Monthly Insights Newsletter – November 2021

Patrick’s Planning Post

It’s open enrollment season for many of you who are still working. Are you making any changes to your health insurance? Is a high deductible health plan and an accompanying health savings account (HSA) right for you and your family? Consider the following benefits of an HSA:

• You are able to make pre-tax contributions from your compensation
• No “use-it-or-lose-it” provision, meaning your account balance carries over indefinitely
• The account balance can be invested and will grow tax-deferred
• Withdrawals from an HSA are tax-free if used to pay for qualified medical expenses
• Withdrawals can be used to make payments that count towards your deductible
• For a non-qualified medical expense, if age 65 or older, you’ll pay income tax on your withdrawals, but no penalty (a 20% penalty applies if younger than age 65)

Choosing a high deductible plan is more nuanced than just deciding you want access to a health savings account. Please reach out with more questions about your employment benefits and we can help estimate your health costs and make the right decision.

Liebman’s Library

For November, we chose a Wall Street Journal article about the impact fund manager experience can potentially have on fund results. Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Reading!!!

Aaron’s Action Items

Start Increasing Your 401k Contributions Now; 401k limits have increased for 2022

For those looking to maximize your 401k in 2022, please make sure to increase your contribution rates now! It typically takes a pay cycle or two for the system to update, so you want to get a head start to be ready for January 1st. Also, the contribution limits for 2022 have increased, so if you were maxing out in 2021, you might need to increase your contributions to make sure you continue to max out for next year.

Here are more details directly from the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-401k-limit-increases-to-20500.