Money Can't Buy You Happiness

...but sex sure can. So say British economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick. Their recent study of 16,000 American adults and their varying levels of happiness found that increasing the frequency you have sex from once a month to once a week is similar to the pleasure brought by a $50,000-a-year raise. And, beyond that, having a happy marriage is the equivalent of earning approximately $100,000 more a year. So, a single person needs to make $100,000 more than a happily married person to be as content.

Of course, this kind of a study is a little suspect: context, personality traits and socio-economic background play into things like this on many levels. But, if nothing else, it shows that maybe slaving in the office for more cash, at the expense of spending time with the family, won't bring you as much joy as you perhaps thought it might. The study, called "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study," has been submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research.