If you have a qualified high deductible health care plan, either personally or through your employer, you should have been advised to open a Health Saving Account. A high deductible health care plan requires you to absorb the expense of a large upfront deductible before the plan begins to provide benefits. This deductible will often be thousands of dollars, for example $2,000 for an individual and perhaps $4,000 for a family. The government created the Health Savings Account, HSA, as a means to help you deal with these upfront expenses.

The HSA is structured to give you three major benefits. First, you can contribute money to the account and deduct it from your current income for tax filing. Second, the account can earn interest and capital gains that are not included in income for tax filing. Third, the money in the HSA can be withdrawn tax free to cover qualified health expenses. This is kind of like taking the best features of a traditional IRA (reduce taxes) and Roth IRA (use tax free), and combining them in one plan.

Just like everything the government does through IRS tax regulations, the HSA has a number of rules that govern how much can be contributed, how much deducted, what expenses are qualified. It matters to learn about these sooner than later. I emphasize sooner because there are advantages for taking the initiatives that will maximize the value of the HSA, and there are consequences for missteps. For instance, you unintentionally begin coverage under medicare that will prevent you from making further contributions.

Here are a couple of items that I found people are unaware of. First, HSA's are not necessarily restricted to the plan custodian your employer offers. You can often select a different HSA custodian for your contributions. Second, while many HSA's are offered through banks effectively offering savings account rates. There are HSA custodians that can provide you with robust investment choices.​

If you're enrolled in a HDHP and contributing to that plans HSA, you may be able to dramatically increase your choice of investments. Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions.

We know sooner or later that we are going to face death. Planning for this inevitability is not usually on the top of our list of joys in life. But, you and I both know it will matter to our loved ones.

This is one of the conversations I have with my clients. I have found that it helps many couples talk about this in greater depth than they would have otherwise. I think that's because it is more of an intellectual exercise with me as an independent third party, rather than a potentially depressing (or scary) talk just between the couple. It's almost always enlightening for the couple. (amazing what we don't say to each other).

You can easily find a number of articles online that list the important documents you should have, as well as advice on what steps to follow in advance of death (or infirmity). So, why do many people not prepare these documents?

Because it's very human to have good intentions, and yet fail to act on them. Another reason is that I think some people discover it's can be harder work than they initially thought. And so, they put it off for another time. What these articles don't do is push you through the process. That's what I do.

Like many financial matters, the topic of wills and trusts can sometimes seem complicated. It's one of those areas that doesn't get addressed very often as we go about our lives. I can help make sense of these topics, as well as steer you through to completion. So, let's get our affairs in order before we die. Give me a call or send me an email. I'm happy to talk with you.