Ask HN: What are the best ways you've seen for turning money into happiness?

Flying a plane.

Spending petrol (or battery power) to put your foot down on a long, straight and clear road is the most freeing experience you can have. Cars usually not cheap, but honestly you get so little for ones that cost more than $100k that I'd put the price cap of a non-silly car around there.

Watches are such a weird, cool world.

Basically the most mainstream male jewellery. No one really needs a watch anymore, your iPhone tells the time more accurately than any watch ever made.

But for some a mechanical, often Swiss watch is an important part of their outward aesthetic.

Most people never notice others watches so you’re likely never impressing anyone with that expensive watch, but if it makes your buddy more confident then that’s great.

In an ever increasingly digital world having a microcosm of precision engineering on your wrist is kind of cool. They also come with some fantastic complications (a fancy word for features), some track multiple time zones which is useful when travelling, some have a stopwatch (chronograph), dive watches have been fantastically waterproofed, and usually have a bezel to measure how long you have been underwater (and how much oxygen you have left).

They are also, in a world of increasing uniformity of picking up the standard issue car or iPhone, a way to express individuality.