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The United States Department of Health and Human Services is offering a free 2009 Women's Health Calendar to anyone who fills out this form.

In case you were wondering where your tax dollars go. Remember: this is the federal government, so don't be expecting any bikini-clad models. There's no other information about it available all on the site, so all you can do is order it and see what it is.

It has been long known that folks that are married have longer life span. Now, new research by the Karolinska Institute on Sweden has found that marriage or having a partner halves the risk of developing dementia. Scientists believe social interaction between couples may ward off illness. Good reason to work on your relationships.

The dollars involved in the care for Alzheimer's and other dementia victims is no small amount. In 2005, Medicare spent $91 billion on beneficiaries with Alzheimer's and other dementias ,and that number is projected to more than double to $189 billion by 2015. Medicaid spending per person equals around $13,207 per year on average per patient with dementia.

Well the Boomers are crying now. Market is down, 401k's are shrinking, and dreams of early retirement fading. The mad bull market that had us believe it would go up forever has faltered. The gains were so exciting it was easy to lose sight of the real goals and priorities. Financial accumulation became a mission rather than a means to an end.

I know, I know, what about retirement. Well what about it? Personally I don't believe in retirement, I believe in working. Work and activity are the measures of physical and mental health. Ideally, you are passionate about the work you do and it gives your life meaning. We are the only country in the world that has this ridiculous viewpoint of a magical age where we are not longer suppose to work. And WE didn't have it before the advent of social security. After all, the word retire was only used twice in the Bible, and in both cases as a punishment.

I'm in New York City this week and one of the exciting things about that is that I can try a wide variety of foods that Cape Cod grocery stores don't have. Today I bought a package of "Glenny's Low-Fat Soy Crisps" and, while they were quite good and relatively healthy for a packaged snack food, the consumer advocate in me has some complaints about the advertising on the package at right. It reads "10 Grams pure Soy Protein" and "Only 65 Calories per Serving."

This is a classic example of advertising spin: it isn't false and it isn't even misleading necessarily -- but it's a case of the company putting its best nutritional foot forward, and health-conscious consumers will need to be vigilant.

A look at the nutritional fact shows that there are indeed 65 calories per serving, with 2 servings per bag for a total of 130 calories. Each serving contains 5 grams of protein and the entire bag contains 10.

My beef with the marketing here is that they present the one you want a lot of -- protein -- on a per bag basis and then they present the calorie count on a per serving basis. 10 grams of protein appears right above 65 calories, but you'd actually have to eat 130 calories to get the 10 grams of protein.

Moral of story: pay no attention to "low -fat", "high protein", "light," "low calorie", etc labels on the front. If you want to know what you're eating, flip the product over, put on your glasses, and read the nutritional label: "just the facts ma'am."

It has become a summer tradition at my workplace to have a fitness challenge; last year we had a weight-loss challenge and this year we are focusing on walking. The whole idea is to get yourself in better shape by using the support of those you are around almost as much as your spouse.

The idea has received support from the higher-ups because healthier employees equal lower health care costs for the company. On an individual level you can also enjoy saving money just by being healthy.

This year's challenge lasts eight weeks and we have a goal of walking 10,000 steps a day, which translates into more walking for almost all participants. Walking to the store, the doctor, the movies and pretty much anyplace within a reasonable distance. Every time you walk somewhere you save money on gas which is tremendously helpful. To reach the 10,000 per day goal I need to walk an additional 1.5-2 miles per day, if I do this for the course of a month as a substitute for driving I'll save $10 in gas. Once you add the the support system and the financial incentive the walking challenge becomes a no-brainer for me.

If you can get enough people interested, your company or its insurer may even sponsor the challenge, though this will likely require the participation of 50% or more of your workforce. Are you working on getting healthy in order to save money on medical expenses? Have you found other areas of savings as well? Share your ideas and results with us!

Before we get any angry emails from concerned citizens: the title of this post was meant in jest and we certainly don't suggest that anyone actually try to perform surgery on himself.

The Associated Press lead says it all: "The 55-year-old Omaha man who performed a tracheotomy on himself with a steak knife says he did the same thing to himself two years ago."

