Dollar Jane

I’ve read plenty of posts on how a healthy diet can lead to a healthy wallet. I liked Millionster’s three-part post “How I Lost Weight and Gained Control” for an interesting take on how to get into the habit of bringing your lunch to work and how to cut grocery costs. It’s very obvious that if you make food at home instead of eating out, you can save significant amounts of money each week.

Brewing coffee at home instead of buying it out is another popular money-saving tip. I am a big believer in this one. I drink coffee every morning, and for a while would pay $2.55 for my morning Starbucks every day. That’s $17.85 a week, or $928 a year! Instead I have my trusty Mr. Coffee 4-cup drip coffeemaker (bought eight years ago), $.99 coffee filters that I probably buy every 3 months, and an $10.99 pound of coffee bought once a month. (For those of you doing the math, that’s a savings of $781 per year, and I don’t include any costs from the coffeemaker since I’ve had it too long to even remember what I paid for it.)

But lately I’ve had another link between healthy living and frugal living on my mind. I’ve recently begun taking two classes at my YMCA, a spinning class and a yoga class. The spinning class is Mondays and Wednesdays and yoga is on Saturdays.

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed I go shopping a lot less. When I say shopping, I’m not talking about grocery shopping, or picking up more conditioner at Target. I’m talking about recreational shopping. The sort of shopping where I head down to the mall just because I feel like it. Browsing the stores just to see what’s on sale. I have literally spent hours at the mall, just window shopping. The problem is, with all of these frequent trips to the mall, I don’t always leave empty-handed. I’ll find a cute top, or a suit that’s just too good a bargain.

Although I haven’t paid too much attention to it before, I do believe that during prior fitness kicks the same thing has happened. I’ll be so busy getting to the gym I have less time to wander Filene’s aimlessly. I suppose you could call it time displacement.

By committing to an exercise regimen, I’ve made a time commitment. Because my time is fixed and limited, by taking up this time with my exercise routine, I’ve been forced to devote less time to other activities. My theory is that recreational shopping is a lower priority activity, and by taking up these classes, I’ve displaced time I might normally spend shopping with a lower cost activity.

There are definitely costs associated with working out. The costs of a gym membership, workout clothes, sneakers, bottled water and other accessories can quickly add up. I try to keep these costs down in the usual ways, by shopping around, going for the cheapest option, buying only the workout clothes I really need, etc. The critical point here is that I’ve replaced an activity (Shopping) where the sole purpose is to walk around considering purchases, with an activity (Exercise) that requires one to make some purchases, but where the purpose is to sweat and get fit.

Healthy and Cheap!