In this episode, hosts Drs. Peter Lu and Jennifer Lee talk to Dr. Ankur Chugh about personal finance for the pediatric gastroenterologist, covering everything from managing student loans to retirement planning. We also discuss his transition from a career in finance to becoming a physician. Dr. Chugh is a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children's Wisconsin and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
This episode is eligible for CME credit! Once you have listened to the episode, click this link to claim your credit. Credit is available to NASPGHAN members (if you are not a member, you should probably sign up). And thank you to the NASPGHAN Professional Education Committee for their review!
Resources mentioned in the episode:
White Coat Investor
Physician Side Gigs
Learning Objectives:
Produced by: Peter Lu
This episode is eligible for CME credit! Once you have listened to the episode, click this link to claim your credit. Credit is available to NASPGHAN members (if you are not a member, you should probably sign up). And thank you to the NASPGHAN Professional Education Committee for their review!
As always, the discussion, views, and recommendations in this podcast are the sole responsibility of the hosts and guests and are subject to change over time with advances in the field.
Check out our merch website!
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for all the latest news and upcoming episodes.
Click here to support the show.
In this episode, hosts Drs. Peter Lu and Jennifer Lee talk to Dr. Ankur Chugh about personal finance for the pediatric gastroenterologist, covering everything from managing student loans to retirement planning. We also discuss his transition from a career in finance to becoming a physician. Dr. Chugh is a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children's Wisconsin and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
This episode is eligible for CME credit! Once you have listened to the episode, click this link to claim your credit. Credit is available to NASPGHAN members (if you are not a member, you should probably sign up). And thank you to the NASPGHAN Professional Education Committee for their review!
Resources mentioned in the episode:
White Coat Investor
Physician Side Gigs
Learning Objectives:
Produced by: Peter Lu
This episode is eligible for CME credit! Once you have listened to the episode, click this link to claim your credit. Credit is available to NASPGHAN members (if you are not a member, you should probably sign up). And thank you to the NASPGHAN Professional Education Committee for their review!
As always, the discussion, views, and recommendations in this podcast are the sole responsibility of the hosts and guests and are subject to change over time with advances in the field.
Check out our merch website!
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for all the latest news and upcoming episodes.
Click here to support the show.
Welcome to another episode of Bowel Sounds, the Pediatric GI podcast, the official podcast of the North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, hepatology and Nutrition, or NASPEGAN. My name is Peter Liu. I'm a pediatric gastroenterologist at Nashua Inchulins Hospital in Columbus, ohio, and I'm joined today by my co-host and colleague here, dr Jennifer Lee.
Speaker 2:Hey Peter, What are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm good, i'm good.
Speaker 2:Super excited about today's topic because it's one I feel like a lot of us don't know enough about, and we totally should.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. I feel like in one of the season kickoff episodes I was like this is the episode I really want to do.
Speaker 1:Something about finance, because honestly, like all through my training, i think I just blocked it out of my mind that I was in you know a lot of debt And every time I checked my you know app with all my accounts on it, my net worth was like negative a ton. So I just didn't want to think about it And I feel like I definitely could have made better decisions earlier on with like loans and stuff that I don't know.
Speaker 2:This is not a confessional, don't even think about it, okay, but it is good because we have something for everyone, something who's early in their career, later mid, you know everybody. Even retirement stuff which is a request from Dr DeLorenzo Like as you're getting closer to retirement, kind of how to manage that. And our guest is super fun too. So it's Dr Anchor Chug, and one of my favorite memories about him was at NASP again this past year and his energy on the dance floor.
Speaker 1:He, uh, yeah, he lit up the dance floor.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was so great.
Speaker 1:It was incredible. I mean, he's like he's my vice chair on the technology committee And I I had not seen that side of him before. Well, I may have, but I miss me if things have been. you know, maybe it was like late at night, things were blurry. This one, that was a yeah pictures. Maybe we'll have to share it as part of the social media promo stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, and he's more than just a bright light on the dance floor, but he's an assistant professor at the medical college of Wisconsin And prior to becoming a physician, he was actually a financial planner financial advisor.
Speaker 1:He was in finance.
Speaker 2:What's the difference?
Speaker 1:Uh no, he worked Well. This is another reason why we needed him to come on. Okay, He's not a financial advisor He worked for, like companies that dealt with maybe venture capital stuff and investments.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 1:I think he maybe was like trying to decide what are good investments for his company. Who knows? I don't really know. But that was dealt with money, and this is just another example of why we need to learn more about money.
Speaker 2:And actually I just thought of an announcement because he also helped us kick off the baby shark tank last year And is it happening again?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's happening, yes.
Speaker 2:So anyone who's listening think of your ideas. Only put that in if the baby shark tank comes out for an aspect, again 2023.
Speaker 1:So it will, And announcement is going to come soon. Actually, the time this comes out it may have already come out, But yes, we're doing it again. It's going to be bigger and better. So this time it's not restricted to just the single topic symposium. It's actually going to happen on Thursday, that first opening reception after the postgrad course. So there's going to be drinks, some snacks hopefully some snacks And then I think there's like maybe posters and exhibitors, but then also on the big stage, baby shark tank 2.0.
Speaker 2:Oh, can't wait. Oh, it's going to be so good. Well, should we go to the show?
Speaker 1:Oh, that seems so much shorter than our usual long. Yes, let's go on to the show. All right, all right On to the show. So, dr Ankur Chak, thank you so much for joining us. It is awesome to have you on a friend, colleague and also financial expert And we get into some of your back story that, i think, sets you apart from the rest of our field. Before getting into that, welcome to the show. Thank you, happy to be here, guys. So our first question, the most challenging For listeners who don't know you yet how would you describe yourself?
Speaker 1:in only one sentence.
Speaker 3:All right. So I like this question because on your podcast you can tell who's like prepared or not prepared. Right, you can use it to wing it with the wrong sentences, and then you've got the folks that have probably written out their little like semi-colon version. So I thought about this and I was like which way do I go? Do I write it out or do I go impromptu? And I was like you know what? we're just going to go impromptu, because that's where the magic is right.
Speaker 2:You've already said five sentences.
Speaker 1:I know, just saying I mean Okay, now answer starts now.
Speaker 3:Can we throw this podcast over? All right, so I am, i guess, first and foremost, a father, a husband, a son and a brother. I'm a pediatric GI doctor who focuses on C-Lact disease and administrative work, and I am a lover of sports and taking care of kids the best that I can.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:So okay, sports, What sports, what teams, or is it just like sport in general?
Speaker 3:Yeah, So I'm from Chicago So I stick with my Chicago teams for the most part. I have been in Milwaukee now almost six years, So I do have some affinity for the Bucks. I've been a big basketball fan, You know.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the No, oh, my gosh.
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding. okay, We're going to have to cut that out. Can we replace her?
Speaker 1:Oh, i mean they, i mean so, i mean they've been very successful recently. The Milwaukee Bucks.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Fear the Deer. Nope, yanis. Onto to Kumpo. Nope, no, you know who they are. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Sorry when you said the Bucks, I just went to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yeah, it's very different. Okay, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 3:Moving on. I grew up in the Jordan era, Bulls era, So a huge NBA fan, So so big sports fan. Basketball, football are my two big sports.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Bears fan as well, bears fan as well.
