Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Exploration 7 Jill Reed "How to Money Buy Happiness"

I chose to read the article "How to Make Money Buy Happiness". The article was about how money can make you happy. The article talked about how people become happy when they have their giant flat screen TV's or their leather seats in their luxury cars. Mr. Money Mustache talked about a family that was renting a house. The family had new cars, high fashion clothes, and the latest technology, but behind closed doors they were not able to pay bills and were eventually kicked to the streets. Mr. Money Mustache tells us that we are able to have money buy happiness buy saving our money. When we have money put back, we are less stressed and can live comfortably knowing that there is money to fall back on. Keep your money because the dollar can bring peace, Money Mustache says.

I thought that there were many strengths within this article. One strength that I thought was helpful to the reader was how Mr. Money Mustache used his own personal experiences and what he is doing to help his money buy his happiness. He talks about someone who buys a mansion and that when they look around and see all of the empty rooms they start to feel bad and wasteful. Mr. Money Mustache tells us what he did. "Of course not! And indeed, this is exactly the feeling I happen to have about giant luxury houses, which is why we’re moving to a place that is 1000 square feet smaller next month now, despite an increasing level of wealth. Better feelings." I think that is a good strength to add in his blog because it can give the reader an idea on what to do and it lets the reader know that he follows through with his ideas. It also helps show the reader that the advice is helpful and not pointless.

Another strength that I found in the article was how Mr. Money Mustache told us exactly how saving your money will come to bring us happiness. "The solution is equally simple: keeping your money. Quite contrary to the bartender’s advice, every single dollar you manage to keep for yourself contributes to your wellbeing. The dollars bring peace, because they eliminate the worry of not having enough of them. They bring freedom, because you can wield them like a sword to cut new paths for yourself in life that were formerly closed. When invested properly, they multiply automatically and decrease the amount of your time you need to devote to earning a flow of them. You don’t have to be an early retiree to feel this effect, because benefits begin immediately. Every dollar you manage to save between zero and financial independence contributes to this peace and happiness." After reading that paragraph, it makes the reader want to save money. Who wouldn't want freedom in their life? Who wouldn't want new paths opened for them? I think that it was a good idea to include that paragraph at the end of the article so that the reader can really remember it and reflect on why they should save their money.

In my opinion, I thought the writing content of this blog was easy for many people to relate to. Some blogs are hard to follow and understand and I thought that Mr. Money Mustache allows the reader to really engage in what he is trying to say. I think the fact that the blog is about money is what makes it so popular. Who wouldn't want more money? Who wouldn't want to learn ways to become rich or save their money better? Someone who might not enjoy the blog may be someone who does not agree with what he is writing and what his opinion are. I really enjoyed this blog because I would love to learn ways to save money better. I found it easy to read and it was more personable than other blogs.

3 comments:

  1. I also agree with the writing style that he uses for his blog, I feel that readers love his blog because of his personal style and the idea/tips for people to budget and save their money. I also like the way you summarized your blog choice. Good job!

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  2. I would agree with you that he does have a easy to understand blog. A feature that seems to be lacking in some other online blogs.

    I know that I am one of those people who saves every penny that is not being used to pay bills. Its annoying and disheartening at times. But my point is the fact that I worked my tail feather off to make sure that I had the things that I needed vs what I wanted. If I ever hit it rich, I can't see myself making too much of a change as far as the house and car that I have as my mindset has been this way for a long time and I doubt that it would change overnight just to have leather seating. Plus, to me leather gets uncomfortable in the summer time.

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  3. We had a lot of the same opinions! I think we both agree that both of our articles were easy to understand and read, which makes me want to read this article as well! Your interpretation of the article was also very insightful and well written.

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