Navigating A Wholesome Lifestyle On A Budget
It is no secret that maintaining health can have numerous financial costs and many fitness or wholesome living enthusiasts spend a lot of money on food, health products, and the like. The unfortunate consequence is it can be extremely difficult to navigate a wholesome lifestyle on a budget and poorer members of society often struggle.
In this article, we explore why maintaining a healthy lifestyle costs money, what you can do to improve your budgeting, and how to combat issues like bad credit if things go wrong.
Let’s discover how to navigate a wholesome lifestyle on a budget.
Cost of Healthy Food vs Cost of Unhealthy Food
The biggest point of contention when it comes to a wholesome lifestyle on a budget is food. There are many reasons why wholesome food is more expensive:
- Farming processes are more expensive when producing free range/organic produce,
- Ingredients for healthy foodstuffs are more expensive – higher price tags on end products,
- Agriculture is more scalable when cutting corners so more unhealthy food is available, keeping prices lower,
- The cost-of-living crisis and food inflationary pressures.
From the perspective of low-income individuals, it is a no brainer to buy pre-made chicken nuggets at a fraction of the cost than buying the ingredients separately to make them at home.
Many unhealthy foodstuffs are also chemically enhanced rather than using natural ingredients. This is because chemicals are much cheaper to add than naturally sourced ingredients.
Maintaining Other Healthy Habits
Alongside a food regime, healthy conscious people like to live in a wholesome way. Sometimes this saves us a lot of money, for example, smoking and drinking large volumes of alcohol are a surefire way to drain your income.
Other aspects of healthy living, however, often far offset any savings from clean living. Gym memberships and sports and leisure activities often come at a cost. For example, cycling has become hugely popular, but the equipment and add-ons for cycling enthusiasts can easily reach many thousands of pounds.
Outside of fitness activities, wholesome living also encompasses overall health, and individuals who care about their health are more likely to seek out healthcare and health related products, adding another financial component to the budget.
Understanding How to Budget
When budgeting, there are several tried and tested methods. The simplest of which is to calculate your exact income and then track your expenditure over the course of time, normally using an app.
These apps are extremely useful tools as they catch all expenditure, and you might realise you are spending money regularly on products you took for granted in your overall budget.
A common point of expenditure people overlook is the snack or coffee they grab on the way into work each morning. Something that could be mitigated easily by eating or making coffee at home before you leave for work.
Subscription services are so prevalent now that almost any service offers some type of subscription model. These services often add-on to free offerings from providers such as YouTube Premium and Amazon Prime.
When evaluating your subscriptions, you should really consider whether they are necessary and whether the amount you are being charged on an annual basis is equivalent to the level of service you are receiving.
For example, YouTube Premium is £155.88 a year. Although it might slightly enhance your YouTube experience, it is at the end of the day a bolt-on to a free package. It all comes down to that key question; is the annual cost of your subscription worth it?
Avoid Borrowing Money Unless Necessary
We have touched on ways you can reduce your monthly expenditure, but there may also be times when you have done everything you can to balance your budget and still have a shortfall.
This is where most people decide to borrow money.
Borrowing money should never be your go-to option when you find a shortfall in your budget. Primarily, you should revisit your budget and be harsher with your expenditures and live to your means. The short-term pain of being a bit more frugal is nothing compared to the long-term pain debt problems can create.
You should also be looking at ways to generate more money. Cutting back expenditure is fine, but eventually you will want to afford the things you have cut back on. This can be as simple as asking for a pay rise, applying for a promotion, or seeking a new higher paying job.
The general rule is you should only borrow money when you absolutely must, and you should be setting some money aside each month in savings or investments to keep in case a financial emergency pops up in the future.
Bad Credit and Healthy Living
You may be surprised to know that bad credit impacts people from all walks of life. Although bad credit problems are more prevalent in poorer communities, many people we would consider rich have credit issues.
A credit issue is when a lender feels the risk of lending to you is too high. You can be exorbitantly rich but if a lender feels the risk of the loan is too high, you will be declined. You may be surprised to learn many affluent people also have bad credit scores, mostly due to poor money management.
Dealing With Bad Credit for Wellbeing
Bad credit problems are notoriously difficult to cope with and if you are trying to live a healthy lifestyle, you will want to avoid the stress and mental anguish associated with debt.
To tackle bad credit, you should:
- Keep up with monthly payments,
- Clear down credit cards and store cards,
- Restrict further borrowing unless it is absolutely needed,
- Register to vote,
- Make use of credit builder loans, if they are affordable.
Financial Options to Build Credit and Grow
There is now a bad credit comparison website in the UK designed specifically to help those with bad credit find affordable loans and rebuild their credit with credit builder loans.
Always consider your financial goals and your overall budget when considering borrowing and ensure you keep up with any repayments on a credit builder loan. Failing to do so will further damage your credit score.
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