Why More Stuff Doesn’t Make You Happier

Buying something new can trigger a rush of dopamine, leading to a momentary boost in happiness. But the rush is fleeting, and over time, our possessions can end up weighing us down more than they lift us up. As part of our series on spring cleaning your wellbeing, Dr. Laurie explores why material things so often fail to make us happier, and why experiences are usually a better investment in our long-term wellbeing. Along the way, she talks with psychologist Bruce Hood, researcher Amit Kumar, and writer Cait Flanders, who reflects on the psychological benefits of shifting from a maximalist lifestyle to a minimalist one. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s actually worth the time and effort to clean out your closet, this episode offers some answers. Experts Mentioned: Bruce Hood https://brucemhood.wordpress.com/, professor of developmental psychology in society at the University of Bristol Amit Kumar https://www.kumar-amit.com/, assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin Cait Flanders https://www.caitflanders.com/, author of The Year of Less and Adventures in Opting Out Richard Easterlin https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pBYzJL8AAAAJ&hl=en, economist and professor at the University of Southern California, originator of the Easterlin Paradox Resources Mentioned: Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need https://books.apple.com/us/book/possessed/id1472993321, by Bruce Hood (2019) The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-year-of-less/id1420584142, by Cait Flanders (2018) “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence https://huwdixon.org/teaching/cei/Easterlin1974.pdf” by Richard A. Easterlin (Nations and Households in Economic Growth, 1974) Related Episodes: "The Unhappy Millionaire https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/the-unhappy-millionaire" "Why Giving Money to Others Makes Us Happier https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/giving-tuesday-why-giving-money-to-others-makes-us-happier" "You Can't Always Want What You Like https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/you-cant-always-want-what-you-like" See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 0:12Laurie Santos?

  Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. Welcome back to our special series on spring cleaning your happiness. We're continuing our deep dive into the Happiness Lab closets to find all of the show's wellbeing-boosting insights that you might have missed. In today's episode, Throwback, we'll tackle the happiness boost that comes from literal spring cleaning, that is, decluttering all your material stuff. In this episode, you'll meet Kate Flanders, a writer who went deep into debt so she could buy all the clothes, books, and gadgets she thought would make her happier. But spoiler, buying all that stuff didn't work. But there was something that did: throwing it all away. So get ready, because in this classic Happiness Lab episode, I, your intrepid host, will

• 0:54Laurie Santos?

  tackle a spooky British barn overflowing with movie monsters and a swanky California convertible ride with bad 80s music tunes, all so that I can teach you about the joy of letting go. That's all coming up when this Throwback episode returns, right after this quick break.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

• 1:26Laurie Santos?

  This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by the amazing Katie Milkman, behavioral scientist and author of the bestselling book, How to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Each episode shares the latest research in behavioral science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Katie talks to authors, athletes, Nobel laureates, and everyday people about why we make irrational choices and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. You'll learn about tools and strategies to help improve your decision making and

• 2:09Laurie Santos?

  a ton of other fantastic things about the mind. Listen and subscribe at schwab.com/podcast or find it wherever you listen to your shows.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 2:47Laurie Santos?

  Research shows that a good night's sleep might be the secret you need to feel happier and healthier. Enter Dr. Teal's magnesium spray, here to help you get ready for bedtime. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals, Dr. Teal's magnesium spray is an effortless way to unwind and relax before bed. Add to your nighttime routine by generously spritzing each foot before bed. I've long been a fan of Dr. Teal's, so I was excited when I learned that they had a new product to help me unwind. I tried out Dr. Teal's magnesium spray after a particularly hard week. It was the perfect ritual to end my day and signaled to my brain that the work week was over and it was time to rest. Find Dr. Teal's magnesium spray online or in your local bath aisle.

• 3:37Laurie Santos?

  Pickup location.

• 3:40Laurie Santos?

  SFO. Pickup time. 12:30 PM. If there's one car you absolutely have to rent when you go to San Francisco, it has to be. Compact, two-four-door Ford Focus or similar. I'm not really a car person. Automatic transmission, yes. Aircon, yes. My regular ride is a slightly scruffy 2011 Nissan Sentra. Dual airbag. Awesome. If you can't picture that in your head, that's okay. I'm not sure anyone can. It's kind of a dull silver color and relatively anonymous. Lost damage waiver. No. Child seat. No.

