The Sunday before last, my cracked tooth started hurting. If you’ve ever had a toothache, you know how dominating it can be. It’s hard to even think at times. But… we were leaving on vacation on Wednesday and that didn’t leave a lot of time to fix things. I called the dentist and they assured me they could get me in and take care of it last Tuesday.
Tuesday I went in and was informed that not only did I need a root canal (!!) but the dentist that does those would not be in the office until this week! At first they said they could either give me antibiotics or send me to another dentist (in Fayetteville, 40 minutes away) and they could do the root canal so I wouldn’t be miserable on vacation. Getting it done soon sounded pretty good to me, but then they said the other dentist wouldn’t have time to do a root canal. They could do an “IND” where they cut your gums to relieve the pressure until a root canal can be done. The problem is that it wouldn’t fix the problem, it would be quite a bit more expensive AND it would be in Fayetteville. So I opted for antibiotics and a root canal Monday.
The biggest problem is that we do not currently have dental insurance (and in fact, even if we did, it wouldn’t cover nearly enough) and therefore the first part of the root canal (which doesn’t include the permanent crown) cost us $1050! The crown will be another $900. Until September, I’m technically still on my parent’s insurance, but theirs doesn’t cover anything more than preventative and minor fillings. They also did an exam and determined that I need other significant work done too! This is going to get expensive and there really isn’t any room in our budget for all of this. Hubby is trying to do extra graphic design to help cover it, but I can’t really pick up another job (especially with Avie).
SO… I decided the next best thing is to save. I’m going to put my couponing skills to the test. My goal for this month is to cut our monthly grocery budget from $210 to $120. The goal is $30 a week for meals. It’s going to be tough, but that’s $90 saved! I’ll be using cash (rather than debit card) to keep better track. And, I’ll be posting each week about our menu and what I’ve bought so you can follow us as we try to keep our grocery budget down! On the plus side, we have quite a bit in stock from last month. On the negative side, we have already used some of our budget before the month has really even started.