Lifestyle

Multi-millionaire Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh chooses simplicity as he prioritizes spending on experiences over things. Tony Hsieh has a net worth of $840 million so he can afford any mansion that he wants to. Instead the multi-millionaire CEO of Zappos lives in a $950-a-month trailer home.

When asked about his lifestyle in a 240-square-foot Airstream trailer, Hsieh told ABC: “I love it at night here. There’s campfires going. All these lights … sometimes musicians playing music, just jamming together, people cooking. I really like the unpredictability and randomness of it.”

Despite being a nearly billionaire, Tony Hsieh prefers a simple life. He’s happy to downsize and live frugally. “Sometimes people ask me what my definition of success is, and for me it’s getting to the point where you’re truly okay with losing everything you have.”

Could liquid wealth, or “cash on hand”—the balance of one’s checking and savings accounts—be a better predictor of life satisfaction than income? In a field study using 585 U.K. bank customers, Ruberton, Gladstone, and Lyubomirsky analyzed the relationship between their bank accounts and life satisfaction. Individuals with higher liquid wealth were found to have more positive perceptions of their financial well-being, which, in turn, predicted higher life satisfaction, suggesting that liquid wealth is indirectly associated with life satisfaction. This effect persisted after accounting for multiple controls, including investments, total spending, and indebtedness and demographics.

The paper noted that: “Our results suggest that having a buffer of money available in checking and savings accounts confers a sense of financial security, which in turn is associated with greater life satisfaction. The strength of this association was comparable to the effect of investments—which may themselves be liquid assets (e.g., money market accounts)—and slightly greater than the effect of debt status. By contrast, higher income and spending—the amounts going into or out of a person’s bank account—were not associated with increased financial well-being after liquid wealth was included in the model. This finding suggests that people with low liquid account balances may feel more economically distressed—and thus less satisfied with their lives—than their peers with higher balances, even if their incomes and spending, considered separately from their account balances, would predict high financial security.”

In summary, the researchers find that liquid wealth has a stronger relationship to happiness than those of income, spending, investments, or indebtedness. In other words, the study found that having cash on hand was positively associated with life satisfaction and well-being, regardless of how much the individual has in income or investments.

A good night’s sleep is as beneficial as winning a $150,000 lottery. That means you can feels like winning the lottery by just improving your sleep quality. In a popular episode of Why Are You Always Tired, Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown masterfully explain why a person might feel tired and provide some tips on how you can sleep better at night. The main causes for sleep loss are lack of exercise, eating poorly, not drinking enough water, too much coffee and alcohol dependence.

Lack of sleep is responsible for your fatigue, and can undermine economic performance. Just one hour less sleep each night can reduce household income by up to 11 per cent. You can improve your health and productivity without spending much money by getting a good night of sleep. Here are some tips for better sleep at night:

Those glasses of wine or beers before bed may also be affecting your day. Studies have found that after becoming intoxicated, while test subjects would fall asleep faster, their quality of sleep was actually much lower particularly during the second half of their night’s sleep. Ultimately alcohol reduces the amount of REM sleep you get…

According to the Gallup poll, Americans currently average 6.8 hours of sleep at night, down more than an hour from 1942. As much as 40% Americans get less than seven hours of sleep per day. Researchers have related a lack of sleep to health problems and financial issues. As a result, experts typically recommend seven to nine hours sleep for adults.

Good health is one of the greatest wealth you can have. Many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health. Here’s one way to regain your health and to live longer without spending any money. You can add seven hours to your life by running an hour. The New York Times reported:

“Running may be the single most effective exercise to increase life expectancy, according to a new review and analysis of past research about exercise and premature death. The new study found that, compared to nonrunners, runners tended to live about three additional years, even if they run slowly or sporadically and smoke, drink or are overweight. No other form of exercise that researchers looked at showed comparable impacts on life span.”

“The findings come as a follow-up to a study done three years ago, in which a group of distinguished exercise scientists scrutinized data from a large trove of medical and fitness tests conducted at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. That analysis found that as little as five minutes of daily running was associated with prolonged life spans.”

