Welcome back to Mindful Moolah, the podcast dedicated to holistic financial wellness and building a more mindful relationship with money! In this episode, hosts Luke Erickson and Lance Hansen explore the vital connection between physical wellness and financial health. Whether you’re wondering how your fitness routine impacts your wallet or searching for practical ways to boost both your body and bank account, this episode is packed with real-world advice and a healthy dose of fun.

Luke Erickson and Lance Hansen share personal stories—from fixing up houses to jogging through new cities and creative home-cooked meals—and unpack how movement, nutrition, sleep, and physical wellness overall influence financial resilience and well-being. The conversation covers affordable health hacks, social wellness through shared activity, moderation, and the power of building good habits. Plus: Learn why investing in your physical health pays dividends and can reduce financial stress in every season of life.

Key topics discussed include:

1. The relationship between physical wellness and financial wellness (and how they feed each other)
2. Fun, affordable ways to move: jogging, disc golf, fly fishing, home improvement, and more
3. Nutrition truths: whole foods vs. processed, creative meal planning, and cost-saving strategies
4. The powerful effects of exercise on emotional, mental, and social health
5. Sleep’s critical role in productivity and long-term financial stability
6. Spiritual wellness practices like breath work and meditation—a boost for body and mind
7. Smart spending on fitness: avoiding unnecessary costs while maximizing value
8. The importance of habits, planning, and daily choices for lasting wellness

Key Takeaways

1. Physical Wellness Fuels Financial Health: Consistent exercise, good nutrition, and adequate sleep directly impact work performance, reduce sick days, and support long-term earning potential. The healthier you are, the better your financial outcomes—especially over a lifetime.
2. Movement Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank: Affordable, enjoyable physical activity is possible for everyone—whether it’s disc golf in the park, YouTube yoga at home, hiking, or pickup sports with friends. You don’t need a pricey gym membership or fancy equipment to get moving and feel good.
3. Nutrition on a Budget is Achievable: Meal planning and choosing whole foods (over processed options) can save money and support lasting health. Creative cooking, like pressure cooker mac-and-cheese or homemade pizza, stretches your dollar and delivers more nutrition per serving.
4. Physical Activity Boosts Emotional and Social Wellness: Exercise isn’t just for muscles—it releases endorphins, combats stress and depression, and sharpens mental clarity. Social workouts, team sports, and shared activities add accountability and make healthy habits more fun and sustainable.
5. Sleep is a Game Changer: Quality sleep restores both body and mind, reduces costly mistakes at work, and supports emotional stability. Prioritizing rest is one of the most powerful—and overlooked—financial strategies for long-term health.
6. Smart Spending is Key to Sustainable Wellness: Start small and avoid overinvesting in fitness trends or equipment you won’t use. Try a punch card, sample classes, or online workouts before making a big financial commitment for health. Baby steps and consistency deliver real results.
7. Habits Build Wealth—Physical and Financial: Daily commitment to healthy routines, budgeting, and mindful choices creates momentum. Both financial and physical wellness come from small, smart decisions made regularly—not from one-time efforts.

Ready to jumpstart your physical and financial wellness journey? Hit subscribe on Mindful Moolah wherever you get your podcasts. Got questions or ideas for future episodes? Reach out to Luke and Lance—your feedback fuels the show! And don’t forget to check out resources like NightOfTheLivingDebt.com and the University of Idaho’s personal finance programs for even more tools to boost your holistic wellbeing.

Stay tuned for our next episode as we continue unpacking the dimensions of wellness and their roles in creating a mindful, meaningful money life.

Learn more about physical wellness in this bulletin from the University of Idaho Extension: https://www.uidaho.edu/extension/publications/bul-1109

And watch Luke and Lance make physical wellness fun to learn in this episode of Moolahed: https://youtu.be/-YGHUQwg5r0

Welcome to this week's edition of Mindful Moolah. My name is Luke and I'm here with my buddy Lance.

I don't know what I'm doing with my mic, but it's try. I'm trying. I got the branding, man. We're trying to promote Night of the Living Debt here we talked about in the last episode. Go try it out. We're just, you know, this is a reminder. Go try it.

Yes. So as a reminder, if you missed our last episode, Night of the Living Debt, which we have represented here, for those of you watching, if you're listening, you can't see it. Both Lance and I have on shirts that are branded. It's our game called Night of the Living Debt. And the game is all about learning how to build and manage your credit score. But it's done in a very fun and immersive way. So check it out. Yeah.

Nightofthelivingdebt.com and we've also got a handful of other programs, too, which we did not talk about in our last episode.

