Why self-care must also include financial health
If you, like so many of us in Switzerland, were announced by your employer at the beginning of this year that you’re getting a 0.1% raise, you’re not alone. And if that announcement left you feeling frustrated or as a joke, that reaction makes sense.
When the cost of living rises by 4% or 5% and your salary barely moves, that cannot be considered stability. It’s erosion, it’s a slow loss of purchasing power that compounds over time.
For women in midlife who care about independence, longevity, and quality of life, this erosion matters more than we’re often encouraged to admit.
Inflation: the invisible stressor no one talks about
When prices rise faster than income, everyday life gets more expensive. You’re putting in the same effort, but your money doesn’t stretch as far.
Over time, that means tighter budgets, fewer options, and more financial pressure.
Inflation is, in effect, a hidden tax. You don’t vote for it and you don’t receive a bill for it, but you pay it every day. Over time, it doesn’t just affect comfort — it eats away at autonomy.
Why this matters even more in midlife
Midlife is often a period of profound transformation. Many women experience major life shifts during these years, such as break-ups, divorce, career changes, or family re-shaping. These transitions can leave us in vulnerable positions that are not only emotional or mental, but financial as well. Even women who were previously stable can suddenly find themselves managing on a single income, rebuilding savings, or carrying new responsibilities.
This is precisely why self-care cannot be one-dimensional at this stage of life. Midlife should be about protecting what you’ve built all throughout your life and creating enough resilience — in every sense — to move forward with confidence. Ignoring the financial dimension of these transitions leaves a critical gap in our overall well-being.
Redefining self-care beyond fitness and nutrition
As a fitness and wellness coach, self-care is central to my work with clients. But over the years, it’s become clear that self-care is often reduced to a narrow checklist of lifestyle habits. Movement, nutrition, sleep, and recovery absolutely matter. They form the physical foundation of long-term health. But they are not the whole picture.
You can be physically strong and still feel chronically stressed if money worries dominate your thoughts. You can eat well and train consistently yet feel unsafe about the future if your financial reality feels fragile.
That’s why I see self-care as something broader. It includes how we move our bodies, how we think, how we manage stress, and how aware we are of the systems that affect our lives — including money.
Zooming out: long-term thinking and financial resilience
When you zoom out, patterns become easier to see. Wages have largely stagnated. Inflation continues to rise steadily. Purchasing power quietly declines.
Over the past decade, Bitcoin has far exceeded an average annual growth of around 50%, often acting as the best-performing asset class with significantly higher returns. That growth has not been smooth, and it has certainly not been without volatility, but the long-term trend is difficult to ignore. This doesn’t make it a miracle solution, and it doesn’t make it appropriate for everyone. What it does highlight is the importance of understanding how value is preserved — or lost — over time.
Much like strength training, progress is not linear. Results are not visible every day. But consistency and long-term thinking dramatically change outcomes.
Awareness = Responsibility
Many women have been conditioned to believe that talking about money is uncomfortable, risky, or somehow ungraceful. I believe that mindset no longer serves us.
Paying attention to inflation, learning how money works, planning ahead is not based on greed, fear or pessimism. It’s called responsibility.
It’s the same principle I teach to my clients. You don’t train because you’re afraid of aging. You train because you want to remain capable, confident, and independent. Financial awareness follows the same logic.
Independence doesn’t happen by accident
Independence is built intentionally. It comes from strength, from habits, from mindset, and from informed decisions made over time.
A 0.1% raise is not a strategy. Ignoring inflation is not neutral choice. If we genuinely care about adding life to our years, we also need to care about protecting the resources that support that life. Wellness isn’t just about feeling good today. It’s about staying autonomous for as long as we live.
Final thoughts
Zoom out. Ask better questions. Take care of your body and your future with the same intention. That, to me, is real self-care.
If these ideas resonate with you and want to learn more about my approach to strength, independence, and long-term well-being, book a call here:
👉 https://thefitnwell.life/producto/consultation/
My work focuses on helping women build physical strength, resilience, and health independence in midlife, so they can stay strong and autonomous for decades to come. Because taking care of your future self starts today.
