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Health is important with investing, not just wealth.
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There is a very strong correlation between wealth and health - the science is incontrovertible.
Correlation does not prove causation. People may be poor because they have poor physical or mental health. If people do not have enough money for shelter or a healthy diet, they clearly have a problem. Beyond that it is less clear. Would your life be significantly curtailed if you have to use the NHS rather than private care, for example? Would you be more healthy if you spent £100K a year than you would be if you spent £50K a year?
Having more money may shorten some people's life expectancy. They may eat unhealthy ready prepared foods or give up a physically active job. They may spend their extra money on drugs or alcohol. People who drive fast cars are more likely to have accidents than people who drive slow cars. Private jets are less safe than scheduled airlines.
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They may eat unhealthy ready prepared foods or give up a physically active job. They may spend their extra money on drugs or alcohol.
Are you talking about me Jimmy ?
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No the science is clear and unequivocal - poor people live shorter lives and suffer poor health for longer. For every granny you cite who smoked 20 a day and lived till 95, I can show you 100,000 who died from smoking-related disease. The data does not, and never will, support your anecdotes.
Poverty is growing in Britain, and the impact it has on health outcomes is increasing - just as science-based public health policy advocates said it would.
I still have absolutely no idea what this thread is doing on a board about investments, but your comments cannot go unchallenged.
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I still have absolutely no idea what this thread is doing on a board about investments,
Well the title mentioned about health and wealth, then it has just digressed a bit, as threads often do.
Not sure why that is an issue- makes a change from talking about tax relief and index funds !
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Here is what a panel of people said about how they would spend different levels of retirement income:
I have two observations. Firstly that they are not good at getting value for the money that they spend. More relevantly, that their proposed spending at the higher levels of retirement income is not likely to improve their health one jot.
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No the science is clear and unequivocal - poor people live shorter lives and suffer poor health for longer.
I do not know who you are disagreeing with. It certainly is not me. I have not said that poor people (on average) do not live shorter lives than wealthy people. They do. The question is why. That is what I was addressing.
I still have absolutely no idea what this thread is doing on a board about investments, but your comments cannot go unchallenged.
This thread is about whether scrimping and saving to increase your wealth is likely to be good or bad for your health. Some will say that you are deliberately making yourself poor and that will worsen your health. Others will say that you are increasing your overall wealth, and that will automatically improve your health, even if you never spend any of the money.
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Had a quick look at the different figures for single people, and the number of £13, 900 ( just above the current state pension) as being adequate to cover all necessities and a' bit left over for fun' looked like nonsense to me, even if you live in mortgage/rent free accommodation.
Seems to me no real account taken of ever rising utility bills, and food price inflation noticeably exceeds the annual increase in the state pension notwithstanding the triple lock.
I live in London so no real need for a car, although I personally treat it as a necessity. However there are many parts of the country where a car can be considered a necessity, so for single people in those circumstances £13, 900 just does not cut it in meeting that need along with everything else.
Two people living together maybe able to achieve a basic standard of living on two 'tax free' state pensions, but not singletons without a decent amount of savings behind them.
Just to tie this to the original post, I would certainly consider it bad for my mental if not physical health if I were forced to rely largely on the state pension to survive. Having to make a choice between heating your home or eating ( as seems to be the case for many elderly) is not conducive in maintaining a reasonable level of health.
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I could not find any good UK statistics for the relationship between income and life expectancy for the UK. The ONS only compiles data by area, not by income. There is, however, some data from the US:
Figure 2. Race- and Ethnicity-Adjusted Life Expectancy for 40-Year-Olds by Household Income Percentile, 2001–2014.
The important finding here is that life expectancy increases significantly with income even when moving from a household income of $115K to $2.0M with data from 2001 to 2014. The income numbers will be higher now. This cannot be explained by saying that the households with $115K per annum did not have enough money for a healthy diet. Other factors are clearly at work here.
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I am a retired gentleman living alone. My expenditure for FY 2025-26 was £8,702.92. I ran a small car, but did not have any capital expenditure on my house in that year. I am in excellent health in my late 70s, and spent the afternoon out walking. I could easily spend over £100K per annum if I wanted to, but I do not believe in wasting money. There are others who need it more than me.
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Rising utility bills and food prices are exactly the kind of thing already taken into account, which is why the value is updated from year to year.
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