Monday Music "Veterans Of a Thousand Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult.

 I was unable to work the rant this weekend because of "Life", but I did get my Monday Music up, so I got that going for me.   Here is one of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite soundtracks, the music made the movie and the movie made the soundtrack, LOL

I decided to go with Blue Oyster Cult "Veteran of a psychic wars".  I first heard of this song on the movie "Heavy Metal".  I liked the sound track and of course to an adolescent boy, there was a lot of boobage action and a pretty good storyline and and what I consider great animation before computers were used.  There was later a "Heavy Metal 2000".  It sucked..

"Veteran of the Psychic Wars" is a song by the American hard rock band Blue Öyster Cult, written by Eric Bloom and British author Michael Moorcock (creator of Elric of Melniboné). The song first appeared on the album Fire of Unknown Origin from 1981; an extended live version appears on the 1982 album Extraterrestrial Live. It also appears on the soundtrack of the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal.

The phrase "...veteran of a Thousand Psychic Wars" is from the Hawkwind song "Standing at the Edge," from the album Warrior on the Edge of Time (1975), which also dealt with the myth of the Eternal Champion and contained lyrics written by Moorcock. Prior to that, it appears as a line in the poem "Far Arden" by Jim Morrison of The Doors.

The song has been covered by the Finnish metal band Tarot, Metallica at the Bridge School Benefit, and Arjen Anthony Lucassen.

I

I went with this video, it features the song and it ties in a bunch of stuff from the terminator movies.  Actually pretty well done. 

"The Origins of Coffee"

 

        This is what I use in my Keurig in the mornings.  I have a grinder and a filter cup and some specialty grounds I use for "sipping Coffee" usually for the weekend.

As those that frequent my little corner of the internet, probably have gathered from the name of my blog...that I love coffee, I don't drink, smoke, dabble in recreational pharmaceutical or drink soda.  The only vice I have is coffee and I don't consider it a 'vice".  Well the inspiration for the name of my blog came from my brother.  He didn't even realized it.   I was over visiting him and he gave me a cup of "Kona" coffee.....Man that stuff was awesome and every time I went over there, I would pick up a few bags from the PX  and bring it back with me in my suitcase since I couldn't get "Hawaiian Isles" Kona coffee except at some snooty coffee house in midtown.   I am a bit of a coffee snob.

Coffee is a brewed drink with a distinct aroma and flavor, prepared from roasted coffee beans, the seeds found inside "berries" of the Coffea plant. Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, India and Africa. The two most commonly grown are the highly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but stronger and more hardy robusta. The latter is resistant to the coffee leaf rust, Hemileia vastatrix, but has a more bitter taste. Once ripe, coffee beans are picked, processed, and dried. Green (unroasted) coffee beans are one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Once traded, the beans are roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor, before being ground and brewed to create coffee.

My Coffee mug in the morning

     I work at a place where the coffeemakers are running 24 hours a day 7 days a week, coffee serves as both a morning drink to wake people up...remember the caffeine? and a social lubricant.  People would get their morning coffee(or afternoon or night) depending on the shift and sip their coffee and B.S with their colleagues, it reaffirms the social bonds of the crew.  This happens all over the world and that is a good thing.

This would be my workplace if decaffeinated coffee(dirt) was introduced.

More thoughts on the Influence of President Obama on the "Russiagate kerfluffle"

 

 I shamelessly clipped this from a guy I follow on farcebook by the name of Michael Smith., he is spot on on his assertion about President Obama influence on this.  I hope some heads roll for this. but truth be told, I don't think the Republicans have the spine for this. whereas if the situation was the reverse, the donks would do it in a new york minute and because they have the entire academia, media, and outrage complex behind them, would make it stick. 

I’ve long believed Obama’s hands were dirty in every aspect of the “Get Trump” affair.

This is just not something a little insurrection-ey the members of a coffee klatch cooked up in an Alexandra Starbucks and then decided it was worth doing. This is something that gets done because you are completely dedicated and devoted to a charismatic leader you believe somehow supersedes all others in wisdom, purity and leadership and want to see his legacy become real and permanent, and you are willing to break every oath, every law, and ignore the Constitution to see it through.

