The Skills That Make You Rich: Taking Care of Your Teeth

Something small like “taking care of your teeth” seems ridiculously trivial when egomaniacal oligarchs are playing games with real people. It is way too easy to believe you have no control over what goes on in the world around you and the current war in Ukraine emphasizes this. I know there ain’t much us non-military, regular folks can do short of supporting charitable organizations. (My friend Kara from Bravely Go has a couple recommendations if you’re interested.) It’s good to remind yourself there are many things you can control in life when you can’t control the big-picture stuff.

It, at least, helps to ward off the existential despair that’s permeated our lives since the Great Recession hit our childhoods hard. Remember: a lot is outside our control, but not everything. And one very important, “small” thing to grab by the horns is learning how to best take care of the shit inside your mouth.

At-Home Tooth Care: Cheaper than Dirt

I’ll talk about why taking proper care of your teeth is so important in a minute. Before that, I want to talk about the finances behind proper tooth care. For several folks out there, there are big barriers to access getting proper dental work at the dentist’s office. While I’ve never had serious problems with my teeth, I have heard countless horror stories about the work adults need to have done after lacking them in childhood. For both maintenance and preventative measures, taking care of your teeth at home is ridiculously low-cost.

Some of the big box stores will have you thinking electric toothbrushes are expensive. The last time I was at a certain big-name electronics store, they had electric toothbrushes there for $200. Their online store sells some that are almost $400. I’m not gonna lie here: those prices are insane for an electric toothbrush. You don’t need to drop three figures on something like this. Instead, check out prices at stores like Walmart for much better deals.

My electric toothbrush is from CareOne, courtesy of my local Stop & Shop. It cost $20 when I bought it in 2019. Google is telling me it’s still roughly the same price in 2022, complete with the rechargeable base and a replacement bristle head.

Ocean State Job Lot sells off-brand replacement bristles for $6 per 4-pack. You get a photo of the pack I’m currently using because I’m not about to go to Ocean State for one freaking picture:

Combine that with the $1 flossers I get at Dollar Tree and $1-3 toothpaste, and my at-home tooth care is now less than $10 a year. You don’t need specialty care products unless your dentist tells you to buy it, or if you choose to treat yourself.

I consistently buy the cheapest toothpaste I see at the store and it hasn’t failed me yet.

Unless you are well and truly bankrupt, getting the proper tooth care supplies will fit within your budget. If you’re starting from scratch, you’re looking at buying the following:

• An electric toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Flossers/floss

That’s all you need. Your first year your costs will run you less than $30 the first 12 months. After that, $10. You do not need to spend $100 on at-home tooth care. You’ll end up only needing to spend less than $10 each year for new bristle heads, floss, and toothpaste. Not to sound like a guilt-trippy insurance commercial, but: for less than a dollar a month you will be gifting yourself optimum health, future wealth, and a damn good reason to smile wide.

How It Lowers Costs

I could end the article right here by saying “taking care of your teeth will work wonders for your health down the line”. Because that’s the absolutely massive, #1 reason to diligently brush them chompers.

Instead, I’m going to go into the specifics on how taking care of your teeth makes your ongoing costs so much less expensive.

This is first very noticeable in the short term. 92% of adults will get cavities at some point. I was hoping so bad I was part of that 8% but nope, got my first cavity last year. 🙁 You can definitely minimize the amount of cavities you get and, in the process, save a boatload of money that you’d otherwise have to spend at the dentist’s. The less fillings you need, the better.

It’s not like cavities are the only issue you need to worry about, either. Needing a tooth extraction is considered a basic procedure in dentistry. The more complicated stuff is obviously going to cost more than taking a set of pliers to your mouth. Bridges, implants, gum surgery, and the ever-dreaded root canal can cost $700 minimum if you have no or crap insurance. America already coughs up $1.2 trillion for dental costs each year, which is akin to each American dropping almost five grand on their teeth alone.

Cracking a tooth is normally several hundred dollars. Serious issues can cost several thousand. The more you know how to take care of your teeth, the better off your wallet will be.

With all that said, it’s the long term cost savings that are most significant.

Taking care of your teeth now just might make a crucial difference in your health as you get older. For some reason scientists are still figuring out, your oral health is intimately connected with the health of the rest of your body. Like, to the extreme. To the point that your toothy cleanliness could determine whether or not you develop Alzheimer’s. It’s also connected to diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. For pregnancies, the mother having gum disease correlates with a premature birth and low birth rate.

All from teeth.

Here’s a cute dog to make this a little lighter.

