Free Money!!!

I've been getting so many damn pre-approved credit card offers in the mail (even more than before I bought the condo) that I almost threw away a legitimate one. Last year during our open enrollment time for benefits at work I finally took the time to calculate out my annual medical expenses. (A co-worker once said you can more or less tell a person’s age by the number of prescription drug bottles in their medicine cabinet. He must have been one of those who “explores” at people’s parties, but it is a pretty accurate statement.) Anyway, after years of encouragement from my Mom, I decided to take advantage of the Flexible Spending Account (or PayFlex) option. I’ve always heard it’s better to under-estimate your expenses, at least in the beginning because whatever amount you opt for can’t be changed. If you don’t actually spend that much during the year you lose out on the balance. I actually think I may have been too conservative but I really can’t complain since I’ve been losing out on this benefit for too many years already. PayFlex is a government sanctioned program that employers can offer. I’m not sure how it benefits an employer but I’m sure it does. You select an amount to be put into an account that is opened for you. Each pay period a set amount is deducted from your payroll pre-taxed and placed into the PayFlex account until your chosen amount is met. Did you catch that? I said “PRE-TAXED”. That means, you don’t pay taxes on any of your eligible medical expenses! In my case, my employer issues a PayFlex MasterCard (the one I almost threw away). Whenever I have an eligible medical expense I can use the MasterCard to pay for it or fill out a claim form after-the-fact for reimbursement from my account. Even if it’s still early in the year and you have only accumulated a portion of your opted balance, you can still expense all the way up to the total you chose for the year. I went to the website today and re-read the list of eligible and ineligible expenses. There’s really no way not to spend all of the money put into it. You can even expense stuff like over-the-counter medication, antacid, chiropractor visits and flu shots. Between my regular drug prescriptions, annual check-ups with doctors, the dentist and my therapy visits there is no way I will have a problem spending everything I set aside (and then some I’m sure). So today I checked my first paystub of the year to see how much it impacted my take home pay. Here’s the best part – although roughly $20 is being deducted per check (we get paid weekly), because it’s pre-taxed, my take home amount only went down by $1!!! Can you believe that shit! Ok, so let me break this down. I get paid every week so I will be out a total of $52 dollars this year because of this. And what did I opt to have deposited into this account? $1000!!!! My point? If your employer offers this, do it!! www.mypayflex.com