
Spend money on experiences, not possessions (2009) - starpilot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124433032858891653.html
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mrkurt
This is why I'm awfully proud of our senior class gift in high school. Random,
I know.

Most high school classes give something like a couch, or a sign, or a statue,
or something else that they can engrave their class name on. We, however, gave
the long time crossing guard an all expense paid vacation to Hawaii. I will
always remember the look on her face when it was presented, and I can imagine
it being a fantastic break for a lady who made very little money and somehow
always looked happy.

We bought ourselves an experience.

~~~
auxbuss
I'd work with you.

Happiest people I've met. Nepalese. One of the poorest nations on the planet.

Money and happiness do not correlate.

I remember a Nepalese didi (sister) laughing her head of at the "stupid
American" who had left her lodge without paying that morning. What an idiot
for forgetting to pay. Her neighbours were falling around laughing. I caught
the guy by lunch time, and he felt so bad he walked all the way back. I would
love to have seen their reaction.

"Life is about experience". You can buy some of it, but not most of it. And
the best things in life really are free.

------
vinhboy
Judging from these comments, I must be the only person who does not like
traveling. I like hearing stories and learning about other cultures, but the
idea of flying around the world seeking adventure is a hassle to me. Does that
make me a bad person?

Besides, there is so much to do as is, like learn assembly. =)

~~~
sliverstorm
Not the only one. I teeter somewhere inbetween.

Most places in the USA are unremarkable; as my mother would say when my father
talks about visiting a new state park, "seen one tree, seen 'em all". Cities
nationwide are relatively the same beyond superficial differences. I spent a
week in Rhode Island a year ago, and today I couldn't tell you any way it was
meaningfully different from the Silicon Valley besides 'it had old buildings'.

On the other hand, visiting Japan as a teenager was really cool.

~~~
kiddo
There are so many amazing places in the USA. I'm astounded that you're saying
most places are unremarkable. I'm not sure where to begin with suggestions.
Slot canyons of Utah? Rain forests of the Pac NW? Appalachians? Small old coal
towns in the NE PA? Snowy peaks of CO? Thousand Islands? Lancaster County, PA?
There are big and awe inspiring places that I love and there are small and
curious places that I enjoy too. There is so much here. Such a big country! I
live in NYC now, and almost every neighborhood is remarkable in some way. You
just have to open your eyes.

I'm curious why you thought Japan was cool. Could you explain?

Where in Rhode Island were you? What did you do there? Who were you with? Did
you meet anyone?

~~~
sliverstorm
If we are talking about nature, I agree. I love nature, and I love visiting
cool environmental features. I was speaking mostly of cities, which is what
most people I know want to visit when they talk about traveling.

Visiting Japan (suburbs, not city) was like visiting a sort of parallel
universe. Everything was fundamentally similar, but totally different.
Additionally, I was learning Japanese at the time, so it was rather exciting
just trying to converse with native speakers. It was quite a while ago so I
can't think of much in the way of specific examples of the 'bests', but they
have a number of cultural aspects and traditions I preferred over their
western equivalents, such as sleeping accommodations and choice in breakfast
foods. (always found most western breakfasts beyond cereal/oatmeal and toast
despicable)

Providence. Spent the week with a girl, roaming around the city a bit.

~~~
kiddo
How are sleeping accom different in Japan from the US? What do Japanese people
usually eat for breakfast?

I imagined Prov to be somewhat different from SV. Isn't SV composed of some
smallish towns (PA, etc) and then vast modern suburbs? Isn't Prov an oldish
city by US stds? Multi-story buildings with shopfronts, apts above, more
pedestrians, less cars, narrower streets, different building materials, a
harbor, more mom & pop shops, than SV? Granted, it's not Japan, but what did
you expect?

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, they use a futon (they are different from the Western futon, looks
something like this: [http://futonmattressinfo.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/futo...](http://futonmattressinfo.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/futon-beds-Japan.jpg) ) which I found very
comfortable. I don't know all the details, but while they still have a
'comforter' and a 'mattress', they were markedly different. The pillows were
made of something similar to buckwheat hulls, and kicked the ass of every
fluffy pillow I'd used to date. I have since acquired a buckwheat pillow,
although it's not quite as good as whatever mystery filler it was. Not _quite_
as cool and fluid. For breakfast, my favorite was hot rice mixed with small
bits of meat and a raw egg cracked over it.

edit: I forgot about onigiri, that stuff was amazing too

Providence is most definitely different from SV. I wasn't disappointed or let
down either- I expected pretty much what I got. I guess you could say besides
the weather (rain) I felt I could have had pretty much the same experience in
any of the US cities I've been to. Japan was different, because I was
_discovering_ the place rather than living in it. So, perhaps my lack of
fascination with Providence stems from the fact that I am not enamored of m&p
shops and old buildings. It was nice, but nothing to write home about.

------
jamesteow
Eight of my friends invited me to go with them to Europe. Working on a
startup, I was pretty hesitant because of the financial hit. To make ends
meet, I ate out less and spend a lot less time and money shopping online.

In the end, I had an amazing time over there and it'll probably be one of the
most memorable experiences of my life.

------
kamechan
i've spent about 2 months out of each year for the last 7 years travelling to
japan or europe. each time there is usually some big ticket item competing for
my dollars.

often times, when i succumb to the material good i'm perpetually disappointed
with it in what it can't do or offer me.

last year i went around the world (ireland 1wk, england 3wks, france 1wk,
italy 1wk, belgium 3days, china 5days, japan 1month) and it cost me about
$7500. i was thinking of buying a fancy TV instead. had i bought the TV i
wouldn't have spent quite as much, but no doubt i would have just sat on the
couch ... watching TV. even though $7500 is A LOT, i've never regretted it.
not once.

------
starpilot
I recently realized what the phrase, "Own enough stuff, and it starts to own
you" means. The more things you buy, the more you're obligated to use them to
justify paying for them. Your time isn't your own anymore ("I bought this
guitar, so after work I must practice, also must figure out new SLR camera,
and plan trip around new skis..."), and you're hemmed in to pursuing uses for
your toys. I think there's a certain freedom to being bored.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
There are scale issues as well:

* things go in the way when you want to move (change of house, country...)

* you have to maintain, clean them, keep things tidy

* you're tempted to take a better insurance (against robbery or fire) as you own more

* you're tempted to buy/rent a larger house (and one extra room costs a lot, which translates into less time available for me)

etc :)

