💰💉 Yes, it is worth considering investing in your dental health at this point in your life. While it may seem like a significant financial commitment, taking care of your teeth now can have long-term benefits for your overall well-being.
➕✨ Good dental health is crucial not only for your physical appearance but also for your overall health. Poor oral hygiene can lead to various dental issues like gum disease, tooth decay, and even systemic health problems.
🔒🦷 Considering the estimated out-of-pocket cost of $10,000 to fix your dental issues, it’s important to evaluate your current financial situation. Here’s a breakdown of your finances:
💵💰 Monthly Income and Expenses:
– Your monthly income: $3,050
– Rent: $1,300
– Subscriptions: $51
– Phone bill: $15
– Transit: $135
– Misc. household goods: $100
– Food: $650
📊💸 Existing Debt and Savings:
– Consumer debt: $800 (being paid off monthly)
– No student loans or other debt
– IRA: $3,000
– Personal investment account: $4,000
– No emergency savings
✅💪 Given your current financial situation, it’s admirable that you want to prioritize savings and investments. However, oral health is an essential aspect of overall health and can impact your quality of life.
🌟💰 If you decide to proceed with the dental treatment, you can consider a payment plan of $400 per month over 24 months, with an initial down payment of $1,500. This payment plan allows you to spread out the cost and should not significantly impact your ability to save.
👨⚕️🔎 It’s essential to consult with your dentist and discuss the timeline and urgency of your dental treatment. Depending on the severity and potential complications, your dentist might advise earlier intervention to prevent further damage.
📅 By addressing these dental issues now, you can potentially avoid more costly and invasive procedures in the future. Remember, prevention is better than cure, and investing in your dental health at a younger age can lead to long-term benefits.
💸📈 Although the financial commitment is significant, it’s crucial to balance your short-term financial goals with long-term health investments. Consider making a budget, reassessing your expenses, and finding ways to save more so that you can comfortably handle the monthly payments.
😌 Ultimately, prioritize your overall health and well-being. Dental issues can have a significant impact on your life, and investing in your oral health now can lead to a healthier and happier future.
Buy a plane ticket to Turkey or Hungary or wherever and get it done there for way cheaper.
What is your insurance situation?
It sounds like you may need orthodontic care which insurance would seriously help with. If there is any chance to wait for a job with insurance I’d recommend that.
Otherwise I think you should prioritize certain components like getting the wisdom teeth removed before orthodontics.
Encourage you to get a second and third opinion as well.
I will say this. Ever since I got my teeth fixed, my life have gotten better. No pain, and I smile often now. Remember, if you don’t fix those overbites and get rid of those wisdom tooth asap, it will be harder once you grow older.
How do you pay for this?
Since you just graduated from college, apply for state insurance. Use dental coverage to get your teeth clean and to get all 4 wisdom tooth remove. Your dentist will make the recommended surgeon to remove your wisdom tooth based on your state insurance coverage. Or your dentist can remove those themselves.
Some state insurance companies do cover orthodontic care, and some don’t. Therefore, work for company like Amazon or Starbucks in their easy entry level job to use their insurance to pay for orthodontic care. It is 40 bucks per month but their insurance is amazing. Amazon covers 50% of the orthodontic cost.
Also, find a practice that accepts monthly payments. Your consultation is always free.
The problems that you described sound stable (although only your dentist can tell you for sure) and not necessarily anything that you need to treat as an emergency. Remember that money should be saved for a purpose, and not for its own sake. Save for dental work to the extent that you can.
Yes you should get your teeth fixed. Hopefully you can find a cheaper and still safe alternative. Are you near a dental school? It takes forever but it’s a good start.
The unfortunate reality is that people judge people with bad teeth negatively, your employment options are limited, your social options are limited, and as a result of the bias, as well as the inherent dental problems, you will have an overall worse health outlook.
You may need to wait. Could your job options include an employer with decent dental insurance? If you can wait a year, save, get some insurance, it might not be as difficult.
Good luck. It’s unfortunate that you are in this position but clearly you are heading in the right direction.
