72% of UK consumers are opting for better food choices in supermarkets while spending on health and fitness in the country is on the rise despite increasing pressure on income. A healthy lifestyle can improve your fitness, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and even boost your mental health. However, can being health conscious help your wallet? Evidence says it can. Here are four ways healthy habits can impact your financial goals, including your plans for getting on the property ladder and your retirement future.
Better Food Decisions = Less Spending
Consumers in the UK spent over £49 billion on eating and drinking out in 2017. This equates to £1,000 per person. In fact, Brits spend more on lunch than utilities. However, healthier eating means savings on the food front. One tip for eating healthy is to choose a packed homecooked lunch where you are aware of all the ingredients and that it is free of preservatives. Doing this can add at least £245 to your bank balance each year. Shopping and cooking at home also saves money in the supermarket, further reducing your monthly food bills. The recommended diet is full of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains; all of which you can consumer for £3 a day. The cost of one meal out can be enough to provide food for 3 or more days.
Your Earning Capacity Improves
Living a healthier lifestyle improves productivity. Eating healthier foods increases your energy and leads to better sleep. A diet rich in whole foods including fruits, lean protein and vegetables will boost energy levels. Multiple studies have linked eating a nutritious breakfast to productivity levels throughout the day. Thanks to increasing convenience in the kitchen, fueling your body with healthy breakfast beverages or meals are now much easier. When you are feeling more rested, you are then able to concentrate and retain information better. All of these positive changes equates to better productivity in the workplace, boosting your earning potential.
It can also boost creativity; spurring ideas and motivation to launch side businesses and pursue other sources of income (and have the energy to keep up with them). This is part of the reasoning behind the growth of corporate wellness programs in workplaces today. Happier, healthier employees are good for business.
Living Healthy Improves Life Expectancy- And Your Credit
Some habits that are a part of living a healthier life include avoiding smoking, monitoring alcohol and sugar intake and exercising. All of these also impact your life expectancy. Living longer can not only mean saving on health insurance but also influence your approval for longer life mortgages, if needed. Longer term mortgages are proving to be a popular way to help people buy a home and also save up to £30,000 on their mortgage overall. Increasing the term of your home loan can decrease your chances of defaulting on payments, falling into debt, damaging your credit scores and simply making your bills more affordable.
Opting For A Healthier Lifestyle Could Protect Your Retirement Funds
The fear of outliving their retirement savings is very real for British consumers, particularly with the younger workforce. It is estimated that you will need to set aside at least £260,000 for their retirement needs in addition to their state pension. Financial firm Key Research puts basic living costs to be approximately £10,830 a year. However, the benefits of being health conscious means fewer healthcare bills, and lower health and life insurance premiums in retirement. Savings like these can be put back into your retirement funds.
Choosing to live a healthier lifestyle is about more than making the healthier choices. It is about improving your present and protecting your future. Better health means a better standard of life, including financially.
Over its 10-year life Bitcoin has been the standard bearer of the new financial revolution. As the baby of the 2008 global financial crash, Bitcoin was launched as a direct challenge to banks and other financial intermediaries – a middle-finger to fiat currency markets. Below Kerim Derhalli from Invstr, provides expert detail on the rise and impact of the prized digital currency.
Enormously popular with those who grew up during that very crash, Bitcoin became an outlet for their anger and rejection of the traditional currency systems. These were people who felt excluded from the club of the global financial elite, an elite who had driven asset prices – stocks, bonds and property – far out of the reach of the ordinary saver. At last here was an asset that they could claim for their own. The early returns were spectacular. A new class of financial investor was born. A digital divide was created.
Bitcoin’s impact has been as much a cultural one as it has been a financial one. The Bitcoin revolution has been defined by self-empowerment and self-direction. Such is the extent of its impact on Internet culture, that there are now entire lexicons dedicated to Bitcoin investing – from ‘HODLing’ (hold on for dear life) and ‘SODLing’ (sell off for dear life) to Bitcoin ‘mining’.
