92: Healthy Living Hacks That Save You Money Daily

Michael Kummer: Living a healthy lifestyle can be incredibly expensive these days. If you just look at the cost of eggs, pastd, eggs in particular, grass fed meat, plastic free clothing, et cetera, it's absolutely ridiculous how much stuff costs these days. But here is the thing. Living healthy doesn't necessarily have to be expensive because think about it, if you were just, you know, live out in the woods in a mud hut and eat what you can hunt or gather, life would be incredibly inexpensive, maybe even free.

But obviously most people don't wanna go that route. You know? They want to hang on to modern conveniences. That's, I think, where it gets tricky. The more you want to hang on to modern conveniences, the more you want to participate in a quote unquote, normal life. The more it gets expensive to healthy fire, those.

Inherently unhealthy choices. But in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through a couple of tips and tricks and easy swaps that you can leverage to enjoy most of what modern life has to offer as far as conveniences are concerned, et cetera, while at the same time. Optimizing your health. So stick with me.

I'm gonna walk you through 18 or 19 of those. There are probably significantly more. And if you really think about, you know, what you do every day, how you purchase, what you purchase, how you live, you can probably identify even more opportunities to make some changes that don't negatively impact your health.

Maybe minimally impact your convenience, uh, without breaking the bank. Welcome to the Primer Chief Podcast. So let's get started with number one. Cold plunging. Cold plunging is one of my favorite biohacks, if you will, uh, because of all of the health benefits that I've seen out there that I've personally experienced.

But the problem obviously is that a high quality cold plunge tub with a filtration system, et cetera, can cost you a thousands of dollars. That's incredibly expensive. Now here's the thing. If you live in a climate where it gets cold in winter, you know, below freezing or around the freezing point, just take cold showers es, especially in winter, and if you have a natural body of water nearby, be a stream, be the lake.

You know, do cold plunging there, it's absolutely free. Doesn't cost you anything. Yeah, maybe with a cold hour you might not get all of the benefits of. Cold plunging, but most of them, and most importantly, it's completely free. And it, I would argue maybe better mimics, you know, how humans have been exposed to cold temperatures over a very long time.

So from an ancestral perspective, you know, just leveraging, I. Cold water as it comes out of the shower or as you can find it in a stream or in a lake, uh, might be the best option for you. And it doesn't cost anything. You know, instead of buying grass fed steak from Whole Foods, which can cost over 20 uh, dollars a pound, why not go for grass fed ground meat from discount stores?

I've seen. Very inexpensive ground meat, grass fed ground meat at Costco, at Lidle, at Aldi, at Walmart, and maybe some of the other stores that we don't have here in the area. Just have to go and look. Um, the other alternative is to buy beef in bulk from local farms like we do every year. We purchase one and a half cows.

And the price per pound of meat is significantly less than if you would buy all of those cuts in the store. Um, but even if grass fed is not in the carts for you because of budgetary concerns, buying conventionally raised meat, let's say from Costco in bulk is definitely better than meat alternatives.

You know, meat is healthy, period. There is grass fed, grass finished, you know, the, the best type of meat you can buy. Then there is the conventionally erased meat, and then everything else comes. Comes next, you know, so you're not gonna take a major hit buying conventionally raised meat. It's definitely better than any meat alternatives or processed junk food for sure...

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 The next thing is, you know, having a closet full of toxic clothing, you know, with plastics and all kinds of issues that you might experience with regular clothing.

You know, here is the thing, I'm guessing that most of those clothes you don't even wear, you might wear 20%. So instead of investing in a whole closet full of clothes that are. Toxic. Why not just invest in a few select pieces that are high quality that will last you and that are non-toxic? You know, I've significantly reduced my wardrobe and I'm still not wearing everything.

Um, I. With, you know, even within a couple of months, I don't get through all of my stuff because I still have way too much, you know, just to give you one, and if you're watching this, you know, on YouTube, uh, just to give you one anecdotal example, the shirt I'm wearing right now, guess how old that shirt is?