Hi. Can you break down each procedure and the cost? I am not an expert in this matter but I literally have my dentist, ortho and Endo on speed dial 😭😭😭 .
I’ve had oral surgery (put me to sleep) twice due to bad dental habits during my teens. My parents werent the best support system growing up with this subject (both physically and financially).
I am now at 2 root canals and 4 crowns (all molars) I had braces for 25 months and when I show people my before and after their jaw drops 😂😂😂😂.
Im easily 10k+ deep in dental work and it was worth every penny if you ask me. Dental health is so important.
My mom is 70 and she needs a lot of work done so we are heading to a reputable dentist in Istanbul in Jan for 2 weeks.
Not sure how old you are now, but you likely have time to invest. Yes, compounding is everything but you can’t get back lost health. I would start by getting quotes for places in Turkey, or other dental tourism places. It’ll still be cheaper than the US where even dental insurance is largely unhelpful. Spend the money on this, and then start saving aggressively. Should only put you behind by a year. If able, you can still chuck 100/mo into an account.
My medical insurance paid 100% for my wisdom teeth removal, you should check if yours will cover medically necessary wisdom teeth removal.
You said this includes orthodontia correction (braces)? If so, $10,000 is not to bad. My 12 year old daughter is getting ready to have braces put on (she has similar issues to yours) and it’s going to be around $6500 after all is said and done. We are trying to get our daughter’s teeth fixed now because both my husband and I had braces as an adult. I had an open bite, so when I ate, all of the force was on my back teeth which started to develop cracks. Braces were to correct that so that I could avoid pricey root canals later. My husband’s teeth were also badly over-crowded. His canine’s came in on top of his other teeth, which put a lot of pressure on his nasal cavity. He had horrible headaches, and constant infections, from the pressure. He had 2 teeth removed, and braces, which straightened out his teeth. No headaches or infections since. With that being said, correcting the issue now will save you a lot of trouble down the road, not to mention the affect on your self-confidence.
I was in your boat, never saw a dentist until I joined the military. My teeth are pretty jacked up but solid and healthy, just crowded and crooked. I would have jumped at the chance to get them fixed when I was younger. Don’t let it go, I feel you’ll regret it.
Absolutely get your wisdom teeth removed. That should be under insurance.
Keep in mind that if you have an HSA/FSA, you can make this tax-deductible.
Invisalign is about $5k. I’d shop around to get a better price to get your teeth aligned.
Teeth are not luxury mouth bones. They are part of your body and taking care of them is healthcare.
It sounds like you’re getting wisdom teeth removal and braces. The wisdom teeth can cause abscesses and pain, so they should be done no matter what. I would do that first, then shop around for the braces – prices vary drastically. Or save up a down payment for the orthodontic treatment to make payments lower. Also, if you are near a dentistry school getting braces done at the school is cheaper, the appointments will just take a little longer.
Note: if your wisdom teeth have to be removed with general anesthesia (oral surgery) that often falls under your medical insurance, rather than dental. Both of my kids were paid in full for wisdom teeth removal by our insurer. (YMMV)
FWIW, I used to be a dental assistant. What you are describing would not have been resolved for cheap as a child. Most people don’t get wisdom teeth until later in life, and the price of braces hasn’t changed that much in the last ten years.
You can also get dental work done at a dental school. I was going to say get Medicaid but then I realize you have your doctorate degree and get $3050/month.
Fix your teeth! It’s 100% worth it. I wish I started my braces when I was younger. I don’t know why everyone is saying it’s a scam in the US. It’s expensive, yes, but I wouldn’t want to fly to another country just bc it’s cheaper. With braces, you need to be going back to the ortho almost once a month. Flying to another country once a month for adjustments is ridiculous. Unless you live in San Diego or somewhere and can easily cross the border for cheaper dental. In that case, make sure to get a personal reference to avoid a bad dentist.
I think removing 4 wisdom teeth is the top priority. If you keep that one, it will keep pushing the other teeth and eventually create infection on gums. If that thing happens you need to remove the teeth next to wisdom tooth and do the implant, which will cost another 10K each.