But they might come up along the way as we talk.

They'll come up along the way. But yeah, you can just. Just Google. You just Google personal finance, University of Idaho, and it'll take you to all of our stuff. We are with University of Idaho. My name is Luke Erickson. I am a professor. I'm an extension specialist with the University of Idaho.

And Lance also works for the U of I.

Extension educator.

Yeah. Go vandals. Go Vandals. Okay, so today's episode is about physical wellness and how that impacts and interacts with financial wellness as well as the other dimensions of holistic wellness. So that's what we're talking about in Mindful Moolah, especially our first handful of episodes. And so we can't wait to dive into this topic with you all. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, I know Lance.

Like, when it comes to physical wellness, like, sometimes Lance and I go to conferences together because we're both in the finance, and so we'll go to similar conferences. And when I'm in a new city at a different conference or something, one of the first things I like to do is throw on my jogging shoes and just go explore. And for me, it's fun just to, like, kind of take in a new city, but it's also a good way to get a little bit of exercise, you know, and so there's a million different ways to move. Million different ways to get exercise. The key is to find One that you enjoy. Right. So what do you enjoy doing, Lance? What type of physical activities?

Well, I like fly fishing. I like wakeboarding, surfing behind a boat. We talked about the last episode. I've been doing a deep dive into podcasts and AI in the heck out of kite. Not. No, it's called. Not. It's not called kite boarding.

Kiteboarding's part of it, but it's. Gosh, I can't remember it. Wing. Wing surfing. So you have this inflatable wing hydrofoil board. That's one of the things I'm looking at getting into. But the main thing I do, I have a lot of projects. I bought a fixer upper house because I'm frugal and financially wanted to not be house poor.

So I've been fixing that up. Put in a bunch of saw two years ago. I've been readjusting sprinkler systems. My wife got this great idea, which. It's a great idea. You know, it's something to do garden. So I did a bunch of garden boxes the beginning of the summer, and I get out and I mow a lot of lawn. I walk, I help out my neighbors, and I do a lot with the 4H program.

So that's my main thing. And I play soccer with my kids almost every night. We're out there kicking around the soccer ball. So.

Right.

Moving around, getting the. Keeping the. The joints loose and keeping moving.

There are. Yeah, there are a million ways to move, and there's really no right or wrong way. And I, you know, what I've decided is the right way is the way that works for you. So if you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh, I don't want to go to the gym. Well, don't go to the gym. Like, find something else to do. Find something that you're motivated to do. Right.

Yeah. I'm not the gym guy in the morning. I'll hit the gym in the afternoon. Haven't had time. I said a lot of projects around the house. Got a lot of things I've been doing so.

Right. And of course, when it comes to physical wellness, it's not just the exercise. I mean, that's the first thing that we go to because it's kind of the. It's kind of one of the obvious ones. But there are other things. Of course, sleep is vital to physical wellness as well as. What is it like, oh, nutrition. Yeah.

That's what I want to throw in there. Like, how could I forget about that? Nutrition. Right. You know, one of the Things that they say is if you want, you know, six pack abs, that is, you get those in the kitchen, you don't get those in the gym. Right? So it's all, it's all about what you eat, but it's also how you're taking care of your body for getting the rest you need. And if you're also moving it, using it, the old expression use it or lose it is definitely, definitely applies to physical wellness.

Well, you know, we used to say this. You are what you eat. You know, you really are what you eat. You know, what you eat, what you put in your body, whether it's fresh, processed, whatever the situation is. Talking to a kid that just, he was living in Italy for a little bit there, and he's like, man, they eat fresh there. I'm like, yeah, I'd like some fresh Italian pasta and pizza right now. I'd love that right now.

Right? And so that means if you are what you eat, that means, Lance, you're partially made of vegetables. The rest of you is a whopper. Hamburger and buns.

And I'm a whopper.

See, we, we worked the whopper into this episode pretty early.

So I'm a whopper. And baked, baked potatoes.

And you could do worse, you know, like, it does come with tomatoes and some onions. Those are, those are all good for you.

Hey, ketchup is a vegetable, man.

Yeah, pile on the veggies when you get those burgers. There you go.

Okay. It's probably like a fruit sauce, really, because tomatoes are fruit. I, I messed that whole thing up, man. I gotta go back to the, go back to school and learn some more stuff here.

Absolutely.

The fruit sauce.

