When The Hubby read my recent post on the benefits of connections, I think he got a little jealous, because he asked me “Hey, what about marriage? Marriage has lots of benefits!”

So, to make him feel better (and because I think it would be interesting to look at marriage from both a PF and a happiness standpoint), here are some of the benefits I was able to come up with (some serious, some a little teasing), as well as some disadvantages (just because I feel like really teasing him):

Financial Pros

• Filing taxes jointly can have more tax benefits.
• If (god forbid) something happens to either one of you, you can get a tax exemption for property left to the surviving spouse.
• You can get health insurance through your spouse’s employer, as well as retirement plan benefits, life insurance benefits, etc.
• Spouses can receive Social Security, disability, and Medicare benefits.
• You can get family rates for things like homeowner’s insurance or car insurance.
• When you’re married, you no longer need to spring for pricey date nights to impress the other person. (Ordering in pizza and renting a movie is fun enough for us!)
• Two sets of families = twice the gifts on your birthday and holidays.

Financial Cons

• A wedding itself can be a huge drain on your finances. (Not to mention the honeymoon, buying a house, and all the other stuff that comes along with getting married.)
• It’s not the same buying your spouse a fancy birthday or anniversary present, because really the money’s coming out of both of your account. (“What a pretty necklace! Thank you, me!”)
• If your spouse is more of a clothes horse than you are (ah-hem!), it kind of ruins your clothing budget.
• Two sets of families = twice the gifts to buy for birthdays and holidays.

Happiness Pro

• All the lovely benefits mentioned in my other post.
• You always have a date for weddings.
• You can be yourself, no matter how silly and messy that is, because they’re stuck with you!
• Happily married couples are actually healthier overall.
• You have someone to argue a wrong item on a restaurant bill when you’re too much of a wuss to do it yourself.
• You have a built-in cheerleader, life coach, stress reducer, and BFF 24/7.
• Two sets of friends = more friends for everyone. (Unless you really hate your spouse’s friends!)
• Cuddles, whenever you want them!

Happiness Cons

• Two sets of families = twice the amount of parental expectations, crazy uncles, and other family-related stress.
• To be honest, that’s the only con I can think of, happiness-wise. (And I don’t just say that because The Hubby is reading…we really are that super-cutesy couple that everyone probably secretly hates.)

What about you? What marriage pros and cons can you come up with?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  Eddy

One of the things my favorite book, The Happiness Project, made me realize (and the reason I love it so much) is that happiness is in all of our control. It’s something you have the power to bring more of into your life by making certain choices, no matter what your circumstances are. It’s also something you can learn to develop and get better at the more you practice it.

I’m a naturally cheerful person, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy all the time. I have bad moods and bad days, everyone does. But I’ve been trying, ever since reading that book, to learn to be happier…not as a mood, but as a choice. Because that’s what it comes down to.

You may not always feel happy, but happiness is more than a mood. It’s a way of approaching the world.

That may sound confusing, not to mention hard to pull off. How do you make yourself happy when you’re just not feeling it? But it’s not a matter of forcing yourself or willing yourself to do anything…it’s a matter of acting in a way that encourages the growth of happiness…of being open to the good and acknowledging what you have to be thankful for. It’s choosing to focus on the bright side of things, even when things look pretty dark.

And it’s something you can get better at with practice and learn to incorporate more of in your life.

OK, Em (you say). That’s all good, but how do you choose happiness? How do you learn to incorporate more positivity in your life? I am by no means a happiness guru, but I can tell you what I’ve been doing, and I can also tell you that it’s been working:

Find things to be grateful for

Even if it’s been a stressful day and everything has gone wrong, spend a few minutes at the end of the day coming up with a gratitude list. Find 3-5 things from that day that you’re grateful for. They can be really silly, tiny things if it’s been a rough day, like being thankful you have food to eat when you’re hungry (which is actually a really big, super-fortunate thing we all take for granted) or the fact that you remembered to bring an umbrella when it rained.

