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The Unexpected Ways a Big Raise Affects Your Happiness

Up and down the income ladder, people say more money would make them happier. When they actually get it, that isn’t always the case.

Some people who have gotten big raises recently say the money hasn’t changed their day-to-day life or hasn’t provided them as much joy as the things in their life that have nothing to do with money. Others were hoping for a bigger raise or felt conflicted about making more money.

Jess Tapia, a 28-year-old accountant in Hoffman Estates, Ill., thought for years that $90,000 was a salary that would make her happy. When a raise of about $20,000 pushed her pay to that level last February, it did—at first.

To celebrate, Tapia booked a vacation to Germany the next month. The good vibes soon wore off.

“By the time I came back from that trip, it kind of fell flat for me because it was just back to normal, back to the routine,” she said.

The past few years have been good ones for workers seeking higher pay. Median year-over-year wage growth hit a recent peak of 6.7% in summer 2022, after mostly staying below 4% for more than a decade before 2021, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Many of those who switched jobs, or threatened to, made substantial salary gains.

And people with higher incomes do tend to be happier, many studies show. Research looking at lotteries and random cash giveaways indicates that additional money can make people happier for months or even years.

But moving up the income scale, it takes more money to generate the same good feelings, said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economics professor at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford who studies well-being. The proportion of the increase matters.

“If an employer moves somebody from $15,000 to $30,000, that will have an impact on people’s life satisfaction that is the equivalent of them moving somebody from, say, $60,000 to $120,000,” De Neve said.

More is more

A pay increase that takes someone from financially stressed to financially stable often leads to more happiness. At the low end of the earnings spectrum, a higher income is associated more with squashing negative feelings than producing positive ones, according to a 2021 paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Randeep Chauhan, a 30-year-old nurse in Ferndale, Wash., went from making about $45,000 in 2021 to $90,000 in 2022 after completing a one-year nursing program.

“Doubling my income didn’t double my happiness, but it came close,” he said.

For Chauhan, much of the happiness boost came from being able to stop worrying about being able to cover his family’s monthly bills. He said his blood pressure dropped to a healthy level after his change in pay, which he attributes largely to the drop-off in financial stress.

If you get a raise, don’t just spend it, said Neela Hummel, a financial planner and the co-CEO of Abacus Wealth Partners.

“The worst thing that can happen with a raise is that that money gets immediately folded into cash flow and a client doesn’t even notice it,” she said.

Many people also jump ahead to how nice a car or how big a house they could afford with a new paycheck. Instead, Hummel advises, take the raise as an opportunity to up your savings or pay down debt.

Chauhan said he has avoided lifestyle creep, putting money toward retirement savings and student loans instead of buying a new computer or phone. “There’s a weird rush in making money and not spending it,” he said.

Austin Benacquisto’s pay has rocketed upward over the past few years. The 29-year-old commercial debt broker in Atlanta made roughly $60,000 in 2019, $110,000 in 2020, $180,000 in 2021 and $325,000 in 2022, including bonuses.

His steps up to $110,000 and $180,000 felt better than the one up to $325,000, he said.

“The last 50,000 I made in 2022 just was for stuff in my house that I wanted,” he said.

Benacquisto’s pay fell to about $200,000 last year as his industry slowed down. The drop felt worse than the recent increases felt good, he said.

“This being the first decrease, it definitely stings,” he said.

The paycheck next door

People’s happiness with their pay is strongly tied to how it compares with the pay of others around them, say researchers who study compensation. Sometimes, those comparisons rankle.

A 30% raise made Ryan Powell less happy at work.

Powell, a 38-year-old finance director for a manufacturer in western North Carolina, received that pay bump in 2022. He had been hoping for more based on the salary information he had heard from recruiters, peers in the industry and his M.B.A. cohort.

The initial thrill of the raise lasted about three months, he said.

“The further I got into it, the more I was realising that I was anchored to the higher number,” he said.

Executives are more likely to leave their companies if their pay is low compared with other top bosses, according to a 2017 study in the journal Human Resource Management.

Comparisons matter closer to home, too. Living in an area where people tend to make more money than you is linked to being less happy, according to a 2005 paper in The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

One reason that Tapia, the accountant in Illinois, isn’t happier after her raises is that she feels guilt about making more money than her parents ever did. Her dad works in construction and landscaping.

“I work from home mostly, I’m comfortable and I’m always indoors. During summertime, he’s sometimes outside working 10 hours in 100-degree weather,” she said.

Tapia recently got another raise of roughly $10,000. She again booked a vacation to Europe but is hoping to extend her joy further this time.

“I’m starting to feel like this is going to plateau, so let me try and make the feeling last a little longer with this trip,” she said.

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Bitcoin is back, but not as you know it

Bitcoin

Several of the first spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to ever be listed on United States stock markets began trading last night. This follows the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approving the listing of 11 spot bitcoin ETFs after a legal battle with fund provider, Grayscale. The approval follows six years of knock-backs for many fund providers seeking permission to offer spot bitcoin ETFs. This is considered a watershed moment in the investing world, allowing more investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency asset without buying bitcoin directly themselves.

ETFs are baskets of assets that are professionally managed by fund providers. Ordinary investors can buy them on the stock market just like any other share. Among the 11 fund providers approved to launch their ETFs this week are BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and VanEck.

Spot bitcoin ETFs give investors direct exposure to bitcoin at its spot (current) price. The ability to buy bitcoin exposure via a traditional stock exchange will give investors some degree of regulatory protection as the fund managers must comply with the Securities Act, Exchange Act, and SEC rules. Investors may also feel more peace of mind buying bitcoin via a professionally managed ETF instead of buying it directly themselves through an unregulated cryptocurrency trading platform.

However, SEC Chair Gary Gensler emphasised that the decision to approve the spot bitcoin ETFs did not mean the SEC endorsed cryptocurrency assets. He said bitcoin was “primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist financing”. He added: “While we approved the listing and trading of certain spot bitcoin ETP shares today, we did not approve or endorse bitcoin. Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with bitcoin and products whose value is tied to crypto.”

