
Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests - zonotope
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/science/study-happy-save-money-time.html
======
spodek
That article views life almost the opposite as I do.

1\. I have long been inspired by Gandhi's having cleaned toilets in his ashram
and he seems to have accomplished a fair amount of meaningful things. Monks
garden and clean things in part to increase self-awareness and inner
tranquility. The structure adds to my life, not detracts.

2\. Happiness isn't "out there." It's "in here." Same with freedom. I suppose
I could be happy and feel free either way -- doing my chores or outsourcing
them, but doing them seems simpler.

3\. Actually, the amount of garbage takeout creates is unconscionable to me. I
couldn't live with myself filling landfills at that rate.

4\. My home cooked food tastes better, is more convenient, costs less, is
healthier, and is better in every way for me than takeout. The problem that
takeout solves isn't time. It's ignorance of how to source fresh fruits and
vegetables and to prepare them. Solving that problem improved my life more
than take out ever could.

5\. I incorporate cleaning my apartment into my workout routine, sweeping and
mopping between sets. It doesn't cost extra time.

I feel the article misses the point of what creates happiness and freedom, but
to each his or her own.

~~~
tzs
> Actually, the amount of garbage takeout creates is unconscionable to me. I
> couldn't live with myself filling landfills at that rate.

Does it really create more overall? At first it would seem obvious that it
would, because there is now packaging for transporting the prepared food from
the restaurant to my home. If I prepared the same meal at home that packaging
would not be needed.

But, on the other hand, the restaurant does much more volume than I do. They
will buy ingredients in bulk, whereas I'll buy them in much smaller packages.
For a given total amount of an ingredient the restaurant will probably
generate less garbage per serving than I do at home.

So the question then is does the savings in garbage per serving from the
restaurant operating at high volume outweigh the garbage from packaging
individual meals for take out?

My guess is that it might depend on what kind of food is being taken out. Food
that is taken out in styrofoam containers probably has more impact than food
taken out in paper bags.

~~~
spodek
> _Does it really create more overall?_

Yes, much more, in my case. My transition from a standard American diet took a
couple years, but is one of the biggest improvements I've made.

I get most of my fruits and vegetables through a CSA or the farmers market,
which use much less packaging than any store or restaurant I've seen. The
farms are within a couple hours' drive.

I get most of the rest -- mostly dry legumes, nuts, and spices -- from a bulk
food store a couple blocks away, filling containers I bring with me. I also
avoid packaged food, as I document in this blog post:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-
packaging](http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging), which has
improved the deliciousness, freshness, savings, convenience, and healthiness
of my diet.

I compost and recycle so my landfill garbage gets emptied about twice a year,
as shown in this video: [http://joshuaspodek.com/leadership-environment-
podcast-5](http://joshuaspodek.com/leadership-environment-podcast-5).

One takeout meal produces months worth of garbage so in my case the difference
is orders of magnitude.

And my homemade food is more delicious, convenient, cheaper, healthier, etc.

~~~
chrisan
> And my homemade food is more delicious, convenient, cheaper, healthier, etc.

I get everything else you are saying, but how is homemade more convenient?

Convenience is the most important reason (for me) to do take out. Normally its
picked up when already out on the way home, no time spent preparing/cooking,
no time spent cleaning up (except the extremely bad part of throwing it all in
trash)

~~~
spodek
It's more convenient because I cook many meals at once so have several
containers worth of meals in my fridge almost all the time.

Also, when meeting people, I have them over for lunch or dinner more than
before learning to prepare food from scratch, business and personal, so
meeting gets easier. And cheaper -- I save money cooking them and me dinner
compared to eating out and just paying for me, though they usually bring
something with them.

Plus it deepens the relationship faster to cook at home and share, so there's
a convenience in shortening the get-to-know-each-other part of a relationship.

The picking it up takeout on the way home part is an inconvenience. As is
dealing with paying for it. I pick up my CSA delivery once a week, but it's
one of the highlights of the week. Seeing all the fresh fruits and vegetables,
the anticipation, the creative challenge of figuring out how I'll combine and
prepare them... I'd choose it over going to art galleries, movies, or many
social things. In fact, I bring people with me to pick them up as a social
event.

