Be in Good Health with Money Saved: Let’s Start from Yourself
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably in working age. What if you could turn back time to when you were a university student—the time when you can spoil yourself to the fullest extent, you could even stay up late at night without affecting your health? However, when you reach a working age, just walking up the stairs to reach a sky train station even makes you grasp for air. And now, you realize that your health is not the same anymore.
It seems to be just a slight physical change, but you should never ignore it, because no one wants to get sick. So, this article will be giving you ways to “Be in Good Health with Money Saved,” which you can start from yourself. If you’ve prepared since an early stage of life, whether in terms of physical or financial care, it’ll surely lessen your concerns to a great extent when you’re unavoidably being admitted to a hospital.
How to reduce risk factors in health?
Sickness is inevitable, yet it’s something we can prevent ourselves from by ensuring that the following 3 things have been consistently fulfilled.
- Eating nutrient-dense foods – Each dish you consume needs to be rich in five groups of nutrients and vitamins with less fried carbs, and more vegetables and fruits—a so-called healthy appetizer or dessert. Let’s change meal habits by having fruits from time to time or every other day, allowing the body to absorb nutrients better without forcing yourself.
- Have sufficient sleep – Each day, no matter how long you have slept, it’s not as important as how quality of your sleep was. If you have much time to sleep (i.e. sleep for a long period of time), but still waking up without feeling fresh, and instead you even feel that you need to sleep more (low sleep quality), it may be because you never reach the stage of deep sleep. You can start from yourself by changing your behaviors with no mobile phone use or intense light during bedtime, and being in a peaceful atmosphere instead, for example. These will facilitate your sleep and make you ready to be productive on the day to come to your full potential.
- Exercise regularly – There are many types of exercises. You don’t need to force yourself to do an intense or long one. As for a person of working age, a light exercise may bring a better result compared to the intense ones, as light exercises encourage you to do the workout in a consistent and stable manner, promoting strong health in a long run. For example, doing a 30-minute walking, or following a 10-minute YouTube workout clip for around 3-5 days per week.
How to avoid medical costs?
“88,429 is the number of liver cancer-related deaths according to the global statistics of 2018. Liver cancer is the No.1 cancer found in men while it is in the fourth rank of cancers suffered by women, following breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal and anal cancer.”*
If you visit a doctor in a private hospital as an OPD patient, the fundamental expense will be a physician fee, which is at around 500-800 baht (exclusive of prescription fees). Additionally, there are also other expenses like medical fees, operational fees, medication fees, chemotherapy fees; and you shall need to allocate your money for continual treatment as you need to follow up on your health to ensure that the cancer has permanently been suppressed, or does not transmit to other parts of the body. Treatment fees for cancer can be up to a million baht.
1. Handle risks with strong savings objectives for medical fees
Pros
- If you don’t get a serious disease and haven’t been admitted into a hospital throughout the insured period, you’ll still be able to keep this lumpsum, resulting in higher savings.
- In case of being sick with mild symptoms, such as coughing, sneezing, having a blocked nose or fever, medical fees will be at around 1,000-2,000 baht on average, depending on the hospital you choose and prescriptions. The price is acceptable comparable to a premium of around ten thousand baht per year.
Cons
- Medical fees may exceed the contingency budget in case of serious diseases which require you to be admitted into a private hospital. In case of operations, the expenses can even climb up to hundreds of thousands.
- It may affect your family members if your contingency budget is not enough to cover the fees.
2. Transfer risks to an insurance company by having life and health insurance
Pros
- Ability to control expenses, as you know the amount of money to be paid for the premium each year.
- Being worry-free as the insurance company will cover the full expenses of medical fees, or you’ll need to be responsible only for price differences.
- No impact on family’s finance.
- Tax deduction (based on conditions prescribed by the Revenue Department).
Cons
- There are many types of insurance. Choosing one that does not suit your lifestyle may lead to unnecessarily high premiums.
Suitable premiums should be 10-15% of your annual incomes. In case you’re interested in getting an insurance plan, how about having one that covers serious diseases? This is because the premiums of this type of insurance are not as high as you think. You will pay only a few thousands for the premium, which is in turns covering up to hundred thousand or million baht of medical fees if you arrange to have one when your health risks are still low.
Physical health is as important as financial health
Apart from health concerns, another important thing is about the “contingency budget”. During this financial crisis, your work may not be secured as you think, setting this portion of money aside will make you feel more financially safe. That is, when you lack income, you can still live your life and your existing debt will be manageable for a certain period of time.
This contingency budget should be invested in an asset that is subject to low risks, e.g. money market funds, or domestic short-term fixed income funds, in order to be sure that when you need money, you can get this portion of money immediately (normally, for this type of fund, the money will be transferred to your bank account only within 1 day after an issuance of sales order).
For those of you who look for a long-term plan, another goal of savings is the “goal of retirement” of which the period of savings will range from 10 to 30 years. Moreover, there are ranges of plans for you to choose from in order to add into your investment portfolio.
In this regard, for any reader who is interested in setting up financial targets through mutual funds, you are highly recommended to first understand the nature of products (funds), conditions, returns, and risks before making a decision./ The investor should study about mutual funds, especially the investment policies, risks, and performance of such mutual funds which are disclosed in different sources, or request for further information from responsible staff before making a decision.
Learn more about PRINCIPAL, please visit https://www.principal.th/th/mutual-fundth
Source: *National Cancer Institute: Cancer Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2, April-June 2019.
http://www.oic.go.th/FILEWEB/CABINFOCENTER28/DRAWER068/GENERAL/DATA0000…;