• 4:24Laurie Santos?

  When I travel for work, I usually rent the cheapest, boxiest, and most ordinary car on the lot. Prepaid gas? No. Uh, confirm rental. Done. But when my producer Ryan and I arrived at the San Francisco airport last fall, we were in for a bit of a surprise. The woman at the car rental place apologized profusely. They'd run out of normal boxy compact cars, and intermediates, and full sizes. "Would it be okay," she asked, "if instead of the car I booked, we accepted at no extra cost, a bright red Mustang convertible?"

• 5:10Laurie Santos?

  We and our amazing car took San Francisco by storm. We crossed and recrossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and soaked up envious glances from teenage boys at crosswalks, and blasted 80s synth pop on repeat the entire time. Instead of a dull trip into the city for work, Ryan and I had the time of our lives, laughing like idiots and making memories, all because of the car. That Mustang experience got Ryan thinking. He's always kind of hated my Sentra. He wants me to get a newer, safer car, especially since my Nissan does have a few bodywork issues. I kind of hit a huge rock. So Ryan started texting to make his case. "Get a Mustang. Get a Mustang. Get a Mustang."

• 5:55Laurie Santos?

  This carried on, and on, and on. One text contained a single word, all caps with an exclamation point. "Mustang!" I know Ryan only wants what's best for me, but I have a mostly working car now, and the science suggests that giving in and buying a newer, more expensive vehicle would have a surprising effect on my well-being. It might hurt my happiness rather than help it.

• 6:23Laurie Santos?

  Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  I've had a lifelong fascination with the supernatural. I wrote a book about that. One of my first books was about why we believe in the supernatural.

• 6:57Laurie Santos?

  This is Bruce Hood, a professor of psychology at the University of Bristol in the UK. Like me, Bruce is intrigued by some of the weirder, more irrational parts of the human mind. But I didn't realize how personal that interest was until I visited his house for the first time. You see, Bruce lives in a lovely converted barn in a quaint, quiet part of the English countryside. And so I was expecting the inside of his house to look rather cozy.

• 7:26Laurie Santos?

  But that wasn't what I saw when I first opened the door.

• 7:36Laurie Santos?

  Everywhere I looked, there was blood, claws, and fangs.

• 7:42Laurie Santos?

  Which is just the way Bruce likes it.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  I've loved horror movies and that sort of genre from a very early age. I became obsessional about buying vintage movie posters with werewolves and vampires and all that sort of thing.

• 7:55Laurie Santos?

  Bruce was able to actualize his childhood horror obsession once he finally got a professor level salary. That was when he discovered the miracle of online auctions.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  I have over 100 posters now, and there's no way, I don't think anyone's got a house, well, not unless you're very wealthy, have got a house so you can easily accommodate them all. So a lot of them, I'm afraid, are just stored away. But I have framed most of them, as many as I can, and they're all over the walls.

• 8:19Laurie Santos?

  You have over 100 of these?

• 8:20Speaker 03

  I have over 100. Yeah, and they're like a meter by two meters big. So they're not little things, they're big posters.

• 8:26Laurie Santos?

  Why would anyone buy more movie posters than they could possibly display? Bruce realized that it wasn't really the posters he loved so much, it was the pursuit.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  I would search on eBay, and you can see the bidding line, and you can offer a bid, and then you see someone's outbid you, and then you get frustrated. I used to get a real buzz and a thrill if I'd got it, and then complete desperation and disappointment if I'd lost out to some other guy. And of course, the posters were turned up weeks later. And it was great getting them, but nothing compared to the kind of exhilaration of winning the auction.

• 8:57Laurie Santos?

  That thrill we get from buying a new prize on eBay is well-understood by science. It's caused by a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Whenever we buy something exciting, the reward areas of our brain release a bunch of dopamine, which not only triggers a pleasurable sensation, but also makes it more likely that we'll repeat the behavior. Evolutionarily speaking, dopamine is there to ensure that we keep doing all the important things, like eating and having sex. But nowadays, dopamine can just as easily make us chase after things that we don't really need for our survival. Like, for example, more vintage horror movie posters than can actually fit in your house. Of course, Bruce understands the science of dopamine.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Knowledge is not enough. You can know these things very objectively and yet still be a victim to the same sort of mechanisms. So at least I kind of understood what was driving it. But I got to a point where I literally could not buy or put up anymore. And after that, I kind of started to realize, well, this overconsumption thing, this possession thing, is really interesting.