In summary, food becoming an enriching part of my life replaces a lot of time
wasters. Healthier food means less exercise time and cost for the same
fitness, etc.

~~~
chrisan
> It's more convenient because I cook many meals at once so have several
> containers worth of meals in my fridge almost all the time.

Thanks for the reply. Do you by chance have a recipe list on your website
somewhere for the meals you normally cook for the week?

~~~
spodek
I don't follow recipes, but make tons of vegetable stews in the pressure cook.

This video -- [http://joshuaspodek.com/20-minute-vegetable-
stew](http://joshuaspodek.com/20-minute-vegetable-stew) \-- shows how I do it.
The video isn't supposed to be entertaining or glamorous, just showing how I
make a half-dozen meals in about 20 minutes' preparation time.

People give the stews rave reviews. The same technique as in the video with
different vegetables gives very different stews. Following the same process as
different vegetables come in and out of season... I've never tasted the same
result twice, but they're always delicious.

I hope it helps.

------
semi-extrinsic
"The findings suggest that spending money to save time may reduce stress about
the limited time in the day, thereby improving happiness."

More time for doing non-boring stuff makes you happy. Who'da thunk it?

On a related note, the Norwegian central statistics bureau released today a
study on free time and happiness, and in particular how happy various
demographics are with the part of their free time when they can do whatever
they like. "Me-time".

What stuck out very strongly to me is that they found a very strong
correlation with age: couples over 45 were 30 percentage points more happy
with their "me-time" than couples under 45, _but this was completely
independent of whether they had kids or not_. Couples without kids vs. with
kids were within 1 percentage point of each other in both age groups. I
strongly expected to see couples without kids more happy with their "me-time",
but apparently they're not.

~~~
nether
It's interesting given how common it is to buy stuff that ends up demanding
your attention ("your stuff starts to own you"). Like I know people who
accumulate media (books, magazines, netflix lists) that they _have_ to catch
up on, when it can be feel better just to let it go and spend quiet time doing
nothing.

~~~
sliverstorm
I have decided that's part of a natural cycle. When you're young, you don't
have money and you don't have stuff. You have yet to acquire transportation,
furniture, dishes, etc because you can't afford it. So you keep things &
accumulate.

Eventually, you have everything you need and you have to break out of that
"keep everything" mentality because it's no longer appropriate.

~~~
droidist2
That's interesting, we're programmed to be hoarders kind of like how we're
programmed to store fat because storing up calories used to be a big concern
before modern times.

------
isaaclyman
1\. I'm very suspicious of studies whose main metric is self-reported
happiness. Do people know how happy they are? Is that measure consistent
enough over the course of a day to be meaningful? 2\. If you ask someone if
they have a maid or eat takeout, then ask them how happy they are, of course
they'll be happier if they aren't thinking, "I need to figure out what to cook
tonight" or "ugh, I need to clean the house." I assume the study was designed
better than that, but secondary sources tend to gloss over this stuff. 3\. Is
it heresy for me to suggest that day-to-day happiness isn't the only thing
worth having? There's a complex interplay between various factors in one's
internal life. But I think my work ethic would degrade if someone else did my
cooking, cleaning, gardening, and so forth. And my work ethic is important to
me, and not necessarily because it makes me happy. And what about my financial
future? If I can trade a little temporary happiness for financial security in
the future, I will often choose that. I think there's something to be said for
not trying to max out your happiness all the time. But I might be the only one
who feels that way... _crickets_

~~~
lotsofcows
How would you suggest measuring happiness other than by self-reporting?

------
crispyambulance
$130 twice a month for housekeeping is one expenditure my wife and I will
probably never give up as long as we live in a house. There's something so
soothing about coming home to a house that is orderly and clean. We use the
time boost to spend time in the kitchen, cooking.

I think the only other way to get around this problem is to have a much
smaller living space with less stuff. The less stuff you have the easier it is
to manage.

~~~
stephengillie
Restoring order to my own living space provides both soothing busy-work, and
reinforces my sense of ownership and control over the space. If someone else
cleans it, I will be timid about using the place they have to clean.

It relates to larger ideas of ownership being composed of use approaching
limits, maintenance of standards, and defense of boundaries. Maintaining the
standards of cleanliness of a living space is part of owning the living space
- along with approaching (and expanding) the the living space's limits for use
& utility, and defending the boundaries of the living space.