Thinking about the good things in your life helps you relax and sleep easier, and it helps me wake up the next morning in a more positive frame of mind. Sometimes, if I’ve got something coming up that day that I’m anxious about (like a presentation at work), I also run through a gratitude list in the morning, too: I’m grateful I have a job, I’m grateful it’s a sunny day, etc.

Choose to react in a positive way

We all have bad things that happen to us, and we have every right to be unhappy or angry or resentful about them. But who wants to be unhappy or resentful?

We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control the way we react to things. Even if we’re mad and upset, we can learn to practice patience, forgiveness, and looking on the bright side. This doesn’t mean we’re saying bad things are OK, it just means we’re saying we’re not going to let them get us down.

Me personally, I don’t see why you’d want to choose not to be as happy as you possibly can. It won’t change a bad situation if you choose be angry at it, it will only bring you down even further.

Stop worrying

This is a tough one for me, because I’m a huge worrywart. But by realizing this and working to change it, I’ve found that I’m happier overall because I’m less stressed. I can kind of roll with things better and be optimistic that ultimately things will work themselves out.

Someone once told me that worry does nothing but borrow trouble from the future to ruin your today, and that’s the way I try to look at it now. Just like in choosing to react positively, we have no control sometimes over how some things will wind up in the future. Worrying about them now only robs us of enjoying the moment. And whether things turn out good or bad, it doesn’t make any sense to also make now bad by worrying.

Enjoy the journey

Not only is happiness a choice and not a mood, it’s also a journey and not a destination. It’s really easy for us to think “I’ll be happy when…” (I get that raise, I have X amount of money, I finally meet the right person.) But real happiness is being able to find joy and satisfaction in your day to day life…because in the end, that’s the only thing you have for sure, anyway.

As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” Learn to appreciate life as it unfolds, and you’ll find happiness right now, not as some far-off destination down the road.

How could you choose happiness more in your daily life? What other tips you would add to this list?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  adam.

I always love sharing my favorite blogs with people, so each week I’ll be giving you guys a roundup of the posts I’ve really enjoyed reading.

If you like them, make sure to subscribe and follow these great bloggers on Twitter and Facebook to share the love!

~Heart,

Em

• Of course I had to share this one…L Bee and the Money Tree discusses finding the balance (ding, ding, ding!) between Financial Responsibility and YOLO.

• I personally heart my veggies, but if you don’t and you want to eat better, check out Money Crashers’ 8 Ways to Eat Your Vegetables and Actually Enjoy Them.

• Found this super interesting: Money Crashers (again!) explores 7 Psychological Triggers That Cause Spending and How to Deal With Them.

• Try getting to the end of this list without feeling inspired (I couldn’t): The Possibility of Today shares 41 Things You May Want To Do Even If Other People Tell You They Are Wrong.

• You may think of saving money by smart grocery shopping, but what about saving money on the food you’ve already got? Get Rich Slowly talks about how to save money by cutting food waste.

Are there any great posts you came across recently? Share them with us in the comments!

No, I don’t mean “connections” like the kind of people who can get you into fancy restaurants without RSVPs. (I’d love to have those…but then again, we rarely eat at fancy restaurants!)

I mean connections as in friends, family, and all the other people who make us smile, look out for us, and make our lives better.

While The Hubby and I are basically homebodies (we’d much rather spend a Saturday night on the couch watching a movie than out at a club), we do have a close circle of friends that we see often for game nights, potlucks, and other fun stuff. Plus we’re both pretty close to our families.

And since I love thinking about happiness and what we can do to be happier, I thought I’d look into some of the ways that having good, strong relationships in our lives contributes to our happiness:

Less stress. At the end of a long day (or the middle of a long one), just talking to a friend on the phone can make me feel so much better. They make me smile, laugh, and can put things into perspective when I start to get a little caught up in the moment.

