re: Americans say they 1.3 million to have a comfy retirement

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ACA provides the ability to get affordable (even cheap) health insurance before 65. The key is the ability to control your taxable income.

Without ACA, I wouldn't be planning for my early retirement within the next 6-8 years.

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damn mine has only increased every year since 2010. Wondering when its going to get cheap.

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Some states have better ACA policies to choose from.

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Which states are good for choices?

This is somewhat retirement related and I just found out about this maybe 2-3 months ago....

Did you know(aka Wed fun fact) that HSA's(health savings accounts) have no time limit on when you can reimburse yourself? For those of us like myself that have the option of a high deductible savings account, which allows the HSA, it's a great investment opportunity.

If you wanted to, you can contribute the max every year, which is pre-tax, and invest the overage(any investment growth is tax free), and then whenever your ready(5, 10, etc years down the road), reimburse yourself, which would also be tax free as long as it's for medical expenses.

Now, you'd have to keep extremely clean records/receipts, but it is possible to have a triple tax advantage using an HSA to grow that money and then pay yourself back with that money for medical expenses years down the road.

Also, once you hit 65, you can withdraw money from an HSA for non-medical related expenses. At that time, it will be taxed as ordinary income, but if you've been contributing and letting it grow for decades, you can have a pretty nice chunk to pull from outside of any medical expenses.

Back to the immediate topic, every time I see one of those charts about average and median retirement savings, it blows my mind how little most people have for retirement. And I'll reiterate what several people have said...there is no magic number. It all depends on what you want your lifestyle to be. If you want to travel the world and drive a Porsche, yeah, you'll need way more than 1.3MM. If you want to live simply, that might work.

There are plenty of factors like inflation and what happens to SS, but it's going to be a different target for everyone. Just start as early as you can and save as much as you can when it comes to long term retirement accounts.

Do you have a good source/article for that? Can HSA's be used on insurance premiums? If so, couldn't you just keep your paystubs and take reimbursements as needed.

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Can HSA's be used on insurance premiums?

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Some insurance premiums like for COBRA, Medicare, and Long Term Care premiums may be eligible.

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Conventional wisdom is that retirees spend a fixed amount per year in real terms, meaning that the nominal amount they need rises each year with inflation. But evidence on actual spending behavior suggests that real spending falls with age. If that’s true, people need to save less for retirement than we think.

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The best summary I’ve read of this phenomenon is as follows:

(Based on a “normal” retirement scenario)

The first portion is Go-Go: travel, pursue hobbies, take kids/grandkids places, etc.

The second phase is Slow-Go: less travel, more doctors appointments, more sedentary activities & hobbies

The final phase is No-Go: Schedule revolves around Doctors appointments and medicine, little to no travel, activity level and hobbies are minimal

Obviously everyone’s scenarios are different but that’s a decent generalization of a typical 20+ year retirement

Unrelated fun fact: Estimates vary but it’s generally accepted that the final year of an average retired person’s life sees them spend around 25% of their lifetime’s total medical expenses in that final year.

Yep, I've been maxing my family HSA contribution since 2020 and investing a good portion of that. I didn't catch the March/April 2020 lows but those cheap oil stocks I bought late 2020 look very nice right now. Will never pay a dime of taxes on that money.

I haven't spent any of the funds, just cash pay for everything and save the receipts to reimburse myself later.

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quote:My grandfather retired at 59 and lived until 99. Imagine trying to navigate that without a pension like most of us will have to.

thats when you just kill yourself. Cant see wanting to be around until 99, broke and shitting my pants. frick that shite.

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Haha. While not that extreme, my idea when I’m that old and have exhausted my savings , head to Northern Nigeria to preach Christianity, boom, martyr, straight to heaven