Andy Hough

One way to save on dental care is to use the services of a local dental school. This is what I am doing. I am going to have all four wisdom teeth plus three other teeth extracted. The wisdom teeth are bony impacted so I will be under IV sedation during the surgery. The total cost for this is $830. It is hard to find an average price for this surgery but I did find one site that stated the average cost of oral surgery is $3,000. If that figure is correct than I’m saving over $2,000 from the regular cost. To make this an even better deal since my surgery is complicated it won’t be done by one of the students but by one of the teaching doctors.

I think this is an even better deal than dental insurance. When checking out dental plans I saw that most of them had a $1,000 a year maximum benefit and you had to wait a year for major procedures. This would make dental insurance at a traditional dentist a more expensive option for me. Plus I want to get my dental problem fixed now rather than waiting a year.

The main drawback of going to a dental school is that the procedures take more time. Both of my diagnostic appointments took 2-3 hours. You do get more individualized attention though and right now I have more time than money. If you have a local dental school and need dental care you should look into this option.

Being a frugal person I love free stuff. It is hard to get a better price than free. Here are some resources for finding free stuff.

freecycle.org– Just join the local group in your area then look at what is being offered. Be sure to put up some of your own unwanted items too.

craigslist.org– They have a section for free stuff. Check it often because you never know what might pop up.

fatwallet.com– They have a free stuff board. I’ve found a few different free items I wanted here.

slickdeals.net– They also have a freebies board.

These are just a few of the free stuff places on the internet. If you keep your eyes open for possible free stuff you will probably find many more places. This includes places in your local community not just on the internet.

There is a new post on dumpster diving at the Frugal Duchess. She included my post on dumpster diving as well as posts from All Financial Matters and Frugal for Life. She is going to provide her own tips in a later post. There is some good information on dumpster diving in these posts. As a postscript I’d like to add that I have made almost $60 this month selling coupons I retrieved from the trash.

You can save money by walking instead of driving. The option of walking might be more feasible than you think. I used to think that it would take too long for me to walk to school.

My car needed repairs last week so I had to walk to school. I was pleasantly surprised that the walk only took about 20-25 minutes which is less than what I thought. I really should walk to school everyday. It would save gas and provide me with needed exercise.

Now that my car is fixed I should continue walking to school but it is too easy to drive. I didn’t walk today because it looked like it might rain. I can see myself making these types of excuses pretty often. What I discovered last week is that I don’t really need a car. When the option of driving is removed I find another way to get where I need to go. The only reason I can justify having a car now is that I might need it for my future job. When I get a job if the job doesn’t require me to have a car I might sell my car. This would save me money on gas,insurance, repairs, registration and whatnot. The drawback is my car isn’t worth much so the best way to get the full value out of my car is to drive it until it just won’t go any more. And the fact that I like the freedom of being able to hop in the car and drive somewhere whenever I feel like it. I just have to decide if the drawbacks are bigger than the money saving advantages.