March 2024 – Your Financial Pharmacist

YFP 352: Pharmacy Innovators with Kelley Carlstrom, PharmD, BCOP

Posted on March 28, 2024March 27, 2024 by YFP Media

In another episode of the Pharmacy Innovator series, Dr. Kelley Carlstrom, CEO and founder of KelleyCPharmD, discusses entrepreneurship in oncology pharmacy.

Episode Summary

On this episode, we have another segment of the YFP Podcast’s Pharmacy Innovator series! Hosted by Corrie Sanders, PharmD, this series is tailored for pharmacists venturing into entrepreneurship, featuring stories and strategies for aspiring pharmacy entrepreneurs.

This week, we delve into the dynamic world of entrepreneurship within oncology pharmacy with Dr. Kelley Carlstrom. Kelley is a board-certified oncology pharmacist and CEO and founder of KelleyCPharmD, which addresses crucial gaps in clinical oncology training. Dr. Carlstrom shares her experiences working in traditional and non-traditional settings, healthcare technology, insights on her transition from employee to entrepreneur, her evolving business model, and opportunities in oncology for pharmacists. Kelley also discusses how to monetize your expertise and the value of communities when starting a business.

About Today’s Guest

Kelley Carlstrom is the CEO and founder of KelleyCPharmD, an education company that fills the considerable gap in clinical oncology training. She is passionate about democratizing oncology pharmacy education and increasing accessibility and inclusion through her unique L.E.A.R.N Oncology Method.

Kelley received her Doctor of Pharmacy from The University of Colorado and completed post-graduate residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA.

She is a board-certified oncology pharmacist that has worked in a variety of traditional and non-traditional settings including at large academic and small community cancer centers, as a consultant for a large electronic medical record implementation, and in the healthcare technology space helping create digital products for oncology clinicians and patients.

Kelley is also a prolific content creator, sharing clinical and motivational pearls about oncology. She is part of the LinkedIn Top Voices program, an invitation-only program that recognizes and celebrates the most influential and engaging professionals on LinkedIn.

Key Points from the Episode

Entrepreneurship pathway in oncology pharmacy with Dr. Kelley Carlstrom. [0:00]
Career transition and business ideas for pharmacists. [2:34]
Starting a business in oncology and program design. [6:24]
Building a successful oncology pharmacy business model. [12:27]
Transitioning from consulting to entrepreneurship with a pharmacist. [18:00]
Leveraging clinical skills for business growth. [23:40]
LinkedIn usage and its impact on pharmacy businesses. [28:37]
Oncology pharmacy roles and opportunities. [36:07]
Oncology pharmacy training and business model. [42:27]
Entrepreneurship and decision-making with KelleyCPharmD. [49:35]

Episode Highlights

“You know, once you have a problem, it’s great. But then you have to figure out what’s the best way to solve it both for the both for the customer and for you. Like you don’t want to build a business that you don’t want to run.” – Kelley Carlstrom [7:44]

“So I think when the number one thing I would encourage pharmacists to do is to connect with people that are interesting to them, not just you know, other pharmacists.” -Kelley Carlstrom [30:20]

“When I got into entrepreneurship, I realized you need to make decisions very quickly. And if you’re always second guessing yourself, it’s not you’re you’re not going to be successful.” -Kelley Carlstrom [48:11]

“There are no bad decisions in entrepreneurship. It’s just you have to get off of the table and start walking and start doing things. And that’s how you learn.” – Kelley Carlstrom [48:55]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

Corrie Sanders 00:00

Hi YFP community, Corrie Sanders here, host of the Pharmacy Innovator segment of the YFP Podcast. Pharmacy Innovators is designed for pharmacists navigating the entrepreneurial journey. In this series we feature stories and strategies that help guide current and aspiring pharmacy entrepreneurs. Today we have Dr. Kelley Carlstrom, known on social media as the oncology pharmacist. Kelley is the CEO and founder of Kelley C PharmD, an education company that fills a considerable gap in Clinical Oncology training. Dr. Carlstrom is a board certified oncology pharmacist that has worked in a variety of traditional and non traditional settings. This includes a large academic medical center, small community cancer centers, and then the healthcare technology and startup space. Kelley is also a prolific content creator and was recently invited to be part of the LinkedIn top voices team, an invitation only program that recognizes and celebrates the most influential and engaging professionals on LinkedIn. Dr. Carlstrom is a returning guest the podcast and was featured in August of 2021 on episode 217. We will link to that episode in the show notes as it provides great detail about Kelley’s background and pharmacy journey. Today we speak to Kelley about the timing for her jump from employee to entrepreneur and dive into her unique business model how her business has evolved over time, and opportunities in oncology for both Kelley and the pharmacy profession as a whole. Kelley share some great lessons surrounding monetization of her expertise as an oncology pharmacist, to include the value of various communities and reflections on decision making both inside and outside of clinical practice. Now that we’ve set the stage, let’s dive into today’s main event. Our incredible guest, Dr. Kelley Carlstrom. Kelly, welcome back to the podcast. It’s great to have you.

Kelley Carlstrom 01:46

Thank you so much. I’m excited to chat again.

Corrie Sanders 01:49

Well, I know that you and Tim recorded in August of 2021. And during that time, you guys did a great job of really diving into your educational background, your pharmacy career path, what we want to really dive into today is that entrepreneurship pathway, and what exactly that looked like for you when that started in your career. And we’ll get into some details about your mindset and growth. So let’s start with really diving in to the consulting portion of your career. Before that you were in a large academic medical center, you were in an outpatient oncology clinic, and then you transitioned into consulting. So let’s talk about that consulting. How did you find that job? What important mindset shifts happened during that job? And how did that ultimately set you up for success with where you are now?