The SEC’s decision follows a lawsuit launched by Grayscale after the SEC refused to allow it to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a listed ETF. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the SEC had failed to adequately explain its reasons for denying the listing. This meant the SEC had to review its ruling and either more fully explain its reasoning, or approve the listing of the ETF. Gensler said in light of these circumstances, “I feel the most sustainable path forward is to approve the listing and trading of these spot bitcoin [ETF] shares”. The SEC not only approved Grayscale’s product but 10 other spot bitcoin ETF applications awaiting a decision.  

Gensler warned that the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs would not automatically open the door for other cryptocurrency ETF products. “It should in no way signal the Commission’s willingness to approve listing standards for crypto asset securities,” he said. Bitcoin closed slightly lower at US$46,382.60 in overnight trading. Cryptocurrencies are known for their volatility. In the case of bitcoin, it hit an all-time peak value of just under $69,000 in November 2021 before crashing to below $17,000 in 2022. Over the past 12 months, the bitcoin price has risen by almost 160%.

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American Finance Has Left Europe In the Dust. The Tables Aren’t Turning.

After a decade and a half of seeing the U.S. economy pull ahead thanks to its outsize technology sector, European politicians are desperate to fight back in emerging industries such as green energy. One challenge they face is that America also keeps pulling ahead in the business of financing the investments required.

On Thursday, Luxembourg for Finance—a public-private partnership that seeks to promote the financial industry in the low-tax city state—published a report detailing the different ways in which European banks and asset managers might regain an edge relative to U.S. and Asian peers.

This is part of an effort by officials across the European Union to give firms a break. “Old economy” industries such as car manufacturing face rising competition from China and higher energy costs since Russia invaded Ukraine. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act also has drawn investment across the Atlantic. Last year, the European Commission tasked former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta with drafting a report on European competitiveness.

Luxembourg for Finance Chief Executive Nicolas Mackel echoes a common refrain: “Europe can take the lead in financial services when we eliminate fragmentation.” His report points out that the return on equity of European banks has bounced back in recent years. But it also showcases the gulf that has opened up relative to U.S. financial firms.

European lenders’ return on equity is now around 8%, compared with 12% across the Atlantic and 10% in Asia, in part as a result of stricter regulations following the 2008 banking crisis. Most European banks trade below book value on the stock market, having returned a negative 14% to investors since the April 2009 trough. Large American banks trade above book value and have gained 113%.

In services particularly exposed to international competition, American banks dominate in Europe too: In 2023, they took the top five positions for mergers and acquisitions deals, Dealogic data shows, with France’s BNP Paribas coming in sixth, and the top six spots for issuing equity.

And this isn’t just about banks. In 2007, top European and U.S. asset managers roughly split the global market between them. By 2022, European fund managers had just 22% of total assets under supervision, with only France’s Amundi playing in the big leagues. This reflects their failure to jump on the train of low-fee passive investment as effectively as U.S. giants such as Vanguard and BlackRock. Ironically, the latter’s dominance in exchange-traded funds resulted from its acquisition of iShares from Britain’s Barclays in 2009.

European officials are taking some useful steps. They admitted in 2022 that a directive aimed at harmonising securities markets, known as Mifid 2, has done more harm than good, and have agreed to amend it. New EU-wide savings products give pensioners greater choice, and might help address the lack of sophistication that characterises European individual investors relative to Americans used to managing 401(k)s. Stringent constraints on what asset managers can offer are being relaxed, and the rules governing sustainable finance—where Europe has an edge—are being clarified.

Meanwhile, the fallout from last year’s Silicon Valley Bank debacle will bring U.S. regulation closer to Europe’s.

Such rule changes might narrow the gap, as investors have recognised: The stock-market discount at which European lenders trade compared with American ones has shrunk over the past three years. But it is hard to see the tables fundamentally turning. In the digital era, economies of scale are even more powerful. The European Union comprises many countries with different languages, whose firms and investors have local financial relationships and strong home biases. The obstacles to eliminating fragmentation are huge.

If Europe can’t compete with America’s private financial muscle, it is doubly problematic that its efforts to mobilise industrial investment through the public sector have been meek compared with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Promoting more sustainability-minded funds isn’t an adequate fix.

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Japan Long Looked Down at Luxury Penthouses. Now Things Are Looking Up.

Ken Akao, a 35-year-old cosmetic surgeon, was a little concerned when he bought a multimillion-dollar Tokyo apartment in October 2023. It wasn’t about the property itself, a three-bedroom, 39th- floor penthouse with a spiral staircase, Jacuzzi and infinity pool. It was about what his father, a frugal Japanese diplomat of the old school, would think after seeing a property so grand—and so un-Japanese.

After some time, Akao summoned the courage to invite his dad for a visit. To his relief, he says, the elder Akao enjoyed the tour and pronounced the pad “wonderful.”

A century after the Park Avenue penthouse became established as the height of residential luxury for New Yorkers, the concept has finally made it across the Pacific to Tokyo. Part of the credit goes to people with foreign experience such as the younger Akao, who grew up largely overseas, as well as the influence of Chinese buyers flooding into Japan these days.

It also reflects changing values about what constitutes the ideal property in Tokyo.

Japan’s capital first flourished in the 17th century as the seat of the shogun, or generalissimo, who reigned as Japan’s de facto ruler. The Tokugawa family of shoguns, having subjugated feudal lords across the land, insisted that the lords spend half their time in the capital. Soon the city then known as Edo was dotted with spacious compounds where grandees lived in sprawling low-slung wooden homes watched by the shogun’s spies.

Camille Bressange/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Long after Edo became Tokyo and feudalism ended in 1868, those properties served as the prototype for the rich. Kakuei Tanaka, a poor man from the provinces who got wealthy with business ventures while rising to become Japan’s prime minister between 1972 and 1974, used to hold court inside the walls of a leafy compound in the Mejiro area of Tokyo, where he could feed the carp in his pond. (The house was destroyed by fire on Jan. 8. No one was hurt.) In a country that tends to frown on ostentation and special treatment for the privileged, the high walls surrounding such properties offered privacy.

These days, most rich Japanese still prefer to keep their wealth under wraps. But other changes have made a luxury condominium in a prime central Tokyo location look attractive compared with a house on a spacious property in a residential area.

