Living on a budget (vitamins and protein)

It is no secret that eating healthy is more expensive than not eating healthy. 

I can go to Little Caesar's and get a medium pizza that will feed both my husband and myself for $5.99 or go next door to Panera and spend over $6 for each of us to get a salad. All of this is situational seeing as I'm gluten free by medical necessity.

I'm not going to go over this fact again as many blogs and sites have done it themselves.

But Bariatric surgery has an added level of complication. Post-op, patients need to buy protein supplements and vitamins. These can add up to astronomical levels. Some say that the money you're saving on food can help balance the budget, but I haven't completely found that to be true as I am still feeding my husband.

Let's start with saving money on protein:

Addressing once again that I'm one of the cheapest people I know, I will remove a little satisfaction from my food to save significant money. That is exactly what I do with Pure Protein. I have had better brands with better flavors, but Pure Protein is $17.98 for 29 servings. That means I go through one of these every four weeks.

Going on to vitamins:

I decided to use Celebrate vitamins when I started this process simply to take less vitamins any given day. But, does this add up to savings at the register? I'm going to compare two options at prices for every thirty days. All vitamin intake must meet these minimum standards.

1. Daily intake of 65mg Iron
2. Daily intake of 1500mg Calcium Citrate
3. Daily intake of 800mg Folic Acid
4. Daily intake of 3mg Thimine
5. Daily intake of 2mg copper
6. Daily intake of 3000IU Vitamin D3
7. Daily intake of 500mg B12
8. Preferably has selenium and zinc 
9. Oh, and chewable only for the first 6 months
10. AND you can’t take gummy vitamins

One option that many seem to take is to take Flintstones Vitamins and then supplement what else they might need. Looking at our list, if you use the iron minimum to decide how many vitamins to take, you must take six Flintstones a day (and this is with enhanced iron). At six Flintstones a day, you meet the requirements for Iron, Folic Acid, and Thimine. This means you are still missing Calcium Citrate, Copper, Vitamin D3, Vitamin B12.

Some quick math on walmart.com showed me that:

• Best value for Flintstones was $27 for 180 pills (or $27 for 30 days)
• Best values for Calcium Citrate (includes part of daily supply for D3) was $15 for 155 pills (or $12 for 30 days)
• Best value for Copper was $7 for 300 days (or $1 for 30 days)
• Even with the Calcium Citrate in this scenario, you still need one D3 which was $13 for 240 pills (or less that $0.50 for 30 days)
• Best value for B12 sublingual $4 for 200 days (or $1 for 30 days)
• Total vitamins daily: 12 (6 Flintstones, 1 Copper, 1 D3, 1 B12, 3 Calcium)

Flintstones come to about $41.50/30 days to meet all requirements. 

At first, I thought it was going to be more expensive to buy the special brand name bariatric vitamins for my needs. Due to the values of the needed minerals and vitamins, there is no need for extra supplemental items to buy. Let’s see how they measure up:

• Multivitamin chewable (without Iron) is $42 for a 90 day supply ($14 for 30 days)
• Iron supplement (chewable): The price discrepancy is significant depending on how much you need. I’m on the high end as I had gastric bypass and I still have my period. The cost range is $21.50-$35 for 90 days (or $7.17-$11.67 for 30 days) 
•  Calcium is interesting because this vendor offered soft chews, which taste better and have a better texture, but in my (cheap) opinion is not worth the extra price. The cost comes to $45 for 90 days ($15 for 30 days) 
•  Total vitamins daily: 6 (2 MV, 1 Iron, 3 Calcium)

Going with Celebrate Brand means less work organizing your vitamins weekly. This is something I spend about 10 minutes a week doing to get me set up for a full 7 days. 

Celebrate Brand vitamins would cost $36.17-$40.67/30 days. This means that a patient would save a little less than a dollar to go the Celebrate route.