For people to risk their reputations – in truth, risk life and limb - to run a decades long operation to try to stop a candidate from being elected and when he beat the odds, to try to manufacture a process to end his presidency before it started, to impeach him twice, then try literally every trick in the book to destroy his business, his family , his inner circle, and to imprison him for civil, criminal, and national security crimes seems way too Jim Jones/Peoples Temple-ish.

This is about hatred of Trump, but I think it is more about total devotion to Obama – mostly because what people did represented great personal risk – bordering on sedition and possibly extending to treason.

The notion that a DOJ operation targeting a rival party’s candidate could proceed without the sitting president’s knowledge or approval is unthinkable. Obama, known for his calculated oversight, likely relied on Susan Rice as an intermediary to maintain plausible deniability until Trump’s unexpected 2016 victory over “Madam NeverPresident” Hillary Clinton forced his direct involvement.

The question in my mind isn’t whether Obama was complicit - it’s just how deep his involvement ran. With DNI Tulsi Gabbard now accessing classified records and referring them to the authorities and Congress, the extent of Obama’s role may soon come to light.

The Jack Smith J6 indictment of former President Donald Trump fierce debate, drawing parallels to the actions of Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. If the legal threshold applied to Trump were universally enforced, both Gore and Clinton could face severe consequences for their roles in challenging election results. Gore’s prolonged legal battle over Florida’s vote count in 2000, which delayed the certification of George W. Bush’s victory, and Clinton’s persistent 2016 claims that Trump’s presidency was “illegitimate” due to alleged Russian interference, could be interpreted as undermining electoral trust - much like the accusations against Trump.

The left claimed – and still claims – that “election denialism” is some kind of disqualifying belief, even as they indulge in it.

For example, Hillary Clinton’s public statements, including her 2019 assertion that the election was “stolen,” mirror the rhetoric she criticized in Trump. Similarly, figures like James Clapper, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, John Brennan, and the 50 intelligence officials who falsely labeled Hunter Biden’s laptop as “Russian disinformation” in 2020 could and should face legal scrutiny for peddling misleading narratives to sway voters. Their actions, often justified as protecting national security, suggest a pattern of manipulating public perception to influence elections.

A key example of this interference is the January 5, 2017, White House meeting involving Strzok, Susan Rice, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sally Yates. Declassified notes reveal they discussed surveilling Michael Flynn, Trump’s incoming national security advisor, and withholding critical information from the Trump team. This meeting, far from a one-off, was part of a broader effort tied to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, launched in July 2016 to probe Trump’s campaign based on flimsy evidence like the Steele dossier - a document later discredited for its unverified claims. By the time the 2020 election loomed, Crossfire Hurricane had evolved into a sprawling operation, raising questions about its true purpose: was it to investigate or to sabotage?

And remember Rice’s memo to herself, written on January 20, 2017, claiming Obama insisted everything be “by the book”? Why even have any written evidence of that meeting, especially a memo that reeks of a cover-your-ass move.

This may well turn into one of those “we know” situations where we lack enough hard proof to overcome the horrific thought of dealing with, and punishing, the aftermath of the greatest conspiracy to attack the Constitution and American sovereignty in the history of this nation. I think the only hope there are more than a few breadcrumbs is that this group of saboteurs were far more arrogant than they were smart or careful. Whether enough clear evidence can be found and substantiated is still open – and assuming there is something concrete, perhaps the biggest question is whether our judicial system has the courage to pursue them against a former two term president and his Mission Insurrection team.

"Why was Lt General Author Percivil the British Commander in charge of Singapore in WWII, Was he Incompetent?

 Saw this on Quora 

    My honest opinion, especially back then, the British commanders were either brilliant or incompetent, there were no in-betweens with them, partially because of their "class system", they pulled their officers from what is called their Gentry or upper-class, and no matter how incompetent, they made sure that unless there was actual cowardice they would cover it up.  Cowardice they would not tolerate.  I to this day still am flummoxed by the surrender, and to this day the Australians and New Zealanders still are a bit pissy because it was a huge chunk of their menfolks that got marched into captivity by the Japanese and many didn't return.

Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival’s surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 was the largest surrender of British forces in history and he was therefore bound to come in for a great deal of criticism, not helped by the fact that he was personally not very prepossessing and certainly not the ideal of a General Officer in public opinion.

General Percival

Percival joined the British Army as a private in 1914 and rose to the rank of (temporary) Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the war. In the process he garnered a DSO (with a later second award), a Military Cross and a Croix de Guerre. These are significant medals and so he was obviously no slouch in military matters, especially as he was not a regular soldier. After the war, having taken a regular commission, he attended Staff College and was earmarked for accelerated promotion.

Percival knew Malaya previously, having been posted there as the Chief of Staff to the General Officer Commanding Malaya in the late 1930s. Whilst in this role, Percival correctly assessed the possibility that the Japanese might make an attack on Malaya (and thus Singapore) via Thailand or, contrary to the orthodox view, by landings on the eastern seaboard of the peninsula during the northeast monsoon from October to March.

Funds to rectify the situation were not forthcoming and inter-service rivalry led to the poor placement of RAF airfields in Northern Malaya. This in turn meant that troops had to be dispersed in penny-packets in order to defend them.

In April 1941, Percival was appointed GOC Malaya which meant that he had some seven months to prepare his command before the Japanese attack. He later wrote:

In going to Malaya I realised that there was the double danger either of being left in an inactive command for some years if war did not break out in the East or, if it did, of finding myself involved in a pretty sticky business with the inadequate forces which are usually to be found in the distant parts of our Empire in the early stages of a war.

In this assessment, he was correct. Percival had on hand some 70,000 men (plus 15,000 support troops) with his main force consisting of forty-nine infantry battalions of decidedly mixed quality. The Australian Official Historian later wrote:

Only one of the Indian battalions was up to numerical strength, three had recently arrived in a semi-trained condition, nine had been hastily reorganised with a large intake of raw recruits, and four were being re-formed but were far from being fit for action. Six of the United Kingdom battalions (in the 54th and 55th Brigades of the British 18th Infantry Division) had only just landed in Malaya, and the other seven battalions were under-manned. Of the Australian battalions, three had drawn heavily upon undertrained recruits, new to the theatre. The Malay battalions had not been in action, and the Straits Settlements Volunteers were only sketchily trained.

Partly trained or newly arrived troops contributed to Percival’s problems

He possessed no armour (the Japanese had around 200 tanks) and what tanks and other material were dispatched to Malaya were diverted to Russia or Egypt. Essentially, Malaya was given a low priority and the campaign was over so quickly, a little over two months, that little could be done to redress the situation.

The RAF presence was small and under-equipped with obsolete fighters and the Royal Navy’s Force Z also suffered a catastrophic defeat with the loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.

Obsolete Brewster Buffalo fighters

The premise of the Singapore Strategy was that a strong fleet would be despatched to the Far East, based on Singapore, to deter the Japanese. In the event, Force Z consisted of only two capital ships and lacked any air cover - it’s assigned aircraft carrier having run aground in the Caribbean.

This distinctly second rate response was due to the unexpected fall of France in 1940. The Chiefs of Staff reported:

The security of our imperial interests in the Far East lies ultimately in our ability to control sea communications in the south-western Pacific, for which purpose adequate fleet must be based at Singapore. Since our previous assurances in this respect, however, the whole strategic situation has been radically altered by the French defeat. The result of this has been to alter the whole of the balance of naval strength in home waters. Formerly we were prepared to abandon the Eastern Mediterranean and dispatch a fleet to the Far East, relying on the French fleet in the Western Mediterranean to contain the Italian fleet. Now if we move the Mediterranean fleet to the Far East there is nothing to contain the Italian fleet, which will be free to operate in the Atlantic or reinforce the German fleet in home waters, using bases in north-west France. We must therefore retain in European waters sufficient naval forces to watch both the German and Italian fleets, and we cannot do this and send a fleet to the Far East.

