As we’re writing this blog, it’s summer 2026. For many of us, summer means packing for a trip, or taking the kids to summer camp, going to the beach or the lake, or sitting at a patio table with our favorite people.
It’s usually in these moments that our financial planning clients say, “This is what the money is for.” It’s not that they reached a certain number or achieved a certain goal. Money is most tied to happiness when we get to experience things that our money can afford us.
There’s a growing body of research on money and happiness that financial planners rarely talk about. Not because it isn’t relevant, but because it challenges how most of us are conditioned to think about financial success. This post explores what the research actually says about money and happiness, and what it means for your spending decisions.
What We Know About Money and Happiness
According to the 2025 Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey, when Americans are asked what it means to be wealthy, they place nearly equal value on happiness as they do on the amount of money they have. When asked what makes them feel wealthy, the majority cited quality of relationships, happiness, and free time, not their account balance.
59% of Americans believe money can buy happiness, and put the price tag at $1.2 million. Yet 73% also believe that a solid financial plan, not a specific number, is what would actually bring them happiness. The gap between what people think will make them happy (a number) and what actually does (a plan, relationships, experiences) is where most financial stress lives.
The Research on Experiences vs. Things
Research from the University of Colorado found that people receive more enduring pleasure and satisfaction from investing in life experiences than material possessions.
Why? There are three reasons the research consistently points to:
- Experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation over time
- They become a more meaningful part of your identity
- They contribute more to social connection
A large-scale experience sampling study also found that people are measurably happier in the moment during experiential consumption than material consumption, and that the happiness from experiences holds up in retrospect and in anticipation, not just during the event itself.
The simple takeaway from the research: those who spend a bit less on “things” and a bit more on “doing” feel more lasting happiness. There’s also something to be said about lifestyle creep: material purchases quickly become the new baseline even when they continue to cost you more. The car, the upgrade, the renovation — within weeks or months, they stop generating the same satisfaction. Experiences don’t adapt the same way.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Americans expected to spend approximately $10,600 on trips and vacations in 2025, and consumer spending on experiences has surpassed pre-pandemic levels. That was up 32% compared to pre-pandemic baselines.
Nearly half of Americans (44%) say the memories they make when vacationing are priceless. One in 5 prioritize travel regardless of economic conditions, and 24% prefer to see travel as an investment in themselves rather than a cost.
This is especially impactful for people reaching “middle age”: People in their 30s and 40s are often in a season where the window for certain experiences is real and finite. Their kids are at home for just a few more years, they may have aging parents, but their own health and energy are in relatively good shape. It’s clear that more and more people are trying to enjoy the moment where they can!
Question for you: What experience have you been putting off? Maybe there’s a trip, a family reunion, a sabbatical, time with aging parents, or time with soon-to-be high school grads that you’d genuinely regret not prioritizing in the next few years.
The Case for Buying Back Time
There’s one more category the research consistently points to as a high-return use of money: buying back time.
Spending money on services that free up time, whether that’s a cleaning service, grocery delivery, or outsourcing tasks that drain your energy, produces some of the highest happiness returns per dollar spent. The effect holds across income levels, and yet most people underinvest here because it feels indulgent or hard to justify compared to a tangible purchase.
The Schwab survey finding we mentioned earlier (that Americans list free time as one of the top markers of feeling wealthy) supports this. If time is what makes people feel wealthy, then spending money to protect and recover it is one of the most financially rational decisions you can make. It just rarely shows up in a traditional financial plan.
Prioritizing Experiences & Time Without Overspending
Creating a Framework for Spending Intentionally
The research we shared in this blog isn’t an argument for spending everything. It’s an argument for spending deliberately, with clarity about what actually brings YOU lasting satisfaction versus what just feels good in the moment.
Some Americans have gone into debt to fund travel (26%) or dipped into retirement savings to pay for trips (13%). These aren’t approaches the research endorses, as they tend to undermine the very well-being experiential spending is meant to create.
The question isn’t “Should I spend or save?” It’s “When I do spend, am I spending in a way that reflects what actually matters to me, or am I spending on autopilot?”
Enjoying now without compromising later
None of this is an argument for spending without intention. The goal of a financial plan isn’t to defer all enjoyment until retirement, but it’s also not to spend freely in the name of living in the moment. The research supports deliberate spending, not reactive spending.
What a good financial plan actually does is hold both things at once: it makes room for the experiences that matter now while protecting the future you’re building toward. Those two things don’t have to be in conflict. In fact, when a plan is built around what genuinely matters to a client, it’s more likely to be followed, more likely to feel meaningful, and more likely to produce the kind of financial life people actually want to live.
It’s also worth noting that the window for certain experiences isn’t infinite. A financial plan that accounts for those moments, and builds them in rather than treating them as things you’ll get to eventually.
If you’re not sure whether your plan actually has room (or a timeline) for what matters most to you, that’s exactly the kind of conversation we have with clients. Contact the team at Guiding Wealth today!