Speaker 3:You know he said about this number one draft Pick that we're going to shop and, you know, rebuild the team.
Speaker 1:You got our former Buckeye Justin Fields. Are you a fan or a? I'm a fan, I'm a believer.
Speaker 3:Okay, i'm a fan, i'm a believer. The guy can run like faster than you know most humans on earth, i mean, but a human being can run 20 miles an hour or something. Is, you know, special?
Speaker 2:That is special.
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk a little bit about Milwaukee, moving on from sports. So you said you've been there for a few years now, so what is the one thing that we need to see, do or eat when we visit Milwaukee in the summer that the average tourist would miss?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i'm going to flip that back on you guys and tell me what do you guys know about Milwaukee, or what are the things that like come to mind for you that I'm going to kill and hold?
Speaker 2:I already know.
Speaker 1:Dude, you're the guest. Okay, Not us.
Speaker 2:So my kids are obsessed with. I think his name is Kevin Hanks. He wrote a book called chrysanthemum. What Yeah, he's from Milwaukee. My husband interviewed there for a cardiology position and he got a book that was autographed by this guy. So okay, i've been to.
Speaker 1:Milwaukee several times and you know I used to live in Chicago. I used to go up there to watch the Bucks whenever the Lakers came to town to play. Fun fact, i gave Kobe Bryant a high five after he scored a game-winning shot and double overtime against the Bucks. I actually have it on video. Rest in peace, kobe Bryant. But I've also been there to visit the. Isn't there like a Miller brewery factory? that kind of thing went there once. That's about it.
Speaker 2:Kevin Hanks is definitely from Milwaukee. I'm Googling this right now.
Speaker 1:But like okay, angkor, do you know who that is?
Speaker 3:I do not, and I should have just answered the question And I think this is a good lesson, that, like the interviewer, should just answer questions and not ask them. So I think I'm on the right side of the table Exactly, exactly The part for this. So let me I think there are a couple of handful of things that we love to do and that we like when on our kind of go-to guest circuit tour, if you will, especially for kids. So number one Jen cheese curds.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, the squishy ones Or no, they make a sound, right Yeah?
Speaker 3:So if they're raw will be squishy and make a squeaking if they're fresh. But I'm talking about fried cheese curds, lightly fried cheese curds, with that delicate kind of slightly crust on the outside that just when you pull them apart, stretch for, like you know, a good foot with maybe a little bit of garlic aioli on the side. Oh my gosh, and a forward type coating with that Wisconsin cheese. This should have been an in-person interview I know, I want to eat cheese now.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, Yeah. So it's a big one that got some great craft breweries, some really good restaurants, boards, a great museum, tons of stuff to do, especially in the summer. I love it.
Speaker 2:I do want to visit, actually because Mark and really enjoyed the interview, and also Kevin Henke. I have to go back to that because if your kids are in the right age, you should totally listen Your daughter would love this. Let it go, she wants now. He won this American Library Association's Literary Award for Children's Literature. Wow, it's so good. Okay, okay, anyone.
Speaker 3:I'm happy to host you guys in the summer, or anybody else who wants to come out, and we'll do a tour, yeah, i mean, i feel like we feel kind of same about Columbus.
Speaker 1:No one knows anything about Columbus. I mean Milwaukee has this more well-known than Columbus. There's a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 2:It's underrated. Yeah, and you're always.
Speaker 3:Way from the coast. You know all that flood risk. And then you got that Midwestern kindness. You know, And things are cheap.
Speaker 2:Cheese curds.
Speaker 1:Cheaper Cheese, curds, grant breweries. That's the living, yeah, yeah. So okay, today, as you know, we'll be asking you about money And especially, i think, personal finances. That relates to a physician is specifically a pediatric GI. Before we get into that, i alluded to so. Before you are a pediatric GI, you have a whole another life in finance. So how did you decide to transition from that career, potentially take a pay cut, and become a pediatric gastroenterologist? What led to that?
Speaker 3:So, starting at the beginning, age eight, you know, always had that interest in both medicine and business. So instead I wanted to be a doctor at a young age, but also reading, like the Forbes stock market book that I found in the garage you know that my dad had So always on that parallel track playing the video games for the stock market, doing the pre-med kind of stuff, went through med school, pre-med stuff rather, and got to a point where I was like you know, i don't know if I want to commit to this for the long term. It seems like quite a bit of work, as we all know it is. So I had a great advisory who said you know, i just step off the track. You want to go back to medicine. It will always be there and you will come back with more enthusiasm and passion and it will be the right thing for you. So I did that.
Speaker 3:You know, after my senior year I paused on the pre-med stuff. I looked for a job, was fortunate to work at a very large investment firm as like an investment analyst, and worked there for five years post college. So covered the healthcare sector in particular, learned about how to build financial models, read financial statements about a strategy, corporate strategy, all that kind of stuff. And then at some point I said you know, i like this, the people are great learning a ton of stuff. But I think I'd be more fulfilled or happier in medicine working with people. So I did a post-bac. I took biochem at night, i took physics what summer? that kind of a thing. I took a sabbatical for a summer to do my MCATs and then went to med school and here we are, 10 plus years later. Wow.
Speaker 1:Wow And like oh. so, as you know, we've had several guests who've had kind of midlife or not midlife, you know, early career changes or big career changes. So I mean, do you feel like there's some of that background that plays into your work now?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You don't always realize how dots connect to like later on. I've been to some of those fellows talks at Nazbian where they talk about like how life isn't this straight lines, this series of zigzags, right, we kind of try this and this goes down, this goes up and it kind of hopefully leads to some generally trending upline in life, but it's certainly not linear for most of us, and mine certainly isn't And so one of the things that I've done is end up being our medical director for GI, in part because of some of that administrative background, and one of the things that I was working on last night was like building a financial model to try to capture pediatric GI revenues more holistically in costs. That's what I was working on last night. So dusting off my modeling skills and getting in the weeds of excel and trying to figure out how do we think about finances maybe a little bit differently, wow that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And I was going to say, most obviously, we invited him for this podcast. because of that, it all led to this.
Speaker 1:It all led to this moment. Hey, and organizing baby shark tank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was so good.
Speaker 1:Huge claim to fame. So that was an awesome, soon to be tradition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love it For our organization Everyone should start thinking of their ideas for this year. Yes, anyway, so our conversation is going to be guided by different career stages in pediatric gastroenterologists. So, starting with medical training, a lot of us have so many amounts of student loans, and, in fact, student loans are even preventing people from going into pediatrics, let alone pediatric GI, which is my favorite specialty, And so what are some of the things that every resident and fellow should be doing during their training?
Speaker 3:related to finances, I think, first and foremost, student loans are stressful for folks. Right, it's a large dollar number that you sort of just feel like you can't get a dent in and you think about I'm taking on all this debt, i'll have x salary after the fact. You know you're not going to be a well, none of us are neurosurgeons and things like that. We're just saying, look, i'll pay this off quickly. It's going to be something that kind of is there with you, maybe an albatross of sorts, as, like a finance guy, i wasn't too worried about it. But my wife, a pediatrician, has been stressed about this, you know, since the day she had loans. You know this thing hanging over her head. So I get that stress.
