© 2024 Milwaukee Public Media is a service of UW-Milwaukee's College of Letters & Science
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Radio Chipstone: Money & Happiness

Mrakor
/
Fotolia

We are all familiar with the age old question "can money buy you happiness?" However, it is also important to look at our relationship with personal finances.

Christine Whelan is a clinical professor in the Department of Consumer Science at UW Madison and she says that while our grandmother’s advice about saving pennies still holds true, it’s also very important to think about how we spend money.

“When we talk about consuming happiness, where is the balance between happiness in the moment and making sure that you have the resources you need to have long term thriving in the future?” she says.

Whelan teaches a class called Consuming Happiness and the focus is on healthy spending. In a conversation with material culture contributor gianofer fields, Whelan explains that learning how to spend may be more important than learning how to save:

If you need help with your relationship with money, the UW Madison School of Human Ecology offers several free resources.

Gianofer Fields studies material culture at UW-Madison and is the curator of "Radio Chipstone" - a project funded by the Chipstone Foundation, a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.