I suppose this isn’t exactly badassity since my body more or less forced me into it, but ...
A little over 6 months ago I came down with drug-induced pancreatitis. Pancreatitis, for all of the poor folk who’ve ever had an attack, is a horrible, painful illness. Fortunately, I had mild version. Unfortunately, 6 months later, I have yet to come anywhere close to fully recovering (although I am definitely heading in the right direction). Now I am symptom-free as long as I stick to an extremely low fat diet. However, the only way I can truly stick to this diet is preparing all my food myself 99% of the time (there is one full meal I can order at a restaurant in a pinch).
We used to eat out way too much and travel all the time. Now I eat out about 1x per month max. (My husband has to do more for work but he is reimbursed for these dinners.) Also, in the past 6 months, we have gone away precisely one time (in our previous life, we travelled on every possible occasion, it felt like). When we did travel, we stayed at a place with a kitchen and I cooked every single meal, except for one dinner out.
When I first came down with this illness, I was really upset by the forced lifestyle change, but now I have to say I am totally used to it and didn’t feel put out at all cooking over vacation (I did make simpler, easier things than usual). And we have saved so much money. In a few months (after we make our 2018 IRA contributions), we will be able to make an additional $20,000 paydown of our mortgage which we wouldn’t have been able to do with the previous lifestyle. (Yes, we have already thought through paying down the mortgage as an investment option and feel that it makes sense for us. Yes, we have already refinanced.)
Another great money saving feature of this illness is that it has actually lowered our health care costs. For mild cases of chronic pancreatitis, there is no medical or surgical treatment. The only treatment is diet and healthy living. In fact, one of the things I have been asked to do is reduced all other medication as much as possible. I have thus stopped taking almost all my supplements (which were costly and, I now realize probably not doing that much for me anyway). I also try to take as little OTC medication as humanly possible. Oh yes, and no more alcohol — at all. Another big $$ saver.
I suppose I didn’t so much throw down the gauntlet as have it thrown at me, but I caught it and am grateful!