Speaker 3:I think the smartest thing that we did are the best advice that we got early on was the public loan forgiveness, and I'm not sure if you guys have done that, you know. But that's the whole thing where you just sign up for early on, even as a resident right, and you get you pay most about 10% of your pre-tax income towards these payments And after 10 years or 120 payments of working at a nonprofit which most of academic medicine is your debt is wiped And I think for us that came to fruition, i think, in the past six months. You know my wife, it was a big if will it happen. I was like, oh, it'll happen, we'll be good. So we made our payments over the past 10 years and the debt's taken care of.
Speaker 3:So I think number one, i think the program still exists. You know, certainly there's a lot of political stuff around student loans right now, so we'll see where this all shakes out over time. But if it's still an option, the number one thing to do is sign up early and sign up quickly for that program, because that can help you have the freedom to make the choices you want to make in terms of where you want to work. You don't have to then feel like I've got to go work in private practice to pay off this debt or in a certain location that I might want to live in. You can say I'll take that academic job that might pay me less, but it's what I want to do And long term I'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jen did, you guys do that. No we had. So Leslie and I had $500,000 worth of student loans at the end of our training.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't know if it was going to happen. I wasn't sure if it was a thing. So we decided to consolidate and just paid off really aggressively. So we paid it off. But now I always wonder, man, i could have had so much more money.
Speaker 2:Well, i have a lot of friends who have done the public loan forgiveness and especially if you do peach GI, because it counts during your training right. So, like residency is three years, i did a chief year, which is a year, and then peach GI is three years, and then I did an informatics fellowship, so I was in fellowship training for nine years, which would have counted towards that public service loan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's no harm to sign up for it. So I think that's part of it, because you don't know where it'll end up. But I think, peter, like you said, the other alternative is just to say I'm going to be aggressive about this And I'm going to figure out what this number is. I'm going to take advantage of low interest rates, which aren't great right now, but historically you're still okay And you can always refinance down, even with mortgages, even with student loans. Whenever rates get lower, you always have the chance to refinance.
Speaker 3:And then you set yourself a budget and say, okay, i want to pay these off an X amount of time. I'm going to live like a resident, live like a fellow, re-prioritize finances towards just getting these kind of off my back. Because the reality is you want to pay off the highest interest loan stuff that you have first, always, and then work your way down if you will, because that's the most expensive debt that you have. Oh, that makes sense. And so student loans are usually towards the top of that bucket. Again, if you can get them down to 2% to 5%, that's great, but usually are starting out 7% to 8%, which is pretty high over time with that big dollar amount.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was a concern too that a lot of my friends have had is that it's such a high interest rate that if you're paying just that 10%, you're not even touching the principle like the interest is building and building and building, which is a little scary right, especially with the political landscape and like. Will this continue moving forward? It's a hard decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it kind of speaks to the probably a theme or a disclaimer that we should put for this episode. Everyone's a little bit different in their risk tolerance and how much debt means to you, and I think for us it was kind of like you were saying, ankur, it was kind of weighing on us, especially my wife, to the point where it was kind of affecting how she was doing at work, the feeling like we were trapped because we had to keep on making these payments.
Speaker 3:But anyways, i would also think about it a little bit. It's an investment And so not everybody pays off their house in five, 10 years, kind of a thing. right, that can take time to pay off And it's okay if it takes longer to pay off medical school debt too. Again, there's financial advantages that paid off sooner and live more brutally and things like that. But we all make so many tradeoffs and delays in terms of starting our careers and things like that.
Speaker 3:And if you say, look, i'm at a point in life where you have a family and we need a house of some degree, certainly take a house. that's on the more reasonable side and something you can afford. But it's also okay to parallel process that way, you know, not everything has to be on hold for 10 years while you pay off those debts. You know you can still live life, i think, along the way. You just have to mentally be okay with it. And I think having a plan, peter, like you said, for ncing it on paper how we're going to pay off that debt over what time, gives you that comfort to not have it be like this unknown of. hey, we'll never get this apotross of debt off our back.
Speaker 2:Right, right, that makes sense. Well, and other disclaimers that all this conversation is based on, like what is going on right now, and so things can certainly change. So we always say that at the end, but I think it is important to say it early for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely So, the takeaway for trainees. So, even as soon as possible, you know PSLF, if it's still a thing, get involved, make your you know, income based repayments and try to start that clock ticking for that 10 years, especially because now people are getting their loans forgiven. So, moving on a little bit. So as we, as we approach the end of fellowship, start looking for a job. You know what are the things that we should be thinking about from a financial standpoint when we look at pay structure. Maybe just pay in general, retirement benefits, other aspects that maybe like are not the number one thing that when we think about choosing a job, but things that can affect our future financial wellness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely So. I think the thing that people focus most on is the salary. Right, it's the easy kind of one stop number, but there's a lot more to it than that overall that can play a role. I think the second thing you've got to figure out is like is there a bonus? Is it incentive based? Is it productivity based? How often have they paid it out? What percentage does that make up of your salary? How guaranteed is that or not? Because if it's really been paid out every year for a long period of time and everybody gets it in some ways, assume that's going to be part of your amount. But again, that can always change and they leave it discretionary for a reason you know, kind of pending an economic downturn, that kind of a thing. So I think about that.
Speaker 3:A second, and that's kind of intuitive as well. You know bonuses can be taxed a little bit of a higher rate and their discretionary. So again, getting that built into your salary is better than having it in a bonus, if you had the choice to put it that way. You've got moving expenses, you've got relocation expenses, sometimes you get sign on bonuses, sometimes you can get loan or payments, depending on where you work. That's all factors into that total amount overall.
Speaker 3:And then I think the piece that people miss sometimes is like the matching, because that's a big deal. Most places will have retirement amounts that you might be mandated to put in in terms of getting, like an employee match. That match can be 4%, 6%, 8%. I've heard it as high as 20% at some pediatric GI institutions. 20% for a matching, that's tremendous, right, but that's real dollars that go into your bank account every year. So if that's salary is lower but you get 20% coming in terms of a match, right, that all should be part of the calculation. So I think those are the big things overall. Generally, insurance is pretty good in these academic GI positions. But again, take an eye on what your insurance is and things like that. Cme can play a role right. Talking about DDW and NASB again and things like that, are they going to cover it or are you out of pocket for that Board's licenses? they all add up Your computer supplies, small things, but all can kind of add up in the end. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's an important point, because a lot of us have talked about like that base salary is what everyone thinks about, but then there are all these additional benefits that should play a part into your consideration of a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the first thing you talked about in terms of like does that position value, rvus, is it? you know what kind of incentives are built in to try to get that bonus. You know, if you know that you want to go a certain path like you're really clinical heavy, you know that's going to be an advantage for you. But if you're not, then that may not be something that you you know you may not feel as valued when it comes to bonuses and pay and that kind of thing. So that's a great point.
Speaker 2:That is a good point. So, kind of moving on a little bit from that, what are your take on financial planners? I remember, even as early as training, like financial planners will come and they'll come and be like oh, you're going to be a high income earner one day. How do we make sure we find one that has our best interest in mind? What are your general takes on them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i think you know it's not a one size fits all in general, And I think you know the hard part about being in in medicine is that people have worked pretty hard And when it comes to medicine they're pretty bright or skilled, if you will, in that area. So I think in some cases people assume that I should be skilled in finance or I could be skilled in finance. Right, and the reality is you could be skilled in finance if you take the time and certainly studied it for 10 years, the way we all studied pediatric GI. But the reality is most of us don't have the time to spend 10 years studying finances, so we're not going to probably get as competent in finances as we are in medicine. So I think financial planners are fine to have.
