Millennials have been trend-setters since they first entered their teen years (if not on the day they were born). From avocado toast to plant budgets, from bankrupting casual-dining to waiting longer to start families, millennials have pretty much always done things their own way.
But, millennials have also been coined “the burnout generation” due to their extreme anxiety levels. Perhaps because of this classification, the millennial generation has been more interested than perhaps any other in finding innovative ways to feel better and enjoy life, which has led to the rise of wellness trends.
What is “wellness”?
Wellness trends help you create habits that lead to an overall more fulfilling and healthier lifestyle. Physical wellness may include more exercise, healthier eating, going to the doctor often for regular checkups, avoiding excessive drug use or alcohol, and getting good sleep and rest. The benefits of physical wellness are well-documented, and can result in better weight management, recovery from illness and disease, and increased feelings of physical wellbeing.
Most millennials care about mental wellness just as much as physical wellness, as they’re dealing with increasingly higher rates of mental illness compared to previous generations. Popular mental wellness activities include talk therapy, meditation, yoga, and even self-care through pampering treatments. Prioritizing mental wellness can result in less anxiety and depression, better sleep habits, more control over managing normal stress, and increased productivity.
Practicing and improving your own wellness helps you not just to survive, but to thrive. At Loqbox, we think the next big wellness trend is financial wellness, which spills over into many other areas of life.
What is financial wellness?
Financial wellness, or financial fitness, is the act of creating better financial habits that result in a less stressful, freer lifestyle. Financial fitness can spill over into other areas of your life, such as reducing anxiety about finances, allowing you to purchase gym memberships to get physically fit, and giving you the means to go on a trip or donate to a charity that you feel good about.
As with all wellness trends, financial fitness requires that you dedicate yourself to building habits over a long period of time. Becoming financially fit doesn’t require you to sacrifice everything that makes you happy in life – far from it. Instead, financial fitness requires you to educate yourself about your own personal finances and all the different decisions you have in front of you.
Why should you become financially fit?
Your finances play a huge role in your overall wellbeing. Financial wellness reduces stress, opens up more money to do things that make you feel good, and frees you to practice wellness in other areas of your life. Here are some common benefits of financial wellness that might interest you:
- Ability to own your own home
- Security to deal with unexpected emergencies
- Opportunities down the road like early retirement or a smooth loan approval process
Basically, if you have any goals that require financial resources, becoming financially fit is absolutely essential.
What does financial fitness look like?
Financial fitness looks different for everyone, so you have to decide what becoming financially fit means for you.
Do you want to buy a house in the near future?
Do you want to plan for a secure retirement but enjoy a comfortable lifestyle today?
Do you want to rest easy knowing you have the credit score and eligibility to get approved for a car loan or personal loan if you need it?
Improving your financial fitness can help you live a healthier lifestyle and balance several priorities at once. If you have goals that require financial fitness and you’re raring to get started, here are 5 habits to start building financial fitness into your wellness routine today:
1. Budget
Tracking your spending is essential to working toward financial fitness. Just like you would track your weight, amount of exercise, and calorie intake to observe your physical wellness progress, it’s important to do the same with your spending habits.
Keeping a detailed budget can identify areas of excessive spending. Once you see just how much you’re spending on eating out or buying new clothes you don’t really need, you can start to change these habits and end up saving hundreds of dollars per month.
2. Pay your bills first
You might be tempted to let your bills sit on the counter, unopened, not bothering anyone… But one day, when those bills have been sitting innocently on the counter for weeks or (eek!) even months, you might find your electricity gets turned off, and no one wants to experience that. When you get a bill, open it right away so you can plan for it in your budget. And on payday, pay those bills first!
3. Pay down high-interest debt
You should also start paying down high-interest debt as soon as possible and as much as you can. High interest rates are costing you precious dollars that could otherwise be used toward a down payment or other savings goal. As you become better at budgeting, reallocate some of that discretionary spending to your high-interest debt payments, and get it taken care of.
4. Boost your savings
If you don’t have high-interest debt (or no emergency fund yet), you can also take that extra money from your better budgeting habits and boost your savings categories. Whether you’re saving up an emergency fund, a down payment, or for your next exotic vacation, it’s better to save up for these things rather than pay them down later with a costly credit card balance.
5. Improve your credit score
Having good credit is an important component of financial wellness. Not only does a good credit score reduce your cost of credit by qualifying you for lower interest rates, but it also opens up tons of opportunities down the road, such as applying for a mortgage loan and becoming a homeowner, getting approved for a credit card with higher limits or great travel rewards, or even earning discounts based on your good credit.
How Loqbox can help you become more financially fit
If you need to build credit history or want to improve your score, Loqbox is a great option. Loqbox is a free tool that allows you to build credit history while saving money, so you’d be killing two financial wellness birds with one stone! Learn more about how Loqbox can start you on the path to financial wellness here.
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