Buying Happiness

When talking about your children, how many times have you said, “All I want is for them is to be happy”.  I wonder how often you have thought about your happiness and if there are things you can do that will make your life much happier.

Kate Campbell is a financial educator who is the host of the very popular podcast, The Australian Finance Podcast.  Kate found that her most popular podcast was “8 ways to buy happiness: Rethinking how we spend our money”.

With an audience of over 80,000 each month, it was a natural progression to write books for her audience.  The popularity of her podcast, “8 ways to buy happiness”, seemed the obvious choice for her first book, Finding Happiness – Learn to invest your time and money better.

This book is well-researched, drawing on references from a wide range of authorities and organizations.  At the end of the book, you will find the reference details for each chapter.  At the end of each chapter a summary makes it easy to check you have understood the main points of the topic.

The book has five key ideas:

• It’s your money.
• Talking about money is OK.
• You can buy happiness.
• Take small actions, lots of times.
• Take healthy risks.

As you read each chapter, practical suggestions are made to help you clarify what you need to do to find happiness in your life.  While the book refers to happiness throughout the chapters, to my mind the book is more about helping you organize your life with a simple plan for each topic.  With organization will come happiness in that you are better organized and taking steps to remove the roadblocks in your life.

While there is an emphasis on management of your money, both the present and future needs are addressed.  The concept of delayed gratification will help you understand why you need to provide for your future needs as you move through life’s journey.  Hopefully by the time you reach retirement, you will have the financial resources that allows to you enjoy the things that matter most to you.

For some people, their focus may be on early retirement and if this is the case, then more effort will need to be applied to delayed gratification.  On the other hand, there are many people who continue to work well after retirement age, because this brings them the most joy.  If you think you are in the latter category, remember you don’t know what the future holds, in terms of your health and ability to work.

The last three chapters directly address money management.  I liked this quote from Noel Whittaker:

… The average person needs only two things to become wealthy: the knowledge of what to do, and the discipline to do those things.

This book was published by Major Street Publishing, an Australian company specializing in high quality books in leadership, business, entrepreneurship, career development, personal finance, personal development, share market and property development, self-care, personal growth and motivational genres.  This company is an excellent resource for Australians.

This book is much more than helping you buy happiness.  I think a better description would be how to organize your life so that you are financially comfortable in all stages of your life’s journey.  In other words, a life without financial stress.  Financial stress is one of the main causes for marriage breakdown and poor performance at work.

I would recommend this book to those who need a pep-talk on getting themselves financially organized.  The valuable tips given in this book will point you in the right direction for a happy and fulfilling financial future.  This in turn will improve your level of happiness in both your personal and working life.

Glenis Phillips SF FIN- Good Financial Reads