So all the physical wellness, it has to do with doing the right things, but it also has to do with avoiding the things that are not so good for you. Right. And when it comes to things like illness, especially chronic illness, like that's something we want to pay attention to because it's not just the physical things, but as we start to get into the interaction of the other dimensions, we'll see that the other dimensions can actually affect your, your physical well being as well. And the one that's easy for me to talk about at first is emotional wellness. So if you think about when you are very emotionally unwell, so you're very much like, say in a place of depression or anxiety or severe stress, like what's happening to your body and you can feel it, like it's not just the internal emotions that you feel, but it's like the physiological response to that is very real. And you feel your body, it's like it gets tightened up, circulation is diminished just in your limbs and just different things like that, you're taking shallow breaths, different things like that. And really what's going on there is that your body is holding that stress or that anxiety or that type of thing and it's in a fight or flight. Right.

And that's, that's basically the physiological response to how you're feeling and it can go vice versa. Right. If you are feeling physically unwell, sometimes that can contribute to anxiety and depression. But if you're experien. If you're otherwise physically, well, but still experiencing anxiety and depression or stress, then that can actually end up decreasing your physical wellbeing just for the reasons that I mentioned. Yeah.

And like I said, that mental side of things, when you're in that depression, you're clinched, you're tight, you're not in a good space and that's when you really start to feel those changes, chemical changes in your brain that can lead to pretty bad places. So watch out for that. And one of the biggest things you can do to counter some of those mental things, it's, it's physical fitness. It's taking time to meditate, taking time to do some push ups, sit ups, and it doesn't have to be a two hour workout. Get out there, get moving, chair yoga, whatever you want to do. But gets those endorphins going. You feel better, you sleep better, you do better.

Right. And, and I like that how you said Lance, like it really doesn't take a humongous investment of time in order to at least get the, the physical benefits of exercise. There's a lot of research out there about taking walks. There's a lot of research out there about like really high intensity but short workouts. And they're all like extremely good for you. So basically don't overthink it. You're right. Like just find ways to move.

When it comes to dealing with the emotional side though. Yeah, like moving. And this is from my own experience, but also from the research. But like the, the emotions are actually, they're, they're better served when you are physically. Well, like you're physically active. So, so in other words, let's say you're feeling anxious or stressed or, or depressed or whatever. You get out and go for a run in the sunshine or, or just do some other type of activity. What you'll notice is that anxiety, depression may not go away entirely, but it really does dissipate quite a bit when when you keep yourself moving and physical.

So now right off the bat, that's, that's something that I think is worth pointing out. It's like, it's when you're, when you're engaging in physical things that, that are good for you. Sleep, proper sleep, proper nutrition, proper exercise. It's not only your body that benefits, but it's, it's other areas of that holistic wellness as well.

Yeah, like, you know, you get that mental clarity in there, which we talked about. Intellectual. You know, mental clarity helps you learn. I mean it's so important. And when you feel good and you look good, you're out there doing things. It's just the way it is. We're out there always doing things.

And yeah, so that, that mental sharpness as well. So it's not just emotional, but yeah, the mental sharpness. So, yeah, intellectual. Let's say you're going to, to work for an eight hour day. If you're able to work in some exercise either right before or maybe on a lunch break or, and it doesn't have to be anything crazy, you could go to the gym. But let's just say you're talking about going for a walk, maybe working in some yoga. I do have some colleagues that just like roll out their yoga mat on a work break and just like quick do, do 10 minutes of yoga real quick. And that just really helps refresh them.

And then they get back to their work and their mental clarity is, is much better and just able to just be more efficient at work. So not all work is created equal. You show up and, you know, put your butt in a chair doesn't necessarily mean that you're being effective. So part of that balance is, is. Yeah. Just keeping your, your body moving so that your mental clarity stays at its peak as well.

You know, And I, one of the things I like to do, Luke and my brother introduced me to it. It's disc golf. I mean there's plenty of disc golf courses and it's free. Go out there and like I said, me and Luke go to conferences together. We usually, when we're in Northern Idaho or wherever we're at, we get our disc golfs. We can run the course. I mean, you do a quick round. I think we did three in like an hour or something like that.

It was, it was fun.

Yeah. Make it an active activity.

Yeah.

Instead of slowly gagging, like, you know, hustle between holes or maybe even jog a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, we were moving. Got those done pretty quick. And those, that physical activity, the Conversation. All of that is stimulating and very, very good.

Well, that takes us to the next thing I want to talk about is this how social wellness is impacted by physical wellness. And you just nailed it. Lance is like, well, you can, I could disc golf by myself, but it's way more fun to do it with friends. And so it's a social activity and there's a little bit of accountability in there too. It's like, okay, now's our time to go disc golfing, Now's our time to go to the gym, now's our time to go for our walk. And so it's socially stimulating, which is very important. But it can also be an accountability system that keeps you on track with your physical goals. It's like, okay, my friend is doing this with me, so I better show up, right? Otherwise I might be mad at me or I disappoint them or that type.

