I am a stay-at-home mom and my husband is a senior software developer. We live in the twin cities area in Minnesota.
The place my husband works at has always done their benefits (health insurance, dental insurance, FSA, etc) from November 1st-October 31st (based on the fiscal year of the company). Open enrollment is usually during the first half of October and changes take place Nov 1. This is pretty annoying as things like the health insurance deductibles run the regular calendar year (Jan 1-Dec 31) so it makes it kind of strange if you want to change health plans or anything....
Anyways, the company just announced yesterday that they are going to switch their benefits to a calendar year schedule (Jan 1-Dec 31) which is great and will be less confusing in the long run. However, this means that there is a very interesting (and possibly GOOD) opportunity---they are going to do an enrollment NOW that will be effective November 1-December 31, 2015, and they will do an enrollment in about a month for the 2016 calendar year.
Where it gets good--they also announced a new healthcare option of a high deductible plan with HSA option (there was NO option with an HSA before). AND, we can choose that plan already for the Nov 1-Dec 31 period.
So here's my questions to you Mustachians out there:
1) We currently have an FSA that will end Oct 31. Will it be okay to sign up for the HSA option and put the family max of $6650 in it for 2015 in Nov and Dec? Or is it a problem that we will have had an FSA and an HSA in the same calendar year?
2) For 2016, can you have both an FSA and a HSA? Or is that not allowed? Obviously the HSA is better, but can I have both?
3) So those of you that use an HSA for saving for early retirement--any suggestions on how to save receipts? Are you just paying cash, and saving the receipt for reimbursement at a much later date? Has anyone actually done this?
Thanks in advance for any advice you have for me!