February 2021 – Your Financial Pharmacist

YFP 192: Findings from the 2021 Pharmacist Salary Guide

Posted on by yfpadmin

Findings from the 2021 Pharmacist Salary Guide

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, Alex Barker, founder of The Happy PharmD, joins Tim Ulbrich to discuss takeaways from the 2021 Pharmacist Salary Guide, including the current state of the job market, trends in salary and compensation, and contributors to job stress and dissatisfaction.

About Today’s Guest

Alex Barker is a pharmacist, entrepreneur, author, and creator of The Happy PharmD and the Happy PharmD Summit.

Summary

Alex Barker, founder of The Happy PharmD, breaks down the 2021 Pharmacist Salary Guide, a helpful resource for pharmacists to understand trends in salary, the job market, and job satisfaction and stress. Alex and his team gathered data from multiple sources and reports to help share trends about the pharmacy job market. Alex shares that pharmacists are still well paid, earn a salary in the six-figure range, and are seeing a small increase in pay, however there are trends that pharmacists should be aware of when it comes to salary changes.

Alex first digs into the low ceiling pharmacists have on their salary. While pharmacists are very well paid when just getting out of college, especially when compared to other similar professions, after 20 years they may only see an additional $12,000 added on to their salary even if their job performance exceeds expectations. Some salary starting numbers may be even lower and it is difficult to work your way up to a top tier salary. He discusses that pay is based on what type of pharmacist position you hold. The highest paid positions are in management, pharma, and nuclear pharmacy, however a small percentage of pharmacists hold those types of positions.

He explains that the reason for such a small increase in pay is due to a ‘perfect storm’ he’s seeing in the pharmacy job market. Alex describes that due to the supply and demand of pharmacists, this perfect storm has been created: 13,000-14,000 pharmacists graduate each year, ⅓ of current pharmacists (~100,000) are looking for a new job, and a negative job growth is predicted due to the oversupply of pharmacists (321,000 jobs decrease to 311,200). Because of this, it’s important to consider your career trajectory. Alex also talks about satisfaction and job stress and Job Rx, a new job board that pulls open pharmacy positions from employment sites.

Click here to download a free copy of the 2021 Pharmacist Salary Guide.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Barker: Thanks for having me, Tim. I enjoy hanging out with you.

Tim Ulbrich: It’s been awhile, specifically Episode 092 when we talked about creating an indispensable pharmacy career all the way back in March of 2019. But for those in our audience that may not know you, I know many folks do know you and the work that you’re doing with the Happy PharmD. But tell us a little bit about your pharmacy career and the work that you are currently doing with the Happy PharmD.

Alex Barker: Happy to, but first I want to acknowledge — was it Episode 092?

Tim Ulbrich: 092.

Alex Barker: So you had me on 100 episodes later.

Tim Ulbrich: Nailed it.

Alex Barker: Wow, good job.

Tim Ulbrich: That was planned. No, I’m just kidding. It wasn’t.

Alex Barker: Yeah, so I’m Alex Barker. I’m a pharmacist. I graduated in 2012, did a residency, went into clinical practice, did not enjoy myself and struggled to find my way with my career. That led me to business, led me to coaching people, led me to creating a few other media companies and other crazy, random ideas. And then I saw, unfortunately, the need of our profession. A lot of people are burned out, a lot of people are unhappy, unfulfilled in their positions. So I took coaching along with our profession and kind of married it into this Happy PharmD where we help pharmacists and coach them into better careers and jobs, doing that since 2017 now.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Alex Barker: We’ve got — yeah, it’s crazy.

Tim Ulbrich: It is.

Alex Barker: If it was back in 2019 that I was last here, I think we only had maybe four coaches including myself. We now have 11. And we have an awesome team, support team, we’re doing research. Lots of crazy stuff. And a good colleague of yours now is our lead coach, Jackie Boyle.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Alex Barker: Who is at NEOMed in Ohio. So yeah. That’s what we do here at the Happy PharmD. And I know why you brought me on was to go over trends and what’s going on in the job market and specifically in pharmacists’ salaries. So, happy to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. And for those that are not familiar, make sure you check it out, TheHappyPharmD.com. We’ll link to it in the show notes. And Alex, as you mentioned, today is a topic that I know is of interest to our community, one that I enjoy talking about on the show as well as our folks are certainly interested. What’s happening in the job market? What’s happening with the current state of jobs? And you have an incredible annual salary guide of which we will link to in the show notes and I mentioned in the introduction that distills data about pharmacist salaries, salary changes, job stress, job satisfaction, and overall the pharmacy job market. And one of the things you talk about in there, which we’ll get to towards the end of the show is the perfect storm and what that means as it relates to where we are as a profession. So you’ve been doing this now for several years, is that right, Alex? The salary guide?

Alex Barker: Since 2015, which meant we were looking at 2014 data. So yes, we’ve been doing this many, many years. We have a lot of data, and it’s — frankly, it’s all over the place. It’s a little frustrating. But we’ve got a good — you’ll be able to see in charts and graphs, you’ll be able to compare yourself to others. I’d recommend you look at yourself where you’re at rather than the trends as a whole, but we can dive into those here. Where would you like to hit first?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, so my first question, Alex, is there’s other resources out there, you know, a couple that come to mind, several state associations do this, I know we do here in Ohio, there’s the Pharmacy Workforce Survey, which I believe happens every five years, one published last year. So what’s the need for this? Tell me more about why you felt like there was a gap and an opportunity to fill that gap with this resource.

Alex Barker: So one of the things that I like to do whenever I’m looking at a complex problem is multiple resources. You know what, that’s not really unique. I think every pharmacist does that, especially when we’re researching a disease state or a new drug. We’ve got to have the whole picture, right? And one of the things that frustrated me about the multiple reports were the indiscrepancies and the different numbers. So I didn’t really see anyone else putting all of this information together in one place. So that’s why I started way back in 2015 working on this report. I think I published it originally on Pharmacy Times. And we had since now put it on our website because obviously we weren’t around in 2015. I like looking at seeing multiple sources of data, multiple reports, to see and to look for those trends. Right? Because I think we all have hearsay and, you know, secondhand stories of —

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Alex Barker — what’s happening in the job market. And there is some truth to that. And then we actually have some solid data for some of those hearsay stories. But overall, we can say that pharmacists are still well paid. We’re still in the six-figure range. We are continuing to see a very small overall increase in our pay, albeit that it is very slow and it is slower in comparison to the majority of other health professions. But we are seeing some trends that we should all be aware of when it comes to salary changes.

Tim Ulbrich: And Alex, one of those that you talk about in the guide that I know is something that is of interest to me and the financial plan because these topics are very connected I think for obvious reasons is that when it comes to pharmacist’s salary, of course we’d expect to see some difference based on experience, depending on areas of practice of which we can dig into further. But one of the things you mentioned is that there’s an extremely low ceiling for pharmacists. And this is one of those things — speaking of hearsay — that I have always thought is of course varies based on positions and we know that some areas, there’s more long-term upside and maybe some longer term growth opportunities, but for many pharmacists, outside of cost of living adjustments, if that sometimes, that there’s a relatively low ceiling of where you start, which is a great blessing, may not be too far off from where you end. And you know, that matters for a whole lot of reasons when we talk about the financial plan. So give me your read on that. You know, tell us more about what you’ve found and why is that so significant?

Alex Barker: We should be well aware as pharmacists, we are very well paid for just getting out of college. If you compare our education, the length of it as well as the job market and compare it to other similar professions, we are more likely to be paid higher. So according to a report by Pay Scale, which was the only one, unfortunately, that looked at years of experience with an annual average wage, you’re looking at about $113,000 is the average starting salary for less than years experience, which is, I mean, insane. If you told that to a high schooler, you’d get their ears to perk up.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Alex Barker: However, if you add on years of experience, so if you work in the profession 20+ years, according to this report, you’re only adding about $12,000 more per year to your salary, which I never realized that when I went through education. I never had my eyes open to that problem, but like that should be a sinking feeling that it doesn’t really matter how much harder you work, it doesn’t matter how long you work with a company, chances are your salary will not increase. In fact, for an institution I worked for, it was very clear that after a certain amount of time, years of experience, that my salary would increase incrementally up to a point. And then at that point, I was locked at the rate at which, you know, the cost of living increases, which in my area, is very low. So —

Tim Ulbrich: Regardless of performance, regardless of performance, right?

Alex Barker: Right. Right. And I would not say that I was an above-average pharmacist. I would say that I was just kind of in the middle. And it didn’t matter. And what made me the most frustrated was that finding out the amount of money that people got for doing insanely well. We had a few amazing pharmacists on our team. They worked really, really hard. And I found out that their — when they exceeded expectations was the measure that they had to get in their annual review, that when they got that, it equated to about $1,500. $1,500. And if you take that, you divide it by the hours that you work, I mean, it isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth it at all to even try harder. And so what we’ve kind of created, unfortunately, in this perfect storm, one factor of it is we have a profession where we are not rewarded for effort. And that’s disconcerting. It creates complacency, I would say for sure. I mean, it did within me when I was a clinician.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think especially at a time where you and I both know, we need some innovation, we need some risk-taking, we need some great ideas coming forward. And you know, compensation of course isn’t the only way that’s going to drive that. But certainly, you know, a low ceiling, as you mentioned in the report, may subtly not encourage high performance. And I think that’s a noteworthy thing. And of course, it goes without saying, we’re generalizing here. As you look at this data across the profession, there are certainly areas of the profession where there’s more upward mobility, I would use management/admin type of positions on the health systems side as one example. But there are certainly others. And of course when it comes to the financial plan, what screams to me here, Alex, is that you have to if this is going to be true for your career and the trajectory, you have to be that much more diligent about the financial plan from Day 1. Right? Because naturally what happens is expenses are going to go up if we let them. And so over time, if expenses go up proportionally but salaries do not, we’ve got a problem in terms of being able to achieve all the financial goals that we do. Another way of looking at this if we want to be a little bit more half-glass full is that you do have a great salary at a very young age coming out of school. And if you’re able to keep those expenses down, you’ve got a long trajectory where that money can be saved, you can have compound growth and other things where other professions, while there might be more upwards trajectory, it might take them longer to get to a point of savings. But of course, we haven’t talked about the $175k of debt that our graduates are taking on. Separate story for another day. So when we look at the pharmacist’s salary based on job sector, we know that there are a lot of avenues pharmacists can take in their pharmacy profession throughout their career. So tell us a little bit more about the variation you see in terms of jobs that have higher salary ranges, jobs that have lower salary ranges.

Alex Barker: I don’t think people will be too surprised, but perhaps maybe by the amount. So based on where people are working and the kind of job that they’re working, which by the way — don’t try to do this yourself, OK? Don’t go to look at all these reports because they call pharmacists by different names. I mean, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is a U.S. government organization, defines one of our professions as working at food and beverage stores. Tim, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what a food and beverage store is. It’s not a gas station. And they already have general merchandise stores and pharmacies and drug stores. So maybe I’m missing — I live in Michigan, so I haven’t been all over the world. I don’t know what this is. So where are the great paying jobs? Like you said, it comes down to management jobs, they are clearly paid more. We’re looking at ranges anywhere from $15,000 to even $25,000 more. We know that pharma jobs, particularly higher management jobs, pay extremely well. Nuclear pharmacist is one of the top-paying patient care jobs. JobRx reported that their average was at $157,000, which is very, very high. And again, we’re also seeing similar trends that where there is more responsibility, so more prescribing ability, we see pharmacists being paid higher, so clinical pharmacist roles, whereas where we’ve seen the lowest paid pharmacists, we’re seeing those typically in mail-order and PBMs. We’re seeing it in medical marijuana places, mail pharmacies. And as everyone would expect, we are seeing lower salaries, trending downward, in chains and of course independents, long-term care. Now, to clarify, everyone’s got opinions on these things. ‘Oh, well, I know of this person who got this. And I’m paid this.’ It’s trends. We have to keep all of this with a grain of salt because the reporting from each of these sources varies greatly. So I’m herding cats here, and I’m just telling you about my experience with it, OK? It’s challenging.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure. And it’s a good point, I mean, I hope our listeners will take it with a grain of salt. But it’s a great opportunity to see what’s out there. And what’s of concern to me, Alex, is I’m thinking of the distribution of pharmacists by practice, and that first group that you mentioned, management/admin positions, industry and nuclear pharmacy I think were the three you mentioned, that is a small sliver of the pie. Right? The bigger chunk of the pie is the community positions, is the managed care positions. And so I think it is something that we have to consider and we have to take seriously in terms of the significance. Now, hearsay — speaking of hearsay — one thing I have heard that I think is easy for us to hear and say, “Oh my gosh, the salaries of pharmacists, it’s falling apart,” and that is the instances of somebody starting at $35 an hour, $40 an hour, you know, and is it because of a saturated market? Is it because of this or that? Are they perhaps part-time? You know, 32 is kind of the new normal, what we’ve seen here in Ohio. Tell us more, give us the data. What are you actually seeing when it comes to these numbers of, “Hey, I’m starting at $35 or $40.” Is this isolated? Is it more widespread?

