As a long-term goal, having your general health plan, employee assistance program (EAP) and wellness program communicating regularly with one another about employees’ treatments is the single best way to reduce redundant or contradictory treatments, eliminate unnecessary claims and improve the quality of the plans for which you pay.

Let’s look at the relationship between your health promotion program and your EAP to illustrate the importance of attacking health care costs cross a wide front.

You can begin a health promotion program with a health risk assessment and then, if appropriate, roll out a tobacco use cessation program or a weight loss program.

But ultimately you want to be certain that your wellness provider works coupled with your EAP provider.

Here’s why -  It’s very common for an employee to contact the EAP because the person feels depressed about his or her weight. What you want is for the EAP vendor to treat the employee’s depression and behavioral issues, plus you want the EAP to refer the employee to the wellness program to deal with the root cause of the problem - obesity.

The same thing escorts the relationship your health promotion program and your workers’ comp vendor, STD and LTD vendors, rehab people , and/or disease managers. You want all them talking to - and sharing data with - each other. When they’re not, it’s costing you money.

In general, the companys who achieve the greatest cost savings through their health promotion programs are the ones who overlap wellness with behavioral and occupational health issues.

Common thread -  the way you prepare â.” and control â.” your budget for a health promotion program is vital to its success.

1. Top-down health promotion budget

Depending on the size of your business and health promotion program, you might have full budget responsibility or may need to work with a C-level who has budgeting specialistise.

Regardless of the arrangement, you’re likely to face one of two distinct challenges -  a top-down budget or a zero-based budget.

A top-down budget is when you’re given a finite dollar amount and told to run the wellness program within the limit. When that’s the case, here are three critical questions to ask -

o  Does this limit include money set aside for worker incentives and future initiatives?

o  Should we keep long-tenured wellness programs that keep going up in price, and

o  Does Benefits/HR have to deliver all education about the health promotion program, or is there extra funding to hire staff?

2.  Zero-based wellness budgeting

In zero-based funding, you submit to senior level management an itemized list of the health promotion programs/features you want and the cost of each. Best practices -

o  Rank health promotion programs by priority (health-risk assessments ought to be at or near the top)

o  Indicate which expenditures are fixed and which are variable, and

o  List ways to incorporate existing resources (like an employee assistance program program) for a better return on investment.

3. Estimating wellness ROI

On average, health promotion programs typically take at least 18 months to break even. After three years, you ought to see savings.

When not, it’s time to take a fresh look at the wellness program design.

In Washington, lobbyists have spearheaded a push for Congress, the DOL and IRS to crack down on “punitive” health promotion programs.

Specifically, the groups seek to limit wellness programs in which employees’ share of their healthcare costs are directly tied to their willingness to take part in a wellness program.

HIPAA’s non-discrimination rules prohibit businesss from creating negative financial incentives for personnel with health risks.

For  instance, you can’t raise someone’s premium share because he or she smokes. What you are able to do is offer a discount when someone completes a smoking cessation program.

Reason -  the law does allow for financial incentives to employees who willingly participate in health promotion programs.

The watchdog groups seek greater regulation to be sure incentives and discounts are used only as rewards for healthful behavior, not as a thinly veiled form of discrimination against high-risk employees.

That’s a huge increase from four years ago, when just 28% of smaller corporations offered such health promotion programs.

There’s more to come, too. Fifteen% of respondents that didn’t currently have a disease management component to their medical plan hope to add one by 2011.

The highest-demand disease management programs are for diabetes, asthma and heart disease.

Source -  Small Corporation Benefits Survey, PDR Consulting Group, 9/1/2008.

In order to be effective, the health promotion program must meet participants’ individual medical and psychological needs, not to mention your own organization’s need to control long-term health care costs.

Precisely how wide-reaching should the program be? After all, it doesn’t make sense to pay for services your personnel don’t want or can’t use.

Mary Beth Chalk of Resources for Living suggests that obesity programs may be broken down into four tiers of employee need, from which your organization’s ROI can also be measured.

