How to Get Self-Care & Healthcare Treatments For Free or Low Cost

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that in one of our other episodes. I forget which one it is, but today we're talking about stuff you can buy, and that is beauty and like supplementary hell care types of things. We'll get into it, you'll get it. But we have some specific beauty episodes for you to queue up after this if you want to. Episode twenty five yikes, wow, all the way back there, Frugal Beauty,

so all natural and affordable beauty and skincare products. And then episode one thirty two the pink tax, what it is and how to avoid it, so we talk about how women are coxed into spending more and also just like the nuts and bolts of how products for women actually do cost more and what we can do to lower that. So today is kind of in the same vein as those. But yeah, so let's get it started with our first article, and this is from style Caster.

It's the secret to getting free or seriously cheap beauty services. And if you're not into like beauty stuff, stay with us because we've got other free and low cost services that you can get later on.

I don't know what else we do to our bodies, but look at whether they offer a discount or maybe even a free service. So for example, European wax centers will offer first time visitors a free bikini line, eyebrow or underarm wax completely free. Or they also mentioned this other salon called Merle Norman studio locations you can get a free twenty minute facial. So those are just some examples.

Check out the spots that are local to you and see if new clients get a discount or even a bonus thing that you don't have to pay for, which is super fun. And then you can bounce around, especially if you're living in a new area. Like when Eric and I moved to Florida, I was able to try out a bunch of different places until I could settle on where do I want to go regularly? What place do I like the most. But in the meantime, as you're testing out these places, getting discounts along the way.

going to want you to buy something. So what you can do is, if you have already bought something from a Mac or an Alta or a apartment store, you can go in with the thing that you have purchased and say, hey, I have this, I am not sure if it's right for me or how to use it or how to pair it with something else, And then you can ask for like a demonstration on how to or maybe you can go in with a look that you're thinking about and say, hey, this is what I

have from you guys, is it possible for me how would I do this on my own? So you want to go in with something you've already purchased from them, and then you can get the suggestions for what else you can get and consider them. You don't have to make the purchase, but it is a little mouci if you just go in there and say, can you do my makeup for free? Though some people would love to, but we want to be as respectful of people's time as possible.

But it seems like they offer discounts on a variety of things, from spa type services, beauty products, even name brand designer products and resorts. It's kind of all over the map. If you're a little bit more bougie in your taste, you like the finer things luxury calls to you. We love that this would be a great spot to check out deeply discounted items. But again, if it's a designer brand, you're still going to be spending a decent

amount on things. But it also looks like there are spa services at some of these spas that you can find in every state, so that's worth checking out. I've never heard it. I'm going to be digging through so Groupon I have utilized. You can find constantly massages, haircuts, waxing, laser hair removal treatments at places in your city and near you where you can get these services at sometimes fifty to seventy percent off, especially if you're a first time visitor.

can get cash back. If you've never used racketin, you

can get thirty dollars bonus cash right now. So I think we did the math and the friend letter and it was like, if it's a one hundred and fifty dollars massage, that's seventy five on group on, and then you've got the ten percent cash back, so you've got seven to fifty off and then the thirty dollars bonus, so you're paying like less than thirty eight dollars thirty seven to fifty for a one hundred and fifty dollars massage, So you can get that bonus cash again if you've

never used racketin before. Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Racketin love it and I love groupon for that stuff. So my next thing that I like on this list is to give out refer So I'm going to combine this with two on the list the one is social media and one is referrals. So I'm in social media Instagram for B to B type of things. Apparently Instagram is now solely based for people hawking products. It's like a whole thing.

So if there is a place that you love, see if you can go all out on social media like them, comment on their stuff, give them love so that boosts them in the local algorithm makes their ads you know, less expensive if they're running them, and see if you

can partner with them in some way. I follow this girl, Alexa Curtis, and I follow her because she kind of teaches people how to do this and like loves to show herself like getting rejected from doing it, so like she'll try and get free hotel stays and she'll record herself on the phone with a hotel showing the process and sometimes like she'll get and sometimes she won't, and like she just records the process. So she shows like people how to do this, Alexa Curtis, and you can

just try it. Try it if you have like maybe one thousand, two thousand followers, give it a shot and see if you can partner with local brands to get free services like haircuts, colors, hotel stays, maybe not a hotel stay, but all these different sorts of manicures, pedicures, stuff like that, and see how it works.

cool little spin. See how it works for you. I've done it on a different level, so I don't know if like they apply the same rules apply, but literally it's just kind of reaching out saying, this is my platform, this is where I'm located. All of my followers are located here too, And I see that you posted for National Hair Day? Are you going to celebrate that again?

