17 ms·

Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests

234 points by zonotope 9y ago

crb002 9y ago
+1 for maid. Having a professional come in for an hour or two twice a month pays off 3x.
- copperx 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure clearing up a month's worth of mess is a 6 to 8 hour affair even if done by a pro.
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    1) It's "twice a month", so two weeks' worth. 2) Some people are pretty tidy naturally (in the sense that everything is usually in the right place) but just can't stand cleaning. 3) It depends on the size of the place to be cleaned.
nunez 9y ago
Don't tell /r/personalfinance this; they will have a stroke
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- UK-AL 9y ago
  In fact they're probably good with it, if you've calculated your hourly wage and working out the time savings.
siliconc0w 9y ago
I think the greater lesson is that material goods don't lead to happiness. Whether you should spend the money instead on KFC is jump that might not be warranted by the data.
contingencies 9y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107
soared 9y ago
TL;DR: They sent out a survey and asked if you spent money on time-saving tasks, and in general how happy you are. They were correlated. Then they gave people $40 and asked how happy they were at the end of the day. Self-reported happiness is a dumb 'metric' and everyone knows it. Not much meat in this article, but it does raise an interesting point. But it doesn't ever get into if people paid for tasks they disliked, or cheapest tasks, etc. I don't like cleaning the house, but if I paid someone to grocery shop while I cleaned the house I'd save $40 compared to doing the opposite despite them taking the same amount of time.
- RodericDay 9y ago
  Agreed. Bit of a rant, but I came from South America to Canada 10 years ago, and was super impressed by how independent people my age were. They cooked for themselves, they moved around using public transit, they had part-time jobs, etc. People in my HS just lived luxurious lives while they prepared for luxurious jobs. I couldn't wait to see Peru, where most wealthy families have one or multiple live-in servants, drivers, and maids, develop along those lines. I was hearing stories that the availability of good jobs meant that young "high society" families were finding it super hard to find people to clean their toilets and rear their children for them. Little did I know that shortly thereafter the "sharing economy" would start to boom in North America, and wealthy white-collar workers everywhere would start to gush about cheap cabs, an ability to hire maids and people to do their laundry and cooks, people renting their houses out to them, etc. It feels like a total regression to me. I once heard Silicon Valley described "an assisted-living community for people in their 20s funded by venture capital", and it felt quite apt. I hope the craze ends sooner rather than later.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    That's an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure I understand it. The existence of an underclass _is_ a negative IMO, but if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that it's also a hidden negative for those whose time is freed up? Every time I've heard this sentiment or something related expressed by a friend, it's been from someone whose use of their leisure activities are utterly boring. When they open up a new chunk of regular free time, they don't pick up a new instrument or sport or online course, they just do their leisure activities a bit more often: go to the same bars a bit more, watch a bit (or a lot) more TV, go to brunch a bit more often. (To be clear, I enjoy all these things and don't think they're inherently boring, but think that there's obvious a point at which marginal returns are diminishing) By contrast, I and many people I know aren't already in a surplus of leisure time. I've been debating re-orienting my career to reliably require less than 40 hours per week because I simply have a dozen other interests I want to pursue. I enjoy my job, but 40 hours dedicated to _one_ of these pursuits to the detriment of the others is a disproportionately huge amount, especially given that it's 40 daylight hours. Given the long list of time-consuming things that I already find rewarding, I can't relate to the concept that being a slave to the drudgery of menial tasks is somehow something that would be _missing_ from my life if I managed to remove it. To reiterate, I do think that a shift in the economy that leads to increasing outsourcing of menial tasks to an underclass is an issue worth thinking about in terms of what it says about the way our economy is structured and why said underclass is in that position. I just don't buy the self-flagellating claim that doing X hours of penance a week on things you'd rather not do is somehow a moral good.
ivanbakel 9y ago
Would be interested to see how the results on take-out stack up for people who self-report as enjoying cooking. Maybe there's a greater-than-average overlap between the wealthy and people who don't get taught how to cook, and might therefore not enjoy it as much. The better question is: is cooking just not as enjoyable as I think it is, or do the times when I don't feel like cooking offset the enjoyment from the times I do? Is there some maximal happiness from part-cooking/part-takeout?
- airbreather 9y ago
  Yes, I regard cooking/baking as "non boring stuff".
- achamayou 9y ago
  If you enjoy cooking, being constrained by time can somewhat frustrating (not just because of the actual process, the supply of fresh ingredients too). Cooking when tired and hungry is also less fun. So I can completely see how getting takeout makes sense on occasion, particularly during the week.
  - _delirium 9y ago
    I personally am the opposite, though I can believe that's pretty idiosyncratic. I have no interest at all in fancy cooking of the kind that requires many ingredients and 20-step recipes (not even on weekends when I have spare time). But I really like cooking something quick and simple on a daily basis. If I'm really short on time/energy/ingredients, even just a lentil soup (prep time: 5 mins, unattended cooking time: 25 mins) is enjoyable to make and tasty. I have a half-dozen go-to "too lazy to really cook" dishes that take little time and effort and use mainly long-lasting ingredients I always have around, and I like the interlude of putting something together with my hands. I also like the food more, because I've pretty much customized it to what I like to eat.
    - trias 9y ago
      Sounds interesting! Could you share some of your recipes / dishes? Maybe books you recommend?
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
"The findings suggest that spending money to save time may reduce stress about the limited time in the day, thereby improving happiness." More time for doing non-boring stuff makes you happy. Who'da thunk it? On a related note, the Norwegian central statistics bureau released today a study on free time and happiness, and in particular how happy various demographics are with the part of their free time when they can do whatever they like. "Me-time". What stuck out very strongly to me is that they found a very strong correlation with age: couples over 45 were 30 percentage points more happy with their "me-time" than couples under 45, but this was completely independent of whether they had kids or not. Couples without kids vs. with kids were within 1 percentage point of each other in both age groups. I strongly expected to see couples without kids more happy with their "me-time", but apparently they're not.
- MaxLeiter 9y ago
  How did they take into account the age of kids? Couples over 45 probably had older and more independent kids, if that's worth anything.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    That's what I thought. I would expect that couples with grown up kids are the most happy with their free time because in the past they had so little of it.
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    They didn't take age of kids into account. But I agree with your reasoning, so I'd expect that there was a large difference for below 45 kids vs. no kids, and smaller difference for above 45. But no, in both age groups, kids vs. no kids had absolutely no effect.