Tier 1 -  Education

Tier I workforce struggle with weight control problems but don’t need a wellness Coach.  Instead, they could benefit from a self-directed program that provides weight-management related materials online, targeted mailing, and/or access to nurse call line.

Just how to measure Return On Investment -  utilization. Do personnel click on the Web site? Do they return to the site regularly? Do people  use the nurse line? Your health promotion program vendor should provide you detailed use stats.

Tier 2 -  Clinical supervision

If the worker has been diagnosed as obese â.” a BMI  score over 30 is obese, over 35 is clinically obese â.” he or she’d do better working with a health coach in a clinically supervised wellness program.

Three keys to getting maximum results -

1. Periodically have participants rate their relationship with their wellness Coaches. Not everyone clicks, so a change could  be in order.

2. Coordinate your disease management (DM) care with your worker assistance program (EAP)services. Reason -  Inability to control weight is often closely tied with mental health issues â.” and one can negatively affect the other.

The more closely your EAP and obesity program managers work together, the higher the chance for success.

3. Beware of the fade-out effect. A lot of staff in weight-loss programs get off to a great start and then fall back into old habits. Individuals  should re-commit to the program after three sessions, four months and nine months.

To measure Return On Investment (ROI), look at utlization, goal achievement and reduced presenteeism. of course, presenteeism is notoriously challenging to measure with reliable dollar figures. So how can you overcome that problem?

o  Start with employees’ salaries. Let’s suppose one participant earns $40,000 each year.

o  Ask personnel to self-report how energetic and productive they feel on the job, on a percentage scale. Then have supervisors estimate the employee’s productivity and split the difference. for this example, let’s assume it averaged to 50 percent.

o  Collect scores again six months and one year into the program and then multiply the difference by salary.  The result is your estimated productivity Return On Investment (ROI).

In the example above, when the employee earning $40,000 improves from 50 percent to 75 percent after one year, the productivity related Return On Investment (ROI) is $10,000.

Tier 3 -  Medical management

At this level, the obese employee needs a higher level of care than a health coach can offer.  The employee has chronic health conditions related to obesity â.” like diabetes, high blood pressure, and/or sleep apnea â.” and needs a doctor case manager.

Especially, the staff member needs to set up regular visits with the physician and develop a treatment plan.

To measure ROI, start with the lower-tier criteria, then track quarterly and year differences in FMLA or paid absences, and prescription drug costs. Then compare it to the per-participant cost of the obesity program.

Tier 4 -  Morbid obesity

At this level, the worker has been diagnosed as morbidly obese â.” BMI over 40 â.” and is considered a potential candidate for gastric bypass surgery.

ROI is measured through ongoing health claims as well as the previous criteria.

Create Exemplary Management Support

In the most successful Health Promotion Programs, upper managers lead their corporations by example.  And they work to ensure that the upper-level management structure not only allows, but actively encourages their personnel to participate.

Organize a Wellness Advisory Team

Health Promotion committees serve as the eyes, ears, arms and legs of the wellness program, representing coworkers ideas and concerns, and assisting reshape the organizational culture toward health.

Conduct an Assessment of Financial and Human Assets and Liabilities

Successful Health Promotion Programs are built upon a foundation of information, including claims review, demographic analysis of the workforce, upper-level management and staff member surveys, health risk data, history of organizational wellness, and health benefit plan design.

Create Clearly Announced Vision, Mission and Outcomes

Establish a clear vision of health promotion program direction, expectations and measures to answer the questions, “Where are we going and how’ll we know when we get there?”

Develop a Comprehensive and Strategic Wellness Program

A multi-component plan ought to consist of strategically created and implemented awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment programs, in addition to policies and activities that target appropriate health risk behaviors and needs of the staff.

Identify an Incentive and Reward Strategy

Incentives show the organizational commitment to the health promotion program and motivate individuals to participate. Incentives vary commonly from program to program, but can include such things as time off, reduction in medical insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to gyms, free pedometers, etc.

