re: Anybody else using their HSA as a retirement vehicle?

I am retired now (I turn 59 in July). I only got an HSA option the last two years I was working. I have HDHP now and will still contribute to the HSA until I go on Medicare when I am 65. There are some rumblings that Congress wants to allow HSA contributions passed age 65, so I am hopping I can keep doing that.

I am hoping to accumulate enough assets in the HSA to at least have a little flexibility in how I handle my medical expenses when I get older. I pay all the out of pocket costs right now, and hope to accumulate as much in the HSA as I can, and hopefully not touch it until I am in my later years.

If you are younger, based on what I have seen my own parents go through, I would say you should place the same importance on funding and not spending from the HSA as you do on funding 401K up to the company match. HSA is probably more valuable than a Roth IRA if you have to make a choice between the two, but probably only if you delay spending from the HSA until you are much older.

Flip side of that argument is that if you check out early, the Roth is definitely better, because your beneficiaries will not be taxed. If you live a long time, or your wife does, the HSA will probably be more useful to you.