Gyroscopic Investing

Please don't give up thousands of dollars in Medicare tax savings Sophie!

ochotona wrote:Please don't give up thousands of dollars in Medicare tax savings Sophie!

Thousands? am I missing something? I thought Medicare tax on $4450 at my income level is $64.25 (1.45%). It should work out better to invest everything straight away in January, instead of waiting for a year to transfer over the money collected from 12 months of paycheck deductions. Which is enough of a PITA that it's actually worth paying $64 not to do it.

You're right what was I thinking?

The TDA funds just transferred to my new Lively investment account. It took about a week, but has handily beat the cash rollover from HSA Bank (not showed up yet and I don't expect it for another few weeks at least).

I've noticed trouble logging into Lively - it's very slow and a couple of times I wasn't able to get in at all. I wonder if their site is overwhelmed by all the transfers they're getting. Anyone else noticed this?

sophie wrote:The TDA funds just transferred to my new Lively investment account. It took about a week, but has handily beat the cash rollover from HSA Bank (not showed up yet and I don't expect it for another few weeks at least).

I've noticed trouble logging into Lively - it's very slow and a couple of times I wasn't able to get in at all. I wonder if their site is overwhelmed by all the transfers they're getting. Anyone else noticed this?

I noticed a little bit of lag last week, but right now, none at all.

The US government just lowered the 2018 HSA contribution limit by $50, because of chained CPI. Don't contribute as much as you thought you could, or else you will face a penalty.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/ ... limit.aspx

Lively HSA / TD Ameritrade doesn't gave free gold ETFs, but it does trade for free DBA, the agricultural commodity ETF. That one has been pummeled into the mud. Might be bottoming.

As a public service announcement: DBA is not a substitute for gold.

Two of the three funds I hold at TD Ameritrade are not commission free (VTI and IAU). I trade rarely enough in the HSA that I don't worry too much about this - except it does make me less likely to want to split up new contributions into the 4 allocations; I'm choosing to buy the lagging asset instead so I only have to pay one fee instead of 3.

sophie wrote:As a public service announcement: DBA is not a substitute for gold.

Two of the three funds I hold at TD Ameritrade are not commission free (VTI and IAU). I trade rarely enough in the HSA that I don't worry too much about this - except it does make me less likely to want to split up new contributions into the 4 allocations; I'm choosing to buy the lagging asset instead so I only have to pay one fee instead of 3.

I understand it not being gold, it just seems like an interesting asset class. Crops are bountiful because of a multiyear string of good weather, and required energy inputs are cheap. Those conditions won't last forever.

My DiscoverBenefits old HSA came over within two weeks. You might have to use the source custodian's forms, not Lively's forms. I had to do that.

I am now waiting for my final $600 to move over.

My HSA Bank cash account funds came through last week. If you're also with HSA Bank you might want to call them. You started this before I did and it seems odd that yours is still held up - something must be wrong.

Money is sticky isn't it.

Old HSA to Lively in 10 days.

Lively sent out an email yesterday announcing a brilliant but maybe questionable HSA "hack": if you are under age 26 and covered under your parents' high deductible family plan but not a dependent on your parents' tax return, you can make the full family contribution to your own HSA. It seems the HSA criteria don't include any test to guarantee one HSA per HDHP; all HDHP covered members, according to Lively, can contribute to their own HSA as long as they meet the letter of the IRS's list of 4 tests.

This seems unlikely to stand a real test from the IRS. Not to mention that I don't really want them to be drawing attention to HSAs, which as it is are almost too good to be left intact in future budget negotiations.

I found a ultrashort bond ETF on the TD Ameritrade side of Lively HSA that I am going to stick new money into until I rebalance. It's iShares floating rate bonds, symbol FLOT. The dividend is 1.54%, which will adjust upward as the Fed tightens, and the share price is much more stable than regular bonds.

It trades commission free if you hold it for more than 30 days at TD.

Nice, thanks ochotona!

Gives me a bit of incentive to tackle the periodic Optum to Lively transfer (my employer uses Optum). Has anyone tried this yet? I remember someone else's employer uses Optum.

sophie wrote:Nice, thanks ochotona!

Gives me a bit of incentive to tackle the periodic Optum to Lively transfer (my employer uses Optum). Has anyone tried this yet? I remember someone else's employer uses Optum.

My employer uses Optum and while I haven't tried recurring transfers I did a couple of manual transfers per year in 2016-2017 and Optum didn't charge me anything. I actually called Optum and asked them about transfer fees, they said they only charge for the full account transfer combined with account closure. They don't charge for partial transfers.

Good news: as was promised, Lively finally added the ability to set up transfers and rollovers to their website. No more PDF form filling/signing. I'll try the new feature later this year.

The IRS changed the HSA limit again

I used the new transfer form to snarf funds from my employer (Optum) account. It was super easy, just had to provide the account info online and then e-sign it, then the funds magically appeared. No fee that I'm aware of from Optum, but I was careful to leave some money in the account to prevent them closing it. The fund transfer took a little over a week.

Hopefully they'll keep the account info handy so next time will be even easier, but even so it sure beats the usual process of printing out and mailing a form, waiting 6 weeks, calling to ask what became of it, and re-sending because it got lost.

I'm liking the TD Ameritrade trading platform. The conditional orders are cool.

sophie wrote: ↑Sat May 12, 2018 8:38 am I used the new transfer form to snarf funds from my employer (Optum) account. It was super easy, just had to provide the account info online and then e-sign it, then the funds magically appeared. No fee that I'm aware of from Optum, but I was careful to leave some money in the account to prevent them closing it. The fund transfer took a little over a week.

Hopefully they'll keep the account info handy so next time will be even easier, but even so it sure beats the usual process of printing out and mailing a form, waiting 6 weeks, calling to ask what became of it, and re-sending because it got lost.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Sophie! Good to know they didn't charge for the partial transfer. I'm planning to move my balance soon, just have to be careful and leave a few bucks in the Optum account.

HealthEquity to Lively HSA took 3 weeks end-to-end

I had a change of employers... looks like the new employer offers an FSA, but no HSA! Darn it!

ochotona wrote: ↑Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:39 pm I had a change of employers... looks like the new employer offers an FSA, but no HSA! Darn it!

Are you sure? These days almost everyone offers HDHP plans. Sometimes plan names include something like "HDHP" or "HSA compatible"...

That is true, they do have an HDHP. But, if the employer does not do the HSA funding by a payroll deduction, you don't get that contribution shielded from tax. If I decide not to use the FSA then I can make my own HSA contributions, but then HSA is like a Roth IRA, I don't get all of the tax benefits.

I hope I'm wrong. I have not seen the formal enrollment materials yet, I've had a verbal offer. I will find out next week.