Heart health!

From the Washington Post:

“Researchers looked at a comprehensive study of more than 1,000 people in New Zealand, whose lives had been tracked from the time they were born, in the 1970s, until they were 38; the researchers found that the adults with lower (meaning, worse) credit scores also had higher “heart ages,” which is a measure of cardiovascular health.”

OK, I know what you are thinking…income is correlated to credit score and the higher your income, the healthier you will be…

“The connection between heart health and credit scores came independently of income — and because the study was done in a country with universal health care, health emergencies weren’t responsible for wrecking people’s credit scores. Rather, credit scores provided a rough psychological snapshot, said one of the paper’s authors, Salomon Israel of Duke University.”

And yes how we manage our finances has similarities to how we manage our health:

Self-control and showing the ability to delay gratification as a child actually had the single-biggest effect; kids with the strongest self-control grew up to have credit scores at least 100 points higher and heart ages four years younger than the adults who had the poorest self-control as children.

Add “a longer life” to the benefits of having a higher credit score!

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.