HMS Repulse hit by a Japanese bomb - the failure of the Singapore Strategy

Thus the odds were stacked against Percival even though, on paper, he had a superior force and held the defensive advantage.

However, as was common to all the Allied powers at the start of the war, the British severely misjudged the fighting capabilities of the Japanese. In addition, Percival did not grip his subordinates. His relations with Heath (III Indian Corps) and Bennett (Westforce) were not good, nor was the relationship between these two subordinates. Percival also clashed with his immediate superior, Wavell.

Percival appears to have lacked the required ruthlessness to prevail during a crisis. Although he was neither incompetent nor a coward, he was not suited to this role and the hand he was dealt was poor. Even so, his forces performed very poorly against the Japanese and he must take some responsibility for that. It is interesting to speculate of what Montgomery or Auchinleck or Slim would have made of the task.

Rants and Musings Part 2

 

Sorry this took soo long, 

    Part 1 Rant

    Y'all have seen this image all over Social media, ICE enforcing our Immigration laws and the local Donks in California just going batshit crazy and burning shit and waving flags of a foreign nation.  This isn't a riot, this is an invasion.  A few salient point, that I have made to people and I have been called everything but a son of God.  We are a sovereign nation or we ain, with rights to have a border like any other country in the world, but to the democrats, we can't do that.  Everyone else can have a border with border controls but us, we are supposed to let the 3rd world in and this is supposed to "enrich us".  Newsflash, you can bring more there  to here without making here more like there.  When I went to California at the behest of my employer to start bringing our fleet of planes back out of storage, when covid was starting to taper off,  we went to Victorville, that is where some of our planes were stored(Remember hot dry air is good for storing planes).  It reminded me of central and south America from what I saw, not a condemnation just a reality.  

     This is an older cartoon but still relevant to the political scene, if the Donks are successful on getting amnesty for the 20 million+ illegals here in the United States, they will be successful in locking in the hispanic vote despite their platform going against the conservative values of the average hispanic family.

  As far as the protest, I was getting the "Summer of Love" flashbacks when the protest were burning cars and looting and the legacy media were calling it "Peaceful" but the video clips pulled shade on that nonsense, and drove home the fact that the legacy media is a mouthpiece for the DNC and that they are increasingly irrelevant in the modern world of the new media.  

   And listening to the protestors trying to make word salad of their protest and justify what they are doing was entertaining if it didn't make my head hurt trying to make sense of the feldercarb.  But I keep telling myself that Kamala Harris comes from California and word salad is a thing.

   And the funny thing is that the same people that are protesting by waving Mexican flags or flags of other nations south of the border and cursing America out for doing the ICE raids, don't want to return to their homeland, they supposedly have more loyalty to their homeland until it is time to return then they cry and beg to remain.  That really irks me, if you are here, you are supposedly to have loyalty to here, if you like "there" more, then go back.  I honestly think that the IRS should put a tax on the remittance sent to Mexico and other counties for no other reason than to get back some of the money that they have collected in benefits and under the table payments that have screwed over lawful citizens.  

Its funny that John Fetterman seems to make sense out of all the Democrats, and makes me wonder how off the cliff the rest of them have gone.  What gets me is that the democrats have elevated the non-citizens above the citizens, we are expected to play by the rules but the illegals are not?  Where is the fairness is that?  The modern democratic party has gone all in in supporting the illegals over the Americans, they have tied their fortunes to the illegals and totally told the Americans to pound sand, all in the name of "Orange Man bad".  They conveniently forget that President Obama deported like either 3 or 8 million of them and nobody batted an eye, but because Trump is doing it, they lose their mind.  I know that TDS is a thing, but really?

     Yes there will be a part III

Monday Music "Just Got Lucky" By Jo-Jo Boxer

 

This past weekend rode my like that little burro and the fat lady in the middle of July,  There was a lot of stuff I wanted to do but it didn't happen, family stuff, but family is important so I will not complain a a bit.

