How Much Should You Have Saved in Your Roth IRA (BY AGE!)

Transcript:

On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the Ultimate guide to the HSA and how to supercharge it.

Oh, what's up everybody? And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master money.co, and today on the Personal Finance Podcast. We're gonna talk through the ultimate guide to the HSA and how to supercharge it. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money Newsletter by going to master money.co/newsletter, and you can reply with your questions there.

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Now I am pumped for today's episode because we are going to be giving you the ultimate guide to the HSA or the Health Savings account, and I'm gonna show you why I call this the Super retirement account. Now, the HSA is the most underutilized retirement account that is out there. Yes, you are hearing me say a health.

Savings account is a retirement account. And the reason for that is because there are so many very cool things that you can do with this account. Now, there are 178 million Americans that have health insurance and only 37 million of them have an HSA. And just 9% of those who actually have an HSA are using it to its full potential.

And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break down how to use an HSA to its full potential. How to supercharge it. Some of those common pitfalls that I think a lot of people fall into and how to turn it into the most powerful investment vehicle out there. In fact, the HSA is probably my favorite account overall, but not everybody qualifies for an HSA, and so we're gonna dive into how that works in this episodes.

Without further ado, let's get into it. Okay, so the first thing that I want you to understand is HSA stands for Health Savings account, and this is a tax advantage savings account that is available to individuals enrolled in a high deductible health plan. Now, this allows you to contribute pre-tax dollars to pay for qualified medical expenses, including medical, dental, and vision care, as well as prescription drugs and over the counter health products.

But here's the thing. Here's how an HSA works Money goes in and you get a tax deduction. When you contribute to an HSA, the money grows tax free. You can actually invest your dollars inside of an HSA and the money will grow tax free, and you can pull the money out tax free as long as you have a qualified medical.

Expense, which we will get into more as this episode goes on here. Now this is very powerful because what that means is that an HSA has triple tax benefits. A Roth IRA does not have triple tax benefits. A 401k does not have triple tax benefits. A traditional IRA does not have triple tax benefits. This is the highest level of tax benefits that you can get within a retirement.

Account. Now, one big thing up top that I want most people to understand as well is an HSA and an FSAA flexible spending account, or two totally different accounts. Okay? The FSAA flexible spending account is an account that when you put money into your FSA, you gotta either use it. Or you lose it, meaning that when money goes in to that flexible spending account, you gotta use those dollars every year.

Whereas in HSA, it rolls over every single year, so you can keep those dollars invested and it stays with you even if you change jobs. And so this is something that can grow over time. Now who qualifies for an HSA? This is gonna be a huge thing. You must be enrolled in a high deductible health plan to qualify for an HSA.

Now, what is a high deductible health plan? You can ask your current health insurance provider or your HR department, am I in a high deductible health plan? Typically what a high deductible health plan means is that you pay more out of pocket for health expenses before your insurance actually kicks in.

So if you know, like when you go to open enrollment every single year, if you go to select your health insurance, you see all these different plans, and some of them you may be paying more out pocket to go for a doctor's visit or to go to the er, or if you ever had an emergency and you had to take a ride in an ambulance, all of those different plans, some are high deductible health plans and some have a standard deductible.

The high deductible health plans mean you pay more out of pocket upfront. So a lot of people who are younger, for example, are gonna get a high deductible health plan because they don't visit the doctor as much, and so they don't have as much healthcare expenses that they need to spend money on. And so they're willing to take the risk of, Hey, I'm gonna spend the max $8,000 per year.

In healthcare expenses, but I really don't go to the doctor much. I do my yearly checkup, and that's about it. And so I'm willing to take on that risk to spend less out of pocket every single month in order to hopefully not spend more out of pocket later on down the line. And so that is how a high deductible health plan actually works.

