Making the Most of Flex

We realized in late October that we were running long on our medical and dental flexible spending account. What a blessing to have a year where we didn't need to take our children to the doctor other than for a yearly wellness check! We are blessed also with generally good health with no ongoing expenses for continual prescriptions and medical supplies. But if you know us, we hate to have money lost in an account like this just because we didn't have events which required the use of this money. After gathering and submitting all receipts we could think of we still had a bit more than $100 left.

So I read up on the qualifying expenses for this account and headed out to Target on New Year's Eve to see if I could make use of these funds. Most over-the-counter medications and vitamins are surprisingly not covered. As I was checking out I had the cashier confirm that each item was noted on the receipt as a health item. I ended up with $82 of first aid items (perfect for restocking our first aid kits), a night guard and some orthotics for my bad feet. Since I still wasn't sure if these purchases would qualify, I put the bags away in the closet and had my husband submit the receipts by fax. Then in the event it didn't go through, I could still return the merchandise since the items were not urgent needs. Thankfully these purchases did qualify under our plan so we were able to use up most of what was left in our account for the year. I know I could have gotten closer to the exact dollar amount if I would have added it up more carefully and gotten more for my money if I would have had coupons, chosen the Target brand, etc., but at that point, on the last possible purchase day, in a very busy store with three young children in tow, I was more than satisified with my effort and the outcome.