Like many revolutions, Bitcoin’s emergence has resembled a rollercoaster ride. Since its first transaction on 12th January 2009, it has enjoyed enormous growth and now sits at a current value of nearly £5000. With this growth however has come seismic price crashes. Back in November 2013, a single day saw 50% of Bitcoin’s value wiped out – the biggest single-day crash experienced by the cryptocurrency. Similarly catastrophic crashes and corrections have become near-commonplace on the Bitcoin market. Across only three days of trading in April 2013 Bitcoin’s value dropped a staggering 83%.
Bitcoin’s revelatory impact on both the global fiat currency system and internet culture might never have come to be were it not for the very technology which underpins it. In following the bumpy ride of bitcoin over the past ten years, we’ve also come to learn more about its elusive public ledger - blockchain.
The blockchain may have risen to notoriety on Bitcoin’s coattails, but now we find that the financial and tech sectors are waking up to it more generally. We’re seeing more banks, and industries, recognise its potential as a payments system and we’ve even see the world’s first blockchain-drive smartphone from HTC.
Some people have compared blockchain to the infancy of the Internet in 1996. The major difference however being that in 1996 anyone with a browser had access to an infinite source of information. The Internet’s potential as an encyclopaedic resource gave it a driving purpose. Today that mass use case for blockchain is still missing.
This isn’t the only hurdle which blockchain needs to overcome to forge an identity of its own. To truly divorce itself from the price volatility of Bitcoin and the speculative nature of crypto trading we need to see that it can resolve scalability issues as well as help us to overcome security issues more broadly.
For all is pitfalls though, Bitcoin, and by association blockchain, still represent the next phase of the digital revolution. As people continue to reject the traditional top-down approach to information dissemination and finance, Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies and their associated technologies will take human civilisation towards a more self-empowered future.
New research from MoneySuperMarket reveals that a third of Brits (33%) currently use a smart device to monitor their health, capturing data that could help identify health issues and affect the way life insurance premiums are calculated.
With the number of connected wearable devices set to rise further in 2019, MoneySuperMarket research reveals that millennials are most likely to use werable tech to monitor their health, with just under a third of 18-35 year olds using their mobile phones alone. As the trend for fitness tech continues, some insurance providers such as Vitality are already utilising the data gathered – a move which would be favoured by millennials, with three in four (61%) stating they would be comfortable with sharing their data with a life insurance provider.
The research also shows that half (50%) of those surveyed have both a life insurance policy and a health monitoring device. In fact, when looking at the way future life insurance premiums are calculated, over one in 10 Brits (12%) would happily take out a life insurance policy based on the data received solely from a wearable health monitor. For example, Apple watches now include ECG montiors[1]. Those in the West Midlands (15%) and London (12%) are most likely to opt in for this type of policy, with those in the South West being the least likely (five%). However, despite advances in technology, the majority of Brits (65%) would still prefer to take out a life insurance policy via the traditional methods of questionnaires and forms.
An individual’s lifestyle can also play a big part in how much they pay for life insurance. Smokers, for instance, can pay up to 50% more than a non-smoker for their policy[2]. Wearable tech could reduce premiums for those who demonstrate a healthier lifestyle and also provide rewards and incentives for healthy behaviour, such as reaching a specific step count.
Consumer affairs expert at MoneySuperMarket, commented: “Wearables are beginning to have a significant impact on the life insurance market. They build on the well-established premise that a person’s lifestyle and habits play a big role in determining how much they will pay for cover. The logic is simple: use a device to demonstrate your healthy lifestyle and get lower premiums in return.
“Anything that increases the uptake of life insurance has to be a good thing - it’s vital financial protection for family members in the event of a person’s early death. Understandably, many of us shy away from something that confirms our own mortality, but it is crucially important to have cover in place so that bereaved dependants at least have financial resources to call upon.”
(Source: Money Supermarket)