Speaker 3:Historically, they used to charge a percentage of your assets, so to manage your money they take 1% over time And that's certainly fallen out of favor and all the data has shown that like that's not a good use of your money, because taking 1% over 25 years adds up to quite a bit of money that they're taking And they're not really outperforming with their investments to to earn that back for you And a lot of times they're kind of funneling it into funds that they kind of manage or get a commission from, if you will. So you're like, well, i'm paying you this 1%, you're getting a commission on the back end. That's kind of how the industry works, so that I'd say no to our. Or if you said, look, i want a flat fee financial advisor that kind of just guides me periodically, looks at my books, gets our family on the same page, i think that's a great idea for a lot of families. You can find them through Googling, talking to friends open. What is it? next door, open door. What's the name of that website?
Speaker 2:Next door Next door.
Speaker 3:Thank you, yeah, talking to friends, seeing who they like White coat investors, is like a Facebook group that posts a lot about this and things like that. I also think it's helpful just to to get like the family or the couple on the same page, assuming that you're part of a unit that way. You know, you can imagine in my case I've got five years of financial experience at 80 out 40 to 80 hours a week, depending on the week. Right, that's a lot of hours that I have. And now I married to a pediatrician and she doesn't have that finance background.
Speaker 3:So there's also maybe a benefit that comes from having a financial advisor that, like, allows her to ask questions in a way or get up to speed with where I'm at. So that way it feels like balance and equitable And like we're on the same page with things, as opposed to there being a gap, you know. So I think there are some benefits for flat B financial advisors that are out there. Again, if you've got the time and interest to dig in yourself, feel free to learn, read books and things like that. You don't need one, but I think there's definitely value for a lot of folks who don't want to think about it or don't have that interest or time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think one thing we ran into is, you know, as I think, as a trainee, we had no idea, but now looking back, i think it's pretty obvious So many well, there's some financial advisors that also make money from selling certain products, like insurance policies in particular. So that was just something that we did not know. We had, you know, full trust in this guy who seems super nice. He's. He is a very nice guy, but, you know, i think at one point we're like, is this really the right type of policy for us? And I think that's kind of what incentivizes us to try to learn more on our own about it.
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, as a high earner, you know you're also potentially a target for people who you know need to make money. I think the other thing that you mentioned is right the financial planner. I think, especially if you and your partner have different financial philosophies, it's almost like a not a marriage counselor, but a third party who can like really objectively take an account both perspectives and put together a financial plan for the family, yeah, but what you want to spend, what you want to save, what are your goals?
Speaker 3:I mean, you know they talk about the stresses in relationships or marriage and you know finances usually makes the top five depend how you go. So it's nice to have a third party sometimes get people on the same page, you know, with both like kind of facts and then also reconciling some of those gaps that might be there.
Speaker 2:Well, and actually, as I'm thinking about this, it's funny because you know we did a lot of this early on, but then your priorities change, like we're having kids now and we have different priorities, like saving for college and things that maybe didn't come up if you did that. So how often would you kind of think about having those read adjustments or discussions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i think having a yearly meeting with a flat fee financial advisor is probably a good start for folks, maybe every other year, but every year, even just to check in right, did we hit our goals this year? We're on the same page. Did life change right? Did somebody get sick? Was there an unexpected emergency? Did something happen with the job Right? There are a lot of things that can happen here to year that you don't plan for. So I think a yearly checkup, like a annual wellness checkup, we do right for physical right, a lot of times it's hopefully everything's all good right, but sometimes there's a couple of things that raise a couple flags or sometimes you know more serious things.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I like that, i just made that up Financial physical with a natural choke.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, so like if I haven't seen a physician since my pediatrician yeah, okay, that's a different topic, let's move on.
Speaker 1:So, like Jen was mentioning, as things evolve over time. so we're like, let's say, we are now in attending, we are finally making the salary And what do we do with it? Right, How do we decide between paying off student loans, for example you know, we may have taken on a mortgage car payments, child care, contributing to retirement, investing you know, i'm sure many of us have relatives or friends who are always talking about the latest company or crypto to invest in. What do we do with all that, like, how do we prioritize And how do we decide, like, where to devote our money, especially in that early phase of our career?
Speaker 3:So the answer is the answer is not to buy a Maserati right. First thing, peter, you're wondering, or you want me to give you that blessing to tell Leslie, but I'm going to have to edit this And I appreciate terribly So we just take the knot out, but I think if you go expensive enough, it becomes a collector item.
Speaker 2:Get out of here. Okay, moving on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it can be, But that's a. it's a risky way to sort of take that first paycheck and look the pens out. you know, you can just indulge in fine watches or something, Peter, I don't know.
Speaker 3:But we've something we've talked about, so Jen and I are like we're just going to our hybrid Honda Civic and Peter, what is life? So no, but anyways, I think that's a great question. I think you know there's this waterfall that, like the white coat investors has, which if you haven't looked at it, it's pretty neat. We can probably post a link to it or it basically tells you, like how to start putting money away early on when you're in that kind of phase. I think a couple of things I'll say is like. One is like make sure you have that rainy day fund. People talk about three months, six months kind of a thing to have just in case something were to come up, life thing. So work on getting that up to speed.
Speaker 3:Most of us are not hash heavy I should put it lightly when we start our training, right, If you've been kind of scrimping by a little bit, so it might take some time to fill up that kind of war chest or that rainy day fund. So I'd work on that. I talked about that 401k match earlier. That's free money. In my opinion, If your employer is going to match an amount for 6%, 8%, you've got to put that minimum amount in to your 401k to make sure you get that free money from your employer So you can't leave any money on the table let me call it that way. Then you're going to work on your high interest debt, So that's anything. If you have credit card debt for any reason, get rid of that. That's often 10, 20, 25%. Get rid of that as soon as you can. That's the one I think you've got to be as aggressive as possible And from there on then you start to look at some of the other stuff that's out there.
Speaker 3:You can work on those like HSA or FSA kind of programs, those health saving accounts or flexible spending accounts. To me that's also free money because there's match that's involved there. So we've got daycare bills on our end that are significant. But if I put X amount of dollars towards a flexible savings account, I can pay a lot of that daycare money with free tax dollars. So I'm saving. Whatever.
Speaker 3:My tax rate is 20, 30% right there on all that spending. They match some money towards 500 bucks, but it's still money that's free. If I don't put that in there, I don't get it. And similarly, like a health savings account, that's all pre-tax dollars. So 20, 30% savings is the way to think about it. So think about that one. Sometimes people don't always do that because they're not good with receipts or they don't expect a lot of health care bills. That's a little bit of a different beast. But those are some of the things to start with. And then you get into the whole more 401k, free tax dollars And you can think about the Roth, the Bector Roth, all that kind of stuff, alternative investments, And we can get into that if you guys want. But high level rainy day fund, high interest debt, free money from a match are the big takeaways.