- nether 9y ago
  It's interesting given how common it is to buy stuff that ends up demanding your attention ("your stuff starts to own you"). Like I know people who accumulate media (books, magazines, netflix lists) that they have to catch up on, when it can be feel better just to let it go and spend quiet time doing nothing.
JetSpiegel 9y ago
What if you are a maid who always orders takeout because you have no time to cook for yourself? What's should you do become happier?
- darkstar999 9y ago
  Get a job that lets you afford those luxuries.
- inopinatus 9y ago
  A professional cleaner can hire a cleaner for their own property. My barber does not cut his own hair.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    > My barber does not cut his own hair. The same way a mason does not build his own house /s
jacquesm 9y ago
And to get rich you should send more shirts to the laundry.
trendia 9y ago
Maybe I'm an outlier since I eat so much (>2500 calories/day), but I find that takeout takes a LOT of time, since I only get 1 meal and it takes me 30 min to get the food. In comparison, when I cook for myself, I have plenty of leftovers for the upcoming days (which take little time to reheat).
- bpicolo 9y ago
  I get unhappy with myself if I do takeout more than a couple times a week, just on the basis of not feeling healthy.
- icebraining 9y ago
  You could order more than one meal at once.
crispyambulance 9y ago
$130 twice a month for housekeeping is one expenditure my wife and I will probably never give up as long as we live in a house. There's something so soothing about coming home to a house that is orderly and clean. We use the time boost to spend time in the kitchen, cooking. I think the only other way to get around this problem is to have a much smaller living space with less stuff. The less stuff you have the easier it is to manage.
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Restoring order to my own living space provides both soothing busy-work, and reinforces my sense of ownership and control over the space. If someone else cleans it, I will be timid about using the place they have to clean. It relates to larger ideas of ownership being composed of use approaching limits, maintenance of standards, and defense of boundaries. Maintaining the standards of cleanliness of a living space is part of owning the living space - along with approaching (and expanding) the the living space's limits for use & utility, and defending the boundaries of the living space.
  - encoderer 9y ago
    There can be beauty in the simple transaction of fair employment. No exploitation. They come to you, into your home, do a service and you pay them the wage they asked for. I never feel bad about dirtying the house, it's part of the cycle.
- shostack 9y ago
  If you have lots of foot traffic or little ones, consider getting a robo-vac too. We just got a Neato Botvac D5 and it is great for in-between cleaning vacuum runs. There's something nice about pushing a button and 1:30 later having a vacuumed home without having had to lift a finger (for the most part--still figuring out where it gets stuck).
- cromd 9y ago
  I used a housekeeping service for a few months (Handy). The time saved definitely felt worth the money in general. On the other hand, and this is maybe partly my building's arrangement, it also felt like it complicated/constrained life sometimes. I would find myself saying "sorry, I'll skip drinks, I have to get home and let the maid in at 7pm". I also found it a little hard to be fully relaxed while the person was there in the next room. And, one day while on vacation, although I canceled the cleaning for that week, a maid showed up at my apartment, and they made the trip for nothing - I felt bad. Turned out the site had quickly auto-moved the first canceled appointment to a few days later in a pretty misleading way. I got charged and decided to work it out with their customer service. I just pulled up the chain, and it was a 15 email inquiry that took 35 days to resolve. IIRC, a negative Yelp review got things moving again. So, that's probably not everyone's situation or experience, but it just reiterated that having control and simplicity is nice. Simplicity for some might be not having to clean, but for others it might mean not having to depend on someone else. I can't be my own Verizon or Uber of course, but some things I'm in a good position to provide for myself...
grecy 9y ago
Assuming you go to work 40+ hours a week and will for 40+ years of your life. If you want to take away those two assumptions, I strongly believe you can be a lot happier spending your time how you want - not at work. I wrote an ebook on exactly that called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" - http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina and am now driving around Africa for two years. http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com
- bookmarkacc 9y ago
  All the tireless self promotion on these type of posts in your downtime seems exhausting though
  - grecy 9y ago
    All things considered, it's by far the easiest and least time consuming part of my life - probably by a factor of 100 or 1000. i.e. this was over a week of my life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U
    - sliverstorm 9y ago
      Why do I feel like you're selling something.
      - grecy 9y ago
        Eh, my book is the only thing I sell and it's $2.99. If you don't want to, don't buy it. There are thousands of informative posts on my website, tens of thousands of photos and now hours of videos on YT for free. Also, http://wikioverland.org http://wikioverland.org is completely free, and is stacked with the info you need to drive your own vehicle around the world. It's my side project, and my way of giving back to the overland community. Ask me anything you want to know about what I do, and I'm more than happy to help you get out there to live your dreams too.
owebmaster 9y ago
So maids can't be happy?
- sgs1370 9y ago
  Every time I've seen or talked to the woman who has cleaned my house for 4 years she seems happy. Maybe she is just good at customer service, or is it possible that she's happy?
jryan49 9y ago
Are they controlling for richness? Maybe people who can afford such luxuries are just happier?
kelukelugames 9y ago
I bought a nice ironing board and iron because I thought doing chores would make me a better person. Instead I stare at a pile of wrinkled shirts everyday and feel guilty.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  Do three shirts a day and the backlog disappears.
  - rglover 9y ago
    This is a very idealistic view of laundry.
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      It works so long as you're only doing laundry for one person. Otherwise you have to do more. And also solve the political problem of wanting to devote space in a dwelling for procrastinated chores. It takes me perhaps half a week to do laundry. I load up all my laundry in one load in the washer, with a ColorCatcher to avoid dye bleeding. Once it's done I move it all to a dedicated spot in my closet, where I take all the things that need to be hanged and hang them, and leave the rest for the next day. Over the next few days I'll extract the other outerwear, then the underwear, until I'm left with socks. All of my socks are inside-out, so one day I'll turn them right-side-out and the next I'll fold them and put them up. Works because it's just me.
  - xenadu02 9y ago
    ... says the childless single person.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- FooHentai 9y ago
  FWIW I found if you power through and get so good at ironing that you can do it on full autopilot, that time just kinda disappears. Like how if you commute the same way every day, the memory of each one seems to merge and disappear. Sure, you lose that time, but it becomes a completely neutral experience.
Kiro 9y ago
I don't clean and I don't have a maid. I just let it be dirty. I don't mind.
- adam12 9y ago
  Are you married?
- ghaff 9y ago
  A bit messy is fine. At some point genuine dirtiness gets not fine. To each their own but I don't mind my house (and outdoors) being a bit unkempt. But I have an every few weeks housekeeper precisely to keep things from getting over that line.
ouid 9y ago
if you are a maid, should you still clean your own home?
Pxtl 9y ago