~~~
encoderer
There can be beauty in the simple transaction of fair employment. No
exploitation. They come to you, into your home, do a service and you pay them
the wage they asked for. I never feel bad about dirtying the house, it's part
of the cycle.

------
pixelmonkey
Is it inconceivable to so many maid nay-sayers on this thread that some people
actually don't mind cleaning houses? That some view it as comparatively good
money for the labor expended?

It is amazing to me that the same person who will be self-righteous in
refusing to hire a maid will have no problem at all ordering an item on Amazon
(where countless faceless staff do 'potentially unpleasant logistics labor' to
get that package to your doorstep).

~~~
mirimir
In Mexico, for example, most middle-class people hire maids, nannies, etc.
Even the poor hire poorer people to work for them. To some extent, I think,
that reflects less segregation of rich and poor. But also, I think that
there's something odd about American culture. People will pay to have their
vehicle repaired, but not to have their home cleaned.

~~~
moultano
It's the legacy of slavery. People are very uncomfortable with things that
look kinda like it. The things that are actually like it (our prison system)
comparatively pass unnoticed.

~~~
mirimir
Perhaps. But I suspect that it's more general than that. Maybe it violates the
ideal of equality. At Starbucks or Walmart, it's easy to pretend that workers
are paid well enough. But when you're paying, it's in your face.

------
baron816
There is research out there that says your experiencing self and your
narrating will have different interpretations of the same experience. While
you're actually doing something (say cleaning or cooking) you might be
uncomfortable and not like it much, but later on, you may reflect kindly
because you feel like you were being responsible, productive, and maybe
healthy.

We've all had terrible experiences that made us miserable while we were doing
it, but were made less miserable because we got to bitch about it later on.
For example, I once went camping with my friends and everything went wrong. We
forgot to bring tools to help us cook food. It was raining and one of our
tents didn't have a rainfly, so we all had to cram into the other relatively
small tent. I ended up sleeping on a pile of jagged rocks, head-to-foot with
one of my friends, and at the feet of my other four friends, with my head in a
puddle. On top of that, other another campsite close to us was setting off
fireworks for hours (it was the 4th of July), which kept waking us up at
irregular intervals throughout the night. That night sucked really hard, but
it's one of my favorite stories to tell, so I don't really reflect on it
negatively.

------
kelukelugames
I bought a nice ironing board and iron because I thought doing chores would
make me a better person. Instead I stare at a pile of wrinkled shirts everyday
and feel guilty.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Do three shirts a day and the backlog disappears.

~~~
rglover
This is a very idealistic view of laundry.

~~~
vinceguidry
It works so long as you're only doing laundry for one person. Otherwise you
have to do more. And also solve the political problem of wanting to devote
space in a dwelling for procrastinated chores.

It takes me perhaps half a week to do laundry. I load up all my laundry in one
load in the washer, with a ColorCatcher to avoid dye bleeding. Once it's done
I move it all to a dedicated spot in my closet, where I take all the things
that need to be hanged and hang them, and leave the rest for the next day.

Over the next few days I'll extract the other outerwear, then the underwear,
until I'm left with socks. All of my socks are inside-out, so one day I'll
turn them right-side-out and the next I'll fold them and put them up.

Works because it's just me.

------
ivanbakel
Would be interested to see how the results on take-out stack up for people who
self-report as enjoying cooking. Maybe there's a greater-than-average overlap
between the wealthy and people who don't get taught how to cook, and might
therefore not enjoy it as much.

The better question is: is cooking just not as enjoyable as I think it is, or
do the times when I don't feel like cooking offset the enjoyment from the
times I do? Is there some maximal happiness from part-cooking/part-takeout?

~~~
achamayou
If you enjoy cooking, being constrained by time can somewhat frustrating (not
just because of the actual process, the supply of fresh ingredients too).
Cooking when tired and hungry is also less fun. So I can completely see how
getting takeout makes sense on occasion, particularly during the week.

~~~
_delirium
I personally am the opposite, though I can believe that's pretty
idiosyncratic. I have no interest at all in fancy cooking of the kind that
requires many ingredients and 20-step recipes (not even on weekends when I
have spare time). But I really like cooking something quick and simple on a
daily basis. If I'm really short on time/energy/ingredients, even just a
lentil soup (prep time: 5 mins, unattended cooking time: 25 mins) is enjoyable
to make and tasty. I have a half-dozen go-to "too lazy to really cook" dishes
that take little time and effort and use mainly long-lasting ingredients I
always have around, and I like the interlude of putting something together
with my hands. I also like the food more, because I've pretty much customized
it to what I like to eat.

