How to Plan for Healthcare Costs (By Age)

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to talk about how to plan for healthcare costs by age. Watch this episode on Youtube How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off! DELL: Get a new Dell AI PC starting at $749.99, at Dell.com/ai-pc. This episode is sponsored by Plaud https://www.plaud.ai/ — an AI wearable gadget that takes notes of meetings and calls. With Plaud, you don’t have to take notes and make summaries anymore. Links Mentioned in This Episode: What Do I do With an HSA at an Old Employer?! (Plus How to Avoid RMD's) - Money Q&A The Ultimate Guide to the HSA (The Super Retirement Account!) How to Get a Guaranteed 5% Return on Your Emergency Fund - Money Q&A Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

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• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

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• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

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• 2:23Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be diving into how to plan for healthcare costs by age. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or making sure you give that old thumbs up on YouTube. And so today,

• 3:03Andrew Giancola?

  we're going to be diving into how to plan for healthcare costs by age. And this is going to be an episode that is really important for a lot of people. Maybe you haven't really thought through healthcare costs because you are in your early twenties, or maybe you're in your thirties or forties, and you don't really know where to start. But as time goes on, we know a bunch of different things happen with healthcare. In fact, healthcare costs rise at a rate of 7% every single year over the course of the last decade. This is not something we can ignore whatsoever, because this is a very costly thing that we need to make sure that we have a plan in place. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of talk through by age, how you need to think about healthcare. But in addition, I'm also going to go through how to decide how much health

• 3:45Andrew Giancola?

  insurance you currently need, because this is going to be a very important topic for most people. So you don't get yourself in a strenuous financial situation. So first, before we dive in, I want to go through a few different healthcare stats. So general healthcare spending in the US currently, according to this is US data that came out, the average annual healthcare spending per person is $13,493. And healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP is 17.3% in 2022, which is the highest among developed nations. Now, the inflation rate of healthcare services is 7% annually, outpacing general inflation. This is why it is so important to make sure you plan for Because it is outpacing in general inflation, you have to have something in place.

• 4:30Andrew Giancola?

  Now, Fidelity estimates that a 65-year-old couple retiring today will need $315,000 for healthcare expenses in retirement. That is a big number for a lot of people, and that came out in a 2023 study. Now Medicare doesn't cover everything, so no coverage for long-term care, most dental, vision, or hearing services. So you need to make sure you have a plan in place to cover those types of things. And the average cost of a private nursing home is $108,000, and assisted living facility is $64,200. Now, out-of-pocket costs in insurance, let's go through a couple of stats there. The average deductible for employer-sponsored health insurance for

• 5:08Andrew Giancola?

  single coverage is $1,735 in 2023, and the out-of-pocket max for ACA Marketplace plans is $9,200 for individuals and $18,400 for families. These are massive numbers that we all, within our personal finances, are going to have to deal with, and so we have to make sure we have some sort of healthcare plan in place. Now, when it comes to families, if you are someone who is thinking about having a family, or you already have a family, you may have already seen this come up, but the average cost to have a baby with insurance is $14,768 total, with $3,068 out-of-pocket. And without insurance, to have a C-section is $25,000 to $30,000, and to have

• 5:50Andrew Giancola?

  a traditional birth is $18,000 to $20,000. So this is something where I think a lot of people, you go through these stats and you realize, man, as time goes on, I'm gonna have healthcare coverage for families. I'm gonna have healthcare coverage as I age. I'm going to need to have a plan in place because hundreds of thousands of dollars cannot be wasted, and I can, I have to make sure that I protect myself and have a specific plan in place to make sure I have healthcare coverage. Now, folks who listen in different countries, maybe your healthcare coverage is different, but here in the US, we have a healthcare system that is pretty jacked up for the most part, and for a lot of folks, there's a lot of greed involved in the healthcare system currently. We have to make sure we combat against that. What do I say all the time when it comes to your personal finances? You must focus on the things that you can control.

• 6:34Andrew Giancola?

  And so what you can control is how you're going to handle the situation, instead of just complaining about it. We gotta make sure that we focus on the things that we can control. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode, and I'm gonna first talk about how much health insurance you need.