Communicate to Employees

Your wellness program should be simple and concise, use an identifiable brand, and rely on a selection of media to communicate with employees and managers.

Evaluate Outcomes

Evaluate health promotion program participation, satisfaction levels and behavioral change. You could want to track the number of workers’ compensation claims, productivity, turnover morale and absenteeism.

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Wellness Program - Management Support.

Develop Exemplary Management Support

Goal -  A Wellness Program established into the organization’s culture.

Focus - Develop support and excitement for the wellness program from all levels of the corporation -  executive management, mid-level management, and grass-roots staff members.

Obtaining senior management’s buy-in is essential to launching an effective wellness program.  The workers must understand that senior management is supportive of the wellness program.

Actions -

Create an Senior Level Management Executive Team to determine high-level decisions â.” positions that must be included are the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Communications Officer, and other appropriate division-level managers and wellness program experts, as necessary.

The Senior Level Management Executive Team will -

o  Communicate to all levels of upper-level management about the health promotion program and drive the integration of the Wellness Program as a part of the business culture.

o  Ensure that organizational resources are available for wellness program planning and implementation.

o  Be certain to encourage staff to participate and to assist in “recruiting” other staff, get the momentum going, and keep it growing.

o  Share success stories within the business, and continue to elevate the perceived value of participation.

Organize a Health Promotion Advisory Team

Goal - Create a working committee that consists of workforce and essential functional parts of the business.

Focus -  to assist in reshaping the organizational culture to support employee-wellness activities by serving as heralds and supporters for the wellness program.

Health Promotion Advisory Committees serve as an essential part of the infrastructure of your Health Promotion Program.  The team members are the eyes, ears, arms, and legs of the wellness program.

They represent their coworkers by sharing ideas and concerns about the wellness program.

Actions -

The Wellness Advisory Committee will -

o  Make certain to work with senior level management and the Wellness Program coordinator in the design, implementation, and investigation of the wellness program.

o  Create methods to enhance the acceptance and success of the activities of your Health Promotion Program by stimulating employee ownership of the wellness program.

o  Hold periodic meetings to keep the committee informed of upcoming plans and events and to provide feedback to the wellness program coordinator about their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, and those of their colleagues.

o  Recommend policy and environmental changes that are aimed at improving the safety and health of employees.

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Health Promotion Program - Vision and Mission.

Goal - Create a baseline of information and identify human and organizational needs.

Focus -  Review a variety of information to better understand past and current conditions regarding healthcare utilization, organizational culture, demographic overview, and health promotion programs.

Data collection plays an important role in planning, monitoring, and analyzing  a health promotion program. It’ll also set the baseline for continued and future examinations of health promotion program efficiency, effectiveness, and feasibility.

Actions -

o  Claims review (health care, pharmaceutical) -

o  What have been the 10 most expensive major disease categories in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars paid for each?

o  What have been the 10 most costly therapeutic courses of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars compensated for each?

o  What have been the 10 most frequently prescribed and filled therapeutic classes of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars compensated for each?

o  Demographic analysis of worker population (may include dependents) -

o  List your number of employees, by gender, for each of the past five years and the percentages of males and females by age groups.

o  Think about any other factors that might have affected the health of your workers and their use of the healthcare system.

This may include mergers, acquisitions, workplace trauma, worker strikes, layoffs, early retirement offers, etc.

Management survey -

o  Conduct surveys of mid-level management to understand their concerns and measure their level of interest and buy-in.

o  Employee-interest survey -  Gather information to determine what the workforce want and to measure the level of participation, satisfaction, and “success” of any previous activities.

Risk data (health-risk assessments) -

o  Is there any data from health-risk appraisals over the past five years?

Participation in similar activities -

o  List and describe all health promotion programs that have been implemented over the past five years, including participation rates.