• 9:56Laurie Santos?

  Bruce began to study the science of why we like to accumulate so much stuff. This research became the basis of his recent book, Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  We buy for a number of reasons. There's a whole area of evolutionary theory called signaling. The poster child for signaling, of course, is the peacock. Why does it have such a silly tail? It costs so much in terms of energy. It's not very efficient. It makes them very vulnerable to attack. And yet, these animals have evolved this elaborate display because it signals to potential mates that they have good genes. So rather than fighting or learning to run away or whatever, they've developed these signaling behaviors.

• 10:33Laurie Santos?

  Like peacocks strutting their stuff, we humans are naturally drawn to shiny cars, fancy clothes, and other status symbols. These things act as outward signs of how awesome we are on the inside. And so our species really likes to accumulate stuff. So much so that we've gone beyond just filling our shelves and closets and attics and garages. We've fueled a whole new growth industry: self-storage rentals.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  I mean, there are more storage units than there are McDonald's. It's just ridiculously, you know, a symptom of a culture which has become obsessed with possessions. So that's why I called the book Possessed, because it's like this demon, this little imp in our mind telling us to buy things and don't throw it away because it might be valuable one day.

• 11:16Laurie Santos?

  But is all this purchasing really making us happier? At least beyond the initial pursuit? I mean, it doesn't really seem like it, which poses a bit of a paradox, since many scholars initially assumed that increased material wealth would lead to happiness.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  The Eastland paradox was identified by Richard Eastland back in the early 70s. And he noted that if you look at the gross national product of the US in particular, as it's been rising, it doesn't seem to have a corresponding change in increased happiness. And so he said, that's the paradox. We should be happier. You may have heard the term retail therapy. And there's a sort of bit of truth in that. People do enjoy the process of shopping. But just like me and my poster, is that initial buzz I get from doing it doesn't last very long.

• 11:59Laurie Santos?

  When the buzz of buying wears off, when that dopamine rush in our brains subsides, those new possessions can make us feel even sadder than we did before.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  The trouble is, is that as soon as you get something with outstanding quality, it makes all your other possessions look pretty rubbish. So this is called the Diderot effect after the French philosopher. He really wanted a dressing gown and he spent a lot of money on it and he really coveted it and he got it and he loved it. And he looked around and everything else looked a bit shabby. So then he realized he had to go and change everything else in his household. And he started to spend more money than he had. And he realized that, you know, in the past, he had control of all his possessions. But as soon as he took on board this new thing of high status, that changed it. It almost controlled him.

• 12:42Laurie Santos?

  I experienced a hint of the Diderot effect when we rented that swanky Mustang.

• 12:49Laurie Santos?

  The valet at our hotel did look at me and Ryan a little oddly, like he was surprised that the people who dropped off that kind of car had the crumpled clothes and crappy luggage that we did. As we rode the elevator to our rooms, I thought back to my beat up Nissan with its squeaky windshield wipers and sticky coffee cup holders. None of that had really bothered me when I drove it in earlier that morning. But now my own car seemed, well, pretty crappy. I mean, don't get me wrong. The Mustang was super fun to ride around in. But if it entered into my life on a more permanent basis, I might fall prey to that Diderot effect even more. I might wind up changing the other things in my life to fit with the fact that I now owned a swanky car. As the name of Bruce's book suggests,

• 13:33Laurie Santos?

  my new ride might end up possessing me far more than I possessed it. The good news is that there is a way to enjoy the happiness boost that Ryan and I got from the Mustang ride without ending up on a treadmill of buying a new car every few years. And we'll talk about that science-backed strategy when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.

• 14:04Laurie Santos?