Of thing, that, that whole accountability thing, you know, and that's one of the cool things you get into a community, that physical activity or whether it's a gym. One of the ones I think about CrossFit, they're a big community, they're very tight knit and when you get involved in that, they're always pushing, pushing and pushing to help you excel. And finding something like that is super good tool or resource to get you motivated to get out there and, and get some things done right.

So, so I've been in CrossFit for quite a while and I really like it. And I, I always tell people the, I think the physical benefits that I get from CrossFit are like number five on my list of reasons I go. Because the other things I get out of it are like that those social interactions that I get, which I think are great. It's great community, like minded people that value health and nutrition and things like that. So that's great. I also get like emotional benefits from it. You know, if you just go going through challenges in life or whatever, you show up at the gym and it's an easy way to forget about your problems, at least for a little bit. Because you know, as you're doing your workouts, you're really exerting a lot of effort.

Sometimes it hurts, you know, and like the last thing you want to do is think about your problems. Like, I've got problems right in front of me. It's lifting this weight, it's, you know, finishing this workout. And it's a really nice, just kind of reprieve from, from daily life, I think. But anyway, just an example of Some of the other benefits that can come from just focusing not only on physical wellness, but the other things that come along with it. Social wellness. Emotional.

Yeah, emotional. Then you know, that. That clarity comes with, you know, keeping centered. You got your spiritual wellness, helping you stay focused on where your true north is or where your core values are. That's all part of that. That whole physical side of things. Eating clean, doing all of those kinds of things. And man moved out to rural Idaho and, you know, there's just no good restaurants out here, which is probably a good thing, but.

But I've really learned to cook clean, cook really good meals. I mean, anything from chicken tikka masala. I make my own pizza because there's no good pizza places here in this part of the state. I'm just saying, Luke, if you know of one, tell me. But I haven't found one yet. I guess there's a good place here, here in Rexburg where I'm at. But I like to make my own pizza. Saved me a lot of money.

And that's one of the things that I think about when it comes to this physical wellness and eating good is meal planning. You know, when you plan your meals out, you plan your budget for your. What you're buying, and you're buying good ingredients, and you're saving money all along the way. So planning, once again, kind of like budgeting.

Yeah, absolutely, there. So there's some research out. There's a guy named Michael Easter. He's actually from Utah, I think. I think he might work at Utah State, and I forget. Anyway, but he's done a decent amount of research. And one of the things that I've heard him mention before is some research on tribes in the Amazon. There might have been other tribes in other locations, but basically they found out that they're like some of the healthiest people that he had studied.

And then he started taking a look at their diet, and he's like, well, what are they eating? And they were eating, you know, they're eating red meat. They're eating stuff that was, you know, like high in fat and cholesterol and just different stuff like that. But basically what he found, the difference between their diet and like, I'd say typically typical US Diet is that there was no processed food in it. Right. And what he found, that it was just all. Just like whole ingredients, whole food. It wasn't necessarily like your. Your health food, but it was all clean stuff.

And it just. Stuff that's very easy for your body to process, very natural for your body to Process and basically, you know, get you most of the nutrients that you need without having to worry about even any sort of supplements or that type of thing. Problem in the US like, so much of what we eat is just processed, comes out of a box or a can or whatever. And it's not to say that those things are all bad for you, but they definitely come with some downsides. Right. Just a lot of preservatives, a lot of sodium, a lot of different additives that are just not good for your body.

Yeah, I mean, for heaven's sakes, if. If soda pop, pop, Coke, whatever you call it in the part of the United States you're at, if that didn't exist, man, I would be a. Because, man, I drink way too much of that crap. I mean, you're look over just a little bit over here. I got these two 44 ounce cups that I refill way too frequently, but man, it's so good.

Oh, geez, I'm not judging you. And I can't see the cups anyway, so. Oh, he's gonna prove it. Yeah, there they are. Mountain Dew. All right. Oh. So, yeah, soda is definitely not something that these tribes have access to.

I mean, gosh, they're probably better off, you know, so maybe we all just need to go back to living in the forest. I have no idea.

But no, I don't want to live in the forest. I'm okay. I like, I like Netflix, I exercise, I like soccer, I like watching sports. I like all those things. And I just need to do less of that and have more focus and more dedication to my physical wellness.

Yes. And. And I think we can have the best of both worlds. I think that's the point. It's like we, we understand what we should do. It's just a matter of doing it.

