What I spend on healthcare in a year: 2024 edition!

How do I budget for my healthcare expenses from year-to-year?

Top of the morning, sapien. Welcome to Common Sense Medicine, where I try and keep you up to date on the latest and greatest in longevity science.

My first YouTube video in a while is finally up! Check it out here (or read about it below).

I’m pretty stoked about this one. I’ve wanted to share my passion about health and longevity for some time now, but I felt as thought I wasn’t “qualified” to talk about it because I didn’t fit into the “traditional bodybuilding YouTubers.” I realized this was kind of ridiculous because I write about this stuff week in, week out and I read enough journal articles to be conversational on this topic. I also have a background in medicine, so I’m pretty well versed on most of the topics that I read. So it gives me a lot of joy to start editing and writing this new piece.

As I said, I’m trying to write multiple different blog posts in a week. As I preach, it’s always about sustainable improvement and I’m hoping you’re getting what you want out of this newsletter. Let’s begin.

THE WEEKLY DOSE

How much do I spend on healthcare in a year?

As a guy in my late twenties, my healthcare spend is very low compared to someone who has more chronic issues and might be older — but I still take healthcare spending very seriously.

I’ve heard often that “the only place where people will spend an infinite amount of money for marginal utility is their own health” because we will all die eventually, and everyone wants to be healthier at any point in life.

So what’s the most optimal spend that someone should be spending on their health?

Healthcare costs continue to skyrocket, and they can be surprising when you actually track them. A year ago, I got hit with my own health scare and decided to take my health more seriously.

This began with taking an audit of what I was doing, both the good and the bad.

The good part?

I had a gym membership, but I wasn’t going. So that was easy — I decided to prioritize it and go there more. First it was walking at least 30 minutes 5 days a week, then I added running. Then weightlifting in May of 2024.

Along the way, I decided that I was going to track things — first sets in the gym, but then also unexpected and expected expenses. I also started to track what I ate gradually, because I realized I had lost too much weight by running a lot.

I had gotten to 143 lbs. from 163 lbs. simply by eating less and moving more.

Then, in the fall, once I bulked back up to 153 lbs., I started a newsletter to document my health journey, and now I want to bring it to YouTube too.

There are two reasons why I believe that most people are afraid of taking more care of their health — one is the behavioral or identity change needed and the other is financial.¹

As a result, I believe that each feeds into the other. You need to find a way to maximize your benefit from the minimum financial commitment you have to make on your health.

The total pie of spending in 2024

For this article, I broke up my spending into seven parts, which largely falls into discretionary preventative health spending.

FSA Money (Pre-tax Dollars)

I think that these dollars are the best bang for your buck because it effectively is a discount on anything that you purchase based on how much you are getting taxed.

However, the problem with the FSA is that it doesn’t roll over from year to year (use-it-or-lose-it). If you have a high deductible health plan with an HSA, that’s a different story (for a different post!).

I put in $240 at the beginning of the year. This was the minimum I could put in, largely because I only had a couple of healthcare expenses that I foresaw. Usually, it’s hard to forecast this so I recommend looking at your prior year’s healthcare expenses and having an idea of whta you’re going to need to use based on the rates charged by your health plan.

This can be found in your Summary Plan Description. You can ask the doctor before you go to your appointment what CPT codes that they’re planning to bill under, and make sure that you can get a cost estimate of those under your insurance before you go in.

This is a hard game, and I’m working on a post to show you how to use your health insurance in a better way and / or going concierge with some of the preventative things that you might want to do which may be cost-prohibitive from an insurance standpoint.

Another reason why I love the FSA is that it’s a effective discount on spend by your effective tax rate. This also incentivizes you to spend more on healthcare, curiously enough, because of the use-it-or-lose-it quirk. I split up these dollars into two areas:

Over the counter (OTC) items

I generally use all of it, and used it for various items which are covered: a heart rate monitor (~$82), pill organizers (~$3), and other eligible OTC items like sunscreen, contact lens solutions (~$30).

Interestingly enough, a lot of the items which you need to spend on from drug stores and Amazon could be FSA-eligible; you have to check with the IRS guidelines on what is considered a medical expense.

Unfortunately, a lot of things that you might want to spend on (biking, exercise equipment) aren’t covered by traditional means however, if you have a medical condition that requires a letter of medical necessity, you can get a doctor’s note in order to get some other purchases covered that might not be traditionally covered to be covered by your FSA.