  You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? The sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. I recently pulled my fall clothes out of storage, and I was so excited to see my black Mongolian cashmere full-zip hoodie that I got from Quince. It's soft and warm and perfect for cozy nights. I love it so much that I now have a gray one in my quince.com cart right now. And when I buy that new gray hoodie, I know I'll feel good about my choice, because everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe,

• 14:48Laurie Santos?

  from warm, reasonably sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. When it comes to taking care of their customers, Amica goes the extra mile. From listening to your insurance needs to following up after a claim, Amica provides coverage with empathy.

• 15:30Laurie Santos?

  Because as a mutual insurer, Amica is built for its customers and prioritizes you. It's the way insurance should be. Amica, we're your priority number one. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. I just moved into my new sabbatical house, and I've been trying to make it feel more me. The living room is already furnished with a boho vibe, but it lacked the perfect rug to bring the room together. That's why I turned to Wayfair. I bought Wayfair's washable distressed vintage floral oriental rug in blue. That rug is so soft and cozy, and I was able to find it in a vintage-looking blue color that perfectly matched the rest of the items in this space. And with Wayfair, you can get rooms that look great at every price point.

• 16:12Laurie Santos?

  I'm only staying in my sabbatical place for a short time, so I didn't want to spend a lot on a new rug. But with Wayfair, you can shop thousands of products across every style and budget, whether you're simply replacing an appliance or transforming your home from top to bottom for the holiday season. And now that the weather's getting colder, I gotta say that I'm especially loving the coziness of my new rug. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 16:50Laurie Santos?

  What if I told you your skin and your brain are often in conversation? It's true, and that's why what you feel shows up on your skin. Think goosebumps, blushing, and even signs of stress. Tatcha harnesses the skin-mind connection to create skincare rituals that care for both skin and mind. At the heart of Tatcha's formulas is Hadasei-ri, their proprietary complex that counteracts visible signs of stress on skin. It's made up of three Japanese ingredients that are double-fermented to harness 400-plus micronutrients. These micronutrients synchronize your skin's natural renewal cycles and boost resilience to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin.

• 17:32Laurie Santos?

  Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T A T C H A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  So maybe they make us happy for a little while, but over time, we just stop deriving as much satisfaction from them.

• 18:01Laurie Santos?

  I wanted to find some evidence-based strategies to help me decide about this car situation. And so I decided to call a world expert on happier purchasing.

• 18:10Speaker 05

  I'm Amit Kumar. I'm an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

• 18:16Laurie Santos?

  Amit studies the way our minds mispredict the pleasure we get from what we buy. And so I told him about my car dilemma. Based on his research, he predicted that any happiness boost I'd derive from buying that Mustang wouldn't last much longer than the new car smell. If you've listened to other episodes of the Happiness Lab, you might know the reason why. A phenomenon that psychologists have christened hedonic adaptation. We just get used to stuff far quicker than we think.

• 18:42Speaker 05

  What seemed kind of new and exciting. At first, that excitement tends to fade. I guess the other thing is that it's always there in front of you. So when it malfunctions, or if something goes wrong, you're just kind of bothered by that.

• 18:56Laurie Santos?

  But there's a second reason that our possessions don't make us as happy as we think. That green-eyed monster is always with us.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  People are often kind of peeved when they find out that someone else has a nicer TV than they do, or if they have a fancier wardrobe. It can be similarly annoying to find out that someone who has the same thing that you do, like the same gadget that you have, or something like that, paid substantially less for it. So these sorts of destructive comparisons can stand in the way of happiness.

• 19:27Laurie Santos?

  So if I caved in and splurged on a new car, not only would every scratch and dent make me sadder, but I'd also unwittingly enter an arms race with my friends and neighbors, comparing my purchase to whatever car they had in their driveways. And even a new Mustang would look crappy next to my colleague's brand-new Tesla.

• 19:48Laurie Santos?

  But Ahmed's research shows that there's an alternative kind of purchase we can make that can bring us some lasting joy.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  Money could make us happier if we made different decisions or choices with what we did with it.

• 20:00Laurie Santos?

  To get the most happiness bank for our buck, we should make purchases that are experiential rather than material.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  So experiential purchases are essentially something that you spend money on that's an event or a series of events that you live through. So basically, it's money that you spend on doing things like travel, vacations, dining out, going to concerts, sporting events.

