It’s been years since arthritis has allowed me to sit behind a desk full-time, but my accountant brain still kicks in sometimes and has me thinking of pain in terms of debt.
Like your earnings, you have a limited amount of activity to spend before you go into debt.
Pain debt.
What does pain debt look like?
Pain debt is when you’ve over-done it. Your joints are swollen and aching to the point that you can’t function in your normal manner. Maybe it means you’re walking with your cane, wearing your braces, or limiting motion altogether. Maybe it means you’re not sleeping or you’re taking a lot of prescription and over the counter meds. Maybe you’re cancelling appointments and activities. Pain debt is when pain interrupts your life balance.
Budgeting your activity expenses is a smart way to manage pain.
In your budget you’ll have the big-ticket expenditures like a mortgage and car payment. In the garden these are things like digging and planting. The smaller activity expenses might be weeding, dead-heading flowers, watering, and pruning.
Chances are you have a lot of non-gardening chores to include in your budget like your job, your kids, your household maintenance, etc. Customize your budget by assigning value to these chores.
Planning activities will help you meet your gardening goals. But sometimes pain debt is unavoidable. So how do you get out of pain debt? Reduce your expenses and increase your income.
How to reduce your activity expenses
Your job is a fixed expense. Allow for it and always evaluate the cost vs. benefits. But you can negotiate with your chores. Think about each chore you currently do. Are you still doing them the way you’ve always done them? Reevaluate. Are there shortcuts that could save time and energy?
A household chore that causes me a lot of pain is cooking. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook. And I do it nearly every day. Living out in the country doesn’t lend itself to easy restaurant meals and I love using my garden produce to create wonderful dishes. Standing on a hard kitchen floor after a day of gardening is asking for pain debt.
I’ve found ways to streamline the process by pre-prepping food, planning grocery lists to limit trips to the store, using store shopper services, and using methods of cooking such as the Crock-Pot and Instant Pot that don’t have you standing in the kitchen too long.
I’ve also been keen to try out a meal kit service such as Blue Apron or Hello Fresh. Even one or two meals a week prepped by someone else would free up some of the budget.
Vacuuming floors is another chore that puts a lot of stress on painful joints. With two big dogs and a lifestyle that has us out digging in the dirt, our floors need daily maintenance. I finally purchased a robot vac and I’m hoping this will keep me from having to drag out the heavy vacuum.
Planning for the garden tools I’ll need is a must. On my 1.5-acre lot, the various gardens are not always conveniently located to the tools. It’s a 200-step round-trip from my vegetable garden to the tool shed. If I make five extra trips for forgotten items such as a hoe, trimmers, twine, harvest basket, fire ant bait, etc., I’ll accumulate 1,000 extra steps. If my budget is 10,000 steps a day, I’ve used 10% just by forgetting what I need.
That’s like having a daily barista-made coffee instead of brewing it yourself. It’s a luxury you can’t afford with chronic pain.
As I start my day, I like to load up Baby Yoda with the tools for the day and keep them all with me as I work around the yard.
Don’t be seduced by impulsive spending!
Walking my garden paths is like being in the checkout aisle at the store. The weeds call out to me and if I succumb to the lure of impulsive tasks, I’ll use up my expenditures up for the day! I like to take a small pad and pen with me once a week and make a list of all the little chores I see that need doing. Then I can work on those small chores as a part of my activity budget.
Some things are worth the debt, but you must plan for how you’re going to repay it.
If you have a major project you’re working on in the garden, look at it honestly and budget the time appropriately to prevent pain debt. But if your time is limited and you want to get the project done, you might choose pain debt.
Make plans in your day to repay your body for the debt.
You’ll need to rest and use ice, heat, and anti-inflammatories to work towards reducing your debt. Pain debt is an option but not a good one for regular pain management. Use it sparingly. Don’t mortgage you’re pain management future.
How to increase your activity income
Having arthritis is like being on a fixed income. You’re starting your budget with an extremely limited supply of activity time. Proper budgeting is vital to managing your pain.
There are side gigs you can do that allow you to afford more activity than normal.
One is using proper tools that put less stress on your joints. Make sure your tools are sharp and in good repair.
Another is to find ways to pay others to do hard things for you or barter jobs that are easier for you with your family or neighbors.
One of the best ways to earn activity cash is doing your physical therapy exercises. As you strengthen your injured joints, you are much less prone to further injury.
But if you really want to invest the most to protect you from pain debt, you need to build up your assets by reversing your pain.
Did you know you can reverse pain?
In the video, Cutting Edge Pain Treatment at the VA, Dr. Henry Roca talks about ways to reverse pain. These include:
- Stop Smoking
- Stop Drinking Alcohol
- Lose Weight
- Stop Type II Diabetes
- Follow a low-inflammation diet
Debt keeps you from reaching your goals. Controlling these habits is the gold-standard to getting you back in the garden.
Make a plan and build a wealth of pain-free gardening!
Keep up with the latest from The Disabled Gardener. Sign up for my newsletter, free ebooks, and more!
