I’ve been consuming a lot of personal-finance related media online recently. Like a lot. So I’ve decided that I would share some of these articles, and my thoughts on them, with you here. So, without further ado, here’s what I’ve read in the last couple of weeks that I think is worth passing on.
Jessica Stillman of inc.com talks about the latest research on money and happiness.The takeaway? Money can improve your life satisfaction, but only up to a point and a certain income level. After that, working hard should be about things like personal fulfillment or pursuit of other goals, not just making more money. These are American numbers, so I wonder what the magic income level would be for myself and my Canadian readers. Does anyone have any similar sources with Canadian amounts?
Leslie Beck wrote a nice article for The Globe and Mail about the benefits of bringing your lunch to work ever day. (An excellent Frugal Habit if I do say so myself!) I like that she addressed the issue from both financial and health standpoints with solid examples to support her arguments. She also has some great tips for actually making that habit happen.
Finally, I just came across this older article from Apartment Therapy about 25 Creative Ways to Save Money in 2016. It’s got some ideas that are even new to me! I think I want to start keeping a list of all the food we throw away, since we’ve been throwing away more food than usual recently. What about you? Do you have any other creative tips you think should be added to this list?
That’s it for me today and now I’ll turn it over to you. Do you have any articles or news that you’ve read recently that you recommend?
Frugal Can Be Fab! 
I haven’t heard Canadian numbers for the US money-happiness study. the US is 75k yes? But given how similar the economies are I feel like you could estimate it if you converted the USD to CAD using the PPP (purchasing power parity) value. I am having a bit of trouble finding that number at the moment but it should be easy enough to calculate by using a certain year’s GDP in PPP for both the US and Canada. It’d probably come out to a bit higher than the $75k US value because livings costs are a bit higher so I assume the PPP conversions would come out slightly higher than the raw currency conversion. But the recent huge currency fluctuations throw a wrench in as well… maybe not such a good technique! But I could estimate it would be around 90-100k/yr in CAD. Significantly higher than mediam income in this country unfortunately. But I think by adopting many of your life tips you could effectively bring this number down.
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See, this study says the US number for a single person in an average cost of living area was only around 40K. I am at work now so can’t search for the PPP either but if we got with the 40K number, it would still be less than 100K in Canada and probably closer to the median income here.
I also agree that adopting the things I talk about could bring the amount of money you need to be happy down quite a bit. I think it’s really easy to get habituated to luxuries but if you take the time to try new things, you can often be happier with less.
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ah! ok then I think the 75k must have been household income. that’s good because it’d equate to 50-50k CAD compared to maybe 45k median personal income in Canada
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