Alex Barker: Hearing you say that makes me feel like maybe I’m the one that needs to collect those reports and that data because no one is. You’re right, it’s all anecdotal. I’ve seen it in your Facebook group, I’ve seen people report some of the offers that they’re getting. It’s abysmal. The worst I have heard is $28 an hour. That’s a floating position. I think it was in Austin, Texas or one of the major cities in Texas. And we know that these typically are retail chain positions that are offering these insanely low salaries. We also do have reports of it happening as well in hospital positions. And we also know that there are a few remote clinical positions that are very low as well. And so we’re talking like MTM jobs where you’ve got a lot of flexibility. You work when you want to. But you’re looking at an annual salary of maybe $70,000-80,000. That’s not true across the board, but that’s what we are receiving reports from from the people that get jobs because occasionally, we do salary negotiations for people as well. But the only evidence we have as far as an actual report that’s been shown that I enjoyed seeing this year was drug topics. So if you look at their 2020 base salary, you see this very concerning skew of data — and I’ll send you a picture of this as well so you can put it in the podcast notes if you can do that, I don’t know — but you’ll see that 13%, which is a huge number of people, at the end of their report were receiving less than $70,000 a year or less. And unfortunately, what they didn’t report in this data is the number of people in that bracket who were full-time or part-time. But we do know that the total amount of people was only 13% as well that worked part-time. So I’d have to venture a guess that that 13% that worked part-time, you know, potentially were majorly in that bracket of 13% reporting that, I don’t know. But unfortunately, what we are seeing is because of the glut, because of how easy it is to hire a pharmacist, particularly in a very generic role, we are seeing a lower salary being offered to those pharmacists. And we — based on what we just talked about, that low ceiling, you should assume that you will not — you’re not going to work your way to the top tier salary, $120,000-140,000 if you’re being started at $70,000 annual.

Tim Ulbrich: And where you start matters for obvious reasons. It matters when you’ve got $175,000 of student loan debt, it matters when hopefully if you have something like an employer retirement match, you know, 4% of $70,000 versus 4% of $120,000, that matters over time and compound interest and growth. So question for you here — and I know this is more complicated than we have time to unravel, but what’s the reason? You know, is it simply that we’ve got supply and demand, we’ve got 13,000+ grads coming out per year, pharmacists aren’t retiring at the rate that we thought they may. Is it more about the evolution of the pharmacist’s role and we’re seeing faulty business models and not only those that are being strained financially from existing models but new, innovative ones not popping up that can just find new positions? Like what do you see as the main culprit here?

Alex Barker: Supply and demand. I am not a labor or economics expert.

Tim Ulbrich: Come on, Alex! No, I’m just kidding.

Alex Barker: I did consider getting a PhD once, but no. Not my thing.

Tim Ulbrich: And then you saw the light.

Alex Barker: I did. But now what we have is this perfect storm, as I alluded to in further of our salary guide. The perfect storm is approximately 13,000-14,000 pharmacy students graduating every year entering into the job market, approximately one-third of the current job market — so about 100,000 pharmacists — is looking for a new job — and that’s based off of the AACP national workforce study — and then we also have the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting a negative job growth from 321,000 to I think it’s like 311,000.

Tim Ulbrich: Correct.

Alex Barker: So by the way, if numbers confuse you, if I’m saying a lot of numbers, check out the report. It’s all there. Because if I was listening to this, I’d be like, what did he just say? But you’ve got this gestalt of a problem where each factor is creating a much more complex issue. But ultimately, what we have is the main positions that pharmacists take, i.e. hospitals and community pharmacy, and we’re a dime a dozen. I asked on LinkedIn managers, approximately how many applications do you get per job? And it was anywhere from 60 on the low end to I think the highest was over 210. And so if you are a smart manager, you are going to think what is my biggest cost? Employees. So if I have that many people, am I going to give them a compelling offer when if I don’t get my top pick, I probably will get my second, third, fourth, fifth —

Tim Ulbrich: Who are all pretty darn good.

Alex Barker: Maybe even my 15th pick.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Alex Barker: Because someone’s going to take this offer. Right? We’re pharmacists, we have a PharmD, we’re doctorates, we’re insanely capable people. So you know, getting your 15th pick isn’t the worst thing in the world for them. For our profession, however, what suffers ultimately is our salary, our buying power. We no longer have that. And back in the 2000s, we had that inflated need, right? We needed pharmacists. You got signing bonuses, you got cars when you got offered a job. I don’t know if students are told that anymore, but that’s the way it was. And now, everything’s flipped on its head. We’re in the exact opposite situation, albeit that there is a huge hiring phase happening right now simply because of the COVID jobs.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Alex Barker: We’re seeing a ton of people readily take those. But these pharmacists are just probably going to be in the same situation once this vaccination rush passes through. It isn’t like we’re going to need all those pharmacists again to vaccinate every single year. They’re going to figure out cheaper ways. And everyone knows you can pay a nurse a lot less to vaccinate people. So this temporary demand is not going to last.

Tim Ulbrich: Now, I am — and I’m be remiss if I didn’t say, Alex, my audience knows this — I am a half-glass full type of person. And I will say the one thing — and it does not mitigate the concerns here — but the one thing that stands out to me here is, as I alluded to early today, I do think we desperately need some innovation, thinking a little bit differently, people taking calculated risk. And when you’ve got $175,000 of student loan debt and you have $120,000 contract that’s there to sign, it’s very hard to make an otherwise decision, right? I mean, it’s classic golden handcuffs situation. And I do think there’s a lot of pharmacists out there that have great ideas. And one of the reasons we’re so passionate about the financial plan side of it is that we know the financial pressures are very much connected to the career opportunities, the willingness to do either, whether it’s starting something or even just enjoying the work that you do and having some choice. So I am hopeful. I am also concerned that lower salary and a debt load that continues to climb is a compound problem. But there is also perhaps an opportunity out there where folks may now say, “OK, I can make $70,000, or I might go do this.” And that, “I might go do this,” might be something that’s of perhaps more interest or even an opportunity to pursue.

Alex Barker: You bring up a really good point that I didn’t consider in writing this guide is particularly for new grads, considering your career trajectory is insanely important for determining your financial plan because if you think right now that now’s a good time to be a clinician, trends are showing that clinicians, people who are able to prescribe or have some sort of agreement with a doctor, those jobs, we’re not seeing a major increase in those salaries. In fact, we’re seeing students — or I should say residents being offered less and less money. So you know, if you think you’re wanting to make a lot of money later in your career and you’re willing to work up to that, there are plenty of opportunities out there. We didn’t even go over the fact that as a pharmacist, you’re more than qualified to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. And that has an amazingly high ceiling. You could be paid insanely well. It is not a pharmacist job. It’s not a typical one. But you are overqualified to do it, and if you have the ability, if you have those natural gifts to sell, the ceiling’s really high. And so I think — you know, this is something I didn’t consider, so I’m glad you brought it up, Tim — that when considering your financial future, there is a space for you to take a job that pays you less if the trajectory, if the potential plan of that path could pay you a whole lot more because the reality is that as a clinician, your salary is not going to dramatically increase. One minor report that I didn’t touch on in my report is that Drug Topics said 41%, but in their report reported additional income in 2020, anywhere from the majority of them making around $1,000-5,000 in extra income. Now, they didn’t say how they made that money, but the case is that people, they want to make more. They’ve got things to do with that money.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Alex Barker: So consider your career trajectory wisely. If you’re looking at the $175,000 and thinking, I need to pay this all down, you know, don’t make the mistake of rushing into a job that just pays well but is a dead end.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right. Yep.

Alex Barker: That’s just a risk to take.

Tim Ulbrich: Got to think about the 30- to 40-year timeline. And here, we’re talking salary, which is one component but certainly not the only, right? We could have a pharmacist who’s got multiple job offers, is making great money, but they may not like the work that they’re doing or it may be stressful. So talk to us about satisfaction, job stress. Obviously we know job stress correlates to the rate of dissatisfaction that pharmacists are feeling in their work. What did you find here in the reports as far as the number of pharmacists, percentage of pharmacists generally speaking that are either satisfied/dissatisfied in their work and tell us more about those findings.

Alex Barker: Your term earlier, golden handcuffs, I think captures the feeling that most have. According to Drug Topics, they reported 44% are unhappy with their jobs. But a third of the entire group that they surveyed was looking for another job because of their unhappiness with their current one. I think they asked some wrong questions in their survey, but in my interpretation, we’re looking at 7 out of 10 pharmacists were not satisfied with their jobs. And we all practically I think know the reasons why pharmacists are unhappy across the board. But there are some other reports that show that we actually have a higher satisfaction score than that. Pay Scale said that we’re about 74% satisfied, which was higher than what I thought. AACP said 58%. But the pharmacists that were the most happy were those that were in independent community pharmacies, ambulatory care, or non-patient care, which kind of goes back to our problem — you and I have talked about this numerous times. We as pharmacists, we’ve got an identity crisis. If we’re supposed to be patient care-oriented, then why are people who are not in patient care more happy than those that are in patient care. Another survey question in that AACP report was that only 27% of people said — agreed to the statement, “I feel happy at work.” Grinds my gears. I’m supposed to be the Happy Pharmacist, but I’m not happy about that.

Tim Ulbrich: I mean, it’s heavy. And you know, again, this goes back to your comment — I hope the new practitioners and even the students listening are really thinking about the long horizon and trajectory. And this again goes back to me — for me, obviously, the financial plan and cost of living. If you rise your cost of living and everything that comes with it right out of the gates because you’re now going from -30 and debt every year to make $110,000 or $120,000, it is very hard to walk that back. Very hard to walk that back. And if you can hold the line — and I understand certainly this is easier for me to say in Ohio or you to say up in Michigan that may not be as easy for folks that are in higher cost of living areas. But if you can hold that line, especially as you’re going through this transitionary period where you’ve got multiple competing financial priorities, you’ve got typically big student debt loads, you’re trying to really understand what you do or do not like in the work that you’re doing, give yourself options. You know, we talk about all the time, put yourself in the driver seat rather than that being dictated for you. And I think, of course, this discussion certainly emphasizes that as well. Alex, I want to wrap up, you mentioned earlier in the episode talking about the Job Rx. Tell us more about Job Rx. You talk about that in the guide as well. What is Job Rx? And what can folks expect to get from that resource?

Alex Barker: Yeah, Job Rx is a website from a friend of mine, mutual friend of yours, Kevin Miro (?). And I included in this report simply because of some of this newer data that he’s been finding in his job board. If you look at the powers that be, there is a pharmacy demand report, which stated in the 4th quarter of 2020, only 12,000 new pharmacist jobs were created, which is not great but not awful either, which you know, kind of just makes me think like OK, doing the numbers in my head, it makes sense why we’re getting 100 applications per job. But Job Rx is — essentially, it’s a job board where it pulls in all these jobs from employers’ websites into one place so you can apply and get notified when the newest jobs are created. He reported to me that in December of 2020, they added 12,800 pharmacist jobs in one month versus this other demand report that said that that’s how many jobs were created over the entire quarter. This gave me a lot more hope than I’ve ever had before because I’ve never been able to have access to that kind of information or technology that says OK, what exactly is the job reports and how are you getting that data? He also — and I share this in the report as well — that 16,000 pharmacist jobs were added in January of 2021. So when I hear these numbers, I am a lot more hopeful. I do think that they are slightly probably more than what we would expect simply because of the COVID hire push that is going on. But ultimately, this is potentially an amazing resource for pharmacists to finally find the jobs that are out there. And I’ll make one final note that from what I could tell, the vast majority of these jobs, though, were community and health systems-related, long-term care, hospitals, things like that. So right now, I still know that the majority of the buzz, what everyone is selling as the promised land, is the nontraditional roles, right, the pharma, the work-from-home, the remote. And those are still out there, they are possible. But they are certainly not as available as hospital and community jobs.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And our community can check that out, JobRx.com. We’ll link to it in the show notes. I think certainly a resource that’s going to afford us an opportunity to have some more real-time data, some more up-to-date information that I know will be helpful to not only pharmacists looking for positions to perhaps — I often found myself in a faculty administrative role trying to advise and help students looking for jobs. I see some value there as well. So JobRx.com, again, we’ll link to in the show notes. Alex, where is the best place that our community can go to connect with you, to follow the work that you’re doing and to stay up-to-date on information that we’re talking about here today?

Alex Barker: I’d love it if you connect with me on LinkedIn, that’s where I hang out, it’s where I spend the most amount of my time. We do have Instagram and Facebook, but after watching The Social Dilemma, I don’t know. I’m just trying to stay on one and not try to give away too much information about my life. But yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d love to have a conversation with you and I try to have one with every single person that connects with me. So that would be a great place to check it out. Otherwise, you can go to TheHappyPharmD.com where we’ve got a lot of resources, blogs about career paths and of course this salary guide.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff, Alex. We’ll link to Alex’s LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well as of course TheHappyPharmD.com and the salary guide. Alex, thank you again for joining us and sharing your insights and expertise on this important topic as we talk about the state of the job market and our profession. Appreciate it.