Yeah. That whole moderation thing. And maybe one can of soda, like, I'm talking like a 12 ounce can, like a 44 ounce can. But at the same time, you know, it's cheaper to do 44 ounces than it can sometimes.

Yeah. One last thing I want to talk about because we started to talk about spiritual wellness a little bit. But one thing I wanted to mention is I've been doing some more meditation recently and also stuff called breath work. And what's interesting is breath work can actually be a really powerful, uplifting thing for you. Whatever. Spiritually, emotionally, but. But also physically. And it basically has to do with like opening up your core, opening up your body and your chest.

And that's another one of those, like, physical Wellness things, if you get into a practice of it, maybe you don't have to do it every day, but like once in a while just remind your body that it's okay to take really, really deep breaths and to hold them and to just, just like gorge your body with oxygen. Because sometimes we just go through life, we're hunched over at a desk a lot and we don't even realize what we're taking. These like really shallow breaths and we're really not giving our body all of the oxygen that it needs. And so it can be, it can feel like a spiritual practice to do breath work, but it can, but it also has some real specific like physical health benefits to it too, I think. And we can get into other things like yoga and whatever, like Tai chi or just many, many different ways that are a combination of physical and spiritual type activities that allow you to meditate but also to move your body, which I think are really tremendous. So what we want to do now is dive a little bit into how the, you know, element of dimension of physical wellness interacts with financial wellness. And there are many, many things that we could talk about here, but the first one is pretty obvious. The healthier are the fewer sick days you will have.

And you will also.

You'Re gonna enjoy, you're gonna read well, you're gonna enjoy retirement better if you're in good shape. I mean, right. The more you can do now to preserve your limbs, your knees and all of that. I mean, nobody likes hip replacements, knee replacements, shoulder replacements. Do what you can. And it's that the physical exercise, the, the, the core strength, having your core strength. One of the things that I do, I mean, it's not spiritual by means, but when I sit in my chair for long hours, I'm holding my core tight because I'm trying to engage those muscles. Even though I'm not actively doing stuff I, I try to do that.

I've been, I've done that my whole entire life. I don't know why. Just something I always did. Just hold my core in tight and, and make sure I'm engaged.

Good. Yeah. Keeping that course nice and solid. And I remember what I was going to say it was that your expenses will actually go down for taking care of your physical well being. If you're. So that's one thing that I wanted to throw in there as well.

Yeah.

So you feel better, you're performing better at work. Your, your, your expenses go down for being sick. And sometimes people think, well, you know, I don't have enough money to Pay for a gym membership or just whatever physical activity is that you want to do. And you know, you know, you've heard this expression before, but you can't afford not to. It's one of those things is like the, the little amount of money that you're investing into, say a membership somewhere, if you're actually using it, the physical benefits, like what that amounts to financially is so much worth it that it's, it's a tremendous invest. Investment from a financial point of view. The key is you have to actually do it. If you pay for a gym membership and you don't use it, then that's a waste.

Yeah, it's a waste of money. Oh, man. His name is Ryan Hamilton. He got a comedy thing on Netflix. He's right now Ashton, Idaho. He's funny. Dude talks about trying to get out. Yeah, I went in the gym.

I did the neck machine like four times. I'm paying a hundred dollars a month. I've been there four times. That's twelve hundred dollars. I paid twelve hundred to do exercises on my neck like four times. Check out his comedy thing. It's super funny. It's on Netflix, but he has a thing about that.

And they try to cancel the gym membership. It's like you got to write a letter. It's pretty funny, but yeah, who writes letters, right? I don't know. In the last funny thing. Sorry, sidetracking here. Stamps. Remember when we used to have to lick those stupid things and they tasted nasty? Well, if you're younger, young enough to not to ever have lick a stamp or an envelope, consider yourself grateful or blessed because it's nasty. But anyway.

Well, that's also a physical benefit. We don't have to lick that stamp glue anymore.

It was like bl.

Yeah, but yes, very toxic.

I'm like. And you're like, I gotta drink a soda to get that off my tongue. A whole 2 liter of it to get back to normal, which is also.

Not good for you. It's a. It's a sick cycle of unhealthy activity, that's for sure.

But back to what you were saying before. I sidetracked. The potential income growth you have from that, more productivity at work. You're going to get promoted. They're going to recognize that you're doing good things because you're more productive because you're healthy and you're moving at a pace that is. They're like, wow, this person's a go getter. We're going to. We want them.

We want to keep them. We Want to give them a pay raise, we want to promote them. So there's a lot of research on that too. But yeah, the potential for earning goes up because you're physically able to do the work right now.

