How My Good Saving Habits Motivated Me to Improve My Fitness

Applying my foundation in finance to propel my fitness goals

Do you ever feel like you’re excelling in one aspect of your life but neglecting another? What if you could use your strength to help you improve your weakness?

For years, I’ve shared a positive relationship with money but experienced a negative relationship with my declining fitness.

I’ve always been an avid saver with my finances. To this day, I sometimes still have the “broke college student” mentality and portion a majority of my income to savings. While my income has increased, I keep my expenses to a minimum and try not to engage in lifestyle inflation.

But with my fitness lifestyle and diet, I had always put this on the backburner. Whenever I received lectures about my diet and weight from family members, I’d drift into la-la land, waiting for the conversation to end. I readied my typical excuses of I’m trying to focus on my career, I don’t have time, or I’ll do it later. But when I stepped back to examine my financial habits, I realized its parallels with fitness. Noticing the similarities motivated me to change my habits in fitness to live a healthier lifestyle too.

Below are 4 similarities I noticed between finance and fitness that helped motivate me to start creating healthier habits.

1. Both finance and fitness require discipline

Saving requires discipline. In the age of credit cards, it’s easy to spend money you don’t have and pay the monthly minimum. But creating good habits in finance means you pay off your credit cards in full each month.

I remember a conversation in college with a friend who said I was lucky to have a $7,500 credit card limit.

“If I had that high of a limit, I’d buy everything.”

Well, just because I have a high limit doesn’t mean I’m going to use all of it. Not even close. In addition to paying my credit cards in full each month, I set aside a percentage of my paycheck directly for savings, investments, and retirement contributions. I stick to a budget and practice living below my means, which ultimately decreases my financial stress.

Likewise, fitness requires discipline. I harbored the mentality that tracking calories equaled toxic behavior or a dangerous habit. But when I started using the MyFitness app, it helped me track the calories and nutrients I needed. My lopsided nutrition shocked me (hint: my grams of protein were abysmal). And when my alarm rang, I kept thinking I’m only five minutes away from the gym, I’m almost there! I squeezed in daily walks during my lunch break and called family and friends to help pass the time. Multitasking for the win!

I realized I needed to apply the same amount of discipline I did in my finances to my fitness. Because I had already established good habits with my finances, it became natural. Slowly, my new habits in fitness didn’t seem like a dread.

2. It’s okay to splurge

While I don’t say this to myself every day or I would destroy my savings, I am guilty of it occasionally. It’s important to pay off all your debt and increase your savings goals. But little rewards along the way are beneficial.

I tend to splurge on dining out (on items that I confidently know I can never cook for myself no matter how hard I tried). Secondly, I’m inclined to splurge on travel due to fly home for the holidays and spoil myself with vacations. Looking at the big picture, these splurges represent only a tiny fraction of my income since I don’t dine out everyday or travel monthly. My splurges have to 100% benefit myself, the only person I need to impress.

Fitness is personal. It is my body after all and solely benefits me when I take care of myself. It’s okay to indulge in dessert, drinks, and other treats. I’ve applied the 80/20 rule. In “The 80/20 Diet,” Australian nutritionist, chef, and personal trainer Teresa Cutter writes that you can lose weight if you eat nutritiously 80 percent of the time and allow yourself to indulge in less healthy food for the remaining 20 percent of your meals. While I’m not perfect, this is a health goal I strive for.

Just like I don’t beat myself up over my spending splurges, I do the same with my fitness lifestyle. If I don’t exercise for the whole weekend, it’s okay. If I’m drinking a boba drink once a week, I savor every sip. But it’s about keeping a balance in my lifestyle so I can progress on my path to success.

3. Planning is the key to success

As Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

This is true in numerous facets of life, especially finance and fitness. You don’t acquire a cushiony retirement account or save a hefty down payment for a house overnight. Planning is essential.

I always ask myself what are my financial goals for this year? For the next 5 years? For my retirement? Speaking to my 401k advisor, we strategized on my long-term goal to purchase a home. He suggested I “practice” paying a mortgage. For example, if my mortgage would be $2000, and my current rent is $1500, I would pretend to pay an extra $500 each month. If that amount was doable, I would know ahead of time that I would not struggle to make the mortgage payment. And another plus, I’d have thousands of dollars saved up to contribute to my down payment.

When I moved to Seattle, my nonexistent cooking skills and a few burnt dishes discouraged me from cooking more. Dining out in a new city became a favorite activity. Meeting new friends over a meal and no clean up in the kitchen resulted in daily temptations to avoid meal prepping. But once I researched healthy recipes and bought ingredients that could fit in multiple meals, the cooking developed into an enjoyable habit. I planned my workouts to occur every other day made a conscious effort to balance with strength training, HIIT workouts, or an easy walk (when I was sore all over).

Planning for my financial goals always seemed like a set formula and easy to implement. I often dreading planning my fitness goals simply because I didn’t enjoy it. I rarely looked forward to exercising or all that kitchen clean up. But once I started planning my exercise and diet plans, the rest of my week would run smoothly.

4. Educate Yourself

It’s vital and humbling to learn what you don’t know. Seek out experts in the fields you’re weak in to improve and inform yourself.

My parents always encouraged me to save, but I never received an in-depth conversation on the specifics. I binged videos of Dave Ramsey discussing the baby steps and common financial problems callers needed advice on. This helped me piece together the “why” on securing a $1000 emergency fund. Most of my jobs in my early career did not provide a retirement program. But once I joined a company that did provide a 401(k) benefit, I worked with a 401(k) advisor and reviewed Vanguard’s resources to educate myself.

Joining a gym always intimidated me. I didn’t know any strength training workouts or how to use the machines. So I sought out experts who were well-versed in proper strength training techniques and form. I started going to the gym with friends who didn’t fumble with the machines like I did, and also watched numerous videos on the best exercises for my body.

Just like with my savings, once I acquired more knowledge, the more fire I had inside me. Once I grasped the basics in strength training, I felt like I was off to the races.

The parallel between creating healthy habits in finances and fitness surprised me with the scary similarities. But once I realized the resemblances, it provided me with increasing confidence to pursue my fitness goals.

I also realized that a lot of my friends fall into one category: excellent with finances or excellent with fitness, but rarely both. Recognizing your strengths in one area of your life can motivate you to pursue excellence in an area you’re currently weak in — but are ready to conquer!