Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

Some thoughts:

Put your money into an HSA rather than an FSA. It's a free extra retirement account.

You don't need to worry about being locked out of your 401K after being sacked. It's still your money and they have to give you access to it, even after you're sacked. Transfer the money out to a separate 401K account that only you control after you've left the company. (Or don't, because I'm pretty sure they have to keep your account open indefinitely, but IANAL so ask a professional)

You should practice interviewing well before your last day. Interview somewhere you'd like to work at least every 6 months. Tell them you're not looking to move right away but you're curious about their company and team an open to hearing about new opportunities. Keep in contact afterward.

Not mentioned there, but commuter benefits cards have an expiration after which you can't spend the money, so make sure if you have a balance that you spend it before it expires. I once built up $250 on a card and forgot about it.

HSAs and FSAs are not entirely swappable. HSAs require a qualifying health plan, and are a pain in the ass to move around in my experience. FSAs are actually better for those that are laid off--you can use the full balance of the FSA before you pay it. Say you commit 3k to a FSA, you can use 3k of it on day one (or the day you are laid off...). Your company is on the hook for the remainder of the balance if you aren't there to pay it back.

I would be annoyed as hell if someone kept asking to be interviewed but never accepted the position. Interviews aren't free, don't waste peoples time doing them if you aren't serious/need to practice. Pay for an interview coach.

HSA is deferred for future. I (in 30% tax bracket and pretty healthy) can defer that to future as I only average about two doctor visits per year last 2 years. So, if I put it in FSA, I loose the money since my number of visits to doctor are few and far between. HSA, I can use after I retire also or when I grow older. So for my situation, it is better.

Lately, I haven't been seeing the HSA math make sense, at least for a family. The monthly difference between a high deductible plan with a HSA is not cheap enough to cover the deductible gap, and care has gotten a lot more expensive.

Either choice will most likely result in medical bankruptcy without some sort of independent wealth. Best to have socialized healthcare and not have to worry about any of this.

The only time an HSA worked for me was when it was the plan that had a max on out of pocket payments of 10k. I have a diabetic child and that runs to $1200 per month in out of pocket expenses. When I did the math for deductible, copays, etc it worked in my favor.

I’ve seen at least two companies where if you sign up for the high deductible plan, the employer will contribute the full deductible amount to an HSA. I suspect this might become an increasingly common option in the benefits menu.

You can save receipts for medical care forever and claim them against the HSA years later. The money grows tax free so you basically use it as another 401k. After age 65 or if you become disabled you can start pulling money out of a HSA without a medical cost.

I disagree, but upvoted as I do not think you should be downvoted for your opinion. My objections:

First, all employers are different; some provide a big portion of the funding.

Even if not, HSAs can bring huge benefits if executed right. They are a triple tax-free account: pre-tax deposits, tax-free growth, non-taxable distributions. So a healthy high earner who maxes his HSA contributions for several early-career years can come out far ahead. Or a well-off family that can treat it as yet-another tax-advantaged savings vehicle.

But to reap big benefits HSAs have to be planned and executed over many years and impose some limitations, such as on using FSAs. For someone who is not sure they can diligently follow the strategy over many years, HSAs can be a big headache with limited utility. My 2c.

This is highly plan and employer specific.

However, it's not at all unusual to be better off financially with a high deductible plan even if you max out your deductible.

> Interviews aren't free, don't waste peoples time doing them if you aren't serious/need to practice.

Poor companies, being exploited by all those impudent workers! Thoughts and prayers.

Seriously, though, people are still gonna do that and there's not much you can do to detect or prevent that. Might be easier on your nerves to just accept it as a fact of life.

HSA is great for self employed, esp. if you think you'll remain so for a long time (and don't require better insurance). Tax free contributions, tax free gains, and tax free withdrawals. I have 10 years worth of maximum contributions in one and have never taken a penny out. You can save healthcare related receipts (which includes things like lasik to cold/flu OTC meds) to pay yourself back as well. Use Fidelity, pick boring index fund with low admin costs (FZROX), and thats it.

Very big fan of these investment vehicles and wish there were more. They work best if you're healthy but still good if you use the doctor sometimes, you'll save money. HSAs, however, prob don't have a place in our system long-term, I predict future universal healthcare/phasing out of private insurance. Funding your own healthcare, with tax benefits, is blasphemy among certain schools of thought and would not funnel money into the bigger pool required for universal, which I disagree with.

Funding your own is great until you have an emergency and require the use of a $30,000 per hour operating theater.

So is it better to not fund it?

HDHPs all have out-of-pocket maximums, usually around $5K per person or $10K per family, per year.

> Interviews aren't free, don't waste peoples time doing them if you aren't serious/need to practice. Pay for an interview coach.

1. While I understand this, its really hard for me to sympathize after seeing companies ghost me after multiple rounds of interviews, worst of which is when I spends hours working nights/weekends on their take home assignments (happens a lot more when you are less experienced). What I have learned as I grown older is, everyone (companies / people) always do what's best for them, you do what's best for you (this could be different for different people). I don't make any judgements.

2. Has anyone here actually used an interview coach? Is it really useful/effective?

> While I understand this, its really hard for me to sympathize after seeing companies ghost me after multiple rounds of interviews, worst of which is when I spends hours working nights/weekends on their take home assignments (happens a lot more when you are less experienced). What I have learned as I grown older is, everyone (companies / people) always do what's best for them, you do what's best for you (this could be different for different people). I don't make any judgements.

Exactly. And if you go in not really intending to take the job, the company still has the opportunity to sell you on it. Who knows, they might even succeed, it’s been known to happen.

