The Answer is Not Found in a Store

Every Thanksgiving, my family used to drive to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins. On the way home from their house, we would always see a long line of people waiting at Best Buy to try to get the best deal on some Christmas presents. These shoppers would typically be in tents or sleeping bags, spending the night at the store in order to be the first there when it opened on Black Friday. Many would give up part of their Thanksgiving and most of the next day to spend it doing Black Friday shopping (and waiting).

Of course, there was a good reason that people were waiting in line. They were waiting in line to save a lot of money on a new television, video game system, or washer and dryer combo set. I’ve even arrived at Best Buy before it opens to wait in a (much shorter) line to buy a computer.

Ultimately; however, people do not wait in line to save money on a new item. Instead, they are in search of the happiness that the new item will provide. And, of course, a new television will make you happier. However, as many studies have found, purchasing items from a store only provides a temporary boost in happiness.

I found this when I bought my new computer. Although the new computer made me a bit less agitated and helped me to make some money from freelance work, it didn’t really make me happier. Even a new video game system only makes people happier for a short amount of time before we begin looking for the next, new thing. It’s almost like we can rent happiness for a short time from a store, but we cannot really buy it.

The tough thing about renting happiness from a store, is that we need to keep going back over and over to rent that happiness. Also, happiness becomes harder to find with the more stuff that we purchase. If we buy a new couch once every 20 years, it probably helps to make us very happy. If we buy one once every other year, than our happiness is significantly reduced.

So, if we cannot buy happiness, then why do so many of us shop all of the time? Perhaps an even better question is “Why is shopping a form of recreation?” Personally, I’ve been in Target many times and I haven’t seen too many people having fun. Instead, I typically see people who are spending money they don’t have, on things that will not provide them happiness.

Now, I know that there are certain things that are needed to live: food, companionship, shelter, clothing, and transportation. However, if we live in a prosperous country, then most of the things that we truly need to be happy and live are probably in our homes or apartments already.

So … if happiness is not found in a store, then maybe we need to avoid stores as much as possible!

Instead of going grocery shopping 3 times per week, we should go once per week and stock up on the food that is on sale.
Instead of meeting a friend for coffee and shopping, we should go for a walk through the park with our dog and our friend’s dog.
Instead of driving around for three hours and saying that we are running errands, we should spend the time playing a board game with our kids.

Maybe our overall happiness and contentment will improve if we are able to avoid going into stores as often as we do now. It may even help with the amount of money in our savings account!

Let us know your tips on avoiding stores by hitting up the comments.

And thanks for reading!

~Nathan

Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?

You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
You can get motivated and get out of debt.
You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.