One is the burst of the land-price bubble in the early 1990s, which shattered the myth of land as an indestructible store of value. These days, say real-estate professionals, bankers are less inclined to insist on land as collateral and more willing to extend loans backed by quality condos that are seen as likely to retain value across economic cycles. Also, in an ageing country where labour is in short supply, many older couples look askance at trying to care for large grounds. “Weeding is such a pain for old people,” said Satoshi Omori, president of a Tokyo real-estate appraisal firm.

The 2011 earthquake in northeastern Japan boosted the appeal of living in an earthquake-resistant concrete building in a central location rather than a wooden house farther out, where services might be hard to come by in an emergency.

“Compact cities are a global trend and people tend to prefer places that are more convenient,” said Shigeru Funabashi, a Tokyo broker.

Funabashi is a cosmetic surgeon who has in recent years shifted his career toward real estate, having developed a fascination with luxury residences. In 2011, he went to London to take a look at One Hyde Park, which is the location of a penthouse that was recently one of the highest priced in the city. He recalls thinking to himself, “Something like this will come to Tokyo someday.”

Foreign developers were ahead of the game in tapping the wellspring of demand Funabashi sensed and spreading the word “penthouse” in the Japanese language. In the Shibuya district, popular among tourists, Canadian developer Westbank in 2020 completed a five-floor condominium designed by architect Kengo Kuma. Traditionally, such buildings had nothing fancier on the top floor than plumbing and electrical equipment. But Westbank put in a multilevel penthouse with a private infinity pool on the roof. It sold early last year for $50 million, according to the developer.

Some other buyers in the building bought two units to combine them. “It really showed us that there is this massive gap in the market for products at this level,” a Westbank representative in Japan said. She said that if Westbank had the chance to build the 12-unit property again, it would make it with only six units.

Marq Omotesando One is another luxury low-rise condominium by foreign developers in central Tokyo that was completed in 2021. The development, led by a unit of Hong Kong-based investment firm BPEA, features a 6,700-square-foot penthouse with roof pool that local agents said has been listed at a price in the tens of millions of dollars. Its current status couldn’t be determined.

At Japanese real-estate development companies, “no one really wanted to rock the boat or do anything different,” said Zoe Ward, a real-estate agent originally from Australia who has worked for 15 years in Japan’s property market. But they changed course after seeing foreign developers building extravagant properties and selling units at high prices never seen before, Ward said.

Japanese developers say that many customers of ultra expensive condos are locals, including corporate executives and younger entrepreneurs who are often familiar with high-end homes in places such as New York and London.

Azabudai Hills, a Mori Building project in central Tokyo that includes offices and apartments, opened on Nov. 24. The development includes what is currently the tallest building in Japan, with 91 Aman-branded apartments on high floors. Planning documents submitted to authorities show there are three duplex penthouse units on the 64th floor. The largest unit occupies half the floor and has a private pool, the documents indicate. Local brokers say all three have been sold.

Mori Building declined to release floor plans or price ranges for those apartments—a reminder that the rich here still don’t want their private business aired, even if their high-rise homes are visible dozens of miles away. A local publication, Daily Shincho, reported that the largest unit sold for the equivalent of $200 million, which would make it the highest-price condo ever sold in Japan by a multiple of two or three.

Swimming pools on rooftops are rare in Japan, partly because of concerns about water leaking during earthquakes. But that is also changing. A central Tokyo office-hotel building developed by Mori Building opened in October with restaurants and an infinity pool on the roof.

“The rooftop was never utilised in Japan as much as it should be,” said architect Shohei Shigematsu, who designed the building. He said his team added extra drainage to reassure the developer that water wouldn’t splash on passersby 49 floors below in the event of an earthquake.

More luxury penthouses are on the way, including several on the top floor of a 13-story building at Mita Garden Hills, a project jointly developed by units of Mitsui Fudosan and Mitsubishi Estate. The building won’t be completed until 2026, but Mitsui says all of the penthouses have been sold.

The most expensive one, with a floor area of about 4,000 square feet, sold for 5.5 billion yen, equivalent to about $38 million, according to a broker familiar with the deal. Mitsui declined to comment.

In Osaka, the centre of Japan’s second-largest urban area after the Tokyo region, a penthouse in a 46-storey building, due to be completed in December 2025, is listed for the equivalent of about $17 million. The price for the unit, which at 3,300 square feet is the building’s largest, would be the highest price ever for an Osaka-area condo, said a spokesman for Sekisui House, one of the developers.

The spokesman said the penthouse has the vibe of a European guesthouse for visiting dignitaries, with chandeliers hanging from ceilings that are as high as 16 feet. Some other units feature an elevator to carry the owner’s car into the premises.

While ultrahigh-price deals are usually not included in industry databases, prices of Tokyo apartments generally are rising, driven by the higher cost of materials and labour. The Real Estate Economic Institute, a Tokyo-based firm tracking the property market, said the average price of a new apartment sold in central Tokyo for the six months through September was up 36% compared with the same period a year earlier and topped 100 million yen, equivalent to about $700,000, for the first time.

Akao, the cosmetic surgeon and recently minted penthouse owner, says he grew fond of the luxury lifestyle when visiting Aman hotels in Japan and Greece. He wasn’t able to get his hands on one of the Aman units in Azabudai Hills, but found a good substitute in his penthouse across from Yoyogi Park, a central Tokyo urban oasis like New York’s Central Park.

There is an en-suite bathroom in the primary bedroom, rare for a Japanese home, and Miele appliances in the kitchen. The staircase from the living-dining area, which features sofas from Arflex Japan, leads to an open-air 700-square-foot deck with the infinity pool.

“I often have large group get-togethers,” Akao said. “The pool will make gatherings easier.”

Akao said that growing up in the U.S., Switzerland and Austria where his father was posted made him familiar with the lifestyle because some of his classmates lived in houses with a pool and talked about it casually at school.

While analysts say most of the recently built penthouses are bought by people who intend to live in them, there are still flippers. Akao might be one of them. He said he is trying to sell his unit before considering whether to move in. He declined to disclose what he paid but said he was asking the equivalent of about $9 million.

—Peter Landers contributed to this article.

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The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG

Many companies no longer utter these three letters: E-S-G.

Following years of simmering investor backlash, political pressure and legal threats over environmental, social and governance efforts, a number of business leaders are now making a conscious effort to avoid the once widely used acronym for such initiatives.

