Eight ways a healthy lifestyle can improve your finances

This time of year everyone is thinking about getting healthy but have you ever thought about improving your financial fitness
Being healthy improves your bank accountBeing healthy improves your bank account
Being healthy improves your bank account

Surprisingly, making a few small changes to your lifestyle will not only make your bank balance healthier, you might live a bit longer to spend it too! Plus, you get the added incentive of literally earning money by keeping your New Year’s resolution.

How to Improve Your Finances

A healthy lifestyle can help to reduce the cost of life insurance and protection policies such as income protection, critical illness and health insurance.

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The experts from comparison site, MoneyGuru.com have released their top tips for trimming down your financial waistline. So put down the chocolates, and feast on these nuggets of financial wisdom instead…

1. Cut the junk food

Junk food might seem like the cheap and easy option but it is costing you money in the long run. Eating healthily will not only make you feel better it will save you money too. Making a meal-plan for the week or month is good karma and more cost effective too. Buying raw ingredients means you will have healthier meals and you will spend less on pre-prepared food which is full of hidden nasties.

2. Exercise more

You don’t need to pay for an expensive gym. You can go for a walk, take the stairs instead of the lift or even watch a fitness video on YouTube!

Using technology to monitor individual’s behaviour will become more and more common for health insurance providers which is great because it is based on actual evidence rather than assumptions. Some healthcare insurers in the US already offer customers free fitness trackers with the incentives of lowering premiums or other benefits to meet daily exercise goals.

3. Cut out little indulgences

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Try cutting out one thing from your diet, like biscuits or that cheeky glass of wine with dinner. Losing weight and getting healthier can lower the price of your health and life insurance – glorious news for your body and your wallet.

4. Stop smoking

No doubt you’ve heard it all before, saying no to cigarettes will improve your finances and your health? Aside from all of the health related benefits of giving up smoking, if you smoke a pack a day you will spend an average of £3000 a year. Meditate on that!

5. Get enough sleep

Not sleeping for 24 hours can make your body perform as if it is over the alcohol limit for driving. You wouldn’t sort out your finances while you were drunk, so don’t do it without enough sleep. Lack of sleep drives you to make bad decisions – like drastically overpaying for something or not reading small print – and also increases snacking both leading to spending more money that you need to. Rest well and make more enlightened decisions.

6. The secret of success

Richard Branson once said that the key to his productivity was ‘working out’ and he is worth roughly 5 gazillion pounds. It’s true too. Exercising and being generally healthier improves brain functionality (including increasing your memory and helping you to make faster decisions), decreases stress and lessens your chance of dying on the job. Not dying is definitely a wise move.

7. Brag about your achievements!

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Living a healthy lifestyle can help to reduce the cost of protection policies such as life-insurance, income protection, critical illness and health insurance. Life and health insurance take into account your medical history and your lifestyle so being a smoker or overweight can have a dramatic effect on your policy.

If you have recently made a big, enlightened change to your lifestyle make sure that you let your insurer know, or even compare different providers to find one that will reward you for making the change.

8. And finally…

Don’t forget, the fitter you are, the easier it is to chase people that owe you money…

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