One of the scariest parts of working toward financial independence is knowing that health issues can throw everything off track you can plan, save and invest for years but a sudden medical problem has the potential to wipe out progress or completely change your timeline. It’s especially stressful because healthcare costs can be so unpredictable and no matter how carefully you plan some things feel out of your control, that uncertainty can make it hard to feel fully secure even when the numbers look good on paper. How do you deal with that fear? Do you focus on building extra savings carrying the best insurance you can afford or just accepting that there will always be risks you can’t prepare for? For those already on the FI path how do you plan for the possibility of unexpected health issues without letting it discourage you from the bigger goal?
How do you deal with the fear that unexpected health issues could undo years of progress toward FI?
byu/HardFeces infinancialindependence
Posted by HardFeces
26 Comments
I don’t really worry about it in those terms, since working towards FI helps me deal with that if it comes up.
It’s not just health costs, it’s also potentially being unable to work. For example, if you get bullied out of your current role you’ll probably need both treatment and recovery time off work, if you recover at all.
Your premise is that you’re not enjoying life because you’re saving and investing for a magical date (RE). No, you should live FI. Enjoy everyday. You live FI for a reason such as a bad health scare. You’ll be able to afford higher quality insurance and care should that happen.
Love a healthy, active lifestyle and stop worrying.
The vast majority of serious health issues affect unhealthy, sedentary sugar addicts with a high body fat percentage and terrible blood work.
Get yourself down to 12% body fat. Lift weights 4x a week. Walk 10k steps a day. Eat only whole foods.
You’ll avoid the vast majority of future health problems.
Worry about the things you can control and let go of the things you can’t. You can’t control future health costs but you can control your diet, exercise, and catching issues early before they become serious. which major health issues are you referring to?
The point of the FI path is that major unexpected things like health issues are annoying, for most people they are debilitating. For you it might set you back years while for others it means they need a go fund me to avoid losing their home.
Nothing magically changes when you hit a number, your fear of the unknown will just shift to another unknown. Maybe it’s nuclear weapons, or cyber security, etc. If this fear is really affecting your life then consider that stress is the root cause behind many health issues.
There’s anxiety over things we can influence and there’s anxiety over things we have little control over. A budget that includes some vacations or other nice-to-haves allows funds to shift if needed.
So I address that particular concern by having a decent PPO plan, getting regular checkups, living a relatively healthy lifestyle and having enough flex in my budget that hitting max out-of-pocket doesn’t make me choose between treatment, being homeless or forced to work at Walmart.
My worst-case scenario is a 2-3 year stay in memory care. That would happen later rather than sooner and by that point, my portfolio would likely be either pretty good and able to handle the cost or low and unable to. Since it’s 80%+ going to be large enough to handle the cost, I don’t worry about it.
You just live your life. It’s an unknowable unknown. If it happens, you deal with it, hopefully from a better financial position than you’d be in if you hadn’t been working towards FI.
Health is usually part of luck. Some folks have bad luck, others good. You can’t control for luck though.
Looking at the Rich Broke Dead calculator is sobering. Or downright depressing when I run it for my fiancee instead of me.
https://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/
You’re going to die. You can’t control when. You have to accept that and get past the fear that comes with it in order to appreciate today. I also fail to get past this fear 😁
Just try to stay healthy. I mean I can get hit by a car tomorrow. What am I gonna do? Live in a bubble in my house to avoid it? Get over your fears and just live life. You can control the unexpected and random
We have good private insurance in our country. While it’s not cheap, it is much more affordable than in the US. We have had a few large medical and dental procedures since moving overseas. We managed these by having a properly sized budget. Of course, the national health service helps out as well.
Save even more money
I don’t have that fear at all. I’m healthy and have health insurance. The out of pocket max on a high deductible ACA plan is still a financial non issue.
I just don’t have that fear at all tbh. Why worry about things like that?
Back in the day there was a t-shirt with a cartoon drawing of a pretty, worried-looking young woman with the caption
*Nuclear war? What about my career?*
If a serious health issue arises for you, FI will be the least of your concerns.
*A healthy man wants a thousand things. A sick man only wants one.*
Confucius
I just keep going as normal and do not worry about the very low percentage chance of those things happening. If something really bad happens, I’ll still be in a better position being on the way to FI than if I wasn’t. Think about this, say you are saving even the standard 15% for retirement, you now have a 15% buffer in your monetary situation if SHTF, and that could really do wonders for a dire situation. Maybe you forgo savings for a while, but the money you’ve already put away will keep working for you, earning away. And if you happen to be far enough along in your journey where earnings outpace contributions, it could feel like only a small blip in your plans.
Just being out of debt and having a healthy savings rate will already leave you in a much better position to deal with future struggles, and if something really catastrophic happens, that’s what (term) life insurance is for.
I don’t worry about health issues in relation to FI. My only hope is that if I do get sick, it goes quick and doesn’t tear down what I have built up so that the largest portion can be left for my wife and children. I don’t worry about it as a set back to my own FI. I only worry about it as a set back to their futures, it’s not about me any way.
The other side of the coin is that you’re saving, which means that in the event of a medical event, you’ll be better off financially than someone who didn’t.
Financially, I deal with it by living in a society. Life-wise, I’ll just expect health and will readjust if/when something medical changes how I can live my life and don’t worry about it until then.
Insurance will cover that. You don’t even need the best insurance, even if your out of pocket is really high like 10k you’re still fine.
Here to say don’t be anxious, if it happens it happens, and financial dependency may have to wait. I have two diagnosis’s in five years, but I’m young and can always start over. No need to worry, if it happens, it will happen eventually
Mate if you have health issues then nothing else matters
You carry insurance and plan your budget around premiums + out of pocket maximum every year. If you don’t spend it all, you have a bonus discretionary budget amount to save or roll into a different category.
I carry the best insurance and hope for the best
Don’t live in fear
There is ALWAYS something to fear no matter how much money you have
That’s a funny thing to respond to with fear. The pat answer would be to rattle off some stuff about having a margin of safety, looking at your funding for unexpected emergencies, and some cashflow management during drawdown. But to be honest I think all of that rationality misses the point here.
If you want to deal with your fear response to x or y look at what it is that is making you have a fear response where that is not an appropriate or helpful reaction. What’s up with your fear?
Maybe part of your plan for your life (of which FI is only a small part and not a silver bullet for underlying isues) can be to talk to a therapist about your feelings anxiety and fear – why you are having fear responses where fear is not necessary. This is something that you can afford and budget for, and it might be a really valuable use of some of your money. The earlier you do it, the more powerful it might be, and the more quality time you will have both in the accumulation phase and when FI.
I expect the reduced stress of fire to increase my long term health