I'll always use the real thing (applying for companies I have no actual interest in working for) and get the interview practice for free. Coaching is very much a mixed bag.

It's my way of getting my wasted time back from incompetent recruiters.

>I would be annoyed as hell if someone kept asking to be interviewed but never accepted the position. Interviews aren't free, don't waste peoples time doing them if you aren't serious/need to practice. Pay for an interview coach.

Not my problem, sorry. The system is already rigged against interviewees.

If you are up front about your intentions to the interviewer, it's up to them whether they want to interview you or not. Any hiring manager worth their salt would not turn down an offer to interview a good candidate, even if they're not hiring right now. Having one or two great candidates in your back pocket is always handy. Even if that candidate isn't available when you need them, if they had a good experience with you, they'll likely refer someone to you. And, as the hiring manager, maybe you want to move somewhere else, and now you have relationships with good people at other companies. Networking is a long game; don't get annoyed, play to win!

And it goes both ways ... sometimes there isn't a fit, or there is a skills mismatch, or (list goes on).

I would agree that every 6 months - year you should interview for job(s) you are interested in. Once it gets to an offer, maybe it's a big increase in pay or title or whatnot, and it might make sense to move. Or, maybe it's not as enticing, and you can negotiate a bit.

Hiring and interviewing is a two way street, and in the end there are many candidates and usually just one position. Just because the one you are interviewing for isn't a fit doesn't mean you don't love the place if they have a different opening. Just let them know!

> Or don't, because I'm pretty sure they have to keep your account open indefinitely, but IANAL so ask a professional

Definitely a life best practice to periodically consolidate these kinds of accounts. Imagine trying to track down your 401k from your time at GE 20 years ago. It definitely exists somewhere, but it would not be fun finding it.

After 20 years that account might have escheated.

If the plan administrator can't reach you, perhaps.

The Australian Tax Office portal lists all of your active superannuation (or ‘super’, which is basically 401k) accounts, and offers a link to kick off the transfer process.

Despite having one of the most contradictory and complex taxation systems in the world, they do make some things very easy.

Most 401(k)s have some periodic maintenance fee. Transferring to a rollover IRA will eliminate that maintenance fee.

But make a Backdoor roth harder

As far as I can tell, the answer to that is nope. You can do it with a rollover IRA just as easily as with a 401(k).

If you have basis at EOY, there are more taxes.

>You don't need to worry about being locked out of your 401K after being sacked. It's still your money and they have to give you access to it, even after you're sacked. Transfer the money out to a separate 401K account that only you control after you've left the company. (Or don't, because I'm pretty sure they have to keep your account open indefinitely, but IANAL so ask a professional)

You will not be locked out of 401k when you quit but they will charge about $25 per quarter ($100 per year) to maintain your account. I feel it is still a good deal and I left my 401k with my previous employers. so far I have $300k in 401k, so $300/year to maintain the portfolio (across three previous employers) and not messing it up by moving it around seems like a safe deal to me.

Converting a 401k to an IRA can mess up future backdoor Roth conversions as well.

Moving it around wouldn't mess it up. You can move a 401k from a previous employer to a Rollover IRA at any major custodian. This is not a taxable event (you just move pre-tax money to pre-tax money), so it doesn't matter if you sell whatever it's holding and buy the equivalent at a new custodian. The only reason to need to keep a 401k where it is is if that custodian has some unique investment option that you want there that you can't get elsewhere, but that's pretty rare.

I ran into that with one of my old companies where they had a simple IRA and I had a hard time finding that placement investment company for that

Another reason to keep the funds in a 401(k) is to allow you to keep using the Backdoor Roth IRA without worrying about the Pro-rata Rule.

You should be able to transfer a rollover IRA to your latest employer's 401k (and I think a regular, non-Roth, non-rollover IRA as well). One could probably enjoy unrestricted security choice of the traditional brokerage, then move funds back to the 401k before doing a backdoor Roth.

That said, I would talk to a financial advisor before moving large sums of money between account types. My 2c.

Note that IRA protections vary from state to state: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/090915/can-my-ira-b...

Well, the mess up is not from the system. It is from my own mistakes :)

>but they will charge about $25 per quarter ($100 per year) to maintain your account.

This is entirely dependant on your plan and plan administrator. Some charge nothing some charge much more than $100/year (I was paying over $250/quarter with one 401k).

> Put your money into an HSA rather than an FSA. It's a free extra retirement account.

You often can't really pick. To contribute to an HSA, you need to have a high deductible health plan (there have been some pushes in Congress to change this). Whether or not an HDHP makes sense for you really depends on your personal circumstances. Furthermore, you can not contribute to an HSA if you also have a healthcare FSA at the same time (there are other things called "Limited Purpose FSAs", which only cover dental and vision, that can work with an HSA).

That said, if you can contribute to an HSA, they are absolutely the best tax deal around, as they are one of the only vehicles where (a) you can put money into the account tax free, (b) any growth is tax free, and most HSAs allow you to invest, and (c) if you spend the money on an exempt purpose (something healthcare related), then that's also tax free.

> Transfer the money out to a separate 401K account that only you control after you've left the company.

Normally you move the money to a "rollover IRA" account. Every financial institution that offers IRA accounts will have a way to do this. Nowadays, most are automated. The largest players in this space are Fidelity and Vanguard. Your 401k is probably with them already.

To put money in an HSA, then you are required (by law) to have a certain type of insurance plan (one with a massive deductible - usually like $5k). FSAs are a totally different type of plan, and it is really common for the money leftover at the end of the year to be donated to the executive bonus program.

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