Spending your company's health & fitness allowance

[tcon]

I'm going to assume a lot of members on here have some form of fitness allowance every year. What kind of stuff does everyone spend it on? Any oddball equipment that is worth owning?

[Mitsu3000gt]

It depends on the company. Some are extremely loose with it and let you buy "fitness" items like golf clubs and winter coats, others require you to buy actual exercise equipment or gym memberships with receipts to prove it. I've always just used it to pay for a gym membership.

There's also people who just use it to buy equipment, then return it as soon as they get the benefit payout haha.

[Brent.ff]

Really depends on the year, ive used it almost the first of january every year..

last four years:
- Ski touring boots
- Bike Trainer
- Climbing ropes
- Gym membership (once for a gym gym, once for a climbing gym)

[RX_EVOLV]

Yeah the definition is extremely loose at my wife's place. We have used it on anything from an Arcteryx winter jacket to a Chariot ( jogging stroller for the kid).

[ercchry]

Bicycles eats this up right quick every year

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

Mine's a little looser, but also taxed. I split it between equipment for the home gym, and PC parts for "mental relaxation" aka gaming.

[prodigydud]

Ours covers dental and health premiums, so that's almost like a mini-bonus

[The_Rural_Juror]

airsoft guns and bbqs?

[tcon]

Mine's a little looser, but also taxed. I split it between equipment for the home gym, and PC parts for "mental relaxation" aka gaming.

Holy shit that's a big brain play

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

Hah. This year was an air bike, and a new 32" monitor.
Next year will me a new barbell, and a 3080 (or 6800/6900 XT).

[spikerS]

Hah. This year was an air bike, and a new 32" monitor.
Next year will me a new barbell, and a 3080 (or 6800/6900 XT).

I have 2 different pools from my work.

1 is a $500/year account. this is one is pretty open to interpretation. We can use it on anything from gym memberships, to computers, to photography equipment, to hobbies. I use it on Magic cards since that is my "hobby". I collect them, and collecting is a hobby. right? RIGHT?

2nd is a pool that I traded for. We can trade our PDOs (paid day offs) for their "cash" equivilant. Since I rarely take time off, I trade those in for roughly $1650 in health spending. This one is more tightly controlled. I can claim most any medical expense, but it's only available for medical expenses. I am fighting to have that changed to be included in my first pool, but no luck so far.

[sabad66]

Amazing how unrestrictive some of your wellness accounts are.

Realizing my company's is horrible compared to some of what i'm reading here... hell they didn't even allow home gym equipment until this year when COVID hit.

[ExtraSlow]

Amazing how unrestrictive some of your wellness accounts are.

Realizing my company's is horrible compared to some of what i'm reading here... hell they didn't even allow home gym equipment until this year when COVID hit.

Well, if yours is a true HCSA, then it's not taxable, but your company has to follow the rules that the CRA sets out. If it's fully taxable as income, then your company can make it as loose or as restrictive as they chose.

[eblend]

We have two accounts, a Health Care Spending Account, which is not taxed, but can only be use for medical stuff, like if you want more massages, cover extra dental costs not already covered, things like that. The second account is Wellness account, which is a taxed benefit, which gives you access to pretty much anything you want, including airline tickets. I used to put money into that, but don't really need anything, so I choose the third option, put it into RRSP. We get a set amount and we decide every year where we want the funds to go or how to split.

Really depends on the company. In my past life I had same type of accounts but the Wellness account was pretty limited to just sport equipment, gym memberships etc, definitely not airline tickets as I have now.

[sabad66]

Well, if yours is a true HCSA, then it's not taxable, but your company has to follow the rules that the CRA sets out. If it's fully taxable as income, then your company can make it as loose or as restrictive as they chose.

Yeah our Wellness Accounts are taxable, but Health Spending Account is not. We basically get a $1900 budget and we can allocate that between the Wellness and HSA. The past couple of years i did $400 Wellness rest HSA, but now that i have my gym setup and given the fact its pretty restrictive, i allocated all to HSA. If they allowed stuff like Apple Watches, laptops, airline tickets, other hobbies, etc i probably would have kept some budget in Wellness but really don't see a point now for my personal situation.

[pf0sh0]

I wish I had the option to allocate between wellness and HSA. I have a lot of HSA to use this year. Was even debating getting some medical marijuana to see if it is an eligible expense.. haha

[topmade]

We get $1200 yearly split into PSA(taxable and pretty limited) or HSA and I go 100% PSA cause with kids this gets used up pretty quickly. The health side of things we have pretty good coverage and if there are costs it has been pretty minimal. Things we have used it on.
- Kumon
- Piano/Violin lessons
- Bikes
- Running shoes
- Trampoline

[eblend]

I wish I had the option to allocate between wellness and HSA. I have a lot of HSA to use this year. Was even debating getting some medical marijuana to see if it is an eligible expense.. haha

Massage every second day! Haha, when I left my previous job it was beginning of the year and I had $500 in unused massages, was there almost every second day to use it up. Once that's up you could use your HSA for more!

[sabad66]

I wish I had the option to allocate between wellness and HSA. I have a lot of HSA to use this year. Was even debating getting some medical marijuana to see if it is an eligible expense.. haha

A little birdie I know expenses his medical mj against his HSA. Definitely worth inquiring if you’re serious.

[pf0sh0]

A little birdie I know expenses his medical mj against his HSA. Definitely worth inquiring if you’re serious.

From what I can tell our HSA expenses = to any CRA eligible medical expenses .. soooo in theory it should be allowable.