HSA for self employed (HSA HACKS to financial freedom) - YouTube

If you already have an hsa, or you're looking into  getting one, here are the five things you must  

know about health savings accounts. Hey, welcome  on this channel! I help self-employed women  

build their wealth and be more profitable in a  business. Every Tuesday I post a new video, and  

be sure to subscribe. Hit the bell to be notified  when a new one is ready for you. I'm Stephanie,  

a certified financial planner. I've been working  with self-employed women for over 14 years.  

Let's talk about hsas. The cash you put into  your hsa sits in cash until you invest it, so  

often I hear people say well I contributed to my  hsa, or "my ira isn't the money invested...'" No,  

it's not. Hsas are not invested until you give  the custodian the instructions on how you want  

it invested, how much you want invested, how much  you want to leave in cash, and that's all done  

through the custodian, which is the institution  that has the authority through the irs to set  

up these hsas and to monitor them on your behalf,  because with hsas you can decide to spend it now,  

or a little bit later, or much later, invest it,  or save it. So there's a lot of different options  

and the institution where your funds are held  needs to know what you decide to do with your  

money. Another common question about hsas is "I'm  not on payroll how can i make a contribution to  

my hsa and have it be tax deductible?." Yes,  you can contribute to your hsa even if you're  

not on payroll. If you take a draw, if you're if  you file as an llc, or you file as a sole prop,  

or you take chunks of money throughout the year  when you are profitable, you can still contribute  

to an hsa and have a deductible. Here's the  thing... you're going to want to keep track of it,  

and you're going to want to check with your  custodian on how much that you contribute, because  

hsa companies are not required to issue a 54 98  -- that's the tax form -- (you can google it) it  

tells how much you can contribute, how much you  contributed, how much you withdrew from your hsa  

for that year. You'll probably get that in May.  It's not required to send it to you any earlier,  

so if you're going to file your taxes and not go  on extension keep track of how much you put into  

your hsa, and you can always look in your portal  through your hsa provider and see how much and  

track how much you've contributed that year. Be  sure to stay to the end of this video! I'm going  

to share with you financial planning strategies  that my clients use and I used to build wealth, so  

that you can continue to build yours. So there's  two ways to grow your hsa: one to contribute  

cash into your hsa, and two is to invest the  funds which gives you growth over time. Now if  

you need the money right away from your hsa don't  invest the money, because there's could be so much  

volatility in the market the value could be lower  when you need it. So when you invest your hsa  

make sure it's for long term, five to seven years  or longer. That the money will stay invested here  

might be a little bit of surprise for you.  Not all hsa custodians are built the same.  

Some hsa custodians do not have  investments for you to choose from, so  

when it comes to money removing as many barriers  or obstacles as possible to building your wealth  

is absolutely key. Choosing an hsa custodian that  has investments ready for you to invest right away  

when you're ready is really important to building  your wealth, so that when you do have an account  

that values $10,000 or $15,000, and you're  ready to invest some of that, or even sooner,  

you can do so right through the custodian that you  have your hsa with. So do you have an hsa and have  

you run into any challenges with your custodian,  or your hsa? Let me know in the comments below  

what some of those challenges might be or  what you might be facing. I would love to help  

or make another video that might support you and  support others hsas. Here's one thing that you  

must know... is that you cannot be on medicare.  To have an hsa you can be on medicare and have a  

hsa from PREVIOUS employers, and continue to use  that for things like eligible expenses (such as  

medicare premiums,) but if you're on medicare you  cannot contribute to an hsa because you have to  

be on a high deductible health plan to have  an hsa and high dental health plan. This is  

really important to understand because there  are typically more expenses out of pocket  

with a high deductible health plan so you're going  to really want to evaluate and check out this  

video as well about out of pocket maximums. You're  going to want to really evaluate how frequently  

you go to the doctor, to assess if an hsa is right  for you. So evaluating how frequently you go to  

