We analyse responses to two similar life satisfaction questions in a major survey. * Answers are broadly consistent but for 14% of people they differ significantly. * Life satisfaction drops for those with lower education, income and social capital. * Response precision is associated with better socio-economic characteristics. We analyse responses to two similar life satisfaction questions asked at different points in the same wave of a major cross-country household survey covering the transition region, Turkey and five Western European countries. We show that while the answers to the two questions are broadly consistent for most people, the responses for some groups differ significantly. Respondents of a lower socio-economic status and with a more favourable parental background show systematically higher levels of self-reported satisfaction in the later question. We also find evidence that responses to the later question are influenced by preceding questions on social capital. Our results have important implications for the design and length of household surveys that contain subjective questions.