You don’t have to save in an HSA for retirement. Here’s why you should.
If you currently have high-deductible health insurance (minimum deductible of $1,600 for individual coverage or $3,200 for family coverage), you may be able to fund a health savings account (HSA) this year. And there are many benefits to doing so.
HSAs offer savers three tax advantages: Contributions are tax-free, investment gains are tax-free, and withdrawals are tax-free as long as they are used to cover qualified medical expenses.
HSAs also offer great flexibility in how you manage your funds because the funds never expire. Many people who use Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) are frustrated with having to spend their balance at the last minute because they can’t move funds from one year to the next.
However, HSA funds do not expire. It’s also available at any time, so if you need money to cover medical expenses tomorrow, for example, using an HSA is definitely an option.
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But while you don’t necessarily need to reserve your HSA for your golden years, it makes sense to hold off on using the account until retirement. Here’s why:
You may need more money then than you do now.
Medical expenses are generally difficult to avoid at almost any stage of life. However, your healthcare costs in retirement are likely to be higher than they are now. This is caused by a combination of aging and the limitations of Medicare.
Plus, since you won’t be working after retirement, you may have to adjust to a lower income. So, since you may need a lot more of your HSA in retirement than you do now, you should aim to have that money set aside for your golden years.
However, this is not the only factor to consider. As mentioned earlier, HSAs allow you to invest your unused funds and grow them tax-free. So, if you leave your HSA unused until retirement, you have a better chance of growing your balance to a larger amount.
In fact, let’s say you contributed $250 per month to your HSA for 25 years. If you keep withdrawing as medical expenses arise, you could end up with only hundreds or thousands of dollars left in the account by the time you reach retirement. If you make no HSA withdrawals for 25 years and your investments earn an annual return of 8%, slightly below the stock market average, you’ll end up with more than $219,000. This will make it much easier to cover senior healthcare costs.
It is beneficial to hold on
If you have expensive medical expenses that you can’t cover with your paycheck and you have money left in your HSA, it’s better to withdraw it than charge the bill to your credit card and pay interest. But if you can afford to leave your HSA alone during your working years, do so. Saving that money for retirement can make your later years much less financially stressful.
