenient, but it will probably mean a lot more to the person that receives it, and that's probably something worth experimenting with. There's some areas of your life, well you might go, I can use my money to free up a bit more time. Maybe I get a meal delivered once a week, or places where I think I should leave a bit of friction and spend a bit more time and money on this other task.
And I think, I mean, as you talked about in your we talked about in the beginning, it's it is being more intentional and maybe taking notice of that intention. I love the idea of writing a card and sending it. I mean they are expensive, I know, but spending money, as you talk about, is it almost like an investing in relationships with family and friends and taking note of that and saying, yes, that actually makes me feel good to buy that seven dollar card, or though you can go to kmart and get a cheaper one and send it and that and I feel good about spending that money.
Yeah. And there's a lot to be said with experimenting with the way we spend our money. Often we end up on autopilot mode and we've just got our regular things we spend money on. We've got money coming out of our bank account for different bills, left, right, and center. We've got our income and we don't think so much about changing things up a little bit. So that's often where we can get a big happiness boost is just adding some novelty to the way we spend our money, because we get so stuck on autopilot and just doing the same things that maybe this week instead of going to the same cafe on the weekend, we actually change it up and try a new suburb and try a new cafe or order something new. Just spending the same amount of money in a little bit of a different way adds a big happiness boost to our lives because we get a whole new experience. We hopefully go somewhere new, we get to see new surroundings, and we get a whole new memory to experience as well.
We'll be back after this shortbreak with more from Kate going to a different suburb to a different cafe. Changing up your norm so creates memories, And I love the idea of using money to create memories. You call it memory dividends. Talked to us about this concept.
Yeah, so many of us have probably heard about the idea of making an investment and getting some money paid back to us in the form of a dividend. But we don't often think about that in terms of our experiences, because that's one of the good things about spending more money on experiences, especially when we're having those experiences with other people, is we don't just have the good event and memory once. When the experience happens. We get to talk about that experience afterwards. On the train home from the concert, we get to share our experience with our friends at work next week. Two years later, we're still reliving the experience of the concerts. So that is the fact that when we spend money on an experience, it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's something that we get to keep thinking about in many years to come. I don't know if you've spoken to your parents when they've talked about, Oh, that concert I went to forty years ago in Madison Square Gardens was amazing. And that's a great way to improve our relationships because it strengthens them because we've got all these ties together from all these different experiences over the years. But it gives us a happiness boost now and in the future.
I think you write about the Edge Sheering concert, right, are you still reliving that a long time after because I didn't go, but my husband and son did and I hear about it all of the time.
Yeah. I took my sister for her birthday to the Edge Hearing concert in Melbourne this year and there was a lot of anticipation in the lead up, which means that we've got a happiness boost from that thinking about the concert and the setlist. We got a huge happiness boost at the concert. I mean, it was amazing and then we still get to chat about the experience six months later now, which is a good example of how you can use different things to increase your happiness.
Give us some examples from you about what you of how you buy your happiness.
Yes, so anything from I love reading books, so for me, not having a tight book budget and saving money on other areas, but allowing myself to spend lots of money on books is something that makes me really happy. And then I to talk to people about books and have that experience there. Even just spending a little bit of money, putting money aside for my financial future, that brings me a lot of happiness as well, because we often find it really hard to balance enjoying the moment and also putting money aside for our future selfs. So for me, I'm happy if I can spend money on experiences with friends and family right now, but also balance that with looking after my future self. So putting money aside per Kate in ten or twenty years time brings me a lot of happiness as well, because I know that she'll be able to experience lots of different things down the track because past it's done right by her.
What about You know a lot of people listening to this would be thinking, but I can barely afford to buy the vegetables right now, or you know, I can't afford mud your membership, or how can we still use this concept if we are well living week to week.
Yeah, it's really hard. And I know a lot of people are struggling with the cost of living right now, and a lot of money content is very future focused, which does make it sort of out of reach for a lot of people. And I absolutely get that. So thinking about are there any small changes that you can make to the way you're spending your money or your time right now to give yourself a happiness boost. So if you think about all of the things you've done in the last month, you get your notes out and just write down all of those small things that you've done with your money all your time that you go, oh, I really enjoyed that. So you could just do that by looking for your bank statement and your calendar for the last month and just pulling out any of those little moments that gave you a feeling of happiness or satisfaction or joy. And that might just be I really just like catching up with my friend for a cup of tea. I didn't cost anything, but I really enjoyed just having a long chat. So then thinking next month, is there a way I can do that again and increase that a little bit and invite a few other friends over for a cup of tea. Or maybe I really like buying books, but that's a bit out of reach for me at the moment. So can I have that same experience of browsing a bookstore by going to the state library and wandering around, or going to my local library and borrowing some books, or going to the local park. So just finding things. Are the things that make you really happy used to be going out for dinner and that's a bit out of reach. How can you had that same experience of going out and having time with friends and family and not having to cook in a more affordable way. And that might just be getting a group of friends out to the park for a barbecue and everyone brings something, so it really brings the cost of that activity down.
And I think you mentioned something really important. And when you first answer that question, it was looking at how you spend your time as well as your money, because I know there's many studies that show that we actually value time over money. So it's almost flipping your thinking, going well, I might not have the money, but you know what, make the time and you can, as you say, do things that are free or very low cost.
Yeah, a lot of us do forget about time when we're thinking about financial goals and how we're spending and saving our money. But times a resource that once we spend it, we don't get back. So it's really important to think about how are you using your time this week, this month, this year to add value to your life to spend time with friends and family. Because one of the longest running studies on human development run by Harvard University in the United States, they have found that over eighty plus years they've studied over fifteen hundred people. It's the quality of our relationships that leads to the happiest lives down the track. And so how can you spend your time today to improve your relationships with your friends and family and the people around you, and to be more involved in your community. And a lot of that is very low cost. It might be a walk or a cup of tea, or taking a meal to a neighbor or joining a local sports team. But they're actually the things that bring us the greatest happiness boost. It's just they're not the things that social media or Colin Street and the city when you walk through, or the marketing emails you get in the inbox are going to tell you that make you happy because they don't cost any money.
Yeah. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Kate, love it to chat today. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm sure a lot of what Kate talked about you probably already do. But it's just about thinking and having the intention to do it. Isn't it that you appreciate that, Yes, by spending your money on experiences, on investing in gifts to friends or time out with friends, giving it away, These are the things that make you feel good. And if you do want to learn more about Kate's philosophy, her theory, you can grab her book. It is called Buying Happiness and it is out now. If you did enjoy our chat, make sure you rate or review it and you can of course subscribe to this podcast jump online, Body insoul dot com. Do you if you want anything else happiness related, finance related, health, fitness, it's all there. Follow us on socials. Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow it sta Extra Healthy