I, well, I'm gonna tell you, I purchased that shirt 25 years ago at a Hugo poster at the Munich Airport on my way to the world championships, uh, that were in, uh, that happened in Santiago, that Chile. And so I was a track athlete at the time. Uh, didn't have anything better to do than buying expensive clothing, but this one was actually a good buy and discovered that the cotton shirts from Hugo Boss that you can find at airport stores as expensive as they might be, they last you a very long time.

I've actually bought two more shirts from Hugo Boss, um, over the years, and they hold up. Incredibly well. Now it doesn't mean you should buy only Hugo Boss, you know, I'm not, you know, endorsing that brand by any means, but I've noticed that those shirts last forever. That shirt still looks good as far as I can tell.

It looks like the on day one, uh, might have fade a little bit, but I still like it. And so the point is, if fewer high quality, non-toxic pieces of clothing can go a long way. It's significantly easier than to, you know, you don't have to think about what to wear today. You know what you're going to wear today because you only have a few pieces to select from.

Next thing is dish soaps and laundry detergent. You know, I mean, you can, you know, spend very little money on very toxic stuff or a lot of money on non-toxic stuff. But the, here's the thing, you can use baking soda, you can use apple cider vinegar, um, that are fairly inexpensive to come by and use those, and they are just as effective at cleaning and deodorizing.

As the more expensive, non-toxic options you can find in specialty stores, uh, or from brands who've decided that they wanna produce non-toxic stuff, which is great, you know, by all means. The other thing you can do is that what we've done as well is invest in a ozone laundry unit. So using ozone to, to, um, to clean your laundry.

To kill any pathogens, especially odor causing, you know, bacteria, et cetera. Um, it's zero maintenance. Yes, it's a one time investment. It's like, I think 500 bucks or so, but then it's zero investment. It doesn't use a lot of electricity and it just does its thing while you do your laundry. Nothing to turn on and off.

It's, it's just there. And it, it adds ozone to the water as it's used in the, in the washing machine. Uh, that's also a very natural, safe and cost effective way of, uh, doing your laundry. Um. As far as produce is concerned, you know, organic produce, especially if it's out of season, can be incredibly expensive because that stuff needs to be flown in from who knows where.

Uh, best case scenario, California, in a worst case from halfway across the world, or from Central or South America. Now here's the thing. What, what I recommend is if you wanna produce, you know, eat. Locally and seasonally. And if you, if you find a farmer's market nearby, maybe go to that farmer's market, you know, towards, uh, before it closes, because chances are, if there are still leftovers, they're gonna sell it for less than they would charge at the beginning, you know, when, when they just open.

The other, uh, trick is to buy certain types of produce at the end of the season. So let's say you look up when tomatoes grow in your, in your area. You go to the farmer's market towards the end of the season when farmers want to get rid of whatever inventory they have, and again, you might get it for significantly less than you would buy.

You would pay when you go to the regular grocery store, and especially when you buy stuff that's not in season and not from. Your region comparable to what we talked about with, uh, clothing. You know, shoes is another thing I've, I, I mean, I'm not, I'm a guy, I'm not into shoes, but I've accumulated so many pairs of shoes over the years and I've gotten donated most of them now.

Um, and instead I've invested in a handful. Of barefoot shoes that are healthy, that don't cramp my toes, that give me the proper ground contact, et cetera. And you don't need a lot of shoes. If I think about how many different types of shoes I truly wear, it's maybe two or three, you know, and there might be some special occasions or whatever, you know, you might even, you know, borrow shoes or rent shoes for, for that occasion.

But otherwise, what do you, what you wear on a regular basis is probably just two or three pairs. Invest in a. Pair two or three pairs of high quality barefoot shoes. Um, less is more in that case and it won't break the bank. There are not so many brands out there of high quality barefoot shoes that are fairly inexpensive.

Definitely not more expensive than a regular pair of shoes. Uh. Furniture, that's another one. Especially if you wanna buy non-toxic, high quality furniture, it can get incredibly expensive. Now, here is my recommendation. Consider buying used furniture like high quality, but used furniture because that furniture had a chance to off gas in someone else's home.