Medical visits and services

Okay, for the rest of the money in the FSA, I used it for doctor’s visits and services. Remember when I was talking about asking the physician for how much this visit costs and to check with your insurer about those CPT codes?

That’s the way that I get a guess of what my visit is going to cost. Obviously, if there’s things that I don’t know about and the doctor finds it, the cost is going to go up. But I get a good idea, based on my policy, how much I should be thinking about how much this costs.

The negotiated rates are kept pretty secret but if you have a good insurance organization, you should be able to read your document and see how much they can charge for a preventative visit.

Don’t forget, if you go to a hospital, you might get a facility fee and also a physician fee. They’re different, so you might get sent two different bills.

My total for this year came out to $125 for medical visits. So I completely exhausted the $240 in the FSA.

I mentioned that there is an effective discount due to these being pre-tax dollars, but I’m just going to consider absolute dollars for this calculation to make everyone’s lives simpler.

Physical Fitness

I paid $1,252 to go to the Crunch Fitness that is near me for 15 months. This comes out to an effective rate of ~$84 / month of gym access. This may seem absurd to someone who doesn’t live in NYC, I understand.

This is even after the corporate discount that they were able to give me. I’m hoping if I re-up with them, they can give me another discount, but it’s not looking too hopeful. Gyms in NYC are expensive.

It seemed absurd to me as well. I go on average to the gym ~20 times a month, which brings my effective spend / gym session to ~$4.

For me, I think it’s worth it because there is towel service, and a locker room with a shower, which helps me be more effective in the morning.

Also there’s usually no one there in the mornings ~5:45 - 6:45am when I go to work out so that’s a plus as well.

It’s a pretty small gym that’s next to me, but there’s a bunch of them scattered across NYC so I can pop into any one that I want. Also, I can go in for any classes that I want, but I haven’t really taken advantage of that yet.

Is this worth it? Not sure about how other people play it, but I think it’s worth it for me because it allows me to work on the rehab protocols that I am looking for.

It’s no Equinox but I think it has everything that I want for now. The value that I get from these purchases (not really investments, because that money’s gone) is something that does return something — my continued health.

I don’t subscribe to any fitness classes / subscriptions, since the gym is the best all-in-one subscription.

Skin care, supplements, and vitamins

All in all, for my CeraVe skincare (I get the most basic brands), I spent ~$60 this whole year (I get the hydrating face wash, PM moisturizing lotion, and AM moisturizing lotion)

I think this is a great starter skincare routine for anyone (even though I’m way far from an expert) because it incorporates the three holy grails for skin care (moisturizer, sunscreen, and cleanser) and it even combines some of them (moisturizer and sunscreen).

It hasn’t caused me to break out too many times, so I’m continuing the routine (since 2022!)

I also added retinol this past year to my routine, so I use this adapalene (Differin) as well for general anti-acne and preventative skincare (here’s a discussion from a dermatologist about it). It’s $12 per tube, but I only bought one of them in August and just bought another one in 2025. They last pretty long.

Moving onto supplements, I bought magnesium ($16) and creatine ($48), and spent $280 on protein. This is mostly for sleep and athletic performance.

I get the Orgain Superfoods protein brand from Costco out of habit, but I’m looking to see whether there’s any other brand of protein which I’d like to consume in the new year. It just hasn’t given me any problems yet, so I’m hesitant to switch something that is working. Other protein brands unfortunately caused digestive upset and it’s not something I want to mess with constantly.

Mental Health

This is not really a big spend category for me, but I just wanted to highlight that this should be part of your health spending every year.

Whether it’s psychiatry visits or therapy or something else to help with your mental health, this should be a mandatory spend if you’re trying to help your health (see here).

I grouped a gratefulness journal (cost: $7) that I’ve been writing in every day here, it’s been a very nice repreive to flip through the journal and reminisce on what makes me grateful to be alive.

I don’t have any apps for meditation or mental health that I pay for, but it is something that I want to increase as I’ve said in the past.

Nutrition and Food

This is a very big portion of the budget, and eating healthy is important. As I said in the disclaimer, I do get some help with this portion of the budget, but I think it’s important to disclose that there are certain advantages that I get that allow me to eat healthier.