Steve Wilder's throat has shrunken because of radiation treatments for cancer and, when he was having trouble breathing, he headed for the kitchen instead of the hospital. "I didn't feel no pain. I was just trying to survive," Wilder told a reporter. "I got relief right away. There was a big gush of blood, and I was able to start sucking in air."

Wilder's doctor even told him that he'd done a pretty good job.

Last month, my parents went to Florida for two weeks against the advice of their four children. We were worried that my father, who is on oxygen and has multiple medical problems, would take a turn for the worse and end up in a hospital. They decided to go anyway (parents today...they just don't listen).

Before they left, I urged my father to buy medical evacuation insurance, a specific type of travel insurance that retrieves "members" from anywhere in the world and transports them to the hospital of their choice. Last year, I edited an article for a website called Traveling Mom about the benefits of an insurance plan provided by a company called MedJet Assist. Afterward, I told my parents about the company and the week before they left for Florida, I spoke with them again and my father said he bought similar insurance via American Express.

You know what happened next. My dad, who has a blood disorder that makes his hemoglobin count drop to life threatening levels (among other medical problems brought on by 40 plus years of smoking), ended up in the hospital. It got so bad he needed a blood transfusion. They stabilized him but he just wanted to get back home to New Jersey.

I first learned to cook when I was in Boy Scouts, which means that, in addition to learning how to use a stove, I also learned how to cook over a fire, in a homemade sterno oven, in a solar cooker, and in a variety of other bizarre ways. Given my eclectic culinary education, I thought that I knew every way that a hot dog could possibly be prepared.

I was wrong.

At Maker Faire 2008, a sort of science fair for grown-ups, the Nevada Lightning Laboratory used a couple of Tesla coils to cook a string of hot dogs. In addition to effectively heating up the weenies, the Tesla coils also wowed the audience by shooting out huge arcs of electricity, causing sparks to shoot between the dogs. While this might not be the most effective or cheapest way to cook, it is definitely the coolest.

These 10-foot coils were 1/12-size prototypes of a massive coil that the laboratory hopes to erect. Not only will this amazing device delight geeks and mad scientists everywhere, but it will also provide a platform for lightning experiments.

And, of course, it will be a really nifty hot dog cooker!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. He once considered the mechanics of jamming a hot dog into an electrical socket, but chickened out at the last minute.

Drink this up. Despite what the marketers of bottled water have almost convinced us of, there remains little scientific evidence that drinking eight cups of water a day does anything more for your health than make you pee a lot.

A piece in last week's Health Section of the New York Times cites a new study in the June issue of The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, which reports that researchers can't even find where the "at least eight cups of water a day" rule came from.

"Under normal circumstances," Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a co-author and a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania told the Times, "drinking extra water is unnecessary. I want to relieve people of the burden of schlepping water bottles around all day long."

MSNBC took a look into the effectiveness of diet pills recently and found that, on their own, diet pills won't make you thin. Despite the reality that diet pills aren't magic bullets, the drug industry is set to roll out almost 15 new diet pills in the next few years! Many experts agree that diet pills can be used in tandem with exercise to make a difference, but taking them alone is only an exercise in futility.

I think deep down a lot of people who purchase diet pills know they don't work, but at the same time they rationalize that this one is new and maybe, just maybe, it will be the one. I know I have been tempted by the snake-skin oil hucksters pitching these bowel loosing magic pills before, but I never bought in so to speak. I dropped about 40 pounds towards the end of my high school career the cheap way, running and more running, and for dessert, more running.

Now as I think about how to lose some weight I gained over the winter, I would love to be able to pop a pill in the morning for 6 weeks and drop 12 pounds. The problem is I don't want to be popping pills for the rest of my life to keep 12 pounds off, as this would get pricey real quick. For many people a diet pill could be a good tool to add to their weight loss arsenal, but relying on a pill without changing any habits is ridiculous. Save your money, in many cases a lot of money, and combine working out with eating less to lose weight.

Every day, WalletPop will be bringing you information about a fantastic freebie. Like what you see? Check back tomorrow for more!

Whey protein is one of the favorite products of every bodybuilder -- and anyone else who's even casually interested in developing a lean, muscular physique.