Alex Barker: Thanks, Tim, for having me.

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On this episode sponsored by LendKey, Tony Umholtz, a Mortgage Manager for IBERIABANK/First Horizon joins Tim Ulbrich to discuss 10 common mortgage mistakes homebuyers make and steps you can take to avoid them.

About Today’s Guest

Tony graduated Cum Laude from the University of South Florida with a B.S. in Finance from the Muma College of Business. He then went on to complete his MBA. While at USF, Tony was part of the inaugural football team in 1997. He earned both Academic and AP All-American Honors during his collegiate career. After college, Tony had the opportunity to sign contracts with several NFL teams including the Tennessee Titans, New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Being active in the community is also important to Tony. He has served or serves as a board member for several charitable and non-profit organizations including board member for the Salvation Army, FCA Tampa Bay and the USF National Alumni Association. Having orchestrated over $1.1 billion in lending volume during his career, Tony has consistently been ranked as one of the top mortgage loan officers in the industry by the Scotsman’s Guide, Mortgage Executive magazine and Mortgage Originator magazine.

Summary

Tony Umholtz, a mortgage manager for IBERIABANK/First Horizon, digs into 10 common mortgage mistakes to avoid what he sees people make in the home buying process. The first is not fully understanding in advance the common loan types and considerations or differences of each. Tony breaks down what conventional, FHA, VA, and other unique products, like the pharmacist home loan, are and what borrowers need to be aware of. The second falls into the category of credit blunders, like overestimating your credit score, relying on third-party services (which often provide inaccurate credit scores), utilizing no interest credit cards which could negatively impact your credit, and waiting too long to resolve issues you have with it. The third common mistake is not shopping around for a mortgage lender. Tony expresses that it’s important to find the right product and that some internet-based companies may be great for a mortgage refinance but are hard to work with for a home purchase. The fourth mistake is searching for a house before you get pre-approved. Tony shares that a pre-approval letter shows sellers that you’re serious and can also make you aware of any red flags you may have on your credit report. The fifth is underestimating how much cash you need to close. Tony explains that not only do you need money for a downpayment, but you always need to have money saved for an insurance premium (as well as possible flood insurance coverage), taxes, and closing costs.

The sixth is delayed communications with the lender, title agency, and real estate agents which can make or break a transaction. The seventh is making a home buying decision before you’re ready. Tim shares that you can’t make a decision about any part of your financial plan in a silo and have to consider how each will affect another. Number eight is not thoroughly evaluating how home buying fits in with other financial goals you may have and number nine is not thinking about the money you’ll need after you close for items such as furniture, lawn equipment, etc. The last common mortgage mistake to avoid is misunderstanding or misevaluating mortgage discount points. Tony explains that you should always ask for a no-point quote initially. He shares that points are essentially prepaid interest and that by purchasing a point you’re buying down the interest rate. However, he says that you really have to evaluate this decision and that it’s not always the best move to make.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tony, welcome back on the show.

Tony Umholtz: Tim, thanks for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Excited for this discussion here in 2021 as we have you back, talking about 10 common mortgage mistakes homebuyers make and steps that folks can take to avoid these mistakes. And many of these come from either personal experience or ones that we know are often being made, so we’re going to go through these one-by-one and certainly lean into your expertise to hopefully give folks a guide of what are some things that they can be aware of going into the lending process, whether that’s a first-time home buy, second time, third time, or refinance and then hopefully put in some steps to prevent those from happening in the future. So Tony, the first one I have here that I know often comes up is that folks may not fully understand in advance the common loan types and the considerations and differences for each. And so before we talk about the pharmacist home loan through IBERIABANK/First Horizon aka “the doctor loan,” give us an overview at a high level of conventional, FHA and VA loans as I suspect those are the main ones our community will already have some familiarity with and perhaps some experience with. You know, generally speaking, how do these work? What’s the difference between them? And what are some important considerations for lendees when pursuing these types of loans?

Tony Umholtz: Yeah, sure. Great question. And that’s definitely the most common types of loans that are out there and that you’ll hear about. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we call them the GSEs, which is Government-Sponsored Entity, they provide conventional financing. And thank God we have them, right? I mean, they really keep our housing market alive. And then we have of course FHA and VA loans, which are backed by — we call it Ginnie Mae, which is HUD, which is also a government program. And those are the main key loans that are out there. There’s also portfolio products, unique, nichey products such as the pharmacist product that we’ve discussed that banks, individual banks, can hold on their balance sheet as well, which don’t have a traditional investor, government-backed sponsors. But not to get too into the weeds here with that, but high level, I would say is conventional products, the main differentiation on that is they will allow a loan amount up to $548,250 in most markets. There is some markets around the country where that’s a higher number. So it’s just around San Francisco, Los Angeles, there’s going to be higher loan limits in certain counties in higher priced areas. But that’s one of the main pieces with them. And a conventional loan above 80% loan-to-value, PMI is required. And that mortgage insurance is required to deliver the loan to Fannie and Freddie. So that’s why it’s so important that you have this mortgage insurance, lenders require it, and that can be costly, right? That can be very costly. FHA and VA — let’s just kind of pull the two apart here — FHA, the Federal Housing Administration loan, is designed for a little bit more flexible credit. Although conventional loans can get pretty low on credit score too, FHA tends to be better if you have lower credit scores because it will allow lower interest rates, for the most part. FHA loans, though, typically don’t have a loan amount max as high as conventional. So for example, if a market’s $548,250 for conventional, it might only be like $325,000 for FHA. So I usually utilize FHA as a last resort, only when it’s the best loan for the client. And then VA of course is for veterans. And the VA loans are great. They allow 100% financing with no PMI. The only downside with VA is there’s a funding fee that’s rather expensive. So I’ve actually had a few veteran clients that we’ve actually gone conventional because it’s cheaper overall. But I could talk a long time on this subject. But hopefully that clarifies the main points.

Tim Ulbrich: Great overview. And to our listeners that want to learn more on each of those, you can check out Episode 169, Tony and I talked through helpful tips for getting a mortgage, going through different loan products, talked about the pharmacist home loan. And tony, we’re going to segue here and talk about that for a moment as I think your discussion on PMI is a good lead-in. And so as we think about the pharmacist home loan, you know, Tony, common barriers to pharmacists being able to purchase a home that I’ve seen is student loan debt, which of course can impact debt-to-income ratio, as well as their ability to save for a down payment. You know, they’re coming out of school, looking to buy a home, six figures or more of debt, and I think that’s where the pharmacist home loan can have its values. Tell us more about the pharmacist home loan option that IBERIABANK/First Horizon has, including minimum down payment, terms, requirements to qualify, PMI considerations and so on.

Tony Umholtz: Sure. The product we offer to pharmacists, it allows very little down payment and there’s no PMI. So it’s probably the key point to it. If you’re a first-time home buyer, you can actually put 3% down and have no mortgage insurance. And if you’ve owned before, it’s 5% down again, with no mortgage insurance. The minimum credit score is 700. And the one piece to this — and again, I don’t — I always try to avoid interest rates because they’re volatile and the market can move, bond market can move, but I have found over the last 18 months that I can offer better rates on this product than if I had a non-pharmacist customer come and put 20% down. I mean, it’s very strong interest rates. So it’s kind of — that’s been the few lead pieces that I’ve noticed. It’s just very strong 30-year fixed loan rates. And that no PMI is just huge. I mean, in some cases if you’re buying a $500,000 home and you’re putting 3% down, you’re talking about a $400 a month savings just for the PMI. So it’s a pretty substantial number. In regards to student loans, it has a — it doesn’t completely waive them. And I find most of my clients that I work with are under an income-based repayment plan anyway. And that’s what we’ll use in calculating a debt-to-income ratio. But in the case where there isn’t a payment, it uses a factor that’s lower than a traditional conventional loan or an FHA loan. So it enables more buying power.

Tim Ulbrich: Very good. And we covered the pharmacist home loan in a fair amount of detail, Episode 139, Ins and Outs of the Pharmacist Home Loan. Also, if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, click at the top “Buy or Refi a Home,” you’ll see more information there to the IBERIABANK/First Horizon product as well as to the real estate concierge, Nate Hedrick, for those that are looking for an agent as well. And we’re excited about the partnership that we have with IBERIABANK/First Horizon because it’s nationwide. And we’ve got a nationwide community here in the YFP community. I have had the chance to work with Tony now for the better part of a year, love what he’s doing, his passion to educate and help folks on this decision and understand how it fits in with the rest of the financial plan. So that’s No. 1, not fully understanding in advance the common loan types and considerations and differences for each. No. 2 here, Tony, is credit blunders. And I’m thinking of those that perhaps may overestimate their credit score or perhaps not have a good understanding of how credit scores impact rates, maybe waiting too long to resolve credit issues and so on. What are some of the common mistakes and blunders that you see related to credit?

Tony Umholtz: The credit and the overestimate — you mentioned overestimating credit. I see that a lot. And you know, I think a couple things I’ll just touch on here with credit. One of the things as a lender, I try not to run credit unless we absolutely have to, right? There’s a lot of clients that’ll call and just want some high level information, but credit is so important because it’s such a critical part of the product. If you have a minimum credit score of 700 and you’re under that, it’s good to know why. And some lenders can — and we offer this service as well — we can give you ideas on how to improve it. We actually have score models that tell us what your score could go to by doing certain activities. But anyway, one of the big blunders I see is just totally following like a third-party monitoring service. And I don’t want to name too many names because there’s a lot of them out there, but traditionally, these third party services are going to overinflate your credit score more than what we would see. You know, like us as a — so for example, a creditor can see a score that is maybe 30 points on average lower than what you might see on one of these services. And I’m even — I subscribe to a service. I will say I do. But it gives me good trends as to what I’m doing, but it’s not what a creditor would see. So in my lifetime of lending, the highest credit score I’ve ever seen was 820, and it was an 80-year-old gentleman who had perfect credit his whole life. So it’s one of those things where, you know, a customer will say, “Hey, my score is 850!” Well, that’s what the monitoring service says, but it’s really not going to be that way when we see it. So that’s one thing, a blunder that I see. The other is a misconception on an inquiry as well. A lot of inquiries is not good. But a couple inquiries at one time for a loan is not going to have an effect on you. There’s a window of time where you can do this. That’s another piece. And then the other really important one — and I can’t stress this one enough — is the no interest for a year type cards and promotions that are out there. And it’s very tempting to go to Best Buy and they’ll offer a $5,000 credit limit for $5,000 worth of stereo equipment and maybe a CD or whatever it might be. And you don’t have to pay interest for two years, which is great, right? It sounds great. But what they do, they report that to the credit bureaus, to Experian, Equifax, and Transunion, as a 100% maxed out credit card. And I’ll confess as a young man, I was in my early 20s, I bought furniture for one of — my first house with a store called Rooms To Go, and I did this. And that’s how I learned. And of course, I’ve seen many clients do this since that time. But it actually happened to me personally. I said, “Wait a minute, why did my credit score go from 750 to 660?” And that was one of the things that happened. I did this credit, you know, it was a maxed-out credit card. That’s how it’s reported to the bureaus. So that’s another big blunder, Tim, that I’ve seen.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and credit — great summary, Tony, great insights there as well. Credit, credit optimization, credit security, such an important part of the financial plan. Obviously we’re talking about here related to securing a mortgage, but generally just an important piece to consider. Tim Baker and I talked about this on Episode 162, Credit 101, talking about what is a credit score, breaking that down, six factors that can impact scores. So if you want more information and better understanding your credit, we’ll link to that episode in the show notes. So that’s No. 2 here, credit blunders. No. 3 is not shopping around. And I know, Tony, that rates, especially in a market where I feel access to information has become easier to find, if you will, that rates may be not necessarily what I’m referring to as much here, although that of course is a consideration. And I think in some cases, if you’ve got good communication with a lender and rates are changing that they’ll be in communication with you. So I think that relationship certainly is important. But obviously we know not all offerings are created equal. So here, we’re talking about the pharmacist home loan. Folks may or may not be aware of that. And so looking at a few different institutions, understanding the products that are out there, but what else, Tony? What are some things that folks may notice beyond the offering and perhaps beyond the rate that would be different from one bank from another? I’m thinking about things like application fees, document fees, other things like that that folks should be thinking about as they shop around.

