One of the biggest issues people face when they want to get healthy is financial barriers. For many, this is the reason they don’t get healthy. But don’t let it be an excuse. You can find ways to cut costs, eat healthy, exercise and pursue wellness on a budget. You’ve just got to make it your passion, educate yourself and learn where to spend money and where not to.

Getting in the right headspace

Ask yourself: What is more important than my health? And I’ll prove it to you. One of the biggest ways the current healthcare model gets you in their pocket is in knowing they can charge you an exorbitant amount, and you’ll pay it. Why? Because when you go into a hospital and they tell you: “Oh my God! You’re going to die if you don’t get this surgery, take that drug or visit such-and-such doctor every month for the rest of your life.”

You automatically think, “I don’t want to die. I’ll do anything! I’ll sell all my possessions! I’ll go bankrupt!” In fact, healthcare is the number one reason that people file for bankruptcy in the U.S. and it’s the cause of about 643,000 bankruptcies every year. Not to mention, American healthcare is literally the most expensive on the planet. And in our case, that doesn’t translate to quality. Traditional healthcare has much better outcomes for less money in countries like the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and several other countries.

This phenomenon is why healthcare doesn’t fit in the free market, but that’s a different topic.

The point is, when the rubber meets the road, you’re willing to pay. You’re willing to do ANYTHING. Are you really going to gripe about a few dollars per pound for some meat that will help heal you instead of contributing to killing you?

There’s a common fallacy in the way we think called the “To hell with it” mentality. Basically, if you’re on a diet, and you tell yourself that you won’t eat any sugar, then you break down and have a twinkie, you think, “Well, I screwed up. Might as well binge on an entire box of chocolate cookies.”

We had a patient ask a question about her amalgam fillings recently. Basically, she’s got so many, and they’re so toxic that she realized she needs to get them removed. Problem is, it’s thousands of dollars to remove even one. She was looking at around $50,000 to get her amalgam fillings replaced. She felt totally hopeless about this. But I told her, it’s not so black and white. Get two or three removed. Start a savings account and pick away at it. Getting just two or three out of your mouth is a drastic improvement already. Don’t let the fact that you can’t do it all at once stop you from doing anything at all.

Just do your best. Honestly, making better choices is just that: BETTER. Maybe it’s just a first step for you, and a few months go by and you up the ante. I would hope so.

Healthy eating on a budget

Listen, I know organic, grass-fed, free-range, wild-caught food is more expensive. But it’s probably not quite as bad as you think. In a way, you’ve got to compare apples to apples.

Let’s say, for example, you take your family of four to Burger King for dinner because you think it’s cheap, fast food. You end up paying at least $25 total for a value meal for everyone. If you go and get two pounds of grass-fed, organic ground beef at Whole Foods, which, I checked, was $6.99/lb. So that’s $14 and you make some homemade sweet potato French fries with a bag of sweet potatoes for $2.99, you’ve actually saved $8 and everyone is a lot healthier for it. Of course, if you get two boxes of macaroni and cheese for 99 cents and feed everyone, that’s incredibly cheap, but there are really no nutrients to speak of in this kind of meal. So, really, you could say you just flushed $2 down the tubes. I’m not going to say the healthy stuff isn’t more expensive. That’s an unfortunate reality. Good, raw nuts are a more expensive snack than a box of Cheez-its. But you get more nutritional bang for your buck, so in a way, that’s an unfair comparison.

In that vein, let’s talk about the “Dirty Dozen” and the “Clean 15.”

This organization, the Environmental Working Group, makes a list every year where they determine which vegetables are the dirtiest in terms of pesticides. They call these the “Dirty Dozen” and it means that these are the most important veggies to buy organic. This year, the dirty list includes strawberries, apples, nectarines, peaches, celery, grapes, cherries, spinach, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

On the other hand, you can look at their list of the “clean 15” and save some money by buying them non-organic. The list this year includes avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwi, eggplant, honeydew, grapefruit, cantaloupe, and cauliflower.

Here are some other ways to save money on food:

• Join a co-op. You get discounts for being a member and they tend to take quality food very seriously. Some great ones in the Charlotte area include Farm Stand @ 7th Street Public Market, Earth Fare, Off the Vine Produce and Natural Harvest Food Store in Concord.
• Utilize Coupons. These things will save you money. A lot of money. And the days are over when grandma would sit for hours at the kitchen table with the newspapers and a pair of scissors. You can, for example, download a Whole Foods app that will send you coupons to your phone. Just scroll through them. It takes two minutes. Educate yourself about coupons and about how stores and their coupons work. Most stores release new coupons on a certain day of the week. Let’s say that Healthy Home Market releases coupons on Wednesdays. First of all, that’s good to know. Second, a lot of the time, their old coupons expire on that same day. That means Wednesdays is double coupon day. Also, many stores honor their competitors coupons. Give it a try!
• Bulk up and start stockpiling. Buying in bulk is always cheaper. Getting a large container of nuts, or a giant bag of them from the bulk section of Whole Foods, will save you money in the long run. You can refrigerate them.
• Buy in season. When certain foods are in season, they’re cheaper. Buying blueberries in February is a lot more expensive than buying them in July. So buy a lot in July and put them in your freezer. The same goes for most fruits and vegetables.
• Fermenting is also a great way to store food. That’s how our ancestors did it before refrigeration. If you notice cabbage is really cheap, buy a ton of it and turn it into sauerkraut and stock up your pantry.
• Enroll your networks. If you can convince a group of friends or co-workers to pitch in and buy a cow, or half a cow, you save a lot of money and you can just freeze what you don’t immediately eat.

Another big thing you’ll notice. When you make the switch to good, real, fresh food rather than processed food, you find you don’t need to eat as much. Part of the reason for this is when you eat processed food, much of what you’re eating is fillers. It doesn’t nourish your body so your body asks for more food. Another reason is that some of these additives are literally addictive. Added salt, saturated fat, and sugar are addictive substances. You always want more, even if you’re not hungry. If you wean yourself off this stuff, you won’t WANT to eat as much, which saves you money.

Exercise

If you don’t think you can afford a gym membership—in money or in time—then I have the solution for you: burst training. You can do this in 20 minutes in your living room or around your neighborhood and it will get you results. Here’s how it works:

• Take a workout and split it into three sections. If it’s 20 minutes, this can be three sections of 6.5 minutes, or it can be split into one-minute increments or whatever suits you.
• Two of these sections should be incredibly explosive activity, like sprinting or doing push-ups as fast as you absolutely can. The third section is a cool-down period. Instead of sprinting, take it down to a light job. Instead of push-ups, do squats at a medium pace.

Cross-country runners do a great version of this as a routine exercise. They will sprint as fast as they can for two telephone polls, then jog to the third. It works because it causes your body to enter high-alert mode as if you were being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or something. You burn fat for hours after you stop.

Chiropractic

In my office, we have all income levels. And for those on a budget, we are happy to work with them on payment plans or financing. Our goal is to get people healthy, not keep them coming back forever to make us rich. And you’ll find that (while not every healthcare practitioner is like that) many people have the same attitude. People are usually willing to work with you to achieve your goals. We like it when we see others achieve their goals and if we can help, it’s a sense of achievement for us as well.

Also, and here’s a little secret for those who read to the end. It’s all on my website. If you feel like you don’t need a nutrition coach and you’re self-motivated, just cruise around this website. You’ll find recipes, guidelines for nutrition, protocols, tips and tricks and ALMOST everything you would need to get your health back on track. And it’s free. So enjoy.