Over 25 years of doing this work, one question has found me in nearly every planning conversation I have had. "Are we going to be okay?" A portfolio balance tells you what you have on a given day. It says nothing about what you will spend, what healthcare will cost as you age, what taxes look like once distributions begin, or what happens when the market decides not to cooperate in the early years of your retirement.
One might not anticipate the topic of long-term care insurance coming up in the same conversation as the Beatles, their ageless music, and their irreplaceable imprint on pop culture. But aging is a natural part of life, as the famous Beatles song, "When I'm Sixty-Four", kindly reminds us.
HSAs offer you three potential opportunities for tax savings. Your account contributions are tax deductible, the earnings in your account grow tax free, and you can withdraw funds from your HSA, tax free, so long as they are used to pay for qualified health care expenses.
We all have our "blue sky" visions of the way retirement should be, yet our futures may unfold in ways we do not predict. So, as you think about your "second act," you may want to consider some life and financial factors that can suddenly arise.
When considering your retirement strategy, how much thought do you give to how long you might live? It can be an uncomfortable reality to consider, but this shouldn't dissuade you from giving it some serious thought.