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Saving Money Might Be the Secret to Better Sleep: Study
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
People who save regularly get higher-quality shut-eye than those who don’t, according to a new report from the University of Bristol’s personal finance research center.
Managing your finances can be so stressful that you lose sleep, but new research suggests a solution: putting money into a saving account every month, even if it’s just a small amount.
According to a July report from the University of Bristol’s personal finance research center, located in England, people who save regularly get higher-quality shut-eye than those who don’t. Folks who save money are also much more likely to feel relaxed most of the time.
“Regular savers tend to feel more optimistic, are more satisfied with life, and sleep better,” Susan Allen, chief executive officer at the Yorkshire Building Society, which sponsored the research, said in the report.
The researchers posit that saving money leads to less anxiety about money and greater well-being overall. Put simply, the ability to pay for unexpected expenses gives people with savings less to worry about: “Building a safety net — no matter how small — really does pay off in peace of mind and providing security,” Allen said.
However, it’s crucial to make saving a regular habit in order to get those benefits.
How saving money can help you sleep
To draw these conclusions, the Bristol center analyzed a long-running United Kingdom study with survey data going back more than 10 years. Called Understanding Society, the study bills itself as “the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind.”
According to the researchers, the amount you save isn’t the end-all-be-all. Even if you’re not in a position to put away huge sums of cash, making it a goal to save something is often rewarding.
Among people who don’t save, only 72% say their sleep quality is “very” or “fairly” good. That figure rises to 78% for those who save something each month, no matter the amount.
The report also found that low-income people who save money regularly have similar life satisfaction levels as people in much higher income brackets who do do not save.
With that said, saving larger amounts appears to make a bigger difference: Higher shares of people who saved at least £500 (the equivalent of about $650) per month responded that they sleep well, feel relaxed and have optimism about the future than those who save smaller amounts.
There are many reasons to save money for people in basically all financial situations. Early on in your career, it’s important to build up enough of a fund to weather an emergency like a job loss or medical crisis. Saving money can also get you on the path to major purchases like a first home, and it’s never too early to save for retirement.
In the United States, high-yield savings accounts and other savings tools are currently earning savers significant returns due to the Federal Reserve’s high interest rates. Investing in the stock market can be more unpredictable, but folks with longer-term goals should consider investing options in addition to savings accounts.
Getting into a routine where you save consistently is the key to success — and, apparently, catching some z’s.
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Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete covers trending stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including car buying, insurance, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News in Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and he attended the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in 2021. Pete has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.