Speaker 2:Well, and before we kind of get into those details, i do want to talk about insurance a little bit, because I think disability insurance, life insurance, those types of things could potentially be important, especially if you have something unexpected happen to you. Do we really need those things? What should we be watching out for when we choose a policy?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'm a fan of those kind of things because you can't plan what's going to happen in life. Right, we all know that from our jobs, unfortunately, and we spent all this time training for one thing And it's like our one thing that we do And most of us don't have backup careers or side gigs that we can just go into if something doesn't kind of work out in medicine and from like a health perspective. So I think disability insurance is something that I have, that we both have in our family. We got that earlier on. You save money if you have it earlier on in your training, which is good. If, again, if you imagine you're three quarters through medical school and something were to happen, you're still on the hook for that debt that's over there too. So think about it that way.
Speaker 3:So I do like disability insurance. You can shop around for that And you want to get what are called like owner occupied kind of a things, where it's basically like if you can't do pediatric GI, you get coverage for like what you would be as pediatric GI. They don't say you've got to go work as a general pediatrician or for a health insurance company or whatever else. You're basically saying if I can't do pediatric GI. I get that benefit. If you still go work for somebody else, you can do it, but you're not forced then to go work in a different sub career of pediatric GI. You know that matters a lot more to other specialties where you can imagine there's bigger income caps from, like, a neurosurgeon to maybe an insurance company or things like that. So, yeah, i'm a fan of disability insurance, shopping around, getting it early.
Speaker 3:Then life insurance there's two types overall there's whole life in term. So I'm not going to go into the details of whole life insurance because it's more of a nuanced type of asset class. But when it comes to term insurance, it's cheap, you can shop around for it and it basically covers you while you're early in life, especially where you say, look, if something got for a bit happened to me, my spouse and four kids have some coverage or whatever we need. And so I think there about what are your retirement savings? What do you have saved up? It could be nothing, right, if you're early in your training.
Speaker 3:And what do you want to leave for your family if something were to happen? Are you the higher earner, are you not? How does that all work out? You can get whatever insurance feels right to you. If you said I wanted to pay for college for my kids and, god forbid, something happened, well then you get an insurance policy that allows you to do that kind of a thing. You pay a little bit more early on, so the term way is a cheap way to do it. It goes to go up as you get older, but you might not need it as you get older because you'll have more saved and things like that. So that's a good way to start. We have that as well, yeah.
Speaker 2:Those are hard things to think about in the beginning, but I do think it's important because some of that stuff you know, i remember, like one of the insurance policy, disability insurance policies we have we decided to carry over from when we were trainees, which is not quite as much but it was so cheap Like it was kind of worth keeping anyway. or you can use that same company and like update and edit it for your specific job. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean I think we well, i want to ask you so, like I, because I think we got to like totally new policies once we, we, once we were attendings, because our obviously how salaries or positions are so different from training. Is that something that's pretty standard, like you'd recommend?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you save a little bit of money if you get it earlier on, but again you're paying for longer periods of time. So there's a gap that way, if you think about it, are you talking about?
Speaker 1:disability or disability And I guess also life insurance. Well, we didn't have life insurance until we were attendings. But, yeah, disability.
Speaker 3:I feel like we got a new policy, thinking that it would be more reflective of our current earning potential and, yeah, totally fine And finally get it updated periodically too, Yeah With your, with your new salary or a new income and things like that, to better match what you would lose, you know, if you were to not be able to work. So yeah, totally fine to do it And I think it you do feel the pain of it, a little bit like disability is not super cheap overall, but it's insurance right. It's there if you need it And you hope you never do And once you get used to it being part of the budget, it's just kind of gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I liked your. you emphasized you know you got to really pay attention to different like the specifics about the insurance you're buying and own occupation.
Speaker 2:Disability is kind of what we all are should be looking for Well and I do want to say, just like I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the podcast, but like I had to use disability insurance one time as a trainee I was actually walking across the street from the parking lot to the hospital and I got hit by a car that was driving 40 miles an hour.
Speaker 2:And I wasn't able to work for a period of time And like it was, it was amazing, it was so helpful for us to have, because I had to use it for a while And like if you need it, you need it, and so I think having an experience like that kind of changes your long term planning because, you know, makes it a little bit more real. But everybody should be thinking about these things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i totally agree. I think life insurance, especially when you have a, either if you're a, a sole earner or even the predominant earner, and then I think, when you have kids too, you know you got folks behind, you know, and none of us want to think about this stuff, but just sign up for it, put it on autopay and then don't think about that Exactly Right Then after that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:So kids, they change everything.
Speaker 3:Good way In a good way, peter, yeah, oh yeah, that's right, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1:You're saying kind of yeah, i was just okay.
Speaker 1:Anyway, moving on. Well, so going back a little bit, we talked a sum about retirement plan. I think you know we, when you're going through the priorities of like, where are we put money once we start to make some more money as an attending? you know you talk about emergency fund. We talked about about insurance, but also you talked about all these like both retirement, but also just like ways to try to decrease your tax burden and like tax advantaged accounts, that thing that your institution may offer. So this is going to be a. This is a question I wrote because it's hard for me to keep these straight. I just want to know. So, like I know these are more relevant to the U? S, but what are the main differences between a 401k, 403b, 457, hsa, fsa, traditional and Roth IRAs?
Speaker 2:That'll be a whole hour in itself.
Speaker 1:I mean we talked about.
Speaker 3:this is a two hour episode today, So no, it's not, but anyway let's just start high level right, Cause most of the listeners are not going to want to read through the eight sub points that you mentioned with the details of each. I think Jen's already like rolling her eyes. I think she's taking a nap, I am.
Speaker 2:I am, I might have to run to the restroom real quick. How?
Speaker 1:long will this take?
Speaker 2:I'll be back in that time.
Speaker 3:So I think the key thing, peter, is like, is it pre-tax dollars or post-tax dollars? Like you know, start high level, like what's happening, like where's one of the dollars coming out? Yeah, pre-tax means that it's coming out of your paycheck before you get taxed on it, right? So a lot of these accounts the 401ks, the 403Bs, the 457s think about them as like pre-tax dollars that come out. That's what, before you get taxed whatever our rate is 20, 30%, depending on your income bracket that's getting put into a retirement account. Overall, you get taxed at some point in life, either before or after. So if they come out before you get taxed, they will get taxed later, but that's fine. But then they get to grow at that higher amount over time and things like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people will say generally you want to shoot for a 15% kind of savings rate overall. You know, in terms of what you put away towards that kind of pre-tax dollar retirement And that can be inclusive of your match. So if you put in six and your employer puts in eight, you're at 14%. So you're pretty close right there. Some people, if you follow that whole fire movement of kind of retiring early, they'll push you to 20% kind of a thing right. I love my job, so I don't plan to retire early, but yeah, We all love our jobs.
Speaker 2:Jen, come on. Oh yeah, we love our jobs.
Speaker 1:It's just the option of being able to retire. It's not a bad thing to do. Anyways, we can move it on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but then you might shoot for that 20% right, and that's where that financial plan, financial advisor will help you figure out when you want to get there and go travel the world and that kind of a thing. So think about that as like your pre-tax dollars and you can max out right here 401k or whatever pre-tax account there is. There's federal rules for how much you can kind of max out and things like that. So then you can just check. Most institutions will have a financial plan or advisor too That might be more specific to your institution or plan. so I encourage people to look into that to make sure that you're getting what you want out of your plan and make sure you get that pre-tax match from your employer, so don't ignore all your benefits emails.
