72% of people say they'd be happier if they saved or invested more money. Far fewer said spending more would bring happiness.

By Venessa Wong

A new YouGov poll for MarketWatch finds high-income Americans are prioritizing saving, with a goal of achieving financial independence

"Saving as much as my peers, or more, is very, very important to me," said one high earner.

Americans are spending more time thinking about money now than they were last year - and it's not all positive.

The most common topics on people's minds: their bills, rising prices, housing costs, debt and tariffs, according to an Empower survey. On a scale of 0 to 10, they rated their overall personal finances this year at an average of 4.97 in a separate poll, with the most commonly cited barriers to financial happiness being income (35%), expenses (35%) and an inability to save (31%).

While the relationship between money and happiness is typically framed as a choice between spending on material goods or spending on experiences, many Americans are expressing a different desire for their money: saving more. This includes high-income households that already save far more on average than the typical household.

Patrick Moulton, a 30-year-old who works in the tech industry, said that as his income rose toward the high end of the top 10% - a group with $250,000 or more in household income - his desire to spend waned. The San Francisco resident now saves and invests about 70% of his income.

"As I went through the various brackets, I was able to understand genuinely that material goods, and spending for the sake of spending - for nice clothes, for nice dinners, for first-class flights, for nice cars, maybe a really nice apartment - just don't really provide a lot of, like, fundamental happiness to me," Moulton told MarketWatch.

He is not alone. In an exclusive YouGov poll for MarketWatch that surveyed nearly 2,500 U.S. adults in late October, 72% of respondents said they would be happier if they saved or invested more money, compared with 21% who said they would be happier if they spent more. Even among those with $250,000 or more in household income - the 10-percenters, who are also now responsible for half of consumer spending - 69% said they would be happier if they saved or invested more, well above the 26% who said they would be happier if they spent more.

Yet translating a desire to save into action can be difficult due to a number of factors, including income, rising prices, social pressure and a lack of financial planning. The personal savings rate in the U.S., or the share of income left after spending and paying taxes, was a low 4.7% in September. Many Americans lack cash reserves for emergencies, including unemployment. Still, research shows that people are right to include saving as part of their financial happiness goals.

'A golden mean exists between security and deprivation.'Arthur Brooks, professor and author

Matt Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who conducts large-scale studies on happiness, said preliminary data show that across income levels, people who spend less than they earn report "meaningfully more happiness" than people who spend all their earnings, and than people who spend more than they earn and take on debt.

"Life is less stressful, and you're more in control of what's going on when you've got a buffer," Killingsworth told MarketWatch.

Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor and writer who studies happiness, has said there are five ways to use money: You can buy things, buy experiences, buy time, give money away or save it. "Only the last four bring happiness," he wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier this year. "'Stuff' wears off. But saving money is progress. And progress makes us happy."

Brooks said in a statement to MarketWatch, "There's no ideal savings rate for happiness, but the research suggests that a golden mean exists between security and deprivation. For example, save enough so that you feel secure, but not so much that you are ruthlessly illiquid."

On the other hand, the worst use of money, as far as happiness is concerned, is going into debt for consumption without a clear way to repay it. That thwarts progress, Brooks said.

Read more: Americans' happiness is at a record low. Are we just using our money the wrong way?

Amid ongoing concerns about the U.S. economy and job market, including in high-paying industries like tech, where more than 140,000 people have been laid off this year, many people are turning their attention to savings and general financial independence.

While financial independence is often associated with extreme wealth or retirement, in his new book, "The Art of Spending Money," writer Morgan Housel describes a spectrum that ranges from having enough saved to quit a job you don't like and take your time finding a new, better job ("a wonderful and realistic goal for the majority of people," he writes); to having savings large enough to cover your expenses for the rest of your life (retirement, including early retirement); to having the financial resources to "spend your time doing what you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want."

For Moulton, maintaining a high savings rate is part of his goal to eventually have "millions of dollars" set aside so that "if something were to happen - if I were to get laid off and it's an economic downturn, or if I were to somehow not work again, or if I find a really fun passion project that doesn't pay very much - I always have the option to fall back on savings."

High earners want to 'keep up' - with saving

Social media has made it easier than ever to measure our own lifestyle against other people's, yet only 17% of respondents polled by YouGov for MarketWatch agreed that it was important to "keep up with my peers in terms of spending." At the same time, 28% said it was important to "keep up with my peers in terms of saving."

People with a household income of more than $250,000 were even more likely to agree that it was important to keep up in terms of saving (45%), though they were also more likely than average (31%) to agree that it was important to keep up with spending.

"Saving as much as my peers, or more, is very, very important to me," Moulton said, adding that his friend group is candid about their finances. "I do not want to be the one that's the least financially conservative out of all my friends."

Ryan Longhenry, a 40-year-old commodities trader in Minnesota who, with his wife, has a combined income in the top 10%, said even as they try to balance saving for the future with pricey near-term goals - like buying a larger home and possibly getting a boat - they still set aside about 23% of their base salary for the future, which includes maxing out their 401(k)s and making investments on top of that.

"There is a part where I'm like, 'Damn, I wish I had a boat for the giant lake that's right across the street,'" Longhenry told MarketWatch. Still, saving remains a bigger priority than keeping up with his peers in terms of spending. They "may have some nicer toys, and yes, there is a part [of me] that wants them, but being able to keep putting a little extra aside, [that's] easier peace of mind," he said.

Longhenry said that because he doesn't aspire to retire early and still has large expenses for his two young children, he is satisfied with his family's savings rate, which is lower than that of some other high earners but still several times the average savings rate in the U.S.

It's about having "the flexibility of doing what we want," he said. He could try to earn more - mostly in order to spend more - but now, he said, after work, "I can go to the gym, do some grocery shopping and pick my kids up. There's a trade-off."

Read more: Here's what it means to be rich in this economy - from your 20s to your 80s

Other Americans aim to save, too, but struggle

Despite people's aspirations to save more, doing that has gotten harder for all but the richest Americans, due largely to a widening income gap. "The lower savings rate in the U.S. is partly a product of problems related to affordability," Brooks said. He added that people tend to defer their gratification less when they are chronically unhappy, "so the decline in happiness might be playing a role in people spending rather than saving."

Data from the Economic Policy Institute show that from 1979 to 2023, the share of all wages held by the bottom 90% by income fell by 9.1 percentage points.

As a result, "The rich are saving more and the non-rich are saving less," according to research by economists Ludwig Straub, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, who noted that since the 1980s, the lower 90% of earners have saved less. In recent decades, they have also increased their borrowing.

Related: Most Americans can't afford life anymore - and they just don't matter to the economy like they once did

On average, from 1953 to 2019, the 10% highest-earning households were saving approximately 21.1% of their income - 10 to 20 percentage points higher than the bottom 90%, they found. While the analysis does not account for the postpandemic period, "I certainly still think the savings-rate pattern would look similar to the plot we made in 2019," as income inequality remains high, Straub told MarketWatch.

The long-term impact of the income and savings gap on wealth is evident. The top 10% of households by income had a median net worth of more than $2.6 million in 2022, according to Federal Reserve data. Meanwhile, middle-income households - those in the 40th to 59.9th percentile - had median wealth of about $169,400, just 6.4% that of the 10-percenters.

As consumer confidence slumps due to concerns about the future, for many people, basic financial security remains a top priority. Most of those surveyed by Vanguard in October said they fell short of their spending and savings goals this year, and looking ahead to 2026, they named building an emergency fund as their top financial goal.

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