~~~
trias
Sounds interesting! Could you share some of your recipes / dishes? Maybe books
you recommend?

~~~
_delirium
Mostly trial-and-error, don't think I've used any books, though I'm sure I've
gotten ideas from online recipes. My staples are either "some kind of soup" or
"some kind of stir-fry on rice". Mostly vegetarian, not really strictly, but
meat goes bad quickly so I tend not to have it. These two styles of cooking
are also nice because the ingredient list is flexible. Almost any combination
"works", it's just a matter of figuring out which combinations you like. The
stir-fry-on-rice is only convenient if you have a rice cooker, though. Making
rice on the stove without burning it is a hassle. Soups are mostly unattended
cooking once you figure out what stove setting is "simmer" for the size of pot
you're using (i.e. doesn't cool off so much it stops bubbling entirely, but
also doesn't boil over). Depends or your taste, but for me even quite simple
soups can be nice, e.g. boil some water and add lentils, potatoes, onions,
salt, and some kind of spices (peppercorns, bay leaf, garlic, maybe a hot
pepper). I usually serve with a drizzle of olive oil & vinegar and a side of
nice bakery bread (I draw the line at baking!). Easiest way to make the same
recipe non-vegetarian is probably to add in some chopped sausage or ham. Soup
also works well with making extra amounts to refrigerate for leftovers,
because unlike many foods it actually gets better on the 2nd day (ingredients'
flavors mix more).

I also have a quick-and-dirty burrito I like to make: dice onions and
optionally hot peppers, tomatoes, etc., sautee for a few minutes, add a can of
canned beans and mix for a few more minutes, put into a tortilla with sour
cream, done. It's not carnitas from a good taqueria, but I live in the UK, so
the bar for outdoing a takeaway burrito is not that high. ;-)

A nice side dish, or a main dish for some people, are "greens" of various
kinds (turnip, collard, dandelion, etc., can also use kale). Just put in a pot
with a small amount of water, put on the lid, and steam until they're soft
(shouldn't take more than 15 mins). Add olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Can make
it into a more hearty main dish by adding in some chopped ham or bacon (with
bacon, add it first and cook a few minutes to make sure it's fully cooked).

There's also "all-day breakfast", if you want to follow the current restaurant
trend. ;-) Frying up eggs & bacon & toast takes almost no time at all!

~~~
jms
I think most cookbooks make cooking extra complicated so that people feel like
they're getting value from a recipe.

I've found a few simple cookbooks with small ingredient lists (4 - 10 things)
and very simple instructions. Initially it felt like a rip off, but you know
what? Everything was super tasty.

~~~
jschwartzi
My best cookbook continues to be the 1950's Betty Crocker because of its no-
bullshit style and variety of recipes and buying advice.

------
isaachawley
> “People who spent money to buy themselves time, such as by outsourcing
> disliked tasks, reported greater overall life satisfaction,”

People in here complaining that they like to clean or cook so the study is
wrong. Focusing on the wrong part of the study. Which tasks you'd outsource is
up to you. If you like cooking, then obviously don't outsource cooking!

But if there's something you dislike doing, outsource it! You'll be happier
than if you spent the money on junk.

------
zaro
Want to be happy - hire a maid. Very very usefull, totally agree. It implies
maid will never be happy though.

A better said title might be : want to be happy - you should be wealthy enough
to afford to pay somebody to do the stuff you don't like.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It implies maid will never be happy though._

It implies nothing on the sort. Maids are not sad slaves, but regular
employees. They can have happy lives too (even if with a less wealthy
lifestyle than people who use their services).

~~~
zaro
It implies that maids should hire maids to become happier :)

Which while in theory might sounds sensible in reality is complete nonsense ;)

~~~
nickik
Specialisation and time management might make it sensible for me to hire
programmers, even if I can program myself.

~~~
zaro
Yes. You can do so.. But are you going to hire them at the same hourly rate
you get yourself ?

