Live, and Let Live…Spend, and Let Spend: What Does Living the Good Life Mean to You?

By Beth Kobliner

One of the biggest concepts in behavioral economics these days is the role that “choice” plays in our financial lives.

Sounds obvious, but it’s the simple idea that we have a finite amount of money, so we need to choose wisely how we spend it if we want to live a life that we consider good.

But what really is the “good life?”

In August’s Journal of Socio-Economics (yes, I confess that I read it for fun!) there was an intriguing book review of How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life by R. Skidelsky and E. Skidelsky, a father-son team—the dad: an economist; the son: a philosopher.

In the review, researchers Benjamin Nienass of Yeshiva University (New York) and Stefan Trautmann of Tilburg University (the Netherlands) outline those factors that the Skidelsky team believe to make up the good life:

“Health; security (low uncertainty in life); respect; personality (autonomy); harmony with nature; friendship (community, social capital); leisure (goal-less activity)…”

I thought this was a compelling list. Certainly more thoughtful than beef tacos and beer on a Sunday afternoon while watching football—many of my friends’ notion of living the good life.

But the reviewers then go on to say that this one-size-fits-all definition may not really be right. They argue that everyone’s view of the good life can be varied, and you can’t really account for the trade-offs that people are willing to make in such a list.

“A doctor,” the reviewers write, “ who feels called to help people may be willing to work 60 hours, sacrificing leisure and family life. Will he subscribe to this definition of the good life?”

This got me thinking about my own upbringing and the choices that my parents made in order to give us their version of the good life.

As I mentioned in my last column, my parents were frugal in a good way. They made smart decisions about spending money that allowed them to live the life that they wanted to live.

We certainly did not have everything we desired, but we definitely had what we needed.

Though they were careful with cash, they didn’t scrimp on those areas that really mattered to them. Healthcare was number one—damn the cost.

We saw the very best doctors even if we had to go outside the network of my dad’s healthcare plan. (Of course, 20 or 30 years ago, healthcare wasn’t nearly as expensive, but it was still a big cash outlay for my dad, an educator, and my stay-at-home mom.)

Weighing Priorities

Another priority: living in a comfortable home. That’s not to say that they didn’t hunt around for the best sale price on furniture or appliances. They sure did. (I recall many a Saturday evening trudging through a mall or department store as we compared prices on big-ticket items.)

But they believed that buying a quality refrigerator or a well-designed central AC system was incredibly worthwhile—even though buying such higher priced items was not routine in most families in the ‘70s.

Their logic—and mantra: We spend 365 days a year—minus a small, local family car trip here or there—in our modest home, which should be our family’s comfortable refuge.

Read the full article online.