Like anything, it's a balance because there, there is such a thing as spending too much on your physical wellness, you know, buying trendy health foods, a bunch of trendy supplements, whatever, investing like a ton in say a, like a home garage gym and then not ending up using it or that type of thing. So like everything else in life, it is a balance. You want to be very effective on what it is that you're trying to accomplish and to not really just like waste financial resources on stuff that you're not really going to. Yeah, using. So I think my advice there is just baby steps. Just start small with things that you want to do, whether it's a home gym or an actual gym, yoga, tai chi, studio, whatever. Try it out, get a punch card, see if you're gonna like it before you actually like do a huge investment in it. And because you just want to make sure that it's going to stick before you, you know, pay up front for say like a huge home gym setup or you know, say like an annual gym membership.

Yeah.

So then there's options out there. What was it? It was Henry Cavill. That's right. Played Superman, right?

Oh, I don't know.

The back while back. Oh man. Henry. Henry. I think it's Cavill. Whatever. He was like doing an interview or whatever and guys like, how did you get so cut? He's like 100. 100.

He's like, what do you mean? 100 pull ups, 100 sit ups, 100 push ups. And he was just joking because he was really working out to get in the shape to look like Superman.

Yeah.

And then he ran into this guy like a year later and the guy was cut because he said, yeah, 100. 100. But that's an insane amount of push ups. But the guy looked great. So that simple stuff, just your own body weight getting into that. Yeah, that's, you know, that's just as good as a gym membership. I like the way you talked about that. I have a buddy that's super into fitness and puts a lot of money in it.

I mean he's got all sorts of cool toys and things that he works out with, but he uses them. And I asked him one day, I'm like, what do you think about the tone? All he's like, yeah, I got one, man. It's like 2500 bucks up front and then like a monthly subscription to have your profile. And he's like, don't do it unless you're going to use it. He says, go online right now and see how many of those are for sale. Used. And they're, they're very rarely used. I mean, it's like slightly right.

I used it four times. Don't do something you're not going to use. Do your push ups, do your sit ups. Start out in baby steps like Luke was saying.

No. And it doesn't, it actually doesn't take a lot of equipment to be pretty healthy. Like, if you, it, it's only when you're getting to like that just like really high, kind of competitive, kind of elite level that you need to invest in, you know, a bunch of equipment and stuff like that. Other than that, it's just excuses because really, you nailed it. It's like, what do you really need to do? Push ups, sit ups, whatever. Air squats? Yeah. Like, just really easy things. You don't even need equipment for that type of stuff.

Yeah, they're super. And you know what, they have bands and things that are like super cheap and they don't take up a lot of space. Y and then go from there. YouTube workouts, local classes in, you know, University of Idaho Extension, we have elderly yoga. I mean, not elderly, but senior yoga is what they call it. A gal in a town above me, she does it at the, at the local library. There's options out there. Senior centers have different things.

Wherever you're at in your fitness journey, find something that's affordable. Find something that fits what your, what your goals are.

Right. And like we've talked about before, but I'll say it again, I think it's, it's a useful thing when you can make your workouts social because I, I, I just think that it just adds to the, just whole workout experience. If you're going to spend time doing something, you might as well do it and enjoy it and do it with people you enjoy being around. So just like check more than one box at the same time.

Yeah.

I love what you're saying though, about YouTube classes or workouts or whatever, because I know that I've actually done that with YouTube yoga before. I, I've had some, like, kind of chronic soreness in my hips for a long time, and it just comes from doing some pretty intense workouts. But I've noticed that yoga really helps to kind of loosen that up. Just like kind of opens up that area. Just those muscles just help Stretch them out. And there are, of course, local yoga studios. But what I found is the local studios didn't quite have the times that I wanted, and I still wanted to get the yoga in. And I just went on YouTube and found a bunch of really cool yoga instructors just, just leading yoga.

And I could just do it whenever I want. Five, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And it was great. And it was cheap and it was easy and it was free. And so what I'm trying to say is don't, don't overthink it. Just as we've said before, yes, you can try to make it social, you can try to do it at certain times with a bunch of people or whatever, but don't make that your only excuse. It's like, oh, so and so can't go. That means I can't go.

No, there's always something that you can do.

Yeah. Well, back to some more cost saving things. You know, the exercises, YouTube free, senior center classes, free. There's options. Getting on a sports team if you're in school, co ed team if you're in college. There are sports teams out there. I mean, there's people playing volleyball, soccer. I get out and I play a pickup game of basketball every now and again.