Which it's why it's fruatrating that it's so hard to find healthy takeout or good maids.
0xbear 9y ago
I like cooking though, and I don't mind cleaning around the house once a week. "Happy" is a highly individual thing. Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.
aakilfernandes 9y ago
Hiring a maid is especially great if you live with other people. Splitting a bill is much easier than splitting tasks.
gone35 9y ago
Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University. [1] Evidently so. I wonder what Andrew Gelman will make out of it. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full
spodek 9y ago
That article views life almost the opposite as I do. 1. I have long been inspired by Gandhi's having cleaned toilets in his ashram and he seems to have accomplished a fair amount of meaningful things. Monks garden and clean things in part to increase self-awareness and inner tranquility. The structure adds to my life, not detracts. 2. Happiness isn't "out there." It's "in here." Same with freedom. I suppose I could be happy and feel free either way -- doing my chores or outsourcing them, but doing them seems simpler. 3. Actually, the amount of garbage takeout creates is unconscionable to me. I couldn't live with myself filling landfills at that rate. 4. My home cooked food tastes better, is more convenient, costs less, is healthier, and is better in every way for me than takeout. The problem that takeout solves isn't time. It's ignorance of how to source fresh fruits and vegetables and to prepare them. Solving that problem improved my life more than take out ever could. 5. I incorporate cleaning my apartment into my workout routine, sweeping and mopping between sets. It doesn't cost extra time. I feel the article misses the point of what creates happiness and freedom, but to each his or her own.
- _ao789 9y ago
  Fantastic take at addressing things. I would tend to agree with you on literally every point you raised.
- capex 9y ago
  Gandhi had a particular fascination with toileting. I read in a biography that the first question he'd ask anyone in the morning was 'Have you had your bowel movements yet?"
  - jmcgough 9y ago
    That seems to be pretty common among yogi - one I had a few years ago was always telling us that we should have regular bowel movements etc, which I found a little weird.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      It's just common among quacks of all varieties, from yogis to Kellogs. To paraphrase a doctor who's name I forget, "I think it's the transgressive nature of the act [enemas in this case] which appeals to the quack. They can't give you injections or perform surgery, but they can do all sorts of things to your bottom."
dep_b 9y ago
> Even among more than 800 Dutch millionaires surveyed, all of whom surely could afford to do so, only a slight majority spent money on timesaving tasks. Because you spend more time finding a good cleaner than the average cleaner will clean your house.
- Neliquat 9y ago
  Amen to this. Without word of mouth I would have never known the joy of an good housekeeper (even with an ocd gf). It took personal reccomendations to feel comfortable, and the 2 we trusted have both moved away sadly.
cbhl 9y ago
Maybe this study has it backwards -- it's not that takeout will make you happy, but that buying things makes you unhappy. Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has been fairly popular in my circles, where throwing out lots of things you never use seems to give you more room to hang out with friends and family. (And if you're short on time, the manga adaptation The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up was just recently released in North America in English.)
baron816 9y ago
There is research out there that says your experiencing self and your narrating will have different interpretations of the same experience. While you're actually doing something (say cleaning or cooking) you might be uncomfortable and not like it much, but later on, you may reflect kindly because you feel like you were being responsible, productive, and maybe healthy. We've all had terrible experiences that made us miserable while we were doing it, but were made less miserable because we got to bitch about it later on. For example, I once went camping with my friends and everything went wrong. We forgot to bring tools to help us cook food. It was raining and one of our tents didn't have a rainfly, so we all had to cram into the other relatively small tent. I ended up sleeping on a pile of jagged rocks, head-to-foot with one of my friends, and at the feet of my other four friends, with my head in a puddle. On top of that, other another campsite close to us was setting off fireworks for hours (it was the 4th of July), which kept waking us up at irregular intervals throughout the night. That night sucked really hard, but it's one of my favorite stories to tell, so I don't really reflect on it negatively.
stuaxo 9y ago
Takeout (not every meal) .. OK, but a maid is a kind of servant and I can't be comfortable with this, it feels like a regression in society (as mentioned in another comment).
- seizethecheese 9y ago
  What an absurd statement. Daily, you consume the labor of dozens of people.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    It's not absurd just because it is the statu quo.
    - nickik 9y ago
      Its not absurd because its the status quo, its absurd because you relay on other peoples laber all the time. The only difference is that the person is in your house, rather then some other place. Why would the location matter ethically?
- emmanuel_1234 9y ago
  Aren't you (if not you, surely someone you know) a servant to your boss? Having a "maid", although I don't particularly like the term, doesn't equate exploiting other human beings, that's slavery.
poink 9y ago
As an alternative to takeout (of which I've been a compulsive consumer the better part of my adult life), I've been using DIY Keto Chow as a way to free up time I normally spend dealing with food. I make two weeks worth of powder, and mix three days worth of meals at a time. Each meal costs ~$1.70 (which is exactly what my school lunch cost in the 80's). Even for someone who rarely cooks, it's hard to appreciate how much time you spend dealing with food until you no longer have to do it anymore. I don't let a diet get in the way of my social life or prevent me from eating good stuff when I have the opportunity, but I fill in all those meals where I used to run to Chick-fil-A or Popeye's with something healthy I can just grab out of the fridge, chug, and get back to work. I've done it for a few months, and it saves me ~$300 and ~60 hours per month. I've also lost weight, and I make a weak effort to stick to keto now because I've noticed I feel better when I do.
robg 9y ago
Seems similar to buying experiences, not material possessions. The former grow more valuable over time, the latter lose value over time.
icelancer 9y ago
Hiring a maid/housecleaner was one of those decisions I categorize in the "holy shit, how did I live without this" category. Right up there with dual monitors.
- arkitaip 9y ago
  Ok now that dual monitors have been mentioned I'm much more inclined to believe that takeout and maids are the road to happiness. I should seriously get a second monitor.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    One of my favorite parts at work is when I set up our interns and new employees with their laptop and a monitor. So many young kids don't realize you can use two screens at one time. At first, they're intrigued. After 15 minutes, they're shocked at the productivity jump.
pixelmonkey 9y ago
Is it inconceivable to so many maid nay-sayers on this thread that some people actually don't mind cleaning houses? That some view it as comparatively good money for the labor expended? It is amazing to me that the same person who will be self-righteous in refusing to hire a maid will have no problem at all ordering an item on Amazon (where countless faceless staff do 'potentially unpleasant logistics labor' to get that package to your doorstep).
- mirimir 9y ago
  In Mexico, for example, most middle-class people hire maids, nannies, etc. Even the poor hire poorer people to work for them. To some extent, I think, that reflects less segregation of rich and poor. But also, I think that there's something odd about American culture. People will pay to have their vehicle repaired, but not to have their home cleaned.
