Subscriptions Vs. Health
DISCLAIMER. I am not sponsored by any brands mentioned in this post, these are my thoughts and insights as a Health Coach. I am not paid to recommend anything and this is not one size fits all. Results may vary.
Why are we willing to subscribe to entertainment but not to something that benefits our health?
Why are we willing to put money into a service that does us no good? Yes, TV is great. I am a child of the 90s and tv was my thing, then into my teen and in my young adulthood the internet became a thing and I was hooked. But the things I knew were good for me were slowly going on the back burner. I worked at a big sandwich chain too, where we preached freshness and along with that fitness. I have also done the work as someone wanting to be active, I did T-Ball and was an avid Ice Skater (how I wish pictures of those days were available but I don't think there were ever pictures during that time) but I was always the little chunky kid. As an adult I did the ringer, I did the gym sessions and I did the P90X and Insanity but got nowhere fast. I had chronic conditions like arthritis preventing me from doing a lot, or so I thought.
I tried the plant based diet since I was 16 years old, I went vegan the little rebel punk I was. I did that till my first pregnancy at 20, then again from 25 Years old till my second pregnancy at 29 years old. During those vegan times I was the most active and had the least amount of pain I've had in my entire life. There wasn't a correlation to that was there?
To go back to when I was a kid I loved my junk food, going to McDonald's on my way to ice skating practice and wienerschnitzel after practice are some of the best memories I have. I had those big jugs of colorful juice and went through so many of those pints of Dr.Pepper that I can't even taste them now.
But you know what I find myself saying now? I find myself saying to my kids "no candy right now you need to eat dinner first" or "you just had a cup of juice, have some water please" because I don't want to repeat with my kids what my diet in my youth was. But it's hard, the economy supports unhealthy and patronizes healthy eating.
This brings us back to the title of this blog. Yes, why are we willing to spend money for subscription boxes or entertainment but not a subscription like Thrive Market or Misfits Market to get us good healthy, organic, limited processed or even Ugly but still edible in season produce? Or how do we spend money on a patreon subscription to our favorite content creator but not be able to buy that Gluten-free alternative that your doctor said would be good for us to try. I know myself, I was told by my doctor to cut out gluten and see how it worked. I have 50% cut out gluten and my daughter took my lead to do it as well, whenever we can we will opt for gluten free. And you know what? Our guts know the difference but I also believe my knees know the difference as well. Did you know your gut controls a lot of our functioning? It's not just an army that marches on its belly. It's us.
So why did I compare health with streaming services?
Because we find no problem paying for Amazon Prime, Netflix, the Disney bundle, and countless other forms of entertainment services. For us in my house that was close to $500 (including the internet to stream these) before we started to cut down, that's money we didn't have to go toward our food budget to buy that $4 gluten free bread or $3 for a better chip. Wait $3 for a better chip? What's the price of chips now? $5.99 for a party size bag of classic lays chips at my local Fry's store and we all know that the amount of air in the bag has increased. Compared to the countless healthy chip brands for somewhere near the same weight comes with the price range of $2.99-4.99 per bag, for a classic potato chip style. That alone actually saves money, not to mention that if you actually use a family size bag with dinner you will have enough for your dinner for 3-5 people without over indulgence. So let's do the math on if you got 2 bags of party size chips a month in a year, for a regular bag that will be about $143.76 before taxes vs the low end chip (so the cheapest healthiest chip) $71.76 that's a savings of at least $72 for the year. Again streaming services just for Amazon video membership for a year that's $8.99 a month and $107.88 before taxes and fees for 1 year. But the big caveat that I see is that if you have Amazon prime you get access to Amazon prime titles and if you don't you may have to pay per episode or movie 🤔 so real quick add the year of prime $139 per year as advertised plus the video ends up being $247.87 for 1 year.
How are those healthier chips looking with a rented series's from your local library (says the mom whose teen is currently renting through the Stargate universe thanks to the Phoenix Public Library) with a savings of $176.11 you could put towards healthy groceries for the year or an extra $14 and some change a month.
