In medicine, I love to sell my patients on the “two-fer,” those lovely medications that have more than one benefit: this medication will help your migraines and help with weight loss! This one will lower your sugar and help regulate your periods! This pill can protect you from a heart attack and lower your risk of colon cancer! I can’t always get them to take their meds, but this always feels like I am getting them a deal.
[As a reminder, please do not construe the above as medical advice. Medication choice is something you should discuss with your own physician, who knows you; not something you do based on what a stranger types on the Internet.]
In life, there are other two-fers.
The Happy Philosopher wrote about this as Stacking Functions; his main example was ditching the car to run short errands. This saves the cost of gasoline, wear and tear on the car, and gets you exercise (walking or biking). It may also help save you money on needless purchases, since you might decide you don’t want to carry things home.
Some of my favorite two-fers (sometimes there are more benefits–I guess they are three-fers?) include:
Bringing lunch to work. This saves me: money, unneeded calories, and lots of time, as the lines tend to be slow in the hospital cafeteria.
Walking to work. This gets me exercise, brightens my mood, and saves the wear and tear on the car.
Contributing to my tax-deferred retirement account. That’s a 403(b) for me and other employees in the public sector, and a 401(k) for people working for for-profit companies. I save money for retirement, and I lower my AGI (adjusted gross income). Right now, I’m not that worried about my AGI, but the AGI or MAGI (modified AGI) is often used to determine a number of things: whether you can contribute to a Roth IRA directly, whether or not you might qualify for college scholarships, or even a subsidy for your health insurance under the ACA.
Buying gift cards from my house of worship. This is a fund raiser for them, so I give them extra financial support. We can use this to help keep our grocery spending in check. And, I was able to buy lots of gift cards all at once to meet the minimum spend for a new credit card bonus.
Paying down my mortgage. This will make my mortgage payment go away sooner. It saves me a lot of interest payments. Sending the money to the mortgage company keeps me from inflating my lifestyle as much as I could. (No expensive cars with expensive car repairs and insurance, for example).
Doing your own yard work. This is my husband’s favorite: he gets lots of exercise, and saves the money we’d have to pay someone else to do it.
Do you have any favorite two-fers? Financial-, fitness-, or medicine-related?