Comments on: What are Flexible Spending Accounts? – Guest Post

By: asithi

asithi — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:03:15 +0000

By January of the following year (since you have until March to spend last year’s FSA), I usually start stocking up on the OTC such as contact lens solution, cough medicine, Thermacare heat pads, etc. Sometimes I even buy my parents glasses, but paid for it with my credit card so that I have a receipt to claim it as mine. I never lost any money with a FSA, but I can see how you can if you are diligent with keeping your receipts.
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By: MrsMicah's Mom

MrsMicah's Mom — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:10:47 +0000

We had a Healthcare Spending Account one year. It was really handy for paying for copays and for mail-order medicines. Since we both have serious health problems, we spent it all by March.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:08:00 +0000

I think the previous posters are confusing a Healthcare Spending Account with a Health Savings Account, which is quite easy to do since they’re both abbreviated as HSA. With a Health Savings Account, you have to have a high-deductible insurace plan. Also, the money you put into your account does rollover each year.

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:45:03 +0000

Interesting. Do you really find that Flex accounts result in larger take-home pay? That’s one pitch my employer has used to try to get us to sign up for them. I’ve tried them twice and both times seen no improvement in net pay.

The HSA I had was not use-it-or-lose-it money, and there were few restrictions on what you could buy with it. But that was early in the development of HSAs…maybe the rules have changed.

For me, the use-it-or-lose-it feature of the Flex account was a real pain: because my son is grown and my health is excellent, I couldn’t spent the entire amount I’d set aside in either of the years I bought into the plan. Result: I had to run out and buy fistfuls of spare glasses I didn’t need.

The HSA had as its drawback that you couldn’t set aside enough in one year to cover the huge deductible. My deductible was $2,000, but I could only invest $1,600 in the HSA. So if I got hurt or sick during the first 18 months on the plan, the amount in savings wouldn’t cover the insurance deductible. Also, the bank’s management fees were outrageous.
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By: ROS

ROS — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:29:56 +0000

Thanks so much for this post! I have just started to research HSAs. Chase bank actually offers one where you can roll leftover money into the next year. It is for the ones without employer health insurance.