  - moultano 9y ago
    It's the legacy of slavery. People are very uncomfortable with things that look kinda like it. The things that are actually like it (our prison system) comparatively pass unnoticed.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Perhaps. But I suspect that it's more general than that. Maybe it violates the ideal of equality. At Starbucks or Walmart, it's easy to pretend that workers are paid well enough. But when you're paying, it's in your face.
    - peteretep 9y ago
      I mean if we're pulling reasons out of our asses, I like the idea that it's because shitty public transportation and geographic spread of more affluent areas makes the whole thing much less feasible.
  - wenbert 9y ago
    Like Philippines then. I imagine it came from the Spanish?
zaro 9y ago
Want to be happy - hire a maid. Very very usefull, totally agree. It implies maid will never be happy though. A better said title might be : want to be happy - you should be wealthy enough to afford to pay somebody to do the stuff you don't like.
- belorn 9y ago
  Why can't a maid be happy? A garbageman are constantly taking care of other peoples garbage. Does that mean they too can't be happy?
  - zaro 9y ago
    Because she can't hire another maid to take care of her domestic chores.
    - fcmk 9y ago
      Why not? I don't know the exact numbers involved, but if, for the sake of argument, the maid has 30 clients and a maid service costs $100 per month, the maid would make $3000 a month before taxes etc. Surely there's at least a possibility that the rest of his or her expenses are low enough that they can afford a $100 maid service of their own. Especially if they are living with someone and can divide the living expenses.
      - zaro 9y ago
        OK, try to answer this question for yourself. Let's say you make 50$/hour from you daily job reinstalling Windows. Would you pay somebody to do it for you on your home pc at 50$/hour rate?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > It implies maid will never be happy though. It implies nothing on the sort. Maids are not sad slaves, but regular employees. They can have happy lives too (even if with a less wealthy lifestyle than people who use their services).
shostack 9y ago
I'd be curious what other relatively inexpensive services people have gotten that have saved time in their lives. And of them, which made the largest impact on quality of life?
nikanj 9y ago
Want to be happy? Have more disposable income! No shit!?
- lex_gen 9y ago
  You can say that again!
ranit 9y ago
Something in this article doesn't add up. They surveyed 4500 people from 4 countries. Further down it says, that "800 Dutch millionaires surveyed ...". How both numbers can be true. I even cannot imagine that a survey would manage to convince 800 millionaires to participate, but this is another topic.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- detaro 9y ago
  Dutch millionaires was one of the sub-sets of people they surveyed, how does that not add up? The study is linked, you can look up what the chosen sets are.
- pjc50 9y ago
  If you're counting asset value, pretty much every middle-class person with a home and a pension is a millionaire, in Euros or dollars. Doesn't mean they have a million in free cash, but it's what you need if you're going to live 20+ years after retirement with no employment income.
isaaclyman 9y ago
1. I'm very suspicious of studies whose main metric is self-reported happiness. Do people know how happy they are? Is that measure consistent enough over the course of a day to be meaningful? 2. If you ask someone if they have a maid or eat takeout, then ask them how happy they are, of course they'll be happier if they aren't thinking, "I need to figure out what to cook tonight" or "ugh, I need to clean the house." I assume the study was designed better than that, but secondary sources tend to gloss over this stuff. 3. Is it heresy for me to suggest that day-to-day happiness isn't the only thing worth having? There's a complex interplay between various factors in one's internal life. But I think my work ethic would degrade if someone else did my cooking, cleaning, gardening, and so forth. And my work ethic is important to me, and not necessarily because it makes me happy. And what about my financial future? If I can trade a little temporary happiness for financial security in the future, I will often choose that. I think there's something to be said for not trying to max out your happiness all the time. But I might be the only one who feels that way... crickets
- lotsofcows 9y ago
  How would you suggest measuring happiness other than by self-reporting?
blablabla123 9y ago
You can prove a lot with studies if you happily ignore simple facts of life. The food on the photo looks like a KFC bucket. That's really healthy. Since 1.5 months I only eat takeout because I recently moved. A few days ago I had the worst cramp in my leg ever (not thaat bad, but still ;)) so now I'm having mineral and vitamin tablets every day - yay. I wonder which body part would do funny stuff next, if I continued. By the way, I only eat chain fast food like KFC around once a week. Actually I even literally conducted a one-year self-studied on take-out. I was saying to myself: so yeah, burgers contain all those vitamins and proteins. If you combine them with a water instead of soda, can't be that bad, right? I didn't only eat burgers, but I ate a lot. Apart from that I was often a "normal" restaurants. After a year I felt really unhealthy, for the only time in my life my belly gained a noticeable volume - friends told me. And yeah, about the maid thing.. I value my privacy, also I wonder how people manage to take more than 15 minutes to thoroughly clean their bath room or pile up stuff in their kitchen. (Ok, been there myself when I was 22 or so - but it's really no deep science.)
twothamendment 9y ago
I'd be quite happy don't my own cooking and letting a maid cleanup. Eating out or take out gets old fast and isn't healthy. There are times I've gone out and wished I hadn't. Travel, waiting, average did - why did I leave and spend way more? Smothered sweet pork burrito at a chain - $9. Mine come in under $2. Much of it can be frozen in portions for another day. Smoked pulled pork sandwich at home? $1.50 and again, it is easy to deal and freeze for another day. Add the cost of the smoker and I have to use it quite a bit to "pay it off" with savings. I need a maid. Meals included.
unclebucknasty 9y ago
The corollary here is that the people you hire to "make you happy" don't likely have the means to make themselves happy. It's messed up, really: they do a study to determine that we could be happier if we offload our crap onto other people who, nearly by definition, can't do the same. Then, they explore further to try to determine why people who are able don't engage in crap-offloading more; the implication being that it would be the reasonable thing to do. How about a study that explores the unreasonableness of structuring a society in such a way that so many are relegated to less-fulfilling, less-happy lives?
exabrial 9y ago
Honestly, get a neato vaccuum robot. You'll be forced to keep things picked up or you jam it. And invite people over to your place so you have a reason to clean.
nickik 9y ago
Its true for me. I hired a cleaning lady and I love it. I have no interest in cleaning again. If only I wouldn't have to wash my cloth. If there were better Takeout options where I live, I would probably do more of it. What I do instead is home delivery of shopping, I don't mind cooking. I can do it exactly as I like.
isaachawley 9y ago
> “People who spent money to buy themselves time, such as by outsourcing disliked tasks, reported greater overall life satisfaction,” People in here complaining that they like to clean or cook so the study is wrong. Focusing on the wrong part of the study. Which tasks you'd outsource is up to you. If you like cooking, then obviously don't outsource cooking! But if there's something you dislike doing, outsource it! You'll be happier than if you spent the money on junk.
scentoni 9y ago
"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, ... Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." -- From Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Chapter Two, 1876. http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html