A membership to an online direct store like Thrive is $59.95 for a year, or you could choose to pay $12 a month but that will cost more in the end. With this you can get access to healthy food that may not be available where you live like Gluten Free Ramen noodles or even better cooking oils. Now if you live in the city you won't need to use an app like Thrive because there are probably a few health food stores in your area. We have a few sprouts, natural grocers and whole foods around us. We can also go to a Trader Joes or Aldi now, as they are the same distance for those as any of the above mentioned stores. We also have access to farmers markets, some happening at night for those who think of Arizona and only think about our heat. Peoria Park West has a night Market in the summertime which works two fold, it's at night when it's not as hot and it gives people who normally work during the times for a farmers market the opportunity to go after work. If I can I'll link a directory of farmers markets for all of Arizona here. 😃
The farmers markets or artisans market does there best to ensure organic and local food, satisfying our favorite acronym S.O.U.L ( Seasonal Organic Unprocessed and Local ) they have tried to Crack down on vendors coming to sell store bought foods and are trying to ensure that what's brought has been ethically sourced and is what is being advertised.
When shopping at a store you need to shop the outside of the store, the most Unprocessed food is in the perimeter of the store. And we want to get those anti-inflammatory foods we talked about in our last blog titled Anti-inflammatory Foods An Intro 101.
This has just been some of the costs most people associated with being healthy, having money to spend on better food. But this isn't the only part of better health, there is also self care and exercise.
Self care
Self care and how it affects your health and overall your skin. Yes this tie in is going to happen here for a minute but will get it's own blog.
We all hear that self care is good and important but those who cannot do "self care" usually will tell you it's "too expensive" again. But I believe that they are looking at things that are labeled as self care that may not totally need to be labeled as "expensive" . Yes, a trip to the spa will set you back a hundred or so dollars. But you have face wash and a nice towel and maybe a bathrobe at home already as a part of your overall routine. I myself like to go to YouTube (free, yes I watch ads) and see different face care videos, I will try to do the double washing and apply my two aftercare items with intent. I have a roller that I got for Christmas (second hand may I add because the person wasn't going to use it and I had expressed interest so score for me right) and I have an old face wash brush from a time I was very interested in starting self care but also deemed it "too expensive" 😊 but not to expensive to try e.l.f. bubble mask. Which may I say is an amazing drug store version because I did try another version that was more expensive than that once, but not again because of the price. Also as an eco conscious consumer I really deemed those things as not needed, now I can find refill versions of products and zero waste versions of products to try again. Right now I own a Plain Face Moisturizer (small business, woman owned, 1% for the planet, and more) and an Oxy Vitamin C Oil (I got it on the FSA store) and for me they are my regime right now. I will usually take my nice relaxing shower, wash my hair and do my first face wash. Then when I get out I do my second face wash, usually a little later because of my busy mom life. I will then at this point put on the oil and use the roller to massage it into my skin and follow up with simply applying it with my fingers. I do a little lymphatic massage (i will have to make a video to put here explaining that) and then apply just a tad extra to my under eyes because I am the queen of under eye bags. Tada! That's literally all I do as part of my face care, unless I have something special or extra like a face mask.
My First Face Mask in Years!!
Collagen Face Mask for $2.50 from Daiso Mesa.
Fresh Face
I did some relaxing self care that wouldn’t make my mask fall off for 45 minutes.
So where do you stand?
After reading this, I bet you know where I do. I stand with Try Your Best. Yes I still have subscriptions to streaming services, I can't make my family give those up. But we have given up around 25% of those services and like I said, we utilize the library a lot. We get books, CDs and DVDs and Blue Ray disks and so far this year alone saved over a thousand dollars by checking these out at the library rather than buying. My husband is savvy so he doesn't actually keep us subscribed to one channel long, usually we do 3 month rotations with what is “on sale” which works for us. Also along the lines of the food, we are actually looking at a Thrive membership. I see a lot of great deals and a consistency of having certain things in stock which is good if you have picky eaters or a certain comfort food.
So Let me know if you have similar issues, or similarly don’t bat an eyelash at your entertainment subscriptions but seem to nickel and dime your health.
