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People are happiest when they are buying stuff they want....

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Well for materialistic happiness Walmart is somewhat limited, I did see them carrying the latest "70 LCD though. IMHO happiness is when you've earned respect and love from others, and I don't mean by driving a very expensive vehicle or living in the biggest house on the block..
 
To a degree, I kind of agree with the OP, though the glee of getting something you want at a bargain is fairly short-lived. I was thrilled yesterday when I found a type of feed I use in my mix for $4 less per bag (50 pounds) than the place I usually by my grain. When I got my receipt, I thought my mental addition was off. (Tax exempt purchases, so it's easy to add up.) Checked the receipt in the car and WHOA! It's on sale! Went back in the store & bought the rest of the bags they had in stock. Or a couple weeks ago, as I was walking out of the grocery store, I noticed that they had stacked the boxes of 3 gallon peanut oil at the front of the store. Clearanced for $10 each. Score! Got a couple boxes.
 
JEDI said:
i love harry potter.
i love the twist when Gandalf proclaimed he was Harry's father. didnt see that coming!

with light sabers in hand, they went to fight the evil Romulans together
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Sounds like you saw a better movie than I did. :\
 
It's premature to measure happiness after a purchase because it doesn't take into account the unhappiness later because the money is gone.

I go to deal sites and it amazes me how many people buy stuff only because it's cheaper than it usually is. If you hadn't given a moment's thought to buying a KitchenAid mixer before, why would you buy one now just because it's $100 off? It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if you didn't need it or want it before you heard about the sale, then you almost certainly wasted your money.

That whole concept mystifies me - how the price can make people buy stuff, not need or want.
 
kranky said:
It's premature to measure happiness after a purchase because it doesn't take into account the unhappiness later because the money is gone.

I go to deal sites and it amazes me how many people buy stuff only because it's cheaper than it usually is. If you hadn't given a moment's thought to buying a KitchenAid mixer before, why would you buy one now just because it's $100 off? It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if you didn't need it or want it before you heard about the sale, then you almost certainly wasted your money.

That whole concept mystifies me - how the price can make people buy stuff, not need or want.
Click to expand...

Deal sites = new marketing gimmick

😉
 
kranky said:
It's premature to measure happiness after a purchase because it doesn't take into account the unhappiness later because the money is gone.

I go to deal sites and it amazes me how many people buy stuff only because it's cheaper than it usually is. If you hadn't given a moment's thought to buying a KitchenAid mixer before, why would you buy one now just because it's $100 off? It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if you didn't need it or want it before you heard about the sale, then you almost certainly wasted your money.

That whole concept mystifies me - how the price can make people buy stuff, not need or want.
Click to expand...

lol yeah i've definitely seen people do that.

there are DEFINITELY times that i've gone to slickdeals and bought blurays that i normally would not have bought, simply because they are $4 or $5. but that is because i know i will watch them, and it's like 2-3x the price of renting it, if i could even find it somewhere.

but there is also times when there are games that i am interested in but wouldn't pay more than $15 or $20 for em, and as soon as i seem that cheap i'll snag em.

the current one is me being tempted to pick up far cry 3 on 360 for $20 from amazon.
 
kranky said:
It's premature to measure happiness after a purchase because it doesn't take into account the unhappiness later because the money is gone.

I go to deal sites and it amazes me how many people buy stuff only because it's cheaper than it usually is. If you hadn't given a moment's thought to buying a KitchenAid mixer before, why would you buy one now just because it's $100 off? It doesn't matter how cheap it is, if you didn't need it or want it before you heard about the sale, then you almost certainly wasted your money.

That whole concept mystifies me - how the price can make people buy stuff, not need or want.
Click to expand...

"Why'd you buy dog food? We don't even have a dog".

"It was on sale"!

People are like that though. Stores caught on to this a long time ago. You can basically go anywhere and find that most of the products there are "marked down" or on a "special price". In actuality the prices aren't that special at all. Stores do it by having the standard price be much higher than a regular markup. That way by the time their products are 50% off they're "only" making the standard retail markup. This works because people really do want to buy stuff. They just need a little push in the way of justification for it. The word "sale!" provides that push.