• 6:48Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So first thing we're going to do is how much health insurance you need is going to depend on the person. It's going to depend on your age. It's going to depend on where you are in life. And so what I'm going to chat through first is how to figure out how much you need in order to make sure that you have enough coverage and/or you don't start overpaying for coverage that you don't need. And so let's talk through this first is step one, I want you to assess your health status. So I want you to ask yourself a couple of questions. Do I have any chronic conditions? Do I have asthma? Do I have diabetes? If so, that's going to change what you need in terms of coverage. Do I see doctors or specialists regularly? If you do, then that's going to change the type of coverage that you need. Am I on prescription medications? And do I anticipate any surgeries, pregnancies, or therapies? I've talked about this a number

• 7:30Andrew Giancola?

  of different times, but every time my wife becomes pregnant, we always change our health insurance and shift our health insurance from maybe a high deductible health plan to a lower deductible health plan in order to make that coverage easier overall on our finances. And so if yes, on any of these, then I would lean towards higher coverage and lower deductible plans like PPOs or gold platinum plans. But if no, you can consider lower cost plans like high deductible or bronze plans. This is going to help you figure out kind of a shift on how much you need to be spending on health insurance. Now, number two is to understand the key costs, because there are four main components. Number one is the premium. Okay, the premium on your health insurance means what you pay monthly regardless of usage. This is the money that's

• 8:14Andrew Giancola?

  coming out of pocket. If you get it through your employer, this is what you're paying your employer. This is the premium that you're paying monthly, no matter what. The deductible is what you pay before insurance kicks in. Okay, then we have copays and coinsurance, which is your share of the costs after the deductible. And then lastly is the out of pocket max, which is the most that you will pay in any one given year. It's pretty simple to understand, but just understanding those things upfront is going to really, really help you when you are making your decisions. You're looking at all these things. We don't want any of this jargon to come up and you don't understand what it is. Those are the four things. Again, premium, what you pay monthly, deductible, what you pay before insurance kicks in, copays or coinsurance is your shares of the cost after the deductible, and then out of pocket max is the most you

• 8:57Andrew Giancola?

  Pay in one given year. Now, what you want to do is make sure that you can afford the worst case scenario or the out of pocket max. So whatever your out of pocket max is, you need to make sure that you can afford that. If you don't make a lot of money and your out of pocket max is going to be $10,000 and you can't afford that, then we need to make sure we have enough coverage to afford that. This is the big key overall. It is a very important thing. And that's why a lot of times we have the emergency fund in place because if you have some sort of medical emergency and you have that six month emergency fund in place, it'll likely be able to cover any of these costs. Now, number three is I want you to run the numbers. So I want you to think through what is my total annual cost, which is the premium times 12, 12 months out of the year, plus the expected out of pocket expenses. And I want you to estimate different scenarios. So let's say you didn't have any doctor visits whatsoever,

• 9:41Andrew Giancola?

  which I don't recommend. At least get your annual checkup, or maybe you had a few visits, or major medical event across plans. A high deductible plan may save you money if you're healthy and rarely use care, but it could cost you more if something unexpected happens. Now to pair that up, we'll talk through this a little more in this episode, but you could pair up a high deductible plan with the HSA. It gives you some forced savings that's going to allow you to get those triple tax benefits that you can also utilize in an emergency. Now, number four is I want you to factor in your life stage. Okay. Because when it comes to your life stage, we're going to talk through all of these life stages and some of the things that you could do and some more considerations as we get to the by age part. But I want you to factor in your life stage in terms of, are you young and healthy? Well, if you are young

• 10:22Andrew Giancola?

  and healthy, maybe you want to consider a lower premium, a high deductible, plus an HSA to start. If you have a growing family and you're going, that means you're going to have more doctor visits because I tell you what, those of you out there who have kids, how many times do you just have a surprise sickness come up? Maybe your kids go to daycare and you send your kids to daycare and the entire class gets some sort of thing and all of a sudden they bring it home. Well, how often does that happen? All the time if your kids are in daycare, or if you take your kids to school. How often does the class get sick? If you have kids, or if you've never had kids before, just understand you are going to be spending a lot more time in doctor's offices when you have kids. I have three and we feel like we are at the doctor every week or two. And so this is something where we got to make sure that we plan for that as time goes on.

• 11:07Andrew Giancola?

  Older adults, you are also in the doctor's office more often because you have higher usage and most likely more comprehensive plans. And if you're planning to retire early, you need to understand ACA subsidiaries or COBRA costs as well. Those are big things that you need to go through. For early retirement, we'll probably do an episode on health insurance for early retirement coming up as time goes on here. Now, you got to add on the needs after that. So, once you assess your life stage, then you want to add on what your additional needs are. Dental and vision. Do you need vision insurance? Some of you do, some of you don't. For example, my wife, if she doesn't have her contacts in, she can't see anything three feet in front of her. Everything is blurry, she can't read anything, and so she needs contacts. So, we need vision insurance for her. Dental insurance.