Kelley Carlstrom 02:34

Yeah, I love talking about this transition, because it was completely unexpected. In my career, I thought that I would be in a clinical practice role my entire career, you know, I spent a decade training in school and in residency to get that type of role I was in, and then all of a sudden, I was I was entertaining, moving out of that role. And I really had a lot of doubts and a lot of conversations with myself during that time about whether I really wanted to do that. And what it came down to was me kind of thinking through what’s the worst that could happen. You know, it sounded like a really interesting opportunity, this consulting. And being in clinical practice was kind of the safe bet. Like I knew I would always have a job that would be very, very comfortable. And consulting was a complete black box. I knew nothing about it. I didn’t really know what they were hiring me to do, which was a Cerner implementation, I had always worked with Epic in the hospitals I worked at. So it was very scary. And I just decided to jump in and see what doors it opened. And it opened a lot of doors both. From a job perspective, and like networking perspective, but also a lot of doors kind of, for me personally, kind of my mindset, how I thought about how I thought about where my career would be, because when I first started consulting, you know, they were paying me very well. And I didn’t, I had never seen a pharmacist in that type of role where I was there, essentially, for the knowledge I had. I wasn’t doing any of the building in the EMR. They had a whole team of analysts that were building, they were hiring me as that clinician, that liaison between their clinical end users, their doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and their Cerner builders, they needed somebody in between to kind of talk both languages. And that was really the first time I’d heard about that role. And that that led me to see like, man, there’s a lot of skills pharmacists have that we don’t talk about, we don’t recognize, we don’t market. And that’s that’s what really opened my eyes to thinking, oh, there’s a lot more out here that I could, that I could dive into. And so that’s how my business ideas kind of got started. I started having a whole bunch of ideas about how how else I could solve problems besides this kind of one specific problem I was solving during my consulting contract. And over time, I just started to iterate on that and lean into it. And it’s been a very interesting journey.

Corrie Sanders 05:06

Yeah, it’s great to hear you say that. Pharmacists aren’t very, don’t realize maybe some of the clinical or some of the skills that we had outside of our clinical training and our knowledge. And it really takes seeing the profession through a different lens to maybe bring that into fruition, and shine a light on some of the skills that we have that have nothing to do with clinical practice. But really what role we play in a team based care model, whether that’s from, you know, an electronic EMR perspective, or whether that’s from a direct patient care perspective. So I love that you highlighted that.

And then Kelley, let’s talk about how the company that you have now started to build off of that consulting practice. So you said you started getting some ideas for your company. What did that look like? Did you have people coming to you with specific questions? Were you getting questions from the company itself about oncology? How did the idea for your business really set a seed during that time?

Kelley Carlstrom 06:04

I was getting a lot of questions on LinkedIn for years where I’ve been active for years, but I honestly wasn’t paying that close attention, which is funny now that I look at it in hindsight. You know, you don’t pay attention until you start paying attention, right? And then the light bulb goes off. And you’re like, Man, why didn’t I think about this years ago? But I had a lot of ideas about about starting a business. You know, it was I had stumbled into a couple podcasts, a couple heard of people heard a couple of people talking about entrepreneurship. And I’m like, Okay, that sounds interesting. But I didn’t really there. This was kind of the beginning of the, of the pharmacy entrepreneur, kind of wave, if you will. And so there wasn’t a lot of people talking about it. So I had a couple ideas that were that were ruminating in my brain. But just all of a sudden, one day, I was answering a LinkedIn message. And everybody asked me the same question on LinkedIn, which was, hey, I’m new to oncology. You talk a lot about oncology on LinkedIn, can you point me to somewhere where I can learn it? And I was like, and I always I got this question so much, I had a copy, paste kind of ready to go of like, five resources that I send to everybody. And just one day, and I’m like, I’ve been answering the same question for a long time. Obviously, there’s a gap here, these people are not residency trained, they’re not going to go back to do residency. They’re working in cancer centers, taking care of cancer patients. And they should be, you know, they want to be better. And they should be supported in this. And I’m like, Alright, I’ve got the training, got the knowledge, how could I help them do this? And that that kind of started started the flow of of a million ideas. You know, once you have a problem, it’s great. But then you have to figure out what’s the best way to solve it both for the both for the customer and for you. Like you don’t want to build a business that you don’t want to run. Right? So I spent a lot of time at the beginning trying to figure out how the heck am I going to do this? Because oncology is giant.It’s not like where you can like set it and forget it, I’ll record a couple of videos and sell that and people will learn oncology. No, we get new drugs approved practically every week. It’s a it’s an ongoing thing. So it took a lot of design upfront.

Corrie Sanders 08:19

And let’s talk about that design. So when you touched base with Tim, it was almost three years ago now. And you were just about to launch the ELO program, which is enjoy learning oncology. So I know that that was going to be your first program within your business. How has that developed? What did that look like when you first put that out? And then ultimately, where are you today with the services and the products that you offer?

