{"id":17707,"date":"2019-05-15T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17707"},"modified":"2019-05-13T08:09:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T15:09:33","slug":"health-with-tess-from-financial-hell-to-financial-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/05\/15\/health-with-tess-from-financial-hell-to-financial-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Health with Tess<\/em>: From financial hell to financial health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You\nknow what people never talk about? Financial health. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time, only a couple of years ago, I had just under $5 and some laundry-card credit to my name. I hadn\u2019t even spent money on fun\u2014it was purely the cost of responsibilities. Not my best moment, but it did inspire (scare?) me into researching strategies for better financial health. Here are some things I\u2019ve found useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Health with Tess<\/em> is a column about health issues; it appears in every issue of Nexus<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Putting\n10 percent of my income and 50 percent of any financial gifts into a\nsavings account is the best financial tip I\u2019ve ever heard. Do I\nalways manage it? No. Sometimes it\u2019s five percent of my income; if\nit\u2019s been a rough month then maybe it\u2019s zero percent. What I do\nknow is that when my car develops a problem or when tuition hits\nhard, I feel less panic. If I have money sitting in my chequing\naccount, I know I\u2019ll find a way to spend it. When it isn\u2019t there,\nno can do. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\none may sound obvious, but paying off credit cards every month is so\nkey. I get it: Victoria is expensive. So is the interest rate you can\nget slammed with. The best thing I\u2019ve found for solving this one is\nactually removing credit cards from my wallet if I know an impulse\nbuy might tempt me. If I don\u2019t have the piece of plastic that\nenables me to buy 10 new books, suddenly I\u2019m less impulsive. Fewer\nimpulse buys means smaller bills, and smaller bills are easier to\npay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redefine\nwhat \u201ctreating yourself\u201d means to you. This one is hard but so\nworth it. For example, if you are a food lover, try inviting people\nover for a little potluck instead of eating out somewhere, even if\nthe place is cheap. If you go to the movies just for the popcorn, buy\nkernels and make it yourself at home. Do you love the cake from the\nbakery around the corner? Learn to make microwave brownies. Treats\nadd up quickly. Savour the little things. It makes treats feel that\nmuch more special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nare many more ways to work on financial health; the trick is in\nfinding what works best for you. It feels weirdly good in an adulting\nway to have a money cushion for when times get tough. Nobody wants to\nbe the person who has only $5 and some laundry-card credit to their\nname. It\u2019s worth it to develop the tools that can help you avoid\nthat situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know what people never talk about? Financial health. Once upon a time, only a couple of years ago, I had just under $5 and some laundry-card credit to my name. I hadn\u2019t even spent money on fun\u2014it was purely the cost of responsibilities. Not my best moment, but it did inspire (scare?) me into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-may-15-2019-issue"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17708,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17707\/revisions\/17708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}