As we enter the warmer days of spring and summer, we tend to focus more on our personal health. Have you ever thought about how your finances may be affecting your personal health? Managing personal finances can be very stressful, especially when you focus on how you’re going to make ends meet. This stress carries over into your health by contributing to high blood pressure, weight gain, depression, and other physical and mental health issues. A tighter budget also affects your health through the food that you buy. When you have less money, you typically buy food that costs less, which are often canned, high in salt, and lacking in nutrients.

If you are struggling to make ends meet and get control of your health, it may help to take the Personal Health and Finance Quiz? This quiz, developed by Barb O’Neill, is a self-assessment that gets you on the right track for good financial and personal health. The survey asks ten questions about your daily health behaviors and ten questions about your daily financial behaviors. At the end of each section, you receive a score. Your initial score becomes a benchmark that you can use as a tool for change.

Your score, whether it’s low or high, provides an opportunity to establish new goals. Start slow, by choosing one habit to adopt. After a month, take the quiz again. As you adopt and establish more habits, you can make changes in both your financial and personal health to improve your score over time. You should also reflect on whether you’ve improved your stress levels, financial security, and health. If you continue to struggle to improve your financial standing or health, or if you need additional information on how to make some of these changes, check out some of our previous posts.

For healthy financial behaviors, you can work on:

• Developing a spending plan
• Creating an emergency fund
• Setting financial goals.

For personal health behaviors, you can work on:

• Getting enough sleep
• Eating your fruits and vegetables
• Enlisting a friend to go on regular walks and hikes.