What We Spend on Health Maintenance

When I wrote my post about the things we outsource and don’t regret for a second, reader Kelli left a comment that immediately made me pause. She said something along the lines of: “You should do a follow-up and ask people what they spend money on for health maintenance. That would be really interesting.”

Ask and ye shall receive. 🙂

I loved this idea—not just to share what we prioritize, but because I’m genuinely curious what you spend (or intentionally don’t spend) in this category. Health maintenance can look so different from family to family, so I’m curious what falls into this category for you.

For this post, I’m mostly focusing on ongoing expenses, not one-time purchases. That said, we have made some bigger, one-off investments over the years—like our home gym setup, a red light mask, RO water, and our sauna (which David is currently building and very excited about). But today, I’m talking about the things that show up regularly.

Here’s what’s currently in our health-maintenance bucket:

• DPC (Direct Primary Care) – a healthcare model where you pay a flat monthly fee directly to your primary care provider instead of using insurance for routine care. We like the direct and easy access to healthcare needs and personal attention it provides.
• Chiropractic Care – mostly for me because I need it 1-2x/month or my neck seizes up, but the girls join sometimes as well.
• Dental – regular cleanings.
• Dermatologist – annual skin checks for me, and every couple for David, though I’m trying to gear him to every year.
• Supplements, including the following that we have on auto ship:
• Madeline Moves – app-based workout programming
• Function Health – for deeper labs and data that is easy to continuously monitor. You can read my personal experience here.

And this one might be a stretch depending on how you define things, but I’m including it anyway: I keep our coffee on auto ship. Is it a health expense? Maybe. Is it a mental-health-adjacent, daily-ritual-that-makes-life-better expense? Absolutely.

Now I want to hear from you.
What do you spend money on to maintain your health—or your sanity? What’s worth it to you, and what’s a hard no?