And so you must be enrolled in a high deductible health plan to have an HSA. And so as your HSA grows and as you develop a larger HSA, then you can even as you age, enroll in a high deductible health plan if that fits your criteria. Number two, to contribute to an HSA, you can be enrolled in Medicare. If you are in Medicare, you cannot contribute to an HSA because you're already getting a percentage of your healthcare covered, and so you do not have access to an HSA.

Number three is you cannot be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return. So if you are a dependent on someone else's tax return, if your parents still claim you as a dependent or if you are someone, uh, who. For whatever else reason is claimed. As a dependent, you cannot contribute to an HSA.

Number four is you must not have other health coverage unless it's permitted coverage like dental or vision insurance. So those are the big four criteria to qualify for an HSA. The biggest one though is the high deductible health plan and Medicare. Those are the two that a lot of people will fall into those categories where maybe you have a standard deduction health plan and or.

You are someone who participates in Medicare, and if that's the case, then you cannot do that. Now, what is the minimum deductible to qualify in 2025? So for an individual, the minimum deductible is 1,650, and for a family it is $3,300. Now the maximum out of pocket for eligibility is 8,300. And for a family it's.

16,600. So you can check with your employer, or you can go to healthcare.gov to ensure your plan is HSA eligible. So those are the two places that you can go healthcare.gov or your HR department if your HSA is through your company. So let's get into now how much you can contribute to an HSA in 2025, and then we're gonna start to get into some of these amazing advantages and how you can really build massive amounts of wealth with your HSA.

Alright, so in 2025, HSAs have contribution limits, just like Roth IRAs, just like 4 0 1 Ks. Anytime there is some tax advantages in an account, the IRS is going to dictate how much you can put in there. They don't want you to be able to just put hundreds of thousands, if not millions and millions of dollars.

Otherwise, every really wealthy billionaire would be sticking their money into these accounts. And so the first is for individual coverage. So if you have an individual coverage plan, maybe you're single, you just cover yourself. Uh, then. The contribution limit for 2025 at the time recording, this is $4,300.

Now for family coverage, it is $8,550, and if you are over the age of 55, you can actually have a $1,000 Catchup contribution. So every person out there who is over the age of 55 listening to this podcast, you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of that $1,000 catch up contributions. Now, employer contributions count towards the total limit, so make sure that you note that.

'cause if your employer is matching you in some way, shape, or form, or if they're helping you contribute to your HSA every year, those contributions do count towards your limit Every single. Year now, anyone including your family members can contribute to your HSA providing that you're eligible. Now contributions must be in cash and they're allowed up to the tax filing deadline.

So April 15th, 2026 for the 2025 tax year. But it's all the way up till tax day is when you can contribute to these accounts. Now why is the HSA so amazing? It's that triple tax advantage that we keep talking about. So contributions are tax deductible, and so it's either pre-tax or it's through your payroll.

So if your payroll contributes, then it's pre-tax, uh, or it's tax deductible if it's after you've already been taxed on your paycheck. Now, growth is also tax free if it is invested, which is. Absolutely amazing. So it's got the power pre-tax power of a 401k. It's got the tax free growth power like a Roth IRA, and withdrawals for qualified medical expenses are tax free.

Now, there is an exception here, it's California and New Jersey. Do not recognize HSA tax benefits at the state level. So that's just one big note. If you're in California or New Jersey, which already has really high taxes, uh, those two states do not recognize the tax benefits. Only at the state level. Now, there are no required minimum distributions within HSA.

So this is the beautiful thing about an HSA that I want you to understand. Let's say for example, and we'll probably talk about more about this again later on in this episode, but let's say for example, you build up this massive HSA and you're like, well, how do I have enough qualified medical expenses in this HSA to be able to actually use this and withdraw this money?

Well, what happens is this, HSA basically turns into something like a traditional IRA or your 401k where you're going to get taxed when you pull the money out. Okay? So you get to the age where you're gonna start withdrawing on your HSA. You're gonna get taxed when you pull that money out. But there are no required minimum distributions in an HSA, like there are with a 401k and an IRA.

