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Health savings accounts, more commonly known as HSAs, are a powerful tool for investing and saving money on health care expenses. But what can you do if your employer doesn’t offer an HSA?
Or what if your employer’s HSA includes fees? And worse yet, what if it’s difficult to use?
Health care expenses are inevitable, and you want to be prepared with an HSA that’s easy to manage, helps you save money, pay for eligible expenses, and invest for retirement.
Sound like what you’re looking for? Then Starship HSA could be a great fit.
Starship doesn’t have any hidden fees, offers a beautiful debit card that makes it easy to pay for eligible health expenses, and gives you the power to save and invest with your hard-earned HSA funds. All right from their easy to use Starship app.
But what really is an HSA?
HSA stands for ‘health savings account’.
It’s a taxed advantaged savings account used specifically for medical expenses, and designed to lower healthcare costs while saving you money on eligible medical expenses.
HSAs offer massive tax benefits. In fact, it’s the only triple-tax-advantaged account out there. When you use an HSA:
- Contributions are tax-free
- Withdrawals on eligible items and services are tax-free
- Any money you invest grows tax-free
With these types of tax benefits, it’s no wonder HSAs are quickly increasing in popularity.
What does an HSA do?
When you invest money into an HSA, you lower your overall taxable income. Plus, HSAs help you save for both short and long term health expenses.
You can contribute money monthly into your HSA to slowly build up your savings. Then, when you have medical expenses, you can pay for those eligible expenses as well as your deductibles by using your HSA.
And as I mentioned, withdrawals for these eligible expenses are tax-free.
Ok, so do I Qualify for an HSA?
The likely answer is ‘YES’ if you’re enrolled in a high deductible health plan (HDHP). Most HDHPs meet the requirements to open an HSA. If you’re not sure, it’s always best to double check with your insurance provider.
Here are a few other qualifications you’ll want to keep in mind when signing up for an HSA:
- To be eligible for an HSA, you can’t be covered by another health care plan like Medicare, Tricare, or one sponsored by your spouse’s employer.
- You can’t be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return.
There are a couple of other situations where you may qualify for an HSA, or you may not. Those include:
- If you have limited coverage approved by the IRS like dental, vision, or long term care insurance
- If you’re entitled to benefits under an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP), disease management or wellness program, or have discount card prescriptions
The best thing you can do is call your insurance provider and ask if you qualify for a health savings account.
What is Starship HSA?
Starship HSA is a simple to use app that makes it easy to open and manage your HSA right from your phone. The Starship app allows you to create a health savings account, save money for health care expenses, spend on eligible expenses, and invest all in one place.
Starship even has the power to set a savings goal for your HSA, and once you reach your goal, any extra contributions roll over into an auto-investing feature.
How does Starship HSA Work Exactly?
Everything you need to do with Starship can be managed from their app, including but not limited to:
- Managing HSA contributions
- Tracking your HSA savings
- Tracking your HSA spending
- Investing your HSA funds
- Reimbursing for qualified health expenses
- Storing receipts
Another great feature of Starship is the ability to use Starship’s Visa® Debit Card to pay for qualified expenses.
When you swipe your Starship card, the funds come directly out of your HSA.
And because Starship lets you invest with very, very low fees (just $1/month), your HSA can grow faster, and make a bigger impact on your blossoming retirement savings!
Starship uses auto-investing technology that makes growing your funds easier than ever. You can put your investing on auto-pilot by setting a savings threshold within the app, and letting extra funds roll over into investing. And with the help of robo-advisors, you’ll never have to do the legwork considering which funds make the most sense (the app’s got that handled).
Major Benefits of Starship HSA
In case I hadn’t made it clear already, opening a health savings account means major tax advantages that can help you save money on health care expenses and invest money at the same time. As far as retirement accounts go, they’re top notch.
And to make it even better, Starship HSA has a few additional advantages that are important to note.
Simplicity
Starship is the most modern app on the market. Spending, saving, and investing all from one place isn’t the standard in the HSA world, but Starship makes this a reality.
Second, you can keep ALL of the funds in your Starship HSA if and when you change employers. The funds in your account are yours. You don’t need to worry about transferring funds or losing your ability to make contributions.
Low Fees
The only fees you’ll encounter with Starship are when you’re investing, and even those are an all-time low for the industry.
For accounts with less than $5,000, the fees are $1/month. If you have more than $5,000 a month in your investing account, there’s a .35% fee.
If you only use the savings feature of Starship HSA, you won’t incur any fees at all! Plus there aren’t any fees for:
- Withdrawals
- Minimum balance
- Maintenance
- Overdrafts
- Opening or closing an account
- Transactions within the US
- Debit card transactions
Safe and Secure
All Starship accounts are FDIC insured. Spending accounts are insured for $250k and $500k for investing accounts.
Online Support and FAQs
I LOVE the FAQ section of Starship’s website.
There are so many questions asked by real users and great threads displaying the answers. I found it really easy to find answers to my own questions. One nice feature suggests similar topics to your questions so you can really do a deep dive to learn the ins and outs of Starship and HSAs in general.
How to Open an HSA with Starship
Starship has a very simple interface, and you can open your account in just a few minutes. Plus, right now, for a limited time, when you sign up for Starship you’ll receive a $50 bonus.
Read that again 👆🏻
Head to Starship’s website now, and from there you can:
- Sign up and create your account
- Download the app
- Connect your bank account
- Set up monthly recurring contributions
You don’t need to set up recurring contributions, but when you automate the process, it makes saving money and investing a lot easier. Doing so will let your account grow all on its own.
The Starship app is available on Android and iOS.
Go to Starshiphsa.com to get started.