234 points by zonotope 9y ago

crb002 9y ago

+1 for maid. Having a professional come in for an hour or two twice a month pays off 3x.

copperx 9y ago
I'm pretty sure clearing up a month's worth of mess is a 6 to 8 hour affair even if done by a pro.
- Smaug123 9y ago
  1) It's "twice a month", so two weeks' worth. 2) Some people are pretty tidy naturally (in the sense that everything is usually in the right place) but just can't stand cleaning. 3) It depends on the size of the place to be cleaned.

nunez 9y ago

Don't tell /r/personalfinance this; they will have a stroke

deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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UK-AL 9y ago
In fact they're probably good with it, if you've calculated your hourly wage and working out the time savings.

siliconc0w 9y ago

I think the greater lesson is that material goods don't lead to happiness. Whether you should spend the money instead on KFC is jump that might not be warranted by the data.

contingencies 9y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14845107

soared 9y ago

TL;DR: They sent out a survey and asked if you spent money on time-saving tasks, and in general how happy you are. They were correlated. Then they gave people $40 and asked how happy they were at the end of the day. Self-reported happiness is a dumb 'metric' and everyone knows it. Not much meat in this article, but it does raise an interesting point. But it doesn't ever get into if people paid for tasks they disliked, or cheapest tasks, etc. I don't like cleaning the house, but if I paid someone to grocery shop while I cleaned the house I'd save $40 compared to doing the opposite despite them taking the same amount of time.

RodericDay 9y ago
Agreed. Bit of a rant, but I came from South America to Canada 10 years ago, and was super impressed by how independent people my age were. They cooked for themselves, they moved around using public transit, they had part-time jobs, etc. People in my HS just lived luxurious lives while they prepared for luxurious jobs. I couldn't wait to see Peru, where most wealthy families have one or multiple live-in servants, drivers, and maids, develop along those lines. I was hearing stories that the availability of good jobs meant that young "high society" families were finding it super hard to find people to clean their toilets and rear their children for them. Little did I know that shortly thereafter the "sharing economy" would start to boom in North America, and wealthy white-collar workers everywhere would start to gush about cheap cabs, an ability to hire maids and people to do their laundry and cooks, people renting their houses out to them, etc. It feels like a total regression to me. I once heard Silicon Valley described "an assisted-living community for people in their 20s funded by venture capital", and it felt quite apt. I hope the craze ends sooner rather than later.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  That's an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure I understand it. The existence of an underclass _is_ a negative IMO, but if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that it's also a hidden negative for those whose time is freed up? Every time I've heard this sentiment or something related expressed by a friend, it's been from someone whose use of their leisure activities are utterly boring. When they open up a new chunk of regular free time, they don't pick up a new instrument or sport or online course, they just do their leisure activities a bit more often: go to the same bars a bit more, watch a bit (or a lot) more TV, go to brunch a bit more often. (To be clear, I enjoy all these things and don't think they're inherently boring, but think that there's obvious a point at which marginal returns are diminishing) By contrast, I and many people I know aren't already in a surplus of leisure time. I've been debating re-orienting my career to reliably require less than 40 hours per week because I simply have a dozen other interests I want to pursue. I enjoy my job, but 40 hours dedicated to _one_ of these pursuits to the detriment of the others is a disproportionately huge amount, especially given that it's 40 daylight hours. Given the long list of time-consuming things that I already find rewarding, I can't relate to the concept that being a slave to the drudgery of menial tasks is somehow something that would be _missing_ from my life if I managed to remove it. To reiterate, I do think that a shift in the economy that leads to increasing outsourcing of menial tasks to an underclass is an issue worth thinking about in terms of what it says about the way our economy is structured and why said underclass is in that position. I just don't buy the self-flagellating claim that doing X hours of penance a week on things you'd rather not do is somehow a moral good.

ivanbakel 9y ago

Would be interested to see how the results on take-out stack up for people who self-report as enjoying cooking. Maybe there's a greater-than-average overlap between the wealthy and people who don't get taught how to cook, and might therefore not enjoy it as much. The better question is: is cooking just not as enjoyable as I think it is, or do the times when I don't feel like cooking offset the enjoyment from the times I do? Is there some maximal happiness from part-cooking/part-takeout?

airbreather 9y ago
Yes, I regard cooking/baking as "non boring stuff".
achamayou 9y ago
If you enjoy cooking, being constrained by time can somewhat frustrating (not just because of the actual process, the supply of fresh ingredients too). Cooking when tired and hungry is also less fun. So I can completely see how getting takeout makes sense on occasion, particularly during the week.
- _delirium 9y ago
  I personally am the opposite, though I can believe that's pretty idiosyncratic. I have no interest at all in fancy cooking of the kind that requires many ingredients and 20-step recipes (not even on weekends when I have spare time). But I really like cooking something quick and simple on a daily basis. If I'm really short on time/energy/ingredients, even just a lentil soup (prep time: 5 mins, unattended cooking time: 25 mins) is enjoyable to make and tasty. I have a half-dozen go-to "too lazy to really cook" dishes that take little time and effort and use mainly long-lasting ingredients I always have around, and I like the interlude of putting something together with my hands. I also like the food more, because I've pretty much customized it to what I like to eat.
  - trias 9y ago
    Sounds interesting! Could you share some of your recipes / dishes? Maybe books you recommend?

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

"The findings suggest that spending money to save time may reduce stress about the limited time in the day, thereby improving happiness." More time for doing non-boring stuff makes you happy. Who'da thunk it? On a related note, the Norwegian central statistics bureau released today a study on free time and happiness, and in particular how happy various demographics are with the part of their free time when they can do whatever they like. "Me-time". What stuck out very strongly to me is that they found a very strong correlation with age: couples over 45 were 30 percentage points more happy with their "me-time" than couples under 45, but this was completely independent of whether they had kids or not. Couples without kids vs. with kids were within 1 percentage point of each other in both age groups. I strongly expected to see couples without kids more happy with their "me-time", but apparently they're not.

MaxLeiter 9y ago
How did they take into account the age of kids? Couples over 45 probably had older and more independent kids, if that's worth anything.
- nsgi 9y ago
  That's what I thought. I would expect that couples with grown up kids are the most happy with their free time because in the past they had so little of it.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  They didn't take age of kids into account. But I agree with your reasoning, so I'd expect that there was a large difference for below 45 kids vs. no kids, and smaller difference for above 45. But no, in both age groups, kids vs. no kids had absolutely no effect.
nether 9y ago
It's interesting given how common it is to buy stuff that ends up demanding your attention ("your stuff starts to own you"). Like I know people who accumulate media (books, magazines, netflix lists) that they have to catch up on, when it can be feel better just to let it go and spend quiet time doing nothing.