  Jo-Jo Boxer was part of the what I call the 2nd British Invasion/New Wave that hit in the early to mid 1980's that gave the 80's that unique musical sound that to me made it my favorite decade, besides having Ronald Reagan as President and I had joined the Army and we had real pride in our country and I went to Germany and my adventures were starting if y'all know what I mean.  Good Times, I don't begrudge my time now, I have a good job, blessed with a good family, good wife, fairly good health for my age I am truly blessed.  

   

JoBoxers was a predominantly British new wave group formed in 1982, when former Subway Sect members Rob Marche (guitarist), Dave Collard (keyboardist), Chris Bostock (bassist), and Sean McLusky (drummer) teamed up with American singer Dig Wayne (born Timothy Wayne Ball, 20 July 1958, Cambridge, Ohio). Wayne had previously fronted the New York based punkabilly band, Buzz and the Flyers as Buzz Wayne.

Like Gangbusters is the first studio album by British new wave band JoBoxers, first released in 1983^[and featuring five chart singles.

The first single "Boxerbeat", the group's anthem, worked its way up the UK charts while the group were the opening act on the Madness 'Rise and Fall' tour,reaching number three. It was kept off the top slot by David Bowie's "Let's Dance" and Duran Duran.

Their next single, "Just Got Lucky", became an international hit. This single sold over 250,000 copies, made the UK top 10, and cracked the U.S. top 40, reaching #36 during November 1983, and has been featured in a number of films including Just My Luck and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

The third single "Johnny Friendly" is a homage to the Marlon Brando film On The Waterfront. British boxer Frank Bruno appeared in the promotional video for the song.

"Jealous Love"/"She's Got Sex" was released as a double A-side. "Jealous Love" was performed on the UK TV show Loose Talk introduced by the actress Diana Dors in one of her last TV appearances,while "She's Got Sex" was covered on Samantha Fox's double platinum selling album Touch Me (as "He's Got Sex"

The band's debut single, "Boxerbeat" found success in Britain, peaking at number three in the UK Singles Chart. However, it was their next hit, "Just Got Lucky," that truly broke the band internationally. This single also sold 250,000 copies, made the UK Top 10, and cracked the U.S. Top 40. It remains the band's only American top-40 hit to date, and the group are often branded as one-hit wonders in the U.S.

Subsequent singles "Johnny Friendly" and "Jealous Love" did less well. JoBoxers' debut album, Like Gangbusters, featuring all of the abovementioned hits, reached the Top 20 of the UK Albums Chart. The band released another single "Is This Really The First Time" and a second album Skin and Bone in 1985, but then split up, with McLusky joining Marche and Paul Wells in the indie-dance band called If? and Bostock joining Dave Stewart's post-Eurythmics group, The Spiritual Cowboys.
Meanwhile, Wayne remained in London and briefly attempted a solo career, releasing the album Square Business in 1987, featuring fellow former JoBoxer Dave Collard on keyboards. One single, "Mastermind" was released from this album. After his solo efforts proved unsuccessful, Wayne began pursuing an acting career. He would go on to appear in several stage productions (including a starring role in the successful West End musical Five Guys Named Moe) in the UK. In 1995, he returned to the U.S., settling in Los Angeles, California, to continue pursuing his acting/television career.

How Come During WWII Soldiers carried their Rifles with the barrels pointed up, and today they carrying them with the muzzle pointed down?

 

I saw this on Quora, I was working a lot of Overtime and went straight from work to a social event with my wife, so I didn't have the time to work on anything big.

All good answers. But it really comes down to this. An M1 Garand weighs 11.6 lbs (5.3 kg) fully loaded. It has a 24 in barrel and overall length of 43.5 in. It has a fixed wooden stock and iron sights.

An M4 carbine weighs 7.5 lbs fully loaded, with a 14in barrel and a length of 33in with the buttstock fully extended. Even with all the stuff we have on it nowadays, it might weigh as much as an M1.