And then after about two hours, which is a lot of basketball, but I get to the point where I can't jump because my calves are just done. And it's okay. You know, it's competitive, it's social, it's healthy, it's good. So find those good, affordable things, you know, and one of the other things too is, you know, if you have insurance, use, use all the preventative benefits you have. Preventative care is huge. Go in for your health checkups. Listen to what they're saying. They're professionals, they know what they're, they're saying.

Get your blood work done and just take care of your body.

Right. So like any of the things that come with your insurance policy, your annual physical checkup, all those types of things, take advantage of them. Yeah. So I can really help with prev. With prevention.

Yeah. Saves you money down the road.

Exactly. So nutrition is something we've already talked about. But let's talk about the, the cost savings from eating healthy. And sometimes I've, I've heard people talk about how it's more expensive to eat healthy. And it does depend on what you're buying. If you're buying like top quality steak or something, you're gonna be spending some money on that, right? Yeah, it is, it is relatively like clean, like Protein source. Because like we were saying, even though it's red meat and sometimes it's classified as unhealthy or whatever, it, you know, the whole foods are generally overall going to be healthier than your processed foods. So there are expensive ways to eat healthy, but there's also very, very cost effective ways to eat healthy.

And again, it's just, it's just finding some basic recipes that use basic ingredients that can keep you eating those whole foods, but without having to spend much money, without having to break the bank.

Well, and one of the things that I, I like to do is I do a lot in electric pressure cookers and I teach youth about that, I teach adults about that. I have a great chicken tikka masala recipe that's in an electric pressure cooker. Super awesome. It does really good rice. But the one I like to teach kids is pressure cooker Mac and cheese. So you put your noodles in, you do all this, and I break down the cost. I need to break down the cost again because costs have changed a bit since I broke it down. But what it comes down to is Kraft Mac and Cheese or whatever that box stuff is.

Think about it. You got some butter, some powder and some milk and noodles when. And so there's not a lot of calcium or vitamin D in any of that because you just don't have any ingredients that have a lot. They're not nutrient. It's not nutrient dense. So you have to eat four boxes to get full because it's not a lot of nutrients there. Your body needs nutrients, not quantity. It's about the nutrients.

So you make it from scratch. You got your pasta. Use a whole grain pasta. Makes it healthier. And the recipe that I have calls for evaporated milk enriched with vitamin D. And then all the calcium you get from the 5 cups of cheese you stick in there. Not only are you getting an ooey, gooey, delicious bowl of Mac and cheese, it's nutrient dense. You don't have to eat as much to get full.

So, yeah, I might have spent $0.10 more per serving, but I have leftovers. And, man, I've done some crazy cool stuff with this leftover Mac and cheese where I've taken. I put it in like a square Tupperware thing, dump it out, and it's all like congealed again. Because it's cheese, right? It's real cheese, shredded cheese. And I'll cut it into slices and fried on both sides, stick it in between the two slices of bread with more cheese and then some ham or Whatever. You know, I've done Mac and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches before. I put it on, I put it on with pizza, you know, as a layer with the sauce. I mean, that's a carb load.

I shouldn't do that. But creative man are a way to save money.

Yeah.

Quesadillas with jalapeno poppers. I did that once. Oh, I need to do that again. Now I'm thinking about it. Just need to put more tomatoes in the. In the thing.

Creativity. That's a throwback to our last episode on. On being willing to, you know, just get out of your comfort zone and explore different things. Right. Just be curious.

Yeah.

What happens when I fry some Mac and cheese and put it on bread? It's like, oh, sizzle it up.

You get something, then you put more cheese on it. Then you put it between two pieces of bread with some lettuce and tomato and some bacon. You got something there. But, but thinking about meal planning, thinking about the ingredients you use, yes, you might spend more, but you're going to eat less. You're going to be healthier. And though that money's going to go further because you're going to have leftovers.

So all I know is you had me at ooey gooey when you said that deliciousness.

I wish I had a picture of that. I might have to find a picture on the way and say, hey, remember episode five when we talked about fitness and that sandwich? Here's a picture of what it looks like.

Ooey gooey Mac and cheese sandwich. All right. That's a creativity at its finest.

Yep.

So, yeah, balancing your nutrition with the cost. Right. And it's really not that difficult. It's not as difficult as it sounds. I. I just think some people want to make it more difficult than it needs to be. If you're eating healthy, whole whole foods, it's really not going to cost you any more than eating the regular processed stuff you're already eating.