~~~
hnote
George Carlin Talks About "Stuff"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac>

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erikstarck
I see this discussion popping up here and there. People are clearly tired of
consuming for the sake of consuming. We seek other kicks. Nothing strange with
that, this follows the development ladder of spiral dynamics or Maslow.

But it's worth pondering what this does to the economy at large. What happens
when we start to perceive value more in fluffy stuff like experiences than
physical goods? It would certainly affect the job market and the opportunity
cloud for startups.

It's time for everyone in business to ask: what are people willing to pay for
in the post consumer society?

On the shopping list for a 21st century man would be:

Experiences.

Social status (never goes out of style, but the accessories do).

Time.

Health.

Emotional comfort.

This is worth keeping in mind when you build your startup. Can you package
your service in such a way as to speak to the 21st century man in us all? This
man does not just want to solve a problem, he wants to feel good and have fun
doing it.

~~~
gwern
> But it's worth pondering what this does to the economy at large. What
> happens when we start to perceive value more in fluffy stuff like
> experiences than physical goods? It would certainly affect the job market
> and the opportunity cloud for startups.

A narrow consideration, but not surprising for a Hacker News comment. I think
the bigger picture is that this is a major transition in economies, and it is
very good for people.

Imagine a toy model economy where all the people have suddenly shifted to only
wanting goods - let's say they are Pogs. They don't want any services. As it
happens, there is an absolutely ginormous Pog-making machine which can meet
the entire economy's demand for Pogs. And extremely efficiently, too, so that
basically all it needs is some paper to run. What's going to happen in this
economy?

What will happen is that all the ordinary people will slowly transfer their
capital and savings to the owner of the Pog machine in exchange for the Pogs
they so crave, and the owner will make out like a bandit, since he only needs
to pay the paper mill occasionally. (Nor will the owner be spreading the
wealth - like everyone else, he lusts for Pogs.) In the extreme, everyone is a
bankrupt peon with no job and the owner owns next to everything.

You might think of this model as a little intuition-pump for 'what if robots
ran all the machines in a manufacturing economy?' Fortunately, we _aren't_ in
such a manufacturing economy, but shifting to a service economy where the
machines haven't taken the only jobs available, and so the robots and machines
are on net very good for us - their manufactured wealth gets shared.

~~~
erikstarck
> I think the bigger picture is that this is a major transition in economies,
> and it is very good for people.

Oh, I agree. We're leaving the industrial age and that's a good (and big!)
thing.

------
iuguy
Every year my wife and I spend a day throwing out anything we haven't used in
a year. Anything that wasn't used for 6 months goes upstairs where it's still
accessible, but out of site.

Actually we ebayed a bit last year, and we give stuff to charity shops rather
than just throwing it out if we can, but doing this once a year refocuses your
view on buying stuff. Will I still use this a year from now has a substantial
impact on your buying decisions.

As with many others here, the only expenditure I never regret is travel.

~~~
lambda_foo
Nice to see others with the same attitude. It's a thing of beauty to see a
room cleared of clutter and reduced to the bare minimum of furniture/stuff.

We follow a very similar process in our house. If it hasn't been used in 6
months or so it goes out the door. Either to charity or ebay.

------
sliverstorm
Hmm... I always hated spending money on things that don't last. Food is the
best example- I eat it today, and a week from now I'm 10 dollars poorer with
'nothing' to show for it. Travel poses similar issues.

Though, that is largely tied to a childhood of being super tight on funds. Buy
candy, enjoy for 10 minutes, or buy LEGO/game/card, enjoy for months or years.