Also, the way we now carry our rifles (at the low-ready) means less time is spent bringing the weapon up into an actionable position. Much of this is because the buttstock of the rifle rests in your shoulder. Also, the muzzle is constantly pointed in a safe direction (in the air, what goes up must come down). With the lighter weight rifles of today, the low ready makes more sense in most situations.

Now the high ready that most the G.I.s used in WW2-vietnam makes more sense for heavier/longer weapons. It means less fatigue on the shooters muscles, and is faster bringing a heavy weapon to action. The buttstock doesn’t naturally rest in your shoulder, but with a long rifle, this makes sense.

WHen I was in the U.S Army in the 1980's and Early 1990's, we carried our rifles the way the Vietnam War Soldier carried them.  The "Patrol Ready" I believed it was called, kinda like this,

although when I was just walking around, unless I was explicitly to carrying it slung, I would carry it kinda like this like this guy did with the M-14, but I would carry mine around the end of the handguards and the slipring, for both the A1 version and the A2 version I had.  I found it easy to carry it.  I never carried it by the "carry handle".  

"Why A Health Saving Account is an Underrated Wealth Builder"

 

I have one through my job and I recently found out last year that I could invest the excess money that isn't used in the market.  I wish I had known about this much sooner.  The money I am investing since I will be sixty soon, I can use to when I retire to pay my medicare part B and D out of this money rather than my checking account and since it is a medical expense it is tax free.  When I turn 67 I can withdraw the money out of this without penalty and only pay taxes on any profit, not the principle.  It is a great way to lower your tax liability through the years and spread it out and shield it and let it grow through the magic of "Compounded Interest".  

    No I am not a wealth management, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express sometime in my life.

    I shamelessly clipped this from "Art of Manliness"

   P.S.  Still working on the rant, probably will go up this weekend.

     

You’re hunched over the kitchen table, flipping through your job’s benefits packet. You see something about a Health Savings Account. Looks like a boring place to stash medical cash. You shrug and skim past.

That could be a big mistake — not marking that little checkbox could cost your future self a six-figure windfall.

If you’re looking for an easy way to maximize your money, allow me to introduce you to a stealth wealth builder: the health savings account or HSA.

I’ve had an HSA since Kate and I first got married. But it wasn’t until fairly recently that I started to realize what an underrated finance tool this thing is.

Today, I’m going to walk you through the benefits of a health savings account and why you might consider opening one up.

HSA Basics

A Health Savings Account is a special kind of savings account designed for medical expenses — but it does a lot more than that. An HSA lets you set aside money tax-free, grow it in the stock market tax-free, and use it for healthcare costs now or decades down the line (yes, tax-free!).

To qualify for an HSA, your health plan needs to have a high deductible — the amount you pay out of pocket before your insurance starts covering costs. As of 2025, the IRS defines a high deductible as at least $1,650 if you’re single or $3,300 for a family. The out-of-pocket max can’t exceed $8,300 or $16,600, respectively.

You can use HSA funds to pay the deductible and any other qualifying medical expenses your insurance doesn’t cover.

You can contribute up to $4,300 a year to your HSA as an individual or $8,550 for a family. If you’re 55 or older, tack on another $1,000. The IRS updates these numbers every year.

HSAs often get confused with FSAs. FSA stands for flexible spending account. FSAs let you set aside pre-tax money from your paycheck to cover qualified out-of-pocket healthcare costs, like copays, prescriptions, and medical supplies. Because the money isn’t taxed, it lowers your taxable income and saves you money. But here’s the catch with FSAs: most FSAs have a “use it or lose it” rule, so you need to spend the funds within the plan year or risk forfeiting what’s left.

This is a big difference between HSAs and FSAs: with HSAs, the money doesn’t vanish if you don’t spend it. It’s yours; it rolls over forever, and you can invest it in the stock market.

Why the HSA Is an Awesome Wealth-Building Tool

The tax savings are huge. The big reason the HSA is such an excellent wealth builder is that it functions like a legal tax shelter.

It offers three big tax benefits:

First, contributions you make to the account are deductible. When you put your money into an HSA, you lower your taxable income. So if you invest $8,550 into your HSA, you reduce your taxable income by $8,550 for the year.