So instead you don't have that RMD issue. So essentially at the age of 65, if you want to start using this money for retirement income, you can do so you just pay your taxes on that money. But there are no RMD, so it's not required to draw down a certain percentage every year. This provides you with way more flexibility than you would have with a 401k or a traditional.

IRA. So let's go through six ways to maximize your HSA in 2025. 'cause this is something I want you to note for the future, uh, that you can maximize them right now. So, number one is to contribute to the maximum. So what level should you contribute to your HSA? So if you've ever heard us talk through the order that we like to invest our dollars to start, we want you to get your 401k match.

We always want you to do that because it's a hundred percent free money. Those are dollars that will grow over time. And if somebody said, Hey, if you give me a hundred dollars, I'll give you $200 back. What would you say? I would say, heck yeah, I would do that every single day, all day, every day I would get a hundred percent rate of return.

Well, that's what you're doing with your 401k match, but second, what do you do once you get that match? Then I'd be looking at the HSA. And the Roth IRA, those are at the same level to me, and I would look at one or the other. If you have a high deductible health plan, an HSA is fantastic for you to look at starting to contribute dollars towards that.

Or if you're interested in growing your wealth tax free and not worrying about the qualified medical expenses and all those different things. Then a Roth IRA is also great, but it would be at that first initial level is when I'd be looking at. Then I'd go back to your 401k and look at that level. So.

Ways to maximize it is first to contribute the maximum. Again, the maximum for 2025, which is the time I'm recording this for individuals, is 4,300 bucks and 85 50 for families, and if you're over the age of 50, there is a thousand dollars ketchup contribution. Why? If you max this out, you can start to take.

Advantage of compound interest early inside of these accounts. You don't get the years back that you missed. So you wanna start to get your dollars in these accounts to start to grow over time. Okay. Secondly, if your employer has an HSA match, which some employers do. There's HSA matches out there that they allow you to contribute a maybe a thousand dollars per year and they'll put a thousand dollars in there.

Absolutely, 100% Do that every single time, all day, every day. Always make sure that you can get your employer's match contribution. This is going to help you supercharge your HSA get more dollars in the HSA that you would not have to. Earn. So I want you to make sure that you are doing that over time. Now, one big thing I also want you to do is contribute at least the amount of your high deductible health plans deductible.

This is a really good rule because if you do that, then you are always prepared for out-of-pocket costs. If they catch you off guard. So one thing is I don't utilize my HSA for healthcare expenses right now. I will be utilizing it for healthcare expenses in the future, and I'm saving my receipts, which we will talk about in a second.

But if you get yourself in a bind, this is also a way that you can utilize it as a medical emergency fund. So if you're putting in your deductible every single year, and at least at a minimum, you have your deductible inside of that HSA, you'll be able to cover medical expenses and. Still get the tax benefits, uh, that is so coveted inside of the EHSA.

Next is I would aim for the out-of-pocket max, meaning that I would contribute enough over time to eventually cover your full out-of-pocket limit. Now, this prepares you for any of those medical emergencies as time goes on. So I would actually build this up as a medical emergency fund first, and then from there you can utilize it for some additional things that we're about to talk about here.

And then five is investing for the long term. So this is a, a amazing way to maximize your HSA is to invest those dollars in the EH, HSA. So you have your out-of-box max, and maybe you keep that as your emergency fund and everything else outside of that. Then you go and you invest those dollars and allow them to grow over time.

And then you can reimburse yourself later. So you can see. Save your receipts for medical expenses that you pay today, and you can reimburse yourself later. Now, here's the beautiful thing about the reimbursement process that I want you to talk through here upfront, is that the IRS has no limit or limit on dates on how old the medical expense has to be.

So you could break your arm when you're 23 years old, save all of those receipts for those medical expenses, and you can reimburse yourself when you're 75 years old. This is the power of the HSA because those are tax free dollars that you can reimburse yourself with. Or let's say for example, that you had some sort of knee surgery, you know, maybe you were doing something working out, you were doing the squat rack, you did a squat, and all of a sudden your knee blew.

