I read another article recently telling me to stop buying things and start buying experiences. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen that advice.
It’s been repeated in newspaper articles, magazine articles, and by bloggers and podcasters. It’s more than just advice at this point — it’s a cultural mantra.
As a result of this, people feel like they need to spend their money on travel to exotic destinations and attend expensive concerts and shows, as opposed to spending money on things.
Because of this belief, when they do spend money on things, they feel guilty, as if they are breaking a social or moral norm. Even if it’s something they love and value.
Where Did This Thinking Come From?
The experiences over things advice traces to research by Thomas Gilovich and Leaf Van Boven, summarized in their 2003 paper To Do or to Have? That Is the Question. They found people’s satisfaction with material purchases declined over time, while satisfaction with experiential purchases held steady or increased.
This became a cultural talking point picked up by personal finance writers, lifestyle bloggers, and minimalists and hardened into a rule. Experience is good, things bad.
But the Research Has Gaps
More recent research doesn’t support the claim that spending on any experience beats spending on anything else. In fact, it questions the application of the original study to all situations.
First, the experiences studied were extraordinary rather than ordinary. Studies implicitly focused on things like safaris, museum trips, concerts — rare events for most people. But most experiential spending is mundane: a forgettable dinner, a mediocre movie, a vacation that was more stressful than restful. The research doesn’t validate that spending on any experience beats spending on things.
Second, income changes the equation entirely. Research shows that when money is tight, buying material things produces more happiness than buying experiences. The original studies skewed toward more affluent participants. For people with limited budgets, a durable, purposeful, useful purchase often outperforms a one-time outing.
Third, this mantra assumes that everyone has basically the same values, which isn’t true. As C. Thi Nguyen wrote in his recent book, The Score:
Much of our sense of meaning and worth is peculiar, personal, and local, and metrics will always be deeply insensitive to such intimate, small-scale senses of meaning.
That subjectivity points to an even bigger flaw in the advice: the experience-versus-things divide itself is false.
What the Mantra Gets Wrong
Actually, this mantra has set up a false dichotomy because things sometimes are experiences. The experience-versus-things frame is a false binary.
Many of the most meaningful purchases in a person’s life are things that enable experiences or become experiences themselves.
A harp you’ve played for 20 years? A favorite chair where you read every morning? Hiking boots that took you up 100 trails? A book that changed how you think? These are all things. These are also, over time, the texture of a life, and they can be extremely valuable and continue in their value.
Another example is heirlooms and deeply personal objects that carry memory and meaning in ways that a vacation photo doesn’t. A father’s watch, a grandmother’s ring, a tool you built something with. These objects don’t fade — they accumulate meaning rather than losing it.
The Better Question to Ask Yourself
The better question is: does this purchase — whether it’s an experience or a thing — align with what you actually value?
The advice to spend on experiences rather than things carries a hidden assumption: that experiences are inherently more meaningful than things. But meaningfulness is entirely subjective. It can’t be universalized from one person’s preference into a law of good living.
Some have argued that using analog tools, for instance, is more calming than using digital tools. That may be true for them, but not for other people. As I wrote in a blog article about whether analog or digital tools are more meaningful, whether an activity is meaningful depends not on the tools used but on the user’s attitude and intention.
I’ve found that in my own life. I get great enjoyment from owning and using some things: my Macintosh computer, my AirPods, my car, which lets me explore different places, and the clothing I enjoy wearing. My large-screen HD TV lets me enjoy movies, and art that I find beautiful inspires me and makes me happy.
The real problem with “spend on experiences, not things” isn’t that it’s wrong — it’s that it’s someone else’s rule applied to your life. Whether a purchase enriches your life depends on who you are, what you value, and how you actually live.
An introvert who gets deep joy from a well-built bookshelf is not making a worse choice than an extrovert who books a group trip to Tahiti.
The more honest question about spending isn’t whether this is an experience or a thing, but whether it reflects what you actually value and will still matter to you in five years.
Your Purchases, Your Rules
The next time you’re about to spend money on something — an experience or a thing — try skipping the “experiences v. things” category check entirely. Don’t ask whether it’s an experience or a thing.
Ask whether it’s yours: does it fit who you are, what you value, and how you actually want to live?
That’s a harder question. It requires you to know yourself well enough to answer it honestly. But it’s the right question — and it’ll serve you better than any cultural mantra ever will.
Note: I wrote this blog post myself using my own words and thoughts for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, images and text improvements.
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