• 20:23Laurie Santos?

  If you're anything like me, you might feel a bit bad about spending more of your money on meals and trips. It can feel a little frivolous.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  So in some sense, they might seem fleeting, but in a way, this is actually a benefit of experiences compared to possessions. So people do tend to habituate to get used to things and derive less value from them over time. With an experience that's already over, that doesn't seem to happen.

• 20:50Laurie Santos?

  But experiences don't just make us feel better after we finish them. Experiential purchases can also make us happier than material possessions, even before we get to enjoy them.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  One thing that's interesting about waiting is that waiting can also sometimes feel good. So when it comes to material possessions, it feels more like impatience or anxiety or frustration. But with respect to experiential purchases, waiting is just a more positive state. We tend to look forward to what's to come with great excitement and delight. We look at restaurant menus and we go through our travel plans in advance. That tends to feel good instead of bad.

• 21:26Laurie Santos?

  But Ahmed has found that the biggest reason experiences bring us more joy is that they aren't normally a solitary activity.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  So if your purchases are promoting social interaction, if you're talking about the things that you've done, or if you're doing them with other people, that's one reason they're going to make you happier than some material items that you might buy.

• 21:47Laurie Santos?

  And experiential purchases don't just keep us social while we're doing them. They also let us connect with people afterwards, too.

• 21:55Speaker 05

  So if you go on a vacation somewhere, there's all sorts of things that you can talk about, what you did, what you saw, who you were with, what you ate. There's just lots of directions to go. It's a bit harder with material goods.

• 22:08Laurie Santos?

  And sharing stories about things you've done, or just reliving the memories, also has another happiness-boosting effect.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  It turns out that, sort of generally speaking, reflecting on experiential purchases inspires more gratitude than reflecting on material purchases. So people are more grateful for what they've done than for what they have. Part of the reason that this is particularly interesting is because of what gratitude tends to predict. So researchers have found that feeling grateful is associated with a whole host of positive outcomes. So in some fun studies we've done, for instance, we found that when people think about their experiences rather than possessions they've bought, they end up being more generous to others, they end up treating other people better as a result of reflecting on their experiential purchases.

• 22:56Laurie Santos?

  All this goes to say, experiences, be they big or small, they beat material purchases on literally every happiness metric Amit has studied. And yet, we still can't seem to break our habit of filling our closets and attics and garages with so much stuff. So after the break, I'll introduce you to a person who has taken this research to heart, someone who became so weighed down by her possessions that she decided to get rid of nearly all of them and became a lot happier as a result.

• 23:26Speaker 06

  If I'm really honest, if I didn't love it or use it, it was gone.

• 23:30Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 23:43Laurie Santos?

  You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? The sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. I recently pulled my fall clothes out of storage and I I was so excited to see my black Mongolian cashmere full zip hoodie that I got from Quince. It's soft and warm and perfect for cozy nights. I love it so much that I now have a gray one in my quince.com cart right now. And when I buy that new gray hoodie, I know I'll feel good about my choice because everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe.

• 24:26Laurie Santos?

  From warm, reasonably sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers.

• 25:10Laurie Santos?

  One that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. What if I told you your skin and your brain are often in conversation? It's true, and that's why what you feel shows up on your skin. Think goosebumps, blushing, and even signs of stress. Tatcha harnesses the skin mind connection to create skincare rituals that care for both skin and mind. At the heart of Tatcha's formulas is Hadasei-3, their proprietary complex that counteracts visible signs of stress on skin. It's made up of three Japanese ingredients that are double fermented to harness 400 plus micronutrients.

• 25:54Laurie Santos?

  These micronutrients synchronize your skin's natural renewal cycles and boost resilience to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin. Visit tacha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. There are plenty of reasons we put off getting support. And for a lot of people, cost is one of them. With BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide, with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. And while we're reconsidering old assumptions, maybe there are a few others worth questioning, too.

• 26:37Laurie Santos?

  Women these days inherit a lot of unwritten rules. Be ambitious, but not too ambitious. Be there for everyone, but still make time for yourself. Have it all together, but don't look like you're trying too hard. I've been trying to unwrit the unwritten rule that I'm never allowed to say no, that it makes me a bad person. I've been trying to give myself the grace that I would give other people and to remember that no one has the bandwidth to do everything all the time. If you're trying to work through your own unwritten rules, therapy may be of help. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks, and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the US?

