HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

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jxs705
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HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by jxs705 »

I am looking into a few low cost HSA account, and focusing on HSA bank, Health Savings Administrators and Optum bank. The HSA bank monthly fee can be waived if the balance is above 5000$, but the Health Savings Administrators has 45$ annual fee which cannot be waived. Health Savings Administrators use Vanguard funds, but HSA bank uses TD Ameritrade, where only pre-selected funds have no trading fees. Not sure about Optum bank. So which account is better in terms of monthly cost and trading cost? Thanks.
mhalley
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by mhalley »

There was a thread here on bogleheads about hsa that talked about several options. I recently went with Eli Lilly FCU. They have free etf trading via TD ameritrade. $3 a month fee if you don't leave 2500 in savings paying 1%. Finance buffs review: http://thefinancebuff.com/best-hsa-prov ... money.html They added an extra $24 fee after he posted the review, but he still thought it was a good deal: http://thefinancebuff.com/elfcu-best-hsa-adds-fee.html (note the finance buff's website seems a little wonky right now, hopefully that will be fixed, link to elilillyfcu)
http://www.elfcu.org/health-savings-account/
Saturna got pretty good review also: http://www.saturna.com/hsaesa/hsa4.shtml $14.95 a trade I believe.
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rallycobra
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by rallycobra »

Health Savings Administrators provides Admiral level Vanguard funds. By my calculations, after the 2nd year of max family contribution, they have the lowest fees of anyone. If someone has evidence otherwise, please enlighten me. TIA!
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odradekisch
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by odradekisch »

Sorry to hijack the thread, but this seemed somewhat relevant and I'm not sure if this warrants a new thread as it's a simple question.

For HSA Administrators (those who have it), how do you purchase funds? I have money in the debit portion, but the website is not very user friendly. I thought 'Exchange funds' was the tab I needed, where I could then transfer it from the debit card to Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Admiral shares, however when I click source fund, the drop down box shows nothing. Destination fund has all the options.

Anyone else experience this problem?
555
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by 555 »

My employer has an HDHP with HSA called Bancorp (mysmartsaver) HSA. I haven't used it yet, may start next year. I had a thread asking about it here.
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... 2&t=147692
And I looked into fees here.
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... 2#p2216891
It looks like you have to make one $5.99 trade per calendar year to avoid a $25 inactivity fee. No other fees if you leave $2500 sitting in cash. It looks like there are all the Fidelity Spartan funds, Investor and Advantage Class (no Vanguard though).
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by MossySF »

rallycobra wrote:Health Savings Administrators provides Admiral level Vanguard funds. By my calculations, after the 2nd year of max family contribution, they have the lowest fees of anyone. If someone has evidence otherwise, please enlighten me. TIA!
Your calculation is probably missing the per fund custodial fee. The annual $45 fee is fine -- plenty of HSA platforms have either fixed annual fees or waived fees for some bank balance (where you end up paying more in lost investment opportunities). There is a 0.32% annual fee per mutual fund capped at $20K. This means you should putting everything in a single fund to increase your percentage of over-$20K versus under-$20K. Say you put everything into TSM Admiral with 0.14% ER. At $20K balance, $45 annual fee + 0.32% custodial fee + 0.14% = .685% total ER.

Here's what HSA Administrators' total ERs look like at various asset levels:

Code: Select all

              TSM      LS       TSM+TBM
                       60/40    60/40
              -----    -----    -----
$5,000        1.36%    1.39%    1.34%
$10,000       0.91%    0.94%    0.89%
$15,000       0.76%    0.79%    0.74%
$20,000       0.69%    0.72%    0.67%
$50,000       0.36%    0.39%    0.47%
$100,000      0.25%    0.28%    0.29%
$150,000      0.21%    0.24%    0.24%
$250,000      0.18%    0.21%    0.19%
$500,000      0.16%    0.19%    0.15%
$1,000,000    0.15%    0.18%    0.14%
Note, when doing these calculations, assume you will pay the "waived by minimum balance" fees because you want to come out even further ahead by paying out of taxable and reimbursing yourself way in the future after decades of tax deferred growth. HSA Bank offers you the option of $2.50/mo fee or keep $5000 in the bank account earning next to nothing. At the most conservative option, $5000 invested in TBM would throw off about $125 per year in interest. ($250+ for a 60/40 fund expected 5%+ long-term return.) In order to save on $30, you have give up $125-$250 (or more) in lost opportunity returns.
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Aptenodytes
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Aptenodytes »

odradekisch wrote:Sorry to hijack the thread, but this seemed somewhat relevant and I'm not sure if this warrants a new thread as it's a simple question.