Design of the health plan, and anticipated changes -

o  Have there been any significant changes in the health plan’s design in each of the past five years, such as a change from an health maintenance organization (Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)) to a PPO, increased co-payments or deductibles, or increased worker contributions?

Create Obviously Stated Vision, Mission and Outcomes

Goal -  Establish a clear vision of wellness program direction, expectations, and measures.

Focus - Setting a vision, mission, objectives and objectives to keep your Health Promotion Program focused toward its desired outcomes. It’ll answer the questions, “Where are we going?” and “How’ll we know when we get there?”

Actions -

o  Identify two to five obviously reported objectives. Be certain that your health promotion program is capable of having an impact in the area desired, and make certain that you are capable of measuring that impact.

Example Goal - Staff Members having access to healthier food options

o  Launch two to five measurable goals that specifically state what your health promotion program is going to accomplish, by when, how, and how it’ll be measured.

Example Objective -  Modify all vending machines to include 50 percent healthful food choices.

o  Identify a few activities that will help you reachyour objective. Activities are very specific.

Example Activity - Make certain to work with vending machine owners to identify healthful food choices and restock with 50 percent of items that are healthier food choices.

o  Identify who’s going to do what, by when, and what resources are needed.

Example Detail -  the Program coordinator will contact XXX Vending Corporation by September 30.

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Wellness Program Incentives.

Develop a Robust and Strategic Health Promotion Program

Goal -  A robust Health Promotion Program plan.

Focus -  Development of a plan that consists of a selection of awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment program, policies, and activities that will target risk behaviors, needs, and interests of workers.

Your Health Promotion Program ought to provide an integrated, strategic approach specific to the needs, objectives, and culture of your company, designed throughout an annual cycle.

It will be vital that you review and revise existing policies governing such areas as smoking, vending machines, and the staff cafeteria. In addition, it is useful to examine what company wellness or health-promotion activities are offered under your existing health-benefit plan.

Actions -

o  Create activities based on your health promotion program objectives and the specific needs of your workers. Focus on those topics that are of greatest interest to your workers and the greatest needs of your company, in that order. Prevent topics with narrow appeal.

o  Keep it simple. Design the wellness program so it’s easy for the participants to understand and track. Let employees focus their learning efforts on their own behavior, not on the rules and regulations of the wellness program.

Furthermore, simplify the health promotion program administration. Let individuals  record their own activities when possible; create a mixture of self-reported activities along with verified activities.

o  Integrate a combination of activities to include awareness, educational, and behavior elements. Link the activities throughout the year to allow for desired behavior repetition.

o  Select activities that every staff member can participate in.

Examples -

o  Challenges -  Activities that focus on practicing a desired behavior and continue for 4-8 weeks and focus on specific topics (such as exercise, nutrition, or stress management).

o  Learning experiences (seminars, videos, classes) -  One-time activities that last for a relatively short time and focus on a specific topic; these can precede “challenge activities” to prepare participants for behavior change.

o  Behavior changes (like use of tobacco cessation) -  Interventions may or might not be offered at the worksite; person ought to be encouraged to make lifestyle changes that they wanted to make even without the incentive.

o  Disease management (support and education groups for diabetes and hypertension) -  These could  be provided or supported by the business through disease-management vendors, or by community, health, or religious companies.

o  New skills (first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation) -  These might  be provided or supported by the corporation, or by community, health, or religious corporations.

o  Screenings, wellness assessments, physical exams -  A wellness assessment provides the corporation with aggregate data that could be used in wellness program planning and analysis; preventive screenings and physical exams could be encouraged by awarding credits to workforce.

o  Program support (membership or leadership in wellness committee or challenge team) -  Reward those who work with you to help make your Wellness Program a success.

o  Community events -  Reward participation in events like the Heart Walk or March of Dimes Walk; limit the number of these events that could be counted toward the annual total, and be selective about which events you allow to be counted.

Develop an Incentive Strategy

Goal -  to motivate and reward staff member participation and completion.

Focus - Create a sense of interest in participation and completion of wellness activities.