On earnings calls, many chief executives now employ new approaches. Some companies, including Coca-Cola, are rebranding corporate reports and committees, stripping ESG from titles. Advisers are coaching executives on alternative ways to describe their efforts, proposing new terms like “responsible business.” On Wall Street, meanwhile, some firms are closing once-popular ESG funds as interest fades.

The shift in messaging reflects a reality: “ESG is complicated,” said Daryl Brewster, a former Kraft Foods and Nabisco executive who now heads Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, a nonprofit of more than 200 companies focused on social impact.

The movement to bake accountability into business decisions stretches back centuries; the term ESG gained momentum after the United Nations used it about 20 years ago. Over time, the effort became divisive—derided by some state officials as “woke capitalism,” and criticised by others for putting too much focus on measurement and disclosure requirements.

Many CEOs stress that they continue to follow sustainability commitments made years ago—even if they are no longer talking about them as often publicly. A December survey by the advisory firm Teneo found that about 8% of CEOs are ramping down their ESG programs; the rest are staying the course but often making changes to how they handle them.

Many leaders are more closely examining disclosures, wanting to avoid regulatory scrutiny or political criticism. In lieu of lofty pronouncements, advisers are telling CEOs to be more precise and to set goals that can be achieved. Saying as little as possible is recommended.

“We’ve seen a great deal of reframing and adjusting by CEOs in the ESG arena. Not only of what they say, but also where they say it and how they characterise it,” said Brad Karp, chair of law firm Paul Weiss who advises a number of CEOs. “Most companies are moving forward operationally with their ESG programs, but not publicly touting them, or describing them in different ways.”

When Thomas Buberl, CEO of Paris-based insurer AXA, met in the U.S. last year with the leaders of an asset manager, a fertiliser maker and a tech company, executives suggested that he reflect the newfound caution. “I used the abbreviation ESG, and people taught me not to use that word,” Buberl said. “I said, ‘What do you want me to call it?’”

Few people had a ready answer. Buberl said the importance of environmental efforts and other goals shouldn’t be underplayed. “We need to move from intentions to actions,” he said.

ESG became even more politicised following a spat in 2022 between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That opened the door to sharp commentary on ESG efforts broadly by more than a dozen other state officials and a pullback by some asset managers. Investors yanked more than $14 billion from ESG funds in the first nine months of 2023, according to Morningstar.

BlackRock’s Larry Fink wrote a letter to investors in 2023 that didn’t explicitly reference ESG, after some states pulled money in 2022 over the firm’s ESG emphasis. State Street in November announced a new voting policy for investors who may not want to emphasise ESG as heavily. Fidelity last year removed language considering potential ESG impacts from its proxy-review process.

On earnings calls, mentions of ESG rose steadily until 2021 and have declined since, according to a FactSet analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2021, 155 companies in the S&P 500 mentioned ESG initiatives; by the second quarter of 2023, that had fallen to 61 mentions.

Adding to the challenges for companies is that some dimensions of ESG, particularly the social goals, can be difficult to quantify. Corporate diversity programs, often part of an ESG agenda, face new scrutiny following a Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and legal challenges from largely conservative groups.

Executives and their advisers say companies remain more committed to the “E” in ESG, wanting to respond to climate change. Some CEOs say that environmental factors are crucial to their business, one reason many went to Dubai for COP28, the U.N.’s climate conference. Climate change is also likely to be a key theme at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

Revathi Advaithi, CEO of Flex, said the manufacturer has 130 factories across the world and there isn’t a question of whether they need to operate in a sustainable way.

“It’s not as though I got a whole bunch of new investors because we had a sustainability report or we were ESG-focused,” she said. “We didn’t do it for that purpose…. We wanted to focus on water reduction, power reduction, all those things. So I don’t view it as, hey, it’s a trend that came today and it’s gonna go off tomorrow.”

Some of the changes leaders are making are subtle. At Coca-Cola, the company published a “Business & ESG” report in 2022; in 2023, it was released as the “Business and Sustainability” report. The beverage giant also renamed committees on its board of directors.

The fiercest critics of ESG say they welcome less discussion of it. “If this trend is decreasing, these CEOs must have realised that this puts them at greater legal risk and costs them customers,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has pushed back against ESG policies, in a statement.

What to call such efforts now remains a debate. Brewster’s nonprofit CEO group advises leaders to discuss initiatives in clear language, explaining efforts to cut water use, for example, or to use terms such as “our people” or “our natural resources.” Brewster said he wants more leaders to adopt the phrase “responsible business.”

“You can be anti-ESG,” Brewster said. “It’s hard to be anti-responsibility.”

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How Much Caffeine You Should Actually Have—and When

Caffeine can give us a boost, but too much can mess with our sleep and make us feel jittery. So how do we know what’s the right amount?

Generally, government and health groups recommend that healthy adults consume no more than400 milligrams of caffeine a day. That comes out to about four, 8-ounce cups of coffee, says Jennifer Temple, a professor of exercise and nutrition sciences at University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions.

(No, that 20-ounce Starbucks Venti doesn’t count as one cup of coffee.)

And believe it or not, we are doing pretty well on this target. The average American adult consumes about 200 milligrams of caffeine a day and in Europe, it is 270 milligrams, according to a 2017 review study.

But not everyone is optimising their caffeine intake to maximise how it can help them—by sharpening concentration for work or giving them a boost before a run—without hurting their sleep or overall health.

Here’s how to think strategically about getting the most out of your daily dose.

Optimising the boost

Caffeine can help you focus and keep you alert.

About 100 to 150 milligrams—or one to 1.5 cups of coffee—is a ballpark amount that will deliver a boost, says Astrid Nehlig, an emeritus research director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, who has studied caffeine’s impact on brain activity, though it varies from person to person.

The effects generally kick in about five minutes after consumption and increase to become optimal for between roughly 15 and 120 minutes, Nehlig says.

Caffeine has been linked to physical benefits, too. People walked more on days they drank coffee than on days they didn’t, according to a 2023 study of 100 people in the New England Journal of Medicine. Participants took an average of 1,000 more steps on days when they drank caffeinated coffee than when they didn’t.