Support when you need it (and sometimes when you don’t). It’s great knowing that any time we need to go out of town, The Hubby and I have a whole network of people happy to take care of Big Dog and Little Dog for us while we’re away.

It’s also great (although it doesn’t feel so great at the time) to have people who will tell me if I’m getting all worked up over nothing or if I’m being too nice to the coworker who’s taking advantage of everyone in the office. (Drama not worth getting into.) People who will “tell it to you straight” because they care, even if they know you may not want to hear it.

Acceptance no matter what. There’s nothing like a best friend since high school (or a mom!) to make you feel better when you’re feeling bad about yourself…whether it’s your looks, your job, your hang-ups, or any other issues. Having people you can be your silliest with, your saddest with, or your grumpiest with…who will still be there for you…is a huge support system.

People who “get you.” There’s also nothing like those people you’ve known so long you hardly have to speak to know what’s going through each other’s minds. People who hear what you’re really saying (underneath what you’re saying saying) and who can tell when something’s wrong even if you aren’t admitting it. People who laugh at the same things you do. People you don’t have to “try” around.

Company. It never ceases to amaze me how, when I’m in one of those “I don’t want to be around anyone” moods, being around people always makes me feel better. We’re social creatures, and being around others can take us outside of ourselves, give us a sense of connection, and helps us feel understood and empathized with.

What do you get from your relationships with friends and family? What other happiness boosters have I missed?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  Eddie Penland

[This is a guest post by my good friend Kelly Gurnett (a.k.a. Cordelia) of Cordelia Calls It Quits. Think you’ve got what it takes to be a guest poster? Contact Em at em [at] blondeandbalanced [dot] com to learn more about becoming a guest poster yourself!]

My husband and I never exactly lived a life of luxury.

I’m into couponing, eating every leftover in my fridge, and all the other frugal tricks I’ve learned from PF bloggers like Em, because (as I wrote for Em’s predecessor), I’ve realized that money really does equal happiness. Getting myself into a ton of credit card debt straight out of college was one of the stupidest moves I’ve ever made, because it tied me to a 9-to-5 I hated because it was the only way to earn enough money to pay my creditors. As soon as I realized that smart finances meant more freedom, you’d better believe I hopped aboard the PF train as fast as my little legs could jump.

That said? We were still your typical middle-class American couple. We ate out every weekend (usually a few times a weekend) because we’d worked hard all week (at jobs we hated), and dammit, we deserved to treat ourselves. We bought movie and concert tickets and clothes we didn’t really need, under the same justification. We weren’t rich, we weren’t poor; we were just “getting by” like too many American households do—managing to get the bills paid on time each month, slowly paying down our debt, but with not too much left over at month’s end.

Then my husband’s health issues put him on permanent disability. We had a feeling it might happen eventually, but not for many, many (many) years. And just like that—with no warning, as I was days away from finally quitting my job to pursue my dream of freelancing—half our income was gone.

Talk about a financial wakeup call.

What We’ve Learned from Our “Bare Bones” New Budget

Somehow, in the haze of shock and panic that was the following week, we went into financial crisis mode and managed to slash our budget fully in half over the course of a few days.

We sold my car, because there was no point in having a second car when my husband was no longer working, and used the proceeds to pay off my remaining credit card debt and the balance on my husband’s car. I campaigned my little heart out for more freelance work and put in 60 hour weeks between that and the day job. We slashed the hell out of our budget.

And the things I learned in doing this—and in living with our new “extreme” budget afterwards—were huge eye openers. Namely:

You really don’t need half the things you think you do. Like I said, I wasn’t exactly a member of the YOLO spending philosophy. I already thought I had our budget down pretty tight before disaster struck. But when disaster did strike, we realized—and fast—just how unimportant some of the things we thought of as “necessities” were.