I would love to partner with you on that. Make it something like relevant to what they have already posted in the past, Like go back like nine to twelve months and see kind of what they've been doing and say, like, I could help you do this more and kind of get more coverage on it if I can get this thing for free.

look into because my hair is so long. I do know that these programs will have a lot of stipulation, so certainly look into it. Make sure that you qualify to be able to donate hair based on length or type of hair. I don't know all of the different things that they're looking for, but don't just assume you can go into a salon and be like I'm donating

and then they may not take your hair. So there's a couple of steps here of making sure that your hair would qualify for a donation and then calling around to various local salons to see if they offer any sort of of discount as you are donating hair to help you cut it off and maybe receive a fresh new look and style. So that's a cool one. Obviously, this isn't going to happen every single time. You get

it cut. This is more of like a once every few years you could get this kind of discount, but worth looking into if your hair is long like me mm hmm.

like not it doesn't come to top of mind. But when hairstylists are in training, they need models, and those models are given free or dis counted haircuts, blowouts, sometimes color chemical services. They are students, but they are supervised very closely by teachers. So there are a ton of different self care services that you can get four deeply discounted through this method, and both Jill and I have

tried them. So we're going to kind of go a little deeper than this article goes into them on kind of what is available. So, Jill, what self care services have you gotten from schools.

teeth worked on, this may not be for you. But I was willing because we don't have dental insurance, so I was willing to spend my time over spending thousands of dollars out of pocket to get the X ray, the exam, the teeth cleaning, and so I essentially was a model a person that this dental practicing dental hygienist was able to clean my teeth. She did have someone, a supervisor, be able to come and check, and that person helped to make sure that everything was clean and

being done properly. They were able to do X rays because that's something else they had to practice, and I want to say it was less than fifty dollars. So again I had to spend an afternoon there with somebody digging around in my mouth, but that felt so worth it to me. I have also what else have I done. I want to say waxing. I've not now, granted, I've not done a ton of these because my mind just didn't think of it that, oh, this could go beyond

dental cleanings or haircuts. I've also done haircuts this way too, going to a school where someone who's practicing with your hair. Again, if you are a person who's really particular, then this may not be for you, But for me, I just want my dead ends gone and I don't really care because it's going to grow out again. And that too. I want to say, fifteen to twenty dollars is how much a haircut would cost. And I think that they

washed my hair as well. Lots of other things that you'll probably outline here Jen too, but those are the only ones now that I know. All of these, all of these people have to learn somehow, so everyone's out here practicing.

but there are some individually owned ones. So this is something where we're not going to be able to give you a list, So we're telling you this information so that you know what's available and you can go online and search these types of schools to see what's in your area and then inquire about how to make an appointment. So I've done massages. There is a massage school nearby, and so I've had a massage and massage school.

are a man. Facials. I actually haven't gotten a facial at a school, but that was the next thing that I wanted to try. These are some of the things you're looking mostly for kind of trade schools like this that teach these skills, and all of them are going to require you to call for an appointment. These are not going to be book online and they are going to require some time. Like I know Travis one time spent four hours at that barber shop, and that's a

little unreasonable. I think you should plan to spend two hours for something that might normally take you one hour. So just kind of double the time if it's going to take you one hour by a professional, plan to be at the school for two hours. So yeah, definely facial is on my next but you can you can get legit, like at the massage school near US eighty minute massage.

Guinea Pig, Salon Apprentice if you're in the US. But I even had friends who were in hair school, and I did this a lot when I had friends in hair school obviously, but they would have to do like whole shebang cut color to take pictures, so like you could get like a full like blowout, maybe not a cut, but blowout makeup. You could get like headshots done with this sort of thing.

you may be able to be a guinea pig. I am not familiar with that sort of thing, so that's not what we're talking about. I don't know the ins and outs of med school. But I went to acupuncture school. I am a licensed trained acupuncturist, and I know that we had a clinic, a student clinic where we had to intern, where people got low cost acupuncture even like free,

low cost be twelve injections, all kinds of things. And so I wanted to find out what are the other schools like that where you could get free or discounted like healthcare types of things. And what did you know, there's not a single article on it. I scoured Google, and so I had to come up with my own list. And the article that we're going to go through is simply what to expect when you go into a place

like this. So it's from Saint Pete College Dental Hygiene Clinic, which is where Jill went to get her dental.

