'Buying time' and not just things may increase life satisfaction

Conclusion This large multi-country study on adults of various incomes found that buying time was linked to greater life satisfaction, even when considering a wide range of demographics and spend on other items each month. It also seemed to show that people were in a better mood when buying something that saved them time versus buying something material. These results are interesting in the busy, time-pressured culture many of us face today. The researchers suggest using money to buy time may reduce feelings of time pressure and buffer against negative effects of time pressure on life satisfaction. While this may be the case, before you start giving up all household chores, you might want to consider some limitations to the research: These were mainly cross-sectional studies with responses given at one time point. This means they cannot show that paying people to do tasks for you improves life satisfaction or happiness. Both will be dependent on a variety of factors that were not taken into account, such as employment, work/life balance, social situation, family life, personality and health status. For the small experimental study, the researchers did not look at what other activities or events were occurring on those two particular weekends that may have affected mood and stress levels rather than what they had purchased. In addition, the participants knew what the money was being spent on, which could have biased the results. Participants self-reported their activi...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Mental health Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news