I run a retail store, and all of our regular prices are the standard markup.
When we run a sale, we really are selling at or below our cost on stuff. That's why we don't do it all that often, and when we do it's not for very many items. That's how I know that these fantastic deals you see advertised aren't that fantastic. They can't be because if the store isn't making money they'll be out of business soon.
 
purbeast0 said:
what is your point? you are repeating exactly what i typed.
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Because many people (not saying you do), consider them completely different things, when in reality they are not. In fact, those items usually cost much more and are much shorter lived than a material item. There are many comments about "material" items, vs "experience" in this thread, but the reality is it's the same thing. All of them create moments and experience, just in different ways.

Some may think dropping 3K to fly to Europe to look at some old buildings for a day is a waste of money, while another may think spending that 3K on a PC is a waste of money.

I for one also prefer the travel spending rather than material items, but it all sums up to the same thing at the end of the day. Buying what someone else is selling. There is very little that won't cost you money these days.

Now who's putting up the money to go to Mars?
 
ImpulsE69 said:
Because many people (not saying you do), consider them completely different things, when in reality they are not. In fact, those items usually cost much more and are much shorter lived than a material item. There are many comments about "material" items, vs "experience" in this thread, but the reality is it's the same thing. All of them create moments and experience, just in different ways.
Click to expand...

In the sense that they have a different effect on happiness... they are different. Why is this such a hard concept?
 
ImpulsE69 said:
Because many people (not saying you do), consider them completely different things, when in reality they are not. In fact, those items usually cost much more and are much shorter lived than a material item. There are many comments about "material" items, vs "experience" in this thread, but the reality is it's the same thing. All of them create moments and experience, just in different ways.

Some may think dropping 3K to fly to Europe to look at some old buildings for a day is a waste of money, while another may think spending that 3K on a PC is a waste of money.

I for one also prefer the travel spending rather than material items, but it all sums up to the same thing at the end of the day. Buying what someone else is selling. There is very little that won't cost you money these days.

Now who's putting up the money to go to Mars?
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they are completely different in that one is tangible and one isn't.

but yes, either way you are spending money on something that makes you happy. i haven't seen anyone saying anything different.
 
I don't have it in front of me, and cant find the links online, but some of the studies I mentioned are in this book, in a chapter about happiness.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/B0057DCE7M

It uses peer reviewed studies showing that money spent on experiences is "far more effective" than money spent on things, at making one happy.

The reasoning is that you grow a tolerance to the things you use every day, a sweet car just becomes "normal" to you, in the same way that a $5k used Honda becomes normal to a college kid. Memories of a great vacation actually get better over time. Even years later you can be like "oh man remember how much friggin fun we had hiking the alps?"
 
Train said:
In the sense that they have a different effect on happiness... they are different. Why is this such a hard concept?
Click to expand...

How? That is the question. Is the effect really different or does it just come down to personal taste? Has nothing to do with getting the concept or not.

People generally like new experiences. That's what sets off the dopamine. That new experience could be anything, good or bad, but too much of it dulls it. Could it be that purchasing tangible items is such a day to day routine for most people that happiness doesn't last as long as say seeing the Aurora Borealis?

(your next post was at the same time and says essentially the same thing I am saying here, only I was more asking it than telling it)
 
Train said:
I don't have it in front of me, and cant find the links online, but some of the studies I mentioned are in this book, in a chapter about happiness.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/B0057DCE7M

It uses peer reviewed studies showing that money spent on experiences is "far more effective" than money spent on things, at making one happy.

The reasoning is that you grow a tolerance to the things you use every day, a sweet car just becomes "normal" to you, in the same way that a $5k used Honda becomes normal to a college kid. Memories of a great vacation actually get better over time. Even years later you can be like "oh man remember how much friggin fun we had hiking the alps?"
Click to expand...

i take SSSSSSOOOOOO many pictures when i go on vacations. i mean why not when cameras can hold thousands of hi-res pics.

to this day i go back and look at the pics of my first trip out of the country to aruba 9 years ago. i can still walk through the entire trip in my head of exactly what i did when i was there too. i can pretty much do that for all of my trips i've been on. i don't know if i can remember them so vividly BECAUSE of the pictures i took, or just because of the experiences.
 
In other news, people feel less hungry when eating, and drinking has been found to cure thirst!

Over to you Tom. How the weekend weather shaping up?
 
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