~~~
niels_olson
> I eat it today, and a week from now I'm 10 dollars poorer with 'nothing' to
> show for it.

worse, a few years from now, you still have something to show for it and have
to start spending money on bigger pants.

------
jscore
One thing that I never regret spending money on: Travel.

Spent a year and a half in Brazil (just came back). Best year of my life.

------
jokull
For me the trick is to just wait for a few days whenever I lust after new
items (1080i vs 720p? Feels like a vital decision now but tomorrow I'll stop
thinking about it). I do indulge in expensive clothes, and gadgets that have a
high return on productivity (like an SSD drive or quality kitchen utensils). I
also spend on food, but that turns out to be a great investment for
psychological, social and health reasons.

~~~
jokull
Well I say that and I just placed an order for the new MacBook Air!

------
Monkeyget
There has been quite a bit of research concerning money, materialism and
happiness. This paper makes a good overview of current research on the subject
and links to other papers :
[http://bss.sfsu.edu/rhowell/Pubs%20-%20PDF/Howell_Hill_JPP_0...](http://bss.sfsu.edu/rhowell/Pubs%20-%20PDF/Howell_Hill_JPP_060309.pdf)

It's a really interesting topic. There is a diminishing return effect : when
you are poor more money does make you more happy but after a certain point
(where basic needs are satisfied) there is a drop off in the benefits of added
money.

From research it appears that materialism have a negative effect on happiness.
This meta-analysis confirms it by looking at the existing studies on the
subject :
[http://lilt.ilstu.edu/staylor/csdcb/articles/volume6/wright%...](http://lilt.ilstu.edu/staylor/csdcb/articles/volume6/wright%20et%20al%201993.pdf)

The first cited paper suggests that spending money on experiences will yield a
greater happiness than spending money on stuff.

------
MrFlibble
What I'd really like to see is for more kids without the financial means to be
given a chance to study abroad. Living in other cultures changes your
perspective on the entire world, and it saddens me that it is typically the
more privileged who are able to make it abroad.

In LA there are even kids in South Central who have never seen the ocean...
and they live 13 miles from it.

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gaustin
How do you escape the trap?

I'm not that far in. I'm 28 years old. Just got married. $42k in student loan
debt. No kids. But it still feels impossible to escape the momentum of keeping
up.

My job pays well but not well enough to quickly escape the loan debt. That
feels like the biggest barrier between me and the things I'd rather be doing
(startups, travel/vagabonding, ...).

~~~
billpaetzke
What is the monthly payment and interest on that?

~~~
gaustin
$620 per month at about 7% average (3-4 loans between 6.x% and 8.5%). I've got
$5k left one one loan that is $150 of the monthly payment. I'm going to dip
into savings and pay that off in the next month or two. That'll leave me at
$470 per month and $37k total.

------
arcwhite
Travel is probably the best thing to spend money on. Get out. See the world.
It's big and it's weird and you come back a better person for having reveled
in it.

(I did 2 months last year - 1 month in Thailand/Laos, 1 month in Europe &
Egypt. No regrets, at all, save the mad case of food poisoning in Egypt, but
I'll spare you the gory details ;)

------
skbohra123
The title in itself is complete and tells it all. Experience is the best thing
to have.

~~~
Qz
Experience is the _only_ thing you have.

------
njharman
i forget most of what i experience. possesions such as fun to drive car, nice
house, extended LotR DVD, games, books, the smartphone im typing this on all
provide reoccuring experiences that i enjoy over and over.

~~~
hypeibole
As I see it, you are buying a possession that gives you multiple experiences.
So, by transitivity, you're still spending money on experiences, though not in
the big, hell-of-a-cruise-dude kind.

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rmb
starting about 3 years ago we tried to institute a "spend money on experiences
or assets philosophy". By assets meaning things that hold or go up in value
over time. So for household items -- spend a little more on an antique or
quality versions, rather than a consumable that will only last a few years and
end up in a landfill -- and try to tend towards not spending much money at all
on things that are inherently depreciating, making that as small a portion of
our spending as possible.

The experiences part we've been successful with, the assets part not always so
much.

------
vkdelta
The more stuff you own, the more worried is your mind. Live light, live happy.

------
ChristianMarks
Absolutely wrong! Do not spend money on experiences or possessions. Try to
avoid spending money altogether.

~~~
Kluny
Best of all, shut yourself in your room and spend the rest of your life
sleeping. You'll save tons of money that way!

~~~
vog
This is an obviously wrong exaggeration and almost a straw-man argument. That
kind of rhetoric is rude and should have no place in any discussion.

------
bhiggins
what if you like the experience of buying a possession?

