Category Archives: Health

Vowing to get back in shape (This time I’m serious. Really.)


photo by yuan2003

I know, I know. I’ve been talking about my post-wedding, office job weight gain for months now. You’d think I’d have done something about it by now. Sigh.

Unfortunately, despite my attempts to eat healthier and get in shape, I’ve failed pretty miserably. I don’t have the guts to weigh myself after a week and a half of holiday overeating, but I’m sure if I did I’d be 10-15 pounds heavier than I was on my wedding day just 7 months ago.

In the spirit of the new year (who doesn’t vow to get healthier every New Year?), I’ve decided to really do it this time. Seriously. Don’t laugh.

I take full responsibility for my own laziness and poor eating habits, but part of my problem in the last six months has been the gym in my apartment complex. I was excited to use the facilities for free (what frugal exerciser wouldn’t love a free gym?). Unfortunately, it’s a tiny room with only a tread mill, stationary bike, and weight machine.

Too often I returned home from work, changed into my workout clothes, and forced myself to go to the gym (getting there is the hardest part for me). When I arrived, I discovered that all of the machines were in use. Some nights I returned 3 or 4 times to find the machines in use by different people before finally giving up.

I’ve made the decision to use some Christmas gift money to join a proper gym.

I’ve found a gym close to my house that allows month-to-month membership fee payment. It costs $15 a month plus a one-time setup fee of $40. If I choose this membership option, I can cancel my membership at any time with no fees.

The other option I’m considering requires a 12-month commitment. I’m hesitant to do this, because even though I have the best of intentions, I don’t want to end up paying a monthly fee for a membership I’m not using. However, the monthly fee is only $5 more per month, and the 12-month commitment carries with it unlimited guest privileges. That means Tony would have access to the gym, too, for just $5 more per month.

I did the math, and if I kept the membership for a full year paying month to month, it would cost $219 for the year. The 12-month membership with guest privileges would end up costing me $268 for the year.

I really don’t like the mindset that many people have when it comes to gym memberships (“If I’m paying for it, then I’ll HAVE to use it”). I find that it almost never works that way. People continue to pay every month even though they never use the gym.

However, I really like the idea of having the option to bring Tony with me to the gym if he wants to work out. If we went together for only 6 months, the rest of the year would pay for itself in the amount we saved. I also think I’d be more likely to stick to it not because I’m paying for it, but because Tony and I would be doing it together.

What do you think? Should I stick with the month-to-month dues or commit for a full year and risk paying for a membership I don’t use?

Shave your grooming budget with a safety razor

This is a guest post from my wonderful husband, Tony. You can read more from him at his movie review blog, Screen Savour. But first read about his experiences with an old-fashioned safety razor.

When we began to live the frugal lifestyle, I started looking for a way to become a frugal shaver. Shaving is something that’s required of me (growing a beard isn’t currently an option in my world), and if I’m going to do it, I think my face should feel good afterward. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to drop a fortune to do it.

When I began shaving as a teenager, my first razor of choice was the electric razor for its quickness. But the skin on my face has always been too sensitive, and the electric razor not only irritated my skin but it never gave me the smoothness I wanted. Furthermore, for an electric razor to function well, the mechanical blades inside need to be replaced at least annually. Depending on the make and model of your razor, those can set you back. It wasn’t worth it to me.

Bags of disposable razors are cheap. I’ve used them before, and believe me, the little torn-off pieces of toilet paper covering up my shredded face are proof enough that there’s a reason they’re so cheap. So they’re out, too.

Replacement cartridge razors were my choice for most of my life. I initially used the three-blade model, then upgraded once to the four-blade and again to the five-blade. As the number of blades increased, so did the price of replacing those cartridges.

Replacement cartridge packs for the last razor I used were running me more than $25 for eight cartridge heads. If one cartridge head lasts for two weeks, that means I’m still spending about $100 (depending on the deal) to buy enough cartridges to shave for one year. And that’s not even counting the cost of shaving cream and aftershave!

Earlier this year, I found the solution to my shaving problem in the unlikeliest of places: a pro-environmental lifestyle magazine. The magazine urged readers to abandon the replacement cartridges (which waste tons of plastic each year) and convert to using a safety razor.

