Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life

by Melissa Leong

Overview

Featured on The Drew Barrymore Show

Can money buy happiness? Maybe, but not like you may think ...

The Social’s finance expert gives practical advice on how to spend, budget, invest, and feel good about money

With Happy Go Money, financial expert Melissa Leong cuts through the noise to show you how to get the most delight for your dollar.

Happy Go Money combines happiness psychology and personal finance and distills it into an indispensable starter guide. Each snappy chapter provides practical, easy-to-understand advice on topics such as spending, budgeting, investing, and mindfulness, while weaving in research, interactive exercises, and relatable anecdotes. Frank, funny, and empowering, this primer challenges everyone to revamp their relationship with their money so they can dial down their worries and supersize their joy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770414723
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Edition description:	No Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Melissa Leong is a personal finance writer, keynote speaker, on-air personality, and bestselling author. She appears on CTV’s The Social as its resident money expert and was a staff reporter at the Financial Post. She lives in Ajax, Ontario.

Read an Excerpt

The magic number

We all need a certain amount of money to be happy. But how much?

For those of us who are on the verge of losing our homes, who fret about feeding our children, who cringe when the phone rings because debt collectors may be calling, without question, more money will make us happier. But for the rest of us, before connecting cash with joy, we need to talk about what we mean by “happy.”

Scientists in neuroeconomics (the study of how we make economic decisions) break happiness into two types:

Life satisfaction: an evaluation of your well-being as a whole (the kind of happy where you’re pleased with life in general).

Day-to-day mood: the highs and lows, the joy, stress, sadness, anger and affection that you experience from one moment to the next — how you feel today, how you felt yesterday (the kind of happy that most of us relate to — the right now happiness).

With life satisfaction, the richer people got, the more satisfied they were with their lives. In worldwide studies, people in richer countries reported higher life satisfaction than those in poorer countries. (We should also consider that wealthier countries are more politically stable, more peaceful and less oppressive — which affects well-being.) But according to a 2018 Purdue University study, there was a limit. That figure is $95,000 U.S. (pre-tax, per single-family household). After that, more money didn’t mean that you were more satisfied. With day-to-day happiness, the threshold is $60,000 to $75,000 per household, according to various studies.

The 2018 study showed that after these salaries are hit, life satisfaction and day-to-day happiness actually slightly decrease with more money.

What the what?

Well, apparently when all of our basic needs are met, we become driven by other desires such as chasing after more material stuff and comparing ourselves to others which makes us unhappy. Also, high incomes can come with high demands (more working hours, more stress and less time with family and for leisure).

This doesn’t mean that we should all go out and try to make exactly $75,000 US a year – our so-called feel-good financial sweet spot. The studies are averages and we all need different things to be happy. But ALL of us find joy in some simple things — kisses, laughter, getting IDed after the age of 25.

Marketing professor Hal Hershfield once told me: “Even if I have an amazing car in my driveway, a huge house and a big fat income, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll be happier on a day-by-day basis because the types of things that influence happiness are who I interact with, how I spend my time and the things that I do.”

Think of some of your happiest times in the past week. Were you spending it with people? Were you taking time to enjoy an activity, going for a run or catching up with a good friend? Would a wad of cash have made those moments that much better?

Probably not. If you answered “yes” to the latter question, how much more then do you need to be happy? Read on.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• BUYING HAPPINESS
  • 1: Banking on Happiness
  • 2: F*ck the Joneses
  • 3: More Stuff? Stuff It
  • 4: Buying Happiness (For Real)
• CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOUR WEALTH
  • 5: Watch Your Friggin’ Language
  • 6: Worries B-Gone
  • 7: Your Default Settings
  • 8: Sorry Not Sorry
• FEEL LIKE A MILLION BUCKS (FOR FREE)
  • 9: Train Your Happy Ninja
  • 10: Invoke the Dollar Lama
  • 11: Invest in Bonds
  • 12: Eat Play Snooze
• TAKE STOCK, MAKE GAINS
  • 13: Balance the Bills and the Thrills
  • 14: Check Your Worth
  • 15: Goal Digger
• HAPPINESS FOR LATER
  • 16: Save Right
  • 17: Make That Money Work
  • 18: Make the Silver Fox Happy
  • 19: Hooking Up with a Financial Advisor
• MAKE IT RAIN
  • 20: Show Me the Money
  • 21: Happy Hustling
  • 22: Couch Cushion Cash
• HAPPINESS ASSASSINS
  • 23: Debt: The Big Killjoy
  • 24: Bulletproof Your Happiness
• THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF GIVING A BUCK
  • 25: Give to Get
• Happy Ending

Editorial Reviews

Leong’s breezy, relatable writing style will appeal to a broad range of readers.” — Booklist

“Using humor and kindness, Leong shares a lovely starter guide to living a happier life with a better relationship to your money.” — Book Riot

“A book that puts money, life and happiness in perspective. Loved every minute of it.” — Gail Vaz-Oxlade, author of Money Talks and Debt-Free Forever

“While it’s true that money isn’t the first ingredient to happiness, lacking financial awareness can be a barrier to happiness — and a barrier to advancement, which has been making women unhappy for a long, long time. During this movement of change, as women continue to interrogate the status quo, continue to demand more — equality, opportunity, and respect — we have been encouraged to talk more openly about money, to develop a relationship with it, and to understand how we can make money work for us. Melissa Leong has produced a valuable resource as we engage ourselves deeper in this conversation ... by giving new dimension to the conversation. Happy Go Money is informative but also accessible, smart and funny, silly and sexy, tough and also kind. It is, perhaps, the way money has always wanted to be represented. Melissa Leong has given her a makeover — and she looks SO good.” — Elaine Lui, LaineyGossip.com, and author of Listen to the Squawking Chicken

“A must-read for anyone who wants to fall in love with their money.” — Shannon Lee Simmons, founder of the New School of Finance

“This might be the only personal finance book I have actually enjoyed reading from cover-to-cover. The one thing the title doesn’t tell you is that Melissa is hilarious. You will laugh as much as you learn!” — Cait Flanders, author of The Year of Less

“You don’t need more money to be happy, says Melissa Leong. But getting control of your finances helps you get through tough times with less stress. I loved Melissa’s zippy writing style and radical honesty in mining her own life for examples and success stories.” — Ellen Roseman, Toronto Star personal finance columnist and author of seven books

“Laugh out loud while you learn to be happier and wealthier. Melissa is your Money BFF you never knew you needed.” — Preet Banerjee, author of Stop Over-Thinking Your Money!

“Her voice is always encouraging, sometimes funny, but mostly maintains a nice balance between friendly and informative ... Rest assured, you won’t feel drowned in generalities about investments and saving for retirement. Instead, you’ll learn how to fill yourself with self-love, gratitude, and contentment.” — HowToSaveMoney.ca

“What sets Happy Go Money apart is the voice: the book is so, so fun to read ... The overall effect is like your best, funniest friend giving you no-bullshit, whip-smart advice, and, given Leong’s background and expertise, there’s little doubt that that advice is sound. If you want to learn how to be happy, reading this book would be a good place to start.” — LowestRates.ca

From the Publisher