------
Kiro
I don't clean and I don't have a maid. I just let it be dirty. I don't mind.

~~~
ghaff
A bit messy is fine. At some point genuine dirtiness gets not fine. To each
their own but I don't mind my house (and outdoors) being a bit unkempt. But I
have an every few weeks housekeeper precisely to keep things from getting over
that line.

------
icelancer
Hiring a maid/housecleaner was one of those decisions I categorize in the
"holy shit, how did I live without this" category. Right up there with dual
monitors.

~~~
arkitaip
Ok now that dual monitors have been mentioned I'm much more inclined to
believe that takeout and maids are the road to happiness. I should seriously
get a second monitor.

~~~
icelancer
One of my favorite parts at work is when I set up our interns and new
employees with their laptop and a monitor. So many young kids don't realize
you can use two screens at one time. At first, they're intrigued. After 15
minutes, they're shocked at the productivity jump.

------
trendia
Maybe I'm an outlier since I eat so much (>2500 calories/day), but I find that
takeout takes a LOT of time, since I only get 1 meal and it takes me 30 min to
get the food. In comparison, when I cook for myself, I have plenty of
leftovers for the upcoming days (which take little time to reheat).

~~~
icebraining
You could order more than one meal at once.

------
cbhl
Maybe this study has it backwards -- it's not that takeout will make you
happy, but that buying things makes you _unhappy_.

Marie Kondo's _The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up_ has been fairly popular
in my circles, where throwing out lots of things you never use seems to give
you more room to hang out with friends and family. (And if you're short on
time, the manga adaptation _The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up_ was just
recently released in North America in English.)

------
dep_b
> Even among more than 800 Dutch millionaires surveyed, all of whom surely
> could afford to do so, only a slight majority spent money on timesaving
> tasks.

Because you spend more time finding a good cleaner than the average cleaner
will clean your house.

------
jryan49
Are they controlling for richness? Maybe people who can afford such luxuries
are just happier?

------
twothamendment
I'd be quite happy don't my own cooking and letting a maid cleanup. Eating out
or take out gets old fast and isn't healthy. There are times I've gone out and
wished I hadn't. Travel, waiting, average did - why did I leave and spend way
more?

Smothered sweet pork burrito at a chain - $9. Mine come in under $2. Much of
it can be frozen in portions for another day.

Smoked pulled pork sandwich at home? $1.50 and again, it is easy to deal and
freeze for another day. Add the cost of the smoker and I have to use it quite
a bit to "pay it off" with savings.

I need a maid. Meals included.

------
shostack
I'd be curious what other relatively inexpensive services people have gotten
that have saved time in their lives. And of them, which made the largest
impact on quality of life?

------
siliconc0w
I think the greater lesson is that material goods don't lead to happiness.
Whether you should spend the money instead on KFC is jump that might not be
warranted by the data.

------
stuaxo
Takeout (not every meal) .. OK, but a maid is a kind of servant and I can't be
comfortable with this, it feels like a regression in society (as mentioned in
another comment).

~~~
seizethecheese
What an absurd statement. Daily, you consume the labor of dozens of people.

~~~
andrepd
It's not absurd just because it is the statu quo.

~~~
nickik
Its not absurd because its the status quo, its absurd because you relay on
other peoples laber all the time. The only difference is that the person is in
your house, rather then some other place. Why would the location matter
ethically?

------
blablabla123
You can prove a lot with studies if you happily ignore simple facts of life.
The food on the photo looks like a KFC bucket. That's really healthy. Since
1.5 months I only eat takeout because I recently moved. A few days ago I had
the worst cramp in my leg ever (not thaat bad, but still ;)) so now I'm having
mineral and vitamin tablets every day - yay. I wonder which body part would do
funny stuff next, if I continued. By the way, I only eat chain fast food like
KFC around once a week.

Actually I even literally conducted a one-year self-studied on take-out. I was
saying to myself: so yeah, burgers contain all those vitamins and proteins. If
you combine them with a water instead of soda, can't be that bad, right? I
didn't only eat burgers, but I ate a lot. Apart from that I was often a
"normal" restaurants. After a year I felt really unhealthy, for the only time
in my life my belly gained a noticeable volume - friends told me.

And yeah, about the maid thing.. I value my privacy, also I wonder how people
manage to take more than 15 minutes to thoroughly clean their bath room or
pile up stuff in their kitchen. (Ok, been there myself when I was 22 or so -
but it's really no deep science.)

------
poink
As an alternative to takeout (of which I've been a compulsive consumer the
better part of my adult life), I've been using DIY Keto Chow as a way to free
up time I normally spend dealing with food. I make two weeks worth of powder,
and mix three days worth of meals at a time. Each meal costs ~$1.70 (which is
exactly what my school lunch cost in the 80's).

Even for someone who rarely cooks, it's hard to appreciate how much time you
spend dealing with food until you no longer have to do it anymore. I don't let
a diet get in the way of my social life or prevent me from eating good stuff
when I have the opportunity, but I fill in all those meals where I used to run
to Chick-fil-A or Popeye's with something healthy I can just grab out of the
fridge, chug, and get back to work.

I've done it for a few months, and it saves me ~$300 and ~60 hours per month.
I've also lost weight, and I make a weak effort to stick to keto now because
I've noticed I feel better when I do.

------
JetSpiegel
What if you are a maid who always orders takeout because you have no time to
cook for yourself? What's should you do become happier?

