One in four adults put their mental and physical health at the top of their agenda last year – but a significant number still fail to make the link between that and financial wellbeing, research shows.
A poll of 2,000 adults, carried out for Tilney, showed that 25% of Brits put brain and body health first – and 29% reaped the biggest professional, personal and mental rewards as a result.
A fifth (18%) appraised their working patterns and others (16%) invested their own money to help improve their future mental and physical health.
But while many also made plans to change their working patterns and lives, fewer put into practice their good intentions.
Beyond physical wellbeing, the scale of disruption last year also resulted in a fifth (17%) of adults appreciating the importance of thinking about their future, with plans to address this going forward, the poll showed.
Again, of all surveyed, those who put some thought towards their future plans have started making real changes in their working lives. Nearly a quarter (24%) of this group have now taken advantage of their company’s flexible working policies.
But just 10% of respondents to the poll had spent time thinking about how to afford their desired retirement lifestyle, while a similarly small number (11%) had thought about their will and estate planning.
Just 9% had considered what they wanted their financial legacy to be.
Zoe Bailey, chartered financial planner and director at Tilney, said that given the “widespread uncertainty” Covid-19 has caused so far, it is encouraging to see more people are prioritising their mental and physical health as well as taking stock of what matters now and in the future.
But she added: “Considering how long the road to full economic recovery in the UK could be and how badly people’s employment opportunities have been affected, more needs to be done to encourage people to spend time educating themselves on their personal finances, what policies are out there to help them, to take real action and start planning for their future now so they can not only recover any finances lost in 2020 but also start to think about and secure their long-term plans.”