Well, if that happened, I. You had some major medical surgery that cost you thousands of dollars, then all of a sudden you can reimburse yourself later on down the line and get those tax benefits. So it's really, really powerful what you can do. Now, the IRS has a laundry list of what is considered a qualified medical expense, and we'll talk about some ways to look that up here coming up.

So those are six different ways to maximize your HSA in 2025. I'm gonna show you my system on how I use the HSA and how we can start supercharging this thing. Now there are three ways that you can use your HSA and the way you use your HSA is going to dictate how big you can actually make this account.

Now, the first one is short-term spending. I think this is what a lot of people think the HSA is for, is you pay for your medical expenses now using your HSA card and you get some of those tax benefits. This is what most people do when they're not educated on the power of the HSA. Is they just use it as their checking account for their medical expenses, and they just spend dollars on that.

They're not taking the benefits of the tax free growth and they're not really seeing the big picture, and it's just really, because most people don't talk about the HSA and they just don't have that financial education. Secondly is some people will save it in cash and they let their balance grow slowly, not realizing that they could invest those dollars over time.

So maybe they're just putting some cash in every single year. In their HSA, but they don't realize that they can actually invest those dollars. But for most of you, here's what I want you to take away, and I'm gonna show you my system in a second, but I want you to supercharge your HSA. Well, how do you do that?

You invest your HSA and pay for out-of-pocket medical costs now and then you let your HSA balance grow for your future. So let me show you exactly. How this works. I want you to think about this and I want you to reframe the HSA in your mind as a health investment account, okay? HIA, let's call it the HIA.

I want you to treat your HSA, just like you would your Roth, IRA. Now, here's how this works. You're gonna pay for medical expenses for out-of-pocket. So let's say you have a prescription or you have something come up where you have a doctor's visit, or maybe you have a nine one one call 'cause you had some sort of medical scare.

And so if any of those things happen, you're going to go and pay for those medical expenses out of pocket. You're like, well, why am I saving this money? Then? What is the purpose of even saving this money? You're gonna see, but all your medical expenses will be paid out of pocket. Then secondly, I want you to save your receipt, so I want you to get a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox folder or notion or whatever else that you utilize to organize your life.

And I want you to save all of your medical receipts. I don't care how small or how big it is. I want you to save those receipts and I'll talk even more about my receipt saving system coming up here in a second. Then I want you to find a place that you can actually invest your HSA. There's a lot of different places to go.

I like Fidelity. Fidelity is my favorite place to hold an HSA. They have the best investment options and they have the lowest fees, which are the two things that I look at, but you wanna be able to find somewhere you can invest your HSA at low cost. There are a lot of HSAs out there who have. Terrible investment products, meaning you can't invest in things like index funds or ETFs and you can't invest in things that actually truly matter.

And so what I want you to understand is that you wanna make sure that you're looking at those fees and finding a place to open your HSA. That makes sense. Then decades down the line, your money is growing. You have those dollars invested, and it is growing over time. Then you can reimburse yourself later.

You have those receipts saved, and so you have proof if the IRS comes a knock and then saying, Hey, what are you reimbursing yourself for? You have those receipts saved. So let's say for example, you have a $2,000 medical expense that popped up. Well, if you have a $2,000 out-of-pocket medical expense, you can let that grow.

If you did not use it from your HSA and you let it grow at 7% over the course of 30 years, the result is 30 years later, that $2,000 expense has grown at a 7% rate of return and it is now worth $15,000. And so these HSAs can actually grow very, very large, uh, depending on how much you are putting in your HSA.

So next what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get into how to track your receipts for future reimbursement. I'm gonna give you my whole system now. Alright, so when I track my receipts, I do two different things. One is I set it up in Google Drive. You can use whatever else you want, whatever your life is in. It doesn't matter what the system is, but I just utilize Google Drive and I have two folders in Google Drive and I do this by year just to kind of have it available by year, I guess is not really necessary.

