Invest in your future by considering wellness now
Self-development and health are two key areas to spend on so you’ll come out stronger
Arguably, the two greatest assets you have are your health and income-earning ability — unless you’re near, or in, retirement, in which case the latter would be a retirement nest egg.
It makes sense to nurture these two areas like you would anything you’re growing — a baby, a plant, your investments or a new skill. Costs to invest vary from a few dollars to tens of thousands a year depending on what you’re working towards.
It’s good to spend money on self-development and fitness, particularly given the tight job market and the impact the pandemic has had on our health. But by following a few budgeting benchmarks, you won’t overinvest, especially if money is tight.
The wellness and entertainment portion of an average household budget is around 15 per cent of spending and is where self-development and fitness spending falls within. For an individual, this is where costs for books, gym memberships, courses, coaching, drinks with friends and kayaking day trips would come from. For families, there’s additional spending on children’s activities or couples therapy.
> Follow the three per cent rule for self-development If you need to retool your skills and mindset, consider making relevant investments into self-development, areas that will benefit your work and mental health. For example, if you’re keen to learn better budgeting for your smallbusiness, you may want to invest in money coaching.
Self-development expenses can include courses, webinars, group training, coaching and counselling.
Of your 15 per cent wellness and entertainment budget, it’s a best practice to spend about three per cent on self-development. Here’s the math on that: If you earn $50,000 a year, three per cent is $1,500 annually or $125 a month. Some people like to spread this out over each month, whereas others buy into a onetime purchase, or a combination of both.
This budgeting best practice comes from the entrepreneur community decades ago that found the investment in self development tends to lead to better career opportunities, higher incomes and stronger personal satisfaction.
Formal education like a university or college degree is not included here because those investments are funded through a different process (not a monthly budget); student loans, student lines of credit, savings and the RRSP Lifelong Learning Plan.
> Follow the three per cent rule for fitness The pandemic has drastically reduced spending on this category because gyms
are closed. But, most facilities offer virtual solutions (paid and free), and personal trainers are still delivering sessions via Zoom and Google Hangouts. It’s likely that spending will resume soon.
Again, of the 15 per cent wellness and entertainment budget, the budgeting best practice is to spend no more than three per cent on the fitness category.
So, if you are a family with a household income of $125,000, your spending for the entire family should not exceed $3,750 for the year or $313 a month.
Here’s the truth about fitness spending, though: There is no correlation between how much you spend on fitness and how fit you actually are.
Great fitness can be chalked up to self-discipline, understanding your body and using methods that work for your body type (eg. weightlifting versus long-distance running).
But, there’s a clear correlation between good physical fitness and stronger mental health, and that’s worth making an investment from your budget.
> Don’t overlook free trainings and low-cost courses If making an investment in your self-development or fitness is just not possible right now due to COVID-19, there are plenty of beta tests you can sign up for where instructors are testing out new content, free webinars and YouTube videos. There are also low- to no-cost courses on platforms like Udemy (for adults) or Khan Academy (for kids).
I know you’ve been following the math as you’ve been reading this article; of the 15 per cent wellness and entertainment, we’ve earmarked a total of six per cent to self-development and fitness and that leaves you nine per cent to play around with. If you have consumer debt, it probably makes sense to put a chunk on that, but the rest is really up to you to spend what matters most to you.