JetSpiegel 9y ago

What if you are a maid who always orders takeout because you have no time to cook for yourself? What's should you do become happier?

darkstar999 9y ago
Get a job that lets you afford those luxuries.
inopinatus 9y ago
A professional cleaner can hire a cleaner for their own property. My barber does not cut his own hair.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  > My barber does not cut his own hair. The same way a mason does not build his own house /s

jacquesm 9y ago

And to get rich you should send more shirts to the laundry.

trendia 9y ago

Maybe I'm an outlier since I eat so much (>2500 calories/day), but I find that takeout takes a LOT of time, since I only get 1 meal and it takes me 30 min to get the food. In comparison, when I cook for myself, I have plenty of leftovers for the upcoming days (which take little time to reheat).

bpicolo 9y ago
I get unhappy with myself if I do takeout more than a couple times a week, just on the basis of not feeling healthy.
icebraining 9y ago
You could order more than one meal at once.

crispyambulance 9y ago

$130 twice a month for housekeeping is one expenditure my wife and I will probably never give up as long as we live in a house. There's something so soothing about coming home to a house that is orderly and clean. We use the time boost to spend time in the kitchen, cooking. I think the only other way to get around this problem is to have a much smaller living space with less stuff. The less stuff you have the easier it is to manage.

stephengillie 9y ago
Restoring order to my own living space provides both soothing busy-work, and reinforces my sense of ownership and control over the space. If someone else cleans it, I will be timid about using the place they have to clean. It relates to larger ideas of ownership being composed of use approaching limits, maintenance of standards, and defense of boundaries. Maintaining the standards of cleanliness of a living space is part of owning the living space - along with approaching (and expanding) the the living space's limits for use & utility, and defending the boundaries of the living space.
- encoderer 9y ago
  There can be beauty in the simple transaction of fair employment. No exploitation. They come to you, into your home, do a service and you pay them the wage they asked for. I never feel bad about dirtying the house, it's part of the cycle.
shostack 9y ago
If you have lots of foot traffic or little ones, consider getting a robo-vac too. We just got a Neato Botvac D5 and it is great for in-between cleaning vacuum runs. There's something nice about pushing a button and 1:30 later having a vacuumed home without having had to lift a finger (for the most part--still figuring out where it gets stuck).
cromd 9y ago
I used a housekeeping service for a few months (Handy). The time saved definitely felt worth the money in general. On the other hand, and this is maybe partly my building's arrangement, it also felt like it complicated/constrained life sometimes. I would find myself saying "sorry, I'll skip drinks, I have to get home and let the maid in at 7pm". I also found it a little hard to be fully relaxed while the person was there in the next room. And, one day while on vacation, although I canceled the cleaning for that week, a maid showed up at my apartment, and they made the trip for nothing - I felt bad. Turned out the site had quickly auto-moved the first canceled appointment to a few days later in a pretty misleading way. I got charged and decided to work it out with their customer service. I just pulled up the chain, and it was a 15 email inquiry that took 35 days to resolve. IIRC, a negative Yelp review got things moving again. So, that's probably not everyone's situation or experience, but it just reiterated that having control and simplicity is nice. Simplicity for some might be not having to clean, but for others it might mean not having to depend on someone else. I can't be my own Verizon or Uber of course, but some things I'm in a good position to provide for myself...

grecy 9y ago

Assuming you go to work 40+ hours a week and will for 40+ years of your life. If you want to take away those two assumptions, I strongly believe you can be a lot happier spending your time how you want - not at work. I wrote an ebook on exactly that called "Work Less to Live Your Dreams" - http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG http://amzn.to/2vVzpbG I spent two years driving from Alaska to Argentina and am now driving around Africa for two years. http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com

bookmarkacc 9y ago
All the tireless self promotion on these type of posts in your downtime seems exhausting though
- grecy 9y ago
  All things considered, it's by far the easiest and least time consuming part of my life - probably by a factor of 100 or 1000. i.e. this was over a week of my life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z740focQL4U
  - sliverstorm 9y ago
    Why do I feel like you're selling something.
    - grecy 9y ago
      Eh, my book is the only thing I sell and it's $2.99. If you don't want to, don't buy it. There are thousands of informative posts on my website, tens of thousands of photos and now hours of videos on YT for free. Also, http://wikioverland.org http://wikioverland.org is completely free, and is stacked with the info you need to drive your own vehicle around the world. It's my side project, and my way of giving back to the overland community. Ask me anything you want to know about what I do, and I'm more than happy to help you get out there to live your dreams too.

owebmaster 9y ago

So maids can't be happy?

sgs1370 9y ago
Every time I've seen or talked to the woman who has cleaned my house for 4 years she seems happy. Maybe she is just good at customer service, or is it possible that she's happy?

jryan49 9y ago

Are they controlling for richness? Maybe people who can afford such luxuries are just happier?

kelukelugames 9y ago

I bought a nice ironing board and iron because I thought doing chores would make me a better person. Instead I stare at a pile of wrinkled shirts everyday and feel guilty.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
Do three shirts a day and the backlog disappears.
- rglover 9y ago
  This is a very idealistic view of laundry.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    It works so long as you're only doing laundry for one person. Otherwise you have to do more. And also solve the political problem of wanting to devote space in a dwelling for procrastinated chores. It takes me perhaps half a week to do laundry. I load up all my laundry in one load in the washer, with a ColorCatcher to avoid dye bleeding. Once it's done I move it all to a dedicated spot in my closet, where I take all the things that need to be hanged and hang them, and leave the rest for the next day. Over the next few days I'll extract the other outerwear, then the underwear, until I'm left with socks. All of my socks are inside-out, so one day I'll turn them right-side-out and the next I'll fold them and put them up. Works because it's just me.
- xenadu02 9y ago
  ... says the childless single person.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
FooHentai 9y ago
FWIW I found if you power through and get so good at ironing that you can do it on full autopilot, that time just kinda disappears. Like how if you commute the same way every day, the memory of each one seems to merge and disappear. Sure, you lose that time, but it becomes a completely neutral experience.

Kiro 9y ago

I don't clean and I don't have a maid. I just let it be dirty. I don't mind.

adam12 9y ago
Are you married?
ghaff 9y ago
A bit messy is fine. At some point genuine dirtiness gets not fine. To each their own but I don't mind my house (and outdoors) being a bit unkempt. But I have an every few weeks housekeeper precisely to keep things from getting over that line.

ouid 9y ago

if you are a maid, should you still clean your own home?

Pxtl 9y ago

Which it's why it's fruatrating that it's so hard to find healthy takeout or good maids.