For HSA Administrators (those who have it), how do you purchase funds? I have money in the debit portion, but the website is not very user friendly. I thought 'Exchange funds' was the tab I needed, where I could then transfer it from the debit card to Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Admiral shares, however when I click source fund, the drop down box shows nothing. Destination fund has all the options.

Anyone else experience this problem?
I have my HSA with HSA Administrators. You probably need to set up a brokerage account. Just call them and tell them what you want to do and they'll walk you through it.
555
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by 555 »

MossySF wrote:There is a 0.32% annual fee per mutual fund capped at $20K.
Dealbreaker. Too expensive.
rallycobra
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by rallycobra »

555 wrote:
MossySF wrote:There is a 0.32% annual fee per mutual fund capped at $20K.
Dealbreaker. Too expensive.
Thank you, I missed that.

Is there a less expensive alternative administrator for Vanguard funds?
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by kingsnake »

I use HSA bank and have the TD Ameritrade link, you buy Vanguard ETFs for no transaction fees. I have all the money in VTI with like 200 bucks in the HSA bank and they pull out some fees out of that every month. The fee is pretty small. I think if you keep 5000 in the HSA bank you dont pay the fee, but I'd rather the extra 4800 in VTI. Seems to work for me.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by mdavis »

Recently moved out of HSA Admin to HSAbank.

I found HSA Admin to have a stone-age website with no support for things like mint.com and a really annoying certificate system, contributions always seemed delayed (always wondered if they waited to group purchases?), and I wasn't thrilled about the fee structure....HSA admin actually uses HSAbank, so the process required lots of money movement and logistics for fee payments vs. contributions and I think this might have been one of the reasons they applied one of my contributions to the wrong year!

-mark
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by ebv »

Went with Eli Lilly (soon to be Elements Financial). Been there a year. My employer's custodian didn't offer any funds or other options that had less than a 1% ER.

Right now have $2,500 in savings account there (to avoid the monthly fee). And about $5,000 in TDAmeritrade (stashed away in Vanguard and iShares ETFs (pretty much the four-fund approach)).

So each year I plan to roll over funds from my employer's custodian (which are just parked in money market) that exceed our annual deductible. So far, I'm pleased, though less than thrilled that elfcu has imposed more fees and restrictions than they did when I signed up.
555
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by 555 »

General question: what kinds of transaction are people able to make in their HSAs. Can you only buy and sell mutual funds, i.e. exchange mutual funds for cash, or are you also able to dirctly exchange one mutual fund for another mutual fund? What about something more complicated like exchanging one mutual fund plus some new cash for another mutual fund (and paying only one transaction fee to do so)?
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by grabiner »

555 wrote:General question: what kinds of transaction are people able to make in their HSAs. Can you only buy and sell mutual funds, i.e. exchange mutual funds for cash, or are you also able to dirctly exchange one mutual fund for another mutual fund? What about something more complicated like exchanging one mutual fund plus some new cash for another mutual fund (and paying only one transaction fee to do so)?
It depends on how the account is set up. I have an HSA Bank account which is linked to TD Ameritrade. At TD Ameritrade, I can do anything that could be done in a brokerage account, such as buying and selling stocks and mutual funds. The only connection between the two accounts is that I can move cash between HSA Bank and the money-market fund at TD Ameritrade. Thus, if I needed cash to pay a medical bill, I would have to sell some stock, wait for the transaction to clear, and then transfer the cash to HSA Bank in order to write a check on the bank account.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Angst »

MossySF wrote:HSA Bank offers you the option of $2.50/mo fee or keep $5000 in the bank account earning next to nothing. At the most conservative option, $5000 invested in TBM would throw off about $125 per year in interest. ($250+ for a 60/40 fund expected 5%+ long-term return.) In order to save on $30, you have give up $125-$250 (or more) in lost opportunity returns.
The bar at HSA Bank actually is up to $66/year, not $30. They have two fees, both of which are charged in any month where the bank account falls below $4,925. (This threshold rises to $5,000 on Jan 1, 2015.) The fees are:

