How are you finding this working out? Do you still see benefit of having this accumulation or do you find that having it stuck there with rules to be a challenge?
I keep debating this…i pulled 3500 out yesterday on ytd deductible related health expenses. I also found out that i could recover my ltc premiums (up to an annual amount) so i could pull another 3700 over. That last one would be an easy one to let ride since i have clear access to the payments at any point in time.
When I was younger and healthier I just let the funds accumulate but now I am having a few issues and figure that I might as well pay med expenses from the HSA. My balance is about 60k and i figure that if I were to pass that’s more traditional IRA money for the heirs to deal with. You only get the third part of triple tax free if you spend the funds on qualified medical expenses.
Despite being minimally obese my typical annual expenses are 4-6 chiropractor visits and a trip to the doctor and some generic medicine, about $500 with the exception of a $600 MRI a couple years ago. So my account is still going up, and that’s more a function of what I invest it in (more long-term stocks but not too risky) and it’s up to $85K.
One of the biggest financial questions that has hung over my retirement is the age-old question of how do I pay as little as possible to the taxman. I won’t be getting any ACA subsidies this year because I cashed in 50K+ of long-term gold gains which didn’t add to my tax bill but boosted my AGI and should eliminate the subsidy. So I’m probably going to give at least 1/3+ of those gains back but you can see by the price levels coming down I would have given up a bunch anyway and I’m learning from that and losing zero sleep and I’m being more careful what I’m putting in my taxable accounts. I just couldn’t have expected gold to gain that much.
Well as long as I am loading up on my AGI this year, I am going to start a $50K Roth conversion tomorrow to try and fill in as much of the 12% tax bracket as I can estimate from here. My traditional IRA is sitting at $717K and I’m happy to pay 12% tax while I can. In fact as I turn 55 later this year I will happily be the minimum age to avoid state tax on retirement income which was enacted in 2023.
Back to the HSA question. Personally I would rather spend the $85K as the expenses come and eventually drain the account just to make sure that I completely enjoyed the zero tax benefit. As opposed to having it grow to the point where I or my kids have to pay 12%+ tax on the money to use it for everyday things. Many of you will probably be contemplating more lush retirements into the 22% bracket so maybe it’s a slightly bigger concern.
After tomorrow I will still be wishing I could pay 12% tax on a pile of $667K. I don’t want my AGI to exceed $81,760 in the future or the subsidy goes bye-bye again. Once I get social security, the extent to which that is taxed is based on my AGI as well. Then you hit Medicare and the ACA subsidy goes away but then your income affects what you pay there. It’s basically a first world problem, when is the best time to pay the tax man?
Oh yeah almost forgot the other complication: not giving back your Robinhood subsidy 
I want to keep my IRA above $606K for 34 more months to not give back $17K. Not to worry though I will still have a buffer of $60K and if that narrows I will gladly park that in steady short term stuff for a couple of years if need be,
I’m only talking about 10k right now. I’ve always spent down what i could - this is usually 95% spending on the kids…i pay 2/3 of their costs (mom covers the rest)… so the math works out with oop max that I’ll have a couple grand left over each year after maxing out the hsa.
Sounds like in addition to the paperwork problem, there is a real risk of never being able to get it back out tax free, if i were to let it accumulate. I currently spend very little on myself for medical… that could obviously change, but I’ll spend about 10 bucks this year, everything else is preventative $0 cost visits.
You can use it to pay for Medicare premiums ($203/mo?) down the road. I think a bit more money in an HSA is a smart move. You may be healthier and live longer but I play bridge with a lot of old people and even the healthy ones still age and need to get work done (knee replacements, drugs, etc).
Sure, but at this point it is just a trade-off on the tax consequences and the cost of maintaining the documentation, with some hassle of having another bucket of money to think about and manage.
You can try
NANC
MAGA
GOP
etfs