Kelley Carlstrom 08:46

Yeah, when I talked to him, I can’t believe it’s been three years – I feel I feel like I’m my mother when I say where does the time go? It goes by so fast. But I remember when I talked with Tim, I was at I was I had just finished my pilot version of my program. So when I had sold the pilot, I had reached out to the the people on my email list that I had expressed interest and I said, Hey, I’m gonna build this thing. It’s not built yet. I’m gonna build this plane as we’re flying it. And I had eight pharmacists that raised their hand that said, Yep, well, we’ll buy into this program, even though you have nothing built Kelley. I literally was building it as they were going through the content. And I took their feedback. And I took the lessons learned from that and kind of made changes and made iterations to it. And that’s kind of when I talked to Tim was when the the first official iteration was was rolling out. And it’s pretty much been the same from a structure perspective since then. So I’m going into the fourth year of that program. And it’s been when I think about the structure, you know, for pharmacists that are thinking about starting something, I really spend time take the time to spend time to really think about how you’re going to format the services that you offer. And one, you obviously want to think about it from the client perspective, like, how is the is the service that you’re offering, or the product you’re offering going to best suit the customer? But also, from your perspective. How are you going to design it? So, one, it doesn’t take up all of your day, because as a business owner, you actually have to run the business, which is, sounds like logical, right? But at the beginning, you don’t really think about how many kind of back end, if you will, things there are, you know, not just kind of bookkeeping, like the standard things. But also, marketing takes up a big chunk of my time and relationship building and just client support, customer success, things like that, like they, that takes a lot of time. So when I was building the program, I really thought about one, one challenge I have is oncology is rapidly changing. So I had to figure out how am I going to keep up with this in terms of content? And then two is, am I who’s going to do it? Is it me, or am I going to get other people to do it. And so I settled on a model where I hire other expert pharmacists to support the lesson content. So at any given time, I have 24 expert oncology pharmacists that are in my program, because I have 24 lessons. And they’re the ones that are reviewing the content, kind of making sure it’s updated. They’re the ones that are supporting my clients with clinical questions. And that takes that pressure off of me. But it also frees me up to do the operation side behind it, you know, I need to find those experts, I need to get them the content to review, I need to review their content, because the program is through my lens, it’s my kind of IP. And so just because an expert says we should include something doesn’t mean I necessarily include it, it’s just, you know, I know my customers very well I know what stage they’re at. And so I everything has to kind of filter through what the what the lenses of my client and my particular program. So when you’re designing your your business and your offers, I think it’s really important to think about all those different steps and not get bogged down in the really fun kind of sexy things at the beginning, which is like, Oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna offer something for sale, it’s like, well, you have to, you have to really think thoughtfully about it and not not kind of box yourself in.

Corrie Sanders 12:27

And I want to highlight a couple of things that you said, especially at the beginning there about one, you had a very small cohort to start. You at eight pharmacists. And you were learning as you said, you were building the plane while you’re flying it, I think that that is instrumental to, it does not have to be a perfect business model. And it’s not going to be a perfect business model. And it is going to evolve over the course of time. So just getting started and realizing that yes, there’s going to be so many modifications and iterations of different things along the way. But all you really need is that small cohort or client base to launch yourself and to figure out what you need and the feedback and the evolution of a business. So I think that that’s really important to hold on is that it is going to not be perfect from the start. And you’re not going to have 100% market share or analysis from the second that you started your own company that will evolve over time. So let’s explain that that business model a little more just because I want listeners to really understand how valuable the business model that you’ve built is. And I think you’ve done such a great job. I mean, honestly, you are one of the pharmacy pioneers and really monetizing your clinical expertise. So you have these programs, and they’re sold directly to pharmacists that are practicing oncology. And how do they buy into that? Are they buying into each lesson individually? Are they buying into packages? Have you tiered them over time? Has that changed over time? What is ultimately the product that the consumer is buying?

Kelley Carlstrom 13:56

Yeah, great question. I have a essentially, I have a signature program, and I have a couple tiers to it. But I have one kind of main tier, one main offer that I want to sell. And the reason I want to sell it, it’s called my ELO Collaborative. The reason I want to sell it is because I know pharmacists get the best benefit from that particular program. When I was for and that’s that’s the one I’ve been building since my since my beta, my pilot project. And when I started selling it, I got people that would reach out to me and say, Hey, I don’t I don’t want this big program. I just want to do the content. And I’ll go through it on my own. And so I do have like a DIY path where people can access the program content, but they can’t access the experts in the program where which is where you can ask questions and get support and kind of hear, hear the experts talk through those real world nuances which are so important in oncology. And so that came about because people were asking the market was literally he asking me to sell them something. So that’s great when that happens, but I think you really do also need to know, how do you get your customers the best outcome, because at the end of the day, if they’re buying into your program or service, and they’re not getting an outcome, they’re not going to talk about you, you’re not going to have that word of mouth, which you do need and is beneficial in any type of business. So I think really, really honing in on on what that offer is. Because if you have a lot of offers, it’s hard to focus on one particular one. So I do have tiers to my main offer. And then over time, I’ve, I’ve considered other kind of smaller offers that I’m always kind of experimenting with, which I think is a really important part of entrepreneurship is experimentation, which I didn’t really understand. At the beginning, I wish I had done more of it initially. It’s easy to get kind of stuck in, like, Oh, this is what so and so guru says, or this is what some other entrepreneur’s doing, I’m going to I’m going to do it exactly for my business. But that’s our businesses, everybody, every business is different, particularly healthcare, clinician based businesses, I have found are very different, like marketing tactics don’t work the same as they do for, you know, other types of businesses. So I think experimentation is really important. But so I’ve got that name program, I’ve got tiers to that program, I also have some individual courses that I’m now starting to sell, I’m actually rolling those out now. And I also do, I also offer like one-to-one mentorship matching. So pharmacists that want to work one-to-one with an experienced oncology pharmacist, kind of like a preceptor and a residency where you can talk with them about maybe a QI project, or maybe you want to change roles, and you need to create a case presentation to present at an interview and you want some help with that. I also do some matching with things like that, but at the core of my business is this ELO collaborative program. That’s what I’m known for. And I help I help pharmacists that are working in oncology today, develop their baseline knowledge, and that’s a very clear kind of avatar or, or target client as well, you know. When I started, I was pretty broad. And I included people that were interested in oncology. But that is challenging, because if you’re not working in oncology today, and you’re trying to learn this really complex field, it’s much harder because you’re not applying it at work. So I would encourage listeners also to think, who is your best fit client, and it feels counterintuitive to narrow and to niche down. But it’s actually the best thing for a small business is be super, super clear. Because when people come across my website, when they come across my LinkedIn, when they meet me at a conference, it’s it’s very clear who I helped. And when it’s clear, that means other people can refer me very easily.