1) $2.50 Monthly Account Maintenance Fee
2) $3.00 Monthly Investment Fee

Incidentally, current rates they pay are as follows:
$5,000.00 - $9,999.99 0.20%
$2,500.00 - $4,999.99 0.10%
Less Than $2,500 0.05%

The entire balance gets the highest qualifying rate, so one might as well kick the $4,025 up to $5,000 to effectively double the rate you're getting, if you're holding cash to avoid the $66. However, I think MossySF's argument is still good - $125, just with TBM, is much more than $66. Btw, HSA Bank says on the phone that if you don't have the $5.50 available in your HSA bank account each month, they will use/sell what they need to in your Ameritrade account to cover it. And "no", you cannot pay this monthly fee with non-HSA funds. :annoyed

The fee schedule pdf is here, if this link will work: http://www.hsabank.com/~/media/files/fees_s1
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by niceguy7376 »

Angst wrote:
MossySF wrote:Btw, HSA Bank says on the phone that if you don't have the $5.50 available in your HSA bank account each month, they will use/sell what they need to in your Ameritrade account to cover it. And "no", you cannot pay this monthly fee with non-HSA funds. :annoyed
I had a independent family HDHP plan with Humana and went with HSABank for HSA. They gave a discount and said that the fees would be $30 per year if I want to go ahead and invest the full amount (First year of HSA). I sent in a check for the $30 for this calendar year from my bank account (non-HSA funds).
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jxs705
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by jxs705 »

So I still need to pay the $3 monthly investment fee even if I keep all money in HSA and don't invest anything in TDAmeritrade? that does not make sense to me.
Angst wrote:
MossySF wrote:HSA Bank offers you the option of $2.50/mo fee or keep $5000 in the bank account earning next to nothing. At the most conservative option, $5000 invested in TBM would throw off about $125 per year in interest. ($250+ for a 60/40 fund expected 5%+ long-term return.) In order to save on $30, you have give up $125-$250 (or more) in lost opportunity returns.
The bar at HSA Bank actually is up to $66/year, not $30. They have two fees, both of which are charged in any month where the bank account falls below $4,925. (This threshold rises to $5,000 on Jan 1, 2015.) The fees are:

1) $2.50 Monthly Account Maintenance Fee
2) $3.00 Monthly Investment Fee

Incidentally, current rates they pay are as follows:
$5,000.00 - $9,999.99 0.20%
$2,500.00 - $4,999.99 0.10%
Less Than $2,500 0.05%

The entire balance gets the highest qualifying rate, so one might as well kick the $4,025 up to $5,000 to effectively double the rate you're getting, if you're holding cash to avoid the $66. However, I think MossySF's argument is still good - $125, just with TBM, is much more than $66. Btw, HSA Bank says on the phone that if you don't have the $5.50 available in your HSA bank account each month, they will use/sell what they need to in your Ameritrade account to cover it. And "no", you cannot pay this monthly fee with non-HSA funds. :annoyed

The fee schedule pdf is here, if this link will work: http://www.hsabank.com/~/media/files/fees_s1
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by DanMacMan »

mdavis wrote:Recently moved out of HSA Admin to HSAbank.

I found HSA Admin to have a stone-age website with no support for things like mint.com and a really annoying certificate system, contributions always seemed delayed (always wondered if they waited to group purchases?), and I wasn't thrilled about the fee structure....HSA admin actually uses HSAbank, so the process required lots of money movement and logistics for fee payments vs. contributions and I think this might have been one of the reasons they applied one of my contributions to the wrong year!

-mark
Reviving an old thread. I am also selecting HSA Bank with TD Ameritrade option to buy no transaction fee ETFs. It seems the fees at HSA Bank are waived if over $5000

Fidelity does to offer an HSA currently unless you work for a company with 500 employees+.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Aptenodytes »

odradekisch wrote:Sorry to hijack the thread, but this seemed somewhat relevant and I'm not sure if this warrants a new thread as it's a simple question.