But one folder is called to be paid out. And the second folder is called Paid Out. Okay. So to be paid out is all the receipts for the year, all the medical receipts that I have not paid myself in yet. Then once I pay myself and reimburse myself based on that medical receipt, then I move it over to paid out.

Now what I do is every single medical receipt that I get, I scan a photo and I organize it accordingly. So a lot of times, like your doctor's office, for example, will just email you a receipt. That's what I try to get them to do. Then I just download it and throw it into Google Drive really quick, and it just really takes someone just taking the extra step, that extra second to put it inside of that folder.

Then for visibility, and I wanna know how much I have available to be able to reimburse myself, I will track this in a spreadsheet. So on this spreadsheet it will literally. Do three things. Okay. I will put the date, I will put some sort of title on that spreadsheet, and then I will put a link to the actual receipt.

That's all it's, and then I'll put the total amount that I paid to that medical provider. The reason why I do this personally is I wanna know how much I have available to reimburse myself, because over the years it starts to get confusing on how much you have spent in medical expenses. And so as this spreadsheet starts to build up, maybe you just started this process.

So the first year you spend $1,500 in medical receipts and you're gonna see there's a lot more things that actually qualify for an HSA than just, you know, your standard doctor's visits. You'll see that. There are a lot of things that you buy normally that you may not realize are actually qualifying for an HSA.

And so in that spreadsheet, that's all I put in there, is kind of having that all available in one spot. And typically, if I, for example, have a medical purchase, I'll just utilize that in my five minute drill. So part of my five minute drill, which is our daily five minutes that we just work on our finances during that five minute real, I will, uh, move that receipt over in the Google Drive folder.

So it's a very simple system. It's just a Google Drive folder and a spreadsheet. It's titled HSA, it's got to be paid out. And paid out. That's all it has to say. You got your spreadsheet there, literally it'll take you less than a minute or two a month. And then you have this organized system that allows you to see how much progress you have made within your HSA and how much you can reimburse yourself for.

So that's really, really great. That is my favorite system in the way that I set this up. Now let's talk about choosing your HSA provider, because it's really important to make sure that you choose the right provider, uh, that is going to allow you to get the right outcome with your HSA. So Fidelity has an HSA platform.

This is not sponsored. This is just a person who loves Fidelity's HS, a platform that offers additional. Benefits that kind of set it apart. Number one is it's got great investments in the HSA, so it has index funds, ETFs, those types of things that you can actually invest in. And they're very low cost, which is very important with an HSA, you wanna make sure that you are not spending too much in fees for your investments inside of your HSA.

But if you stick with fidelity, fidelity actually also has a tracking system that allows you to track your expenses. You can upload your receipts, you can pay bills, and you can confirm if purchases are HSA qualified by scanning those barcodes in. So it's actually a very, very cool system. Uh, they have a Fidelity Health app that will do this for you, so you can make it really, really quick and.

Easy. Now, most employer chosen HSA providers charge unnecessary fees and a lot of times your employer, HSA provider may be doing this or they're gonna force you to hold specific cash balances. That's not what we want with our HSA providers. We wanna make sure that they allow us to do what we want with our money and invest as many of those dollars as we possibly.

Can. And so the Fidelity, HSA, not Fidelity go, but the Fidelity HSA is the one that I absolutely love because it has the no minimum cash balance required. It has low fees and solid investment options, and if you go online and look at some of the best HSA accounts, fidelity is always at the top of the list, and it's because of those reasons.

So that's the only one I recommend. To be honest. The other ones that are out there just have to. Many fees. Now, if you're self-employed, you can go into Fidelity and choose an HSA plan manually and you can contribute post tax and then deduct it on your return. So if you are contributing to your HSA post tax, you're just gonna get a form that you fill out for your HSA, uh, from the IRS come tax time.