Other studies have suggested that caffeine can sometimes help us work out harder, such as when we have it before high-endurance exercise like long runs or swims, or sports that require a sustained effort, like soccer, Nehlig says.

The same boost hasn’t been found with shorter efforts, such as a sprint. Caffeine doesn’t act directly on muscles but rather reduces your rate of perceived exertion and the time it takes you to feel exhausted.

The downsides

Caffeine’s main negative for your health is that it can disrupt your sleep.

The NEJM study that found that people walk more on days when they drink caffeine also found a downside. On days when study participants could drink as much caffeinated coffee as they wanted, they slept on average 30 minutes less than on days they didn’t drink any.

The impact on sleep varies greatly depending on how fast you metabolize caffeine, says Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco and first author of the NEJM study.

On average, it takes about 4.5 hours for half of the caffeine consumed to pass through your system. However, genetic differences make some people metabolise it slowly or quickly, doctors and researchers say. The population is roughly split between fast and slow metabolisers.

The sleeping and walking study tested whether participants were slow or fast metabolisers of coffee. Those that were slow metabolisers slept nearly an hour less on the nights they drank caffeinated coffee, while the fast metabolisers didn’t experience any impact on sleep.

Where to get your caffeine

The best source of caffeine is unsweetened coffee or tea, says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. These drinks have other beneficial ingredients, such as polyphenols, which have antioxidant effects which reduce inflammation.

The caffeine content in coffee and tea can vary, but soda can’t have more than 71 milligrams per 12 ounces, per Food and Drug Administration regulations.

Adults get most of their caffeine from coffee, but the market for energy drinks is growing. Pay extra attention to the caffeine in these drinks, because some contain very high levels.

Getting caffeine from soda or energy or sports drinks makes it more likely you are also getting a high dose of sugar and empty calories, says Hu.

Extra caution

Kids under 12 should avoid caffeine, while 12- to 18-year-olds should have no more than 100 milligrams a day, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Pregnant women are advised to have no more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day.

People with chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease might want to be more cautious about their caffeine consumption, Hu adds. The NEJM study found that on the days when participants consumed caffeine, they had more abnormal heart rhythms in the lower chamber of the heart, which is associated with a greater risk of developing heart failure.

And people who get migraine headaches should try to drink no more than 100 milligrams of caffeine a day, the equivalent of a mug of coffee, says Dr. Amaal Starling, a headache specialist and neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz. She advises her patients who have daily or severe headaches not to drink any caffeinated beverages or switch to decaffeinated coffee.

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Investing in Nature Is Gaining Traction. Will It Be Enough?

Investing in nature to address climate change, support biodiversity, and protect ocean health—and more—is expected to reach record levels this year in response to more regulation and market demand, according to Cambridge Associates, a global investment firm.

Still, the amount of private capital invested to support natural systems will fall far short of what’s needed, according to the annual “State of Finance for Nature” report published in December from the United Nations Environment Programme.

A big reason is that nearly US$7 trillion in public and private finance was directed to companies and economic activities in 2022 that caused direct harm to nature, while only US$200 billion was directed to so-called nature-based solutions, or NbS—investments that protect, conserve, restore, or engage in the sustainable management of land and water ecosystems, as defined by the United National Environment Assembly 5, or UNEA5, the report said.

“Without a big turnaround on nature-negative finance flows, increased finance for NbS will have limited impact,” it said.

But the report also said that the misalignment “represents a massive opportunity to turn around private and public finance flows” to meet targets set by the United Nations Rio Conventions on climate change, desertification, and biodiversity loss.

The conventions aim to limit climate change to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, protect 30% of the earth’s land and seas by 2030, and to reach “land degradation neutrality” by 2030. Reaching those goals will require more than double the amount of current levels of nature-based investing by 2025, to US$436 billion, and nearly triple today’s levels to US$542 billion by 2030, the report said.

Most of the US$200 billion invested in NbS today is by governments, but private investors contributed US$35 billion—including US$4.6 billion via impact investing funds and US$3.9 billion via philanthropy. The largest source of private finance was in the form of biodiversity offsets and credits. [An offset is designed to compensate for biodiversity loss, while a credit is the asset created to restore it].

Many wealthy individuals and families concerned about climate change and the environment so far have focused their investment dollars on climate solutions and innovations in technology and infrastructure, or in technologies supporting food and water efficiency, says Liqian Ma, head of sustainable investment at Cambridge Associates.

But “increasingly there is growing awareness that nature provides a lot of gifts and solutions if we prudently and responsibly manage nature-based assets,” Ma says.

Investments can be made, for instance, in sustainable forestry and sustainable agriculture—which can help sequester carbon—in addition to wetland mitigation, conservation, and ecosystem services.

“Those areas are not in the mainstream, but they are additional tools for investors,” Ma says.

Finance Earth, a London-based social enterprise, is among the organizations working to make these tools more mainstream by creating a wider array of nature-based solutions in addition to related investment vehicles.

Finance Earth groups nature-based solutions into six themes: agriculture, forestry, freshwater, marine/coastal, peatland, and species protection. Supporting many of these areas are an array of so-called ecosystem services, or benefits that nature provides such as absorbing carbon dioxide, boosting biodiversity, and providing nutrients, says Rich Fitton, director of Finance Earth.

Each of these ecosystem services are behind existing and emerging markets. Carbon-related disclosure requirements (at various stages of approval in the U.S. and elsewhere) have long spurred demand for carbon markets, the most mature of these markets.

Cambridge Associates, for instance, works with dedicated asset managers who have been approved by the California Air Resources Board to buy carbon credits, Ma says.

In its annual investment outlook, the firm said California’s carbon credits should outperform global stocks this year as the board is expected to reduce the supply of available credits to meet the state’s emission reduction targets. The value of these credits is expected to rise as the supply drops.

In September, the G20 Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures released recommendations (similar to those put forward several years ago by the Task Force for Carbon-related Financial Disclosure) that provide guidance for how companies can look across their supply chains to assess their impact on nature, water, and biodiversity “and then start to understand what the nature-related risks are for their business,” Fitton says.

The recommendations will continue to spur already thriving biodiversity markets, which exist in more than 100 countries including the U.S. In the U.K., a new rule called “Biodiversity Net Gain” went into effect this month requiring developers to produce a 10% net gain in biodiversity for every project they create.

