Make Improvements Now!

Ask any person what they would like to improve about their lives and the majority of people will say their finances, their health, or both. But how can you really improve one of these goals, let alone both? Does losing 50 pounds or saving $100,000 seem impossible? According to Dwight Lee and Richard McKenzie in their book Getting Rich in America: 8 Simple Rules maintaining good health is a major factor with wealth creation. Don’t let this overwhelm you; the same behaviors that can help you improve your health are the same behaviors that can increase your wealth. That is GREAT news! This means that by making 5 small behavior changes you can ‘hit 2 birds with one stone’ and improve both your health and your wealth. How is this possible? Here’s one example:
Instead of consuming $2.00 per day of junk food, sodas, alcohol or tobacco – invest it. Just $2.00 per day could turn into $201,442.29 (if invested from age 18-65 at a 6 percent rate of return). And you will be saving your body from hundreds of excess calories, sugars, preservatives, and toxins which all lead to obesity, cancers, high blood-pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and many other health issues. With the rising costs of health care, staying healthy is one of the best investments you can make.
According to Barbara O’Neill, Ph.D., CFP, Extension Specialist in Financial Resource Management and Karen Ensle, Ed.D., RD, Family and Community Health Sciences Educator at Rutgers Cooperative Extension there are 25 behavior change strategies for health and wealth (you can read more about all 25 at http://njaes.rutgers.edu/sshw/ ). O’Neill and Ensle suggest to choose 3 or 4 of these strategies and to use them as “action steps”. Here are 3 strategies that will help you get started:

1. Track your current behaviors. Start logging your activities. There are free websites and apps that you can use to make this process easy or just carry a notebook and start writing it down. To log your food consumption and activity I suggest using www.myfitnesspal.com and to track your income and expenses try the free ‘Money Monitor App’ for your phone or download a free excel template.
2. Commit to change. Change is good! To get from your current state to where you want to be, you will need to change your current behaviors. Get excited about this. Imagine how happy and proud you will feel after losing weight and putting money in the bank!
3. Start Now! Make your plan, set a date and don’t procrastinate. Pick 1 small change that you can do tomorrow and make it happen.
For more about the 25 behavior strategies and for more information about improving your health and wealth visit http://njaes.rutgers.edu/sshw/