0xbear 9y ago

I like cooking though, and I don't mind cleaning around the house once a week. "Happy" is a highly individual thing. Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.

aakilfernandes 9y ago

Hiring a maid is especially great if you live with other people. Splitting a bill is much easier than splitting tasks.

gone35 9y ago

Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University. [1] Evidently so. I wonder what Andrew Gelman will make out of it. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/18/1706541114.full

spodek 9y ago

That article views life almost the opposite as I do. 1. I have long been inspired by Gandhi's having cleaned toilets in his ashram and he seems to have accomplished a fair amount of meaningful things. Monks garden and clean things in part to increase self-awareness and inner tranquility. The structure adds to my life, not detracts. 2. Happiness isn't "out there." It's "in here." Same with freedom. I suppose I could be happy and feel free either way -- doing my chores or outsourcing them, but doing them seems simpler. 3. Actually, the amount of garbage takeout creates is unconscionable to me. I couldn't live with myself filling landfills at that rate. 4. My home cooked food tastes better, is more convenient, costs less, is healthier, and is better in every way for me than takeout. The problem that takeout solves isn't time. It's ignorance of how to source fresh fruits and vegetables and to prepare them. Solving that problem improved my life more than take out ever could. 5. I incorporate cleaning my apartment into my workout routine, sweeping and mopping between sets. It doesn't cost extra time. I feel the article misses the point of what creates happiness and freedom, but to each his or her own.

_ao789 9y ago
Fantastic take at addressing things. I would tend to agree with you on literally every point you raised.
capex 9y ago
Gandhi had a particular fascination with toileting. I read in a biography that the first question he'd ask anyone in the morning was 'Have you had your bowel movements yet?"
- jmcgough 9y ago
  That seems to be pretty common among yogi - one I had a few years ago was always telling us that we should have regular bowel movements etc, which I found a little weird.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    It's just common among quacks of all varieties, from yogis to Kellogs. To paraphrase a doctor who's name I forget, "I think it's the transgressive nature of the act [enemas in this case] which appeals to the quack. They can't give you injections or perform surgery, but they can do all sorts of things to your bottom."

dep_b 9y ago

> Even among more than 800 Dutch millionaires surveyed, all of whom surely could afford to do so, only a slight majority spent money on timesaving tasks. Because you spend more time finding a good cleaner than the average cleaner will clean your house.

Neliquat 9y ago
Amen to this. Without word of mouth I would have never known the joy of an good housekeeper (even with an ocd gf). It took personal reccomendations to feel comfortable, and the 2 we trusted have both moved away sadly.

cbhl 9y ago

Maybe this study has it backwards -- it's not that takeout will make you happy, but that buying things makes you unhappy. Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has been fairly popular in my circles, where throwing out lots of things you never use seems to give you more room to hang out with friends and family. (And if you're short on time, the manga adaptation The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up was just recently released in North America in English.)

baron816 9y ago

There is research out there that says your experiencing self and your narrating will have different interpretations of the same experience. While you're actually doing something (say cleaning or cooking) you might be uncomfortable and not like it much, but later on, you may reflect kindly because you feel like you were being responsible, productive, and maybe healthy. We've all had terrible experiences that made us miserable while we were doing it, but were made less miserable because we got to bitch about it later on. For example, I once went camping with my friends and everything went wrong. We forgot to bring tools to help us cook food. It was raining and one of our tents didn't have a rainfly, so we all had to cram into the other relatively small tent. I ended up sleeping on a pile of jagged rocks, head-to-foot with one of my friends, and at the feet of my other four friends, with my head in a puddle. On top of that, other another campsite close to us was setting off fireworks for hours (it was the 4th of July), which kept waking us up at irregular intervals throughout the night. That night sucked really hard, but it's one of my favorite stories to tell, so I don't really reflect on it negatively.

stuaxo 9y ago

Takeout (not every meal) .. OK, but a maid is a kind of servant and I can't be comfortable with this, it feels like a regression in society (as mentioned in another comment).

seizethecheese 9y ago
What an absurd statement. Daily, you consume the labor of dozens of people.
- andrepd 9y ago
  It's not absurd just because it is the statu quo.
  - nickik 9y ago
    Its not absurd because its the status quo, its absurd because you relay on other peoples laber all the time. The only difference is that the person is in your house, rather then some other place. Why would the location matter ethically?
emmanuel_1234 9y ago
Aren't you (if not you, surely someone you know) a servant to your boss? Having a "maid", although I don't particularly like the term, doesn't equate exploiting other human beings, that's slavery.

poink 9y ago

As an alternative to takeout (of which I've been a compulsive consumer the better part of my adult life), I've been using DIY Keto Chow as a way to free up time I normally spend dealing with food. I make two weeks worth of powder, and mix three days worth of meals at a time. Each meal costs ~$1.70 (which is exactly what my school lunch cost in the 80's). Even for someone who rarely cooks, it's hard to appreciate how much time you spend dealing with food until you no longer have to do it anymore. I don't let a diet get in the way of my social life or prevent me from eating good stuff when I have the opportunity, but I fill in all those meals where I used to run to Chick-fil-A or Popeye's with something healthy I can just grab out of the fridge, chug, and get back to work. I've done it for a few months, and it saves me ~$300 and ~60 hours per month. I've also lost weight, and I make a weak effort to stick to keto now because I've noticed I feel better when I do.

robg 9y ago

Seems similar to buying experiences, not material possessions. The former grow more valuable over time, the latter lose value over time.

icelancer 9y ago

Hiring a maid/housecleaner was one of those decisions I categorize in the "holy shit, how did I live without this" category. Right up there with dual monitors.

arkitaip 9y ago
Ok now that dual monitors have been mentioned I'm much more inclined to believe that takeout and maids are the road to happiness. I should seriously get a second monitor.
- icelancer 9y ago
  One of my favorite parts at work is when I set up our interns and new employees with their laptop and a monitor. So many young kids don't realize you can use two screens at one time. At first, they're intrigued. After 15 minutes, they're shocked at the productivity jump.

pixelmonkey 9y ago

Is it inconceivable to so many maid nay-sayers on this thread that some people actually don't mind cleaning houses? That some view it as comparatively good money for the labor expended? It is amazing to me that the same person who will be self-righteous in refusing to hire a maid will have no problem at all ordering an item on Amazon (where countless faceless staff do 'potentially unpleasant logistics labor' to get that package to your doorstep).