Let’s face it, healthy food is expensive. I would say conservatively that I’ve spent ~$6000 in food costs over the year. That’s not cheap. In fact, it’s almost 4 to 5 gym memberships worth. This is definitely the biggest line item on my budget.

I think it’s important to save where you can, but it’s doubly important to make sure that you spend on things that matter to you.

For me, it’s food. I think that powering your body requires a spend which is commensurate to the effort that you’re willing to go to for bulking or cutting, so I think it’s appropriate to spend a little bit on the higher end in order to achieve those goals.

Also, I will say that buying in bulk from stores like Costco (shoutout to those Kirkland egg whites) helps a ton when meal prepping and also saving on grocery spend.

I think I’ll make a post about my current diet and where I’m trying to change as I’m entering half marathon prep, and I’ll also talk about fueling strategy during those races as well.

Analysis, Insight, and Practical Takeaways

Alright, so compiling all of the expenses above to a clear total comes out to $1,915 without food and $7,915 with food. I think that these numbers are a little less than average people my age spend on healthcare costs.

If you notice, I didn’t include my health insurance premiums — that’s because I’m lucky enough that my employer covers all of the health insurance premiums for me. When you sign your employment contract (in the U.S.), make sure that you’re looking at the benefits that are offered because they can make a huge impact in how you allocate spend, especially on health.

Males spend significantly less than females in my age bracket in the U.S., with males spending $2,601 per year versus females spending $5,227. This is largely due to pregnancy and delivery related care, and it evens out as they get older and both sexes increase their spend. The averages are also dependent on the extremes, healthcare is extremely right-skewed, and the people who are spending the most account for a very minor portion of the total population (~50% of bottom spend is from ~3% of people)

I think that the reason I spend less than others is largely due to the way I watch my own expenses and try to assess the value on whether I actually need to spend on healthcare or not. Having some knowledge about what I actually need to go to the doctor for may help (although that is not a reason to not go to the doctor), but I think having that knowledge does help a bit.

It’s worth it to spend on healthcare if you think that it’s going to reap rewards in the future. Personally, I like to dive into the evidence — usually if I’m not seeing step changes in value, it’s hard to rationalize to spend on a very expensive therapy (i.e., supplements which cost an arm and a leg, sleep cover pods with a subscription, etc.) I might get tempted to buy these toys, but I remind myself that they’re just that — toys.

Surprisingly, I thought that I could be more judicious with my food spend, and I’m going to try and write some more about how I’m going to try and change my diet. I know that I have to lower saturated fats, however, I’m still working on a good way to do that and good foods to eat to supplement the calorie density that I have been getting with other fats.

Finally, I will say that healthcare isn’t really an “investment” — but it’s more of a necessity. If you’re not healthy, then it affects your ability to earn income but also your quality of life. There’s no substitute for having a healthy body. If there is a way to get more healthy (obviously measuring it against the trade offs of my own willingness-to-pay threshold for that marginal health), I will take it.

Practically speaking, this post was just illustrative for my own analysis on where I can spend differently for the next year and I hope it helps you too. Make sure to use your tax advantaged healthcare spend, focus on the tools which you need to exercise (gym / other equipment), and save on recurring costs by using a letter of medical necessity if needed and getting more informed about your physician’s billing practices to guesstimate your medical expenses for the year. Also, work on finding balance between necessity and luxury in health spending.

THE PRESCRIPTION

Q1 2025: Hypertrophy Cycle Progress

The upshot: Weight is stagnating around 153 lbs, largely because I haven’t been too strict with the diet with the business of life. I think doing it one more week is showing me that I need to refocus priorities back onto the food which I’m eating. But I’m keeping myself honest. I might push the goal to get to 158 to the end of April before starting to run.

REMEMBER, IT’S JUST COMMON SENSE.

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you thought by replying to this email.

See you next week,

Shree (@shree_nadkarni)

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The information provided here is not medical advice. This does not constitute a doctor patient relationship and this content is intended for entertainment, informational, and educational purposes only. Always consult with a doctor before starting new supplementation protocols.

1. I want to have a disclaimer before we begin. I’m very lucky that my family can afford to cover some of my healthcare costs (largely food), and I’m really grateful and privileged to have that support. I’ll be transparent where I’m being helped out and where I’m spending my own money.