Yeah. And you know, picking, picking your meal times is important. You know, you think about other, other nations where their big meal is lunchtime, and then it's light breakfast, light, light dinner, and then they go to bed. That's always a good option. But planning out your meals cost effective saves money. You get some exercise in either before bed, in the morning, get your blood flowing, take deep breaths, get that oxygen going. It's gonna eventually lead to way better sleep. And you need good sleep for your brain to clear out all the stuff that goes on a good six, seven hours.

If you're younger than 20, you need a good eight hours. Take the time to get some really good sleep in. It's super beneficial for your health and your body and everything.

Right. And that's one thing I want to definitely take a minute and talk about sleep because I feel like it's an often overlooked and just underrated aspect of physical wellness. And sleep is so important. There's all sorts of research on it and there's so many benefits to it. If you get proper sleep, it rejuvenates your, you know, your brain, your neurons, your, your brain cells. It helps your body relax, helps your body rejuvenate, heal, that type of thing. And so if you are, especially if you're exercising like pretty rigorously, like your sleep is actually really important because that's your recovery period. You think about what are you doing during exercise.

You're actually breaking down muscles and tissues like that. And your rest is actually the recuperation, that's the important parts. Rebuilding what you've broken down and sleep is, is very important. It's vital to that, that process. And in addition to that, all you have to do is just think about how you feel, you know, at work or at school or whatever. If you're trying to operate off like say, you know, four hours of sleep and yeah, you may get your cup of coffee or whatever, but it's like you're sort of alert, sort of there, but you're sort of, kind of not also. And you think about what are the health implications for that? There's all sorts of them and, and also financial implications. So first of all, you're not going to be performing as well at work.

You also might be, depending on what you're doing, you might be posing a risk to people around you. So if you're driving, for example, and you're just like not totally alert, like it's dangerous for you, it's dangerous for the people around you. Depending on what you do at work, it may be the same thing. You, you know, if you're whatever, operating heavy equipment or something and you're doing it on four hours of sleep or whatever. So all those things have ramifications. It's not just how you feel, but it's also how your, how your body's actually going to be holding up long term. And also your performance and just in general things in life. And all those things come along with financial costs.

If you're not performing at work, yeah, you're talking about losing out on promotions or maybe even getting fired just because you made mistakes or Whatever. I mean, the ramifications can go on and on and on for not getting proper sleep. So.

So take the time to get some good sleep, make it a priority, plan it out, stick to a schedule. All good things. All good things.

Right? So with that, I think we'll wrap up this, this portion. And one thing I'd like to say in our wrap up is that in finances, it's. It's similar to physical wellness. Like, it's not that you can't just go in and say, oh, I budgeted this month. Month. I ch. Box. I don't need to do it anymore, you know? No, like, you never actually fully check off those boxes.

Like, you have to make them habits. So if you want to, like all the things we talked about, eating well, working out, getting sleep, those are all habits because you have to do them every single day or at least on a regular basis. And it's the same thing with your finances. It's one thing I want to point out, like having those habits in place of doing the right things and in finances, it actually, in my opinion, is a little bit easier than, than physical health. Because in finances you can automate so many things. You'd be like, okay, I know I want to put aside this much for retirement or this much for college or this much for, for a house or something. So those savings, you can automate it. Even payments towards your debt, you can automate those so they just like happen and automatically every time you get a paycheck.

And if only it were so easy with physical wellness, there are things like reminders that you can put on your watch or your iPhone or whatever, different things like that. So. But to make it a regular habit is really what it takes to be healthy, both financially and physically. So those, those two things are really driven by our daily habits.

Make good choices, make makes or develop some good habits. And I'm going to just plug this again. Teach your kids these things, things that kids learn in adolescence, they'll take with them throughout their whole entire life. And if, hey, if you're a teenager, listen to what we're saying, do start doing these things and you'll be. You'll bet you'll receive the benefits. The return on investment's huge. Once again, return on investments is huge. But yeah, it's been good.

Good episode, man.

Yeah. And, and I like the way that you ended that. Like, the return on investment with taking care of your physical body just goes on and on and on for years and years and years. Because, yeah, the first wealth is health. As they say, you know, and so just take care of your health. And it can really go a long way to just having a happy, fulfilling, meaningful life. And that's what it is that we're talking about. So.

All right. We will let you go with that and appreciate you joining us today. We look forward to having you join us for our next episode. And in the meantime, feel free to shoot us any questions or things that you might want us to talk about in future episodes.

Yeah. Once again, Lance Hansen at Uidaho Edu? En on Hansen.

Right. And mine is just Ericson. My last name Ericson, Idaho. Edu E R I C K S O N. Okay. All right. Thanks, everybody. Take care.