<div id="readability-page-1"><div> To get a sense of whether you're spending your money meaningfully, Agnew suggests we review monthly spending with highlighters in three different colors. One color is for purchases we feel good about, the second color for purchases we feel bad about, and the third color is for purchases we feel indifferent toward, or necessities. This can help us &#34;start to think about ways that you can act differently&#34; with money, she said. Financial therapist Christine Hargrove told MarketWatch that, to sharpen money's meaning to them, people can ask a few questions, for instance: If you have &#34;enough&#34; money, what does that enable you to do? What does that unlock?How would you complete this sentence: &#34;Money is most important to me because it allows me to ... &#34;?What financial decision are you most proud of and why? If you had to choose between a high salary with no flexibility and lower pay with complete autonomy, which would you pick and why? Even as a person who thinks about money a lot for work, my answers to these questions surprised me. I am a saver by nature, but at this stage I feel neutral about my savings balance on its own. The happiest use of my savings recently was having set aside enough to pay for my family, including my parents, to take a modest trip to a place we had visited during multiple summers when I was a child. Realizing this helped me clarify my response to the prompt: Money allows me to be generous with my time and resources with the people I care about. For others, Hargrove said, a greater purpose for money might be providing peace of mind and security. Beverly Wilks, a 53-year-old cybersecurity manager in Montreal who writes the personal-finance blog Bacon &amp; Heels, said the joy of money for her is in her budget, which makes her finances predictable. In her 20s, Wilks was &#34;freewheeling,&#34; buying &#34;everything and anything&#34; until, one day, she spent her last $25 on gas. &#34;I had a very good time,&#34; she said. But it needed to end. Wilks developed a system in which she allocated 50% of her take-home pay to needs (including her mortgage), 20% to nonhousing debt such as car payments and student debt, 20% to savings and 10% to fun. Once she's debt-free, she will direct those dollars toward saving. It meant less shopping, less dining out and more planning than she was used to, but having these guardrails &#34;really gives me joy,&#34; she said. 'You can always re-evaluate how much money you need as your baseline - what you need to be happy - or whether money makes you happy at all.' Orin Kurtz, attorney and yoga teacher Orin Kurtz, a 49-year-old employment attorney, said he keeps a &#34;close eye&#34; on his spending to make sure he is using his money on purchases he finds &#34;worthwhile.&#34; They are usually related to simple comforts, &#34;whether it's a piece of food that tastes good, or a new guitar, or a taxi ride when I'm tired and it's raining,&#34; he told MarketWatch. Many of these small pleasures were inaccessible to Kurtz when he was working as a musician in New York City decades ago. He also couldn't afford such comforts growing up in East Hampton. His father was &#34;the paint guy&#34; at the local hardware store. Every day, his mother - who cleaned houses and taught piano and guitar - packed him a peanut-butter sandwich on whole-wheat bread for lunch, &#34;which sucks when you're a kid.&#34; &#34;I needed $2.60 to go get two slices of pizza and a soda, and I just thought: That's the thing that I want. That was the thing that mattered to me,&#34; he said. &#34;It wasn't status. It wasn't material things.&#34; Now, &#34;I'm a lawyer, and that's why I work the hard hours - because I want to have comfort in my life.&#34; While his monthly income is variable, Kurtz puts away roughly 20% of his income annually, including $500 a month that gets taken out of his checking account and automatically invested &#34;so that I don't feel bad, and feel like I have nothing to show for the hard work that I do,&#34; he said. Kurtz, who is also a certified yoga teacher, said it is personally important &#34;to keep my relationship with money a happy one.&#34; One of the teachings in yoga is that a person can remain steady even as the world changes them, he noted. That means &#34;you can always re-evaluate how much money you need as your baseline - what you need to be happy - or whether money makes you happy at all.&#34; &#34;Even though I strive for more, and even though I'm happy to get more, I am perfectly content with what I have, which are my health, my wife and her health, and a nice house where I can be comfortable and happy. It doesn't take much. And I am content,&#34; he said. Inequality robs people of enjoyment That sense of financial contentment, however, can be extremely hard to come by today. &#34;People came together on social media at the very moment that they drifted apart financially,&#34; author Housel said. Even as U.S. GDP is growing, more of it has become concentrated among a small fraction of the population. The top 1% of households now hold 31% of wealth in the U.S., up from 27.2% two decades ago, Federal Reserve data show. Most Americans &#34;haven't necessarily experienced an overall increase in spending power,&#34; Killingsworth, the Wharton School fellow, said. He has argued that &#34;policies that help the poorest could create far more collective happiness than boosting the fortunes of those who are already well-off.&#34; Nevertheless, Housel reiterated the error in &#34;overstating money's importance&#34; for individual happiness. &#34;If you wake up every morning a little bit unfulfilled, it is so common to think, 'If only I had more money, then everything would be OK,' because money is so quantifiable,&#34; he said. But money alone will not bring fulfillment. &#34;If you're not happy with what you do with your money, no matter how much you have, it's not going to be worth it,&#34; said Christine Moriarty, a financial planner. Years ago, Moriarty had started her business in the Boston area, and &#34;it was going gangbusters.&#34; But she moved to Vermont after falling in love with the lifestyle there. Financially, it was a tradeoff at first: She had no clients in Vermont. But she felt deeply that &#34;a bad day here was better than a good day in Boston.&#34; Having the financial resources for choices like these reflects the independence that Housel calls &#34;true rich.&#34; He points out that it is not binary. Independence exists on a vertical spectrum, which he breaks into 16 levels: from relying completely on the kindness of strangers at level 0; to having savings to cover small problems; to being comfortable enough with your status to not compare yourself with strangers; to, at the highest level, having enough money to spend your time doing whatever you want with the people you want. Regardless of where people find themselves financially or how they enjoy spending their money, Housel writes, one thing that tends to be broadly true is that success is ultimately reflected when &#34;the people who you want to love you do love you. And that love comes overwhelmingly from how you treat people, rather than what you spend or a level of net worth.&#34; What personal-finance issues would you like to see covered in MarketWatch? We would like to hear from readers about their financial decisions and money-related questions. You can write to us at readerstories@marketwatch.com. A reporter may be in touch to learn more. MarketWatch will not attribute your answers to you by name without your permission. -Venessa Wong This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones &amp; Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. <pre></pre> (END) Dow Jones Newswires 11-22-25 1508ETCopyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones &amp; Company, Inc.</div></div>

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The article explores how individuals can find happiness through mindful financial management. Experts suggest reviewing spending habits to identify meaningful purchases and reflect on personal financial goals. Personal stories highlight different approaches to money, emphasizing the importance of aligning financial decisions with personal values and happiness. The narrative underscores the idea that money's value lies in its ability to provide comfort, security, and the freedom to enjoy life's simple pleasures.

Americans' happiness is at a record low. Are -2-