HSA, Money Matters, Early Retirement now???

 It's only 12n on Saturday. If you can't tell all this downtime is making me anxious. My feelings are in transition.

I did something good - I re-read my original Q1 proposal to my manager. I think it was great, better than I thought. I laid out what I wanted plainly and provided data. 

I was thinking it was some sort of emotional plea. I was thinking I had attached it to some other email, but no. I presented my idea and gave room for her to come up with an idea. So no, I didn't specifically say - create another role for me. But I did say, can we come up with a plan to get me to $140k. So, fine not within this role, but the plan you came up with is what to help me get another role. 

Okay, I feel really good. Once I allow that to sink in, I will feel better. I did it right. Ugh, gosh. It really does pay to do the right thing, less questions later. I did the right thing. I plainly asked for what I wanted and she specifically told me to look elsewhere. 

It was business. So why am I still stuck in this negative feedback loop? I don't know but I hope it resolves soon. Well, as I've always said unexpected outcomes land in my brain as a misfire. My brain doesn't know what to do with it. I don't know how to reject it. So it lands in all the wrong places. 

Anyway, thanks to one of my budget apps, I noticed a service fee that I otherwise would not have. My HSA started charging me a fee in Feb of this year, apparently. 

When I called my HSA servicer they said that usually happens after you leave your employer. I didn't want to mention I left my employer in Jun 2019 (#noteveryoneisgoodattheirjob), but okay. 

I haven't opened an HSA statement ... I thought since tax time, but I didn't notice it then. Why? So maybe I didn't notice it or I only looked at 2019 statements. Not sure, but I'm pretty sure they would have continued to drain my account at $3/mon until who knows when. I didn't notice it at my Q2 Financial Check-In because I think the investment balance had gone up but the cash balance had gone down. And because everything is on auto-pilot, I have not been that great at checking statements.

Well, now I may just need to keep these apps around. 1 win for technology. 

Anyway, being such a fangirl of A Purple Life, I'd read her...well more like skimmed her review of Lively, an HSA service provider.  I knew there were options, and I immediately thought that's where I'd move my money. First, I asked the internet. 

It turns out some big name firms also handle HSA accounts. I had no idea. So while I originally was going to Lively, since one of my current brokers will service my HSA with no monthly fee, I went with that! 

And it's a little bit better than my current provider not just because it's no-fee but I don't have to keep a cash balance. So I can invest the whole thing. Don't ask me how to use it for actual expenses, but here we are.

Other Money Matters

I think I'm finally ready to move my IRA certificates at the bank to a broker. I had just captured it as part of my safety net, but then for whatever reason (read: the last 2-4 weeks of job related turmoil) it finally hit me that wait - it's still considered an IRA so it's not as easily accessible as I thought. I would still be charged taxes and a penalty for breaking the CD. One was set to mature in April of next year and I think the other just renewed for another 5 years. Normally, I would be concerned with the early closure fees but at 0.15% and 0.55% I think I stand to gain more investing than I would lose at those dismal rates. 

I'm not sure why I didn't realize it sooner. I think a part of me lumped them with some Roth IRA certs I might have had where I would have been able to take out the money without taxes or I just focused too much on the CD part. Or I had been a novice investor. Or at 1 point, they might have really high rates. 

Either way, I'm still vacillating between Broker 1 or Broker 2. Mostly, just thinking long term because at this point, I would say I'm coasting into Early Retirement.  Broker 1, just by chance, has my 3 401k plans, so should I just keep all my "retirement" related accounts there just for arbitrary alignment. 

Broker 2 is known for lower expense ratios so was thinking of moving my regular brokerage accounts there. 

Also Broker 1 is where I started moving my HSA and I didn't want too much activity there to cause confusion. #noteveryoneisgoodattheirjob

Am I in Early Retirement? 

After my latest psychological hulabaloo, I think I've just "forced" myself into early retirement.  I hit 400k (includes in case of emergency-only accounts I don't normally count) sometime this year and around that time learned that some people do a 5% withdrawal. It doesn't have the same level of confidence that you won't run out of money, but again, I don't need to live to 100. 

Forced seems like it wasn't at will. In some ways it wasn't. However I got here, I have officially retired from the Call Center. As of the last 2 weeks, I don't work in Call Center anymore. After 6 years! I can't believe it! Six whole years of Call Center. It certainly wasn't what I pictured when I was studying for my doctorate for 4 years, but here we are. The money worked out and I'm extremely blessed financially. I think seeing that my Old Team was posting for my role (at least I thought so at first, now I don't know), made me snap back into reality. There wasn't any going back. I was just a girl they used to know. 

So yeah, I don't work in the Call Center anymore. And having reached 80% of my FIRE goal, I don't really see myself digging my heels into this new career path. So, I'll do a good job (hard-wired), but I'm really just on Cruise Control until the next Money Goal. 

I have so many thoughts on it but my brain won't let me go there just yet, so please stay tuned! 

In the meantime, I ran some catastrophic numbers for worst case scenario. 

According to Personal Capital's simulations, for a $400k portfolio at 5% withdrawal, there's a 10% chance I'd run out of money in about 15 years, but more than likely, that money would last for another 30 years and then run out. 

30 years seems like a long time but age 70ish doesn't seem as old as it once did. 

I tried in FireCalc, and they said I had a 74% success rate of not running out of money in 30 years with a likely balance of $420k at the end of  those 30 years. 

So financially, the odds are in my favor. I think psychologically, I'll just have to focus on the fact that although it wasn't my first choice, at least I had options and the financial confidence to pursue another opportunity when I recognized the current one wasn't living up to my expectations. 

I just don't recognize that part of myself. Who is that girl?