The safety razor is the cast-iron skillet of the shaving world. If you buy one and properly care for it, you’ll never have to buy another.

It’s an old-school device that screws together and sandwiches a single sharp, steel blade between two layers of polished and brushed metal. All that is exposed is the thin edge of the steel blade. When the blade becomes dull, the safety razor unscrews and all you throw away is a thin piece of steel (which is completely recyclable).

The device is very retro in appearance, and although it takes a little while to get used to, the shaves have been unparalleled.

You pay up front for the safety razor. The actual handheld device cost me about $25, which is on the lower end of the spectrum. (Editor’s note: Price of one safety razor = price of 8 disposable cartridges. Just saying. :) )

The real savings come in the replacement blades. They’re very sharp and functional, but also thin and cheap. Amazon is selling a pack of 30 razor blades right now at less than $15. That’s 50 cents per blade, compared to over $3 each for replacement cartridges. Even if I changed the blade every week, I would only spend $26 a year on razors. If I changed the blade as often as I did replacement cartridges for my old razor (every other week), I would spend just $13 a year.

I can’t speak to how well a safety razor works on shaving legs, but my face and wallet have been thankful for the change.

So there you have it. If you’re tired of filling up landfills and spending a fortune on plastic replacement cartridges and you’re willing to try something new, the safety razor might be right for you. It would make a great gift for the frugal, environmentally conscious man in your life.

Introducing the “Holiday Food & Financial Diet”!

Photo by rwhitlock

I don’t know about you, but the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are a dangerous time for my waistline and my bank account. The holiday spirit tempts me to overspend on entertainment and gifts, and the holiday parties and meals tempt me to eat and eat unhealthy foods.

This has been a weekend of gluttony, and with our trip home for the holidays coming up in a scant 24 days, I’m looking ahead to another week of overeating, overspending, and expensive travel. This year, I want to nip it in the bud. I don’t have the will power to resist on the holidays themselves, but the least I can do is control myself in the weeks in between.

So how are we controlling our diet and spending in the next few weeks?

1. We’re reducing our consumption of meat.

We have a couple steaks and a few chicken breasts in our freezer. We’ve decided to pick up some extra chicken breasts to last us through the month, and then ration our consumption for the next few weeks. This will not only reduce the amount of meat we’re eating and buying — it will also ensure that we’re not leaving a freezer full of meat when we head out of town for Christmas.

2. We’re trying month-long menu planning.

I typically only menu plan on a week by week basis. This month, we’re going to try planning out our meals for the next three weeks in one fell swoop. This will allow us to maximize purchases, ration our meat consumption throughout the month, and clear out the pantry before our trip.

3. We’re cutting our entertainment spending and staying home instead.

With our big trip back to Indiana coming up, we’ve decided a few weekends at home won’t hurt us. This will not only free up some extra money for travel and gifts, but it will reduce the temptation to overeat at a restaurant or splurge on movie theater popcorn.

We’ve cut our usual $50 for entertainment out of the budget. Typically this goes to the occasional movie or meal out. This month we’ll stay home on the weekends, utilize the library, and revisit some movies we haven’t watched in ages.

4. We set a budget of $50 each to shop for each other — and we’re sticking to it.

Both of us were willing to give up receiving gifts from the other, but neither of us wanted to give up the fun of shopping for the other. Finding that perfect gift for the person you love most is so much fun. The trick is to avoid the temptation to go overboard. Last year, we were limited to $50 each, and we had a lot of fun finding small, practical but thoughtful gifts to put under our tree. We decided to maintain the tradition. Nothing big or flashy, just small tokens.

5. We kept our Christmas shopping list short.

It can be so tempting to shop for anyone and everyone in your family this time of year. I firmly reminded myself that the people I love who love me will understand that we’re not in a place financially where we can buy flashy gifts for our extended family. We used an Amazon gift card I received through MyPoints to shop for our nieces and nephews who are 5 and under, and we’re putting together gift baskets for immediate family.

I’ll revisit this topic throughout the month to let you know how I’m doing. I hope you’ll join in, too! The holidays themselves may throw off your financial and fitness goals, but if we can control ourselves for a few weeks in between it might not be so bad!

If you’re planning on joining in, please leave a comment and let me know how you’re cutting back for the next three weeks!