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't Maybe not all of them, some of them, but yeah, read a couple quarterly maybe, look at them, and then I think that the other thing is like then the post-tax dollars. So think about your Roth IRA as being your main, your post-tax dollar source. So you've gotten taxed on the money, then you put the money into a Roth, but then it just grows after that. You don't have to pay taxes on it after the fact. There are income requirements about who can start Roth at what phase and things like that. And there's been also a lot of political stuff right now about the whole backdoor Roth and things like that, about a way to get around it. And you may or may not be able to do that based on your current savings type of accounts when you want to do that. So like my wife's able to do that, but I'm not able to do that for a variety of reasons because it would trigger like a tax bill for me, but anyways. So the Roth IRA is there for that post-tax dollar option And the backdoor Roth is there for now, but again, political landscape kind of issues there too. So again, that's where the financial advisor comes in handy, right, instead of spending three hours on white code investor getting smart on the backdoor.
Speaker 3:Roth. You could just say, financial advisor, should I do it Right? Same kind of thing for like, like the college savings plans, right, the 529s? right, you get X amount of dollars that you get a tax break for right, 3000 plus per state. Right. Your financial advisor tells you, hey, did you make sure you did that? Did you do it per kid? Right, what state did you pick Right? That kind of a thing, right, There's ways to decrease that tax burden as well. You don't even have to spend it on college necessarily. It can be for education overall, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so 529s 529s post-tax dollars.
Speaker 3:But you get a tax deduction right Based on the amount that you contribute towards, so it will reduce your tax bill overall. So it'll subtract out from your total income and then your tax on that, so it ends up being a tax benefit that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And then certain states have different offers or you know benefits. I think Ohio, you get $4,000 off of your state tax.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a question that I have, maybe because I don't know enough about this. Can, if I live in a state, do I have to pick the 529 in that state, or can you go to other states? You don't.
Speaker 3:You can pick other states as well Again. So just another way to decrease that tax bill ultimately, you know, at the end of the year. So again, these are like the free money things. But if you're going to be doing it anyways, or you want to contribute towards some amount of money for a college fund, whatever that is, it's a way to get a tax benefit from it. So again, making sure you hit these minimums, the 529 minimum, the free money from your HSA, your FSA, your employer match, right, that's all free money that somebody's. I call it free money. But you know that's on the table for you to just take or not take And you just got to sign up to do it. So those are kind of the big things not to miss.
Speaker 2:And look for your benefit email, because it's like every year, you have to do it by a certain date.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, You have to do it. Oh, that one. Yeah, that one you got to do. Sorry, I was telling you about your statements. you can ignore some of those monthly.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, no, no. But the ones where it's like you have to sign up by this date, you have to do it by that date.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, do that, do that, do that. Sorry, Times 100. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's move on a little bit. So now we're a little bit further in a career And so maybe we have some money laying around that we choose to invest. Dun dun dun. There's so many options. There's taxable investment accounts, we have real estate. Maybe I have a friend who wants to open a restaurant, or the physician side gigs on Facebook. There's a whole bunch of ideas and opportunities on there. Maybe we should be social influencers, i don't know. So how do you think about investments and what's your general approach to kind of wanting to invest more than the bare?
Speaker 3:minimum, i'd say, for like 90% of people it's about getting like the basics right. You know, it's like that blocking and tackling kind of a thing. You'd be surprised how many people just don't get like the basics done right, like those five, eight things I talk about. They take extra time, right. They take extra work somebody to think about something, to open up an email to fill out, right Money to be transferred. That doesn't always happen. So before we get into all the fun, crazy stuff right, that's going to let you retire, you know, in two years get the basics right, because if you do the basics right, the long term things will end up working out okay. Now, if you want to kind of go into that alternative investment kind of a thing where you said, look, i've got the basics done, i've done all that. We've got our rainy day fund, we've got our student loans paid off or a plan for that, we've got our housing plan figured out, plan for that. Now we can start to talk about this kind of other stuff, overall, it's not got to think about diversification, right? So like, what else am I invested in? And then think about how much you're willing to lose, right? So with these investments, do you know what you're doing Or are you just kind of guessing, right? Does anybody understand crypto? Some people do, but most people don't And I'm going to guess most people who have invested don't fully understand it. You know overall, and so that is what it is. You just have to be aware of, like, the risk if it's something that you don't fully understand. So you know, sometimes it's good to work with people who are really smart at something So you can say, look, i've got this buddy who's an orthopedic surgeon who I really trust and he's building some new device and I talked to him and he really seems like he knows what he's doing. So I he knows what he's doing, i'm going to invest with him. I understand the basics of the terms, i've talked about this with my advisor, with my family, and we can afford this risk right, and it might pay off as a 10-fold and that's okay to do, right, if you understand the risks and it seems like a good idea. The other things that are out there, i say think about, like, what you might know something about with which could be GI, right? Somebody came to you and said, look, i've got a new test that can, like, detect colon cancer right, with a 90% accuracy, and you read the study and said that might be helpful, right, but you could think about that in maybe a more constructive way that you know, then the average person could, right, if I had a saliva test, i could tell you if you had, you know, crohn's or UC and tell you which medication would work with you know 98% accuracy, like would you be interested? right, and you'd be like, oh yes, i would right. You could think about that as being things that, like I might want to invest in that if that kind of hands out. Right, you could read the study and things like that. So so think about that.
Speaker 3:I think, if you think about individual stockpicking, study after study after study after study has shown that like it's really really, really hard to do. You know you've got quantum computers in the stock market. You've got guys like I was right who were on earnings calls, right, 24 hours a day, sort of focused on things. You really think you're going to be able to outperform them when it comes to, like a random, you know oil company name. My guess is not right And that's what the kind of data shows. So you're better off just investing in index funds and things like that and letting the market kind of do its job and growing and paying low fees along the way. So yeah, i like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that definitely does. I mean, i think, diversifying your portfolio I feel like that's like a hot topic or a phrase that everybody uses in finances, but it definitely makes sense, although sometimes I just want to invest in crazy weird things, but I guess it's okay if you're willing to lose it. So that's why you have to know who you are as an investor.
Speaker 3:Yeah and think about, like you know, if you go to Las Vegas for on a vacation, you're going to spend actually a amount of money and that money is gone And that's great. But if you say, hey, look, i'm going to invest it in this thing And if it ends up being gone that's okay, but if it ends up giving me 10 times my return, i'm willing to do that in like a thoughtful kind of calculated kind of way And I have the right to financial cushion and plan to sort of to buffer this. However it kind of works out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you may not want to invest it. If you're relying on that is kind of what I'm hearing You definitely do not want to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're relying on that, if you're saying I'm going to, you know, take all my money and bet it on the next crypto thing to buy my house, you know, and please do not do that. I mean, there's enough stories about people who have lost, you know, the bulk of their savings right, investing in something that, on paper, made them a millionaire three months later. And then now, right, they're kind of starting over nine months later And that's just not, i think, worth it, right In the end, yeah, So you mentioned Vegas.
Speaker 1:It's like going to Vegas If you're going to gamble, you've got to be ready to lose everything.
Speaker 2:That's true. But you might win, you might hit a big.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I'm an eternal optimist. I tell my patients that I just am.
