Getting married and retirement/healthcare changes

Submitted by Slight_Club8965 t3_11cs53z in personalfinance

I assume this is a very basic question, but I am having a hard time finding information on insurance in regards to my upcoming wedding. I'm trying to get as much information on things like marriage and filing jointly.

I work in the public sector and I have very good insurance. My fiance has a job in the private sector with good insurance, for a company (still significantly worse than mine). I am planning on staying on my insurance and he is going to stay on his insurance with future dependents added to his, most likely. If we have separate insurance, will this cause any issues with our filing status come tax time? This is probably a very basic question, but I know they send me a tax form for my records and I don't know many people who aren't on a plan together.

Can I continue to contribute to an FSA account for myself? If some money rolls over, is this now money we use as a couple for 2023? I'm not sure how this works. I would be adding money for July 2023 (pre-wedding, but we'd file jointly as a married couple for 2023) and I don't know how much to add since I don't know who it will cover since FSA is separate from health insurance, it seems.

I'm also looking for advice as a public servant on being phased out of eligibility for Roth IRA. It seems like it penalizes the lower earning spouse who may not have other retirement options like 401k match to contribute to. I hear absolute horror stories about 403b plans and they seem super predatory. I spent a lot of time researching retirement contributions years ago and it has been super disheartening to have to reevaluate my options now that I am getting married when I cannot rely on my state's pension funds exclusively (direct benefit/direct contribution combination). How does a traditional IRA plan differ and is this a better option to a 403b?

Thanks! It's extremely hard to get answers from my peers on this.

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Stock-Freedom t1_ja4q0qb wrote

You can both have separate or combined healthcare plans. It’s up to you. If you have an FSA, it’s kind of antiquated. I’d switch to the HSA plan if offered so you don’t lose money.

If you are married filing jointly you have the income limit of a married filing jointly family. But yes, 403b plans are often worse than 401k plans.

Follow the flowchart.

My generic advice:

https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png

Here is the flowchart from the r/personalfinance subreddit’s Prime Directive. If you follow that, you will be ahead of almost all of your peers.

Stop by the sidebar to see the Common Topics, which include basic money handling and investing.

You don’t need to talk to anyone or buy some random book to do this. You have all the tools right here.

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Slight_Club8965 OP t1_ja4rtdb wrote

Thank you! Most of my peers who no longer qualify have robust 401k plans they use instead and my public sector friends tend to be below the limits, so it has been hard to find people in my position. I really appreciate the input and flowchart.

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1hotjava t1_ja4rhcj wrote

>I’d switch to the HSA plan if offered so you don’t lose money.

You can’t switch to an HSA unless you have an HDHP. Most likely OPs insurance doesn’t qualify and thus why they offer the FSA

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Slight_Club8965 OP t1_ja4sz88 wrote

Yep, no HSA. I have some regular appointments each month and a set copay so I calculate what I need for the year for those and leave a little extra for other expenses I know I will end of charging throughout the year. So far it has worked out well for me.

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1hotjava t1_ja4s1l6 wrote

>phased out of eligibility for Roth IRA.

Look up “Backdoor Roth IRA”. Totally legit, it just involves a couple extra steps.

>I hear absolute horror stories about 403b plans

Some are fine. My Wife’s is through Fidelity and is super low cost. All depends on the employer and how much they want to spend to make sure their employees have a quality plan. The predatory ones are the employers who don’t want to spend anything

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1hotjava t1_ja4suv3 wrote

>it has been super disheartening to have to reevaluate my options now that I am getting married

What exactly is so disheartening? You only mentioned a Roth IRA, of which you can still be contributing to via the Backdoor method. But honestly if all you were doing was Roth IRA you probably weren’t doing enough anyway.

Do you have a brokerage account?

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Slight_Club8965 OP t1_ja4wiyy wrote

I have a brokerage account that I have used for my Roth. I have heard about backdoor Roth, but it seems complicated and I didn't want to do something wrong and get into hot water if I didn't understand the protocol properly (probably unfounded I know).

I know I need to do more, but as a teacher it has been hard to contribute more on my salary than the $6500 when I focused on being debt free and having an emergency fund right after college as a single income. These days, I finally have the income to work with but not so great advice which is why I am here.

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