Buying time between haircuts

frugal haircutMy hair is trouble. Always has been. It’s naturally curly, oddly textured, and prone to breakage. If I don’t take good care of it, I end up looking a little like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Obviously, I try to cut costs on things when I can. When we first moved and money was even tighter than it is now, I thought haircuts could be one of those things. I went with my husband to the $8 hair cuttery where he gets his trimmed. Bad mistake. My hair looked like it had been butchered with a dull steak knife. I was self-conscious about it for months until it grew out and I could get it cut again and evened out.

So I’ve resigned myself to paying a little extra to a stylist I trust will make me look my best. Since I pay about $40 a haircut (a luxury to be sure), I have to limit myself to just a couple haircuts a year.

There are a few things I do to extend the time between haircuts without letting my hair look like a hot mess. Even if you don’t pay a lot for haircuts, these tips will keep your hair looking healthier for longer and extend the time between haircuts.

Use a good shampoo and conditioner.

I’ve written about how I get pricey salon haircare products for $3.25 a month. If your hair is no fuss, you might not notice a difference between salon products and more affordable brands. If you have dry, naturally curly, or damaged hair, you probably know what I’m talking about when I say it really can make a huge difference in the overall health and maintenance of your hair.

Take it easy on the heat styling.

I used to be a blow dry fanatic until a just a few weeks ago. Then I did the math and realized I was spending about 5 days a year styling my hair. Yikes. Now I’m wearing it curly more often. Even when I blow dried, though, I never did it more than twice a week. Heat styling damages hair and causes split ends faster. If you’re addicted to blow drying, limit yourself to a couple times a week.

Just trim your bangs.

Typically your bangs need trimming sooner than the rest of your hair. If you’re handy with scissors, keeping your bangs trimmed yourself can buy you a lot of time between cuts.

Personally, I don’t trust myself to cut my own hair. But my stylist will trim my bangs for $7. I can pop in for a trim every other month and extend the time between full cuts to 6 months or so.

Obviously, the easiest way to avoid the hassle and expense of maintaining bangs is to grow them out.

The easiest way to save money on haircuts is not to be so particular about them. I know many faithful frugals who swear by beauty school haircuts. Maybe some day I’ll get past my bad experiences and take the plunge. For now, I’ll continuing seeing the stylist I trust twice a year. :)

Feeling down? Don’t let it tempt you to overspend (or overeat)

It’s just been one of those weeks. Everything is just … blah. Nothing in particular, really. Maybe it’s because it’s my first full week back after a short vacation. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling deprived of fall in the 85-degree heat. Most likely I’m just more than a little homesick for the beautiful Midwestern fall weather and for my friends and family back home.

At any rate, I’ve been feeling down in the dumps.

Usually when I’m down, the first thing I reach for is something extremely bad for me to eat. Chocolate. French fries. Pizza. Whatever. But I’m watching what I eat now, so that’s not really an option.

Instead, I was craving seared tuna. A downtown restaurant makes a delicious seared tuna that I found myself thinking about as the afternoon wore on. It seemed like the perfect comfort food. I was so tempted to call my husband after work and tell him to forget about the meal we’d planned (roasted chicken breasts) and take me out to dinner.

But we’re already cutting it close with our grocery budget for the month. And honestly, overspending or overeating never really make me feel better when I’m down. Sure, it’s great temporarily, but when the meal is over and the bill arrives, I feel sick — not just because I’ve probably eaten too much and wrecked a week of dieting, but also because it’s extra money we shouldn’t have spent.

It never fails. I feel worse than I did before the meal.

Instead, I called my husband and asked him to start thinking about how we might recreate the seared tuna recipe. On my way home, he gave me a very short grocery list. Basically tuna and rice. We had the rest of the ingredients on hand.

For about $10, we made our own seared tuna at home. It was absolutely delicious and completely satisfied the craving. The chicken breast that we defrosted in the refrigerator last night will be just as good for another meal early next week.

The money we spent will fit easily in our entertainment budget for which we allow about $12.50 a week. No big deal this weekend since we’re going to a work-related picnic Saturday that won’t cost us a dime.

After a healthful, delicious meal I’m feeling better, and I didn’t have to break my diet or my budget.