• 27:20Laurie Santos?

  You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com/Laurie to explore your payment options. That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash Laurie.

• 27:42Speaker 06

  In some ways, I'm like, who was she? Who was old school Kate? I would say that I was someone who basically spent every penny that I earned.

• 27:52Laurie Santos?

  I caught up with author and blogger Kate Flanders via Zoom. If her bedroom sounds a little echoey, it's because there's virtually nothing in it. But it wasn't always like that.

• 28:02Speaker 06

  I definitely bought things whenever I wasn't feeling great. But then when you fill your home with stuff that you don't even use, it actually also feels worse. I would always text my best friend Emma and tell her whatever silly thing I was thinking of buying. I'm like, Emma, I think I need all new bedding. And she's like, but do you? Do you need new bedding? And I would just have this idea in my head that somehow that was the thing that was going to fix me that day. Like if I somehow made my bedroom look different or whatever, that that was somehow going to fix whatever was going on.

• 28:36Laurie Santos?

  Kate's material purchases followed a pattern that's familiar to many of us. She bought things in the hope that they would make her a better, more interesting person. She filled her small apartment with unread books and clothes, and then added cameras, paints, brushes, and other art supplies.

• 28:51Speaker 06

  I had purchased things thinking I would like to be the kind of person who does X, Y, or Z, but I never ended up doing any of it.

• 28:57Laurie Santos?

  At the time, Kate wasn't all that bothered by her shopping habits. But she did want to fix her financial situation. By spending way more than she earned, she'd run up over $30,000 in debt.

• 29:08Speaker 06

  I decided that for a year, I just wouldn't buy anything unless it was absolutely essential. The things I could buy were groceries or put gas in my car if I needed it. It had to be essential, otherwise it just was off the list.

• 29:20Laurie Santos?

  Kate's shopping ban was just supposed to reduce her debt, but it ended up teaching her a lot more about happiness than she expected. As the flow of books and clothes and a gazillion other material purchases was cut off, Kate started to realize just how cluttered her life had been.

• 29:35Speaker 06

  I was kind of sick of my drawers always being full or my closet being full. Like, I've always been someone who only wears the same two or three outfits. So why did I have a closet full of clothes or a dresser full of clothes? It just didn't really make sense. And so I think as I started decluttering, especially because I was really aggressive in the beginning, I got rid of something like 50% of my stuff in the first six months. And I do remember after that just noticing, like, when I walked into a room, not only did it feel, like lighter is a good word for it, but it also actually just felt more inviting.

• 30:08Laurie Santos?

  Kate's year-long shopping ban and radical decluttering made her realize that she didn't need as many material things as she thought. Her project also led to a new book, The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store. Kate had always wanted to become a professional writer, but her financial situation made that impossible. Having learned to live with less stuff, she finally got the freedom she needed to dive into her dream career. Her newfound savings also gave her the funds she needed for something else: the opportunity to experience the wider world.

• 30:43Speaker 06

  I didn't travel as a kid. We didn't do that, but I always wanted to. Like, I knew by the time I was a teenager that that was something I was interested in. I felt like I sort of started slow. You know, I would book three nights away with a friend somewhere, went away to a wedding to a friend that like I never would have been able to afford to go to her wedding.

• 31:03Laurie Santos?

  Since Kate can write from anywhere in the world, she decided to continue traveling. She gave up her apartment and now spends her time visiting friends and experiencing new countries and cultures.

• 31:13Speaker 06

  Traveling made sense to me. Like, it made me feel more like myself than anything else.

• 31:20Laurie Santos?

  And just as Amit's work would suggest, these new experiential purchases have given Kate far more joyful memories than any of her old material things.

• 31:29Speaker 06

  I don't remember the majority of what I decluttered and got rid of. And even just being able to recall things like the hotel that I stayed at for my friend's wedding or the house party that I went to with her and her friends, like the people I met and the conversations that we had. And I think I had never really stopped to savor moments like that before. Like, really, I can remember the experiences because of how I felt or how like the air smelled in certain cities. And I mean, I don't remember anything like that of what I decluttered or even what I've purchased in the past.