~~~
inopinatus
A professional cleaner can hire a cleaner for their own property.

My barber does not cut his own hair.

~~~
owebmaster
> My barber does not cut his own hair.

The same way a mason does not build his own house /s

------
aakilfernandes
Hiring a maid is especially great if you live with other people. Splitting a
bill is much easier than splitting tasks.

------
jacquesm
And to get rich you should send more shirts to the laundry.

------
crb002
+1 for maid. Having a professional come in for an hour or two twice a month
pays off 3x.

~~~
copperx
I'm pretty sure clearing up a month's worth of mess is a 6 to 8 hour affair
even if done by a pro.

~~~
Smaug123
1) It's "twice a month", so two weeks' worth.

2) Some people are pretty tidy naturally (in the sense that everything is
usually in the right place) but just can't stand cleaning.

3) It depends on the size of the place to be cleaned.

------
unclebucknasty
The corollary here is that the people you hire to "make you happy" don't
likely have the means to make themselves happy.

It's messed up, really: they do a study to determine that we could be happier
if we offload our crap onto other people who, nearly by definition, can't do
the same. Then, they explore further to try to determine why people who are
able don't engage in crap-offloading more; the implication being that it would
be the reasonable thing to do.

How about a study that explores the unreasonableness of structuring a society
in such a way that so many are relegated to less-fulfilling, less-happy lives?

------
exabrial
Honestly, get a neato vaccuum robot. You'll be forced to keep things picked up
or you jam it. And invite people over to your place so you have a reason to
clean.

------
0xbear
I like cooking though, and I don't mind cleaning around the house once a week.
"Happy" is a highly individual thing. Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.

------
scentoni
"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, ... Play consists of
whatever a body is not obliged to do." \-- From Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer,
Chapter Two, 1876.

[http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html](http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html)

------
robg
Seems similar to buying experiences, not material possessions. The former grow
more valuable over time, the latter lose value over time.

------
nickik
Its true for me. I hired a cleaning lady and I love it. I have no interest in
cleaning again. If only I wouldn't have to wash my cloth.

If there were better Takeout options where I live, I would probably do more of
it. What I do instead is home delivery of shopping, I don't mind cooking. I
can do it exactly as I like.

------
gone35
_Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University._ [1]

Evidently so. I wonder what Andrew Gelman will make out of it.

[1]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full)

------
Pxtl
Which it's why it's fruatrating that it's so hard to find healthy takeout or
good maids.

------
contingencies
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107)

------
soared
TL;DR: They sent out a survey and asked if you spent money on time-saving
tasks, and in general how happy you are. They were correlated. Then they gave
people $40 and asked how happy they were at the end of the day.

Self-reported happiness is a dumb 'metric' and everyone knows it. Not much
meat in this article, but it does raise an interesting point. But it doesn't
ever get into if people paid for tasks they disliked, or cheapest tasks, etc.
I don't like cleaning the house, but if I paid someone to grocery shop while I
cleaned the house I'd save $40 compared to doing the opposite despite them
taking the same amount of time.

~~~
RodericDay
Agreed.

Bit of a rant, but I came from South America to Canada 10 years ago, and was
super impressed by how independent people my age were. They cooked for
themselves, they moved around using public transit, they had part-time jobs,
etc. People in my HS just lived luxurious lives while they prepared for
luxurious jobs.