Tony Umholtz: I really think the — and it can be very challenging sometimes with the shopping around because there’s different levels of knowledge out there. And some of the companies are just set up as call centers as they funnel internet leads in. You know, so there’s different knowledge bases that you’re going to speak to sometimes. So I find that that sometimes adds some confusion. But I think it is very important to find the right product. I think that is very much a critical element, so finding the lender that has the right product for you is important. And I never want to — I’m very sensitive to relationships. So I have people call me and say, “Hey, I have used this lender for 10 years and they’ve always been good to me,” and we’re a competitive industry but sometimes if I think something’s better, I’m very quick to tell that person, “This other lender has a better product.” So I think — and I actually have a lot of lenders that love to send me clients that they know we’re better fitted for. The fee part is important because there’s only really one set of fees the lender controls, and that is there’s a lender portion of fees. The rest are third party. So they’re going to be through third parties. It’s going to be the same, really no matter who they use. So that’s one thing I find that confuses a lot of people is consumers will lump in the prepaid expenses, taxes, insurance, title insurance as well, and doc stamps for the state we’re in or the county recording fees. But those are going to be the same costs no matter what. There’s really only one line item of lender fees that are going to be different, that could vary. So that’s one way to look at the lender is just lender fees and interest rate. Really, it’s as simple as that. But the big things I find when you’re looking, when you’re out there — and again, I’m not going to name names of companies — but when you’re looking to buy a home and you have a — there’s a lot of companies that have popped up, especially internet-based companies that are really just feeding off the refinance market. It’s hard to be equipped for purchases because when you go under contract for a purchase, you have a commitment letter date, right? There’s a commitment financing contingency, there’s appraisal contingency, there’s all these contingencies in a contract, and you want to make sure the lender is watching this and can meet these milestones. A lot of lenders that are set up for refinances just aren’t set up for purchases. It’s OK to use one of these lenders if you can wait 90 or 120 days to close your loan for a refinance, but on a purchase, you can’t do that. So service is very important when you’re buying a home. It still can be with refinancing, but you can always just wait longer, you know? It’s one of those things. But I would just say, you really have to be careful with the service aspect when you’re buying because it’s a very competitive housing market right now, and a lot of these sellers have backup offers. I get calls a lot too because people are under contract and something went wrong with their lender, and I have to jump in sometimes. So I see it even as a secondary lender when things go wrong with the original lender. So I would just say the big thing is a comfort level with that person and that organization. The best rate and product is important too but also making sure that you’re in the best fit for you because one other thing I will say is, you know, if you can get a better rate putting 30% down than you could putting 5% but that’s going to use up all of your liquidity and maybe impact other financial planning aspects of your life, well, the 5% is much better, even if the rate’s a little higher. So I think it’s very important to plan, look at your overall plan. That’s why the folks at YFP are so great to work with because they can look at everything and say, “Hey, this is better for you in the long run because of this.” So I hope that’s helpful. I mean, there’s a lot of components to it. There is a lot of things to think about, but I think it’s really finding a comfort level with the group that you want to work with and especially if you’re buying a home.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. So point No. 3 there, not shopping around, I can speak from personal experience working with more of a big box company, obviously having the opportunity to work with you guys, open communication lines, feeling comfortable with the process, getting questions answered, all of that really matters. No. 4 here is looking mistakes — again, we’re talking about here looking beyond the simple Zillow or Redfin search before you get preapproved and know what you can borrow, which is not necessarily, of course, the same thing as what you can afford, right? We talked about this with Nate Hedrick on the podcast a lot, the Real Estate RPh, what you can borrow, what you get approved from the bank, is not necessarily what you can afford. And that connects, Tony, to what you just said about connecting this home buying decision with the rest of the financial plan. So talk to us here briefly about the importance of the preapproval process.

Tony Umholtz: The preapproval process is critical just to know what you can afford both ways, right? To see if that Redfin search popped up a house that you can’t buy. I’ve also seen it the other way around where, you know, with the rates being so low, clients have said, “Hey, I’m paying $2,900 a month for rent and I can buy more house than I thought I could.” So it’s really just critical in the education process. You know, knowledge is so important. And just knowing what you can and can’t do is important. And the preapproval process will allow us to see if there’s any red flags as well. We’ve had lots of clients that we’ve been able to help get their credit scores up a little bit higher, we’ve had lots of clients that both ways have said, “Hey, I don’t want to buy a home this large because I didn’t realize that this is the cost and the taxes are this.” On the other side, I’ve seen it the other way too, like I mentioned. It’s very important to get pre-approved before you start walking into houses. And I will say that the realtors are very proactive right now because of the tight inventory. We get a lot of phone calls from the listing agents, even. And of course, we can’t give much information away, but they’re calling us, “Hey, are these clients approved?” I mean, it’s a different market in a lot of parts of the country right now.

Tim Ulbrich: That makes sense given where we’re at and the climate of the market. So No. 5 is underestimating the cash to close. So what I’m referring to here, Tony, speaking from personal experience in our first home purchase a little over a decade ago is I think many folks when they’re looking, you know, look at the sale price of the home, they might say, “OK, I’m going to be able to negotiate this or this,” which might be overconfidence, especially depending on what’s happening in the market. And they’re probably thinking about the down payment, whatever that would be, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% down. But they might not be thinking about other costs that they’re going to need to consider having cash to come to the close. So tell us about not numbers, per se, but what are some of those other things that folks need to be thinking about when it comes to cash to close beyond just the down payment?

Tony Umholtz: One of the big pieces too outside of the down payment is your insurance premium. And insurance is due upfront, full year premium upfront, even if you paid cash, you have to pay for your insurance premium upfront if you want your home insured. And I find that — and this is flood insurance as well if you’re in a flood zone, that’s due as well — but the insurance component is something you have to take into consideration. The other piece outside the down payment is your tax allocation. So normally, lenders will take anywhere from 3-4 months of your property taxes for the escrow account. And for example, the reason for 3-4 months is there’s always a two-month cushion that’s collected. But there’s also, you know, let’s say we were to close today, right, on a house, Feb. 5, your payment is not going to be due — your first payment’s not due until April 1. So we have to collect February and March to be on pace to pay it for you, so we’re going to collect four months of taxes at closing to kind of cushion things. And then of course you have closing costs as well. So there’s a prepaid element and then we have the closing costs. So in addition to the down payment, you have those elements as well. The other thing to keep in mind too that is some confusion that I see a lot with first-time home buyers especially is when you give a deposit on the home, so let’s say when you give your realtor, your realtor goes to help you with the contract, you have to put $5,000 in escrow or deposit — terminology is about the same but different parts of the country call it something differently. That $5,000 gets credited back to you at closing. OK? So it’s a contribution to the overall transaction. It’s not something that you lose or gets lost in any way. It comes back to you. So if your cash to close let’s just say was $10,000, and you’ve already given $5,000, well, you only are going to bring $5,000 to the closing. So that’s another piece just to — questions that come up.

Tim Ulbrich: Very good. And I think the point here I want to make, especially for folks that are on the home buying process for the first time is making sure you’re appropriately considering what might be the cash needed, down payment, closing costs, you mentioned the insurance, the taxes, and some other things as well. So making sure to plan for that in advance and of course thinking about how that impacts other parts of the financial plan. So we’re halfway through our list of 10 common mortgage mistakes to avoid. We’re going to rapid fire these last five. No. 6 here is delayed communications with the lender, title company and agents. Lots of folks involved, Tony, in this process, lots of moving pieces and parts, and I suspect this is the time to overcommunicate and set communication expectations with the team in advance. So talk to us about from your perspective, you know, what you’re expecting of your — obviously your team but also in terms of folks that are working with your team when it comes to communication.

Tony Umholtz: I mean, communication is critical. And that’s what makes the transactions — makes or breaks them in a lot of ways, the communication. So we really try to communicate — overcommunicate with the client. The title companies can be tricky because some of them are, you know, larger, big box, and they’ll just send blanket emails out and it’s hard to get in touch with someone individually. But I think it’s — you know, one of the things that I think is critical is that we know who the realtor is, and we know who the title company is. And then we know the individual in contact. And it usually goes very smoothly if that’s the case. So just having everyone on board. Normally the realtors are very important for us to know because we have to coordinate, we have to give the appraiser their information typically, just to show the house. But yeah, the title company portion is very important, especially as we get closer to closing because the bank or lender’s closing department is going to communicate with them and balance the figures for closing.

Tim Ulbrich: Very good. Yeah. I think with lots of parties involved, communication — always two-way, but making sure that you’re being proactive in that and of course if there’s questions that are outstanding, making sure you’re reaching out and vice versa to stay on time and on track with closing. I’m going to take No. 7, 8 and 9 because they hit home for me personally. And then we’re going to bring back Tony here to talk about No. 10 related to mortgage discount points. No. 7 is making a home buying decision before you are ready just because “rates are good” or because I’m renting and “throwing money down the drain.” Now we’ve talked about this extensively on Episode 113, Is Your Home an Asset or a Liability? We’ve talked about not only the pressures to buy a home but also the costs of home ownership and comparing renting versus buying. And so I would encourage folks, as we say on the show over and over and over again, to avoid the trap of making any financial decision in a silo. So here, if you’re talking with somebody and rates are good or you see commercials about rates or that’s the center of the conversation or somebody says, “Hey, why are you renting? You’re just throwing money down the drain,” now, you may conclude that it is the right time to buy. But the point I’m making here is to take a step back, what else do we have going on in the financial plan, working with hopefully a financial planner to help you evaluate that decision, look at all pieces of the puzzle, and then proceed with the home buying decision and the budget to buy a home if it makes sense in the context of your plan.

And that really is No. 8 in terms of these mistakes is not thoroughly evaluating how home buying fits in with other financial goals. And so I think as we talk about extensively, you know, if you’re looking at six figures of student loan debt, you’re looking at investing goals, you’ve obviously got other competing priorities for your finances, home buying just being one of those, how does it fit in? And of course, YFP Planning, our fee-only comprehensive financial planning team can help that. You can schedule a free discovery call, learn more, at YFPPlanning.com.

No. 9 mistake here is not thinking about available cash post-close. So we talked about how much money you’re going to need to be able to come to closing. But what about things like a rainy day fund to make sure that if something goes wrong in the home? What about things like furnishing the home? What about things like yard equipment? And so thinking about not only the cash that you’re going to need to bring to closing but also do you have some reserves? Do you have some cushion? What will that look like month-to-month as well as some funds that you have in reserves to be able to handle some of those expenses that will inevitably come after you move in?

And Tony here, No. 10 in our list of 10 common mortgage mistakes I think is misunderstanding or evaluating mortgage discount points, especially as folks are comparing rates among institutions or even within a lender. So talk to us exactly about what are discount points? And ultimately, how folks and tips for folks as they’re evaluating discount points as an option.

Tony Umholtz: I would recommend that you always ask for a no-point quote initially because, you know, some lenders will put that into their pricing. It’s funny, even the Freddie Mac that are posted in the Wall Street Journal, they typically have .6% points in the quote. So you know, I always say that if I put that in there, the rate would be even lower. But that’s really the important element is discount points — let me explain what those are. They are actually — it’s defined as prepaid interest. So you’re basically buying down the interest rate and for a finance person, it’s like you’re buying down the bond rate over time by paying the points at a premium. It sometimes can be a good investment. But most of the time, I don’t recommend it. And the way that you can tell if it’s a good investment is traditionally, on a 30-year fixed, 1 point will typically buy down a .25% in rate, typically. Sometimes ⅜ of a point. Well, over — let’s say it’s .25%. Over four years, you basically pay off the point you paid and then you’re kind of in the money, so as long as you own the home more than four years, you’re in the money. And then a lot of times, depending on your tax bracket and everything, you can write off that point in the year that you pay it. So if it was 2021 and you paid 1% on a $300,000 home let’s say, that would be $3,000. But you know, the spread in rate is important in determining if paying points makes sense. But I find that it typically is not the best way to go unless there’s a big spread. Like I had a — there was a time earlier in the year, especially on jumbo mortgages, larger loans that are above the conventional limit, where we were getting a half point for 1% fee. Well, that made sense all day because you had a two-year payback period on a 30-year fixed. Then you were in the money for a remaining 28 years if you stayed there. So for long-term people who are going to be in the home or own the home long-term, it can make sense sometimes. But to compare lenders, you really just want to ask, like if one lender offers you 2 — this is just throwing out numbers — 2.75% with 1 point and the other one offers you 3% with no points, you can ask the 3%, “Hey, if I was charged 1 point, what could I get? What could my rate be?” And if they came back and said, “It’s 2.625%,” well the offer from the higher rate person is actually better. So that would be one way to compare. But that’s a quick summary of points.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, great discussion there of points. I know that comes up a lot, and I think what we’re trying to get to, Tony, is an apples-to-apples comparison the best that we can to evaluate it. And I think you bring up another good point in that discussion, which is the longevity that you may be in the home. And I know that’s an important consideration, one that folks may not be able to predict in advance but to try to objectively evaluate that the best you can because that’s going to impact when you think about rates of the loan, you think about things like points, when you think about down payments and other issues and having to be able to expense a move in the future and closing costs and selling the home, you know, if that runway’s going to be long versus that’s going to be potentially short, that could have a significant impact on many parts of the home buying process. So there you have it, 10 common mortgage mistakes home buyers make and steps that you can take to avoid these mistakes. And to learn more about considerations when getting a home loan and to get more information about the pharmacist home loan offered by Tony and his team at IBERIABANK/First Horizon make sure to check out the post on the YFP site titled, “Five Steps to Getting a Home Loan.” And you can get there by visiting YourFinancialPharmacist.com/home-loan or if you just go to the main page, YourFinancialPharmacist.com, top you’ll see “Buy or Refi a Home,” and that will get you there as well. So Tony, appreciate your expertise as always and appreciate you taking time to come on the show today to talk about this important topic.

