Taking care of your physical and mental health will let you enjoy a longer, more fulfilling retirement. It will also improve your financial freedom, possibly allowing you to retire early.
Have you ever heard the phrase “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is right now.” You can’t do anything about not getting started in the past but you do control getting started right now. It’s a great reminder that no matter how long you’ve put something off for, you can still start implementing that incredible new habit right now and reap the benefits.
The same holds true for your finances. If you’ve never put anything away for retirement, right now is the best time to get started. Not tomorrow or next year. Right now!
Your physical and mental health fits perfectly into the phrase as well. If you haven’t been taking care of yourself, right now is the best time to start! Don’t beat yourself up for not eating healthy ten years ago. Focus on the present where you have control over your actions.
Did this just turn into a health and wellness blog??? Not at all! My focus is on your financial freedom. There are many other individuals much more qualified in nutrition and fitness than me. But guess what? Keeping your body and mind functioning at a high level affects your finances in major ways. The best way to save money in the future is to take care of yourself today. It doesn’t matter to me which method you use to eat healthy food or how you work out to keep up strength and cardio fitness. If you need some motivation to get started with those healthy habits, maybe approaching it from a financial point of view will get you moving.
The best way to save money in the future is to take care of your health today.
How does being unhealthy cost you financially?
First, it impacts your lifetime earnings.
Unhealthy people earn less than healthy people. I don’t know if it’s due to unconscious bias by employers to pay unhealthy people less or if its attributed to an unhealthy person working at a lower productivity level and having to take more time off because of illness. Either way, studies have shown a clear correlation: healthy employees make 28% more than unhealthy employees.
If you are unhealthy for 16 to 20 years of your life, the authors of the National Bureau of Economic Research study estimate you are costing yourself $3,551.45 a year between lower earnings and additional medical costs. If you were to be healthy and invest the $3,551.45 a year earning 8%, you will have an extra $434,505 over 30 years!
Second, your unhealthy habits are increasing your current expenses every year.
Cigarettes and tobacco are expensive! If you smoke a pack a day, that’s about $2,548 out of your wallet every year. You’re missing out on $311,737 after 30 years.
A twelve-pack of beer might seem cheap but if you drink a 12 pack every few nights it’ll add up to $1,090 a year out of your pocket. Instead, you could have $133,357 after 30 years.
These extra expenses compound with your lower earnings and higher medical costs to keep you poor when you are unhealthy.
Third, you’re going to have higher medical expenses.
If you aren’t part of a group health insurance plan, your monthly premiums will be much higher than a healthy person’s. That’s a very real risk since unhealthy people only have a 70% participation rate versus 90% for healthy individuals.
Smokers will pay about 14% more in premiums.
Obese people will pay 22.6% more in premiums.
While Medicare will offset many costs as you enter retirement, you have to first make it to age 65. Medicare doesn’t help if you are chronically ill and unable to work prior to 65.
Here’s even more reason why there’s no time like RIGHT NOW to get started – the probability of a person moving from bad health to good health declines monotonically the longer the person remains unhealthy. (It’s ok, I had to look up “monotonically” too!)
Finally, there is some good news related to all of the retirement money you’ll be missing out on for being unhealthy: you won’t live long enough for it to be an issue! According to a study published in Health Affairs, unhealthy individuals die twelve years earlier than someone who didn’t smoke, isn’t obese, and drinks only moderately. So you have that going for you.
Financial Wrap-up
Hopefully, you’re committed to living a healthy lifestyle. Among many other benefits, it will help you reach financial independence much earlier! Between higher wages, lower medical costs, and not wasting money on bad habits, you could have an additional $879,599 for retirement!
Imagine if you needed $40,000 a year in retirement. You could withdraw 5% of that $879,000 and fully fund your expenses! Social security would purely be a bonus, and it would all be from starting healthy habits right now.
Steps to take
Ok, so you’re on board with being healthy and reaching financial independence years earlier. There are many different ways to accomplish the following steps, so google away and see what works for you. The important part is to remember that right now is the best time to get started!
Get enough sleep each night.
Lack of sleep leads to poor decision making. Staying up for 24 hours is the same as performing with a 0.1% blood alcohol content – legally too drunk to drive!
Eat healthy food.
You don’t have to eat 100% clean seven days a week. Start with committing to one good, healthy meal a day. Meal plan one day a week. That’s where you cook up enough to eat for several days and divide it up right away into the separate servings in Tupperware. There are all kinds of tricks to eat better food. Find a couple you like and stick to them. Once you get used to the new habit, expand it to the other meals of the day. Future you will be thankful.
Drinks lots of water.
There’s a common health adage that you shouldn’t drink any calories, and I believe it holds true. Water (zero calories) should be your go-to drink of choice. Coffee and tea are low calorie. Sodas and fruit juices? Full of empty calories. All they do is add to your waistline.
Strength train a couple days a week.
If going to the gym for an hour is unrealistic for you, then don’t commit to that! Do body weight exercises during commercials. Any kind of strength training is infinitely better than vegging out on the couch watching tv.
Perform low-level cardio several times a week.
These are easy, low-impact movements like walking, biking, or swimming. Walking might not feel like it’s doing much but it has a huge impact on your health and body weight. One of my best friends lost 80 pounds by walking; it was literally the only thing he changed about his lifestyle! If you can’t go for an hour walk after work, then get shorter walks in throughout the day: park at the far end of the parking lot or take the stairs instead of the elevator. It all adds up!
Finally, do one high-energy cardio session a week.
This could be a HIIT workout (high-intensity interval training), sets of burpees, jumping rope, or going for a run. Depending on your fitness level, or lack thereof, you may not be able to do high-energy cardio until you’ve implemented more of the other steps first.
Do those six steps consistently and you’ll be amazed at the person you become.
- Get enough sleep.
- Eat healthy food.
- Drink water.
- Strength train twice a week.
- Do some low-level cardio a few times a week
- Do high-energy cardio once a week.
Not only will you be able to retire earlier due to cost-savings but you’ll have a more fulfilling retirement as a healthy person.
This is the one life you get: make it the best it can be!
By the way, it goes the other way, too – your finances affect your health. If you are stressed about your financial situation it leads to all kinds of health issues. My advice? Attack it from both sides – use the tips in this article to get your health on the right track and start with this article to get your financial house in order.