Stay healthy, save money

Photo by smaku
It’s that time of year again. One by one everyone in the office and at school starts sniffling, coughing, and sneezing. It’s only a matter of time before you come down with it, too. Or is it?

Cold and flu season is no fun. Getting sick not only makes you feel bad; it can be expensive. Even if you don’t need to pay a visit to the doctor or fill a prescription, you’ll still spend money on expensive over-the-counter drugs and lose valuable time when you could be doing something productive. It may even affect your paycheck if your employer doesn’t offer sick time.

While a flu shot may ward off the flu, I choose not to get them. The last time I had a flu shot, the nurse nicked a nerve and my arm was sore for 6 months. So I choose to fight off illness the old-fashioned, frugal way. Here are some tips to keep you well this flu season and save money:

1. Take good care of yourself.

Plenty of sleep and a healthy diet go a long way when it comes to staying well. Try to get 8 hours of sleep every night, and make sure your diet is rich in whole grains, protein, produce, and calcium. Avoid alcohol and don’t smoke. It seems obvious, but taking good care of yourself in general is half the battle.

2. Keep your hands clean.

Washing frequently throughout the day will decrease your risk of picking up germs. I always carry a little bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse, and frequently pull it out and use it throughout the day. Always wash your hands before eating.

3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth unless your hands are clean.

Your hands are the first line of defense when it comes to germs. They’re the body part most likely to come into contact with germs through doorknobs, phones, and other things you touch. Whenever I tell people this, they look at me like I’m some kind of germaphobe. But when you absent-mindedly touch your face after picking up germs, you infect yourself.

Make a concerted effort to keep your hands away from your face unless you’ve just washed or sanitized them. If you get an itch, just use the back of your hand or your wrist to scratch it. It only takes a couple weeks to form a habit. Pretty soon you won’t even think about it anymore.

4. Carry a pen.

Think about how often you pick up a pen without thinking about where it’s been – at the bank, at the grocery store checkout, at a co-worker’s desk. If you keep a pen in your pocket or purse and always use your own, you’ll decrease your chances for picking up a virus from a germy pen.

5. If you do get sick, be courteous.

If at all possible, stay home until the virus passes. You should be getting rest anyway. If you absolutely have to go to work, try to isolate yourself as much as possible. Make sure you cover your mouth when you cough, but don’t cough into your hands. That will just ensure that you’re passing the germs on when you touch things around you. Instead, cough into your sleeve. Try to keep your hands clean, too.

Of course, there’s not a lot that moms can do to prevent kids from bringing viruses home from school. However, taking these steps will at least help you avoid picking up viruses from other places.

Keeping your immune system strong by taking good care of yourself may even protect you when the kids do bring it home. At the very least, being in good health with a strong immune system will shorten your recovery time.

5 ways that budget management and weight control are alike

I’m pretty proud of our financial success in the past few months. My husband and I have improved our financial health immensely since our wedding. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for my physical health.

I’ve been avoiding the scale for the past month. I didn’t want to confirm what I already knew. Last night, I finally decided to face the inevitable. I’ve gained 8 pounds in the four months since my wedding. Yikes. I was 3 pounds below my regular weight on my wedding day, but I’m officially 5 pounds above my “happy weight” – the heaviest I’ve been in two years.

One of my first posts was about how I lost weight using basic budgeting skills. Now that the honeymoon’s over, and it’s time to get real and lose these pounds I’ve put on since the wedding, I wanted to revisit the topic. Only this time I’m talking about why constant monitoring and reassessment are crucial to staying physically and financially fit.

Here are some tips I’ve found helpful when managing my weight and my budget:

1. Be realistic.

Sometimes it’s necessary to go on a strict budget to pay down massive debt. You may have to cut all discretionary spending for a little while to overcome a major financial hurdle. However, if you try to maintain that level of restriction for too long, it’s harder to stay on track and meet your own high expectations.

Your best bet is to find a comfortable balance between necessary bills, discretionary spending, and saving. Maintaining a reasonable budget requires constant monitoring, but it shouldn’t be incredibly difficult or make you feel deprived.

The same is true for weight management. Find a comfortable weight within your healthy range that you’re able to maintain without going to extreme diet measures. Once you get there, maintaining that weight requires constant monitoring, but it shouldn’t be a terrible struggle as long as you’re eating well and exercising.