Tony Umholtz: Tim, thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it. I always do, and you know, appreciate being a partner with you.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you very much. And as always, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please do us a favor and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show each and every week. That will help other pharmacy professionals find this show. Appreciate you taking the time to join us. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 190: 7 Ways to Reduce Your Monthly Housing Costs

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7 Ways to Reduce Your Monthly Housing Costs

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, Nate Hedrick, the Real Estate RPh, joins Tim Ulbrich to discuss 7 ways to reduce your monthly housing costs.

About Today’s Guest

Nate Hedrick is a 2013 graduate of Ohio Northern University. By day, he is a clinical pharmacist and program advisor for Medical Mutual. By night and weekend, he works with pharmacists to buy, sell, flip, or rent homes as a licensed real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway in Cleveland, Ohio. He has helped dozens of pharmacists achieve their goal of owning a house and is the founder of www.RealEstateRPH.com, a real estate blog that covers everything from first-time home buying to real estate investing.

Summary

It’s no secret that housing costs, whether that be your mortgage or rent payment, make up a large chunk of many people’s budgets. For some people, housing can be 30% or more of their income. Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPh joins Tim Ulbrich on this episode to share 7 ways to reduce your housing costs. Reducing your housing costs allows you to have more disposable income to fund your other financial goals. It’s a win-win, right?

The first is downsizing your home. Many people think downsizing means moving into a tiny home or to an apartment that’s drastically smaller than where they currently live. If that’s what you want to do, that’s great, however downsizing can simply mean moving into a house that’s a bit smaller to help reduce the costs of taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance. The second way to reduce your monthly housing costs is to house hack. While house hacking may not be for everyone, this is a great stepping stone into real estate investing and can allow you to, hopefully, live for free. The third strategy is to get a roommate. Like househacking, this may not be an option for everyone, but having a sibling, friend, or even stranger live with you can allow you to significantly reduce your housing costs.

The fourth is geo-arbitrage, a concept that’s been picking up some steam over the years especially among those in the FIRE community. Essentially, in order to save money on housing costs, healthcare, or the general cost of living (think gas, food, taxes, transportation, etc) and get more for your dollar, you pick up and relocate to a new place. We know that the cost of living can vary greatly between cities but that your income may not increase or decrease accordingly, so this can be a powerful way to save money if it’s an option for you. The fifth strategy is to use Airbnb to increase your income. Although COVID-19 may make it difficult to put this in action at the moment, this is one to definitely consider when state’s start to re-open more in the future. Renting out your home, in-law suite, or room in your home can bring in extra cash and help you pay down your mortgage. The sixth way to reduce housing costs is to re-evaluate your homeowner’s insurance policy. Just like you’d shop around for car or disability insurance, you can do the same with homeowner’s insurance. You can also check in with your current company to see if there are any discounts available for installing certain security measures or for paying yearly vs monthly. The last strategy is to refinance your mortgage. With historically low interest rates, you may be able to significantly reduce your monthly mortgage payment. However, it’s important to keep in mind the total cost of the loan and any additional fees and costs you may incur when refinancing.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Nate, excited to have you back on the mic. How you been?

Nate Hedrick: Good, Tim. Thanks for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: It’s been I think a hot second since you were last on the show, Episode 178, where we talked about 5 lessons learned during your most recent investment property purchase. But I don’t want to assume that everyone listening knows who you are and what the Real Estate RPh is all about. So give us a brief background of you, your role in pharmacy, and how and why you started the Real Estate RPh.

Nate Hedrick: Absolutely. So I am a full-time pharmacist. I work with an insurance company here in Cleveland, Ohio. But I also moonlight or side hustle as a real estate agent. So I have my real estate license, have had that for four years now. And I work with local pharmacists and other health care professionals to help them buy and sell property here in Cleveland. And then that expanded a couple years ago into Real Estate RPh, which is a website that I run to educate pharmacists about the real estate process, help them find agents all over the country through our concierge service that we’ve partnered up with YFP for. So we do a lot of interesting stuff. And that’s really what my focus is on this year is really growing that network and being able to help more pharmacists around the country.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, it’s been fun to see that grow and more and more that are reaching out to you that are in that home buying process. So we will link in the show notes, obviously, to your site. We’ll also have some more information about the real estate concierge service for folks that want to learn more. We’ll come back to that throughout the episode. So today we’re talking all about ways — specifically, 7 ways — to reduce monthly housing costs. And I don’t think it’s any secret, I know from personal experience, that housing costs, whether that’s your mortgage or rent payment, make up a large chunk of many people’s budget. Now, check this out. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, people that fall into the top income quintiles, many pharmacists of course would be included in this, spend around 30-32% of their pre-tax income on housing. 30-32%. That’s a big chunk of your earnings that immediately are being spent on housing each and every month. And when you think about other competing financial priorities, the ones we talk about all the time on the show: student loans, child care, food costs and so — it may feel like there isn’t much money left to put towards other goals. So of course, thinking about strategies for reducing monthly costs I suspect is relevant for many. So Nate, when working with clients looking to buy a home, do you ever give them any insight on how much of their income they should aim to allocate toward those housing costs? And how do you determine that?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, so you have to be a little bit careful as an agent, right? We are not financial advisors. You know, I don’t want to step outside my shoes a bit. But we always — whenever I’m meeting with a new client, I do make sure we talk early on about the importance of budgeting and making sure that they’re the ones setting the budget. I’ve had numerous clients come to me and said, “Hey, Nate, I got pre-approved for $600,000. What do you think about that?” And I said, “That’s great. What is your budget, though?” It’s a totally different question. So I always make sure that I bring that up, make sure that they understand that they need to set their own budget and then it’s my job to help keep them on budget. So if they come to me and say, “My budget is $300,000. I don’t want to spend a penny over that,” it is very easy for them to fall in love with a house that is $350,000. And it’s my job to make sure that they don’t go that direction, right? Especially if they’ve told me upfront, “This is our number. We want to stick to it.” I’ve seen it time and time again where if you start looking outside of your price range, all of a sudden, your price range goes up. So what I take my own role as is, “Look, I’m not going to tell you how to spend your money, but I’m going to help you stay on goal if that’s what you want me to do.”

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I can’t overemphasize enough, you know, what you’re pre-approved for and what the budget is likely are two different things. And so really taking some time up front, you know, what are you looking for? How does that fit in with the rest of your financial goals? Obviously biased on our end — working with a financial planner to help do that. And then you go through the home buying process and make sure that that home buying purchase fits in with everything else that you want to do. Nate, when you heard that BLS statistic, you know, 30-32%, of course we recognize we’ve got listeners all over the country. Cost of living here in the great state of Ohio is very different than cost of living up in the Northeast or out West. So we recognize that. But generally speaking, is that statistic, 30-32% of pre-tax income on housing, is that pretty common what you see among pharmacist clients?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, if not a bit higher, right? I think that’s probably about right, but it tends to be that or more, I would say.

Tim Ulbrich: OK, makes sense. And of course, we have friends, family that are spending much more than 30% of their income on housing, maybe even spending 50% or more. And again, sometimes that’s subject to cost of living in certain parts of the country. So Nate, why is spending this much money on housing something that folks should — you know, I don’t know if avoid is necessarily the right word. Obviously for everyone it’s a personal decision. But that they should at least be aware of the impact that this might have on other parts of their financial plan.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes it’s easy to look at it and say, “Well, I can handle that payment today. It won’t be a problem. But what does that look like in five years? In 10 years? You know, are you going to be working as much? Are both of you going to be working if you have a spouse? There are a lot of things that you want to plan for the future, and getting yourself into the highest possible payment right up front kind of cripples some of the opportunities you have later. So you could easily become house poor, you could — honestly, I’ve seen pharmacists, I’ve talked to pharmacists, who feel like they’re living paycheck to paycheck because that housing cost is so darn much that they have to commit such a large portion of their income to basically staying on track. Up front, if you can make that decision to pare that back a bit, it makes your options that much better down the road.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, makes sense. And I think we have a bias and a tendency — I know I do — to tend to look at our future state through the lens of today, right? It’s just natural. So of course things could change, you know, incomes could go up, but also incomes could go down. So do you have margin? You know, what about financial emergencies and being ready for those things, things that we may not be able to anticipate happening at this point in time? So it’s obvious that reducing monthly housing costs, if we’re talking about 30% or more of pre-tax income, can have a huge benefit on your financial plan. We know that when it comes to the financial plan, obviously income and disposable income is what we need to be able to allocate towards our goals. So whether that’s short- or long-term goals. So let’s dig into seven ways that people can reduce their housing costs. No. 1, Nate, we’re going to talk about is downsizing. And I think when people hear that word, they immediately think of living in a tiny home, moving to an apartment that’s drastically smaller than where they currently live. And if that’s what people want to do, great. You know, we’ve talked with several pharmacists that have had very creative housing situations. I think of Rena Crawford that we had on this show talking about her housing situation out in San Diego and her creativity with renovating a van while she was completing residency. And certainly those are exceptions probably to the norm. But what do we mean here when we talk about downsizing? And why can this be such an impactful way to reduce housing costs?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I mean, anytime you’re talking about a larger home, more expensive home, it’s not just the house itself, right? You’re talking about more utilities. If you have more square footage, you’ve got more to heat, more electricity, all those different things go into it, more maintenance costs. If you’ve got a larger footprint of house, there’s more stuff that can break. So all of those things start to stack up. It’s not just a bigger house is it. So that’s kind of important. And what I find is that it’s not always about necessarily downsizing but making sure that when you start, you’re not upsizing, right? So downsizing can be a good move if you’re already in a house where you’re like man, this is really crippling our budget. We need to make a decision. But what I see most often is that people who take this ahead of time, before they ever buy their first house and think about OK, I don’t want to have to downsize later, what can I start with now and then work my way up down the future?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think your point is a good one, being proactive — and not even just focusing on necessarily things like the square foot and the mortgage, of course, and those things but other things. You know, you mentioned taxes, you mentioned maintenance, you mentioned utilities. What about the lawn care? And really considering everything that’s involved — could be association fees and other things. How do clients that you work with — you know, I know one of the things folks may not necessarily be as obvious is OK, what is it going to cost me all-in per month? You know, of course you’ve got the mortgage and insurance and they’re thinking about those things. But they may not necessarily be thinking as much about utilities and other things. Of course, taxes are readily available information. I mean, is this information that’s typically forthcoming from the seller? Do people have to prod to try to get some utility payments and things like that to be able to best estimate what this is going to be for their budget?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I usually recommend to my clients to ask. I’ve seen some sellers — and I’ve done this once — where we actually posted, not our bills exactly, but I had the seller pull their previous utility bills and say, “Look, let’s just put this number out there. That way a potential home buyer can feel good about it, that it’s going to be $300 a month for all this,” or what have you. That’s definitely something that we’re seeing people ask for, and it’s a great way to get a true estimate of what that particular property might be costing someone.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. And I think it’s worth mentioning here, of course when we talk about real estate transactions, you know, there’s costs that are involved. So making sure you’re factoring that in. If you’re going to pick up and move, how great — this is a conversation my wife and I have all this — you know, what’s the true net difference, right? So you might look at, hey, we’re going to sell for $350,000 and we’re going to buy for $250,000. But when you really consider the transaction costs, obviously the fees involved, the moving expenses, really trying to evaluate this and understand what the net difference is. So that’s No. 1, looking at downsizing. No. 2 is house hacking, I think a topic that you and I love, love talking about, one that we have both said on this show several times, “Man, if I could do it all over again, I would have house hacked.” So something we talked about Episode 130, I had Craig Curelop on from Bigger Pockets, episode talking about house hacking your way to financial freedom. And that episode I thought was a great overview in his book of the house hacking process. And it’s a real estate investing strategy that we love but also can serve your primary home needs. So Nate, break it down for us. For those that aren’t aware or perhaps a refresher, what exactly is house hacking? And how can it be a powerful way to reduce housing costs?

Nate Hedrick: So house hacking at its core is the idea that you are buying a property in some way, shape, or form that you are going to live in part of it and you are going to have a renter live in another part. And so traditionally with a house hack, you’re looking at like a duplex, a triplex, or a quad, which you can buy as a — the bank looks at it like a single family home. But you can live in one unit and then you can rent out the others. And ideally, with a proper house hack, you’re having that renter basically pay for your mortgage or pay for your mortgage and your taxes in an ideal world. But the idea is that if you can live in part of the house, rent out the other part, you’re going to have far less housing expenses because you’ve got someone else paying for it for you.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think it’s certainly can look very different for the reasons you mentioned. And one of the things I like about Craig’s book on house hacking, he gives a lot of different examples from his personal situation, others that did it, that I think will give folks a variety of ideas about what house hacking may look like for them and how it may or may not fit into their home buying goals. So Nate, have you worked with clients that have done a house hack? And if so, what was their motivation?