Providing incentives and rewards will send an important message to the employees that the organization is committed to improving their health and will share the rewards that these changes will bring. It also plays a significant role in arousing individuals to participate.

Actions -

o  Identify through staff members what incentives they value most.

o  Identify what incentives the company can provide.

o  Integrate your incentives into your benefits strategy.

o  Ensure that every participant who achieves a goal receives some recognition.

o  Provide participation incentives.

o  Prevent offering incentives for the “best” or the “most.”

o  Avoid rewards for biometric changes.

o  Use incentives to promote your Health Promotion Program, through logos and branding.

Examples -

Paid time off, reduction in health insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to fitness centers, free pedometers, etc.

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Wellness Program Communication.

Goal -  Increase awareness of and participation in the Wellness Program.

Focus -  Promote the Wellness Program to workforce to encourage participation in activities and benefits.

A well-designed communications strategy is paramount to successful wellness program awareness and participation. Even a “world class” wellness program design won’t succeed if nobody knows that it’s available or how to get involved.

Staff Members who don’t get involved in the wellness program ought to be doing so because they choose not to participate, not because they didn’t know about how, when, or where to participate.

Actions -

o  Conduct a Resources and Communications Audit to identify internal and external resources available to support your Wellness Program, in addition to knowing how information are going to be disseminated.

o  Keep the health promotion program simple and concise -  easy to read about, understand, and act upon.

o  Build the brand; be sure it’s something that workers can identify with. Add the brand to T-shirts, water bottles, mouse pads, stress balls, etc.

Use a variety of media -

o  Print â.” brochures, fliers, posters, banners, paycheck inserts, newsletter articles, bulletin boards, literature racks, post cards.

o  Electronic â.” Web, intranet, e-mail, closed-circuit televisions, sign lines, audiovideo productions.

o  Staff meetings and corporation events; word of mouth.

o  Use existing channels of communication â.” what works best in your corporation â.” and make sure to know about all points of contact and systems of distribution.

Timing for communications -

o  Prior to activity to develop awareness and to educate.

o  During activity to stimulate participation.

o  After an activity to report results.

o  Between activities to maintain momentum and interest.

Consistency of communications -

o  Use branding; maintain a consistent look, feel, and tone of messages.

o  Maintain this consistency throughout the wellness program.

Surveys and forms -

o  Collect information.

o  Disseminate information.

Tocotrienols are something which most people are not familiar with, yet they have a large number of benefits for the body. Along with tocopherols, they are part of the Vitamin E family and they come naturally in four different forms.

Where are Tocotrienols Found?

Tocotrienols are found in cereal grains such as rye, barley and oats and a good source of them for daily consumption is virgin crude palm oil. That is basically a type of vegetable oil that is trans-fat free that can be used in the preparation of various foods.

The Potential Health Benefits of Tocotrienols

Tocotrienols have a lot of potential benefits for the body. They are known to reduce the likelihood of you suffering from a stroke. Studies were carried out on rats and results showed that when given a tocotrienol supplement, the level of tocotrienols within the brain increased and there was a higher level of protection against strokes.

Another fantastic benefit which was found through human tests was that they can reverse arterial blockages. Palm-tocotrienol complex can reverse the blockage in Carotid Stenosis patients. In fact, it has been the only natural compound so far to be able to reverse arterial blockages. In order for this to occur, patients have to take roughly 240mg of palm-tocotrienol complex daily for a period of up to 36 months. This should reduce the amount of cholesterol plaque within the carotid artery.

One of the other main benefits is that they show excellent anti-cancer properties. It is more specifically the palm-tocotrienols that have the best benefits and they basically inhibit breast cancer cells. Whether you have estrogen-responsive or estrogen-nonresponsive breast cancer cells, Delta-tocotrienol is generally the best form of tocotrienols to induce cancer cell death. They can also deter tumor growth in certain cancers - and Alpha-tocotrienol as well as Gamma-tocotrienol have been shown to increase the life of mice that are suffering with cancer. To put it into perspective, Gamma-tocotrienol is three times stronger than tamoxifen when it comes to inhibiting the growth of human breast cancer cultured cells.