And it'll come up. Select TurboTax, all those different places will ask you if you have an HSA and they'll give you that form so that you can fill it out. A lot of times Fidelity will give you those tax forms too, uh, to help you through this. Now, what are some rules and warnings that I want you to kind of think through with an HSA first is to contribute.

In any month, you must be covered by the high deductible health plan. So number one, I'm gonna keep saying that 'cause you gotta remember that two. You can transfer or roll over an HSA from a high fee provider to Fidelity after leaving your employer. So if you are at an employer that has a really high fee, HSA, I would just roll that thing over if you can later on down the line.

And then always make sure you retain your HSA tax firms forms, which usually they will come up form 54 98. SA is for contributions and form 10 99 SA is for distributions. And the IRS form that I was just talking about is. 8, 8, 8, 9 with your taxes if you contribute or withdraw, only the qualified medical expenses are tax free.

The cool thing is your account is portable if you change jobs. So if you switch jobs, you can move that account around. Uh, it is very portable. Now, surviving spouses can inherit an HSA completely tax free, which is another huge benefit when it comes to estate planning, is your spouse can inherit your HSA tax free and non-spouse beneficiaries are taxed on the HS a's value upon.

Death. So if you have an HSA and you wanna hand it down to your kids, they will be taxed on those dollars upon your death. That's one other thing you wanna look at. Now, let's talk about qualified medical expenses, because there is a laundry list. Of qualified medical expenses when it comes to the HSA. Now, the IRS has a huge list of qualified medical expense, but there are so many different things that would qualify for this, that it is absolutely amazing.

So it's things from even acupuncture, ambulance rides, obviously, you know, artificial teeth, birth control treatment, blood sugar tests. Breast pumps, chiropractor visits, x-rays, dental treatments, laser eye surgery, laboratory fees, guide dogs, physical therapy, psychiatric care, psychologists, vaccines, vasectomies, visions, vision care.

There's so many different things that would qualify that you'd probably think would qualify, but also common. Over the counter medicines. We'll qualify things like cold and flu medicine, eye drops, lice treatments, baby rash, ointments, sleep aids, stomach remedies, pain relievers like ibuprofen also qualify.

There are also services that may be eligible with a letter of medical necessity, so weight loss programs, massage treatments, CPR classes for children. There's also eligible dependent care expenses, things like all pair services, babysitting services, before and after school programs. There's nursery school, pre-kindergarten, summer day camp, and tons of other things.

That could be qualified in the HSA, the HRA or the FSA. So a lot of those are, they could be qualified. So here's a couple of things that you can think through here. One great thing is Amazon actually has an HSA page. So if you go to um, amazon.com/health spinning account items, they have an entire HSA section.

And the cool thing is now when you're looking to buy something on Amazon, they actually have something that says HSA eligible. So I pulled up the site, uh, that shows you right there. Like the first thing is Crest White strips. Is actually HSA eligible. And so there's all these different things that you can look at here that allow you to contribute to an HSAA No Touch Thermometer for kids, a First Aid Kit Neosporin.

There are so many different things. Ibuprofen on here that you're actually allowed to utilize for an HSA hydration pack, so like LMMT and all those different little hydration sticks are HSA eligible, a massage gun, Claritin. If you have allergies, you know, you're probably spending buku dollars on Claritin.

A electric toothbrush is HSA eligible essential Oil Diffuser is HSA eligible, A heating pad Is HSA eligible? A scale, A body scale is HSA eligible. And so the list goes on and on and on. So you're gonna realize pretty quickly that there is a lot of common. Items that you are using day in and day out that are actually HSA eligible.

And so your qualified medical expense list is going to grow more and more and more. So I highly recommend you going to Amazon's HSA site just to kind of get an idea of some of these products that should be HSA eligible. And I actually utilize this a ton when I am trying to figure out, hey, what actually is qualified?