Corrie Sanders 18:00

And that is such an important point. I also love that you talk about experimenting a little bit. And not only using and leveraging experimenting to get to that target audience. But there’s no wrong and experimenting as an entrepreneur, trying to figure out who your ultimate end user is how that changes over time. And then it sounds like you’re doing a great job of also getting feedback from your clients to make sure that you’re providing the services that they want, you’re providing the services that they paid for. And that ultimately, you know, what they’re purchasing is, what they’re getting, and how you can help fill some more gaps and some more needs based off of those responses to I think that’s really great. So Kelly, I want to step back a little bit further. So we talked about the nuances of your business, and the tears and how that’s evolved over time. Let’s talk about the transition from that consulting role to ultimately stepping out and having your own business. Was there something that was very black and white, where the contract ended? And then you decided, Oh, this is the perfect time that I’ll do that. Were you kind of you know, one foot in each camp where you were doing both of them simultaneously, and then you eventually made the jump? What did that transition ultimately look like for you?

Kelley Carlstrom 19:12

Yeah, I straddled a lot for a long time. And I think I think most pharmacists could probably appreciate the fact that I was very risk averse. When I was in clinical practice. I think a lot of pharmacists are it’s probably a bias for who they let into pharmacy school or at least did when I applied you know, it’s just a natural tendency to be like, this is risky, I don’t want to do it. But when I jumped into that consulting role that kind of gave me that initial like zing if you will, of what it felt like to take a risk and it didn’t, it wasn’t terrible. Like alright, I survived this risk and I got a lot of benefit from it. So that that led me to think okay, what’s the next next risk I should take? Now with that said, I still I was very cautious at the beginning because I had so many ideas. I knew zero about business. Like in my pharmacy program, we had that classic, you know, business course, which was really an independent pharmacy course. So I didn’t take it because I wasn’t interested in it. So I knew nothing about business. And I was really nervous at the beginning, like, I don’t know anything about running this business. So I didn’t want to invest a lot of money into it, I was willing to invest my time, kind of my sweat equity, if you will. And that’s what I did. I had like, all the free tools, my email tool was free. I did pay, I did invest for some business coaching upfront, but for the most part, I tried to spend as little as possible until I validated the idea and people were paying me money. And then when that when I got that validation, and I started investing more, I realized, okay, if I can continue my day job and have the revenue, the income from that supporting my life, and anything extra that I make from my business is you know, is I don’t need to pay myself, I can reinvest it in the business. So that first pilot that I ran, I didn’t, I made zero money, I lost money on it, actually. But that didn’t matter to me, because I was getting a lot of feedback. And I was like validating the idea. And so I kept working I was I did consulting for almost three years. So during the pandemic, I actually had the opportunity to take a role in a in a startup. So a healthcare tech startup that was building oncology software tools for clinicians and for patients. And so what that allowed me to do was continue to straddle those things, I was building my business while I was still making a full time salary. And I did that for about a year and a half, and then transitioned into part time. So I actually got recruited out of that role. And this is a good little side caveat about LinkedIn. I always talk about how great LinkedIn is. And I will continue forever talking about it because pharmacists do not use it enough, we need to use it more. But I got recruited. And I was not looking for a job. But somebody reached out to me and said, Hey, I see you posting all this stuff, because I was posting a lot of oncology content for my marketing purposes. And he said, I want you at my company, what kind of job do you want? Essentially, essentially built me a job. And I said, well, I’m building this business, I don’t want to work full time. And he said, fine. So I got a, I got a part-time job in in a digital health company, and did that for about a year and then actually got laid off from that. So it was a lot of tech layoffs at that time, which was just about a year ago. And so that’s how I came to work full-time in my business, which honestly was a great thing. Funnily enough, when I found it funny enough, when, when I got laid off, I called a couple of people that day. And, two of them said immediately, congratulations. I said, I’m not sure you’re supposed to say that when somebody gets laid off. But they knew I was building this business and they were like, you’re ready to just like try it out and see how it goes full time. So I have now been full time in my business for about a year. So you know, suffice to say this, the summary of that is that I didn’t I didn’t want to go full-time right away. Because one I didn’t know if it could support me from a revenue perspective, I wanted to be able to invest a lot of my, my revenue back in the business, and to have it grow. And so I did, I straddled two, two roles for gosh, three and a half years or so before I went full time.

