You can choose to subsidize your illness -or- You can invest in your wellness.

Chances are you are like most Americans when it comes to spending. You buy things on a daily, weekly and monthly basis only to find out at the end of the month where your money went (and if there is any left over)!

Your spending patterns can tell you a lot about the priorities in your life. For example, when asked, many
people will say God is a priority in their life. Yet when looking at their monthly check register the 10% tithe is absent, inconsistent or insufficient to what they make per month.

The same rings true for health. Most people, when asked if health is a priority in their life say YES, yet
have little to show for it in their priority spending. Remember, we spend money on what is important
to us. Food, clothing, rent/ mortgage makes up our necessities, but what about our “other” expenses. To
find out if health is one of your top priorities run this simple “priorities check.”

At the end of this month categorize your monthly spending (rent, groceries, entertainment) and add a
“health” category. Including in here would be things like your chiropractic care, massages, supplements,
gym memberships, healthy food purchases etc.

Once all your expenses are categorized find the top 5 categories based on amount spent. Is your
health category in the top 5? Top 10? Top 20? Hopefully the answer doesn’t shock you!

Is it time to re-prioritize?

This little test can often be eye-opening. If you are noticing your priorities have drifted, take heart in the fact that now you know! There is never a better time than now to plan for the present and future.

This doesn’t mean that you have to spend a fortune on your health, just let it reflect in your budget as the priority it should be. Plus, we can talk about some ways to reduce costs.

For example, you don’t need to join a gym to exercise. There are plenty of options in the world around you. Run in your neighborhood, play basketball at a local park. If you want to build muscle, there are many techniques for leveraging your body weight for optimal use. Or, you can just lift heavy things around your house: bags full of sand, buckets of water, spare tires–there’s always something heavy laying around!

Eating healthy can seem more expensive. Organic produce and meat is certainly more expensive than their less healthy counterparts. But there are ways to mitigate costs. Download the Clean 15/Dirty Dozen list from the environmental protection group.   Any food item on the Dirty Dozen list must be purchased organic because they are often heavily sprayed.  The Clean 15 list is where your wallet can rejoice.  Due to their non porous skin or multilayers any spraying often is shielded from the part you consume.   Another money saver is to buy your healthy foods from the bulk section as much as possible: seeds, nuts, dried fruits, etc. – they are less expensive than the pre-packaged items.

You can also check out local farmer’s markets. Not only do you support locally grown and raised food, you will almost always find good deals.

Join a co-op. These local grocery stores have hefty discounts for members. There is often a membership fee, but the savings will quickly make up for that.

Check out thrivemarket.com. It’s an online store featuring organic, non-GMO, free-range, wild-caught, grass-fed, etc. And it’s generally cheaper than getting it at a local shop and shipping is often free.

Make various foods yourself! Don’t buy pickles in a jar at the store. Make pickles at home! Don’t buy soup in a wrapper. Make soup! Don’t buy applesauce in a little plastic cup. Make applesauce! Believe me, it will save you money, and most things aren’t as difficult as you might imagine–and you can always find recipes online.

Grow your own food. That’s right, be a little urban farmer. You’ve probably got at least a balcony, or maybe even a big yard. Dedicate a certain portion of your outdoor space to growing veggies. Onions grow fairly easily, as do carrots. Neither of these take up much space either. If you do have more space, strawberries grow like a weed! And lettuce in many forms is quite easy to grow.

Perhaps a different way to look at it is this: what is your level of investment in health? Do you spend money, time, energy? At some point, health takes it out of you–whether it’s in little incremental bits of upkeep along the way, or in one big shot at the end.

Trust me, it’s better to pay a little now than a lot later.