Can I confess something? I once bought the watch. The nice one — the one I was sure would feel like arriving. It looked lovely on my wrist for about a fortnight. Then it quietly became… the watch.
Here’s what I’ve learned since. The money I spend on doing makes me far happier than money I spend on having. The dinner, the trip, the concert, the picnic in the park with my children — the verbs — outlast the handbag, the gadget, the watch — the nouns. A picnic with my family means more to me now than anything I could ever wear on my wrist. And this isn’t just me being sentimental — researchers studying spending and happiness have found the same thing for decades, and the finding barely wobbles. It isn’t about taste. It’s how our minds are built.
Things fade. Experiences compound.
I’ve watched this happen to myself more times than I’d like to admit. A new possession thrills me on day one and blends into the furniture by day thirty — psychologists call it hedonic adaptation, and we adjust to what we own with almost unfair speed. Spending on experiences does the opposite. They grow in the retelling. They warm with nostalgia. They become part of who I am, rather than what I keep. That car I was once so proud of? It became “the car” within a year. But the trip we took — I’ll still be telling that story in twenty years.
You become your memories, not your things.
Here’s a question I keep coming back to: at the very end of it all, who lists their belongings? Nobody. We tell stories — the summer, the meal, the wrong turn that somehow became the best afternoon of the year. And here’s the part I love most: unlike a handbag, which your neighbour can outdo the moment she buys a better one, your memories are entirely your own. Impossible to envy. Impossible to lose. The receipts vanish; the stories don’t.
The anticipation is half the gift.
Have you noticed a booked trip pays you twice — once in the waiting, once in the doing? A bought object only ever pays on arrival, then quietly goes silent. So I’ve started giving myself things to look forward to on purpose, because the waiting stretches a single purchase into weeks of quiet pleasure. And the research agrees: we get a bigger lift from anticipating an experience than from anticipating a thing. Delight has a long runway — if you let it have one.
Buy time before you buy stuff.
If there’s one purchase that beats every experience, it’s the one that hands me back my hours — the cleaner, the closer flat, the direct flight, the chore I happily pass on. Every single time I spend a little to remove something I dread, my week gets lighter. And yet so many of us feel oddly guilty doing it. I did too, for years. I don’t anymore. Buying back your time is one of the smartest money moves there is — because time is the only currency none of us can earn more of. And for me, that’s the whole point of building wealth: the freedom to choose what I do, and when.
So here’s where I’ve landed — and where I’d gently nudge you too:
Collect afternoons, not objects. They appreciate.
The Jacqueline Brand — knowledge builds confidence, confidence builds wealth. This is editorial commentary for inspiration, not financial or professional advice. Always do your own research. The Collection
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