There's a filter for "Eligible for HSA" plans on healthcare.gov, so it seems like you should be able to
Retirement Targets
- Thread starter yowza
- Start date
It might be depend on whether you are getting subsidies for your ACA plan. Anyone can get a ACA plan, but you only get subsidized if your income is below a certain level. It seems strange that one could get subsidized and get the tax benefit of an HSA, but again, I could be wrong. I am pretty certain that IRS rules don’t allow a person to use an their HSA account to pay their premiums on a subsidized ACA plan.
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How is income calulated for ACA? Previous years tax returns? 2024 will be much lower than 2023 for me.
From ChatGPT
No, you cannot use Health Savings Account (HSA) funds to pay for premiums on a subsidized Affordable Care Act (ACA) plan. HSA funds can only be used to pay for eligible medical expenses, as defined by the IRS. These expenses may include deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance, as well as expenses that are not covered by insurance, such as vision and dental care.
Premiums for health insurance, including ACA plans, are not considered eligible medical expenses and cannot be paid for using HSA funds. However, you may be able to use HSA funds to pay for certain health insurance premiums, such as premiums for long-term care insurance or for continuation coverage under COBRA.
It's important to note that if you are receiving a subsidy for your ACA plan, the subsidy will help lower your monthly premiums and reduce your out-of-pocket costs. You may also be eligible for additional financial assistance if you have a low income. If you have questions about using HSA funds or need help understanding your options for health insurance, it's a good idea to consult with a qualified financial advisor or healthcare professional.
This has been my understanding also. Not sure which special interest slid that into the HSA laws, but someone had a vested interest in keeping people from using HSA funds as such.
I have never read “We’re Talking Millions.” However, the two best books that I have ever read on investing, are “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” by Burton Malkiel, and “The Little Book on Common Sense Investing,” by the late John Bogle. The principals in these books are timeless.
They are calculated based on the your current years income. During the open season, your estimate your income for the current year to determine if you qualify for a subsidy. I believe the open season has passed so you could only get an ACA policy for 2023 if you have a life-changing event. When next years open season occurs, I would suggest speaking to an agent who sells ACA policies.
Sigh….. no. Thank you for your input. I’ll rock with the other mm fund. Appreciate it!Schwabs other money market funds are geared for those in high tax brackets, such as 32% or more. If you’re one of those, God bless
Was going to put money into Vanguard Money Market fund VMFXX but I see that is what they use for their settlement fund so I dont have to do anything I guess.
You could be right. I do not have a Vanguard account so I am not certain. At Schwab, unused funds sweep into an account that yields less than one percent. Great for Schwab, but not for the client. If you want a higher return on your cash, you have to purchase a money market fund. Vanguard may automatically sweep unused cash funds into a higher yielding money market fund.
Can't speak for Vanguard, but on Fidelity you are able to choose from several options for your core position or settlement account. My brokerage is set to SPAXX, which is a government MM with a 7-day yield of 4.48%. I'm surprised Schwab wouldn't have a similar option.
3% is far too conservative on an annual basis. A retirees psychology may lead him or her to dip that low in a given year due to financial conditions, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend just taking 4% every year regardless of what you need…but the reality is over time 4% is going to work unless you believe our financial and economic situations have changed long-term. But then I would almost argue you should consider moving.
Anyone who argues for less than 4% consistently seems to assume a retiree will never make another dollar, won’t receive an inheritance, won’t naturally adjust for economic conditions, won’t be willing to make reasonable substitutions when prices go up, etc.
What seems to be more true is that anyone who thinks about this stuff is naturally a better saver than a spender, and they are more likely to be too conservative (and die with a mountain of money).
Schwab might, but I just unaware. Will talk to my advisor about it next time I see him.
Barrons had a recent article about Schwab and why its stock is tanking. Schwab makes a lot of money off people leaving their cash in their low yielding sweep account. Schwab then uses the money to lend on margin and buy bonds. In other words, Schwab makes money off the spread. Lately, customers have been purchasing higher yielding money market funds instead of allowing Schwab to sweep it into lower yielding accounts. The money market funds now yield over 4.5 percent. This has hurt Schwab’s bottom line.
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I go heavy into a total stock market fund in vanguard. I occasionally will pull out and spread around to bond/money market funds if the market has been running hot for a while and looks unstable. Luckiest move I made was pushing all my stock fund money into bond markets in Jan 2020 because it was an election year and Bernie was leading the Dem race. Then covid hit and I went back all stocks when the market bottomed in March. I jumped about 80k that year alone. Noice
Total stock market index
S&P 500 index
Mid cap Index
Small cap growth index
International growth index
A couple of agg growth funds
A couple of sector funds
There is a lot of overlap there, but here is the catch: I have a percent allocation to each one (12.5% to S&P 500, 5% small cap growth, etc). The only changes I make are to re-balance back to those allocation targets. Contributions go mostly to funds that need to be bumped up to get back to their target allocation. This removes emotional decisions from the equation, and forces me to sell high and buy low.
Avoid the temptation to always chase the top performing funds from year to year. You may be buying high and selling low without knowing it.
H
It’s why I don’t reallocate due to percentages. Why give the dogs extra and starve the top performers? Do you take work from your best workers and give it to your average ones?
They are gonna report here soon in may. My hope is it isn’t as dire as some folks think. I’ve been slowly nibbling at their stock. Has a good history and the whole fin industry has dropped, leading to some interest there. Very much like Schwab and their customer service is superb. I moved a ton of stuff there over the past few years.
I don’t take exception to your strategy. However, I must point out that that are probably not getting as much small/mid cap exposure as you think. That’s because the total stock market is a cap-weighted index. The higher the market capitalization of the company, the greater influence it has on its performance. Consequently, although small and mid-cap companies make-up 25 percent of the index, they do not contribute 25 percent to the index’s performance.
I suggest you compare the S&P 500 performance, which is also a cap-weighted index, to the total stock market index. Your will find that the performance of the two indexes do not vary much on a year-to-year basis or over 3-, 5-, or 10 years.