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, actually, I’ve got one right now that I’m working with locally here in Cleveland that’s looking to house hack, which is fun. We’ve been doing — running numbers on houses recently and looking for opportunities. And right now, this pharmacist is actually living in a house with a couple of roommates, wants to buy his own place but doesn’t want the housing prices or the housing expenses to jump dramatically, right? If you go from living in a $400 a month room or whatever the cost is there to this big housing payment, it might be a shock to your budget. But if he can transition to only a couple hundred dollars because the house hack is paying for some of that cost, you can get your own place, start building equity, all the advantages of owning a home without this huge uptick in expenses. So I’ve been working with him to try to find that opportunity. And then we’ve got a ton of concierge clients throughout the country that have done this. I think we’ve talked with a couple here and mentioned a couple in the past that have primarily been searching for a house hack when they’re looking for their first house.

Tim Ulbrich: Love it. And speaking of roommates, let’s talk about roommates. No. 3 here on our list of seven ways to reduce your housing costs, No. 3 is get a roommate. Nate, I thought this wasn’t college anymore. So similar to house hacking, getting a roommate obviously could be a way to reduce housing costs. Talk to us about the role that this can play.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, especially again, I think people overlook this because like you said, once you buy a house, like I can’t — I can’t go backward, I can’t have a roommate now. But it’s a great way — if you’re in a personal situation where it makes sense, it’s a great way to reduce your expenses for both people. And you can take this as simply as, you know, I’m going to have my brother move back and he’s going to pay me a little bit of rent, or is as severe as putting an ad on Craigslist and having a stranger come live with you. You know, we’ve actually gotten a chance to talk to a couple of individuals here that are experts in this, I would argue. Ryan Shaw on Episode 173 knows all about how to deal with roommates and keeping them sane. And then Bryce Platt, one of our concierge clients that actually went out and bought — Episode 160 for those that are looking for it. He actually went out and bought a condo basically that had — was set up to have three other roommates with him. And so that’s part of that process. So it’s not uncommon anymore, and it’s a great way to reduce your overall expenses.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think it’s worth, you know, the reminder or maybe the obvious statement of your first housing situation will likely not be your forever situation, right? So whether it’s a roommate directly living with you or in a situation like Bryce, that may work for awhile and then you decide you may move on. But now you’ve got an investment property that perhaps you can hold onto as well. So that’s No. 3, get a roommate. No. 4, perhaps the most interesting, my favorite on the list, but also likely very unpopular to some folks that love where they live. This is geoarbitrage. And Scott Rieckens, author of “Playing with FIRE,” mentioned this on the podcast last week, Episode 188. And I think it’s such an interesting way to reduce your housing costs. And I think this actually stems back to some of Tim Ferriss’ work talking about geoarbitrage. So Nate, what is geoarbitrage? And how can it help someone’s budget?

Nate Hedrick: So it’s a concept that basically you are — and we’re seeing a lot of this grow in the FIRE community, like you mentioned Scott but many others in the FIRE community are embracing this idea that in order to save money on housing costs or the cost of living based on a certain area, you basically you pick up and move to a new place. And we’re seeing this really taking off, especially with the changes in how people are working during the pandemic and hopefully after the pandemic is over. Work from home is just totally different than it’s ever been before. And you can basically do your job from anywhere now. If Option 1 is to live in downtown New York in a tiny apartment for a huge, huge cost, but Option 2 is to do that exact same job in Cleveland, Ohio, here, your costs go down dramatically. And so a lot of people are looking at this like, are there other areas that I can live in that I can either find a better job or keep my same job and work remotely that are going to improve my overall housing costs without dramatically impacting my life?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah and again, I think this is not a forever situation, right? I know I’ve brought this up to various groups when I’ve been speaking before. You know, often you get that look of like, Tim, are you really suggesting that I pick up and move? You know? And it’s not necessarily for everyone, right? Sometimes there’s family situations, other things, where this is not even a possibility for a variety of reasons. But I think sometimes, this is a way to think a little bit more creatively, especially for those that might be in an area where jobs are also saturated. You know, if you could get to a lower cost of living area and perhaps open up some additional job opportunities, this might be something to consider while also accelerating your financial goals. And I think, again, it really depends on one’s personal situation. But I think what makes this so attractive for pharmacists, Nate, you know this, I know this, our community knows this, we do see incomes change slightly in higher cost of living areas but nowhere near what they should proportionally to the expense of those areas, right?

Nate Hedrick: Right. Absolutely.

Tim Ulbrich: So an ambulatory care pharmacist in Cleveland, Ohio, and an ambulatory care pharmacist in San Diego, that salary difference — while there likely is one from my experience in talking with folks — it does not represent the cost of living differences between those two areas.

Nate Hedrick: Definitely.

Tim Ulbrich: And so you know, I think that because of the nature of how that is treated with pharmacy jobs, this concept might also be attractive. And check this out for a minute, Nate. We pulled some data from RentCafe. The average rent for a 700 square foot –703 square feet, to be exact — in Manhattan is around $3,800. But the average rent for a slightly larger place, 883 square feet, in Little Rock, Arkansas — shoutout to our community in Arkansas — is $830.

Nate Hedrick: There you go.

Tim Ulbrich: Of course, Manhattan and Little Rock are not the same thing. Very different cities, right, in terms of what people are looking for and so on. But it just highlights, you know, what does that mean for monthly cash flow, what are your options. And you know, when I see $3,800 a month for 700 square feet, you and I both know what $3,800 a month can buy in Ohio, right?

Nate Hedrick: Seriously. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Tim Ulbrich: It could go a long way. So again, you know, obviously leaving family, friends, your job can be tough. Certainly not for everyone, but I think it’s one thing to consider and for — you mentioned the reasons of mobility now with some jobs having some more remote capabilities. So that’s No. 4, geoarbitrage. No. 5 is Airbnb. Nate, this is one that I think really pushes people to be creative in how they are cutting expenses or bringing in additional income. And we had Hillary Blackburn on Episode 121, where she talked about creating another stream of income as an Airbnb host and specifically talked about how her and her husband rent out their Nashville home for about $600 a night. So talk to us about how folks can use Airbnb or a similar model, of course, we’re just mentioning Airbnb, and use their home to bring in some additional money.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I think it’s gotten a little trickier during COVID having somebody in your house or what have you. But still, the idea there is really solid. If you can use the space that you already have — and maybe this is an extra bedroom or maybe it’s a whole extra in-law suite or a pool house or you name it, right — if you’ve got a way to rent out some of that portion of that property that you already have, and it’s a desirable area especially, you can pull in a lot of extra income to offset some of those housing costs. And again, like you talked about Nashville being $600 a night, if you’re in an area that people want to travel to, especially as things start to open back up, I really think that there’s opportunity there for you to get some serious income for that place.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and again, this is one that may make sense for some, not for others. We’ve got an Airbnb calculator on the site. You can see, you know, roughly what you may be earning as an Airbnb host. That’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/airbnbcalculator. We’ll link to that in the show notes. So that’s No. 5 on our list of seven ways to reduce housing costs. No. 6, Nate, re-evaluate your homeowners insurance policy. I just did this, so this one is top of mind for me. But I think this is something, you know, we haven’t talked a whole lot about on the show but certainly could be a way that folks may be able to shave off money off of their monthly budget, especially if their policies may have creeped over time. And because of escrow and other factors, they may not be aware or as closely aware as they could be of that. So talk to us about re-evaluating your homeowners insurance policy.

Nate Hedrick: Home insurance policy, if you have a mortgage, right, it’s really one of the only things that you can change. Your taxes are consistent, right? The county’s going to set those. The mortgage and the lender payment is set by the lender. HOA fees, that’s all fixed costs. But the home insurance policy, kind of the other piece that usually gets wrapped into that, is somewhat flexible. And it’s not — it’s not as common to mess with the home insurance policy as someone might shop around for like car insurance or disability insurance or life insurance.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Nate Hedrick: But realize that you can actually make quite a bit of difference with your home insurance policy. And it can change dramatically based on a number of factors. So if you change your deductible, for example. If you go from a $500 deductible on a home insurance claim to $1,000, you might save 25% on your home insurance policy in some cases. The other thing I’ll see a lot with home insurance is that if you are what’s called escrowing your home insurance or your housing insurance, a lot of times that bank will say, OK, well, we’re going to pay — and escrowing, just briefly, is that you actually pay the bank, you pay the mortgage lender to handle paying your insurance company for you. So usually you’re giving them money every single month as part of your normal housing payment. They’re taking a portion of that, setting it aside in an untouchable account called an escrow account, and then from that account, they basically pay your insurance company. But what I’ve found is that if you have that money in escrow, you don’t get a lot of flexibility with how that payment works. And if you can pull that out — and some lenders will allow you to do this free, some may charge you a small amount — but if you can pull that out, you can get even more creative with how you pay it. I’ve noticed that if you pay your home insurance premium monthly versus yearly, you can get a huge discount by paying it all up front. And so if you know you’re going to be there and you have the funds to do so, you can actually pay it Day 1 of the year and get a whole year’s worth of that payment taken care of at a much lower rate. So there are more flexibility here than I think people really realize, but a lot of it comes down to what are you allowed to do with your lender? And what are you willing to do in terms of that negotiation process?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think too — great stuff there, Nate — I think it’s important to note, as you mentioned, these policies vary, you know, in terms of what they coverage, what the coverage includes, obviously personal belongings, other features of policies, and one thing I notice in this process, which certainly makes sense for those that have gone through this one or more times before, is that it’s easy to get focused on price shopping and not necessarily do an apples-to-apples comparison on coverage. So you know, some of these policies may present themselves as oh, well, you know, we could save you $300 a year or whatever. But when you look at the close details of the policy, you might be changing some of your coverage components. So I found it helpful, if you want to keep coverage the same, essentially as you’re going out and getting quotes, say, “This is my coverage. These are the eight things that are included. Here’s my deductible, here’s what’s covered in the policy. And basically give me a quote for this coverage.” You know? So you can do an apples-to-apples type of comparison.

Nate Hedrick: And watch because some will call things something different, right? They’ll have this special feature with Company A versus Company B and it’s literally just the same thing but with a different name. So watch out for that. The other thing I wanted to mention too is that some of them will offer discounts based on certain parameters of your home. So if you live in a disaster-prone area, ask them about what you can do to your homeowners insurance policy by doing some disaster-proofing. Maybe it’s adding storm shutters or maybe it’s actually a security discount. I’ve seen where if you put in electronic locks or deadbolts, just simple deadbolts versus a regular door lock, they will give you a discount on your overall insurance policy. So there are a number of things you should ask about too, like is there any way for me to get a discount on this? What can I do to improve this?

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. Always ask for a discount, right? Yeah, and as some of you are looking to shop around, you know, certainly many ways that you can go about this. Policy Genius is somebody we’ve talked about before, allowing you to compare life and disability insurance quotes, now also has a platform to compare homeowners insurance quotes. Also, renters insurance as well. If you go to PolicyGenius.com/YourFinancialPharmacist, you can learn more. So that’s No. 6 on our list of seven ways to reduce your monthly housing costs. No. 7 is refinance your mortgage. Again, something that’s near and dear to me. We went through this process last summer. We’ve talked about how low rates have been recently for purchasing a home, for refinancing your mortgage over the last year. Nate, talk to us about what mortgage refinancing is and how this can ultimately lower monthly housing costs.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, so think about refinancing as basically resetting or getting a new loan. Effectively, what you are doing is you are clearing out your old loan, someone is paying that old loan off, and you’re establishing a brand new loan. So it’s similar to — we’ve talked about student loan refinancing. It’s the same idea, right? We’re paying off what you currently have with Lender A, and we’re moving that to Lender B at a new rate or at a lower monthly payment. And so the goal here would be obviously to lower the interest rate and then hopefully as a result, your overall payments are going to go down. So you’re going to eliminate your — hopefully maybe eliminate PMI if you have that in place today. You can, again, drop your interest rate from maybe a variable to a fixed rate that is much lower. You could lower the term over which you’re paying that loan. So you could go from a 20-year rate to a 15 or a 30-year to a 15. And now your overall expenses for the longevity of that house are going to go down. So there are a number of ways that you can use refinancing to cut your costs. But if you’re looking to lower your monthly housing payment, a lot of times it comes down to finding an interest rate that is lower than what you have today and finding a term that makes sense for your financial plan and is less than what you’re paying already.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think it’s, although obvious, worth reiterating one of the traps that I see folks often falling into is yes, you know, you can lower the monthly payment, but if you’re extending out the term, keep in mind the total cost of the loan, right?

Nate Hedrick: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: So trying to make this as apples-to-apples as you can. If you’re already five years into a 30-year term, and you refinance out to a 30-year, obviously you’re tacking on five more years. So yeah, monthly payment might go down, likely will if interest rates are lower, but what does that mean in terms of the total amount paid over the life of the loan? And keeping that in mind as you’re evaluating various options.