Though developers can plant trees on land they’ve developed for housing, for example, they also will likely need to buy biodiversity credits from an environmental nonprofit or wildlife trust to replace and add to the biodiversity that was lost, Fitton says.

This new compliance market for biodiversity offsets could reach about £300 million (US$382 million) in size, he says.

Finance Earth and Federated Hermes are currently raising funds for a U.K. Nature Impact Fund that is likely to invest in those offsets in addition to other nature-based solutions, including voluntary offset markets for biodiverse woodlands and for peatlands restoration.

The fund was seeded with £30 million from the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—money that is designed to absorb first losses, should that be needed. The government investment gives mainstream investors more security to step into a relatively new sector, Fitton says.

“We need the public sector and philanthropy to take a bit more downside risk,” he says. That way Finance Earth can tell mainstream investors “look, I know you haven’t invested in nature directly before, but we are pretty confident we’ve got commercial-level returns we can generate, and we’ve got this public sector [entity] who’s endorsing the fund and taking more risk,” Fitton says.

Since December 2022, when 188 government representatives attending the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal agreed to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems, and protect indigenous rights, several asset managers began “creating new strategies or refining strategies to be more nature or biodiversity focused,” Ma says.

He cautioned, however, that some asset managers are more authentic about it than others.

“Some have taken it seriously to hire scientists to do this properly and make sure that it’s not just a greenwashing or impact-washing exercise,” Ma says. “We’re starting to see some of those strategies come to market and, in terms of actual decisions and deployments, that’s why we think this year we’ll see a boost.”

Fitton has noticed, too, that institutional investors are hiring experts in natural capital, recognizing that it’s a separate asset class that requires expertise.

“When that starts happening across the board then meaningful amounts of money will move,” he says. “There’s lots of projects there, there’s lots of things to invest in and there’ll be more and more projects to invest in as more of these markets become more and more mature.”

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Love and Deceit: Work-From-Home Era Spawns ‘Pillow Talk’ Insider Trading

Steven Teixeira’s use of his girlfriend’s laptop began innocently enough when she asked him to keep an eye on her work email while she went to fitness classes and ran errands.

As they weathered the pandemic from their apartment in Queens, N.Y., he gave in to temptation. His sweetheart worked as an executive assistant at Morgan Stanley, and her calendar invites included meetings about planned mergers and acquisitions that involved the investment bank.

Teixeira, a compliance executive at a payment-processing company whom she intended to marry, used the information to trade in advance of the deals. It netted him thousands in profits, promises of Rolex watches from friends he tipped off, and the scrutiny of federal officials probing insider trading. He pleaded guilty to a dozen fraud charges in June.

There is a rich history in securities fraud of “pillow talk” cases, in which insider traders glean confidential information from romantic partners. The Covid era offered a twist: Secrets weren’t spilled in the bedroom or over a bottle of wine, but during the humdrum routine of two adults working from home.

“During Covid, there was an uptick in brazen conduct,” said Edward Imperatore, a defence lawyer at law firm Morrison & Foerster. “In a work-from-home environment, people acted with more impunity.”

Another recent case snared a boyfriend who was training to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Seth Markin pleaded guilty in December to trading on information he purloined from his lawyer girlfriend, an associate in the Washington office of law firm Covington & Burling.

In 2021, she was working on a pharmaceutical acquisition from her one-bedroom apartment, where Markin spent days at a time. According to prosecutors, she trusted him because he told her he had a security clearance, was going to be an FBI agent, and wanted to marry her.

Prosecutors said Markin passed on tips that led to at least 20 people trading based on confidential information. “I knew that my behavior was wrong,” Markin told the judge during his plea hearing. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March.

Representatives for the FBI and Covington declined to comment.

In Teixeira’s case, he was aided by a mouse-jiggler he bought that ensured his girlfriend’s laptop wouldn’t lock when she wasn’t using it, according to court documents. He has been cooperating with prosecutors and is scheduled to testify this year at the trial of his former friend, Jordan Meadow, who at the time was a stockbroker with Spartan Capital Securities. Meadow made more than $700,000 trading on Teixeira’s information and used the tips to advise clients who made millions, prosecutors allege.

“Yo you see UFS,” Meadow texted Teixeira, referencing the stock symbol of a company involved in a $3 billion deal, according to the indictment. He then asked for more nonpublic information, texting, “Feed me.”

Meadow has pleaded not guilty to the eight charges he is facing. Lawyers for Meadow and Spartan declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, and a lawyer for Teixeira didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled with a New Jersey man who it accused of illegally trading on inside information he heard when his domestic partner, who worked in marketing for an IT company, participated in calls from home, including an 11:30 p.m. videoconference in a home-office adjacent to their bedroom. Although he typically discussed his trades with her, in this case he hid them, executing the transactions from his work office, the SEC said. The man, who didn’t admit wrongdoing, paid $180,000.

One thing hasn’t changed since the earliest days of pillow talk: It is usually the men who can’t resist the urge to take advantage of their confidential information.

“Insider trading is an equal opportunity crime,” said Dixie Johnson, a partner at law firm King & Spalding who advises companies on how to avoid such situations. “But the cases we see usually have involved men doing the trading.”

Not that female romantic partners have always been innocent bystanders. In 2002, adult-movie actress Kathryn Gannon, known on screen as Marylin Star, pleaded guilty to trading on tips from an investment bank CEO with whom she was having an affair. She was sentenced to three months in prison.

A decade later, former beauty queen turned hedge-fund consultant Danielle Chiesi pleaded guilty to securities fraud for her role in a sprawling insider-trading ring. In a sentencing submission, she blamed a toxic relationship with her boss—and lover of 20 years—who urged her to get inside information.

One challenge for prosecutors is determining whether the partner who is privy to the information was in on the crime, said former federal prosecutor Brendan Quigley.

“Do they say, ‘Oh, my God, I would never give information to my spouse or significant other?’ It depends not only on what actually happened, but also on the nature of their relationship,” said Quigley, who prosecuted insider-trading cases in Manhattan.

For defense lawyers, pillow-talk cases can be difficult to handle at trial, particularly if one partner testifies against another. “To a juror, this is the bad boyfriend,” said Imperatore, the defense attorney. “He’s acting badly in a relationship in a way that goes beyond the four corners of insider trading.”