doctor is key! And maybe you have an upcoming  surgery, or you're planning to have a baby,  

or something of that nature... you can... at  enrollment time you can actually switch off  

a high deductible health plan. If you're on one  on to a ppo plan, with lower out-of-pocket costs  

and maybe higher premiums, so I call it more  of like the gold plan then the platinum plan,  

and you don't have to worry so much about the  out-of-pocket maximums, and so that really helps  

you with managing your cash flow when you come off  that high deductible health plan onto another. You  

cannot contribute to the hsa because again the  high high deductible hdhp high deductible health  

plan is associated with the hsa, and they go hand  in hand. So when you take time off from that plan  

you can't make contributions that year,  but you can go back on it the next year  

and begin making contributions again. As much as  I love hsas, I think they are so convenient, I  

love that you can put money into it tax-free, you  can grow tax-free, and you can take withdrawals  

tax-free on qualified medical expenses...there  might be something better, and I need you to  

check with your cpa on this, because contributing  to a 401k or some type of profit sharing plan  

for yourself it might be more beneficial from a  tax perspective than contributing to the hsa. One,  

it depends on what state you live in, and two, it  depends on your tax bracket. So those are some top  

five things that you need to know about hsas,  and especially if you're self-employed. So here  

is that financial planning strategy that I use my  clients use to build their wealth. I'm going to  

break it down into three parts: Here first  part is, if you have a partner or a spouse  

that works for a large company or organization,  quite often they offer benefits they might offer a  

high deductible health plan with hsa. Check with  the company and do a little bit more research.  

A lot of these companies they make contributions  if you sign up for the hsa. They actually save  

money and they make company dollar contributions  that free money into the hsa without you having to  

do anything, so and it might be more beneficial.  AND they might contribute more if you're on a  

family plan versus an individual... So do your  research! There secondly a really great way to  

build your wealth once you get to that threshold,  at every hsa requires that you keep some money in  

cash. Maybe it's a couple thousand dollars and you  can invest the rest of the money inside the hsa.  

Any money that you need to pay out of pocket for  prescriptions or health care or out-of-pocket max  

have the $6,500 or the out-of-pocket maximum for  the year. Have it in cash somewhere you can have  

it inside the hsa, which but means you have to  take the money out, so pay for those expenses  

out of pocket. I know it seems a really really  quite strange but the longer that you can keep  

money invested in your hsa and pay for those  expenses out of pocket the better, and it balances  

out because you get to grow that count over time,  and it doesn't dwindle when you're paying for this  

or paying for that, and the goal is the goal  is when you retire you can actually use the hsa  

for medicare premiums. That's a qualified eligible  expense at this time of this video. The irs can  

make all kinds of changes and rules, so keep  that in mind! And then the third part of that is  

check with your cpa again, and on from a tax  perspective on where you live in your state  

check to see what's more beneficial for you to  contribute to an ira, a profit sharing plan for  

your company, what is it or your spouse, what's  the best contribution you can make. Always take,  

always take a 401k match first. That is absolutely  free money if your spouse or partner has a 401k  

available. So there are my tips on how to build  your wealth of financial planning strategies  

that we use. I hope that's supportive and  totally serves you! In the comments below  

let me know what was the most helpful thing  about this video. If you would please,  

it helps me create content that is really valuable  for you and other people. Also to help you build  

your wealth and your version of financial freedom  I have two guides. There's a link below. the first  

one is maximizing your health benefits, and  these are little mini hacks I talk about them  

in the video. The download's really easy. These  are free free guides by the way. And the second  

one is eight ways to succeed as a self-employed  woman. And these give you really balanced holistic  

ways to growing your wealth without burning out.  Check those out in the link below and be sure to  

like this video! Subscribe, share it -- it  helps more people see it -- I really want to  

give quality content from a certified financial  planner, and I know the information is accurate,  

so that is super helpful. Until next  time! I will see you soon. Ciao for now!

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