I had 2 lateral wisdom teeth and kept it in my Ph.D years. I eventually got it removed, but I also had to remove the molar teeth next to it and do the implant.
Removing wisdom tooth wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe few thousand w/o insurance? It’s a lot but much cheaper than 10K
Your older self is going to be so grateful to you for taking care of any problems now. Dental issues only get worse over time.
Is there a dental school nearby? They often do things cheaper and under the supervisor of a dentist.
Could be worth looking into.
Once you get your teeth fixed (whatever that means to you personally), you will really see a difference in your self-confidence. Sounds weird but it’s true. Even small things.
If you have the ability I would highly recommend getting it done. The quality of life improvement will be priceless.
You should at a minimum get the wisdom teeth removed. And do it NOW.
Some offices are able to help students / poor people with a sliding scale fee structure. I got a $2000 gum cleaning billed as $500. You can also ask about resources from your university— at mine (the union contract won us) there’s a health fund you can get reimbursed from for costs like this
Look into indigent support stuff for this dental bill; this was also me with impacted wisdom teeth which needed general anaeathesia and a underbite (lower jaw protrude out). Needed braces and wisdom teeth out, then lag time until surgery to cut and slide the jaw back, heal up, braces removed.
Kaiser permanente was apparently the cheapest back in 2007 for this. Don’t know if that helps. Don’t go too cheap of course: mess up the jaw surgery and you could damage nerves and cut arteries. I had tingling sensations for weeks afterwards, and that was a pretty good job of it.
I don’t have an opinion on your question, but I’d urge you to get a 2nd if not a 3rd opinion before spending that amount of money on dental care. Some dental practices are known to over-recommend care, especially in new patients who are young (naïve) and admit to have deferred care.
Also, consider alternatives such as getting dental care at a dental school. It can be time consuming (much longer appointment times due to oversight and likely the need to drive further), but significantly reduces the cost, and is low risk with instructor oversight.
If you need orthodontia, there are cheaper alternatives now that you can look into (I think they have you do video consults with an orthodontist, have you take a mold at home and send it back, and they send you clear Invisalign-like trays to wear).
Ensure you ask the dentists what the order of priority is for the work. There may be no need to do it all at once. Although earlier is better if it’ll reduce future dental expenses (ie. if you wait you’ll need even more work) as well as improve the look of your teeth (which can play in to job interviews, dating, etc), don’t discount the effect of debt on your life, such as high monthly payments and how much extra you will pay with interest (whose rates are higher now than they’ve been in decades).
If you have dental insurance, it may be cost effective to get work done in different plan years (which often match the calendar year) as the annual limits reset each plan year, even if it slightly raises the total cost to do work in two sittings.
If I could go back to my early twenties and change only one thing, it would definitely be to make fixing my teeth a higher priority. It has such a huge impact on quality of life down the road, and the recovery is much easier when you’re younger. If I were in your position, I’d discuss with the dentist all the work that needs done and make a plan to do it in stages that will be manageable within my budget. Prioritize the care and just start working your way through the plan. I was in the exact position as you at that age and decided to wait because I was put off by the cost. It was a big mistake.
Getting your wisdom teeth out younger is easier than later. And get them all out on the same day (aftercare is annoying so do it only once).
I had a dentist tell me they only do two at a time. I asked a dental-asst-friend and they told me that’s not true. I went to a different dentist and he got them all done in one day (and told me the reason was the other one probably had less experience; I had a complication and he told me the other one probably would have had to send me to a surgeon). So find a good dentist just in case!
Also, part of the cost that isn’t supported is whether you get local anesthesia or get knocked out by an anesthetist. Local is much cheaper, but you’ll be awake the whole time. I didn’t mind it.
And of course don’t trust internet for advice 🙂 your situation may be more complex than anyone else’s here.
you do not need to do this all at once. get the wisdom teeth removed first,, then take care of other conditions. Also shop around make sure the dentist is not overcharging.
Teeth **never** get cheaper to fix, and dental care has huge health implications through your life.
Would I fix my teeth when super young, even if ti means giving up saving for retirement for a few years? Absolutely.