FSA Account

Most of you are probably familiar with an FSA account. It’s an account you fund with deductions from your paycheck, tax-free to spend on healthcare. The drawback is that if you don’t use it by the end of the year, you lose it.

I have no idea how I got this CPA certificate because I am LOUSY with numbers, as evidenced by a slight mis-budgeting of FSA money for 2009.  I must have filled out my FSA registration right after leaving some traumatic dental appointment, because I set aside about $1,100 too much. [If I could have claimed Molly and her 18 tooth extractions, than she wouldn’t be nearly the financial burden she has otherwise become. Oh, KIDDING, people!].

So there I was, at the beginning of December, trying to figure out how to spend $1100 on health care (of all things) in three weeks. [Unfortunately, the healing properties of wine are not government-recognized.]  I started with unusually prompt payments to every dentist, doctor and lab company I have ever visited – without even the THREAT of collection agency involvement [extraordinary times, clearly].

Next up was a trip….wait for it… to COSTCO for reimburseable over-the-counter drugs. We now have 3,000 ibuprofen, a first-aid kit suitable for a M*A*S*H unit and every member of my family’s 2010 Christmas present [who doesn’t want contact solution under the Christmas tree??]. I even bought those Breathe Right strips. Let me tell you why those little suckers make you snore less…because the NASA-grade adhesive pulls your nostrils apart like a nightly nostril-ectomy. It’s so painful you can’t sleep…ergo, no snoring. [And if you do sleep, you dream all night about wearing a scuba mask. Trust me.]

It took some work, but I finally spent the whole FSA nut and I LOVE my new prescription sunglasses. [I didn’t know I wore a prescription either.] Actually, I do have an eyeglass prescription – but it’s for night driving….which doesn’t exactly overlap with sunglasses, but reimburseable nonetheless.

I am sure my normal pace of root canals will resume in 2010 and I won’t have these FSA issues.