Nate Hedrick: And don’t forget, you’ve got closing costs as well in there, right? So you’ve got to make sure that the actual process of buying that loan, you’re getting a new loan but there’s going to be closing costs associated with that to factor in as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Great stuff, Nate. Seven ways to reduce your housing costs, certainly a topic for the reasons we mentioned at the beginning I think folks are interested in. This won’t be the last time that we hear from you and so if you’re listening and you’re looking to buy your first home or you’re looking to move and you want to work with an agent, you don’t currently have one, as Nate alluded to, we’ve got the concierge service working with Nate. It’s free to our community to work with Nate, who will help get you connected with a realtor in your area. And you can go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, click on “Buy or Refi a Home” at the top, and once you do that, you’ll see an option to find an agent and that will get you connected up with Nate. Also, if you’re looking for a loan, looking to refi your mortgage, want some additional information, again, YourFinancialPharmacist.com, and then you can click on “Buy or Refi a Home” and get some additional information. So Nate, as always, appreciate your time and expertise and thanks for your contribution on the show.

Nate Hedrick: Thanks for having me.

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YFP 189: Options for Investing When You’re Maxing Out Your Retirement Accounts

Posted on by yfpadmin

Options for Investing When You’re Maxing Out Your Retirement Accounts

On this episode sponsored by LendKey, Tim Baker, Co-Founder and Director of Financial Planning at Your Financial Pharmacist, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about strategies for investing when you have maxed out your traditional retirement accounts.

Summary

Tim Baker and Tim Ulbrich dive into what traditional retirement accounts are, how contributions have or have not changed, the priority of investing, and strategies for investing when you’ve maxed out your traditional retirement accounts.

Tim Baker explains that traditional retirement accounts are generally any employer sponsored accounts, like 401(k), 403(b), 401(a), or TSP accounts. Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP Ira, and Simple IRA accounts are also considered traditional retirement accounts. Many of these accounts have stayed stagnant in regards to contribution limits from 2020 to 2021, like 401(k) and 403(b) accounts which remain at $19,500. However, IRA accounts have increased to $6,000 (aggregate total for traditional and Roth accounts) and HSA contributions have increased to $3,600 (single) and $7,200 (family) with a catch up of $1,000 for those over 55.

Tim suggests a few areas of investing to consider after maxing out traditional retirement accounts. Real estate investing is a viable way to build wealth as it often provides flexibility and cash flow, can generate both short and long term gains, and comes with a lot of tax benefits. Of course there are risks involved with real estate investing and it isn’t as passive as a traditional retirement account, but can be a way to help grow your income and net worth. Starting or investing in a business is another avenue to take after maxing out your retirement accounts. This could be in the form of starting a side hustle or business, inheriting or becoming part of a family business, or investing in a partnership. Lastly, taxable brokerage accounts like Robinhood or Acorns are a good stepping stone to get into a different type of investing, however Tim suggests being intentional with what your setting brokerage accounts up for. He also shares that the more boring you can be with investments, like investing in the S&P 500 or total market index funds, the better it is.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker, good to have you back on the mic. What’s new?

Tim Baker: Not much. Just settling into our new office, YFP headquarters in downtown Columbus. So that’s coming together slowly with just furniture and everything else. But yeah, just getting comfortable. How about you?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, exciting times, I think, for YFP. Excited about having you in Columbus. And we’ve got some exciting things planned for the year, and so here today we’re talking about all options for investing after you’ve maxed out traditional retirement accounts. So first of all, if you are somebody listening that hasn’t maxed out your traditional retirement accounts, kudos to you. That’s not an easy thing to do by any means. And remember, as we say many times on the show, investing is only one part of the financial plan. It can’t be looked at in a silo. And for those that are listening that are at the beginning of the investing journey or looking for a refresher, make sure to check out episodes 072-076, our Investing 101 series, as well as Episode 163, Investing Beyond the 401k, 403b, where we discussed IRAs and HSAs in details. And so we’re going to build upon that information here today. So Tim Baker, let’s back up a bit. What are we talking about when we say traditional retirement accounts?

Tim Baker: I guess the thing that pops into my head first and foremost are going to be what’s provided through the employer. That’s typically things like the 401k, the 403b. A lot of us have supplemental retirement plans, things like the 457, some people have 4018s, which are kind of like 401k’s. And then those that we kind of manage ourselves or through the help of a financial planner, so these are things like traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs. Sometimes we’ll see SEP IRAs for those that are self-employed or work for a small business. And simple IRAs also fall under that. So traditionally, those are the ones that we lean on first when we’re kind of looking at ways to defer income for the purposes of saving for retirement.

Tim Ulbrich: So talking about 2021 numbers here, have contribution limits changed from 2020 as folks are considering, alright, new year, what could I be doing to take advantage of these accounts?

Tim Baker: Some of them have changed, but a lot of them actually stayed stagnant. So the most common, the 401k/403b, is the same. So in 2020, you could put $19,500 per year. And that’s of your own money, so doesn’t matter what the match is that your employer gives you. That’s of your own money. And that’s the same for 2021. So you know, if you take your income, you take $19,500 and divide it by your income, that’s the max percentage that you could put in throughout the course of that year. So what I always say to clients that — particularly those that are starting out and maybe they have a little 401k inertia, which is hey, I put 3% and my employer matched 3%, and then they get stuck there. Years later, they’re 5-10 years into their career and they’re still there, that’s typically not going to be enough. So I kind of like the idea of planting the seed of a race to 10% or a race to double digits. And again, that’s kind of just a rule of thumb. Now, in the IRA world, the contribution limits are also the same. So you can put up to $6,000 per year, if you’re thinking about this monthly, $500 a month, into a traditional and/or Roth IRA. So that’s an aggregate number. So if I put $1,000 into my traditional, I can put $5,000 into my Roth IRA. And then probably the other one that I would call out that actually did creep up a bit is the HSA, the Health Savings Account, which is the one that we always talk about that has the triple tax benefit. So if you’re in a high deductible health plan, you basically qualify for that. If you’re an individual, you can put up to $3,600 per year. If you’re a family, $7,200. And then if you’re over 55, there’s a catchup of $1,000 per year as well. So those would probably be the ones that I would call out. So again, if you are in that population of people — which I wouldn’t say it’s always a lot of the clients that we’re working with — but if you are in that population of people that are maxing out the 401k, the IRA, the HSA, then this episode, you know, might be for you where you’re like, OK, well where do I go next?

Tim Ulbrich: And as a reminder, we have a new quick reference guide too. You can quickly take a look at 2021 key retirement numbers, including 401k, 403b, traditional IRA, Roth contribution limits, HSA, education tax credit incentives, required minimum distribution, tax rates. So for those number nerds out there, this is for you. YourFinancialPharmacist.com/2021, you can download that sheet. So Tim, that was one of my questions. I talked with a prospective client this morning who was really in this camp of, you know what, I need to full throttle my investing plan. So I’m at a point of or near at a point of maxing out my 401k, yes, I see another $6,000 I can put in an IRA, doesn’t necessarily have access to an HSA, so is at this point of alright, I’m ready to go with the next steps. So how often do you see this among pharmacists and clients of ours? How hard is it for pharmacists to max them out? And for those that aren’t maxing them out, what’s typically holding them back?

Tim Baker: It’s hard. I think, again, it depends on where you are in kind of your career and where you’re at. If you are a more of a new practitioner and you’re saddled with six figures of debt, to put money into a 401k can be a little bit of a tough go, especially if you’re looking at a $2,000 monthly loan payment. Sometimes, that is very much baked into the strategy that we are employing that the money that goes into these pre-tax accounts lowers AGI and potentially maximizes a forgiveness play, or if you’re looking at a I’ve refinanced, I’m trying to get through them quickly, I am paying $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, sometimes just not a lot of money left over to go into these retirement accounts. Now, there are 10% of pharmacists out there — those are the numbers — that don’t have loans, that kind of the world is their oyster. But that doesn’t always necessarily mean that their money is going into retirement accounts. A lot of pharmacists after going through years and years of training, it’s kind of like, alright, I need to treat myself a little bit. And then that can sometimes be hard to get out of as well. So I think the flip side of that is if you are further along in your career — so the answer, you know, one of the questions is like, is it a big deal that I’m not maxing these out? And I’m like, it depends. If you’re 35 and you’re trying to retire by 50, maybe it is a big deal. If you’re 45 or 50 and you’re trying to retire by 60, maybe it is a big deal. So I think it’s a little bit of, again, looking at the math and how you feel about what your retirement prospects look like and then marrying those two up. But I think if you are in early in your career and you’re maxing these out, it’s just such an easier lift because in the investments, it’s not about timing the market, it’s about time in the market. And if you can get your money working and have that work for 3-4 decades, that money, you know, is just going to go that much further rather if you wait a decade or two out before retirement. So typically, the earlier that you do it, just the easier that number is that you need to be setting aside per month versus waiting. And that’s really what we’re talking about here.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’m going to give a disclaimer here, Tim, before I ask my next question that none of what we’re talking about here is obviously individual investment advice. And for the reason you just mentioned there, it does very much depend on one’s personal situation. And it’s becoming the running joke of, “it depends,” on this podcast. But it’s so true and speaks to the value of one-on-one, customized planning. So my question is, you know, let’s say someone is investing in their 401k/403b or employer-sponsored plan, should they focus on maxing that out first? And really, what I’m getting here is what’s the order of priority when it comes to investing and how do we think through determining this order?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so if we kind of can figure out like how to navigate the multiple competing priorities — and obviously, we talked about like student debt, you know, we didn’t really focus on consumer debt, which we have a lot of pharmacists that come to us that are — we recently started working with a pharmacist, and their biggest pain point was about $50,000 in consumer and personal debt. So — and rightfully so. That’s the one that’s probably the most debilitating. If we can work through the other competing priorities like other pieces of debt and the life events that are — whether it’s marriage, buying a house, having kids, going on vacation, caring for elder parents, you know, saving for kids’ educations, and all that stuff, then really, the baseline I think priority that we typically look at — and I would probably say for Step 1, everything else aside, unless you have really terrible credit card debt, at a minimum I think everyone that has a match available to them from their employer, they should capitalize on that. So you know, the old adage is like, take advantage of the free money. So one of the things I’ll humble brag is like YFP, we have a Safe Harbor 401k that if our employees put in 5%, we match 4%. And I want to make sure that everyone’s taking advantage of that because it is free money. So to me, for the most part, everyone should do that. From there, you know, if there is an HSA on the table due to a high-deductible plan, I’d probably say that would probably be the second bucket to look at because it has a lot of versatility in terms of what you can use it for. You can use it for today’s health expenses, tomorrow’s health expenses, and then tomorrow’s like retirement. And with the triple tax benefit, if you can shelter $3,600-$7,200 per year for the next x amount of years, that’s a great benefit. And then from there, what we typically say is look outside of the 401k and look at things like IRAs, whether that’s a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. The reason for that is typically, a lot of 401k’s are strapped with administrative fees and/or there’s not a lot of investment options. But it’s more tied to the fees. So if you can establish an IRA and keep costs low, I think that’s a big win. We believe that the expense related to investments is going to be one of the bigger drivers in making sure that you have an efficient portfolio. So if we can do that in an IRA — and to go back to that, a lot of 401k’s are not created equal. So you have some great 401k’s and 403b’s that are absolutely efficient and fantastic, and then you have those that are not. And it can be a very, very wide range. We’re talking about, you know, very wide differences between great and not-so-great. Typically, though, once you max out the IRA, what you want to do is go back to the 401k and max that out. So that’s that $19,500. So again, you calculate that by $19,500 divided by your — or your income divided by the $19,500 — and that’s the percentage that you use. And then finally — and this can probably work concurrently in some ways — you know, if you do have access to other retirement plans or SEP IRAs if you have a side business or things like that, that might be another good way to go. And then from there, from a traditional sense, you know, a lot of financial planners will just point you to a brokerage account. So those individuals that have like a Robinhood account or an Acorns account, where they typically do that Step 1 or Step 2, you know, in most instances, it’s better to kind of make sure that you’re doing all these other things first. But it could be a brokerage account, it could be where you get into real estate investing. It could be where you are buying into a business or starting a business, things like that. But that’s kind of a general rule of thumb for most investors on how to tackle the priority.

