How Inflation Raises Our Standards for Having Fun
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Hey, your money briefing listeners, this is J.R. Whelan. Here at YMB, we're all about bringing you important personal finance and career news to help you make better decisions about your money. But we want to learn more about you.
How much are entertainment and admissions prices rising compared with other goods and services?
What kind of financial stories would you like to hear on the show? If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to ymb at wsj.com. That's ymb at wsj.com. Now onto the show. Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, November 14th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. Let's say you go to an event every year to have a good time. But if the price of that event keeps rising, would that change how much you enjoy it? Some people feel that inflation is taking the fun out of having fun.
It's making people more attuned to whether the experience they're having is really worth it. When you've sunk a lot of money into something, maybe more than you would have wanted to, it might make you more likely to ask yourself how much fun you're really having when you're at that concert or that sports game or what have you.
We'll talk to personal finance reporter Joe Pinsker after the break.
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The rising cost of entertainment and fun has also raised the bar for what people feel counts as a good time. Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter Joe Pinsker joins me. So, Joe, how does the rise in price of entertainment compare to the prices of other goods and services that have risen over the past few years?
If you look at the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of admissions and fees for entertainment have been rising faster than the cost of many staple goods. This will come as no surprise to people who wanted to see their favorite musician come through on tour and were looking at paying hundreds of dollars for some of the least desirable seats in the stadium.
So how does that change the expectations that people have for what they've paid for?
It's making people more attuned to whether the experience they're having is really worth it.
How does higher ticket pricing change what people expect from concerts and festivals?
When you've sunk a lot of money into something, maybe more than you would have wanted to, it might make you more likely to ask yourself how much fun you're really having when you're at that concert or that sports game or what have you.
What other examples can you give us?
A great example of that would be a woman in Austin, Texas who I spoke with recently named Issa Jones. She's been going to the same music festival for years. And this year she paid $375 for a three-day pass to the festival. She remembers paying less than half of that when she attended more than a decade ago. Issa loves live music, but this year at the festival she just told me that she had this realization that she didn't seem to be getting her money's worth. It didn't feel like $375 worth of fun. I naturally asked her how much fun she actually had, and she estimated that it was more like maybe $200 worth.
She was able to quantify the fun.
Yeah. When things have a really high price, it can get people into this mindset of assessing, am I getting $200 of fun out of this, $300? Where am I?
So why does paying for experiences and entertainment tend to bring people more happiness than buying things?
People might initially think that an experience is not really a great use of money because it's like a one-time thing, whereas when you buy a material good, it might last years or decades. But researchers have looked at the fulfillment that we get out of our purchases, and experiences have a bunch of advantages.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:42
2
How much are entertainment and admissions prices rising compared with other goods and services?
0:42–3:16
3
How does higher ticket pricing change what people expect from concerts and festivals?
3:16–4:37
4
What real example shows people feeling they didn’t get their money’s worth at events?
4:37–5:37
5
Why do experiences often make people happier than buying material goods?
5:37–8:15
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from WSJ Your Money Briefing
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