Corrie Sanders 23:40

But I think it’s important to recognize that that’s maybe the best path for most pharmacists that are risk averse. I think there’s a lot of validity to you know, jumping off a cliff and investing in yourself and sinking or swimming to see if you survive. But ultimately, that can have a lot of dark ends if you haven’t really pivoted to a model, if you haven’t established proof of concept, if you don’t have the confidence in yourself yet that you’re going to be able to run whatever business it is. So I love that you straddled both. To be honest, it sounds like you really built up something that was manageable and workable and scalable during that time, while you were you know, had one foot in each camp. And then eventually, when you were congratulated for getting laid off from your job. You already had that experience. And you already had that model and you already had that confidence to move forward with your business. So I love that. And I think that that’s a great growth trajectory and maybe a more realistic growth trajectory for some of our more risk averse pharmacists. So Kelley, what resources outside of LinkedIn and we’ll get into LinkedIn in a little bit because I want to give you some time to talk about this platform that you love so much. But outside of LinkedIn, what resources did you use? Was there any tapping into a small business community in your area? Did you have any coaches? Did you really just boot strap this thing independently all by yourself, or were there some outside community entities that helped you better leverage your clinical skill set and set up a business model?

Kelley Carlstrom 25:10

Well, nothing is ever done by yourself. There’s always a huge team, whether they work for you or not, but there’s always people that you lean on. And so my initial resource was the Medi-preneurs Conference, which I went to back in 20, I think it was early 2019. And that’s where I kind of brought like a bunch of ideas I had, and the education business is what kind of, you know, took root, if you will, in some of the conversations that we had, and that that’s what I ran with after that. But I have a software idea, actually, when I first start when I thought that was going to be what I what I went with at the beginning. So that’s a great tool I did, I did use some of the Score, resources. So everybody probably has a Score chapter near them. This is I forget exactly what it stands for. But it’s essentially retired executives that are that help the small business community and it’s a free service in your local community. I also did work with a couple different business coaches. And you know, that’s a whole conversation in and of itself, too. I’ve worked with many different coaches over over the past couple years. But I did work with a couple in the beginning that kind of helped me get some traction helped me understand the basics. So you know, I knew nothing about running a business. So business coaches, at least got me a little bit on the right fit about the right foot about finding like product market fit and who my clients would be and how I would need to talk about it. I also listened to a ton of podcasts. So when I was traveling for consulting, I was I was on a plane, like a lot. Listen to tons and tons of podcasts. And honestly, most of them were way over my head. I remember listening and them talking about acronyms or saying words that I had no idea what they meant. And I just kept listening and kind of absorbing just kind of throughout osmosis. Honestly, like I wasn’t taking notes or anything, I was just listening and seeing what little nuggets I could catch on to what strings I could pull a little bit and learn a little bit more. I didn’t do a lot of reading of business books at that time. But that’s something I use now I listen to a lot of audiobooks or read business books, I have a long list and in my queue of anytime somebody recommends a book, I drop it in my queue whether or not I can get to it right away

Corrie Sanders 27:28

I do the exact same!

Kelley Carlstrom 27:30

You can only read so many at a time. But and honestly something that I think we don’t value enough in pharmacy or not, I guess not that we don’t value enough, but we don’t know enough about it our communities. So how can you find a group of like minded people that are working towards a similar goal, so you all can learn from each other. I’ve been in multiple different communities. And I would encourage pharmacists to look outside of pharmacy communities as well. Because pharmacy, although pharmacy entrepreneurs and pharmacy, pharmacist run businesses alike, depending on your business, if you’re selling, you know, like a service to anybody. But if you’re marketing to healthcare clinicians, I think it’s really easy to get in a silo and forget about some of the general business practices. And I’ve learned so much from just a communities of regular entrepreneurs, you know, often I’m the only pharmacist in those groups. Sometimes there’s other healthcare clinicians, but usually, most of them are not in healthcare. And I’ve learned a lot from them.

Corrie Sanders 28:37

And I think that that’s an important differentiation, too. So you’re still learning a lot, but your end user is a pharmacist. So you can ultimately relate because you guys are seeing practice through the same lens, you’re seeing your service and your products through the same lens. But I think that’s even more important if you’re selling to non-pharmacists, is embedding yourselves in these communities and learning how to speak business to people that aren’t pharmacists or just how to speak business in general, right, like, we, one, don’t sell ourselves appropriately, normally, for what we can do as pharmacists. But really having to see your business outside of that pharmacy lens is something that I think you’re alluding to, and then I certainly found very helpful is having that communication line and having that vernacular to be relatable to someone that doesn’t know anything about your profession for the most part. So Kelley, let’s talk about the LinkedIn community. Because you’ve mentioned that a couple times throughout our conversation already, I want to give you a chance to really explain how LinkedIn has shaped and changed the trajectory of your business and your personal development. And then let’s talk a little bit to about the elite community that you’re a part of in LinkedIn and how you got invited into that.