We were paying premium prices for a cable package that got us 3 or 4 extra channels we liked—as well as dozens of others we never, ever watched. We were going to see movies in the theater that we just as easily could have rented for a dollar through Redbox, saving on ludicrous ticket and concession prices (as well as annoying fellow theatergoers). My husband had a Sirius radio subscription for his car, again largely for a few stations while all the rest went unlistened to.

Even the things that seemed less frivolous weren’t necessarily must-haves. We dramatically decreased our grocery budget, and you know what? It’s got me buying healthier, fresher food and taking the extra few minutes to actually make myself a meal rather than nuking a pre-made frozen one. I’m actually glad we were forced to pare down on some things, because it’s got us making smarter choices.

When you’re living a life you really love, “stuff” doesn’t matter so much. When I was schlepping away at a job I hated for 40 hours a week, I felt like those dinners out, new outfits, etc. were necessary to keep my sanity and motivation up. But the only reason I needed them was because I was in a job I hated—it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once I started liking my life on a day-to-day basis, all that extra “stuff” just didn’t matter anymore.

Now that I’m focusing on the writing I love (yes, I actually did manage to quit in spite of our income setback!), I couldn’t care less if we spend a whole month of weekends eating in or if I never buy a new piece of clothing again. Because I’m happy just living my life. I have more time, I have more freedom, I’m more at peace—and if the price I have to pay for that is waiting to see Iron Man 3 until it comes out on DVD, that seems like a non-price to pay.

Lifestyle inflation can be reversed. Part of our problem was that we fell into the lifestyle inflation trap—with every raise I or my husband got, we bumped up our standard of living. Sure, we started paying more towards our cards, but we also gave ourselves a few extra treats. (Again, we’d earned it, right?) But after a while, an extra dinner each week stops feeling special. You get used to new “treats” awfully fast, and then you get bored with them.

Contrast that to now, when we allow ourselves a very modest (think: “Denny’s $2, $4, $6 menu”) meal out each week, and that’s it. When my husband found a coupon recently that got us Buy One Get One subs at Subway, he came home delighted at the fact that to get the deal, he had to buy a drink. Normally, if we hit up Subway, we bring the food home and don’t spring for drinks. But he’d actually gotten to order a take-home pop! We also love taking sandwiches to the local park to have a picnic lunch (cost: the gas it takes to drive a few miles)—and just sitting there in the sun watching the birds float on the water is infinitely more satisfying than any $50 dinner with drinks we ever had.

The Moral?

All those crazy minimalists out there are onto something. Not only is less sometimes more—but, when you have less, you sometimes begin to find much more in terms of appreciation, gratefulness, and joy than you would have ever thought possible.

Could you realistically live on half your current budget? How would you do it? What do you think you’d learn about your own spending?

Kelly Gurnett runs the blog Cordelia Calls It Quits, where she documents her attempts to rid her life of the things that don’t matter and focus more on the things that do. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook and hire her services as a blogger extraordinaire here.

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photo credit:  Tax Credits

I always love sharing my favorite blogs with people, so each week I’ll be giving you guys a roundup of the posts I’ve really enjoyed reading.

If you like them, make sure to subscribe and follow these great bloggers on Twitter and Facebook to share the love!

~Heart,

Em

• It may be a bad word in the PF community, so I admire My Personal Finance Journey for asking the question “Is There Really Such a Thing as Good Debt?”

• Lots of PF bloggers tell you not to eat out at work, but I love how Get Rich Slowly actually gives you tips on how to be frugal at work without looking like a cheapskate.

• Real happiness doesn’t depend on your circumstances…it depends on how you react to them. To learn how, check out Live Love Work’s How to Find Beauty in Life’s Ups and Downs.

• Hello Giggles discusses ways to have summer fun with free microvacations.

• Cool free stuff: a secret safe that looks like a book is pretty cool by itself, but Take Our Stuff is giving away a secret book safe full of cash and jewelry! (How much? I guess you’ll have to win to find out.)
  