So when you buy it, you get significantly less exposure to VOCs and some of the other chemicals that you get with most. Conventionally built, uh, furniture at least. So instead of buying high-end non-toxic furniture, buy used regular furniture, saves you a lot of money. And you get almost the same product buying water or beverages generally, you know, be it in glass bottles or plastic bottles, especially when you buy it in, in in glass bottles, you know, it can get incredibly expensive.

So what I recommend is, um, to purchase a high quality water filter that's a one-time investment, and then just use tap water. Maybe get, if you, you know, appreciate sparkling water like my wife does. You can invest in a, like a soda machine or whatever they call it, to carbonate the water. Um, and, and that's significantly less expensive than buying mineral water in the store.

Now, there could, there is an argument to be made that maybe high quality mineral water is better than what you can get out of your tap even after filtering it. But there is also an opportunity to just add some minerals, be it as. Mean it's part of an electrode supplement. Or if you have an RO filter with a remineralization cartridge to add minerals back in to make the water quality significantly better than you would get just out of your tap in the long run by using a filter.

Even if it's an RO filter with a remineralization cartridge, it's likely much less expensive than buying water and beverages in the store if you're into building a new home. We are currently, you know, we. Purchased some land, um, two year, a year ago so we can build our new homestead and raise cattle and all of those things.

And we're in the process now of building a home or of designing a home that we can build from scratch. And one of the things that we've learned is if you wanna just go the traditional route with a traditional builder, you know, or architect, you get like this fancy home depending on, of course, you know your person preferences, but chances are you're gonna get a fairly.

Complex home, uh, complex in the sense of, you know, complex roof lines, you know, um, and complex, you know, different components of the house, maybe with the attach garage, et cetera. It's significantly less expensive to build a simple box, meaning a rectangular or a square box. That might not look as fancy, but it's very easy to keep insulated from a heat or temperature, moisture and air penetration perspective.

And the easier it is to build, the easier it is to insulate. I. The healthier home is in the long run, and you don't have to break the bank than with mitigating measures like, you know, air purifiers and all of the things that kind of try to mitigate all of the issues that they introduced during the building process.

You know, so keep it simple. Um, there is a, a pre, there's a term called Pretty Good House or Pgh. Uh, look that up. They have a good book that explains what a pretty good house can look like and how it should be built, and why that's significantly healthier and also more energy efficient. In the long run.

Sauna bathing. Similar to cold plunging, I'm a huge fan of sauna bathing. We with several saunas at home, but only because, you know, I review them. It's part of my job, basically. But walk-in saunas can be expensive, much like a high quality cold plunge. A high quality sauna can be even more expensive, you know?

But there are alternatives if you are into heat exposure, and I recommend you are because it's incredibly easy. To reap the benefits from sauna bathing and cold plunging and the contrast therapy where you, where you add both together, but you don't have to get a whole walk-in sauna, you know, and, and that needs a lot of space and costs a lot of money.

A simple one person sauna that you can fold up and put away is usually enough to get most of the benefits out of sauna bathing. And I have a review of the different saunas that I recommend, including some very inex. Expensive ones that you can, that you can look at. There are some that use a wood stove.

There are some that, um, that use infrared. Um, so you can get, you know, either the traditional route or the infrared route. They're very or fairly inexpensive options that won't break the bank while giving you all of the benefits of sauna bathing. Uh, let's switch, switch gears and talk about cooking a little bit.

And in particular, olive oil, high quality olive oil, and I think the same applies really to avocado oil as well. Can be incredibly expensive and the thing is. You don't really need any plant oils. If you buy just butter, that takes care of all of your cooking needs, and it's significantly healthier and usually less expensive because with the thing with butter is, I mean, grass fed butter is ideal, but even if it's not grass fed butter, it's still.