I couldn't wait to see Peru, where most wealthy families have one or multiple
live-in servants, drivers, and maids, develop along those lines. I was hearing
stories that the availability of good jobs meant that young "high society"
families were finding it super hard to find people to clean their toilets and
rear their children for them.

Little did I know that shortly thereafter the "sharing economy" would start to
boom in North America, and wealthy white-collar workers everywhere would start
to gush about cheap cabs, an ability to hire maids and people to do their
laundry and cooks, people renting their houses out to them, etc.

It feels like a total regression to me. I once heard Silicon Valley described
"an assisted-living community for people in their 20s funded by venture
capital", and it felt quite apt. I hope the craze ends sooner rather than
later.

~~~
wutbrodo
That's an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure I understand it. The
existence of an underclass _is_ a negative IMO, but if I'm understanding you
correctly, you're saying that it's also a hidden negative for those whose time
is freed up?

Every time I've heard this sentiment or something related expressed by a
friend, it's been from someone whose use of their leisure activities are
utterly boring. When they open up a new chunk of regular free time, they don't
pick up a new instrument or sport or online course, they just do their leisure
activities a bit more often: go to the same bars a bit more, watch a bit (or a
lot) more TV, go to brunch a bit more often. (To be clear, I enjoy all these
things and don't think they're inherently boring, but think that there's
obvious a point at which marginal returns are diminishing)

By contrast, I and many people I know aren't already in a surplus of leisure
time. I've been debating re-orienting my career to reliably require less than
40 hours per week because I simply have a dozen other interests I want to
pursue. I enjoy my job, but 40 hours dedicated to _one_ of these pursuits to
the detriment of the others is a disproportionately huge amount, especially
given that it's 40 daylight hours. Given the long list of time-consuming
things that I already find rewarding, I can't relate to the concept that being
a slave to the drudgery of menial tasks is somehow something that would be
_missing_ from my life if I managed to remove it.

To reiterate, I do think that a shift in the economy that leads to increasing
outsourcing of menial tasks to an underclass is an issue worth thinking about
in terms of what it says about the way our economy is structured and why said
underclass is in that position. I just don't buy the self-flagellating claim
that doing X hours of penance a week on things you'd rather not do is somehow
a moral good.

~~~
RodericDay
There's a concept called the "hedonistic treadmill", where increasingly
expensive and intense thrills are never enough for the people who can afford
them. I would argue some people I know are stuck on that. If you can go to the
beach you can't go to the nice northern beach, if you can do that you can't do
Miami, Miami leads to Thailand, and so on.

It's weird to see so many super wealthy people dedicating so much time to
super luxurious forms of meditation with gurus, wearing white spandex or
whatever, when one can achieve a pretty solid trance-like state and think
about their day while doing rote mechanical chores like cleaning and cooking.
You also learn to try to avoid messes, since you're the one cleaning them up
(gratuitous, "someone else will take care of it" messes are one of the things
I miss the least about Peru). You also feel a bit humbled, which is good,
especially when everyone around you is an obsequious yes-person.

I guess I'd do something I rarely do, and borrow an old-fashioned baby-boomer
phrase, and say that maybe it "builds character"? Self-sufficient people were
a breath of fresh air.

~~~
wutbrodo
TL;DR: I don't mean to be rude, but pretty much everything falls into assuming
things that have nothing to do with the point I'm making. You can decide that
you have more valuable things to do with your time without any of the other
things associated with the poorly-sketched cartoon characters you seem to
think people with disposable income are.

> There's a concept called the "hedonistic treadmill", where increasingly
> expensive and intense thrills are never enough for the people who can afford
> them. I would argue some people I know are stuck on that. If you can go to
> the beach you can't go to the nice northern beach, if you can do that you
> can't do Miami, Miami leads to Thailand, and so on.

You're mixing up two completely different concepts. I know people who are at
full-speed on the hedonic treadmill who don't fit what I'm talking about, and
plenty of people who fit what I am talking about who have nothing to do with
the hedonic treadmill.

I probably fit the concept I'm describing more than anyone I know, and here
are a list of some of the cheapest things taking up my time these days, along
with the weekly cost:

1) playing and writing music - less than $2/wk[1] 2) learning another language
- free 3) reading all kinds of reference/nonfiction/fiction books -
free/extremely cheap (library + used books + exchanging with friends) 4)
Playing sports, weightlifting, running in the park or along the water - free +
$15/wk gym membership + free 5) Hiking - free if you have a car, or $70/hike

I don't intend this in an insulting way, but is it possible that you're
falling prey to the typical-mind fallacy and assuming that things are
universal when they're really just facets of your personality (and perhaps
your circles)?

> It's weird to see so many super wealthy people dedicating so much time to
> super luxurious forms of meditation with gurus, wearing white spandex or
> whatever, when one can achieve a pretty solid trance-like state and think
> about their day while doing rote mechanical chores like cleaning and
> cooking.

Seriously, it sounds like you get your perception of people who pay for menial
services from cartoons and Gawker blogs. I like cooking, but I don't find any
other menial tasks to be enjoyable: I pay to have my laundry done and for my
house to be cleaned, and Uber when I don't have time to take transit (even
though I prefer the subway). I also have an 80% savings rate, most of my
hobbies cost ~$0

[1] I have a $400 piano and a $300 guitar, both of which I've had for 7 years,
so 700/(52*7.5)

