Debating with your significant other over whether or not to hire a cleaner? If you’re the one in favour, this will seriously help your argument.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that people who spend money on time-saving services like cleaners and take-away food report higher overall happiness.
“People who spent money to buy themselves time, such as by outsourcing disliked tasks, reported greater overall life satisfaction,” Ashley Whillans, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School and lead author of the study, tells The New York Times.
A subsequent test found that people didn’t report the same happiness levels when spending money on material goods. It gave study participants $40 to spend on either time-saving services or consumer goods over two weekends, and asked them to rate their mood at the end of each day.
Needless to say, those who spent the cash on services like takeaway and toilet cleaning reported an increased sense of wellbeing and reduced stress.
“If there’s some task that just thinking about it fills you with dread, then it’s probably worth considering whether you can afford to buy your way out of it,” Elizabeth Dunn, Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and study co-author, told the Times.
Still fighting for that cleaner? We’ll just leave this here.
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