Alternative assets in an HSA

At New Direction the focus, rather than selling or recommending investments, is to help the clients learn about their options and guide the client through the process of making it happen. Co-founder and CEO Bill Humphrey said, “Self Direction is not for everyone. The self directed investor must be willing to take the responsibility for investment choices. Although their outside advisers or associates can help. Since we don’t sell any investments, we don’t question your choices or try and steer your decisions. Our clients already have the sexiest IRAs on the block.” New Direction offers Roth and Traditional IRAs, SEP IRAs, as well as 401k plans.

Humphrey warns clients and potential clients not to overlook the HSA for retirement expenses of the medical variety. Creative investors are discovering the investment potential of HSA funds and some clients feel that the tax shelter of an HSA can be better than either a Roth or Traditional IRA. New Direction includes Self Directed Health Savings Accounts in the available plans, Humphrey explained, because many employers are now offering plans in conjunction with HSA contributions.

Most investors look at an IRA as a long term investment, and recently, according to New Direction, more HSA investors are doing the same thing. As mentioned in the WSJ article, investors in hardwood trees are looking for a long term return. Humphrey said, “Our clients mention the low initial amount required as one of their reasons for making the investment aiming that the trees will ‘grow’ in value between now and retirement.”

A New Direction HSA can purchase Hawaiian Koa trees or whatever investment they choose, and harvest future profits. Those profits are never subject to tax, provided distributions are used for qualified medical expenses. And HSA contributions are not subject to tax either. Thus, HSAs offer tax free contributions and distributions as well. Account holders generally defer distributions from HSAs to retirement years while allowing the account to grow in the meantime.

Given the lower typical balances in HSAs, the focus is often on lower priced investments. Small plan balances don’t necessarily limit the client to small investments. HSAs and IRAs with low balances may also, as mentioned in the WSJ article, make purchases with other investors or using debt leverage.
Since 2003, New Direction has focused on education of investors on the details of the process and rules. They teach hundreds of free webinars and classes to educate both new and experienced investors how the take advantage of a self directed plan. Through their professional training classes for CPA and others, the details of tax treatment of profits of the plan and any UBIT (unrelated business income tax) are also addressed.

New Direction IRA, Inc., a self-directed IRA plan provider and record-keeper, offers only self-directed IRAs, HSAs, Coverdell educational savings accounts, plus company sponsored SEP, SIMPLEs, 401k plans and recordkeeping for qualified plans and defined benefit plans. They can be reached at 303-546-7930 or toll free at 877-742-1270. Visit their website at NewDirectionIRA.com. New Direction does not offer investment advice nor do they sell any investments.

Gold HSA: Holding precious metals in an HSA

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are becoming increasingly popular for investors looking to save money and help pay medical expenses. Most investors don’t realize that like other IRAs, the HSA can be used to invest in alternative assets such as gold and other precious metals.

HSAs enable you to save on your medical expenses because you can make pre-tax contributions to your HSA, and withdraw those moneys tax free when you want to pay for the expenses. Anyone can make contributions into your HSA—and you can contribute to anyone else’s—until the contribution limit is met.

HSAs even allow the HSA account-holder to pay themselves back for bills paid out of pocket (provided paperwork still in hand and that the HSA was opened prior to the medical expense). You can hold on to those receipts for years, allowing the account to grow to its maximum potential before using the funds to reimburse yourself for those expenses.

At the same time, you may have been considering the merits of holding real physical precious metals such as gold and silver in a retirement account. Holding precious metals in an IRA provides protection against the erosion of purchasing power via inflation as well as the potential for appreciation as hard assets.

A Gold HSA, then, will allow you to create a reoccurring purchase plan with a metals dealer of your choosing to make specific bullion or precious metals purchases at regular intervals. As your HSA accumulates funds, it can buy more assets, potentially generating more money to pay for expenses. This is called Dollar Cost Averaging.

Dollar Cost Averaging Basics

Dollar Cost Averaging has long been popular with mutual fund investors, since this practice of buying the same dollar amount or same number of specific items, at regular intervals, means that you automatically a bit less when prices have risen, and you buy a bit more when prices have fallen.

In other words, over time these price fluctuations even themselves out, enabling the investor to accumulate the investment at a lower average cost, while also protecting against the risk that prices will drop just after making a big lump investment.

What’s the bottom line to me?

Obviously, since prices — whether they be stocks, gold, or foodstuffs — will tend to rise over time, the best investment strategy (provided you knew what you wanted to buy and how much of it) would be to invest all the funds now, rather than over time. Since this is a retirement account, however, and therefore one is typically making annual contributions over a number of years’ time, the “all at once” strategy may not be feasible.

The next best thing, however, is Dollar Cost Averaging—and the Gold HSA utilizes the power of this principle in tandem with the practical matter of accumulating hard assets such as gold or silver to your retirement account.