Speaker 1:But I like that. It's about you know also about your risk tolerance and knowing what are the safer quote unquote investments and then the riskier ones.
Speaker 3:So if you do something riskier, outsources to somebody who's got some differential insight onto it. that could be you, that could be somebody else, right. Or it could say look, my alma mater's invest in venture capital deals and they've got a great network to do it And I just have to put the money there and they're going to invest it for me. And it's a different way of investing in its venture capital deals, but I've got somebody doing it full time and it's not me, but I'm getting access to it, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So on the other side of the topic. So so far you know, we've talked a lot about once we make the money, what do we do with it? But what if we just need a little bit more money in general, and obviously it's hard to get a raise? You can't just like keep on asking for more money. Well, you could, but yeah probably won't be super successful, But Carlo listening to this, is he? Yeah?
Speaker 1:always listens He who knows if he makes it to the end of the episode, though, so we'll see. This is a test, because if he's listening, we would like more money.
Speaker 2:Yes, please, i'll sign up for that.
Speaker 1:But other than our salary right, what are some opportunities for physicians to do, make some extra income, especially ones that would be likely to be worth the time and effort on top of an already busy schedule? And is that something that we need to check with our primary employer, like, how does that work? Side gigs?
Speaker 3:So side gigs like there's a lot of blocks on this out there right now Again, white coat investor, the prudent plastic surgeon they've got all these things now and like side hustles that you can kind of do. Some of them might be related to you, some of them might not be. You want to think about what you have time for, what you have your interest in, what feels right to you, what you have expertise in and what your employer, first and foremost, allows you to do. Right, like you've got to clear everything by your employer. I mean, you've got your day job and your day job. This is our careers, ultimately, and these side gigs are side gigs right there, not our main gig. So make sure your main gig is okay with your side gig, if you will. Right To kind of make it all work that way.
Speaker 3:In terms of specifics, right, people talk about medical surveys that are out there. I've never done one, but people talk about that. If you want to just kind of sit at the airport, if you travel a lot and want to click through some buttons, right, that's one thing you can do. Some people get in the whole expert witness thing, but you should probably be an expert if you're going to be doing something like that, but with Catholicly, and That's in the name.
Speaker 3:That makes sense Yeah it's in the name, right, i'm actually an expert. I'm not playing one on TV kind of a thing. Some people do consulting right For a variety of things. You can be a consultant for a pharma company, for a startup, for an app right, probably as an influencer now too, right, i think influencers are probably.
Speaker 3:You know, it's like a new whole career path that most of us aren't on right, but there's probably ways to do that for folks if you're creative and for some of the younger folks who listen to this call right, they're already well versed in that kind of a thing. So there's a lot of different things that you can get involved in if you have the time and the interest. I mean, if you want to start up a company right, shark Tank again, plug for that right. You can work on that as like a side hustle. That would take maybe longer to pay off, but the payoffs would be more rewarding. I mean, think about people who've done that as well. So a lot of things that are out there if you want to just learn a new skill, work on a new project or even just make some extra money kind of on the side, if you have time and if your employer allows it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i feel like there's so many, i don't know. I've done a little bit of consulting, a little bit of medical expert work and, like I think it's also it can also be very rewarding to do that kind of stuff. You know, it's kind of exciting to like help maybe a startup that's just developing, really wanting your advice, yeah. So I think when we're in training, i feel like there's a negative stigma associated with like industry and working outside of like your primary job. But I think there's some people may get even more enjoyment out of that than their primary job.
Speaker 1:Potentially Yeah it mixes it up a little bit.
Speaker 3:you know, people do a variety of things and it just reflects a different part of your brain, right, When you've been doing that the same thing for a while, and it might open up opportunities that you might not have thought about either. You know, i think, just as we talk about this, another reminder not just to disclose to your employer, but you've got to disclose that on your publications too. Right, there have been publications about disclosures which have talked about how bad people are disclosing not to have too many repeated words.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very, men are right. So the point is like disclose your disclosures right, because they're real And I think they have the potential to influence people. You hope they don't. Overall, i think we all think that they don't influence us and hopefully they don't, but the reality is the readers should have that opportunity to know if there's even a potential source of conflict.
Speaker 3:So I think, like you said, peter, there's this stigma around it of being like a negative thing. So I think, because of that, people have been like, oh, it's not relevant. I mean, how many times have we seen people take that disclosure side of the talk and like, like, click, like the page down button, like so fast, right, like I couldn't even catch the eye with it, right, as if, like, they did something wrong, you know, as opposed to here's what they are, here's what I've done And here's why I don't think they're relevant. But even if they are, it gives you the opportunity, as a viewer or listener, to sort of think about it for a minute, right, that's like the way it should be. So I think there's nothing wrong with it if you want to do it, but just disclose it.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, that makes sense. So okay. so we're getting towards the end of our career and we're like, hey, when can we retire? Is there a hard and fast number for how much to save? Or how do we even know that we're financially ready to retire? Because I'm ready to retire now.
Speaker 1:I thought you said you love your job. I do love my job, but sometimes I go back and forth. Carlo might be listening.
Speaker 3:No, he doesn't make it to the end, remember. So you're, you're saved. Yeah, we'll see, and maybe you'll get your raise too, if you made it this far.
Speaker 3:You'll regret really get your raise, but no, i think that's a great question. So at our institution we actually have a lot of financial planning that the medical college does for people getting towards the end of the career. They actually have podcasts on this. They actually want you to start meeting with people to think about retirement, about what your numbers that you need are, what you're going to do, how you want to phase out of your career. Are you ready for it emotionally and financially? right, because they're both issues that you need to think about overall.
Speaker 3:People have talked about this 3% or 4% rule in the past, you know, which is like if you were to pull 3 or 4% of your total number at the end for X amount of years, right, then you're kind of ready. But that requires you to figure out what number do you want to live off later on in life. You know in a good way, life expectancies are going up, so you got to think about now living to a different point in life. Now you got to think about like, well, where am I going to live? Do I have insurance for, like long term care insurance, all that kind of stuff? What do I want to gift, if anything, right, my future generations, be it sort of a monetary amount, right, a house, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So in some ways, like the financial planning for the retirement phase is just as complex as, like the early phase, but with like a whole set of different issues, and I think that's where the financial advisor is also equally helpful. So I'd say to your point, jen, at a high level they've said think about what you want to retire on year to year. You need to be able to take, you know, 3%, 4%, number out every year kind of a thing, and they're basically getting to like, okay, the market keeps growing, it gets you to like 30 years worth of, like you know, living at that point. But again, that depends on when you want to retire, how long you're going to live, and everybody can predict the last one, right, like we all know how long it's going to last, so that's that easy, but yeah, but that's kind of what I would say globally speaking, and that's where that financial advisor will actually model it out for you.
Speaker 3:And you got to figure out how do you want to live. Do you want to be, you know, is your house paid off? and you're content thinking local vacations, right, and camping and things like that. Well then you have a different level of cost, right? If you say, no, i want to be spending those years right on the Caribbean, you know, sailing around on a boat or I don't know doing whatever, then that's a different kind of right yearly expense you're talking about in terms of when you'll be able to retire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like the. We talked about the fire movement. You know, financial independence and retire early That was the main hang up for us. You know we realized we can't live that frugally. I think, yeah, there's. You just got to decide what you want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like what's important to you and kind of what you want those years to look like for you. And that's where, again, you have two partners that have different views on that, and so how do you get on the same page for that? And that's where those early conversations and that advisor along the way will help you get there as you get closer.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. I mean I'm ready to buy all my clothing at Costco for the rest of my life, but Leslie is not, so we had to reconcile those differences, so okay, moving on who won that conversation?