Not surprisingly, many such relationships don’t survive. Teixeira and his girlfriend split up, as did Markin and his.

Former Playboy CEO Christie Hefner and her husband, William Marovitz, divorced about a year after the SEC accused him of illegally trading Playboy stock based on information gleaned from his wife—despite her explicit instructions not to. Marovitz didn’t admit wrongdoing in a 2011 settlement.

One woman whose husband recently settled insider-trading charges involving confidential information related to her employer said coping with the allegations strengthened their bond.

“It felt like an injustice,” said the woman, who wasn’t identified in court papers. “It brought us closer together.”

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The Science-Backed Schedule for Your Perfect Weekend

WSJ’s Life & Work team presents Life Math, a series on how to optimise your time in 2024. Today: The best way to spend your time on the weekend.

Saturday and Sunday are often the most anticipated days of the week, yet optimising them remains an elusive goal for many of us.

Squandered weekends leave us feeling less happy and less motivated at work, research suggests. Those who put planning and intention into their weekends emerge on Monday feeling satisfied, accomplished and more productive throughout the workweek, says Elizabeth Grace Saunders, a time-management coach in Farmington Hills, Mich.

If we don’t plan our time well, we can end up marching through our obligations, or wasting time, without ever focusing on what we really want to do.

How to plan the perfect weekend? Behavioural researchers and time-management coaches suggest breaking it into six components: sleep, hobbies, socialising, exercise, work and chores, and unscheduled time.

Using recommendations from experts and federal guidelines, we came up with this equation. It’s important to remember these numbers aren’t hard and fast—stay flexible and make the math work for your life.

The perfect weekend equation:

Sleep (7 to 9 hours x 2 + ≤ 20 to 60 minutes napping) + Hobbies (~ 2 hours) + Socialising (0 to 2 events) + Exercise (≥ 45 minutes) + Work (≤ 2 hours) + Unplanned time (~ 3 to 4 hours) = A Great Weekend

Here’s how to incorporate those elements to build your best days off.

Sleep

This part of the “perfect weekend” equation is the most rigid.

Despite the tendency many of us have to take advantage of the time off by staying up and sleeping in later, we should try to keep our sleep schedules as consistent as possible to avoid social jet lag, sleep researchers say.

Sleep researchers generally permit one hour of wiggle room—so if you typically go to sleep at 11 p.m., try not to stay up past midnight. If your weekday alarm goes off at 7 a.m., rise and shine by 8 a.m. on the weekends. Finding yourself sleepy later in the day? Take a 10- to 30-minute nap in the early afternoon.

Most importantly: Make sure you’re getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep each night, even on weekends. If you’re among the roughly one-third of Americans who don’t get that recommended sleep during the week, you may be able to “catch up” by sleeping a few extra hours on the weekend, says David Reichenberger, who studies the links between sleep and health at Pennsylvania State University.

But don’t count on catching up forever. A recent study Reichenberger co-wrote found that among a small group of people who slept five hours a night during the week, their cardiovascular health measures worsened and didn’t return to baseline even after they were allowed to catch up on sleep over the weekend.

Hobbies

Having a hobby, or an activity we engage in during our time off for pleasure, has been linked to fewer symptoms of depression and higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction and even reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline.

Saunders, the time-management coach in Michigan, generally recommends people set aside roughly two hours for hobbies on the weekend.

Don’t worry if you’re not, say, a dedicated baker, painter or pianist. Hobbies can encompass much more than we might typically consider, says Daisy Fancourt, a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London who researches the link between social and behavioural factors and health.

Something as simple as reading a book or cooking a tasty meal can serve the same purpose: to give us a sense of happiness, meaning and control in our lives outside of work.

Unplanned time

Scheduling unstructured time may sound silly. But failing to block out free time can leave us filling it with whatever’s right in front of us, like working or mindlessly scrolling, says Laura Vanderkam, an author and time-management expert based outside Philadelphia.

If you can, leave unplanned a chunky part of your Saturday or Sunday, roughly three to four hours, says Saunders. “If you make your weekend as packed and as busy as your weekday is, you will not come out of the weekend feeling refreshed,” she says.

This time is a good opportunity to let our brains enter so-called “default mode,” where our thinking extends beyond the here and now, allowing us to reflect and find meaning and purpose.

“It’s really important that all of us have dedicated, protected time in our lives to just be here now,” says Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Southern California.

Socialising

Robust social relationships are powerfully linked to physical and mental health and longevity benefits, and the weekend is a natural time to take advantage of them.

Social activities often require more advance planning than other parts of the weekend equation, so set aside time during the week to text or email friends and family about getting together, says Saunders, the time-management coach.

People typically spend twice as much time—nearly an hour—socialising on weekend days as on weekdays, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest data on time use.

The amount of time you should spend socialising on the weekend depends on how energised or drained that togetherness makes you feel, she says. Introverts typically benefit from one social event every weekend or every other weekend, she says, whereas two social events per weekend is a sweet spot for extroverts.

If you have kids and most of your socialising naturally revolves around them, try to set some adults-only social time, too, says Vanderkam. You may find it easier to relax without your kids running around, and it can be easier to have uninterrupted grown-up conversations.

Work and chores

Pick a couple of small, achievable projects to see through to the finish line rather than trying to take on five things at once, says Vanderkam. You probably can’t clean out the entire garage, sort through your kid’s closet, vacuum out the car, wash all the laundry and grocery shop in one weekend.

Professional work, too, is sometimes inevitable on weekends. Avoid it if you can, but if a little work will help you feel less anxious, set some boundaries, behavioural researchers say. Stick to a clear time frame and goal, such as finalising one section of a report within a two-hour window.

Physical activity

Federal guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise weekly, plus strengthening activities twice a week. If you’re spreading that out across the week, you may only need to set aside about 45 minutes for Saturday and Sunday.

But there’s good news for people who like to cram most of their exercise into the weekend. People who condensed their workouts into one or two days experienced health benefits similar to those who spread them out, a 2022 JAMA Internal Medicine study found.

The flexibility of the weekend allows for longer, varied workouts that can overlap with “hobbies” and “social” categories, says Heather Milton, a clinical exercise physiologist and supervisor of the NYU Langone Sports Performance Center. Try to incorporate both elements of aerobic and strength training, as well as some flexibility, she recommends.

