The Cost of Poor Health Choices

It seems that our spending plan is already due for a revision, only on the third day of the New Year. My husband, who has not been to the dentist in a very long time, went yesterday for what we thought might be the first of two appointments.

It won't be. Because he has neglected routine dental visits and has imperfect dental habits, he needs to have about two thousand dollars worth of dental work done. Knowing this isn't in our 2009 budget, my husband asked the dentist to prioritize the work to be done over two years.

I've already begun thinking about how to pay for this year's work. We got good news yesterday that our eyecare will be covered through my husband's work. With a $700 budget for eyecare this year, I'm hoping that this will reduce our eyecare expense by half. We should be getting a sizeable tax refund this year which will be applied to our HELOC to pay it off. Anything left over can go towards the dental bills. We had planned on paying extra on our first car loan with money saved up during the year. We may use some of this money for the dental bills, too.

With this unexpected news, I'm more determined than ever to make sure that my children have healthy habits as part of their daily routine. My oldest son will be getting braces in February. As a twelve year old boy, his hygiene habits are lacking frequently. Smile. But, I do plan to nag/remind him about taking care of his teeth so that he doesn't have any cavities when his braces come off in two years. He won't like it now, but he'll thank me later!