When to stop HSA

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I am 43 years old and have been contributing to HSA account for a few years. Current balance is 37k. I have approximately 10K worth of medical expenses that I paid not using HSA funds and can claim this in the future from my HSA account. What do you guys think is a good point / account balance at which one should stop contributing to HSA?
 
As long as you are eligible to contribute to your HSA you should.

1. If you have taxable income, the contributions reduce your taxable income.

2. Investments in the HSA grow tax free. So even though you may not have any taxable income to deduct against, investment gains on those contributions are also tax free.

3. Qualified withdrawals are tax free.

The only time I'd stop contributing to the HSA is if the balance grew so ridiculously large that it would be virtually impossible for me to spend it in my lifetime.

$37k balance is not large at all. The HSA funds can be used for the rest of your life, especially after retirement, when your medical necessities and expenses will likely go up.
 
As long as you are eligible to contribute to your HSA you should.

1. If you have taxable income, the contributions reduce your taxable income.

2. Investments in the HSA grow tax free. So even though you may not have any taxable income to deduct against, investment gains on those contributions are also tax free.

3. Qualified withdrawals are tax free.

The only time I'd stop contributing to the HSA is if the balance grew so ridiculously large that it would be virtually impossible for me to spend it in my lifetime.

$37k balance is not large at all. The HSA funds can be used for the rest of your life, especially after retirement, when your medical necessities and expenses will likely go up.

+1

The OP leaves out a lot of variables but the odds of spending 50K on medical expenses over one's lifetime is probably close to 100%...especially since you can pay for dental work with it.
 
As long as you are eligible to contribute to your HSA you should.

1. If you have taxable income, the contributions reduce your taxable income.

2. Investments in the HSA grow tax free. So even though you may not have any taxable income to deduct against, investment gains on those contributions are also tax free.

3. Qualified withdrawals are tax free.

The only time I'd stop contributing to the HSA is if the balance grew so ridiculously large that it would be virtually impossible for me to spend it in my lifetime.

$37k balance is not large at all. The HSA funds can be used for the rest of your life, especially after retirement, when your medical necessities and expenses will likely go up.

+2

I started an HSA after retiring so only contributed for 10 years or so, stopping when I no longer qualified due to medicare. My investments using TD Ameritrade through HSA Bank have reached six figures (or about 3 times my contributions). Just wish I could still contribute for the tax benefit.
 
^^^same setup as Lakedog. I have close to $200k in mine, mostly stock gains.Have not drawn anything yet. No longer contributing as I no longer have HDHP.

According to stats the average couples spends $300k+ on medical in retirement. This excludes long-term care. So we can expect to have plenty of future claims to reimburse ourselves for.

And if it's less than that it's very good news.
 
If you are worried about it getting too large and never being able to use it all for medical expenses, start pulling from it with your current and saved expenses now. This will slow the growth compounding.

IMO the largest benefit of an HSA is the reduction to taxable income, which is a benefit at your marginal tax rate.

Tax free growth is a great benefit too, but if you let investments in taxable grow, you get favorable LTCG tax rates, so the tax free growth is only a benefit at your LTCG rate, which is going to be smaller than your marginal rate.

From these two factors it is more beneficial to max out your HSA contribution advantage than to keep tax free growth going, if you have to cut back on one of them.

Tax free withdrawals are another benefit, and you get that whenever you withdraw from the HSA with medical expenses. If you let the HSA grow more than you'll ever use, the overage is essentially like a tIRA, but worse to leave for heirs since they must withdraw it all in the year you die. So, you are correct to be looking at letting your HSA grow too large.

The catch is, you really don't know your future medical expenses. First, you don't know how long you'll live. If you live long enough, you know that you can use your HSA on part of your Medicare premiums, but you have no idea how much you'll pay on actual medical expenses.
 
Runningbum makes some good points

To clarify it is only worse than regular IRA to leave to non-spouse heirs than a regular IRA but only in the sense that the non-spouse heir must recognize the taxable income on receipt as opposed to over 10 years. If the heir is a spouse it simply becomes his or her HSA, a key benefit.

I don't consider that to be a major downside to accumulating tax-free funds to address such a huge expense, particularly for married couples.

And taxable savings are by definition more costly than HSA and subject to rate changes at the whim of Congress.

Thoughts to consider.
 
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I'll contribute until at least 6 figures but probably as long as I can. Eventually I may start some withdrawals but largely view it as self-insurance for future medical needs and if it becomes BTD money, then great! "Mental math" but since I sort of see it as a pre-paid healthcare account I do not count my HSA in my net worth but rather view it as an offset to known unknowns.
 
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