Earning & Managing Money

Guest Post by Liz from Wonder Woman I’m Not.

Braces are a dreaded necessary for many of us parents with pre-teen to teenage children. Fortunately our older child didn’t require them — but we knew early on that our younger child would need them.

Our daughter recently had her braces put on and I’m happy to say that we were able to pay for them with cash. Our ability to do so was the result of advanced planning, research and taking advantage of several programs.

Here’s what we did…

Start early:

Our daughter started to see an orthodontist when she was six (at our dentist’s recommendation). By starting early, we were able to proactively correct a problem without surgery or additional appliances adding to our bill. Most orthodontists do not charge for the preliminary appointments.

Get a second opinion:

We switched orthodontists half way through the preliminary treatment. Our first orthodontist wanted to start the braces before she lost all her baby teeth plus he wanted to remove four permanent teeth. Our current orthodontist is more conservative about removing teeth and advised us to wait. He would have put them on early but then it would cost us twice as much because they would have been on twice as long.

Research pricing:

Initially we went to the orthodontist closest to our house. Once we decided to switch we decided to make price as well as quality one of the key points. By asking around, I found a high-quality dental complex that offered supplemental insurance in addition to cheaper prices.

Pay Cash:

This orthodontist offered a 10% savings if we paid cash. If this isn’t offered up front I would definitely ask for it. By paying cash we saved a little over $300!!

Flexible spending:

If your employer offers this option I would encourage you to use it. However keep in mind that if you don’t use it, you lose it. Money goes into the flexible account pre-tax so you will have a tax savings that you wouldn’t normally have unless your medical bills are large enough to claim on your taxes. Your savings would depend on the tax bracket you are in but could be 20% or more of your cost.

Here’s the final breakdown of what we spent:

Initial Cost =$6,100
Insurance Paid = $1,100
Insurance Group Disc = $460
Supplementary Insurance = $1,410
10% Cash Discount = $ 315
Total Out of Pocket- $2,815

I had about half stuck back in an ‘unexpected’ fund that I used for the down payment. I requested reimbursement immediately from my flexible spending account and used that money to pay the balance. I did make sure to replace the money from the ‘unexpected’ fund once I received the second reimbursement from our flexible spending.

Every time I see that shiny smile, I’m relieved to know that it’s all paid for!

In addition to being a wife and mother, Liz works outside the home and blogs at Wonder Woman I’m Not – a home management blog for the busy woman striving to find balance in their lives.

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A testimony from Christina who blogs at Youthful Homemaker

I love freezer cooking. When we were newly married, my husband was amazed at how much I used the freezer. It quickly became apparent that the freezer attached to the refrigerator was too small, so our first major purchase as a married couple was a small chest freezer.

A few years later, we still used the little chest freezer daily, but we decided to change the way we bought meat. Instead of paying a premium at the grocery store, we bought a portion of a whole cow and kept it in our freezer.

This saved us hundreds of dollars, but meant we had little to no space in the freezer for other meals. So we made the decision to buy a new, bigger freezer and began saving for it immediately.

We tightened our budget by doing several little things, but they really added up:

We used coupons: I absolutely love to coupon and actually enjoyed trying to save ourselves even more money than the usual coupon savings.

We cut out expensive foods: Energy drinks and soda can really add up, so cutting these out of our budget really helped lower our grocery budget.

We cut our restaurant budget in half: Our restaurant budget had been around $80 a month, however, we decided to cut it in half and use out Restaurant.com gift certificates I got for free from Swagbucks to eat out without spending a lot.

We cut back on utilities: Lowering our electricity bill was where we saved the most money, and was by far the easiest thing we did.

It was not always fun to not be on a tighter budget than usual, but it was not as bad as we thought. Ultimately, it was a blessing because we learned (yet again) that we can usually find fun alternatives to our less-frugal habits.

In the end, we didn’t even use the money we’d saved to buy a freezer. My husband and I are college students and I had spent a lot of time applying for scholarships and grants. During the fall semester in 2010, we were blessed to have a lot more grants and scholarships than we expected.

It was very tempting for us to spend money on luxuries because we had been living on a ‘beans and rice, rice and beans’ budget. We did end up spending some money to pamper ourselves, but we used most of the money to buy an inexpensive freezer. My husband visited some of our local scratch-and-dent stores and found a commercial-grade freezer for only a quarter of its retail value!

It was a huge blessing to have a freezer paid for with the time I spent applying for scholarships. We put the money we had originally saved by cutting some areas in our budget toward our emergency fund.

Christina Wong is a young wife who writes a blog about no-drama homemaking on a budget. She loves finding ways to save money and live as frugally as possible, while still having fun. You can read more of her adventures in homemaking on her website Youthful Homemaker.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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