I was lucky because my last job I took JUST to pay for my therapy out of pocket (even though my insurance was good) and to get insurance initially for my husband who was working as an independent consultant at the time and insuring him separately was much more expensive than his being on my good plan (plus, I was only working part-time before that job so didn't have insurance either so we were buying two state-mandated plans that covered little and cost an arm and a leg).

I meant just save a little each month ($50) so when you needed something like an xray of your knee you'd be able to pay for that and/or would gradually save up some money as a health care cushion?

We also used my job/income to buy the maximum 401K investment (15% of my salary) so I didn't have much take-home pay but there was maybe $500 "extra" each month after my 2x a week therapy was paid for (to go toward my credit card expenses/books :-) After I terminated therapy in 2005, there was no need to keep my job :-) but I did for an extra month or two so we'd have all that "extra" former therapy money to pay down bills, etc. But by then they'd moved me to part-time (but let me keep my insurance) and since then, they just recently eliminated that job (and had to lay off my full-time replacement).

The insurance at that time was a life saver; when my appendix burst in 2003, the normally $3,000 or so fully paid, one-week operation/illness became a 5-month, $30,000-$40,000, several hospital stays, sepsis/infection mess that was trying to kill me but I think we only paid $2,000-$3,000 of that over that year; I had 7-8 CT scans, MRI, doctor visits, etc.

We were down in Dunedin, Florida (near you?) for a week; my father-in-law died and my husband was executor and I got appendicitis then but didn't know what it was, we get back and that night my appendix burst. My poor husband, loses his father and then his beloved :-) wife is critically ill. . .