• 11:50Andrew Giancola?

  If you don't have dental insurance and you don't go to the dentist, what are you doing? You only get one set of teeth, got to make sure that you have a great set of teeth on you there. And so, that's an add-on need is dental and vision. HSA eligibility. HSA eligibility is only available with high deductible health plans. And so, if you want an HSA, and we have an entire episode on HSAs that we just did, make sure you check that one out if you haven't because we call it the super retirement account. It's a hack to have triple tax advantages when it comes to retirement, but you can also use it for healthcare plans and it's great for healthcare coverage later on in life. And then, mental health coverage. Check what's included if therapy or support is needed in your life. That's another additional add-on that you want to look through. And then, you want to ask yourself, this is a big one, what can I afford to self-insure? If you can afford to cover $5,000 to $10,000 in an emergency from savings, then you may

• 12:35Andrew Giancola?

  be able to take on more risk. But, if not, you may want to pay for more coverage upfront to avoid debt later. The last thing we ever want to see you do is go into medical debt. And so, that is the big thing. Now, final rule of thumb here is if you are high risk, you need more coverage, okay? If you are low risk plus a strong emergency fund, then you can come up with less coverage plus lower premiums. See how the emergency fund just factors into everything you do within your finances because it changes your flexibility and changes how much money you have to spend over time to insurance companies or to other things that could happen because your emergency fund is your safety net, is your financial protection plan. Really important to make sure that you have that in place. Now, if you haven't heard our episodes on emergency funds, we have the 1-3-6 method that you can look at and chat through.

• 13:19Andrew Giancola?

  It is our best way to save for an emergency fund. Now, that is how to think through how much coverage you need. Now, let's get into how to plan for healthcare costs by age. All right, so we are going to start off with folks in their twenties. And this is going to be one where I think a lot of folks in their twenties need to think through health insurance in a different way than maybe you have originally. So first is to get covered. Now, if you are under the age of 26, I highly, highly, highly recommend staying on your parents' plan. I am not one to say that I think people should mooch off their parents for a long period of time, but when it comes to health insurance, they can just throw you in at no additional cost to them. Then I would stay on their plan as long as you possibly can.

• 14:02Andrew Giancola?

  Or if you can't stay on your parents' plan because they don't have health insurance, or they, you know, just don't have a job that allows them to be able to do that, I would buy a low premium plan with a high deductible if you're healthy. If you're not healthy, you got to follow the rules here and the parameters that we laid out right before this. But if you are healthy, then you can look at having a low premium plan with a high deductible. Now, one thing is if you go with a high deductible plan, you can start an HSA. Now, if you don't know what an HSA is, this stands for Health Savings Account. Now, we here at the Personal Finance Podcast and Master Money, we talk about the HSA as an amazing way to save for retirement as well. Why? Because money goes in tax-free. You can grow the money tax-free by investing those dollars in the HSA, and you can pull

• 14:45Andrew Giancola?

  the money out tax-free as long as you have a qualified medical expense. The beautiful part about the HSA, though, is that there is no timeline as to when that medical expense needs to happen. So you could break your leg at the age of 26, and you could reimburse yourself at the age of 76, and it would be no issue whatsoever. You just save those receipts in Google Drive, or Dropbox, or whatever you love to use, and then you'll be able to reimburse yourself completely tax-free. Now, this is a huge hack because in retirement, then you can have more tax-free dollars coming in, and it gives you some additional flexibility. So we have an entire episode on the HSA. If you haven't heard it, again, make sure you go check that one out. Also, preventative care can be free, and if it is free, I would use it. Make sure you're doing your annual checkups.

• 15:28Andrew Giancola?