Another benefit which will interest women in particular is that tocotrienols can help with anti-aging. This is because they help to fight free radicals at a fairly fast rate. They can also protect against UV skin damage. If used alongside a good sunscreen, they can help to stop the harmful UV rays from absorbing into the skin.

As well as anti-aging, tocotrienols are excellent antioxidants. They help to prevent protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation as well. Whilst they are similar to tocopherols, they do tend to be slightly better for the body because of a slight difference in chemical structure. This difference causes them to have more anti-cancer and anti-oxidation benefits than tocopherols.

Overall tocotrienols are excellent for the body and they are vital if you want to stay as healthy as possible. They can even help to lower the blood pressure, which is a major concern for many people these days. So if you want to look younger, have better protection against cancer, strokes and high blood pressure or if you would like to reverse arteriosclerosis, then ensure that your diet includes plenty of tocotrienols.

If you’re a fan of chocolate you’re in good company. Chocolate is one of the most popular sweet-tasting treats in the world and has been for centuries. But part of the myth surrounding chocolate is that it tastes so good it must be bad for your health. Which gives it an air of the forbidden.

A beautifully wrapped box of chocolates has always been considered a very romantic gift. So if the special person in your life is a self-confessed chocoholic, you know one surefire way to please them on special occasions. But the surprising news from the scientific community is that this reputedly decadent treat actually has some health benefits, especially if you choose your chocolate wisely.

Is Chocolate A Health Food?

Chocolate contains over 300 chemicals, and has been the subject of a number of studies by universities and other scientific organizations. Here’s a quick rundown of the results. We have no way of proving or disproving these claims so we offer them here as a stimulus for further research. If you’re really interested in the subject, this may provide you with a starting point.

* Cacao, the source of chocolate, contains antibacterial agents that fight tooth decay. Of course, this is counteracted by the high sugar content of milk chocolate.

* The smell of chocolate may increase theta brain waves, resulting in relaxation.

* Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine, a mild mood elevator.

* The cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fat which may raise good cholesterol.

* Drinking a cup of hot chocolate before meals may actually diminish appetite.

* Men who eat chocolate live a year longer than those who don’t.

* The flavanoids in chocolate may help keep blood vessels elastic.

* Chocolate increases antioxidant levels in the blood.

* Mexican healers use chocolate to treat bronchitis and insect bites.

* The carbohydrates in chocolate raise serotonin levels in the brain, resulting in a sense of well-being.

What Chocolate Won’t Do

There are many myths and half-truths about the effects of chocolate on the human body. Here are the latest findings on several of them.

* Studies show that chocolate is not a causative factor in acne.

* Cacao contains the stimulants caffeine and bromine, but in such small quantities that they don’t cause nervous excitability.

* Chocolate is not addictive.

* Chocolate contains stearic acid, a neutral fat which doesn’t raise bad cholesterol.

* Chocolate doesn’t make you ‘high’. You’d need to eat a huge quantity (about 25lbs at one sitting) to feel any noticeable effect.

But On The Negative Side…

1. Chocolate may trigger headaches in migraine sufferers.

2. Milk chocolate is high in calories, saturated fat and sugar.

What About Chocolate And Your Pets?

Chocolate is considered dangerous to animals because it contains a stimulant called theobromine, which they can’t digest.

Dark chocolate and baking chocolate are even more dangerous because they contain higher concentrations of the substance. This applies whether chocolate is in candy bar form, or an ingredient in cake, cookies, puddings or ice cream.

If a pet becomes ill after eating chocolate, take it to the vet immediately.

Dark Chocolate Versus Milk Chocolate

Dark chocolate contains more cacao and less sugar than milk chocolate. It follows that any health benefits would be more pronounced in dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate is allowed on the popular Montaignac diet while milk chocolate is not.