Tim Ulbrich: Great stuff, Tim. And we will link in the show notes, we have an investing priority document. We’ve talked about it previously on the podcast as well. I can’t help but mention, you brought Robinhood’s name up before — what a week for Robinhood with the whole Gamestop thing going on this week.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I know, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Pretty crazy times. But I think brokerage accounts are getting a lot of attention this week. So we’ve established some of these more traditional accounts, 401k’s or 403b’s, or for those that are working in the federal government, of course the TSP, you mentioned the HSA, the IRAs, going back to the 401k or 403b or equivalent, perhaps a SEP IRA. And then we got to this, you know, what’s next, right? And so of course, often the advice is a brokerage account. But you mentioned several other things that might be in the mix, so perhaps real estate investing, of course, the brokerage account, investing in a business — I know I often hear something like insurance type of investments may come up. So let’s break these down a little bit further. First off, real estate investing. This is something we talked about a lot in 2020 and are excited to dig into this topic even more in 2021 as we’ve heard from many of you that are interested in learning more about real estate investing, whether that’s hearing some of this for the first time, whether that’s investing in building the portfolio that you already have, or perhaps for some of you, hearing and saying, you know what, it’s not a good fit for me. And obviously, we try to bring both sides of this, of sharing stories of folks that have been successful but also appropriately bringing in the risks that can come here as well. So Tim Baker, from your perspective, I know you personally have an investment property, I know this is something that has come up with clients, something we’re talking more and more about with clients, tell us at a high level why real estate investing, from your perspective, can be something at least worth evaluating for folks out that are maxing out these accounts?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I think, you know, if we step back and we kind of think about like traditional financial planners, I think, you know, what I typically hear is from a financial planner, like ah, like do you really want to do that? Because do you want to unclog toilets at 2 in the morning? And the answer is no, nobody wants to do that. But I think the sentiment is really rooted in how the advisor gets paid in a lot of ways. So traditional financial planners are really going to get compensated by you, the client, having as much money in your traditional investments, whether that’s an IRA or a brokerage account or a 401k for you to eventually roll over to them for them to manage. I guess the way that we view this is we view real estate as a viable way to build wealth outside of traditional investments that have both kind of near-term benefits of flexibility and cash flow, you know — for example, when you put your money into a 401k, like wave goodbye to that until you’re at least 59.5, for the most part. So you never really can get access to that where if I buy a property, like I could start cash flowing that and make $100, $200, $300 off of that property the next month. There’s that near term, but then you’re also building, and the asset is appreciating as the note that you’re paying down is depreciated. And then there’s a lot of tax benefits from that in terms of being able to make income but then offset that by the deductions. And there’s a lot of things that’s built into the IRS tax code that reward real estate investors. And I think the other thing that’s flexible is that you could keep that, you know, if you talk about a buy-and-hold strategy, you could keep that for the next 30 years just like you keep a 401k. Or you could say 10 years into it, I want to liquidate this and do something else and basically cash out the equity that you have in the property and go do something completely else, which means you could retire on that. So that is maybe another viable strategy. So because of the flexibility, I think because of the tax benefits that you receive, I think it’s a viable way to build wealth. Now, is it as passive as traditional investment? No. And the more passive it is, the less benefit and flexibility that you’ll get. The more actively managed it is, typically the more flexibility and benefit that you get. But then the tradeoff is that you’re actively managing and it takes time and there’s risk. Well, there’s risk in anything. But I think, Tim, really for those reasons, that’s why we like it. And we think it’s a vi — again, a viable way to build wealth. And at the end of the day, the way that we work with clients is what we’re trying to do is help grow and protect income so you could make an argument that we’re growing income in a real estate portfolio by, you know, we’re cash flowing and we’re protecting it because maybe we’re diversifying that away from a typical pharmacist’s salary. We’re growing and protecting the net worth, which means what we have a collateralized asset with a note that’s appreciating over time, while keeping your goals in mind. So again, if that means early retirement, if that means more of a nontraditional path in terms of the career, I think the real estate aspect creates a lot of opportunity to really fulfill financial independence in the eyes of the pharmacist.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’m so glad, Tim, you mentioned the story and example that’s often used as the objection early on of like, who wants to be a plumber in the middle of the night? And I remember — for those that have read “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” they will be able to resonate with this — but I remember reading that book for the first time, and it was like unlocking like a piece of information that I hadn’t really been exposed to or learned before. And that obviously is a little bit more philosophical in nature, and then you start talking to people who are doing it and learning more about it, and that’s one of the great things about where we are in 2021, I mean, the resources available out there to learn more and to connect with others that are doing it is really, really incredible. But I think being open to learning, you know, perhaps being willing to see what might be the answer to some of those objections is really important. And we’re excited to bring more pharmacist’s stories to this community in 2021 on real estate investing and also connect other pharmacist investors with one another. And I would point folks back to Episode 167, we brought on David Bright to talk about must-know real estate terminology. I think that’s a great place to start. You mentioned, Tim, many of the upsides and benefits, perhaps appreciation, cash flow, tenants paying down a loan, some tax benefits, obviously we’re just scratching the surface here. And obviously, you also presented some of the challenge. You know, it may not necessarily be passive, the quality of tenants may or may not be what you have in mind. I think too there’s a little bit of, you know, I call it HGTV syndrome, Tim, in terms of like, you know, you watch the flipping show and you’re like, yeah, I got it, right? And so I think we’ve all got to take a step back and really make sure we’re not overconfident. But I think for pharmacists, I’m not sure overconfidence is often the risk here. I think it’s probably being too passive and feeling like it’s out-of-reach and not necessarily being willing to take what they may feel is a very significant risk to get started. So we’ve talked about several of these strategies on the episode thus far, you know, obviously there’s the buy-and-hold strategy. In Episode 129, we brought on Aaron Howell, and he discussed how he built a 29-unit portfolio. We brought Ryan Chaw on Episode 140 about how he built his portfolio of college town investing. Episode 173, we brought him back on to talk about his systems, which was a really neat episode to hear how he actually operationalizes this. Obviously that’s one strategy, buy and hold. We’ve talked about flips before, Nate Hedrick, 178, five lessons learned from his flip. And we’re going to continue the conversation. There’s other areas, of course, in wholesaling and forming partnerships, and we’re excited about what’s ahead here. So real estate investing, Tim, is one aspect. Another that pops to mind that is near and dear to our hearts, obviously, with what we’ve been building at YFP is building a business, investing in a business, and this, of course, is a big topic. But at a high level, you know, what types of things do you see from our clients in terms of whether it’s side hustles that they’re starting, businesses that they’re starting or even perhaps looking at investing in other businesses and how they begin to evaluate whether that’s a path forward for them?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I think what I see most frequently is an interest in a closely-held family business, so like a private company that was inherited from maybe a grandfather or things like that and, you know, the question is like, should I keep this? Like what’s the benefit? And you know, they’re getting K1 every year with maybe a little bit of income that they have to basically declare for the IRS. So it could be like more like that. But then I think that there’s also — I mean, we’ve had clients that have taken their side business, their side hustle, and made it a fully fledged, like a regular business. So it could be just plowing money back into the business itself rather than going into the traditional, but I also have had clients interested in investing in like a partnership, whether it’s like a gym or things like that that, you know, that’s a little bit more of a — there’s a lot of risk there. There’s a lot of, again, what’s your role? What do you bring to the business? Is it money? Is it expertise? Is it planning? Is it clients? And kind of really understanding that. Sometimes, it’s just money. So it’s like, hey, I’m going put money in and let you do your thing, and you’re kind of more of a silent investor. So this can come — just like real estate, this can come in a lot of different flavors. So can investing in a business. Again, one of my favorite shows on TV is “Shark Tank.” So I love watching that and how investors speak with business owners and I’m always interested in business just because I just like to talk small business, in particular, and what makes it work and not work. I think we have a lot of clients that are there. I would say for the most part, the predominant thing that I see is a share of an inherited family business or really, taking this hobby or this side hustle and really forming a fully fledged business and how to really handle that. And a lot of the conversation is, you know, do I take money out of the business? Or do I basically reinvest into the business so I make sure it survives and grows?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and we will continue — one of the areas that I’m very passionate about in the profession of pharmacy is I feel like we are missing some creativity around helping students as well as helping pharmacists just imagine what could be different possibilities or ideas. And I think we do that by sharing stories. Not that they necessarily hear a story of a business or side hustle and say, “I’m going to do exactly that,” but to help them think about another area as an example of something that they’re passionate about in terms of solving a problem, creating a solution to that problem. And so we’ll be bringing more in that area. And you know, I agree. We have to know — you know, everyone knows the stats that most small businesses don’t work. Debbie Downer reality. But I think for those that really do their due diligence, understand what their business is all about, is there a market for it, you know, there certainly is some upsides financially in terms of tax, building equity. One of the things that gets me so excited about business is that there may not be a ceiling. Obviously there can also be a floor.

Tim Baker: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: Or falling through a floor that you have to be aware of and also access to some of the retirement options that we’ve already talked about. So we mentioned, again, in the context of investing beyond maxing out traditional accounts, we’ve talked about real estate, we’ve talked about investing in business. What about probably the most common area here, which is taxable and brokerage accounts? What are some things as you’re working with clients that you’re advising them, getting them to think about, whether it’s choosing where they’re going to be investing that money, how they might keep fees low, how they determine where those investments go? Talk to us about the approach in putting money into a taxable or brokerage account.

Tim Baker: The most common that you see are kind of like the Robinhood, Acorns just because they’re UI and they’re use is so clean and easy. And I think for a lot of people that are curious about investing, it’s a first way — you know, kind of the first way to kind of wade in and see, OK, I want to buy this stock, etc. Typically, we talk about the priority of investing, you know, we just started working with a client that had, again, $20,000 in credit card debt but then they have a $10,000 like Robinhood account. And I’m like, those probably don’t make sense. So I think like with brokerage accounts, what I am a big fan of seeing with savings is like what is this account actually for? So a lot of the uses that we see for brokerage accounts are a tax bomb. So those that are taking non-PSLF forgiveness, you know, they need to cover that tax bill. So they’re putting money into a brokerage account because they’re going to need to access it before 59.5 years old, so they can’t put it into their retirement account, and they need to be able to pay off that tax bill when the loan is forgiven. The other one is, again, when we max everything out, that’s a good use for it. So what I typically urge clients to do, though — and it really directs how we’re going to allocate that particular account — is what is it for? So if you’re trying to retire at 50, all of these traditional accounts that we’ve talked about, for the most part — and there’s some exceptions of what you can do, but you can’t really access them without a penalty until you’re 59.5 years old. So that means you have 10 years, 9.5 years where you have to figure something out. And usually, that figure something out is having a robust brokerage account or maybe liquidating part of a real estate portfolio to be able to cover those first 10 years of retirement. I think the big thing here is if you have an IRA, I probably would just have your brokerage account there. And I’m not down on any of these other apps or things like that, but I think for ease of use — and again, not every custodian is equal; there’s going to be different fees and things like that. So you want to be mindful of that. But I know the sexy and the exciting thing to do is to pick individual stocks, whether it’s Tesla or Gamestop or Ford or whatever it is. But I think, you know — and again, not investment advice — but I think the more boring that you are with your investments, typically the better it is because the sexier and the, you know, the investment strategy is, typically the more speculative and the more expensive it is to the investor. So it could be as easy as putting it into an S&P 500 index or a total market index or things like that and call it a day. So there are some advisors that are colleagues of mine, they hear me talk about real estate investing and all of these other things, and I’ll say like, “Hey, this is the reason I believe that a lot of traditional advisors don’t say it is because it’s a function of income.” And sometimes, it’s — and I get a little pushback on that because I’m kind of criticizing my brethren, but it also could just be it’s a ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’ approach, which I think for finances, it can go a long way. So you know, there is absolutely nothing wrong — I know we’re talking about small businesses and real estate — there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a 401k, an IRA, and a brokerage account and doing a damn good job of building wealth and living an intentional, wealthy life with those tools.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think to that point, Tim, like I would encourage our community, like lean into what you’re comfortable on. You know, I think sometimes there’s some FOMO of like, you know, oh, so-and-so is doing real estate investing or so-and-so owns their own business, and it’s cool and flashy, which you usually don’t see the other side of it all the time. But maybe that is a fit, maybe it’s not. But you know, learn about them, understand them, understand your risk tolerance — and maybe for many folks, it’s really leaning into maxing out traditional accounts, maybe opening some brokerage accounts. But perhaps those other things aren’t a good fit. And I agree with you, I’m seeing more and more pharmacists that seem to be interested in financial independence, early retirement, some combination of those, whether they love their job or maybe not. And I think this is where these tools, the brokerage account specifically, come into play. And last week, we interviewed Scott Rieckens, author of “Playing with FIRE,” Episode 188 for those that are interested in learning more about Financial Independence Retire Early. Tim Baker, great stuff. I think this really highlights for me, again, we’re only talking about here investing, one part of the financial plan. But within the investing bucket, we’ve talked about several different things that of course are traditional accounts and all of the nuances there and then beyond that, lots of decisions to be made, priorities to be balanced, and evaluations to be done. And I think this is a great opportunity to promote and shoutout our financial planning team and our lead planners that work directly with clients one-on-one to have these types of conversations, to look at what are the opportunities, what’s the goal, what’s the purpose, what’s the priority, and then ultimately, how do we put a plan in place to make sure that we achieve it over time? So for those that are interested in learning more about the comprehensive financial planning services we offer at YFP Planning, head on over to YFPPlanning.com. You can schedule a free discovery call, and we’d love to talk with you to see if our services are a good fit for what you’re looking for. And as always, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to the show each and every week. That’s going to help others find what we’re doing here over at YFP. Have a great rest of your week.

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Month: February 2021

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