This is Optimal Living Daily. Get more for your money by Stacey Kaiser of livehappy.com.

And I'm Justin Mollick. This is the show where I usually read to you kind of like an audiobook,

but on Sundays I share an episode from a different podcast in our optimal network.

And today's comes from Optimal Finance Daily. Please do subscribe to or follow Optimal

Finance Daily wherever you're listening to this that helps support this show. But for now,

let's get right to the bonus episode in Diana's commentary as we optimize your life.

Get more for your money by Stacey Kaiser of LiveHapy.com.

Invest in experiences rather than things to boost your happiness.

When you think of financial well-being, perhaps you think about having enough money in the bank for retirement or a stable job that gives you a regular paycheck,

or maybe it's just being able to cover your expenses and save a little each month.

Each of those examples are ways of calibrating financial well-being.

I would like to suggest a new way to define financial well-being that focuses on the psychology of happiness.

Happiness comes from a variety of sources, including the ability to create and enjoy

memories and experiences. I propose that as part of building financial well-being that we

carve out some of our finances to fill our lives of more of those things we enjoy.

When it comes to money, most of us think about how we are going to spend it.

When the paycheck arrives, we first think about what bills we need to pay, what we want to buy,

and hopefully what we plan to save or donate to charity.

One thing many of us don't think about is how we might use our money to create more happiness

in our lives by investing in gratifying life experiences. Though these experiences are often

intangible, they can be appreciated for a lifetime. In one study published in the Journal of

Positive Psychology, researchers from San Francisco State University

...