insurance or might operate on a sliding scale fee. I know when I worked at a counseling office, we would both take insurance and private pay clients, and depending on income levels, we would be able to offer counseling sessions at a reduced cost. You, of course, that would have to be willing to submit pay stubs and kind of

prove your income bracket. To be eligible for reduced cost counseling services, but that is available and something worth looking into if you do need higher levels clinical level type of care. There's also plenty of other options regarding support, so this would be more so support groups, but there are nearly everywhere you can find free support groups for grief and loss, substance misuse, recovery, gambling, even just support for experiences of anxiety or what it's like to be

a new parent. These can be found certainly by going to that website and NAMMY's website and ami dot org, I believe, but also you can check out local churches will often allow support groups to meet at their locations. You could google just in your area support group for whatever it is that you're seeking support for, and I will advocate just to say there is so much benefit to meeting in a group with other people who are

having similar experiences to you. Both one on one individual clinical counseling as well as support groups are great, but I wouldn't discount support groups if it's all that you are able to afford. Essentially, if you can't even afford anything,

you're looking for something solely for free. There is a ton of research to support the fact that support groups can be phenomenally beneficial in being able to just talk through what you're experiencing with others who have gone through the same thing, or even to hear other people's stories, gain perspective, kind of put words to what you might be feeling and experiencing in ways that you might not have been able to say, and find yourself with like

minded people. So these are fantastic ways to be able to receive some of that community emotional mental health support that you can find for free or reduced costs.

to prove that. And you should not take somebody's free healthcare or mental health services if you do not need them, if you can afford them on your own. However, there are a ton of things you can get that it doesn't matter your income. They're more elective, they're not the requirement. So, like I said before, you're not going to find medical schools really doing this sort of thing like we see

at the massage schools or the acupuncture schools. The medical schools are going to be those students are going to be in actual hospitals, they're going to be in actual practices, they're going to accept insurance, they're doing stuff like that. So I really looked even outside of family care. I looked at optometry, pedietary, kind of the peripheral stuff too, like even plastic surgery, cosmetic stuff, and that across the board really is at hospitals, and you're going to pretty

much be paying standard pricing for stuff like that. But stuff that we did find, and I will say like, if you are in that income bracket, you should not feel ashamed or feel like you're taking anything away from seeking those services. Those services are available to you because of that income bracket, But if you're outside of it, don't gain the system. But stuff that they need people

in every income bracket are the stuff like acupuncture. I can go deeper into kind of what that was like, because I think it's going to be a pretty similar experience across the board massage like we talked about earlier, the dental cleanings, and the X rays like we mentioned earlier, chiropractic Chiropractic schools will have clinics. I did see some pedietary stuff, so I think maybe more of the elective

pedietary things. I don't know what those things would be, but if you're near a pedetary school, you can call them find out. Naturopathic medicine. So this is a third medical degree for a doctor. So you've got empty, you've got DO, and then you've got ND and this is a holistic kind of medical doctor. They are not licensed in every state, so you don't really see them in hospitals,

but if you're near a naturopathic medical school. That's one of the reasons why you can go see them for medical care is because they're not as prevalent in the hospitals and the private practices and stuff. So they do have clinics that you can go in for family practice for a discounted rate. So search naturopathic medicine. They've gone San Diego, Portland, Oregon, Chicago. I think Boston. There's a

handful of schools around the country physical therapy. There are some as long as it's like a physical therapy, like a master's program and not in the med school sort of track, then physical therapy. I found some schools had clinics where you could if you have a sports injury, you can go in and kind of get diagnosed and treated there. And then one that I found out at the very last minute, right before we went to record this episode, and it's not healthcare, but I thought it

was worth saying, was legal services. And this is another you have to be an income bracket to get this, but if you are near a law school, you can call them and see what kind of legal services their students could offer to the public. There's these things called clinics, and that's how I found it, that students can kind of work on actual cases and help and serve the public while they're in school. Again kind of all going

through licensed attorneys and practicing attorneys. But so if you are in need, and you are in a lower income household or no people in a lower income household that may need legal services and you can't afford to help them financially, then check out these law schools and see what services they have available to low income communities.

insurance doesn't cover these things. Don't know why they don't cover eyes and teeth, as if they're not real parts of our body that need care. But sometimes that is where you could find some reduced cost availability because insurance doesn't historically cover that, and you may not need to prove income level.

is a factor to consider. I believe that they might have offered Saturday hours once a month something like that. Those were harder to book because obviously more people want to be able to book on the weekend. I was able to clear my schedule go in the after noon. When I arrived, there was maybe one other person in the waiting room, but it looked very similar to a typical dentist office, you know, once you walk through the school. They really wanted to make it feel like a typical office.