Kelley Carlstrom 29:45

Sure, yeah, LinkedIn is, I think people underestimate it because they don’t know what it’s about. You know, I remember when I first joined, which was back in 2014, early 2014. And I remember looking at the feed and thinking like, oh, okay, this is sort of like the Facebook feed. But I didn’t see anything particularly interesting. So I’m like, this is kind of boring. Why am I here? And the reason I didn’t see anything interesting is because I didn’t have a network that I was connected with. So LinkedIn didn’t know what information to share with me. So I think when the number one thing I would encourage pharmacists to do is to connect with people that are interesting to them, not just you know, other pharmacists, but sure, other pharmacists. But also people that are, you know, if you’re interested in the technology space, you know, connect with technology leaders connect with if you’re in managed care to connect with people, you know, that are in that space that talk about problems and solutions in that space, because that means your feed is going to be interesting to you. So once I’ve been building up my, my network, they’re on LinkedIn for many years, I started to get much more engaged, because I saw interesting things, I connected with interesting people. And again, that’s where I got recruited into that consulting role, actually, the consulting role in the digital health role. So I’ve always, I’ve always known that that’s where people find me. But the key is, you have to be active. And what I mean by active is, you have to log in pretty regularly. I always chuckle when I send people a message, and I get a response, like three months later. And they say, sorry, I don’t really log in that often. And I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s fine, if you would, if you don’t want to do that, but you’re not going to be able to use LinkedIn, for the way that it’s been intended to be used, which is to have you be seen, and for you to see others and you have to log in, and you have to engage pharmacists are not engagers. We, we are lurkers by default, and by lurkers. I mean, you read the content, but you don’t click the Like button, you don’t message people, you don’t write comments, just lurk on other people’s posts. And I know this to be true, because I go to conferences, and people say, Kelley, I love your content! And I have no idea who they are. Because they never put a comment, they never send me a message, they just lurk on my information, which is fine. I mean, it’s free content I’m putting out there, but you’re I just had a post this week or last week about it where you know, those that those that speak up, stand up, like they’re the ones that if you’re saying if you’re putting yourself out there, and you’re interacting, and you’re commenting that you’re gonna get more kind of recognition, more help, like people are much more likely to respond to a message and answer a question you have when you’re when you’ve already engaged with your content previously. So I think those are the those are the big things like login regularly and really engage, even if it puts you out of your comfort zone, which it will in the beginning. But but push yourself, push yourself, you know, you don’t have to write this huge diatribe. Just write you know, think about one sentence comment on somebody’s post that’s insightful or something from your experience that could help not only the person that posted it, but also somebody else that comes across that post, you know, hey, think about this perspective, or this is what I have seen in practice when I’ve seen this happen that that goes a long way on LinkedIn. So that’s how I’ve used it, I use it today. I do I post a lot of content. So I post Monday through Friday. For our aspiring pharmacy entrepreneurs, I would not recommend starting there. It is a lot. I worked my way up to that. I first started posting infrequently, then I was posting once a week, then twice a week, then three days a week. And then when I went full time last year, I started posting five days a week, but content creation is is a whole is a whole thing. It’s a whole beast. It takes a lot. It takes a lot of time and effort to do it. So don’t don’t start there. But that’s how I that’s how I present on LinkedIn. I also do a lot of outreach. I connect with a lot of pharmacists, both individual pharmacists working in oncology and not, I connect with other healthcare leaders. And I use it to help not only kind of pharmacists find my program, because that’s a marketing effort that I’m putting in. I want pharmacists working in oncology that are new to oncology to see my content and recognize that I can help them learn this complex specialty. But I’m also using it to spread the word about oncology pharmacists. You know, I get a lot of people that comment on my posts to say, Oh, I didn’t realize oncology pharmacists could do that. And that that’s kind of a much more broad profession expansion when when people outside of our profession start recognizing what we can do. So I enjoy having that impact as well and that comes with when you have the ability to reach more people. So that’s how I use LinkedIn kind of on the regular and then you mentioned the group I’m a part of, which is called LinkedIn Top Voices. And this is an invite program, an invite only program that LinkedIn extends to people that are that produce a lot of content that is helping users of LinkedIn. And so I was invited into this program in January of this year, which is super exciting. It’s pretty it’s it is like, I think less than .5% of LinkedIn users are in this program. And what I have learned, from I’ve actually learned a lot about LinkedIn from being in this program just a few months. And what I’ve learned is that they it’s different than other social media platforms, they want their users of the LinkedIn platform to get better. They’re invested in helping professionals get better at their jobs, learn and develop themselves as they want people on the platform that are sharing content, that will help the users do that. So that’s how I got invited because I share a lot of content that helps oncology pharmacists get better at their jobs and develop themselves.

Corrie Sanders 36:07

And it’s great to certainly be rewarded for putting so much time into the platform and effort and energy over the past 10 years. And again, that’s something that was not recognized overnight, you gradually worked your way up from just sporadically posting to a couple times a week to every day, Monday through Friday. So I think that’s something too, that maybe entrepreneurs will lean into LinkedIn very, very hard at the beginning of their journeys, or maybe there’s a maybe they actually don’t lean into it at all. But really realizing what you can do with that platform. If you use it to the maximum extent if you’re cultivating a feed that provides you a voice and provides you information that’s relevant to your business, or relevant to your specialty area. There’s certainly a learning curve with LinkedIn. And there’s certainly a way that you can make the platform much more valuable to you than I think the average pharmacist realizes. So that’s great to hear that you’re being rewarded for the time and the effort that you put into the platform too. So Kelley, let’s talk a little bit now about what oncology is going to look like in the future. You are in the depths of oncology, you are the oncology pharmacist, as you’re known on LinkedIn. So what do you see for oncology in the future? And what do you see the roles for pharmacy specifically in oncology, and the next couple of years? So specifically for this question, I’m thinking of pharmacists that may or may not know if they want to dabble in oncology, or maybe they were voluntold to now be a part of an oncology program. Like where do you think the trajectory of oncology and pharmacy and oncology is going?