For HSA Administrators (those who have it), how do you purchase funds? I have money in the debit portion, but the website is not very user friendly. I thought 'Exchange funds' was the tab I needed, where I could then transfer it from the debit card to Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund Admiral shares, however when I click source fund, the drop down box shows nothing. Destination fund has all the options.

Anyone else experience this problem?
I keep my HSA investment account at HSA Administrators. I can't remember exactly steps I initially followed, but I do know that I asked them what to do and then did what they said, and it was very easy.

At a broad level, you need to create a brokerage account. Your debit-card account can only move cash in and out. To trade mutual fund shares you need a brokerage account. Then you move cash from your debit card account to the brokerage account, and within that account you can do the kinds of trades you are after. If you already have a brokerage fund then I can't really help other than to say to call them.

I don't expect great service with my HSA investment account; I only plan on doing at most one trade a year so I don't care how easy it is.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by BenJ »

Hello all, From what I can gather, Elements Financial has the lowest rates HSA account now. $3/month if balance falls below $2500 and one can invest in TD ameritrade with no fees. Otherwise no fees. Currently I have HSA bank but have to leave $5000 in it or incur $2.50/month fee plus another $3/month investment fee.

It's unfortunate that the HSA scheme has so many fees, but that's the financial industry....scamming everyone on fees.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by JDCarpenter »

BenJ wrote:Hello all, From what I can gather, Elements Financial has the lowest rates HSA account now. $3/month if balance falls below $2500 and one can invest in TD ameritrade with no fees. Otherwise no fees. Currently I have HSA bank but have to leave $5000 in it or incur $2.50/month fee plus another $3/month investment fee.

It's unfortunate that the HSA scheme has so many fees, but that's the financial industry....scamming everyone on fees.
Will look into Elements. Thanks.

With regard to the fees, I would be surprised if there is a huge profit on this product. I suspect that very few people use the HSA as a long-term investment account. For the majority who do not, you are looking at a large number of smallish transactions and high turnover of the money pool....
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by texasdiver »

I'm using Elements.

I have over $2500 account balance so zero fees and earn 1% on my balance. My last transfer to TD Ameritrade was before they instituted their new $25 wire transfer fee but even with the fee which I will only be paying once a year, Elements still comes out ahead of all the other options that I investigated.

Bottom line? If you maintain a $2500 cash balance earning 1% and you only transfer funds to TD Ameritrade once a year your annual fees with Elements will be $25. I don't know of any other provider that will let you operate an HSA with an investment account option for $25 per year.

Be advised that Elements is a fairly small credit union. I think they only have 4 branches in the Indianapolis area. And their HSA department is a very small part of what is already a small organization. So they only have a couple of staff there that handle HSA business and you may actually need to get someone on the phone to get something done as was the case when I sent in a withdrawal request. But they are friendly and do fine when you actually get their attention. I get monthly paper statements on the portion of my account that is still with Elements and the TD Ameritrade portion is the same no matter who you use.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Oliver »

texasdiver wrote:I'm using Elements.

I have over $2500 account balance so zero fees and earn 1% on my balance. My last transfer to TD Ameritrade was before they instituted their new $25 wire transfer fee but even with the fee which I will only be paying once a year, Elements still comes out ahead of all the other options that I investigated.

Bottom line? If you maintain a $2500 cash balance earning 1% and you only transfer funds to TD Ameritrade once a year your annual fees with Elements will be $25. I don't know of any other provider that will let you operate an HSA with an investment account option for $25 per yr.
Saturna has the lowest total fees ($14.95) IF

Invest in lump sum
Purchase one ETF/stock per year (transaction cost $14.95, avoids inactivity fee)
Interested in an investment account only.

There is also a $1 fee for each dividend reinvested. I simply let the cash accumulate until I make my annual transaction.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Hub »

texasdiver wrote:I'm using Elements.

I have over $2500 account balance so zero fees and earn 1% on my balance. My last transfer to TD Ameritrade was before they instituted their new $25 wire transfer fee but even with the fee which I will only be paying once a year, Elements still comes out ahead of all the other options that I investigated.