• 32:03Laurie Santos?

  When she's not traveling, Kate uses a single room at her dad's house as her base camp. That was where she met me over Zoom. It was pretty Spartan. One of the things that's cool about doing this interview is I'm able on Zoom to look into your room and I see a coat rack with a hat and a coat, but maybe a chair, but like that's it.

• 32:24Speaker 06

  Yes, I have a painting.

• 32:26Laurie Santos?

  Yes, I see the painting. It's a lovely painting, actually.

• 32:29Speaker 06

  It's done by a friend of mine. So yeah, it was nice to hang that up recently.

• 32:35Laurie Santos?

  Kate has around 40 items of clothing.

• 32:36Speaker 06

  Like not including socks and underwear.

• 32:38Laurie Santos?

  And a few pairs of shoes.

• 32:39Speaker 06

  Hiking boots, kind of regular boots, running shoes and sandals, and that's it.

• 32:44Laurie Santos?

  Having once been possessed by her material purchases, Kate has now broken free. Now the few things Kate does have all serve a purpose or have an important meaning.

• 32:53Speaker 06

  One of the things that I kept was my desk, and that's because I built it with my dad. You just have more appreciation in general for the things, I think, that you understand where they came from.

• 33:04Laurie Santos?

  It also seems like you're keeping material objects that also have this feature of they were experiences for you, they were memories for you too, right? Like the desk is a memory that you have with your dad, and so it winds up being special in that sense.

• 33:18Speaker 06

  Totally. That is something I can't really imagine I would ever get rid of.

• 33:21Laurie Santos?

  Kate's on to something really important here. The material possessions we do love are usually imbued with a certain experiential joy. It got me thinking back to what Amit Kumar had explained when we chatted before.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  There's this sort of fuzzy boundary between what's an experience and what's a possession. Take a bicycle, for example, that's something that you keep in your possession, but it's literally a vehicle for experiences. If you think about it in terms of its features, its specifications, it's going to feel a little more possession-y and it can lead to some of these problems with comparison, for instance, that we've talked about. But if you think about going out on the trails, then all of a sudden that particular purchase might be something that inspires more happiness within you as a result of construing it in terms of its experiential nature.

• 34:10Laurie Santos?

  After talking with Kate and Amit, I'm more convinced than ever that I don't need a new car. I also realized that I can think of my beat-up Nissan in a different light. I can construe it as a giver of new experiences, one that can connect me socially with the people I really care about.

• 34:31Laurie Santos?

  And so, dear podcast listener, welcome inside my beat up Nissan, which has recently become less beat up than it used to be, since I did in fact take Ryan Sage's advice and made some strategic auto body repairs. Thanks, Ryan. Making this episode has given me some real gratitude for these old wheels, and it's helped me reframe how I think about my car generally. This Nissan is going to be my doorway to new experiences. It's going to be the car that takes me for nice meals with my husband, or on trips to see my old friends. And with all that money I'll save from not buying a Mustang, I'm hopeful I can invest in even more fun experiential purchases in the future. I can pay for a cool new yoga class online

• 35:13Laurie Santos?

  and enjoy the anticipation of a fantastic future vacation, hopefully one that will involve traveling somewhere warm and sunny. And maybe, just maybe, a small rental car splurge too, because I might enjoy just a little more muscle car fun sometime soon.

• 35:50Laurie Santos?

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• 36:34Laurie Santos?

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• 36:54Speaker 05

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• 37:37Speaker 05

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• 37:54Laurie Santos?

  Flu season is here, and it's a great time to take a simple step to help protect yourself and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, scheduling my appointment was a breeze. With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once through CVS.com/flu or the CVS Health app, so you can get it done in one go. Did you know that flu shots are free with most insurance plans? Visit your local CVS Pharmacy for your flu shot and get a $5 off $20 coupon with any vaccine. Schedule today at CVS.com/flu. Flu shots are no cost with most insurance. Eligibility varies by patient and insurance plan.

• 38:36Laurie Santos?

  Coupon offer not available in select states and is subject to availability. Restrictions apply. Visit CVS.com/flu for details.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.