As the company behind the Body-for-LIFE products, EAS is one of the more respected names in the nutritional supplement industry, a world that has its fair share of charlatans.

If you fill out this form, they'll send you a free sample of a product. Here are the sample codes you can enter:

• Whey Protein: Offer Code 4127

• Myoplex Lite Bar: Offer Code ROME2

• AdvE Complete Nutrition Bar: Offer Code SHAPE1

Caveat Emptor (or whatever the Latin for "cheapskate" is): Scanning through message boards, some posters complain that they had to wait over a month to receive the samples they requested.

Every time I start a diet, as I did yesterday, it seems to cost me money, which doesn't really make sense. After all, if I'm reducing the amount of food I eat, I should be spending less too, right? But I end up buying lots of fresh fruit and some out of season produce like berries, a luxury during the winter months in the Northeast. I also buy meals I don't know how to make like lowfat triple squash soup at Whole Foods - delicious, but expensive.

This time, I'm determined to lose weight without spending a fortune, mostly by making food rather than relying on prepared foods. Yesterday, as I was eating a bowl of Special K with bananas and 1% milk, I saw a segment on the Today Show called Losing Weight Doesn't Have to Cost You.

You've probably heard about people paying more for their health insurance if they smoke or have a pre-existing health condition. That's not new. What is new is that now your company might make you pay for your own health-compromising vices.

Health insurance costs have been a major sore spot for employers over the last several years. It can easily cost a thousand dollars or more per month to insure a family, and much more if a company has sick employees or a particularly generous health plan. In an effort to help cut those costs, employers are turning to their employees who smoke, eat poorly, and are overweight to foot the bill. 16% of employers are now making smokers pay the toll for their bad habit.

Of course, workers are fighting back, saying that this isn't fair. What seems unfair to me is an employer not charging employees for their bad habits, but having to cut benefits across the board to save money. That hurts those with a healthy lifestyle, and that seems awfully unfair.

Other companies have tried the flip side of this, offering wellness rewards to the workers who maintain healthy lifestyles. Companies who do penalize workers with vices most often offer programs to help them change their bad habits. Maybe now's the time to consider giving up cigarettes and eating better?

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Last month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) handed down a ruling that will allow employers to treat younger and older retirees differently. What once might have been seen as age discrimination is now OK, according to the EEOC.

What does this mean to the retirees? Well, some workers retire from their jobs with promises of ongoing healthcare benefits. This ruling allows employers to cut off those benefits (even if they were promised) for the older retirees who are eligible for Medicare.

Since there are some things that Medicare doesn't cover, it is often preferable for a retiree to stay on a company health insurance plan as long as possible. But the employers argued that the cost of covering older retirees is too expensive. Rather than cease providing health care to all retirees because of this cost, the employers successfully argued to the EEOC that they should be allowed to drop coverage for those eligible for Medicare (and who are typically the most expensive to insure).

I've launched into a personal project to eat more sustainably, and I'm taking my whole family of five along with me. Though I have always believed in the good things that can come from simple, healthy food and have oft-repeated the mantra "eat close to the earth," it's only been in the past few months that I've put my family's eating habits into context with our lives, and the world. Reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle convinced me I should stop eating feedlot-raised meats, choosing instead animal products from range-grown cows, pigs, and chickens; reading Plenty, the tale of the 100-mile diet, convinced me of the importance and essential economy of eating in my own "foodshed."

But it was Michael Pollan who reminded me that spending more on food could actually save me money.

The first and loudest response to the prospect of eating sustainably is, "I can't afford it!" And it's true, by and large, purchasing meats, vegetables, fruits and dairy products that are produced by smaller, more sustainable farms will set you back anywhere from a little bit to a LOT more than buying from industrial monocultures and foreign factory farms. Got rice? It's $6 for a packet of wild rice from Oregon in my favorite gourmet market, compared to less than a dollar a pound for white rice from China. Ground beef: $2.99 a pound at Safeway. Ground buffalo grown on the open range in central Oregon: $8.99 a pound at my farmer's market, AND I have to wait in line 20 minutes.

But, let's think about this Pollan-style.