Your Wellness Savings Account (WSA)

In recent years, many of us have learned about healthcare flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). Perhaps you deduct money from your paycheck each week to contribute to one of these accounts in anticipation of future out-of-pocket healthcare costs. While both can be great tools in managing your medical expenses, I like to talk about something that I call a Wellness Savings Account, or WSA, which I believe is the single most important account in which each of us should strive to build our equity.

Your WSA is not something that you deduct out of your paychecks. Nor is it a benefit offered by your employer. Instead, your WSA is a sum total of your overall health and well-being, and it is something you contribute to and deduct from each and every day.

Deposits are the positive steps you take to care for your health and wellness including eating healthily, exercising and seeking out preventative care. Deductions include unhealthy habits including poor nutrition along with environmental exposures and physical and mental stressors. In the case of cancer risk, prevention and overall health, there are specific deposits you can make to help tip the balance in your favor. The good news is that deductions and contributions depend on more than just a single variable, so having that occasional slice of cake after dinner is not going to make or break the bank.

Future blogs are going to focus on each one of these deposits and simple steps you can incorporate into your daily lifestyle in order to grow the equity in your WSA.

Cheers to your health!!