Congratulations, you’ve finished your taxes for the year! You’ve filled out your paperwork and now you’re just waiting (wishing?) for that big tax refund you’re going to get! But how are you going to spend it? Even if you’re not expecting a refund from the IRS, if you had some sort of windfall, on what would you spend the money?

More and more we are finding that there is a right way and a wrong way to spend our money; meaning that there is a way to spend your money that is more likely to make you happier vs. spending money which is less likely to make you happier. Studies have shown us that when we spend our money on experiences, it makes us happier than when we spend it on objects.

Last month we celebrated the holiday of Passover, the festival commemorating our Exodus from Egypt and our journey to the Holy Land. We sat around at our Seders telling stories to our children about how our ancestors were slaves in Egypt. We narrated the story of the Exodus for the next generation. The Passover Seder is one of the oldest and most widely practiced customs in all of Judaism. As Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes in his Haggadah, “The Seder service on Pesach is the oldest surviving ritual in the Western world, dating back some 3,300 years.”

If you or anyone you know has ever hosted a Seder, you know that it has a tremendous cost. The time and money spent on a Seder is not only considerable, but would shock many people. Think about another meal upon which you’ve spent so many hours and hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. But ask anyone who has ever hosted a Seder, and unless something went tragically wrong, chances are they not only don’t regret spending the time and money, but they’re thrilled that they had the opportunity to do so. How do we justify the hours and dollars spent on one (sometimes extremely long) meal?

The reason is because we not only bought ourselves an experience, we spent our money and our time in a way that reflects our values. Whether you are the most or least religious person, most of us find a joy in sitting around the Seder table with our loved ones. We know that we’ve spent money and time in a way that reflects our values. We have so many expenses in our lives that to be able to put our money to good use feels very fulfilling.

Since the Seder is a meal designed to educate us, let’s allow ourselves to learn one more thing from it. Let’s learn about how to budget our time and our money.

Very often people wonder to which charity they should give their money. Because of this, there are now services that rate charities based on the way they spend their time and the way they budget. It is thought that the budgets of institutions reflect their values, and there is a lot of truth to that. It will tell you their priorities. Ask yourself this question; are you more likely to give to a charity that spends its money on fancy offices or on money they donate to NGOs?

What is said about institutions can also be said about ourselves. Our own budgets and calendars (while not necessarily flattering) very accurately reflect our own values. If we want to know what we value, if we want to know what moves us it is very simple. All we have to do is to look at our calendars and our wallets. Does our calendar reflect what we hold dear? Does our bank statement reflect our Jewish values?

We can talk all day about our principles and priorities, but our actions speak louder than our words. We can talk about justice and charity all the time, but they are mere words unless we can find on our bank balance where we have put those words into action. We can talk about the continuity of the Jewish People or how important tradition is to us, but if we’re not spending money on our values, then they are empty words.

Making a Pesach Seder allows us to live out our values. In very concrete ways, it shows us how important our family, our Judaism (our food), and our past is to us. So let’s take that into the rest of the year. Instead of waiting to have more money before we give to charity, give what you can now. If you’re wondering what the “correct” amount to give, it’s pretty simple. We should give enough so that we feel it, but not too much so that we can’t provide for ourselves. The same thing with our time. We can and should give enough of our time so that we feel it, but not too much so that we can’t get our errands done.

Let’s spend our time and our money on our values. I promise, we’ll be happier people if we do.