mirimir 9y ago
In Mexico, for example, most middle-class people hire maids, nannies, etc. Even the poor hire poorer people to work for them. To some extent, I think, that reflects less segregation of rich and poor. But also, I think that there's something odd about American culture. People will pay to have their vehicle repaired, but not to have their home cleaned.
- moultano 9y ago
  It's the legacy of slavery. People are very uncomfortable with things that look kinda like it. The things that are actually like it (our prison system) comparatively pass unnoticed.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Perhaps. But I suspect that it's more general than that. Maybe it violates the ideal of equality. At Starbucks or Walmart, it's easy to pretend that workers are paid well enough. But when you're paying, it's in your face.
  - peteretep 9y ago
    I mean if we're pulling reasons out of our asses, I like the idea that it's because shitty public transportation and geographic spread of more affluent areas makes the whole thing much less feasible.
- wenbert 9y ago
  Like Philippines then. I imagine it came from the Spanish?

zaro 9y ago

Want to be happy - hire a maid. Very very usefull, totally agree. It implies maid will never be happy though. A better said title might be : want to be happy - you should be wealthy enough to afford to pay somebody to do the stuff you don't like.

belorn 9y ago
Why can't a maid be happy? A garbageman are constantly taking care of other peoples garbage. Does that mean they too can't be happy?
- zaro 9y ago
  Because she can't hire another maid to take care of her domestic chores.
  - fcmk 9y ago
    Why not? I don't know the exact numbers involved, but if, for the sake of argument, the maid has 30 clients and a maid service costs $100 per month, the maid would make $3000 a month before taxes etc. Surely there's at least a possibility that the rest of his or her expenses are low enough that they can afford a $100 maid service of their own. Especially if they are living with someone and can divide the living expenses.
    - zaro 9y ago
      OK, try to answer this question for yourself. Let's say you make 50$/hour from you daily job reinstalling Windows. Would you pay somebody to do it for you on your home pc at 50$/hour rate?
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> It implies maid will never be happy though. It implies nothing on the sort. Maids are not sad slaves, but regular employees. They can have happy lives too (even if with a less wealthy lifestyle than people who use their services).

shostack 9y ago

I'd be curious what other relatively inexpensive services people have gotten that have saved time in their lives. And of them, which made the largest impact on quality of life?

nikanj 9y ago

Want to be happy? Have more disposable income! No shit!?

lex_gen 9y ago
You can say that again!

ranit 9y ago

Something in this article doesn't add up. They surveyed 4500 people from 4 countries. Further down it says, that "800 Dutch millionaires surveyed ...". How both numbers can be true. I even cannot imagine that a survey would manage to convince 800 millionaires to participate, but this is another topic.

deleted 9y ago
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detaro 9y ago
Dutch millionaires was one of the sub-sets of people they surveyed, how does that not add up? The study is linked, you can look up what the chosen sets are.
pjc50 9y ago
If you're counting asset value, pretty much every middle-class person with a home and a pension is a millionaire, in Euros or dollars. Doesn't mean they have a million in free cash, but it's what you need if you're going to live 20+ years after retirement with no employment income.

isaaclyman 9y ago

1. I'm very suspicious of studies whose main metric is self-reported happiness. Do people know how happy they are? Is that measure consistent enough over the course of a day to be meaningful? 2. If you ask someone if they have a maid or eat takeout, then ask them how happy they are, of course they'll be happier if they aren't thinking, "I need to figure out what to cook tonight" or "ugh, I need to clean the house." I assume the study was designed better than that, but secondary sources tend to gloss over this stuff. 3. Is it heresy for me to suggest that day-to-day happiness isn't the only thing worth having? There's a complex interplay between various factors in one's internal life. But I think my work ethic would degrade if someone else did my cooking, cleaning, gardening, and so forth. And my work ethic is important to me, and not necessarily because it makes me happy. And what about my financial future? If I can trade a little temporary happiness for financial security in the future, I will often choose that. I think there's something to be said for not trying to max out your happiness all the time. But I might be the only one who feels that way... crickets

lotsofcows 9y ago
How would you suggest measuring happiness other than by self-reporting?

blablabla123 9y ago

You can prove a lot with studies if you happily ignore simple facts of life. The food on the photo looks like a KFC bucket. That's really healthy. Since 1.5 months I only eat takeout because I recently moved. A few days ago I had the worst cramp in my leg ever (not thaat bad, but still ;)) so now I'm having mineral and vitamin tablets every day - yay. I wonder which body part would do funny stuff next, if I continued. By the way, I only eat chain fast food like KFC around once a week. Actually I even literally conducted a one-year self-studied on take-out. I was saying to myself: so yeah, burgers contain all those vitamins and proteins. If you combine them with a water instead of soda, can't be that bad, right? I didn't only eat burgers, but I ate a lot. Apart from that I was often a "normal" restaurants. After a year I felt really unhealthy, for the only time in my life my belly gained a noticeable volume - friends told me. And yeah, about the maid thing.. I value my privacy, also I wonder how people manage to take more than 15 minutes to thoroughly clean their bath room or pile up stuff in their kitchen. (Ok, been there myself when I was 22 or so - but it's really no deep science.)

twothamendment 9y ago

I'd be quite happy don't my own cooking and letting a maid cleanup. Eating out or take out gets old fast and isn't healthy. There are times I've gone out and wished I hadn't. Travel, waiting, average did - why did I leave and spend way more? Smothered sweet pork burrito at a chain - $9. Mine come in under $2. Much of it can be frozen in portions for another day. Smoked pulled pork sandwich at home? $1.50 and again, it is easy to deal and freeze for another day. Add the cost of the smoker and I have to use it quite a bit to "pay it off" with savings. I need a maid. Meals included.

unclebucknasty 9y ago

The corollary here is that the people you hire to "make you happy" don't likely have the means to make themselves happy. It's messed up, really: they do a study to determine that we could be happier if we offload our crap onto other people who, nearly by definition, can't do the same. Then, they explore further to try to determine why people who are able don't engage in crap-offloading more; the implication being that it would be the reasonable thing to do. How about a study that explores the unreasonableness of structuring a society in such a way that so many are relegated to less-fulfilling, less-happy lives?

exabrial 9y ago

Honestly, get a neato vaccuum robot. You'll be forced to keep things picked up or you jam it. And invite people over to your place so you have a reason to clean.

nickik 9y ago

Its true for me. I hired a cleaning lady and I love it. I have no interest in cleaning again. If only I wouldn't have to wash my cloth. If there were better Takeout options where I live, I would probably do more of it. What I do instead is home delivery of shopping, I don't mind cooking. I can do it exactly as I like.

isaachawley 9y ago

> “People who spent money to buy themselves time, such as by outsourcing disliked tasks, reported greater overall life satisfaction,” People in here complaining that they like to clean or cook so the study is wrong. Focusing on the wrong part of the study. Which tasks you'd outsource is up to you. If you like cooking, then obviously don't outsource cooking! But if there's something you dislike doing, outsource it! You'll be happier than if you spent the money on junk.

scentoni 9y ago

"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, ... Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." -- From Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Chapter Two, 1876. http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html