27 May Best Ways to Stay Healthy While Saving Money
Your day-to-day activities as an entrepreneur can cause so much stress. You need to be conscious of your health and do your best to stay healthy.
You’d be surprised by how much you can save just by eating and staying healthy. There is a direct correlation between being healthy and saving money. Here are some tips and circumstance where you can stay healthy while saving some money.
Abstain from vice
Everybody knows smoking is bad for our health. Why do we do it anyway? Others say because it tastes great while others stay it relieves their stress. But staying healthy is not a good enough motivation for you, then perhaps saving money is. A pack of cigarettes could cost at least $5. But let’s just be conservative here. Say a pack of cigarettes could last you four days, meaning you only puff five sticks a day. That would mean you spend at least $37.5 a month. That is already $450 a year. That amount could already help fund your retirement. Or if you put it in a savings account, it could already earn interest. It’s quite small but it’s still additional money.
Liquor is not always a bad thing. Drinking in moderation is fine, but it is still something you could do without. A six-pack of beer costs between $7 and $10. That’s more than a dollar per bottle. Granting that you don’t really drink every day but when you do drink, you could finish more than just one bottle per outing. Whatever money you spend on beer, it is still more worthwhile if you set it aside for your savings. Plus, too much alcohol will give you liver problems.
By abstaining from cigarettes and alcohol, you don’t only save yourself from cancer and liver illness, you also save almost $1,000 a year.
Exercise
Again, this is something we all know is good for us but we don’t do it anyway. Either people are too lazy to just exercise or they fear that it would cost them a lot of money. Most gyms are only about $50 a month but you have to pay a membership fee. You could be looking at around $800 to $1,000 a month. But you don’t really need to pay for a gym just to exercise. You could make a one-time investment by buying a treadmill or any exercise machine. But the best form of exercise is just by walking, jogging or running around the city or in the park. The public space is absolutely free.
Exercise will help you save money in the future. If you are working toward the preservation of your health now, then you are going to save a lot on future medical expenses. According to Time magazine, Americans are not fond of setting aside money for their retirement. One in three Americans, they say, don’t have anything set aside for retirement. So if you belong to that statistics—the 30 percent of Americans—then you should at least take care of your health. But it’s still best to set aside part of your salary for retirement.
Health care in America is expensive. This is why for close to a decade, there has been a great debate on what the government can do with the American health care system. Unpaid medical bills are the number one reason more than a million Americans have filed for bankruptcy. So take care of your health and prevent a bankruptcy filing in the future.
Cut out junk food
Fast-food meals, French fries, chips, chocolates, sodas and other carbonated drinks may be delicious but they are not healthy. Again, file it over things you already know but don’t practice anyway. You know these food are bad for you but you continue munching or drinking them anyway. Abstaining from these products will not only help you save money, it will also regulate your sugar, cholesterol and other terrible substances from junk food.
Heart disease is the costliest illness in America. Over 735,000 Americans suffer from heart disease every year, and 610,000 die from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or simply CDC. The estimated cost is about $193 billion. The fatty oil from hamburgers, French fries and chips could clog the arteries, which would prevent the blood flow. This would result in heart attack.
Your fondness for chocolates and sodas could make you suffer the second costliest health problem in the US. According to a report, 29.1 million Americans suffer from diabetes. About 8.1 million are also suffering but are undiagnosed. These millions of Americans have spent over $176 billion in diabetes-related expenses—from medications to possible cure.
Of course, all these junk food, when you over-indulge in them, could result in obesity, which is the fifth most expensive illness in America. The annual expense could reach $147 billion with 66.3 percent of Americans believed to be obese. Overweight people are also prone to develop arthritis, the seventh most expensive disease in America. With over 50 million people, mostly adults, experiencing the disease, the total cost could reach $74.4 billion annually, according to an estimate.
Completing the top 10 most expensive diseases are kidney problems and hyperlipidemia or high cholesterol. Annually, millions of Americans spend over $30 billion in either of the two diseases. Kidney problems are caused by salty food while high cholesterol is due to fatty or oily food.
Not only will you save money by abstaining from junk food, you will also save money on medical expenses in the future. You don’t really have to spend much on organic food in order to eat healthy. You can just stay away from eating food that is not good for you.
Participate in Wellness Programs
There are now companies that have Wellness Programs in order to encourage their employees to be healthier and more fit. Some companies have opened a gym in the workplace. A healthy employee works better so a lot of companies are on board with the idea of creating an office Wellness Program. This is not limited to having exercise equipment in the office, this also includes providing incentives to employees who were able to implement or promote a healthy lifestyle.
Staying healthy is important. But its importance is elevated when staying healthy also encourages savings.
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