  Make sure you're doing any of your screenings. It costs $0 on most plans. And a lot of times, they want you to do that to make sure you catch stuff ahead of time so that they're not paying more out-of-pocket later on down the line. A lot of times when it comes to healthcare, it's all about the money. Always follow the money when it comes to healthcare, because this is what happens with health insurance plans. This is what happens with some physicians out there. This is what happens with a lot of doctor's offices or medical groups. This is all about following the money. That's a pro tip right there. Make sure you always, always do that. Every time something is recommended to you, make sure you ask yourself, is this about the money? Just ask the question. And it's going to be really important to make sure you do that. And then always, always, always. One thing I think people in their twenties need to understand

• 16:10Andrew Giancola?

  and you need to get this habit down early is always skip medical debt. Meaning that you can negotiate your medical bills. And in addition, you need to always make sure that you are getting an itemized medical bill. Why? There is a massive portion of medical bills that are actually wrong. In fact, I've seen findings as high as 50 to 60% of medical bills can be wrong. And so you want an itemized list of what's on that medical bill so that you can ensure that this is something that you should actually be paying. If it's not, then you need to get things removed and start negotiating your medical bills. It is a very important skill, and it is one that will save you thousands and thousands of dollars over the course of your lifetime. I like to negotiate a lot of my different medical bills because I will get the bill and I'll look at it. And again, usually it's three, four, five times out of 10,

• 16:54Andrew Giancola?

  I see something on there that should not be there. And so you've got to make sure that you're negotiating your medical bills because there is a lot of mistakes that happens. Also, you need to make sure that you have enough coverage in place so that you do not go into debt or you do not go to collections. Very important to have that set up currently. So if you're in your twenties, again, thinking through, a lot of you are young. When I was in my twenties, I did not go to the doctor very much at all. I didn't even get my annual checkups. That was a mistake, I feel. I feel like I should have always gotten my checkups. And then outside of that, getting my blood work. Those are the big two for me that I wish I did more so in my twenties so that I could catch things early if anything was going to happen. For example, in my thirties, realized I have high blood pressure and I wish in my twenties, I would have made a lot of lifestyle changes in order to combat that. Now I'm doing it in my thirties. It's a little harder just to make that change really quickly.

• 17:39Andrew Giancola?

  But I have made that change, which is great. But making sure you get your screenings, get your blood work. That's the big things that I would do.

• 17:46Andrew Giancola?

  Now, in your 30s, this is where you really need to lock in some good habits here. And there's going to be a couple of things that are going to help you. First is prioritizing health, because if you prioritize your health, you can dramatically decrease the amount of money that you're spending on healthcare. Health is truly wealth. A, it gives you more freedom and flexibility in life. B, you can do more things for longer. It gives you longevity. C, in addition, it's going to help you save money. Why would we not prioritize our health? So anybody listening right now that has been saying to themselves for years and years and years, "I need to get back in shape," or "I need to start eating right," start today. Now is the time to get that going, because it will absolutely change your life once you start taking your health seriously.

• 18:29Andrew Giancola?

  So there's a couple of different areas that I want you to focus on if you've never thought through this before. And we have on some of our Q and As we've done in the past, a segment of the episode called "Health Corner." And a lot of people have emailed me in to bring that back. We will be bringing that back at some point in time here. But this is something I think you need to think through. One is sleep. Making sure that you prioritize sleep. Do not be staying up all night long. Do not be up till midnight because you want to catch up on your Netflix show. Instead, making sure you prioritize sleep, getting your seven, eight, nine hours of sleep a night is going to be very, very important. Secondly, it's time to dial in your diet. In your 30s is the most important time to dial in your diet. A, because it's a lot harder to keep weight off than it used to be in your 20s. But B, it is also something that now, this is a huge impact on your longevity and your health going forward.

• 19:13Andrew Giancola?

  You need to lock in on that diet. And so for me, one big thing that I did over the course of the last couple of years is I changed my diet completely. I eat a lot of meats, a lot of fruits, a lot of vegetables, a lot of whole foods. I just try to eat as many whole foods as I possibly can. When I did that, it reduced my brain fog, it reduced my sleepless nights, it reduced my stress, it reduced so many different things by just changing my diet. And it was a huge, huge impact on my life. Now, sure, I eat the occasional fried food or whatever else. I love that stuff. But at the same time, I make sure that 80% of the time, I am eating that whole foods diet. And usually it's more than 80% of the time now. I've gotten stricter and stricter as time goes on, because I like eating that way. I've actually grown to enjoy it. If you asked me this five years ago, I would tell you- Your boy doesn't even really like most vegetables. But now I eat them every single day.

• 19:58Andrew Giancola?

