Get your pleasure on hire purchase

I don't have a credit card so can't say from personal experience, but it would appear that one of the joys of having one is that you can gain the pleasure of your purchase and put off the pain that comes from paying for it. Such thinking probably went some way to placing society firmly in the mess it finds itself in.

Some research suggests however that you can get a similar high simply from delaying your purchase. It works on our sense of anticipation and shows that if you have something to look forward to it can bring significant pleasure even before you get the actual pleasure from the product itself.

So really our modern ways of buying now and paying later actually makes us unhappier than we could be because it deprives us of the excited anticipation we experience when a purchase is on its way. Waiting it would seem is half of the fun.

Is there a pleasure capacity?

Ok I hear you say, will experiencing pleasure from anticipating our purchase subtract from some of the pleasure we experience when we actually have it? In other words is our pleasure from a purchase fixed but spread out over a longer timeframe?

Apparently the answer is no, it's not. Research suggests that the pleasure we gain from anticipation is incredibly strong, and that pleasure is not capped. This is because of a Zeigarniki effect, which says that something sticks in our memories until it's completed. So a purchase stays in our memory until we've bought it, at which point it often slips out of our mind.

So the message is clear. If you want to enjoy things more, don't buy now and pay later. You'll get more fun from your money if you bide your time, save your pennies and spend some time anticipating the purchase you'll one day make.