Can Money Buy You Happiness? Actually, Yes - But There’s A Catch

Money can’t buy you love, as the Beatles put it - but it might just be able to buy you happiness.

But it’s not the money itself: it’s spending it on things which match your personality.

For instance, extroverted types CAN make themselves happy by, for instance, spending money socialising in the pub.

The findings are based on Cambridge University analysis of 77,000 spending transactions.

People tend to spend on treats which ‘match’ their personality - for instance, extroverts spend an average of £52 a year more on the pub, and conscientious people spend £124 more on health and fitness.

The researchers found that spending which ‘matched’ people’s personality types DID make people happier.

‘Historically, studies had found a weak relationship between money and overall wellbeing,’ says Joe Gladstone, a research associate at Cambridge Judge Business School.

'Our study breaks new ground by mining actual bank-transaction data and demonstrating that spending can increase our happiness when it is spent on goods and services that fit our personalities and so meet our psychological needs.’