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Released: December 20, 2011

Flexible spending account deadline near

Source: Sandra Block, USA Today

In years past, depleting money in your health care flexible spending account before the end of the year was fairly straightforward. You made a midnight dash to the nearest 24-hour drugstore and bought enough cold medicine, ibuprofen and cough syrup to treat a year’s worth of allergies, hangovers and scratchy throats.

This year, though, that strategy won’t fly. You can still spend unused money in your flex account at the drugstore, but you’ll need to be more careful about what you buy.

Flexible spending accounts allow you to use pretax dollars to pay for dental and medical expenses that aren’t covered by insurance. They’re funded by deductions from your paycheck, and you must decide when you enroll in your employer’s insurance plan how much you want to contribute during the year.

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