Are there any great posts you came across recently? Share them with us in the comments!

To follow up on Monday’s post about jobs, I thought I’d do one on some simple tricks for being happier at work.

Now, I’m not a happiness guru by any means (I think people like Gretchen Rubin fall into that category), but I am that annoyingly optimistic and perky person that everyone probably secretly hates on Monday mornings. So I think I know a thing or two about taking your “just a job” and making the best of it.

Here are some of my big work rules:

Don’t let the little things get to you.

I’ve seen coworkers have serious meltdowns because the copier jammed, the stapler jammed, or the coffee pot is empty. I’m sure these were the straws that broke the camel’s back when they were already having a bad day, but you can’t let tiny, stupid little things like this get to you. Because if you do, even if you’re not having a bad day, eventually the frustrations will build up and you’ll have a meltdown anyway.

Work is a great place to find Murphy’s Law, so I just approach every day expecting it. When I have a huge copying project, the copier probably will jam. When I’m running late for a meeting, I probably will get stuck in the restroom stall that doesn’t have any TP in it. (TMI?) All you can do in these situations is laugh and shrug your shoulders. (Pretending you’re in a sitcom like Seinfeld or The Office helps too, at least for me.)

Because the other choice is to let these things ruin your day, and they’re totally not worth it.

Be patient with people.

Whether it’s customers/clients, coworkers, or bosses, being at work means dealing with people we don’t necessarily get along with or have anything in common with. You don’t have to love them or be BFFs with them, but if you’re going to spend 8 hours a day with them, you might as well try to be friendly, right?

Sure, I’ve got that one coworker who absolutely refuses to be happy about anything…I’ve learned to smile politely at her and go on my merry way. I’ve got that one boss whose gut instinct when things go wrong is to scream at everyone, no matter who is actually responsible…I’ve learned to breathe, wait for the storm to pass, and keep doing my work until he realizes he’s been a doofus and comes back around to apologize.

People will be people, and they won’t necessarily be people you’ll like. But you may as well make sure that you’re a person you like when you’re dealing with them. At the end of the day, you can’t change people, you can only change yourself.

Treat each day like a new start.

I’ve seen coworkers come into work on Monday morning still stewing over whatever went wrong on Friday. That means they spent their entire weekend stewing (ruining a perfectly good weekend), and that they’re going into the day already in a bad mood. No matter what actually happens that day, they’re probably going to be miserable, because they’re going into it miserable.

If you look for problems and things to annoy you, you will find them. If you take your work home with you, it will make your work life and your home life bad. So let things go once 5:00 hits, enjoy your “me” time like crazy, and come back to work the next day ready for a blank slate. Why invite more trouble than you need?

How do you find happiness at work (even when things get crazy)?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  Lilly Tran

I’ve had this post on my “topics” list for a while, and it seems fitting to post it on a Monday morning as we all go back to our jobs. I was inspired to write it by Live Love Work’s post a while back called Stop taking work so seriously!

Being a blogger who writes about happiness, some of my blogger friends are passionate members of the lifestyle design movement…particularly, the people who believe that traditional jobs are evil and the only way to be happy is to strike out on your own.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these people, and I am so inspired by the things they’re doing in their own lives. My friend “Cordelia” over at Cordelia Calls It Quits, for instance, just left the day job she’d been at for 12 years to be a writer and blogger full-time. I’ve been following her journey to do this for the past two and a half years, as she slowly built up her side business until it was big enough to do full-time. And I could not be more happy for her. (PS – stay tuned for an upcoming guest post from her, which I can’t wait to feature!)

But for me personally, I just don’t feel that way about work. For me, a job is just a job. Does that make me a bad happiness blogger, or just a different kind of happiness blogger?

To each his own

While I get where these bloggers are coming from, I don’t have any dreams of becoming an internet tycoon or a digital nomad or whatever. I’m perfectly happy doing my job from 9 to 5, then coming home and having my nights and weekends all to myself and my little family, no work involved. I like the structure. I like being able to leave my work behind when 5:00 comes.

