Even when your budget is tight, you never want to skimp when it comes to your health. Fortunately, there are ways to get well and stay that way for less.

1. Reduce Your Need for Allergy Meds

Don’t keep stacks of books and magazines, stuffed animals, decorative pillows and other “dust-mite breeding grounds” in the bedroom. Dust mites are the leading cause of indoor, year-long allergies. If outdoor pollens set off your allergies, close your windows and turn on a fan. If you’re a jogger, jog in the evening when pollen counts are lower, and when you get home, remove your clothes immediately and shower to get rid of the pollen that has attached itself to your clothes, skin and hair. And don’t let your pet sleep in your room or in your bed.

2. Substitute Honey for Antibiotic Cream

Raw, unprocessed honey — the kind you buy at the farmers’ market or in the health food section of the grocery store — can also be used to treat mild skin infections and burns. In fact, when compared with over-the-counter creams, honey might be even more effective for small burns. Most anti-bacterial creams stick to the skin as well as the gauze, causing further irritation when the gauze is lifted. Honey is partially absorbed by the fragile, puffy skin, providing a slippery membrane between the flesh and the bandage.

3. Go to Sleep Early

Researchers have long reported that six to eight solid hours of lights out is critical for optimal brain functioning and a healthy immune system. But stay away from sleeping pills and painkillers — they may knock you out at bedtime, but the flat, dreamless sleep they induce does not generally provide the healing and repair your mind and body craves.

4. Work Out At Home

Who needs to pay hundreds of dollars to work out at a gym? Why not rent exercise DVDs, or make your living room a yoga studio a few nights out of the week? The only thing you risk losing is the camaraderie you can find at the gym. But that’s easy to re-create at home. Invite a few friends over, pool your tape collection, set realistic goals and make a commitment to stick to the plan.

5. Take Advantage of Free Screenings

If you have a history of skin cancer or have a suspicious mole, you really need to make a habit of getting your skin checked for skin cancer — insurance or no insurance. The American Center for Dermatology has partnered with dermatologists across the country to offer free screenings. Just go to www.melanomamonday.org to find a convenient location. Free blood pressure machines in pharmacies and malls can be located through www.lifeclinic.com/locator/search.asp, and free mammograms are offered by government or local programs in a number of states.

Should you throw moldy bread in the trash, or just trim around the green spot? Can Sunday’s leftovers be Friday’s meal?

Scientists have developed methods to detect spoilage, but until these are available on a mass scale, food science and safety experts have some tips.

First — slimy, stinky, spotty or chunky changes in food don’t mean very much in terms of safety. It may not taste good, that doesn’t mean it’s going to make you sick. That’s because there’s a difference between what food scientists call spoilage bacteria and pathogens.

Spoilage bacteria form into slimy films on lunch meat, soggy edges on vegetables or stinky chicken. But the pathogens that do make you sick are odorless, colorless and invisible.

Since consumers can’t count on looks or smell, instead use the rule of four: no more than four days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees centigrade. (Freezing fresh food at zero degree Fahrenheit will keep it safe indefinitely.) Temperature can slow or stop bacterial growth of either the pathogens or the spoilage variety. Forty degrees Fahrenheit buys people three days for safety with raw chicken and ground beef, three days with cuts of beef and lamb, and four days for leftovers.

Allowing anything to go above the cold 40 degrees along the way from store to frying pan can make the difference between illness and safety — and about 25 percent of refrigerators in the U.S. are kept at too high a temperature for safety. Be sure to check yours.

A few years ago, most customers at farmers’ markets would ask how vegetables and herbs were grown. Customers were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing.

Today, the question is asked more rarely. Consumer priorities, and the main farm-production question that growers hear is related to place: “Where is your farm?”

Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. The power of one captivating idea — local — has quickly eclipsed the power of another — organic.

But the organic movement confronted industrial agriculture’s use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that devastated local ecosystems. It addressed the health of migrant farm workers and the health of people who ate foods with pesticide residues or milk with growth hormones.

The local-oriented movement may be avoiding engagement with many of the problems associated with the industrial food system that organic as a movement specifically sought to address.

The contraceptive pill may disrupt women’s natural ability to choose a partner genetically dissimilar to themselves. This could result in difficulties when trying to conceive, an increased risk of miscarriage and long intervals between pregnancies. Passing on a lack of diverse genes to children could also weaken their immune systems.

Humans tend to be attracted to those with a dissimilar genetic make-up to themselves, maintaining genetic diversity, which is signaled by subtle odors. A research team analyzed how the contraceptive pill affects odor preferences, and found that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odors.

Not only could genetic similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odor perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners.

Running on a regular basis can slow the effects of aging. A study has shown that elderly joggers are half as likely to die prematurely from conditions like cancer than non-runners. They also enjoyed a healthier life with fewer disabilities.

The research tracked 500 older runners for more than 20 years, comparing them to a similar group of non-runners. Nineteen years into the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died, compared to only 15 percent of the runners.

Both groups became more disabled with age, but for the runners the onset of disability started an average of 16 years later.

The health gap between the runners and non-runners continued to widen even as the subjects entered their 80’s.