I’ve been sharing our personal finances online since 2013. For those who haven’t been along for that whole ride, I will let you know that there have been very few times that we have used our emergency fund for anything.
Using the emergency fund is the last option. Usually we are able to handle unexpected expenses without touching our emergency fund. In fact, I wrote a whole article about three ways that our budget handles unexpected expenses.
Even though we rarely use it, our emergency fund gives us real peace of mind, so it’s valuable even without spending it.
But this time, we did indeed use our emergency fund.
Recently, our 16-year-old son, our second-oldest, got hit in the face with a discus at a track meet at our high school. He had already competed and had taken first in the event for boys. Since our school was hosting the event, our student athletes were also helping out. My son was on his way out to the field to help when his coach said, “Let me see that medal!” My son turned and a discus that was thrown completely out of bounds hit him in the mouth.
He instinctively clutched his mouth. Not knowing what to do, one of the coaches brought him over to the athletic trainer. When my son opened his mouth he spit out a tooth, root and all, along with other shards and fragments of teeth. One look at his mouthful of broken and crooked teeth and the athletic trainer knew this was above his pay grade.
Thankfully my husband and I were both volunteering at the meet, so we were quickly notified. Mike rushed him an hour away to the only emergency dentist open in the area. Unfortunately when you go to an emergency dentist, everyone else is also having an emergency, so you still have to wait.
When he was finally seen, they were able to put the bottom canine tooth back in and straighten the five wonky bottom teeth. It was super painful! The dentist cemented a wire across the back of the six bottom teeth (a “splint”) so that they would support each other while they would hopefully firm up. Four teeth on the top were loose, with the front teeth severely chipped.
He was put on antibiotics to fight infection, pain meds to handle the pain, and a liquid diet. Not the way we hoped our day would go, especially since we would be leaving for Cuba three days later.
Still, we counted our blessings and thought of the scenarios we had avoided. What if he was hit in the back of the neck or head instead? Or in the eyes? What if it had been a varsity boy throwing instead of a freshman girl? Teeth injuries aren’t any fun, but it definitely could have been worse.
My son refused to let me take a picture because he said it was too disgusting. I told him to take a picture himself for the record, but I’m definitely not publishing it here. You came here for finances, not gross dental trauma photos!
The Saturday visit to emergency dental cost $3,275 due at the time of service. Included in this cost was the follow-up visit after 3 weeks to have the splint removed from the bottom six teeth.
If you’ve seen any of my budget updates, you know that we have a medical/dental sinking fund. We typically contribute $400 each month to this category which normally carries a balance of around $3,000. Because of some other expenses we’ve had in this category in the past couple of months, the category balance at the time of the discus accident was only $2,182.
While that is a good portion of the cost of the emergency dental visit, we didn’t want to completely drain our medical/dental category. As a family of eight, we have medical and dental expenses that come up throughout the year, so we like to be prepared. Plus, this one visit is only the first step to fixing his teeth. There will be many more dental visits and procedures to correct all of the damage.
I naively expected that our dental insurance would cover a good portion of the emergency dental visit. Not so! Our dental insurance (which is more of a dental discount plan) offers a reimbursement of a whopping $400 for out-of-network emergency dental visits. Of course, we’ll take it, but it doesn’t make a huge impact.
Unfortunately, dental insurance is not like medical insurance with a deductible and an out-of-pocket maximum. With dental drama, the sky is the limit!
This initial visit is only the tip of the iceberg. The emergency dental cost doesn’t cover all of the future root canals and crowns that will be necessary because of this accident. While our dental insurance will help with the cost of root canals and crowns, they still are not cheap. We’re hoping that root canals and crowns will be enough for long-term healing.
Long story short, we used our emergency fund to cover the emergency dental visit cost of $3,275. We paid with a credit card and then recorded the transaction in our budget coming out of our emergency fund. We’re still waiting on a small $400 reimbursement from our dental insurance.
Going forward, we plan to increase our contributions to our medical/dental budget category knowing that unusual expenses are on the horizon. We will also work to pay back our emergency fund.
How about you?
- Do you have an emergency fund?
- When was the last time you used your emergency fund?