Bottom line? If you maintain a $2500 cash balance earning 1% and you only transfer funds to TD Ameritrade once a year your annual fees with Elements will be $25. I don't know of any other provider that will let you operate an HSA with an investment account option for $25 per year.

Be advised that Elements is a fairly small credit union. I think they only have 4 branches in the Indianapolis area. And their HSA department is a very small part of what is already a small organization. So they only have a couple of staff there that handle HSA business and you may actually need to get someone on the phone to get something done as was the case when I sent in a withdrawal request. But they are friendly and do fine when you actually get their attention. I get monthly paper statements on the portion of my account that is still with Elements and the TD Ameritrade portion is the same no matter who you use.
Yes I'm with Elements also. The wire fee is so annoying that I have yet to send money from Elements to TD Ameritrade. I know I need to, but I really can't do it more than 1X per year or the fees get too high. Meanwhile the 1% is a decent consolation prize. Also no fee for them to process an HSA transfer into the account is nice.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by veggivet »

As long as you keep a minimum balance of 5k with HSA Bank and opt for paperless statements, annual fees total $0. There are no fees to transfer funds over to the TDA side, and no inactivity charges.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by supertreat »

I've been happy with Bancorp HSA. Minimum balance to avoid fees is $1500 and investment account is free. $8 trades for fidelity spartan funds.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by mammonman »

veggivet wrote:As long as you keep a minimum balance of 5k with HSA Bank and opt for paperless statements, annual fees total $0. There are no fees to transfer funds over to the TDA side, and no inactivity charges.
This is not entirely true. You have to keep 5000 in to avoid the $2.50 a month charge. You will earn 0.1% on the 5000, so there is cash drag there. You would make more paying the $2.50 a month and having the yield from 5k in Vanguard total stock market. While there is no charge to transfer funds to TD Ameritrade, you will be charged $3.00 a month no matter what if you have investments held there from HSA Bank.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by veggivet »

There is no $3 monthly charge to hold investments at TDA as long as your balance with HSA Bank is over $5k, which earns .2%. Still a cash drag, but this represents such a small percentage of my overall investments that it doesn't really move the needle at all.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by texasdiver »

veggivet wrote:As long as you keep a minimum balance of 5k with HSA Bank and opt for paperless statements, annual fees total $0. There are no fees to transfer funds over to the TDA side, and no inactivity charges.
By contrast, Elements Financial only requires a minimum of $2500 to avoid fees but pays 1% interest and has a $25 wire transfer charge.

The 1% interest earned on a $2500 balance comes to $25/year so basically you earn back your wire transfer charge from interest but have a $2500 lower balance requirement assuming you only make one annual transfer to the brokerage account.

If one were to keep $5000 in an Elements HSA and then put the rest in TD Ameritrade one would be earning $50/year in interest and would come out $25 ahead even after the wire transfer fees.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Danya »

Just shopping around for less fee'd as BOA is a $4.50 monthly fee.

Vanguard is recommending below. Since this the last post was so old I'm curious what others are doing now?
https://healthsavings.com/vanguard/funds/
• Administrative Fee: $45 per year. Fee deducted from the account balance. (NOTE: If enrolling with an employer group, this fee may be paid in full, or in part, by your employer.)
• Custodial Fee: 6.25 basis points per quarter (i.e., $0.625 per $1,000 every three months). Fees deducted from the account balance quarterly.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by deltaneutral83 »

kingsnake wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:32 am I use HSA bank and have the TD Ameritrade link, you buy Vanguard ETFs for no transaction fees.
This is incorrect.
veggivet wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2015 9:54 am As long as you keep a minimum balance of 5k with HSA Bank and opt for paperless statements, annual fees total $0. There are no fees to transfer funds over to the TDA side, and no inactivity charges.
This is also incorrect

