HSA

Financial Planning - Financial planning in general. (Moderated) 

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Subject Author Date HSA Gil Faver 08-20-2008  Re: HSA jIM 08-20-2008  Re: HSA Will Trice 08-20-2008  Re: HSA jIM 08-21-2008  Re: HSA Elizabeth Richa... 08-21-2008  Re: HSA jIM 08-21-2008  Re: HSA Elizabeth Richa... 08-21-2008  Re: HSA jIM 08-22-2008  Re: HSA Will Trice 08-25-2008  Re: HSA zxcvbob 08-22-2008  Re: HSA MyVeryOwnSelf 08-22-2008  Re: HSA BreadWithSpam 08-23-2008  Re: HSA rick++ 08-24-2008  Re: HSA rick++ 08-20-2008  Re: HSA Gil Faver 08-20-2008  Re: HSA Will Trice 08-20-2008  Re: HSA pomegranate-man 08-20-2008  Re: HSA Tad Borek 08-21-2008  Re: HSA Will Trice 08-22-2008  Re: HSA Mark Freeland 08-23-2008  Re: HSA Tad Borek 08-25-2008  Re: HSA Will Trice 08-25-2008  Re: HSA Mark Freeland 08-26-2008  Re: HSA Gil Faver 08-26-2008
Posted by Gil Faver on August 20, 2008, 11:15 am What is your thinking about not using money in an HSA for medical expenses if you can afford to pay from your other resources, to allow the HSA to build up. Assume a healthy, well off person, 50 years old, little medical expenses or needs. If they pay what little medical expenses they will have out of pocket, their HSA will continue to build in value. related questions: once you are on Medicare, can you still have an HSA qualified insurance coverage (like Medicare plus or some such thing) and still contribute to HSA? what happens to the HSA when you no longer need it? Or when you die? thanks. -------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup. Posted by jIM on August 20, 2008, 4:04 pm > What is your thinking about not using money in an HSA for medical expenses > if you can afford to pay from your other resources, to allow the HSA to > build up.  Assume a healthy, well off person, 50 years old, little medical > expenses or needs.  If they pay what little medical expenses they will have > out of pocket, their HSA will continue to build in value. > > related questions: > > once you are on Medicare, can you still have an HSA qualified insurance > coverage (like Medicare plus or some such thing) and still contribute to > HSA? > > what happens to the HSA when you no longer need it?  Or when you die? > > thanks. > I am anxious to see replies on these subjects. I have an HSA. We spend money out of it now. We have the medical expenses, so we need to pay them. Wife gave birth to twins in March, so the medical bills right now are slightly higher than normal budget would otherwise suggest. Not to mention they came 12 weeks early, so there were 200k, 300k and 500k medical bills which were coming in from extended stays in the NICU at two different hospitals. My thoughts- Spend money in HSA now and get current tax deductions now. MY HSA will be invested in 3 layers: 1) layer 1 is cash for this year and next (expected expenses) 2) layer 2 is in bonds or something stable which also grows. This is in case we hit the out of pocket max for a given year. 3) layer 3 is in growth based investments (stocks). This was my first year using an HSA and all money put in for 2008 will be spent this year. It is my hope to have all 3 layers set up within 3.5 years. It should be noted the costs (of the investments) between layer 1 and layer 2 is significant in my HSA. I do not know retirement rules (but have read something about age 62 on other forums). I do not know inheritance rules or medicare rules. I am 35 yo. -------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup. Posted by Will Trice on August 20, 2008, 8:35 pm jIM wrote: > My thoughts- > Spend money in HSA now and get current tax deductions now. This might make sense, but spending the HSA money does not result in tax deductions. I tend to look at an HSA as another tax-advantaged savings vehicle, so I would think that spending money out of pocket and keeping the HSA intact would be beneficial. Having said that, I have an HSA available to me and I opted for a PPO as it appeared to be the better choice. In addition, this particular HSA has crappy investment options and high expenses meaning that depleting the assets in the account as medical expenses come up might make more sense anyway. -Will -------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup. Posted by jIM on August 21, 2008, 2:00 pm > jIM wrote: > > My thoughts- > > Spend money in HSA now and get current tax deductions now. > > This might make sense, but spending the HSA money does not result in tax > deductions.  I tend to look at an HSA as another tax-advantaged savings > vehicle, so I would think that spending money out of pocket and keeping > the HSA intact would be beneficial. > > Having said that, I have an HSA available to me and I opted for a PPO as > it appeared to be the better choice.  In addition, this particular HSA > has crappy investment options and high expenses meaning that depleting > the assets in the account as medical expenses come up might make more > sense anyway. > > -Will The lack of financial "education" probably made me mix my words/ Money is deposited into HSA pre-tax (like a 401k) Money is withdrawn from HSA pre-tax (like a Roth). My thought is to avoid taxes on as much of my income and spending now as possible. -------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup. Posted by Elizabeth Richardson on August 21, 2008, 2:27 pm >> jIM wrote: >> > My thoughts- >> > Spend money in HSA now and get current tax deductions now. >> > > Money is deposited into HSA pre-tax (like a 401k) > Money is withdrawn from HSA pre-tax (like a Roth). > > My thought is to avoid taxes on as much of my income and spending now > as possible. > And because you have current large medical expenses which you will enter on Schedule A, you will be getting another tax deduction this year, in addition to the HSA contribution. Is that the trend of your thinking? Elizabeth Richardson -------------------------------------- Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the Newsgroup.