Are you ready for the final Be Intentional Baby Step that deals with getting YOU on the right track?
As a reminder, the 30 Be Intentional Baby Steps are designed to get you on the right foot, the right track and give you energy, efficiency and organization which will propel you into a life that is able to develop an overall financially smart, happy and frugal home.
We encourage couples and families (including many of the kids in your home) to do these challenges together so the whole house can function well!
As the 30 steps go along, we will be focusing on 5 areas for the Be Intentional Challenge:
- Self
- Home
- Budget
- Schedule
- Frugality
We have finally arrived at the last baby step for SELF. We have already heard dozens of positive reports from you regarding how you are feeling and doing so far with the first 4 baby steps. We are so happy to hear that many of you are feeling better, getting better sleep, having more energy.
Baby Step #5
Take Your Vitamins
We have heard doctor after doctor – both personally, on TV and in books and magazines, that it is pretty much impossible to get all of the nutrients we need in food alone. This might not have been the case in many eras throughout history, but we now have many other factors that contribute to the dilution of nutrients in our environment from foods we eat, including fresh (depending on how they were grown), the air quality (we live in a metropolis with very poor air quality), to the things we put on our bodies (such as damaging ingredients in personal care products). We also deal with more stress mentally, emotionally and physically than other eras throughout time.
I do try hard to feed my family good real food, although I am doing my best, I am not feeding my family the way Dr. Weil eats – so if he recommends and takes them with his stellar whole real food eating, then you know that they really are necessary! You can read this article on Today.MSNBC on a three-part vitamin series from Dr. Weil too that helps answer many questions as well!
As far as what you should take, well, that is really up to you and your doctor, and you should consult your doctor. I don’t feel comfortable telling you what you should take, but I can tell you some of the vitamins that we are taking as I feel it is super important for our family.
- Multi-Vitamin (all of us take this)
- B Vitamins (Alex and I take this)
- Vitamin D (Alex and I take a higher dose 5,000 iu and our kids take 200 – 400 iu each day) – In my book and in the course of my research, I really believe that a D vitamin is the most important supplement that anyone today needs. And if you think you are taking enough, think again. I use to think we were taking enough, but after online research, discussions with health professionals and vitamin book reading, we weren’t close for our situation (pale skinned, cold climate, not much sun in our area, terrible pollution as just a few of the factors, etc.). Check out this article here by Dr. Mercola.
- Fish Oil/Mega Krill Oil or other form of Omega-3’s (we all take this, mostly because we hardly ever eat seafood as I don’t like it, but it is very nutritious, so we go right to the source).
We also take a few other things that I think is necessary for our health situations through research that I have done. But the above list is not only a list we take, but a list that is highly recommended for most people across the board.
Where do we get our vitamins?
Well, we always watch for sales with coupons in the stores, but in all honesty we pretty much cannot beat Puritan’s Pride prices, especially when they have their “buy 2 get 3 free” sale. It means that we can get 5 bottles for the price of two. The above Vitamin D is the exact one we take. The discounts are even greater than that the more you buy. In fact, in the past, I literally bought 15 bottles of kids multi-vitamins (60-ct. so two months in each bottle), 5 bottles of a kids combo of fish oil with Vitamin D (with 100 tablets each bottle and kids take 1 per day), 5 bottles of Vitamin D, and 5 bottles of liquid b-12 complex (we are going to try the liquid for a time) and 5 bottles of Milk Thistle extract (one of the extras we take) and these 35 bottles of vitamins came to just around $70 with the $6.95 shipping (so less than $65 before shipping so around $1.85 each bottle). I only have to order from Puritan’s Pride about twice a year and each order is well under $100 each time for all 7 of us to get our vitamin intake. Head to Puritan’s Pride site HERE and search for the vitamins you want to compare prices with your current provider.
As far as brands in the store, I also really like NatureMade which is sold everywhere. I like those if I have to buy a bottle in the store for some reason, or only need one bottle.
Why? Well, for three reasons:
- They go on sale often (pretty much a sale every week at some store whether a drugstore or Kroger, etc)
- They have coupons almost always to combine with those very frequent sales
- They have a rewards program that is fantastic and very easy to build up points quickly which can be redeemed for $7 off coupons, which will get you free vitamins! So the combination of the three makes us and our budget pretty happy when we need to run to the store for some!
Other than those two options, there have been other times that I have got other deals or brands, but that was only when it was rock bottom. The above two suggestions are consistently great deals!
Also, we like using vitamin dispensers as it keeps us organized and helps us to remember whether or not we took them. We’ve had the same ones for the las 4 years. It is this exact organizer sold on Amazon for the best prices we have consistently seen. In the past, we had tried many and finally broke down and invested in nice ones, especially since Alex takes each day with him to work. These are normally $12 on sale for $7 with free shipping with a $25 or more order.
So take care of yourself so you can take care of everything else and take your vitamins!
Do you take vitamins now and what do you take and where do you get them?
Join us at our small Facebook Be Intentional group HERE for encouragement, discussions and more. Just send a request to join and we will add you to the group.
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