For any 3rd party HSA's Lively is $0, let me say ZERO cash drag, and $2.50 a month to invest with TDA and you can use the State Street ETF's commission free and they have fine ETF's to build a 3F portfolio. Purchase State Street ETF shares every pay day if you wish commission free. Total cost is $30 annually and $0 cash drag. The $2.50 they charge is deducted form a checking account outside of Lively which is also nice.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by jhfenton »

deltaneutral83 wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:48 pm
kingsnake wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 11:32 am I use HSA bank and have the TD Ameritrade link, you buy Vanguard ETFs for no transaction fees.
This is incorrect.
To be fair, it was correct when kingsnake wrote it in 2014. TD Ameritrade revamped their commission-free ETF lineup a year ago and dropped all of their Vanguard ETFs from the list.
deltaneutral83 wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:48 pm For any 3rd party HSA's Lively is $0, let me say ZERO cash drag, and $2.50 a month to invest with TDA and you can use the State Street ETF's commission free and they have fine ETF's to build a 3F portfolio. Total cost is $30 annually and $0 cash drag. The $2.50 they charge is deducted form a checking account outside of Lively which is also nice.
+1 I do think Lively offers the best (overall cheapest and most flexible) deal at the present. I rolled my HSA there almost a year ago.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by deltaneutral83 »

jhfenton wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:56 pm To be fair, it was correct when kingsnake wrote it in 2014. TD Ameritrade revamped their commission-free ETF lineup a year ago and dropped all of their Vanguard ETFs from the list.
Not exactly, VXUS was never commission free at TDA in my tenure, I engaged in many secure messages to TDA about which vanguard ETF's they offered commission free to no avail :oops:
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jhfenton
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by jhfenton »

deltaneutral83 wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:02 pm
jhfenton wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:56 pm To be fair, it was correct when kingsnake wrote it in 2014. TD Ameritrade revamped their commission-free ETF lineup a year ago and dropped all of their Vanguard ETFs from the list.
Not exactly, VXUS was never commission free at TDA in my tenure, I engaged in many secure messages to TDA about which vanguard ETF's they offered commission free to no avail :oops:
It wasn't all Vanguard ETFs, but they offered many commission-free. I owned VSS, VWO, VEA, and VNQ there for years before I moved our accounts to Vanguard in 2015. (I never had any interest in VXUS, because I prefered to split my international into its components. But they also didn't offer VNQI / Vanguard ex-US Real Estate commission free, which did annoy me.)
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by 47Percent »

MossySF wrote: Sun Oct 26, 2014 12:17 am

Note, when doing these calculations, assume you will pay the "waived by minimum balance" fees because you want to come out even further ahead by paying out of taxable and reimbursing yourself way in the future after decades of tax deferred growth. HSA Bank offers you the option of $2.50/mo fee or keep $5000 in the bank account earning next to nothing. At the most conservative option, $5000 invested in TBM would throw off about $125 per year in interest. ($250+ for a 60/40 fund expected 5%+ long-term return.) In order to save on $30, you have give up $125-$250 (or more) in lost opportunity returns.
In addition to the HSA service fee of $2.50/month (waivable with the minimum balance of $5,000), there is also a HSA Investment Service fee of $3.00/month. That too is waived by the same $5K balance.

So it is not $30, but $66 -- but the argument still holds.
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by Angst »

Danya wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:35 pm Just shopping around for less fee'd as BOA is a $4.50 monthly fee.

Vanguard is recommending below. Since this the last post was so old I'm curious what others are doing now?
https://healthsavings.com/vanguard/funds/
• Administrative Fee: $45 per year. Fee deducted from the account balance. (NOTE: If enrolling with an employer group, this fee may be paid in full, or in part, by your employer.)
• Custodial Fee: 6.25 basis points per quarter (i.e., $0.625 per $1,000 every three months). Fees deducted from the account balance quarterly.
Dayna, if you do a search of the website you can find much more recent threads looking into the "best" HSA providers these days. A lot of folks have been leaning towards Lively's HSA. Take a look at threads started in 2017 or 2018:

https://www.google.com/search?sitesearc ... lively+hsa
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Re: HSA account with the lowest cost: HSA bank or Vanguard?

Post by tfb »

Danya wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 12:35 pm Just shopping around for less fee'd as BOA is a $4.50 monthly fee.

Vanguard is recommending below. Since this the last post was so old I'm curious what others are doing now?
Rumor says Fidelity will start offering HSA to the general public in Q4 2018. If you are not in a hurry maybe wait to see if it comes true. Although Fidelity charges $48/year (waived if you have $250k or more with Fidelity), you can invest in anything Fidelity offers in a brokerage account.
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