I'm closing this series on the account I think is the most misunderstood in personal finance. Most people have one and use it completely wrong — not because they're doing anything careless, but because nobody told them what it actually is.

The Health Savings Account. Almost everyone treats it as a medical checking account: money goes in, you swipe it at the pharmacy, money goes out. Functional. And a massive waste of the best tax deal in the code.

Every other account gives you two tax breaks at most. A traditional 401(k): deductible going in, taxed coming out. A Roth: taxed going in, tax-free coming out. Pick two.

The HSA gives you all three. The money is tax-deductible when it goes in. It grows completely tax-free. And when you spend it on qualified medical expenses, the withdrawal is tax-free too. Deduction, growth, and withdrawal — all untaxed. Nothing else in the tax code does that.

To even have one, you need an HSA-eligible high-deductible health plan, so it's not for everyone in every year. But if you're eligible, the 2026 limits are $4,400 for individual coverage and $8,750 for a family, with an extra $1,000 if you're 55 or older.

Here's the strategy that turns a medical account into a wealth account.

Most people's HSA cash just sits there earning nothing. But most HSAs let you invest the balance, the same way you would a 401(k). So the play is this: contribute to the HSA, invest the balance for long-term growth — and when a medical expense comes up, pay it out of pocket if you comfortably can, leaving the HSA untouched to keep compounding.

Then the quiet genius: there's no deadline to reimburse yourself. Keep the receipt for that expense, and years or even decades later, you can pull that amount out of your now-much-larger HSA, completely tax-free, using a receipt from long ago. You've let the money grow tax-free the whole time and you can still get it out tax-free whenever you choose.

Used this way, the HSA becomes something like a retirement account with better tax treatment than any of the others — funded with pre-tax dollars, grown tax-free, and (with receipts) withdrawn tax-free.

This only works if you can cover current medical costs from regular cash flow instead of raiding the HSA — and if you keep good records. That's the discipline piece. Save the receipts. Leave the account alone. Let time do the heavy lifting. It's not complicated. It's just quiet, and quiet is hard to leave untouched.

We started this run talking about calculating the right number, and we're ending on the same idea from a different angle: the account you already have may be far more powerful than the way you're using it. Wealth isn't only about earning more or finding some secret. Often it's about using the ordinary tools in front of you the way they were actually designed to be used.

That's the whole point of doing this with intention.

That's enough — for this issue, and for this series. Thank you for reading. More principles, one week at a time, from here.

— Mario

P.S. If this series helped you, the best thing you can do is send it to one person who'd get value from it. Free to subscribe at macwithintent.com/subscribe.

Educational only — not personalized tax, health-plan, or financial advice. HSA eligibility, limits, and tax treatment depend on your specific plan and situation and can change; consult a qualified professional. Mario Cabral is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. To unsubscribe, click here. MacwithIntent | [physical address] | © 2026.