It can help to plan an exercise block for the same time each weekend—such as a weekly Saturday morning yoga class or Sunday morning jog. Don’t have the time? Just try to move. Ideally, every 30 minutes or so, says Milton.

“Weekends are great for relaxation, but try not to Netflix and chill for 12 hours of the day without getting off the couch,” she says.

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I’m a Supercommuter. Here’s What It’s Really Like.

Sometimes I sleep in a different New York City hotel room every night.

On a recent Monday, it was a Midtown Manhattan Hampton Inn. The next night, a budget hotel downtown. Then I moved to a Hyatt in Queens, near John F. Kennedy International Airport, where I waited to check in behind a group of pilots and flight attendants.

The reason for this madness: My job is in New York, but my apartment is in Columbus, Ohio. When hotel prices are high, I property-surf to find a lower rate.

For more than a year, to the bafflement of family, friends and colleagues, I have attempted to live and work as a supercommuter. What began as a postpandemic experiment of flying to and from New York each week has turned into what I am hesitant to call a lifestyle.

Like many, I moved out of the city early in the pandemic, relocating near family in the Midwest. When it came time to return in 2022, I was underwhelmed at the housing options in my price range. I toured one-room studios facing brick walls and climbed crumbling staircases to reach dank apartments with ancient fixtures. I also had grown accustomed to midweek evening walks with my sister in Ohio, and a short drive to see my parents. I didn’t want to fully give that up.

Using back-of-the-envelope math, I thought I could keep my expenses—rent in Ohio, plus travel costs—at or below the price of a nice New York studio, or roughly $3,200 a month. The Wall Street Journal requires office attendance at least three days a week and, since I commute by choice, I pay all my travel expenses.

Luxury suites and room service

The challenge felt oddly thrilling. If anybody could find a way to subvert high New York real-estate costs, while remaining close to family, I thought it might be me. For years, I’ve been an on-call travel guru to friends and co-workers, coaching people on how to navigate flight cancellations and play the credit-card bonus games. I memorise aircraft configurations and spend hours reading mileage blogs and industry sites like Airliners.net.

Before mileage runs became useless, I obsessed over reaching top-tier airline status by spending as little as possible. (Family members still roll their eyes at the six hours I spent in Anchorage one December afternoon to requalify for Delta’s Diamond tier.) When a flight is oversold, I am quick to volunteer my seat in exchange for a voucher. (My best-ever haul: $2,000 after giving up my seat on multiple oversold flights one Saturday in San Francisco.)

Nerding out about this stuff has allowed me to travel farther and in more rarefied air than I could otherwise afford.

Entering my supercommuter era, I had visions of flying to New York on a weekday morning (8,500 points one way on American Airlines), spending the day meeting sources and filing stories, and retiring to one of my favorite points hotels—the Beekman. Mornings would begin with a free breakfast thanks to my Hyatt status, before a short subway ride to the office. After two nights, I’d return to Columbus and my roomy apartment, half the price of a Manhattan studio.

Shocking no one, that fantasy soon came crashing down.

Burning points on fancy hotel rooms was the first problem. The life of a journalist is hard to predict. I repeatedly found myself on deadline and having to rebook flights or stay an extra night, costing me money or miles.

Once I was back in the city, it also got harder to say no. Stay an extra night to attend a friend’s birthday party or meet a CEO in town just for the day? Sign me up. I didn’t want my living situation to strain relationships or interfere with my job, which I love.

To conserve hotel points, I swapped the Beekman’s elegant rooms in lower Manhattan for a Hyatt attached to a casino in Jamaica, Queens. My rooms overlooked a sea of empty parking spaces, but required half as many points as Manhattan alternatives.

Flight delays and blown budgets

By summer, with my miles dwindling and New York hotel rates rising, I reluctantly began to rely on the kindness of those around me. Hearing I might need a place, one friend mailed me the keys to her family’s unoccupied apartment in New Jersey. Another let me stay in her smartly designed Brooklyn one-bedroom for weeks as she traveled. A cherished deskmate, known for her tell-it-like-it-is demeanour, repeatedly offered a bedroom in her Chelsea loft, handing over the keys with a sometimes expletive-tinged reminder to: “Get a f—ing apartment.”

I watered plants, walked friends’ dogs and fed their cats while they were away. Still, working in a city without a permanent home took a toll. I came to dread the go-to question asked at parties and work events in New York: “So where do you live?”

After house sitting for friends, I fell in love with some of their pets, including my friend Vanessa’s Border Collie mix, Ivy. But when in hotels without a refrigerator or stove, uninspiring meals abounded; a late-night dinner of yogurt and fruit.
CHIP CUTTER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

If I admitted, “it’s kind of complicated,” I got sucked into explaining my life as a supercommuter. Sometimes, I’d just tell people the location of that evening’s hotel. (Chelsea!)

Costs mounted in the fall, New York’s prime tourist and business-travel season. Friends teased me for embracing a life of chaos. They weren’t wrong. Without a refrigerator or stove, late-night dinners often consisted of yogurt and fruit purchased from a 24-hour CVS. Needing to pack light, I stored shoes under my desk and left spare outfits on an office coat rack.

To get to the office on time, I set my alarm in Columbus for 4:15 a.m. and hustled to the airport for 6 a.m. flights. When everything went according to plan, I made it door-to-door in three hours. If delays occurred, I scrambled to rebook on other flights.

My obsessive tracking of New York hotel prices taught me that dynamic pricing isn’t reserved for airlines. Hotel costs can fluctuate half a dozen times on the check-in date, so instead of booking in advance, I’d wait to pull the trigger until 10 p.m. some days after the rates fell.

In the end, the math didn’t work. I blew my budget by 15% and drained my miles balance. But I flew so much and stayed in so many hotels that I kept my elite status with Hyatt and American.

I still enjoy having one foot in the Midwest and one on the East Coast, though I’m not sure how long I can keep it up. I’m writing this from Columbus, where I overlook a beautiful park outside my picture window. My lease is up, but hotel rates in Manhattan this winter have plunged now that the holidays are over. Maybe that New York apartment search can be put off a little longer.