I’m able to stay at my healthy weight pretty easily just by avoiding overeating and staying active. When I try to venture below that weight, like I did for my wedding, every pound is an incredible struggle. My body just doesn’t want to be that thin. So I’m happy to compromise. I may not be thin enough to feel comfortable in a bikini, but at least I know I’m in a healthy weight range.

2. Frequently monitor your progress to catch yourself before you veer too far off track.

Once you find a comfortable budget, it’s crucial that you measure your progress regularly. Without careful planning and monitoring, you could easily throw your entire monthly budget off track with one weekend of bad decisions. Imagine how bad it could get if you just stopped monitoring your spending for months at a time.

Just as you check your budget frequently to make sure you’re not overspending, you must weigh yourself regularly. A slight increase in weight could alert you to a problem in your diet and activity before you veer off track to an unmanageable degree.

3. The longer you avoid the problem, the harder it is to resolve.

It’s much easier to pay off your credit card balance every month than it is to pay down several thousand dollars of debt that’s accrued over months or years. It’s also a lot harder to lose weight when the pounds have packed on over time. Overcoming a 1-pound weight gain usually just involves watching what you eat closely for a few days. I’ll have to work a lot harder to lose these 5 pounds. It would be even harder if I waited until I was 40 pounds overweight again to get back on track.

4. Constantly adjust according to your changing needs.

When it comes to budgeting, everybody knows that you can’t continue spending the same after a major pay cut. When your income decreases, your spending must decrease, too. Likewise, when you welcome a new baby, your discretionary spending is probably going to take a hit to accommodate for diapers and formula.

You must find the same balance between activity and calorie intake for weight management. I think part of the reason I’m struggling more to maintain my weight is because I changed my job. In retail, I was on my feet 8 hours a day running around the store, moving heavy objects, and constantly moving. I didn’t watch my diet as closely as I should have, but the constant activity made it easy to keep extra weight off. Now that I’m sitting at a desk all day instead of moving, I need to seek out more activity outside of my job and become mindful of what I eat to avoid weight gain.

5. Sticking to it and making the right choices are the hardest parts.

Everyone knows that the easiest way to stay ahead of the game financially is to spend less than you make. We also know that the best way to maintain a healthy weight is to burn more calories than you consume. It all sounds so easy when you break it down into those simple equations, doesn’t it? The truth it, it’s not that easy.

The part that’s left out of that equation is the constant struggle every day to make the right choices and stick to your commitment. After all, if it was as easy as it sounds, nobody would struggle with their weight or their finances.

The best thing that weight control and budget management have in common? They’re both totally worth the struggle.

Photo credit

Be familiar with what your insurance covers, and make sure your doctor is, too

About a month ago, my husband and I both went to the dentist for routine exams and cleanings. Because we’d been uninsured for a year, it was our first visit in about that long. It was also our first visit to a new dentist, so they did a full round of x-rays in addition to the cleaning and exam.

No cavities or problems for either of us (woo hoo!), and routine preventative care is fully covered by my insurance, so we left that day with no bill. Or so we thought.

Two weeks later, I received a statement of benefits that said we’d been denied coverage for $14 of each of our claims.

When I called to ask about it, I was informed that my dentist took three of a certain type of x-ray. My insurance only covers two within a 12-month period. My dentist hadn’t checked to see what was covered, and I didn’t know, so I let them take the x-ray that may or may not have been necessary. Because x-rays are considered “preventative care,” extra ones are not even covered by the 80/20 part of my policy. For preventative care, it’s all or nothing. We’re responsible for 100% of any preventative care that isn’t covered.

Luckily, it was only a $14 x-ray. So our total out of pocket for both of us will be $28. Without insurance, we would have paid over $500 for our exams, cleanings, and x-rays. If you ask me, $28 for healthy smiles is a bargain.

This experience made me think, though: what if the uncovered procedure had been something more expensive? I had no idea what my insurance actually covered as “preventative care.”

I assumed that my entire visit would be considered “preventative care,” but I didn’t know enough about my policy to ask my dentist questions. I certainly didn’t know enough to say, “My insurance only covers two x-rays, so if the third isn’t absolutely necessary, I’d really rather skip it.” I don’t know if dentists take kindly to this kind of request, but I’d be comfortable asking if I had known it was necessary.

