Monday, November 14, 2016

Review Writing Exercise: Kirsten Osbon

The article I read was How to Make Money Buy Happiness. The main purpose of this article was to show people that they aren't really buying things for any other reason than to make themselves happy. He talks about how you would not buy a 4,500 a square foot dream house for the purpose of a family gathering or big parties. You would buy that house because you wanted it and you thought it would make you feel happy. He says, "when we buy anything beyond the most basic ingredients for life, we are just buying feelings". He also talks about how he is downgrading by 1000 feet to a smaller house even though he has more money because he finds it makes him more happy to save his money rather than to spend it. At the end of his article he says that the solution is keeping your money instead of spending it on unnecessary things in search of happiness.

This was a very good article that I found fun and interesting to read. One strength were definitely the way he wrote, it was relatable and easy to comprehend. I also found that he had very good, real-life examples and could easily relate with the reader. Some weaknesses of the article would be that he doesn't really explain how to make money buy happiness in very much detail. He really only says at the end of his article that you should save your money instead of spending it. But he doesn't convince me completely that I should do so. Personally I would rather spend my money and he did not completely talk me into saving rather than spending.


I find this topic to be very important in today's culture. You see people buying things they don't need all the time and you must think that they are only doing it because they think it will make them happy. Our generation also needs to understand that buying materialistic things or unnecessary things are not what makes us happy. This article makes that clear and it represent a concept 'of only buying necessary' things that many people still have yet to understand. I would definitely recommend this article for anyone in my age group or anyone who would actually like to be happy instead of buying un-needed objects and spending all their money.

5 comments:

  1. I thought you had a great conclusion, that relates directly to our society's problem of handling the way we spend money.

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  2. I see what he means by saving the money you, on impulse, would spend to attain a sense of some emotion or feeling. The sense of happiness and security that comes with the extra money is more effective in the long run compared to an impulse buy that wasn't necessity

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  3. I agree with you when you said that buying materialistic things or unnecessary things are not what makes us happy. I never thought about it like this, I just buy something because I either think I need it or I want it. This is true, you do have happiness with buying certain things you want.

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    1. Sometimes the hard part is the weighing of your options about what you want to get.

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  4. Human Desires dictate the want, we seek such desires of happiness and the like through material wealth, and although they may satisfy some-they do little in the grand scheme to appease.

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