  I eat a ton of them every day. Yeah, I changed my life based on doing that. And also, stress management is a different one. This will pay off really big later. But stress is something that you need to make sure that you are managing day in and day out. It is a huge, huge component to your longevity. Secondarily, in your 30s is I want you to consider disability insurance. Because your income is your biggest asset and this is the way that you protect it. And so making sure that if anything were to happen to you and you got disability insurance, at least would give you some coverage to help you through that. Especially if you have kids, if you have people who depend on your income. If you're the sole provider in your family, then you need to make sure that you think through disability insurance for sure. Thirdly, and I think all of us do this, typically you do this around the time of open enrollment, but you need to review your plan annually. I shift my plan year in and year out. Again, like I said, some years my wife's pregnant, I know I'm going to make a shift.

• 20:43Andrew Giancola?

  Or some years when we're going to have a newborn baby like this year, I'm going to make a shift because I know we're going to be having a lot more doctor visits within that first year for checkups, things like that. And so you want to make sure that you're comparing your plans and thinking through that. Also, compare employer versus marketplace plans. I have seen some of you out there who work for companies that don't give you very good health insurance. And so you need to change this over time. Specifically, I want you to look through this if you're married or you have kids. What is the best coverage for you and your family to ensure you get the max out of this insurance? Insurance is already charging you an arm and a leg. It is such a costly thing when it comes to health insurance. So making sure that you have enough coverage is really important. Also, if you're using an FSA or a flexible spending plan, make sure you're using those funds wisely.

• 21:25Andrew Giancola?

  You can spend on vision or dental or therapy or save long-term if you don't need it now in an HSA. In an FSA, you usually have to spend it within that year. And so just making sure that you think through either one of those. I like the HSA obviously more, but I like it for the super retirement account. And you can't be funding both at the same time. So making sure you choose which one is going to be really important. So that is your 30s. I want you to prioritize, think through what you need for your spouse, for your family, for yourself in your 30s to make sure that you are maximizing health, that you are looking at disability, that you are reviewing your plan annually and you have a plan actually in place of what you're actually, you know why you're doing what you're doing. And then using HSA and FSA funds are really important. This is going to help you in the coming years when you're going to need even more coverage. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years.

• 22:10Andrew Giancola?

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• 22:52Andrew Giancola?

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• 23:37Andrew Giancola?

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• 24:17Andrew Giancola?

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• 25:02Andrew Giancola?

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• 25:48Andrew Giancola?

  And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all Of your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos,

• 26:33Andrew Giancola?

  this is the job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. All right. So in your 40s, it is time to prepare for the midlife curveballs that come with your 40s when it comes to your health. And so, A, we want to make sure that we have annual screenings. This is really important. Always catch issues early, your blood pressure, your cholesterol. Make sure you get cancer screenings.

• 27:17Andrew Giancola?

  Those are super, super important. In fact, me in my 30s, I want to make sure that I'm actually doing all this stuff now, even in my 30s, because there's just too many things that are going on out there. I mean, cancer is one of the big fears I have in life. And trying to catch that early if you get it, or trying to avoid it at all costs is one of the big things. And I get through most people in their life. There's a huge portion of the population that are getting cancer now. And so making sure that we think through that, we fight against it is really, really important. Also, in your 40s, you may have to start caring for your parents or thinking through their insurance as well. And so understand their insurance, understand their long-term care options, because it may fall on you. And if it does fall on you, you've got to have a plan in place for this. You've got to think through, what do I need to be doing for my parents long-term?

• 28:01Andrew Giancola?

  In order to really make sure that they get the best coverage possible and they can live the longest, you can spend more time with them. One of the biggest regrets that people have in their deathbed is not spending enough time with their parents. And this is one way to help them through that process is to make sure that you give them enough coverage. Next is I think you should start modeling long-term care costs in your 40s. So you can use online retirement healthcare calculators and you might spend $200,000 to $400,000 on healthcare in retirement. So start modeling that out. What does that look like? What do I need to be saving in order to do that? This is why I love the HSA again, because you can invest those dollars and they can grow every single year. So you don't have to work as hard to. You save up a 200 to 400 grand. Instead, you can work through this and then consider a long-term care savings plan.

• 28:43Andrew Giancola?

  So even if you don't buy insurance earmark savings for future care. There's things out there like long-term care savings plans and having those in place could be really, really important. So your 40s is a time making sure you still prioritize the 20s and 30s, those types of things. But in your 40s, you also want to be doing these additional things like getting your annual screenings, making sure you have your parents' plan in place. Start modeling out those long-term costs and consider a long-term care savings plans. Those are all going to be super, super helpful for you in your 40s. Now let's get to your 50s. First, in your 50s, you get to build the bridge to Medicare. So Medicare is going to help you out later on down the line. But in your 50s, you can do a lot of cool things here. First, you can catch up on your HSA contributions. Now you can now contribute up to $1,000 more per year with your HSA contributions.

