The wealth we accumulated over the lifetime is eroding and predicting the unpredictable has become a challenging task. Every new day begins with a question we ask ourselves and whether it’s the survival or the growth that keeps us going remains unanswered. Health is “a condition of complete physical, psychological and social wellbeing, and not just lack of sickness or illness.”

Even though “Health is wealth” but wealth also translates to healthy living and has a direct impact on lifestyle. Americans in the highest wage category at age 28 should expect to live longer than their poorest partners for 5 years.

In reality, wealth inequalities in the United States are much more pronounced despite increasing concern in identifying and fixing income inequality. American families with the highest income (top 10%) receive 47% of their total income, along with the richer 10% own about 75% of their total capital. The richest 1% of the population has a combined net value of 35%. This has a huge effect on the well-being of our society for all of the reasons mentioned above.

However, financial wellbeing can’t be measured by merely looking at how much you earn. The gap between what you earn and how much you avoid offsetting those earnings is the figure that matters most. Spending more when your income rises is as tempting as eating more after you exercise. It feels earned and justified.

In certain ways, income and education help increase health directly because wealthy individuals can access the means to safeguard and improve health. They prefer to have careers that are more secure and versatile than many low-income people; have decent incentives, such as leave with pay, life security, and health care programs; and have fewer workplace risks. More affluents have more wealthy income and can comfortably afford a healthier lifestyle and care—benefits that often apply to their offspring.

Disadvantaged employees are more likely to incur higher healthcare premiums as a result of their heightened chance of sickness. Employers of low-income jobs, therefore, pay a double price: increased health-care costs and decreased productivity. And simple activities like standing or lifting are considerably more challenging for low-income individuals.

“A key use of wealth is using it to control your time and providing you with options. Financial assets on a balance sheet offer that. But they come at the direct expense of showing people how much wealth you have with material stuff.” – Morgan Housel

The state of mental being can also be linked to one’s income. Those from families earning less than $35,000 a year are four times more likely to be depressed and five times as likely to be downcast “all or much of the time” as those from families earning more than $80,000 a year.

Build monetary wealth to buy real wealth – Time. Some of the prominent social determinants of health are education, environment & safety, food security, access to health care, housing, income & job security, mental health, and even transportation.

Pursue something that you love doing the most. And if you can’t figure something out, figure out how to figure it out.

Everything has a price, and prices aren’t always clear. The price of exercise isn’t just the workout; it’s avoiding the post-workout appetite. Same in finance. The price of building wealth isn’t just the trouble of earning money; it’s avoiding the post-earnings urge to spend what you’ve accumulated. Wealth, at every income level, has less to do with your gains and more to do with your ability to leave gains alone without cashing them in.

The common theme is the well-being linked to wealth: the asset poor are poorer in health than the asset wealthy, irrespective of how we interpret health. The following chart clearly links the two components, health and wealth for some of the global leaders and emerging countries.