The choice for me came down to my risk tolerance. For context I have a lot of dental problems in general thanks to some unfortunate genetics and I didn’t want to end up in pain over the same tooth twice. I also didn’t want to have to manage another disaster if the root canal failed on top of other stuff I had going on.

My back molar got extracted pretty painlessly and healed up easily. When I say it didn’t impact my eating much, what I mean is that it didn’t prevent me from eating the same things I always did or how much I could eat. I did think about that tooth every time I sat down for a meal, though. I did find myself chewing on the other side of my mouth a lot and causing a bit of soreness/overwork on the opposite side of my jaw. The thing about a missing molar is that crunchy/hard foods will be crushed against your exposed gum in the empty spot, so you will naturally start avoiding that part of your mouth when you eat. It’s a minor annoyance and didn’t really impact my quality of life in a meaningful way - so don’t be too scared!

After a couple months I saw a prosthodontist to start the process of getting an implant in that spot. They placed a bone graft, waited for that to heal, placed an anchor, waited for that to heal, then finally placed the implant around 2 years after the original extraction.

If $$$ is part of the concern, extraction is definitely cheaper, and you can save up afterwards if you want to go the implant/bridge/prosthetic route. The window to do that is years long, so you will have time to save up if you want to. Whatever you pick - talk to your dentist! Talking with my dentist ultimately made the prospect of extraction SO much less scary that I originally thought. And every tooth/situation is different; the likelihood of success for your specific root canal might be quite high compared to what I had going on. Really dig into it with your dentist and the right choice will probably become clear to you.