Healthier than most plant-based oil alternatives. Now obviously butter is solid because it has a lot of saturated fat, so you cannot drizzle it over salad. But I would argue, you know, salad doesn't really have to be part of your diet anyway. You know, no, plants have to be, they can be if you want to and if you know how to mitigate some of those issues.

But for the most part, based on how we cook, how we prepare food, butter is our go-to choice. If we make bacon, we save the, the, the bacon fat. And reuse it, you know, so we, uh, have to buy less butter. So there are many ways on how you can, uh, make cooking with fats in particular less expensive than buying high quality, high-end and super expensive.

Olive or avocado oil. Pastured eggs is another good example. I mean, we raise our own eggs. Because we want to get the healthiest eggs possible, and they're definitely not the cheapest ones. I would argue that the eggs that we produce are probably more expensive than any of the eggs you can find in the store.

Also, because I think they're better than any of the eggs you can buy. But regardless with eggs, buy. The best eggs you can afford, even if it's regular, like free range type of eggs, um, they are significantly better than the alternative, meaning not eating eggs or eating something else, maybe with the exception of meat.

Uh, but everything else, regular eggs are healthier and better than, um, than anything else. So buy the best eggs you can, you can find. And if that means it's not pasteurized, it's not corn soy-free. That's fine. You know, don't worry too much about that. Um, if you need to save money, if you're on a budget, just go and buy regular eggs in bulk if you can, maybe from a local farm, if you have some around.

And you'll be good to go. Uh, paying for expensive, expensive gym memberships. I mean, I'm, obviously, I do CrossFit, you know, I pay for that. But if you're on a budget, you don't, you don't need a gym to stay fit and healthy. You know, here's some ideas that you can use on a daily basis. Really, you know, if, if you go to work by car, you know, and, and you, especially if you're like in a, in a, in a tall building or whatever, don't take the elevator.

Take the stairs and better yet, sprint up the stairs every flight, sprint as fast as you possibly can. That's an excellent ancestor based workout. Sprinting and lifting your own body weight, you know, um, up the stairs is an an incredible way to work out, and it's entirely for free. You know, if you go grocery shopping, just park as far away from the entrance as you can, so you have to walk and then carry the heavy bags back to the car.

That mimics some of the workouts we do at CrossFit called Farmer's Carry. You know, you can get this absolutely for free. You can do body type movements, air squads, pull-ups. Pushups in. So any pulling and pushing is an excellent way to stay fit, to work your muscles, and it doesn't cost you a cent. You know, take walks, especially when you're on calls or conference calls.

Just take your walk, take the, take the call from, uh, while walking and you get exercise. And get your work done at the same time, you know, and moving every day a little bit, doing micro workouts, you know, be it, you know, with air squads, pushups, pullups, what have you, a few times throughout the day adds up quickly and is significantly more beneficial and definitely cheaper than going three times a week to the gym that you have to pay for.

And if you're into tanning, looking tan, et cetera, paying for tanning studio is a waste of money. First of all, it's unhealthy. And second of all, you know, sun is for free. And it's out most of the time, a lot of the time, depending on where you live. But, you know, enjoy sunlight, you know, natural sunlight.

Stay out for at least 20 minutes. Um, in. When the sun is really strong, you know, around noontime, get your morning sunlight into a retina, get the evening sunlight, you know, try to go outside and embrace the natural of sunlight. It's free. Um, it's gonna boost your health. It's gonna boost your immunity, it's gonna make you tanner as well, if that's what you're going for.

Um, and that's also then leads into the next number 15, you know, expensive immune boosting supplements. Again, natural sunlight, you know, cold showers. Good sleep. All of that are significantly more effective and less expensive than buying expensive supplements, uh, you know, to boost your immune system. The same goes with, you know, costly meditation apps and gadgets and stuff.

You can just take a barefoot walk in nature. I. Practice deep breathing. You can do that anytime, anywhere. People are not, want, not even gonna notice. Um, and it's absolutely for free in no subscriptions, no apps, nothing required. You know, you can just do that anywhere. Um, you know, if you are trying to mitigate, I.