Worry about failing to spot financial red flags in your potential relationship? Now there’s an online dating site that tries to match you with a partner based on your credit score. CreditScoreDating.com helps financially-minded individuals to find each other. Its mission is to help you find an enjoyable yet serious dating experience.

So what’s good about using credit score as a basis to find a potential partner? Credit Score Dating says: “Credit scores are derived from a complex formula that weighs factors such as outstanding debt, payment history and new credit lines. The three­-digit number is used to predict the likelihood of delinquency on obligations from credit card bills to a mortgage. Knowing your partner’s credit situation helps members prepare for their futures with open eyes. For many singles, bad credit can be a deal breaker when finding love. A recent study reveals that 20% of men and 30% of women between the ages 21- 34, say they won’t marry someone with a poor credit score. Most respondents also say money management skills are just as important as looks when deciding whether someone is worth pursuing. While 57% of men say that credit scores play into their dating decisions, a staggering 75% of women said they consider the numerical rating. Within the last 6 years, dating based on financial stability and credit score ratings has become very popular in the American culture.”

Credit Score Dating allows members looking for serious dating to join for free and find compatible mates. It offers five tiers of account type, ranging from a limited free account to a $109.99 elite card member account.  Founder Niem Green created the website to fill in the niche dating scene where credit scores are an indicator of how well someone handles commitment and honors agreements.

Money is the leading cause of stress in relationships. Credit Score Dating hopes to connect users with similar financial views and money value. By choosing a potential mate based on credit scores, money fights and money problems in your life should be minimal.

According to the study published in the journey Sleep, a good night’s sleep is as beneficial as winning lottery.The new research from the University of Warwick found that sleep well is worth as much as a medium-sized lottery win of £120,000 or $150,000 USD.

Researchers at the Department of Psychology analyzed the sleep patterns of more than 30,500 people in British households over four years and found that sleeping well gives a mood boost similar to winning a jackpot of £120,000 or $150,000 USD. That means you can feels like winning the lottery by just improving your sleep quality.

As reported on The Telegraph, Lead author Dr Nicole Tang’s said the research showed that improving the quality and quantity of sleep among the population is an effective, simple and cheap method of raising the health and wellbeing of society as a whole.

“The current findings suggest that a positive change in sleep is linked to better physical and mental well-being further down the line,” said Dr Tang.

“It is refreshing to see the healing potential of sleep outside of clinical trial settings, as this goes to show that the benefits of better sleep are accessible to everyone and not reserved for those with extremely bad sleep requiring intensive treatments.

“An important next step is to look at the differences between those who demonstrate a positive and negative change in sleep over time, and identify what lifestyle factors and day-to-day activities are conducive to promoting sleep.”

A lack of sleep among American workers costs U.S. economy up to $411 billion a year and leads to the loss of 1.2 million working days per year, according to a study, titled “Why sleep matters – the economic costs of insufficient sleep.”

You don’t need to win the lottery to get the beneficial results. Better sleep also improves your health, mood, immune system, memory and learning. Try to get a good amount of sleep every night and reduce dependence on any sleep medication. Good luck having a good night’s sleep.

Money is all relative. You and me might spend very little on a trip to have fun, while average millionaires spend on average $13,000 to have fun on their vacation. For billionaires, it costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain a yacht for their enjoyment. But no individual on earth can afford to use $3 million missile to shoot down $200 drone.

According to General David Perkins, a Patriot missile – usually priced at about $3 million – was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone. “That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot,” he said. “Now, that worked, they got it, OK, and we love Patriot missiles,” the general said. “I’m not sure that’s a good economic exchange ratio,” he told an audience at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force symposium. “In fact, if I’m the enemy, I’m thinking, ‘Hey, I’m just gonna get on eBay and buy as many of these $200 quadcopters as I can and expend all the Patriot missiles out there’.”

To use million dollars missile to shoot down $200 drone is clearly overkill, but that’s okay when you have a deep pocket of the US military budget. For regular folks, let’s stick with our small budget and don’t overspend on any item that have a bad economic exchange ratio.