I don’t “love” my job, but I don’t hate it, either. It’s got its ups and its downs, but I like my coworkers, I feel good at what I do, and I just don’t have that drive to stay up all night or work on the weekends to build some side business of my own. (I don’t even know what that side business would be.)

And I think a lot of people are like that.

Again, I don’t mean to criticize other bloggers at all. It’s more of a “to each his own” thing. The last thing I’d want to do is judge someone else’s lifestyle, because the whole point of B&B is to encourage living a balanced life…whatever that means for you. My balance just happens to include having a regular old job and then unplugging in my “me” time.

A job is what you make of it

I think what it ultimately comes down to is how you approach your work. If you’re the kind of person who hates the idea of a 9 to 5 job, no matter what it is, then you won’t be happy unless you are doing your own thing. You need to know yourself and go after what will make you happy.

But if you like the predictability and set hours of a regular job, that’s cool, too. Then it’s up to you to learn how to be happy at that job, even when things sometimes get crazy and stressful.

There is no right or wrong way…there’s just what’s right for you.

What is your job to you? Is it a passion, or just a paycheck?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  Michael J Mandeville

I always love sharing my favorite blogs with people, so each week I’ll be giving you guys a roundup of the posts I’ve really enjoyed reading.

If you like them, make sure to subscribe and follow these great bloggers on Twitter and Facebook to share the love!

~Heart,

Em

• I loved Oli Lewington’s guest post on Man vs. Debt about owning up to your debt and what that means. We don’t have a ton of debt, and it still moved me!

• Paying down debt is only part of the financial puzzle…Money Beagle discusses how to pay down debt while also keeping new debt at bay.

• My Alternate Life asks an interesting question: is it OK to go on a vacation when you’re in debt?

• I love the sales at Kohl’s, but you can only get them if you use your Kohl’s card, and I hate to charge things unless it’s an emergency and I have no choice. Luckily for me (and you!), Enemy of Debt knows the secret to getting Kohl’s discounts without racking up a ton on your card.

• Beat stress and chaos with Zen Habits’ 9 Rules for a Simpler Day.

Are there any great posts you came across recently? Share them with us in the comments!

The Hubby and I have been trying lately to be a little greener when it comes to the way we run our household.

We’re not going to go all extreme and start using washable cloth TP or anything (that was either an episode of Extreme Cheapskates or Extreme Couponers, but whichever it was, I will not forget the way I felt when I first heard about it!) What we are doing is trying to make small changes in our daily routine that will help the environment and, hopefully, also help us save a little money at the same time.

Here are some of the changes we’ve brainstormed so far:

• Only run the laundry when it’s full, and run everything on “cold” unless it’s really super dirty.
• Line dry laundry when it’s nice outside. (So much nicer anyway!)
• Turn off lights in rooms we’re not in. (We’re both really bad about this.)
• Shut our computers down when we’re done with them instead of letting them go into “sleep” mode.
• Start taking shorter showers. (This will be tough because I love my long, hot showers!)
• Get The Hubby to stop leaving the water running when he brushes his teeth, hand washes dishes, etc. (Hear that, Hubby?)
• Recycle more on a regular basis.
• Use cloths and rags for cleaning instead of paper towels.
• Buy some inexpensive, easily washable cloth napkins instead of using paper all the time.
• Maybe start a compost pile in the backyard? (Has anyone done this before? Any tips?)
• Buy more natural/organic cleaning products. (Not necessarily price smart, I know, but I think I’d feel better with Big Dog and Little Dog around if I was using safer options…and I’m sure it’s better for us, too, not to be around too many chemicals.)
• Setting up rain barrels in the yard to collect water we can then use to water our garden!

How do you make your household “greener”? Any other tips we can try out?

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit:  Artondra Hall