5 Ways Making (and Sticking With) a Budget Can Be Good for Your Health

If you’re feeling stressed about your finances, you’re not alone.

A2020年美国心理学协会（APA）的压力报告showed that 64 percent of adults say money is a significant source of stress in their life. And only 39 percent of Americans could comfortably cover an unexpected $1,000 expense with their savings, according to a2021 surveycarried out by financial publisher and comparison service Bankrate.

对于许多人来说，经济压力仅在大流行期间增加2021 PWC survey. And when it comes to our health, that’s not a good thing.

“财务稳定对生存非常重要，”希拉·道德（Sheila Dowd），博士, associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Rush Medical College in Chicago. “The fear related to that can trigger a stress response.”

Our bodies respond to stress by releasing hormones that elevate blood glucose, and raise blood pressure and heart rate, explainsLewis Coleman, MD, a board-certified anesthesiologist based in Glendora, California, who studies stress theory in mammals. “This can all be triggered by emotional adversity due to financial stress,” he says.

Some stress is good.bob bet体育 is our body’s response to changes or challenges,per the Cleveland Clinic. It helps us respond to and cope with life’s daily challenges; heightened anxiety when you’re running late, for example, motivates you to hurry up.

But stress becomes harmful if the stress response outsizes the actual challenge or stressor, or if the stress response never gets turned off (creating chronic stress).

Dowd博士说：“如果没有解决方案，急性应力可能会变成慢性应激。”

And financial stress is hard to turn off — it lingers in your thoughts even when you’re doing something unrelated. You might know for months that you’re underwater on your mortgage or don’t have enough to pay for an emergency, and this becomes chronic stress.

Chronic stress can increase your risk of chronic conditions such asanxiety,depression,心脏疾病， 和高血压,notes the Mayo Clinic.

And chronic stress tends to be cumulative, Dowd says. “The more chronic the stress, the harder it is on the body.”

尽管财务压力会影响所有人，但它不成比例地影响黑人，土著和有色人种（BIPOC）社区的个人2020年10月由哈里斯民意调查进行的调查代表美国人员协会。调查发现，黑人和西班牙裔美国人比白人美国人更有可能担心能够支付租金或抵押，学生贷款和托儿服务。

While the reasons behind financial insecurity are complex — and it may not be feasible to eliminate financialbob bet体育 — it may be possible to change your emotional response to it.

Specifically, Dr. Coleman says quieting your stress response and relieving anxiety can help. Coleman and Dowd agree that one way to combat financial stress is to create a budget.

“An action like that could help the person feel more secure, help the future feel less uncertain and therefore reduce the stress and anxiety related to an uncertain financial situation,” Dowd says.

The Health Benefits of Budgeting

According toNorthwestern Mutual's 2019 Planning and Progress Study，有92％的美国人18岁以上说，没有什么比他们的财务状况更幸福或更自信的生活。

But what can a budget specifically do for other measures of health and well-being?

