For years, we’ve heard that the way to stick to a budget at the grocery store is to avoid paying with credit and go to a cash only system. Now, a new study has shown that paying for groceries with cash may be good for the waistline as well.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Consumer Research, found that shoppers were more likely to buy items considered “unhealthy” when they paid with credit or debit cards than if they paid with cash. You might think that a person who paid with a debit card would be as conscious of spending as a person with cash, due to the fact that a debit card drafts money from your account immediately. The study showed the opposite, even when the subjects completed their shopping in a computer simulated task.
When you are trying to eat healthy, sticking to a budget and a well planned out grocery list can be one of your greatest tools. Grocery stores are designed to part you from your money, and the areas that are on eye level are often full of the foods that are the least diet-friendly. Companies often pay extra for the “prime real estate” and they place the foods with the greatest income potential in those sections.
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Can you afford to be fat? Tune in to Dr. Oz today, March 14 to find out. Financial expert Suze Orman and Dr. Oz explore the link between high levels of debt and unhealthy weight gain. According to Dr. Oz, people with extreme debt are twice as likely to be overweight. They offer guests and viewers a plan to get honest, lose weight and create a debt-management plan. It seems that some of the guests are in denial about both their health and their pocket books.
Plus, Dr. Oz will share his best go-to metabolism boosters, which can help give you a leg up on any weight-loss plan.
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Yifan Zhang and Geoff Oberhofer are working to create a new system of gym memberships. Gym-Pact is a membership program that charges members higher fees if they don’t workout regularly. Zhang and Oberhofer are testing the theory that people are more motivated by short-term consequences than long-term rewards. It also creates a sense of accountability.
Gym-Pact has negotiated pilot programs with gyms in Boston. Their first partnership was for first-time customers at Bally Total Fitness, and now they’ve negotiated a group rate at Planet Fitness. Instead of a high up-front cost, the members of the Gym-Pact deal at Planet Fitness get a free membership if they workout four times per week. If not, they must pay $25.00.
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Because many of us are strapped for cash these days, it makes sence that when we go to choose a weight-loss program, cost is a factor. Sure, you can’t put a price on your health, but wouldn’t you like to drop the weight in the most cost effective way possible? Recently there’s been a lot of talk about how much different diets cost, but what about if you set out to lose 20 pounds on your own? How much does that cost? Well, we did the math!
While many commercial diet programs cost upwards of $100 per pound lost, you can do things much cheaper on your own, assuming that you are losing two pounds a week over the course of 10 weeks:
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After the success of several trail programs, the British government announced that it will be using financial incentives to get its citizens to be healthier. They will be offering £50.00 vouchers (about $78 US dollars) that can be exchanged for healthy fruits and vegetables.
“We will be expanding programs that use financial incentives for healthy behavior where the evidence supports it,” said a Department of Health spokesman who did not want to be named, in line with government policy.
Critics of the program worry that health department funds would be better spend elsewhere, and that the government’s efforts aren’t enough to change people’s bad habits and reverse the obesity epidemic.
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