Finances and Feelings

November 17, 2009

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

The other day my older daughter Grace asked me to describe my happiest memories. I told her about the moments she and her sister were born, about the day I married their mother, and about the night I was ordained a minister. She agreed that those were good memories and was satisfied by those answers.

But what if she asked me to assign a monetary figure to those events, with a question like, “Daddy, what was the dollar value of those happy memories?” In other words, how much money would I have to get in order to feel as happy as any of those events? $5,000? $10,000? More?

Would that seem like an odd question? That’s the one posed by an Australian professor named Paul Frijters, who this past week published the results of a surprising eight-year study. [1] After surveying 10,000 people, he developed dollar values to the emotional effects of events such as marriage, childbirth, divorce, and home purchases. Positive dollar amounts indicated “psychic benefits,” and negative dollar amounts showed “psychic costs.” For example:

· A man getting married feels like he just received $32,000. To women, it only feels like $16,000.
· Divorce feels like a $110,000 loss to a man, but only $9,000 to a woman.
· The death of a spouse or a child feels like minus -$130,900 to a woman, and a whopping $627,300 deficit to a man.
· And moving into a new home? A positive $2,600 for a woman, and a negative $16,000 to a man.

Frijters suggests that the study’s value might be in assisting insurance companies and lawyers in assigning dollar compensations for certain life events. He summarizes his study with this statement: “Losing or gaining money can offset the effect of other life events quite well, and that is what we are formally looking at - the amount needed to offset an event or keep someone happiness-neutral.”

I don’t know about you, but the word outlandish comes to mind.

You know as well as I do: you cannot quantify your feelings with dollar signs, and you cannot put a price tag on life’s most significant moments. Yet that is precisely the subversive cultural myth pervading our airwaves, advertisements, and innermost drives to accumulate. The only solution to this kind of wayward thinking is to align our finances around the biblical principles of generosity and stewardship. It’s captured in Jesus’ words to his disciples:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 6:19-21)

This Sunday, we will have an opportunity to set our treasure right where it belongs: in the hands of the God who grants us joy, peace, and an abundant life that no dollar sign can define. We’ll offer our pledge cards designating our financial commitment for 2010, and then celebrate all of God’s good gifts to us in our annual Thanksgiving luncheon.

Let’s get our priorities straight, and experience true joy, through contentment and generosity.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/national/money-can-buy-you-love-economist-says-20091115-igd8.html