1. Budgeting can reduce the physical symptoms of stress.预算可以帮助您控制自己准备储蓄和退休的程度，并让您知道自己的目标 - 根据一个目标过去的评论，可能有助于减少存在的恐惧和焦虑。如果预算可以帮助您控制控制，它可以帮助您放松，道德说：“它使人们受到控制并有计划。”当某人开始觉得自己有计划时，他们更有可能觉得自己在某种情况下拥有代理机构并感到更加控制 - 这通常是压力的解毒剂。她说，因为这将有助于降低压力反应，所以身体症状（例如肌肉张力，胃痛和血压升高）也应缓解。
2. Budgeting may support healthy immunity.科尔曼说，有助于减轻压力的事情（例如预算）可以帮助减轻对免疫系统的压力。当您感到受到威胁时，您的身体将进入生存（战斗或逃跑）模式，将能量消耗重定向到最关键的功能，这意味着对抗慢性病和消化的免疫系统部分的一部分。科尔曼说，一旦您的战斗或飞行响应被关闭，您的身体就可以恢复到平静的基线状态，在这种状态下，所有这些较弱的身体功能都可以恢复到档位。这就是为什么当压力减轻时，您可能会注意到自己的感觉和看起来更健康，并且不会经常生病。
3. 预算可以帮助您的医疗保健。Your budget can literally make you healthier if you set aside money for activities and appointments that are good for your health — think regular checkups, preventive care, therapy sessions,gym memberships, massages,健康的杂货， 和更多。为了预算医疗保健费用，U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends考虑使用药物使用，您通常会在一年内安排哪些医生约会，以及您打算完成的任何程序以及与您的保险计划相关的保费，可扣除和共付额或共同保险。
4. Budgeting can help you not overextend yourself.Not overextending yourself financially can help you not overextend yourself emotionally. Saying “no” to plans and obligations can be hard to do, but taking on too much can lead toburnout，这可能对您的健康征税。说“这个月我的预算中没有空间”可以帮助您更加参与健康self-care您确实决定花时间（和金钱）的练习。道德说：“希望有了预算，您将在脑海中实现这么长期的目标，并且您将忠于预算而不是超支的成就。”
5. Budgeting can help you build the life you wish to live.“When you have a budget that reflects your personal values, it can go a long way toward making you feel happier,” saysMandi Woodruff-Santos, a financial journalist and cohost of theBrown Ambition personal finance podcast. “If you love spending $500 a month at Sephora or going to a Broadway show every month and that is essential to your happiness and that is the life you want to lead, make a budget that can accommodate that.” Plus, a研究于2016年发表心理科学suggested money can actually improve happiness when spending aligns with the buyer’s personality. The study found that introverted people were more likely to be happier after spending money on an activity or hobby that they could enjoy alone, while extroverted people reported feeling happier after spending money on a social experience.

如何开始简单的预算

According to a2021年由债务进行的调查, 80 percent of Americans reported that they had a budget — up from 68 percent in 2019.

But for many, making and sticking with a budget can be difficult, saysClaire Wasserman，基于纽约市金融教育平台的创始人Ladies Get Paid.

It can cause you to feel shame for overspending or undersaving, she says. The goal is to reduce your financial stress, not add to it with an unrealistic, punitive budget, so Wasserman says be goal-oriented, rather than scarcity-oriented. “Look at budgeting as an opportunity to make financial decisions that are aligned with who you are and how you want to live your life,” she says.

Creating too rigid of a budget — one that doesn’t allow life to happen — sets you up to fail, because when you see you’re not hitting your inflexible goals, it can feel like you’re never making any progress, adds Woodruff-Santos. “Budgeting can be as helpful or as hurtful if you do it wrong.”

记住,没有所谓的一刀切fits-all budget, Woodruff-Santos says. Your age, location, living situation, family size, and goals will all affect your budget. And your budget needs to realistically fit your situation if it’s going to work.

Woodruff-Santos and Wasserman both agree the 50-20-30 rule is a good starting point.

First popularized by Senator Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi in their 2005 bookAll Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, this budget focuses on broadstrokesrather than penny-by-penny tracking. To get started with the 50-20-30 rule, take all of your income after tax and divide it into three groups: essentials (50 percent), savings (20 percent), and wants (30 percent).

Woodruff-Santos also suggests zero-sum budgeting (or zero-based budgeting), in which you’ll allocate all the money you earn into either living expenses, savings, or debt repayment, according to personal finance toolnerdwallet. “It literally gives every dollar in your budget a ‘job’ to do and makes you feel in control,” she says.

另一种选择是直接与财务计划者或货币教练合作。您可以找到提供无偿指导的财务规划师列表财务计划基金会.

不管您使用什么预算,烤及时注册ularly recalibrate (Woodruff-Santos has a quarterly calendar alert) so that your budget reflects your actual needs, wants, and personal goals, even if they change. For example, during the holiday season, you might spend more money on purchasing gifts for your loved ones, or ahead of a large purchase like a house, you might want to allocate more money to your savings. It’s okay to allow for this kind of flexibility in your budget, says Dowd: “You can always circle back and rework the budget to include this added expense.”

Remember, the goal here is to reduce stress and increase control so you can experience the maximum health benefits of budgeting, not to mention get the most out of your money — whatever that means for you. Woodruff-Santos says the only way to be successful is to be flexible: “You’re a human whose lifestyle changes, so let’s account for that.”