Second, the investments you have in your HSA grow tax-free.

Third, if you use the funds in your HSA for medical expenses, the withdrawals aren’t taxed. So you can pay for braces, doctor appointments, and prescriptions tax-free with money that hasn’t ever been taxed.

All those tax savings really add up and keep money in your pocket where it belongs.

It is possible to use the money in your HSA for non-medical expenses, but that’s not an advisable move, as you’ll have to pay taxes on the amount you used and pay a 20 percent penalty. So, for example, it you withdrew $3,000 from your HSA to pay for a car repair, you’d have to pay income tax on that $3,000 plus an additional $600 (20% penalty). Don’t do that!

The HSA is an inflation-busting healthcare savings builder. An HSA can be a great tool to save on taxes on your immediate healthcare expenses. But where it becomes really powerful is in its ability to help you pay for healthcare expenses decades down the road, when they will likely be higher.

If you’re young and healthy, you probably won’t have to tap into your HSA all that much. This means the money invested in your HSA can take advantage of the power of compounding and grow tax-free for years. This allows you to build an inflation-proof (an HSA can be invested, and investments typically grow faster than inflation) healthcare war chest for the period in your life when medical expenses rise the most: elderhood. Fidelity estimates that a 65-year-old couple will spend $330,000 on medical costs in retirement. That doesn’t even count long-term care. An HSA gives you a way to prep for that monster bill using pre-tax dollars and tax-free market returns.

You can turn an HSA account into a stealth retirement account. An HSA can provide immediate tax savings and help you grow your money for long-term healthcare costs tax-free.

But here’s another cool thing about HSAs: you can turn them into a retirement account when you turn 65.

Once you reach that age, the 20 percent penalty that normally applies to non-medical HSA withdrawals disappears. At that point, you can tap the account for anything — travel, groceries, a new fly rod — and the distribution is simply added to your ordinary income for the year, just like pulling money from a traditional IRA.

The tax-free treatment for qualified medical expenses, however, still applies, so it’s usually smartest to keep using the HSA for healthcare and let other accounts fund your lifestyle. But it should give you some peace of mind knowing that you have another retirement account you can tap into in your golden years.

An HSA is portable and inheritable. You can’t lose your HSA if you change jobs or health insurance plans. It stays with you no matter where life takes you.

When you die, your spouse can take it over tax-free. If it goes to someone else (like a child or grandchild), it’s taxed but not penalized — same as an inherited IRA.

How to Get the Most Out of Your HSA

I hope by now you can see how awesome HSAs are. If it’s an option for you, I definitely recommend opening one up. You can do so through a provider like Fidelity or your employer’s chosen custodian and start contributing funds either directly or through payroll deductions.

Once you’ve got an HSA going, you can get the most out of it as a wealth-building tool by doing the following:

Invest the balance once you’ve cleared the provider’s cash threshold. Most HSAs require you to have a minimum amount in cash. Once you hit that minimum, invest the rest in index funds. This will help your money grow faster.

Do all that you can to leave the money in your HSA alone. That means paying for as many of your medical expenses as you can out-of-pocket. If you’re young and healthy, that likely won’t be too much of an issue. If you or a family member has a chronic health condition, it will be harder. Do what you can based on your situation.

The reason you want to leave the money in your HSA alone is that it allows your money to grow tax-free.

When you do pay for medical expenses out-of-pocket, hold on to those receipts. You can reimburse yourself (tax-free!) from your HSA decades later.

So if you paid $1,000 out-of-pocket for an ER visit in 2025, you can reimburse yourself that $1,000 expense from your HSA tax-free in 2045. During that time, the money in your HSA has been growing tax-free. That $1,000 you would have spent in 2025 from your HSA might be worth $3,000 in 2045 — letting you keep the investment gains and still get reimbursed, effectively turning a medical bill into a wealth-building opportunity.

Hopefully, by now, you can see that an HSA is more than just an account to pay for this year’s doctor’s visits. When used strategically, it’s a long-game wealth builder that saves you in taxes and gives you options down the road.