EMFs, you know, electromagnetic fields, electromagnetic, you know, radiation. There are stickers, there are gadgets, there are a lot of things that you can pay money for. Um, the cheaper alternative is just to unplug your devices, you know, turn off wifi at night, you know, turn your phone into airplane mode. I mean, if you want to, you can get something.

If you're watching this, um, on YouTube where you can see a video, you know, this is a, a dongle that I can use to plug in my phone. Um, so it's connected to ethernet. And I don't have to have wifi or sell out a service or Bluetooth on, you know, I just turn everything off, you know, turn stuff off at night, you know, don't use the lights.

You know, there are so many ways on how you can, um, avoid EMFs instead of trying to mitigate them. And, uh, last but not least, then, you know, streaming subscriptions, you know, I mean, we have a bunch of subscriptions as well, including Netflix, et cetera. You know, some come with Amazon with our prime subscription.

But the point is, you know, if those subscriptions, I remember back in the days, you know, everyone wanted to cut cable because it was so expensive. And now we end up, you know, paying $10 for each of the 10 subscription services we have and we pay the same thing and it's just overwhelming. And at the end of the day, a waste of money.

You know, why don't just borrow books from the library entirely for free. It's better for you. Less screen time. Uh, you can read outside if you want to. And you know, the bottom line here really is that whenever you try to mitigate. It becomes expense or it can become expensive, avoiding certain behaviors.

Ev avoiding certain gadgets, avoiding certain lifestyle choices, is usually healthier, less expensive, and does not require mitigation. Of course, you know, you don't wanna necessarily live out in the woods. I mean, good for you if you want to. Um, I, I still dream about, you know, some, you know, that, that Amish lifestyle, I think they're really onto something, but I also understand it's incredibly difficult and maybe impossible for most people.

To, to do something like that. But there are a lot of things you can do. But if you really critically think about, okay, what do I need? What makes me truly healthy? Does having, you know, the fastest six G whatever wifi, does that make me healthy or happy? The answer is probably neither, you know? So, you know, maybe step back, you know, we switch all of our wifi to 2.4 gigahertz only.

It, it carries less energy. We don't have 5G. Or five gigahertz wifi in our home anymore. Yeah. Does it mean maybe a little bit less reception bandwidth? Maybe. Maybe so. But it's healthier, you know, we turn it off whenever we can. Um, there are so many things you can do to just where you just step away and say.

I'm not going to do this. It's gonna cost me less, less stress, less money, and I don't have to mitigate, you know? And so if you take, keep that in mind, you know, just take one step at a time, carefully assess your lifestyle, assess what you do all day, and say, okay, where can I start? What is the lowest hanging fruit where I can save money?

Maintain my health or improve my health in many cases, and then take it step by step. You know, living healthily can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. It's all about figuring out how. Simple, do you wanna live? And how much convenience convenience do you want to have? And how much are you willing to, to pay for that?

And, and how important is your health in, you know, in that whole equation? And that's a different answer for everyone. You know, I cannot tell you, I mean, we spend money on mitigation techniques because we can afford it. Whereas someone else may say, you know what, I don't have the money. I don't wanna spend the money.

I'd rather avoid than try to mitigate. And that's perfectly fine. The point really here is you can live healthy. Without breaking the bank. You just have to figure out what is the balance that you are comfortable with, that you can sustain and that you want to implement. And with that, we're gonna wrap it up.

I hope you like this episode shared with someone who could benefit from it. If you're watching this summer where if you're watching this, um, on a platform where you can leave comments, leave me a comment, let me know, what do you think, what do you do? What is your balance? You know, what are you willing to do, uh, to improve your health?

Um, and, and what are you spending money on? And where do you think you can, you can save money. Let me know. I'm super interested in to hear what you think. Until the next episode, next week on this, the same time, in the next episode of the Primal Shift Podcast, we're tackling one of the dumbest myths we've ever heard.

That cold plunging is like dying a little. Every time. We'll break down why. That's absolute nonsense, what the science actually says and how cold exposure can make you stronger, not weaker. You don't wanna miss this one.