Speaker 3:Peter?
Speaker 1:Well, we do our own thing. you know I'm a huge this is a topic for another podcast but I love Costco. I'm fully on board with buying Costco clothing for the rest of my life. But you know, leslie yeah, she has a different taste than me. So you know we've had this great conversation. Thank you so much. That was super helpful. But of course, there's so much stuff that we just can't cover and so much so much like intricacy in this topic that it's hard to just make like a one to two hour podcast and cover all those things. Yeah, for the listener this is not going to be two hours, but what about? so you mentioned some resources. What are your favorite resources for listeners who are interested in learning more about these topics? maybe even some that are tailored to physicians?
Speaker 3:I am a fan of, like the white coat investors group, either on the internet or on Facebook full disclosure I have no stake in Facebook or white coat investors. Some disclosures I. You know they have a lot of posts, so there's a lot of stuff that comes through it. But if you're looking to get smart on something or learning how people think about it, you can learn a lot from the comments in terms of how people respond. Themes come up and you get the pattern of it over time. It's also searchable over time as well. So you're having a specific question about something or how does it work? Like there's a search feature that lets you see what people have posted through and some of the comments over time as well. So that's out there.
Speaker 3:I think it's just about getting like that basic financial literacy, which might have come in high school, might have come in grade school, might have come from your family growing up or your spouse along the way. It's just getting that kind of basic level for all of us to make sure that you don't get, like you said, fleeced or kind of taken advantage of in a way that you feel like, yeah, i really we got hit on this one, like we made that choice and that was a mistake, right? Everybody, nobody, wants to feel that way, especially over long periods of time. I mean, it happens, but you just don't want it to happen. So I'd say, get to that basic kind of financial literacy with whatever resource you like, and those are some ones to start with overall. There's like the Benjamin Graham book about, like, investing. There's the Warren Buffett books for investing.
Speaker 3:But right, that's if you want to get into that. If you're like I don't have time for this, i've got family to take care, of patients to see, like manuscripts to write, right, you might have time to sort of sit there and read investing books at night kind of a thing. So then just get the basics. Get a financial advisor, get on the same page, do it flat based. Get the blocking and tackling right when it comes to getting all that pretext dollars in the matching dollars in, right. Just do the basics and go on and enjoy your life as a pediatric GI doc. It's a pretty good gig that we've got.
Speaker 1:So you know, White Co-Investor also has a great podcast, So I listen to that pretty regularly And I mean now there's so much material out there. I mean there's even like podcasts and blogs for physicians who are specifically interested in real estate, for example, And so credit card travel points Oh yeah, so whatever you're interested in, there's some resources out there that are, you know, oftentimes free.
Speaker 2:So, um, anchor, it was so great to have you today. We have been wanting to have you on the podcast for a while, And so, if you have to look back over your career careers what is the most valuable advice you've received and what advice do you have for our listeners?
Speaker 3:I go with the, the, the pursue your passion. And I think, right, it's, it's a take on the Steve Jobs thing I know it's gotten controversial, you know. Like you know, even Tim Cook now doesn't sort of fully ascribe to that kind of thing And it's the same kind of thing with like, the, oh, like, are you, should you say no more often? or yes, more often? right, if you guys ask them on your podcast all the time And I was like, oh, just say no more. And I'm like a say yes person And I think it's, i'm a pursue your passion kind of a guy And, right, i clearly did that in my case.
Speaker 3:Right, i was on this medicine financial journey and then did the finance thing and then went to medical school and now mainly do medicine, with a little bit of the other stuff on the side. I just think it makes for like a fun, rewarding career. You don't know where things are going to take you, but if you're interested in what you're doing and you're working hard at it, it just keeps this like journey pretty interesting and and pretty fun. And so I just say, right, pursue your passion, i love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like the one of the reasons why today's topic is so important is cause, like being financially secure is going to be a huge part of being able to follow your passions. So I think we have this thing where we don't like to talk about salary and money, but we need to. That's really what's going to help you achieve your goals, like on a personal basis, in the future. Okay, you know. Once again, thank you so much. The last, final question, which is kind of a new thing What are your three main take home points that listeners need to remember?
Speaker 3:All right. So, key, take home points from this podcast. for me, all right. So I'd say number one get to a basic financial literacy point. All right, number one. However, you got to get there, and as soon as you can. If you're already there, great. If not, you got to find a way to get there, just to get the basics understood, and that's important for everybody in the household. I'd say number two get the blocking and tackling right.
Speaker 3:So once you get that financial literacy done, you got to make sure you take advantage of those free money opportunities that I'll call them. So that's the matching dollars that are out there, or those 529 savings accounts. It's that HSA, the FSA, anywhere there's free money on the table. You got to make sure you do that, and that's about eight things per year that you have to do every year. In some cases That takes a little bit of work. So make sure you get those done every year to get the most free money. That's number two. And then you know, as you think about kind of ascending the mountain or kind of that third phase, then it's like, if we're going to get to that more intricate level of investing, do it in ways where you protect the downside and maximize your chance of an upside, meaning that you don't invest more than you can lose. And if you're investing something with some upside, either do it with somebody who's pretty skilled at it or you feel like you have a little bit of differential insight into.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, this was so great And I think I've learned so much. I think you know, sometimes we get so busy with our day to day lives that you might not prioritize your finances. But I love how you say it's really just a once a year commitment at least to really, once you have those basic things going, you can just kind of keep them running, i mean especially when we were, you know, like way in debt and you know why I couldn't invest earlier talks about getting back to broke.
Speaker 1:It was like a stressful thing for me to think about, you know, about all this money I owed. So it is like so important to start the month as early, because that's the way that you'll get out of that kind of situation. So, once again, thank you so much. Thank you. We can't wait to see you again in person, and maybe we'll have to visit Milwaukee sometime.
Speaker 3:Some cheese curds. Yeah there's cheese curds, festivals, ice cream and sports waiting for you guys and the bucks.
Speaker 1:Number one right now, david Bay bucks. But you know the Milwaukee bucks fear the deer.
Speaker 2:Awesome Thanks.
Speaker 3:See you later. Thanks guys, Have a good one Yeah that was so good I feel like I learned a lot.
Speaker 2:I also had a couple of things I needed to like do. I know, I didn't know that you had to re look at some things annually. I feel like I said it and forget it when I started my job And now I'm going to remember every like your retirement contributions.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Maybe you've listened to that episode again.
Speaker 2:So I have to do something annually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the limits increase every year and I also need to percentage right, so anyway whatever. It's like a max, whatever, whatever it's okay.
Speaker 3:It's okay.
Speaker 1:But yes, thank you, dr Chug, that was super helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes, and if you don't already, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at at bow sounds, and on Facebook at at pediatric GI podcast for the latest news and updates on upcoming episodes.
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Speaker 2:And, as always, the discussion, view and recommendations of this podcast are the sole responsibility of the host and guest and are subject to change with advances in the field.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening Bye.