I will actually Google it on Amazon. And if you look. There's a little badge when you're shopping on Amazon that will say, this is actually HSA eligible. And so it is something I would definitely, definitely highly recommend, uh, most of you go and look at because I use it all the time. And so you can always keep those receipts and documentation, uh, is gonna be super, super easy.

So you can either use my Google Drive system or if you're with somebody like. Fidelity, uh, you can keep it in there as long as you're staying with them. The big thing though is if you are using your provider, you need to make sure that you're staying with them long term, because some of these providers will not keep your information if you leave.

And so that's why I use the Google Drive system because most of these providers would not give you access if you left them. So that's really, really important to understand. As well. Now, how powerful can this be? Like if you're going through this process and you're like, all right, you convinced me to utilize an HSA, but how much can I actually have in an HSA?

Let's say you maxed out the individual contribution at $358 per month, and over the course of 30 years, you got a 7% rate of return. You can have $405,000 over the course of 30 years in your HSA with triple tax benefits. And if you're healthy and if you're investing through an HSA, this is arguably better than a 401k and a Roth IRA.

We could have arguments about this all day long. A lot of people that I have talked to actually like the HSA more than the other two. Now, the pros, the big pros are obviously the triple tax advantages we've been talking about that the entire episode contributions are vested and they roll over a year, over a year.

Three is the investment potential within the HSA that you get that tax free growth. The portability, if you change jobs, is really, really powerful. You can use in retirement without penalty and it basically transforms into a traditional IRA and it compliments other retirement accounts. So there are so many amazing benefits to the HSA that help you compliment your other retirement accounts.

I like having the HSA, the Roth and the 401k. That's the triple combination that I love having. Now there are cons to the HSA. Like it requires a high deductible health plan. You must have extra cash to fund your HSA, obviously outside to your retirement accounts. The record keeping is a little bit annoying.

It's obviously an extra step and some people who are not type A may not be willing to do that, and so you gotta make sure that you take that extra step. There are strict tax penalties for non-qualified withdrawals, and there's lower contribution limits compared to a 401k or IRA. So those are just some of the cons, but I really like to utilize an HSA and I integrate it into my retirement plan because it gives you additional flexibility.

So let's think about this for a second. Let's say that you decide that you're going to retire early. Well, if you retire early and you have a taxable brokerage account, and that's helping you through some of this process, but you don't wanna start drawing down obviously on your 401k. Or on your Roth IRA, because you're trying to allow those to grow until you hit the age 59 and a half when you can then withdraw some of this contribution.

So what do you do? Well, if you have an HSA, you can start to withdraw on that first with your qualified medical expenses because this is going to allow you to get some flexibility in early retirement. So it's another great tool for early retirement if you were thinking about that. And listen, healthcare costs are rising at 7% every single year.

The inflation rate for healthcare costs is absolutely astronomical. It is one of the biggest problems that we have in this country and worldwide, and nobody is really able to solve that problem. So you have to take your health into your. Own hands by making sure that you have a plan in place to pay for those healthcare expenses.

The last thing you wanna be doing is being on Medicare or Medicaid and not being able to do the things that you want during retirement age. The HSA gives you that flexibility and allows you to have more cash on hand so that if you wanted to go to long-term care somewhere, or if you wanted to take advantage of some of the healthcare advancements that are going to be happening over the course of the next couple of decades, especially with ai, you're gonna have the cash there and you'll probably be able to, if you have cash on hand.

You'll be able to live longer because you can take advantage of some of these cool healthcare advancements that are gonna be happening in the future. So there are so many incredible benefits to the HSA, I'm incorporating it into my retirement plan, uh, and it is something that I am really, really bullish on for.

Future. It is a really powerful tool that I think if you have not looked into or learned about yet, I think you should definitely look deeper into it. It is the super retirement account because those triple tax advantages. And so I hope you learned a ton today in this episode 'cause that was our entire goal.

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