The devil's luck

When I called the dentist this morning I was told that they were booked up for two weeks.

However, it so happens that another practice is sharing the building with them, as they used to be located in town. And they had a cancelation just before noon. So two hours later I headed off to find out how financially boned I would be.

In another piece of luck, there was enough of the tooth left to build up a composite crown on. I didn't have to wait for it to be fixed on another day, he just did it right then, and when it came time to pay the cost was $160.

Now, I do have to go back next week for a check up and xrays. At the very absolutely minimum, I'm going to need three fillings, and that's not cheap. But this was far, far better than I'd expected, so I'm counting it as a win.

I'll also be taking the financial hit myself and leaving the special need grant from WINZ as a resort for some other emergency. The downside is that I'm paying for it off my credit card rather than a safety buffer of money in my actual bank account, so there'll be interest to pay off, but if I leave $200 in my account and shunt everything over that to my credit card I'll be able to keep my progress up in getting that down. (I need to leave money in my account because my debit card for it is one of those fake-credit cards that you can use to buy things online with money you actually have, and that "credit" card info is what I wrote on the forms which are now with Births, Deaths and Marriages. I have no idea when they're going to want to get that money, which is somewhat inconvenient.)