So there was a waiting room, there was a desk. I went up. They had expected me. I had to fill out a little bit of paperwork. It was a matter of minutes, five ten minutes before the student who was practicing came and got me, sat me in the chair, and everything went very similar to how it would add

a dentist's office, just a lot longer. Like I had said, So she's practicing, and at each stage of the process she had to have her supervisor, who has been in the dental hygiene field for I want to say, over a decade. She would come and check the student's work at every stage. And they wanted to do the whole list of things. So that's partially why it took so long. It was the cleaning, the oral exam, the x rays,

the talking to me about dental hygiene. She had an entire list of things that she needed to be going through, which I was pleased for how thorough it was, but again a long amount of time. Then we would go to the room to get the x rays, back to the chair, but very similar to a typical dental annual visit that you might have getting checked by the supervisor. So just factor that it's going to take a while.

But after that, Yeah, I paid thirty to forty dollars for that at the time, for the entire afternoon.

we would do the treatment. So sometimes you will see like the practicing licensed individual, and sometimes you won't I don't think sometimes if there was a interesting case, then the acupuncture would come in and kind of see for themselves. But if it was very cut and dry, especially like follow ups, then they wouldn't come in and it could

be faster. So if this is something like you're going to like a physical therapist or a massage therapist or an acupuncturist who's in school, and you can see the same person over and over, it can get quicker with each subsequent visit. Things like dental hygiene, you probably won't be seeing the person over and over. But this website does say there's no charge for additional appointments or additional services such as selins and fluoride treatments, like for the

same cleaning. Jill, did you have to go back another time or was it just the one time?

it's like. But they're typically very professional. So the barber school that Travis went into to get his cuts and trims, the front looked like a barbershop and the school was in the back. They try to make the experience great, great for not just the client, but also real life for the students. So the student feels like they're in a real life sending and they're not in school. So yeah,

that's uh. I think the secret to getting these free, low cost, mostly low cost services that we often forget about, but let's not sleep on it.

start somewhere. I mean, this is outside of this particular exact theme that we're talking about, but even from website creation to photography to anything, everyone has to learn a trade and a skill, and usually as they're learning, if you're willing to sacrifice a degree of quality or your own time, you can typically get those things for reduced or free prices if you're willing to sacrifice in some

other ways. So try it out. Speaking of areas that are free that you really don't have to sacrifice anything for.

Credit card debt is a menace to society, and so I'm so glad you're gonna be able to pay it off faster. If you all are listening, and you've been listening for a while, and you want us to keep pumping out episodes where then we're gonna keep needing your bills. If it's taken you all these episodes to make some moves great, if you made moves a while ago and you never told us about it, well call us up. Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill. Leave us your bill.

It can be about anything. You can be from anywhere, Minnesota or Australia, anywhere in between. Leave us your bill. We're ready for it, and now it's time for.

always give us free something at the end. And so this was near the end of tor So I had gotten free color, I had gotten free cut, I had gotten pretty much everything that you could that I wanted to do to my hair for free. And so one of the girls was like, why don't we try and give you a PERM so that it kind of like softens out your curls and decreases your frizz. And I was like, I don't understand that.

go well. Oh wow, Yeah, you've probably heard these stories before because I can't not talk about it. Some of them are more intimate than others.

very sweet email from David so congratulations. Your podcast has been a continual source of motivation for me over the past four years here in my little corner of Australia. Getting the opportunity to support you, even if only a little, by buying a copy of your book, will be a joy for me. My wife, three kids, and I live in a fairly high cost of living city in Australia and through your podcast, I feel I have found some

kindred spirits. We would typically have been advised against some of the decisions we've made, like as purchasing a house mortgage free or avoiding credit entirely, but your philosophy around values based spending the radical middle has been invaluable in giving a bit of community feel despite being the odd one out. Thank you for everything. Thank you, David so kind.

at least leave a rating and review. If you are enjoying this show, it really helps us because it helps other potential community members find us, know what to expect with the show, and possibly be able to find the support and tips that they need.

garlic and apple cider vinegar that I ate. No, that one I stirred together, Jen I downed it because because when you are to that point and you're so miserable, you'll do anything, and I mean anything. So yeah, I'm eating that, I'm doing other things that I can't talk about on show. And yeah, it wasn't it wasn't working. I did have to do antibiotics. And that's where friends come in handy. We've got a friend this who we can call up and say, here's my issue, and she'll write a script for us. Well.