You’ll need to do a little research if you have any health concerns about eating chocolate. But with products like gluten-free and sugar-free brands finding their way onto supermarket shelves, you’re sure to find some form of chocolate you can enjoy with a clear conscience.

Frugality simply means to abstain or go without, but it can also mean living a simpler less wasteful life and keeping within our personal finances without getting into debt. More and more people are starting to see the benefits of living this way, especially as prices of basic utilities and food are on the increase.

The most basic areas of our lives where living a frugal lifestyle can benefit us by helping us save money and reducing our impact on the wider environment are:

• In our day to day shopping habits
• In our use of gas and electricity
• How we spend our holiday time
• Gift giving and celebrating major yearly holidays such as Christmas and Birthdays
• How we care for ourselves and our property on a day-to-day basis.

In all these areas we can not only reduce our spending but can also reduce the stresses of modern life by leading a more simple existence.

Often the main reason people turn to a frugal lifestyle is the desire or need to save money and so one of the first things that needs to be accomplished when first embarking on the a frugal way of life is to plan your finances. To do this you will have to look at your existing yearly budget. Then analysing every area of your budget to find where money is being wasted and how you can reduce those costs for the coming year. Finding cheaper suppliers for things like gas and electricity, telephone services and even grocery shopping is the first area to target. Once you see your spending written down it makes the whole process of reducing costs and wasting less a much easier and dear I say even pleasurable and freeing experience.

Living a simpler life of course does not mean going without, it just means taking a look at what you like to do and buy and perhaps looking for cheaper ways of doing and buying those things. A lot wasteful spending can simply arise from habit, like always buying the same brand of beans when the cheaper can next to it is just as good, or by not being aware of sales and offers, which could save you money in the long, run. Often living a frugal life is just a matter of making yourself more aware of the way you live and of the many opportunities around you to help you change for the better.

Apart from the desire to want to save money, a lot of people are turning to the frugal lifestyle to reduce the stress in their life. A lot of this stress stems from all the things we have in our lives, cluttering up our homes and creating more things to worry about. Clutter has often been sited as a cause of stress and by clearing the decks of all the things we don’t really need, helps to also clear our minds and rid us of worries and stresses.

Over all frugality is a positive way to live our lives, even in these modern times of technology and excess. You can still live in the 21st century and benefit from all it has to offer but you will be happier for not being in debt, less stressed and will be helping to keep our planet green and healthy for the next generations.

Forbearance is when a lender agrees to let you delay your payments to them for a short period of time. That doesn’t mean the lender has forgiven the debt but just allows you to pay what you owe at a later date.

Forbearance can be an option to someone that is experiencing temporary financial difficulty. A forbearance agreement is most commonly applied to two kinds of loans, mortgages and student loans.

Forbearance Mortgage

A forbearance mortgage is when your lender agrees to let you delay your monthly mortgage payments for a short period of time. A forbearance mortgage is often combined with other programs that bring your monthly mortgage payments current after a negotiated period of time.

You sign a forbearance agreement that states the lender will require you to pay the amount you owe at a later date. This is a much better option than going into mortgage foreclosure.

Forbearance Student Loan

Most people have difficulty making student loan payments but your loan servicer may allow you to apply for a forbearance student loan. If they do grant you this option you will sign a forbearance agreement.

Under the forbearance agreement you are still responsible for interest as it accrues and any unpaid interest is added to your principal balance. That means that you will pay interest on a higher balance when you do resume your payments.

That can possibly make your monthly payment go up but is a much better option than defaulting on your loans. Defaulting on student loans can have negative effects on your credit score for years.

A lender will review and analyze your financial situation before offering the forbearance agreement. Once a lender or servicer agrees to allow forbearance, it’s very important that you follow through on any promises you make.

The best thing to do is ask your lender or loan servicer if forbearance is an option they will consider. Avoiding mortgage foreclosure or paying on your student loans is always a better choice and forbearance may be a good way to accomplish it.

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