• 29:28Andrew Giancola?

  Secondarily, though, is I would start to review your retirement health plan options. What will you do between retirement and Medicare at 65? This is going to be a big, big deal for you. Let's say, for example, you start to retire in your mid 50s. What's your retirement healthcare plan for your mid 50s from 55 to 65? You got to make sure you have something in plan in place there and budget out for it before you retire early. It's going to be really important for you to think through that. Fidelity estimates that a 65-year-old couple retiring early today needs $350,000 for healthcare. So you need to estimate the out-of-pocket costs because if somebody at 65 today needs $315,000, well, if it's increasing at 5% to 7% every single year, what are you going to need in the next 10 years, in the next 15 years? Or however old you are, you need to start to think through and use some of those retirement calculators.

• 30:13Andrew Giancola?

  Explore long-term care insurance. The earlier is cheaper. So if you get long-term care insurance in your early 50s, it's a lot cheaper than if you get it in your 60s or 70s. And so making sure that you have that and the approval is easier while you're healthy. So if you're healthy now and you're in your 50s, the approval is much, much easier than it would be later on down the line if you're not as healthy as you are today. So those are big four things that you could think through in your 50s is to make sure that you have some of that stuff in place. Now let's get into your 60s because in your 60s, you can do a couple of different things. First, signing up for Medicare on time is a big one. So parts A. And B start at age 65 and late enrollment means penalties. So you got to make sure that you are enrolling in Medicare on time.

• 30:54Andrew Giancola?

  And if you need help with that, you can go to healthcare.gov and you can look at some of the ways to do that, take the steps there. Secondly, is choosing a path. This is going to be really important. So there's original Medicare, there's Medigap and there's Part D. Or you can look at a Medicare Advantage plan and figuring out which one is the best one for you is going to be really important based on your health, based on your situation, based on your needs. These are all going to be different for each and every single person. And then reviewing annually. So you have drug plans and advantage plans that change every single year. Make sure you understand how Medicare works. It is very important to your retirement that you understand how it works so that you know where there are gaps. What are you going to have to pay out of pocket? What are some of the areas where you're going to have to save some additional dollars for costs? And then Medicare doesn't cover dental.

• 31:39Andrew Giancola?

  It doesn't cover vision. It doesn't cover long-term care. So you need to fill those gaps with savings or supplemental insurance. And so a lot of times you want to look through supplemental insurance to maybe cover the difference, plus whatever Medicare doesn't cover, you know, with your doctor visits or things like that. And so it is really important to plan for these gaps in your 60s and even in your 50s. You need to be thinking through this sum, but in your 60s, you really need to be cranking it up there. Now in your 70s and beyond, want to make sure we are managing and maximizing our dollars, stretching them as much as possible. So you need to stay on top of Medicare changes. Premiums and coverage evolve, so you need to review them every single year. You need a budget for inflation like every single age does, but this time healthcare typically outpaces general inflation. So you can make sure you have enough cash on hand and figure out what you're going to do there.

• 32:23Andrew Giancola?

  You need to also consider your caregiving needs. You need to plan ahead for assisted living. You need to have, or thinking through in-home help or nursing care. These can cost $50,000 to $100,000 a year. You need to make sure you're having conversations and you need to be, if you have children, you need to have these conversations with your children as well. What do we need to do? How do we need to think about this? And then protecting your finances. So using legal tools like trusts or POAs or Medicare planning to manage healthcare and long-term expenses wisely is really, really prudent and very important for most of you. So this is how to plan for healthcare costs by age. These are some of the things that you need to consider. And again, for most of you out there. As you start to think about healthcare costs, as you start to do this, you need to make sure that you think through, okay, the inflation is so high on this currently. And hopefully at some point it slows down, but we see no signs of it slowing down here in the

• 33:06Andrew Giancola?

  US at least. And so because each is a case by case thing, we need to make sure that we are planning for these, we are supplementing for these, and we have coverage in place. So listen, I hope this episode helped you guys out. If it did, please consider following the show and leaving a five star rating review. Can I thank you guys enough for being here and investing in yourself because it's exactly what you're doing when you listen to this podcast is you are investing more in yourself. So congratulations for doing that. Thanks again so much for being here and we will see you on the next episode.

• 33:52Speaker 01

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