Financial wellness is more than the absence of financial stressors like excessive debt or lack of savings. Financial wellness means practicing healthy financial habits. The first step to financial wellness is taking a proactive approach to your finances.
What are “healthy” financial habits?
Some examples of healthy financial habits include:
- Putting money aside in an emergency fund
- Contributing to a retirement account
- Getting rid of high-interest debt like credit cards
A substantial portion of the US population is what we would call, financially unwell. Most Americans do not have enough saved to handle a $500 unexpected expense. Americans have more debt than ever before, because of debts like credit cards, auto, and student loans.
What Causes Financial Stress?
There are many ways that finances can cause stress.
Some examples include:
- Not being sure if you can pay all of your bills
- Consistently making late payments
- Watching interest accumulate on your debt
These types of financial stressors will and do easily cause physical health problems. Sleep problems and increased anxiety and depression can be a result. Financial stress will often lead to poor work performance and a lack of productivity due to fatigue and the distractions caused by these stresses.
What is Financial Wellness in the Workplace?
Employers that recognize the importance of financial wellness can implement financial wellness programs, like MoneyWellth, to help educate their employees on important financial topics – from buying a home, to having a baby. In addition to providing the proper resources, access to tools like MoneyWellth’s budgeting app can give employees the ability to tracking their spending, create budgets, and build better money habits.
Practicing Financial Wellness
Financial wellness is developing smart financial habits that allow for economic resiliency. Learning and practicing simple money habits that lead to financial success. Financial wellness means looking at your finances holistically and evaluating your personal or family’s financial position in all areas: debt, savings, insurance, retirement, investments, credit, and loans.
Conclusion
Most of us were never taught how to develop these positive money habits. Here at MoneyWellth, our mission is financial education, to give you the tools to create positive financial habits. We take your priorities and concerns and offer you instruction and resources that allow you to develop smart money habits. Our vision is to empower financial consumer knowledge and help turn America into a financially resilient population.