~~~
wutbrodo
It's too late to edit, but I should note that I don't think there's _zero_
merit to the pint you're trying to make. I just think that you're generalizing
too wildly. Doing things you don't want to do can be an important part of
one's character. I just think limiting yourself to those specific tasks is an
incredibly narrow view of humans and human potential. Practicing music isn't
always fun, studying things sometimes feels like work, getting myself up and
out on a run can feel like a chore, etc etc. All of those are in service of a
larger goal, much as cleaning is in service of the goal of having a clean
living space. I just don't see the case that cleaning, etc are somehow
inherently required parts of the human experience (and yet somehow growing
your own food and digging holes for your poo isn't).

~~~
RodericDay
You may like this article:

[https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/against-
domesticity](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/against-domesticity)

------
ouid
if you are a maid, should you still clean your own home?

------
nikanj
Want to be happy? Have more disposable income!

No shit!?

------
owebmaster
So maids can't be happy?

~~~
sgs1370
Every time I've seen or talked to the woman who has cleaned my house for 4
years she seems happy. Maybe she is just good at customer service, or is it
possible that she's happy?

------
nunez
Don't tell /r/personalfinance this; they will have a stroke

~~~
UK-AL
In fact they're probably good with it, if you've calculated your hourly wage
and working out the time savings.

------
ranit
Something in this article doesn't add up. They surveyed 4500 people from 4
countries. Further down it says, that "800 Dutch millionaires surveyed ...".
How both numbers can be true.

I even cannot imagine that a survey would manage to convince 800 millionaires
to participate, but this is another topic.

~~~
pjc50
If you're counting asset value, pretty much every middle-class person with a
home and a pension is a millionaire, in Euros or dollars. Doesn't mean they
have a million in free cash, but it's what you need if you're going to live
20+ years after retirement with no employment income.

------
grecy
Assuming you go to work 40+ hours a week and will for 40+ years of your life.

If you want to take away those two assumptions, I strongly believe you can be
a lot happier spending your time how you want - not at work.

I wrote an ebook on exactly that called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" \-
[http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG](http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG)

I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina and am now driving around
Africa for two years. [http://theroadchoseme.com](http://theroadchoseme.com)

~~~
bookmarkacc
All the tireless self promotion on these type of posts in your downtime seems
exhausting though

~~~
grecy
All things considered, it's by far the easiest and least time consuming part
of my life - probably by a factor of 100 or 1000. i.e. this was over a week of
my life:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U)

~~~
sliverstorm
Why do I feel like you're selling something.

~~~
grecy
Eh, my book is the only thing I sell and it's $2.99.

If you don't want to, don't buy it. There are thousands of informative posts
on my website, tens of thousands of photos and now hours of videos on YT for
free.

Also, [http://wikioverland.org](http://wikioverland.org) is completely free,
and is stacked with the info you need to drive your own vehicle around the
world. It's my side project, and my way of giving back to the overland
community.

Ask me anything you want to know about what I do, and I'm more than happy to
help you get out there to live your dreams too.

~~~
PascLeRasc
"Oh cool article by someone else. Btw here's my PayPal address.

Whoa whoa whoa, if you don't want to send me money then just don't."

