I like taking vitamins, just like millions of Americans, and probably spend $50 – $100 every month.

There’s an old saying that you get what you pay for. For the most part, I believe this is true, and I have therefore always chosen to purchase premium brands when I bought vitamins. But recently, I began to wonder if I could get away with buying cheaper brands.

Because this is an issue that pertains to health, I decided to do a good bit of research before making my new purchase. After all, saving money is good, but I didn’t want to save money if I would end up taking an inferior product that would not benefit my health.

Based on what I’ve learned, it seems that for the most part, the price you pay does not relate much to quality when it comes to vitamins and supplements. According to a New York Times Article I read:

“Vitamins and minerals are commodity items, and every manufacturer has access to the same ingredients. For that reason, researchers and scientists say paying more for a name brand won’t necessarily buy you better vitamins.

“When we measure levels of vitamins in the blood, we find the levels are the same whether the person was taking a generic brand or a name brand,” says Dr. Rimm, who has been studying the effects of vitamins for 20 years.

That said, don’t be too cheap. Purchase your vitamins from well-known retailers that do a brisk business and restock frequently, whether that’s Costco or Drugstore.com. Vitamins lose their potency over time and must be stored at, or below, room temperature. If bottles are sitting on a shelf in warm room or in direct sunlight, they may degrade even before their expiration date.”

You can read the full article here. I found the information in the article to be reassuring and very helpful.

It does seem important, however, to pay attention to the ingredients that are in your vitamin. Cheap or expensive, you always want to check the label carefully. An article on Livestrong explains the reason for this quite well:

“When it comes to choosing the right vitamins, price doesn’t matter. The label is what is the most important. If you’re considering a vitamin supplement, read the label and compare information as well as ingredients. Some vitamins — even the expensive ones — may contain more fillers than the actual ingredient. In other instances, you may need to examine the bottle to ensure they are geared specifically for you and not the opposite sex or a completely different age group. Always ensure that the particular vitamin you choose meets the standards set by testing organizations to ensure strength, purity, dissolution and disintegration. Even inexpensive, or cheap, vitamins can pass all of these tests and still provide a quality supplement.”

So with all that said, where can you find cheap vitamins. On the whole, it seems like drugstores and supermarkets have the lowest prices. The downside, however, is that the selection is generally more limited. And avoid health food stores like Whole Foods or GNC, since the prices at such locations tend to be high.

I favor a middle ground, where I purchase well-known brands, but save money by buying my supplements online from discount stores like Pureformulas, where I get most of my products. By shopping online, I have the added benefit of being able to use online coupons as well. Using online coupons from Pureformulas, which can be found at Referralbusinessbuilders, I hardly ever pay retail price and still get my hands on some high-quality brands.

I know people who take 20 or more supplements. This is probably overkill, and I advise caution when dealing with supplements. All vitamins have something called a tolerable upper limit, and you don’t want to exceed this amount. Taking dozens of supplements is not only expensive, but may end up harming you as well. As with all things, moderation seems to be ideal.

In my opinion, a sensible approach is to use the Internet to do research on which supplements may be beneficial to you. Then, come up with a supplementation plan and show it to your doctor. If he or she agrees with your plan, you can move forward and purchase your vitamins online from place like Pureformulas. Remember to use coupons like I do to ensure that you’re always getting the best price possible.

For those of you that own a home business office, I probably don’t have to tell you how high expenses can be. High speed internet, a second phone line, computers, and printer ink can all add up to be quite a bit of money. So what are some ways you can go about minimizing your office expenses? I have two quick suggestions below.

First, if you do a lot of printing, consider buying remanufactured cartridges online to get a better price on your ink cartridges. If you don’t know what remanufactured cartridges are, it’s best to think of them as used cartridges that have been refilled by a store using an expensive machine. As long as you buy from a reputable source, the cartridges should work more or less like a brand new ink cartridges. However, you will be paying anything for 20 – 30% less for these types of cartridges.