Guys, I don’t even want to research how much money Americans spend every year to deal with these conditions. There’s enough heartbreaking headlines about the cost of insulin or infant health to shatter the soul. If taking 3 minutes out of my day does something to prevent my future suffering? Bro, I take more time to watch TikToks on a daily basis. Consider flossing and brushing a done deal.

How It Can Increase Your Income

As if prolonged health woes and savings thousands of dollars weren’t enough, I’m coming at you with even more reasons to use a toothbrush, you nasty heathen. Since we live in an ableist society (along with many other -ist words) the highest-paying jobs are much more in reach if you’re physically and mentally healthy. You’re not just protecting your health with preventative measures here; you’re also protecting the size of your paycheck.

Taking care of your teeth is also a huge indicator you’ll keep climbing the corporate ladder. Sure, you might have important stuff like skill and ambition and being the best person to do the job. But unfortunately, we do not live in a purely meritocratic society. Thanks to the scum of the earth and their lust for nepotism and flawed logic, we get to deal with the consequences. This includes the halo effect, or when someone assumes a person is good because they happen to look good.

And your teeth are a sizeable part of what makes you attractive.

The healthier your teeth are, the better they’ll look. The better your teeth look, the more they contribute to your overall attractiveness. And guess what? It’s been scientifically proven the more attractive you are, the more likely you’ll earn more money. Being more attractive is also correlated to being called back to more interviews and – if you’re a business owner – raising the stock value for your company. Society is deeply flawed and we’re far from that pure meritocracy. Until we reach that utopian ideal, we’ve gotta work with what we’ve got. Which means: take care of your teeth if you want to give yourself more of an edge as a highly-paid worker.

How to Best Take Care of Your Teeth

Confession time: I didn’t actually learn how to take care of my teeth properly until I left home. This means I had to learn everything about tooth care, but it also means I don’t have a lifetime of forming the wrong dental habits. Most of my classmates had had several cavities by the time of high school graduation, so at first I was convinced my cavity-free life was thanks to particularly-excellent dental genetics. Now, however, I think it has to do with some rampant misunderstandings around proper tooth care.

I’m not talking about regularly visiting the dentist, which you should be doing every six months anyway. I’m talking about that twice-a-day maintenance. Dentistry Today tells me roughly a third of Americans aren’t taking proper care of their teeth. Your toothbrush, like money, is a tool; using that tool incorrectly can end up being worse than not using it at all.

Look over the list below just to make sure you’re taking proper care of your teeth. I didn’t put the most obvious care tips so something might surprise you.

Onward, friends:

• Get an electric toothbrush. Change the bristles every three months. You can do this frugally by getting a CareOne toothbrush ($20) and getting a 4 pack of replaceable bristle heads from Walmart/Ocean State/whatever for $5.
• FLOSS. That’s it, that’s the tweet! Dollar store sells 60 pack flossers that I love. Otherwise get a bigass roll online. There are several options that are environmentally friendly and cut down on plastic.
• When you’re using your electric toothbrush you want to run the bristles across your teeth, NOT SCRUB. YOU DO NOT WANT TO SCRUB. Running the bristles across your teeth gets rid of plaque buildup you don’t want. Scrubbing hard will cause your enamel to wear away; enamel protects the tooth so you want to support it, not wear it down. Your teeth are not those crusty dishes in the sink; you do NOT want to put elbow grease into your toothbrush.
• There is an art to flossing. Go as far down into the gum as you can and floss against both sides of each tooth. When you first start doing this, your gums are going to bleed. This doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, it means the nasty stuff (bacteria, plaque, tartar, and maybe lost food particles) is up in there inflaming your gums. The flossing is making them bleed because they’re already irritated with the crap that’s not supposed to be there. After a few days of regular flossing up in the gums, you’ll notice there’s no more blood.
• Once you’ve brushed your teeth, give it at least a few minutes until you rinse. That gives the fluoride the time to fully kill off your nasty mouth germs. My morning routine is taking 10-30 minutes to get dressed and wash my face before rinsing. At night I’m taking the 10 to floss, wash my face, and change into my pjs. When I first started doing this I remember being a little nervous about swallowing toothpaste remnants, but I later learned this is a non-issue.
• You do not want to brush your teeth immediately after eating. That actually will make your teeth wear down faster. If you’ve eaten, wait at least 30 minutes to brush your teeth.

Finally, if you’re nervous about the pandemic, mouthwash apparently makes COVID-19 its bitch. I, for one, am pissed I didn’t know this back in December.

There you have it. A nearly two thousand word article on how taking care of your teeth is an essential skill for wealth. Keep your flossers and bristles handy and you’ll see the investment pay off in spades.

Cover image credit: William Warby via Unsplash