We already made appointments for our second cleanings and exams of the year six months from now, so I decided to check with my insurance company to make sure it will be covered. I didn’t want to be stuck with 100% of the cost of our second cleanings/exams if my insurance only covers one cleaning for each of us per year. Turns out we’re each allowed two cleanings and exams per year, so we’re fine.

What did I learn from this? Though I’ve always checked my insurance policies for general information (i.e. do they cover 100% for preventative care? What percentage of other procedures and prescriptions will they cover?), it’s also important to look at the minute details that I might otherwise ignore, such as exactly how many x-rays they cover and what’s considered “preventative care.”

Not only did I not know that my insurance only covered two of that particular type of x-ray, I had no idea that they were taking three of them. In the future, I’ll be prepared when I show up for doctor or dentist appointments. I’m going to become familiar with the little details of my policy, and I’ll begin the appointment by politely requesting to be informed of each procedure they’re going to perform. If I’m educated about what they’re doing, what’s covered by my insurance and what’s not, I’ll be able to make educated decisions about whether I want to go through with the procedures or not.

Obviously, if the doctor deems the procedure medically necessary or if it’s an emergency, then I won’t be crunching numbers in my head. Our health comes before money. But if it’s just an extra x-ray and the doctor says there’s no harm in skipping it, I might want to pass.

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Basic budgeting can help you lose weight (without costing you money)

Money Saving Mom wrote an insightful and realistic post today about frugal weight loss. Because I’ve struggled with both debt and my weight and I believe the two are alike in more ways than one, it inspired me to throw in my two cents.

Two years ago I lost 40 pounds without spending a dime. No gym membership. No diet program. No special meals or exercise equipment. I think it’s really important to stress to frustrated dieters that you don’t have to spend money to lose weight. In my personal experience, stressing about finances often led to overeating. The more I spent, the more I stressed, the more I ate. So for me spending money on weight loss was counterproductive.

The single most effective part of my diet was planning my meals and tracking each and every calorie that I ate. In essence, I created a “food budget.”

You can’t expect to get out of debt and save money without a budget, so how can you expect to lose weight without being accountable for what you eat and when you eat it? Every day I planned what I was going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks, and I tracked how many calories I “spent” on different foods in my food budget.

I determined how many calories I needed to be consuming (you can do this by entering your information into this handy calorie calculator). Much like a budget helps you avoid spending more than your income, a food budget helps you avoid eating more calories than your daily allowance.

It doesn’t have to be time consuming. I used FitDay to track calories, exercise, and goals. Registration is completely free, and the site has a huge database of common foods so you can estimate how many calories you’re eating. I compared the database information to many of the foods that I knew the nutritional information for, and it was pretty accurate. All you do is search for the food you ate and add it to your online food diary. You can also manually enter the nutritional facts for your favorite foods and save them to add them again later.

The site keeps track of your most common foods and makes it easy to add them without searching. It does all the math for you, so it’s easy to stay on track.

Not knowing exactly how many calories there are in a food is like buying something without even looking at the price tag. Would you hand over your debit card and walk out of the store without at least looking at the receipt? I don’t think so.

I learned more about nutrition and dieting in the first two weeks of tracking calories than I had in a lifetime of yo-yo dieting. Like a financial budget, my food budget mapped out where I was “overspending” calories so I could make targeted changes.

For the first week of my diet, I ate a bagel with a tablespoon of cream cheese for breakfast. When I looked at my food budget and realized I had been wasting 100 calories every day on cream cheese alone, I quickly determined that it wasn’t worth it and switched to high fiber cereal to save the calories. Sound familiar to you budgeters?

Tracking calories wasn’t just informative, it was empowering. I loved being able to make informed choices about what I ate. Knowing that a piece of cake would cost me more than half a day’s calories made it a lot easier to turn it down. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that a mini Reese’s cup was a minuscule 40 calories, an amount I could easily afford to work into my budget and enjoy guilt free from time to time.

The point is, if you have the tools to manage your finances, then you have the tools you need to manage your weight. Discipline, basic math, organization, planning, and budgeting are the keys to staying physically and financially fit. You wouldn’t spend money to get your finances under control, so why spend money on weight loss?

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