Healthier and richer: the win-win strategy

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you had to choose between healthier or cheaper? Maybe it was that one time you decided to eat that frozen pizza instead of that healthy bio salad because it was cheaper? Or maybe you decided to not get that gym subscription because you felt like your wallet could not afford it? Finding the right balance between health and spendings can be a hard thing. But difficult doesn’t mean impossible. We want to take you on a journey to a healthier and richer lifestyle: the perfect win-win strategy combining enough movement with healthy food and habits.

Movement

For those who have been putting off sports with the excuse that taking classes or going to the gym is too expensive, we are here to tell you that all you need is motivation. Moving on a daily basis is the key to a healthier life. Doing sports outside not only helps you save money but it gives you the chance to get some fresh air too. If you are the kind of person that needs to follow a class to be motivated enough, there are many free online classes and health-supportive apps out there to try out. No excuses anymore. If you don’t live too far from work, walking or cycling to work can be a great way to improve your health too while decreasing your transportation costs and your ecological footprint. Turn exercise into a habit and you’ll see in the long run that keeping up with your physical health brings many advantages along with it, including reduced health care costs and increased productivity at work.

Food

We all have those days where we are tempted to eat that one thing that we know is bad for us but we simply cannot resist. In general, we should try to adopt healthy food patterns to take care of our bodies. To start with the biggest killers, this means cutting down on junk food, processed food, sugary drinks, desserts, and snacks while replacing them with healthier food. While it is commonly said that fast food is cheap, you’ll be surprised to see that the difference in price between fast food and a home-cooked meal might not end up being that big at all. Once you realize that if you play it smart by using commonly known cheap and healthy types of food, such as brown rice, eggs, spinach, and beans, you will not easily want to go back to your old ways. On top of that, the cooking process can be a very relaxing activity after a hard day of studying or work.

For the greener minds amongst the blog readers, the next way to support your healthier and richer strategy will definitely be an interesting one. Over the past years more and more companies have started to become committed to reducing food waste. Too Good to Go is an upcoming app currently available in around 14 European countries, that connects stores that have leftovers by the end of the day with customers who are interested in buying them at a lower price. This is the ultimate win-win situation, giving the customer a chance to save up some money while not downgrading to unhealthy food, giving store owners the option to sell leftovers instead of throwing them away, and helping the environment through food waste reduction. Another similar app that is worth checking out is Olio. This app allows you to connect with the community around you to enable sharing of surplus food and other items that you might not necessarily use anymore.

Habits

Lastly, there are many possible healthy habits to adopt to give your lifestyle a positive twist while costing you nothing or even saving you money. The first thing you should do is identify your major unhealthy and costly habits. This could be smoking, drinking alcohol or caffeine, or gambling. Once you have created your own list of unhealthy habits, you should set your mind to unlearn them and replace them with healthier habits. To give you a more concrete example, imagine you have the habit of going out too much. By eliminating this unhealthy habit you will save money and regain essential sleep through a proper sleeping pattern. At the same time, the extra time you now have on your hands in the evenings can instead be used to take a breath, relax and reflect, whether it be through mindfulness, meditation, yoga, or even breathing exercises. Practicing any of these habits will contribute to your ability to better manage stress, reflect on events that are happening in your life, and overall just feel like you are more in control of your future.

While today’s focus was specifically on adopting a healthier and richer strategy, for those interested in other ways to save money, make sure to check out our blog 4 ways to save money better than you ever did before.