If Only We Spent as Much Money on Mental Health as We Do Our Appearances!

Appearance budget vs. mental health budget. A closer look.

Hey Threadies! I hope you are all ready for a deep dive, because the guys got into something interesting regarding mental health recently on an episode of my favorite podcast, as well as your favorite podcast–Threads Podcast: Life Unfiltered.

But before we get into one teensy party of the show, first…

A quick recap of the episode 96!

Episode 96, “Mental Health: COVID-19, Police, and the Workplace.” Where to start? If you’ve yet to hear this episode, look forwards to these conversations: Mental Health vs. Physical Health, the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, an unfortunate police response to a mental health call, mental health in the workplace (which we also have a blog post about), as well as breaking the stigma of mental health.

That’s a lot, I know. Imagine how it feels trying to write the friggin recap!

If I went in detail about all of it, I’d have a novel on my hands. Luckily, there was one thing the guys talked about that particularly struck me:

The cost of taking care of the inside vs. taking care of the outside

In other words, we spend a lot of money on our appearance (clothes, haircuts, skin products, bath products, jewelry, glasses, tattoos, and surgical body modifications, to name a few. But how much money do we spend on things that directly, and positively, affect our mental health, like therapy?

But therapy is expensive…

That’s what the guys hear when they advocate for people to give therapy a shot. But, if you have some kind of health insurance, most co-pays (at least in west Michigan) seem to be in the $25-$50 range. That’s how much you pay out of pocket. If you go once a month, that’s $300-$600 in a year.

Compared to our outwards appearance budget:

Haircuts, people. According to this survey, the average male spends about $150 a year on haircuts. For females, the average is around $260.

Clothing. Everyone’s budget is a little different, but one financial planner says it’s reasonable to spend 5% of your income on clothes. He give this example: $40,000 gross is about $28,000 net. Clothing budget $1,400/yr

Then there’s make up, watches, hats, shoes, nose hair trimmers, and so on.

So, in the context of how much money we spend to look fly as hell, mental health services don’t seem too bad.

What about the uninsured? You didn’t even talk about their access to mental health services, bro!

Truth. Help is out there no matter what. Rather than have me regurgitate it, just go straight to the source. That link has phone numbers, websites, and all the info on how to get access to cheap, and sometimes free, mental health services!

That’s about all I have to say, Threadies. If you listen…wait, no–when you listen to the podcast, you might hear the guys take a quiz and think, Gee, I wish I could take that quiz. Or maybe, while listening to the videos, and the guys comments, you wished you could see the videos, too

YOU CAN! Here’s the links to em so you can play along at home!:

Besides this blog, you can find Threads on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Wanna email the show? Do it here: [email protected]!

And since we talked about mental health (again) check out Threads’ sponsor, BetterHelp, a teletherapy company that will give Threads‘ listeners 10% off their first month of service. Check it out.

Thanks for stopping in. Take care of yourself!

-CT

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Christopher Tallon writes, podcasts, and…wait a second. Are you actually reading this? High five! Follow me here:

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