Kelley Carlstrom 37:43

I like voluntold. I have a lot of clients that kind of fell into oncology. I actually didn’t like oncology at school. It was not where I expected to be. And I didn’t get into it until my grandmother developed leukemia when I was a P4 student on rotation. So there’s kind of two components of this question. I guess there’s like the, the what types of jobs will there be, and like the tactical pieces, and then the outlook of, you know, where’s oncology pharmacy going? So the outlook is, is that it’s growing? It, I mean, it’s really the best specialty if we think about it. Yes, I’m biased, but it’s totally the best specialty for many reasons. Because we have the most drugs approved, we have the most clinical trials, we have arguably the most expensive drugs. And that means that and the most complex drugs, which all means that the pharmacist has a really important role in helping manage costs and toxicities from all these drugs that are hitting the market. So there’s definitely going to be lots of drugs, lots of opportunities, lots of jobs in oncology. And the types of jobs that there are and will be, are pretty vast. I don’t think people recognize how many different types of opportunities there are. So certainly, there are many positions in patient care. And this is where a lot of the jobs are right now. And that is because we are having similar burnout issues in oncology pharmacy as the rest of the profession is having lots of our experienced staff are leaving clinical practice, which is a bummer. Honestly. I think it’s great for them, because everybody’s entitled to you know, do jobs that, do work that fulfills them, but it’s also leaving a big gap in patient care. And even if we can fill that gap with bodies, which we do, and they are all like centers are almost always recruiting and hiring for oncology positions. What what the missing piece is that we’re losing people with experience. So when somebody with 15 plus years walks out the door and they hire somebody with a couple of years, even if they’re residency trained, that’s a big gap in knowledge and experience that’s leaving. So I think that’s that’s a challenge we’re all facing and in all the oncology conferences we’re talking about it ad nauseam, because we haven’t figured out how to stem this kind of bleeding, if you will. So there’s lots of opportunity in patient care both in community cancers, in academic centers, inpatient, outpatient, individual private practices, even though there’s not a ton of those around anymore, there still are plenty. There are also patient care roles or specialty pharmacies. So this is particularly good for pharmacists in the retail community setting that want to do something a little bit different. Specialty Pharmacy is an excellent transition. Actually just heard about an opportunity in California where they, they ideally want somebody with a retail background, who also has an interest in oncology. They’re willing to do training in oncology, because they have legal requirements where they need a pick to dispense oral drugs and this particular legal situation, but they’re dispensing oncology drugs. So they want that retail background, but you need some, you know, they’re, they’re dealing with these complex drugs. So there’s a lot of opportunities there, we’ve got opportunities in managed care and the payer space. So think about every time you send a prescription, and it needs a prior authorization, those people on the other end at the insurance company that are dealing with those prior authorizations, they often have very little oncology training, which is not fun for getting approved complex oncology drugs, because we’re talking to these people that don’t know anything about oncology. And they’re the ones that are saying yes or no. So those people need oncology training. And there’s, there’s lots almost every oncology drug I feel like needs a prior auth these days. So a lot, there’s a lot of opportunities in managed care. There are certainly jobs in pharma. As with every specialty. There are jobs in tech, like I said, I worked in on the tech side of oncology for many years. And there’s there’s becoming more and more kind of non-traditional roles, I do get a lot of people that reach out asking about remote oncology jobs. There is not a ton, but there are some, there are some at companies like McKesson, for example, where they do still have patient interaction, but they also they also get to, you know, have the flexibility that comes from from being in a remote in a remote position. So lots of opportunity, lots of different types of roles. Again, this is why oncology is the best specialty. Yeah,

Corrie Sanders 42:27

I mean, I think you nailed the, or you hit the nail on the head with the funds are there. Unfortunately, cancer diagnosis is increasing. So the diagnostic component is there. And it’s really just going to be a never ending game, it seems of filling positions for a growing specialty area. So like, as you said, I think there’s a ton of opportunity across various different continuums in the care spectrum, for for people to jump into oncology, even if they don’t necessarily have the experience. And I also love that you said that you didn’t like oncology in school, I’m sure a lot of people will relate to the fact that oncology is a beast of a module in school. And it’s very, very intimidating. So comforting to know that there’s people like you that are creating content and creating different products that people can buy to bridge that gap between what was taught in school and what’s needed in clinical practice. I think that’s such a beautiful business model. So looking at your business model, specifically, what’s in the future for you? It seems like right now you’re doing a lot of direct to consumer products and advertising. Is there any component of a business to business model moving forward? What do you think the evolution of your business is looking like over the next couple years?

