> Wouldn't a dog shaped robod with a camera in his butt have the same issue?

That camera would constantly just be filming other dogs' noses.

True, fair enough. I see that the government's definition of "immediate family" is different than mine, as theirs includes parents and in-laws and siblings that are definitely not eligible to use your HSA funds.

You can only have a personal HSA if your only coverage is HDHP. So, as other replies already state, you need to drop the other insurance if you want to get the HSA.

If you do this, though, other people in your immediately family are able to use your HSA dollars for their healthcare expenses, even if they are covered by regular plans. HSA eligibility with regard to your health care plan is about putting money in, not taking it out. See the second-from-last footnote on this handy chart.
https://www.chard-snyder.com/uploads/miscellaneous/FSA-HSA_Contribution_Rules_v8.21.pdf

To re-explain what the other response means for "time value of money"...

The extra tax would all be at once, right now, while the interest is paid over time. That means the interest you pay in year 7 costs you less in 2023 dollars thanks to inflation.

Meanwhile, presumably your remaining 401k balance continues to generate returns even as you draw it down. So, the 6/7ths of your mortgage balance you don't withdraw this year and instead let grow for a year, the 5/7ths the following year, etc., will go up in value each year, even if you just put it in an ultra-low- or no-risk investment product during that time.

These time effects on money converge, meaning the value of the money you have goes up over time, while the value of the money you owe goes down over time. Put them together, still ignoring any potential impact from bumping up your incremental tax rate, and the cost of 7 years of interest payments could be much less than simply calculating the interest due via spreadsheet.

Then throw in the potential for extra taxes if you liquidate the 401k all at once, and you might tip the scales over in favor of getting a mortgage.

You didn't lose $800 in interest, you paid $800 to drive around a car you didn't own (all of, yet). Sure, lower is better, but you have think about interest in terms of what it gave you. At 4.99%, you made use of about $16,000 worth of something you didn't own.

Meanwhile, sure, your market investments probably aren't doing that well, but you're buying shares on sale that will pay off later. And the money you've kept as cash as an emergency fund isn't wasted, either, because you didn't know for sure that you wouldn't get laid off, just like you don't know for sure right now that you won't get laid off this year, so it has value as risk mitigation even just sitting in a HYSA. So when you spent $800 for the privilege of using a car you hadn't bought yet, it allowed you to put money into these other things that will help you as much or more than that $800 would have.

4.99% is right on the edge where paying off early for guaranteed return might make sense I think, so sure, make extra payments on it if you feel like it, because it's a safe-ish way to get a good return on a portion of your money, but don't think about the absolute dollar amount of interest as a waste without putting in context of what it bought you.

Your car is costing you $800 per month, you only need it for your social life, and you are trying to move out of the country in six months?

Sell your car. If you desperately want to own one, find one that starts and holds oil and coolant and pay $500 cash. You won't ever even need to get the oil changed.

New Doctor Who baddie. Just add some mid-quality computer animation.

Salary is sort of like market value of a home.

Year after year, the tax authority relies on surveys and general data about your neighborhood to estimate the fair market value of the property. On occasion, though, your house might get a more direct valuation. Maybe you got a formal appraisal. Maybe, and this is better still, you received an offer on the property. With this new, direct, specific data, you have better numbers than the appraisal board. If they don't match, you can take that data and get your appraisal changed.

Some companies may underpay and rely on inertia to keep staff. Others may genuinely think they are paying you a fair market rate, because they rely on salary surveys and other ancillary data that is about your role and general experience level but not about you. Your job offer from somewhere else is an offer letter to buy your work, and gives your existing employer new data with which they can evaluate you specifically in the job market. In this case, I don't think them "underpaying" you before was nefarious, and a counter offer could be made with complete sincerity.

She made a song about irony, but most of the examples cited in the lyrics weren't actually irony. Which made the song itself ironic.

M E T A

Cool. So the story this thread is based on is probably no longer relevant to anyone. (I don't think the story says that the patient owed 40% because it was out of network, but that's a high percent for in-network coinsurance so I assume so.)

It's pretty common at least in Texas. ProTax (not the company I use) is one of the biggest in the market. Texas isn't a low-tax state; it's in the middle, but with no income tax, a lot of its revenue comes from property taxes. This includes school taxes, which the state takes, redistributes some of, and then uses the rest of balance the general books. So there's a lot of money to be made in small reductions in property value.

My tax rate appears to be like $2 per $hundred in valuation. So, if the appraisal board says my house jumped like $60k in value this year, that's an extra $1200 I'd owe. But the lawyer uses comps (which they found for lots of clients) that show my value should have only changed by +$20k. They protest, spend maybe 30 minutes total on my case (I assume), and get my valuation fixed. The difference in $40k valuation turns into $800 saved on my taxes, so I pay them $400 for their time and I pocket the other $400 they saved me.

Some years the county tries to up my valuation by $150k or more. This year it was a lot more than that. They got it lowered some. Texas caps your valuation change for the purpose of taxes at 10%, so if the county says my house doubled in value in one year, the double value shows up on the books, but I only pay 10% more. Then next year I can pay a compounded 10%, etc, until I catch up. That's why it pays to protest every year. The past five years when they got my value down $50-150k each year means my starting point for the cap is lower.

It's also people who get hit by large out-of-network emergency balance bills in states where those are still legal. I'm not sure which states that's true for though.

It's not impossible. I pay a law firm to protest my property taxes every year. If they reduce the declared value of my home, and that results in a reduction of my property taxes due this year, they take as payment 50% of the amount saved. If they don't get it reduced, or they do but it doesn't affect my taxes (which happened this year), they get nothing. And, I get all of any compounded benefit for future years.

The big difference I see is that, after signing over the limited POA paperwork to them, I'm a continual client until I withdraw. For medical billing, there'd be a lot more time required to chase after customers with bills big enough to be worth the effort.

The deductible is based on your financial situation. If you have $20k sitting in your emergency fund, there's no reason to go with a $100 deductible if a $250 (with everything else the same) would save you some money.

A long time back, after the first time I used and was burnt by an online insurance company, I sought out and used a hyper local independent rep. They found me insurance that was cheaper the place I came in wanted them to buy for me, but of course by the time I looked around myself a couple years later, I could find plenty of online places that were cheaper still.

Plus, they moved their office from in my neighborhood to a town 30 minutes away, presumably closer to their house and with lower office rent. When I called to cancel and was asked why, I told them that I wanted a local agent and they weren't local anymore, and the secretary just said "yes, I understand" with a resigned voice and processed the cancellation.