How to Track Your HSA

Health Savings Accounts offer a lot of perks. Like Flex Savings Accounts (FSA's), they let you pay for a litany of health-related expenses with pre-tax dollars. But unlike those plans, the money stays with you indefinitely, so you don't have to have a crystal ball to predict your health expenses each year, and there is no mad dash to spend the balance.

But there is a quirk about HSA's: unlike with other types of health coverage, there is nobody on the other end approving claims. As the beneficiary, you are responsible for figuring out what is eligible and tracking what comes in and goes out.

Enter the HSA Tracker.

The spreadsheet on the right side of the page is not brain surgery--though it might be handy if you are getting brain surgery. It's basically just a checkbook register spreadsheet combined with the IRS's list of HSA-eligible expenses.

I hope it's helpful for you, but it's just a way to get started. I don't exactly use this spreadsheet myself. For me, the easiest way to track my expenses has been to export my transactions from the bank website to a spreadsheet, then add a column with the drop-down of eligible expenses, and an extra field where I can write additional notes.

If you have feedback on how I can make the HSA Tracker spreadsheet more useful, I hope you'll let me know.