Two quick points. First off, happiness is 1/3rd off now, at $50K per year: http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2012/04/24/the-salary-that-will-make-you-happy-hint-its-less-than-75000/ Secondly, to point #5: I have two Lego architecture sets I got for Christmas that I'm really enjoying not assembling yet. A cheap way to get your buy-now-consumer-later fix is to grab yourself an iTunes gift card, or credit with another shop where you can get a number of things for $15 (Amazon Kindle store, maybe?) The browsing knowing you can spend the money satisfies the shopping habit.