Second, I recommend using online printing services whenever you need something professional such as brochures or business cards printed. It’s important to choose the printing company you work with wisely, since the quality of printing can vary quite a bit depending on which service you choose. One smart thing to do is obtain a sample kit from whatever printing company you are contemplating using. Some good online printing companies include Vistaprint, Overnight Prints, and Printplace. My personal favorite is Printplace because they offer low prices and very good customer service. What’s more, you can obtain coupons for Printplace on the internet by going to sites like Hotprintingdeals.com. I was able to save 15% on my order recently by using such discount offers online.

If you need to hire cheap designers, think about using Fiverr or Odesk. But keep in mind, with design, you generally get what you pay for. For this reason, I would only use sites like Fiverr if you need something very simple designed, but not for more complex projects such as logos.

For deals on printing, visit http://hotprintingdeals.com/.

Stretching as listed as one of the things that can prolong your life. Among all such things, such as eating well and exercising, it is probably the easiest to do. It requires little effort, and can be done in 5 or 10 minutes a day. If you aren’t stretching already, you should consider adding it to your daily routine for all the benefits it can provide you.

Some people don’t know where to start when it comes to stretching. You don’t have to over-complicate things: simply learn a few stretches and start doing them. A good place to learn about basic stretches you can do is Mayo Clinic.

You shouldn’t just stretch before you exercise. Make sure you do it daily regardless of whether you intend to exercise. Doing it during the middle of the day is a great way to get up off the chair and break up what might otherwise be a monotonous day.

Related Post: Do Cheap Vitamins Work?

We all know that quitting smoking, along with losing weight, is one of the hardest things to do. Each year, millions of people try to quit and spend tons of money on drugs, patches, gum, and other things designed to help them lead a smoke-free life. But unfortunately, most of these products do not work as well as one would hope, and the majority of would-be quitters go back to their tobacco smoking habit.

The most recent product being used by people trying to quit smoking are e-cigarettes. The good news about e-cigarettes is that they are easy to transition to for most smokers, since you can get e-cigarettes that mimic the flavor of real tobacco. But more importantly, it’s widely accepted that the vapors produced by e-cigarettes are better for you. While it does contain nicotine, e-cigarette vapors do not contain tar, carbon monoxide, and many of the other nasty carcinogens found in regular cigarette smoke.

Just by transitioning to e-cigarettes, you will therefore be better off. But from what I’ve seen, many people have trouble taking the next step and becoming completely nicotine free. This latter step is very difficult, as nicotine has been found to be one of the most addictive substances on the planet.

But even if you become a perpetual user of e-cigarette, I believe you are still much better off than being a regular smoker. For this reason, I encourage everyone who currently smokes to give e-cigarettes a try. You will typically need to purchase a starter kit, which can range in price from $30 – $100. Nevertheless, the long-term costs of using e-cigarettes are far below the price of smoking regular cigarettes.

Other Health Tips

If you are currently a smoker, chances are good that you have tried many different methods to quit. People use products like nicotine gum, patches, and even prescription drugs like Chantix. And yet, a lot of smokers still struggle to quite. An alternative to quitting that has emerged recently are electronic cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are small electronic devices that deliver nicotine to the user. They look and perform just like regular cigarettes, but are battery operated. What you inhale are vapors instead of smoke, and many people believe they are a lot better for your health than traditional smoking. Although they are relatively new products and there are no conclusive studies yet, many people who switch to electronic cigarettes report better health. If you want to learn more about how e-cigarettes work, we recommend visiting the site, http://e-cigbargains.com.

To get started with electronic cigarettes, you need to purchase a starter kit that contains the battery and cartridges containing the e-liquid. A standard starter kit from stores like Blu Cigs or Volcano Ecig might run you anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars. This may seem like a lot, but considering that cigarettes are 6 dollars a pack, a pack a day smoker is already spending $180 or more per month. In fact, when you do exact calculations, you will find that by using electronic cigarettes, you will end up saving quite a bit of money every year.

So do e-cigs give you the same sensation as smoking? Not exactly. While similar, the sensation is not exactly the same. However, the experience is similar enough that many people find transitioning to electronic cigarettes to be simple. Once you make the switch, you should start seeing health benefits. From there, you can decide whether to try and reduce your usage of ecigs or simply continue using these devices as a healthier alternative to regular smoking.

Read more about how to get great deals on ecigs or learn how to purchase volcano ecig starter kits at a discount at http://e-cigbargains.com