Kelley Carlstrom 43:35

Yes, I would love to, to continue to work with institutions. So I have started working with some institutions that enroll their staff in my program. So that’s definitely a focus as well. And that’s because, you know, they’re hiring people without experience, but they also need them to do the job. And what I have found from all centers, I talked to this, they have a very good onboarding, technical process. You know, when somebody’s newly hired, they show you the EMR, they tell you the workflow, this is how, you know, this is how we do this thing here. Nobody gives clinical training. They kind of expect you to learn that on the job or on your own, which I’ll tell you doesn’t work. There’s there’s not enough hours in the day to do it at work. You get kind of the bare mitts sure you’ll get comfortable with some of the drugs, but you won’t understand breast cancer. You won’t understand, well, why is the doctor blowing through treatment parameters for this drug, but not this drug? Those are things you have to learn from a clinical perspective, from a disease perspective. And so institutions are recognizing that they need to support their staff better. And I’ll tell you the main reason is because turnover is expensive to them. You know, I don’t think we realize as pharmacists how much money it costs an institution when you leave. Not only do they have to pull another FTE to cover that that role that you’re leaving, which leaves a gap open somewhere else that and they have to do that for however long the hiring processes and right now the hiring process is long because everybody’s hiring oncology pharmacists and they can’t find people. But then they have to onboard that person. So it takes months for somebody to get up to speed. So it is a it’s like tens of thousands of dollars for people to, to for to recruit. So it is a huge cost savings to retain employees. That means keeping everybody happy. And and also potentially promoting from within. So I have centers that have pulled retail pharmacists, they have pulled ambulatory care pharmacists, which is a pretty good kind of matchup to oncology because they understand the am care space. And there’s actually a lot of internal medicine issues in primary care as well. And then, you know, they have to learn the oncology piece. So I think there’s a lot of financial benefit for institutions to train up their staff. So I look forward to working with with more of those. I’m always going to work with individual pharmacists, because that is honestly what fills my cup. Like there’s nothing, there’s no greater feeling than when a pharmacist reaches out to me and says, I passed the BCAP exam. Or I finally had a conversation with my doctor and didn’t feel like an idiot. Or I made a recommendation about this chemotherapy dosing and the doctor accepted it. Like, ah, those feelings just made me feel so good, because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. It’s not only that pharmacist’s gets that, that when and feels like they’re doing good work. But that patient is getting better care because their pharmacist feels more confident and is better educated, and I can’t ask for anything better than that.

Corrie Sanders 46:43

I hope that you can see the ripple effect that you’re creating by training these pharmacists. I mean, it’s I love that the pharmacist gratification fills your cup. But I really hope that you can see not only are you changing so many pharmacist’s lives with the business that you’ve created, but ultimately, the end user and the patient, you’re just improving care for so many more people than you could ever do alone. I love it. I love your business model. I think that it honestly could be applicable to some other specialty areas. For pharmacists that may not be an oncology, there’s certainly a way to leverage monetizing your clinical expertise in different ways and providing that to different pharmacists or other health care providers. I just think what you’ve done and what you’ve built is just something to be very proud of. So Kelley, I will end today with any advice that you would give to any budding pharmacy entrepreneurs, any lessons that you’ve learned along the way or anything that sticks out in your head that you’d like to convey to the listeners.

Kelley Carlstrom 47:39

Yeah, something that I consistently remind myself to do, which is take action. It really makes a bigger difference than then you think it will make. And I remember when I was in clinical practice, I had mentioned that I was risk averse. And for me how that played out was that I would research things to the Nth degree, you know. Whether it was a purchase I was making, whether it was a job decision, it took me months to take a consulting role, because I just kept making pro/con lists. And when I got into entrepreneurship, I realized like that that doesn’t fly, when you’re running a business, it just the time that you need to make decisions is very quick. And if you’re always second guessing yourself, it’s not you’re you’re not going to be successful. So what I would encourage people to do is have that experimenters mindset, which is I’m going to make a decision, I’m going to take some action on whatever this thing is I’m going to pull the trigger on trying out this piece of content or talking to this particular client or trying this new software tool, and then reevaluate it, like nothing is set in stone. So you can think about it a month later, six months later, and decide did that experiment work? Did that decision I made lead to anything to those clients, I was potential clients I was talking to actually buy for me? If a lot of them did great. That was a positive experiment. If they didn’t, no. That means, okay, I need to pivot and change course, it doesn’t mean it was a bad decision. There are no bad decisions in entrepreneurship. It’s just you have to get off of the table and start walking and start doing things. And that’s how you learn. I can’t tell you how many how many times I’ve done something where I’m like, Well, that was unexpected. And if it if it just took me, you know, if it took me months to make that decision, it would have taken me months to figure out that thing didn’t work or that thing didn’t work, you know, you got to make faster decisions in this world.

Corrie Sanders 49:33

And I really enjoy the experimenters mindset. I think that’s a great summary and a great way to put it and also just how you’re alluding to how we make decisions in clinical practice and how we might research decisions and how we might look into those things to the Nth degree. And maybe that shouldn’t necessarily carry over to your business mindset and how you’re running your business and entrepreneurship. Those are two very different, maybe the same skill set, but two very different applications with how you’re going to think about approaching those decision making processes and the time that you put into them. So I love that. I think that was wonderfully said. Well, Kelley, for the listeners that want to find you, they can obviously find you on LinkedIn. But is there any other way that people can find you, your website and I would love for you to also spell out your name to make sure that people get the spelling correctly. We’ll link to it in the show notes. But where else can our viewers and our listeners find you?

Kelley Carlstrom 50:26

Yeah, definitely LinkedIn. Send me a message there, please. And my website is KelleyCPharmD. So that’s Kelly, K-e-l-l-e-y C PharmD. C for my last name. Yes, my mom spelled my name that way. And I always have to spell it.

Corrie Sanders 50:44

Well, Kelley, thank you for your time. This was a wonderful conversation. I think there were a lot of great nuggets built into this conversation, a lot of great learning points that our listeners can take. So thank you again for your time. This was wonderful and we look forward to keeping pace with you and watching you as your business continues to develop.

Kelley Carlstrom 51:01

Thanks so much, I appreciate it.

[DISCLAIMER]

Tim Ulbrich 51:03

As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements that are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 351: Legacy Planning 101: How to Build Your Legacy Folder

Posted on March 21, 2024March 21, 2024 by YFP Media

Tim Ulbrich discusses the importance of creating a legacy folder to organize essential financial documents for access during emergencies and peace of mind.

Episode Summary

In this episode, YFP Founder and CEO, Tim Ulbrich, delves into the critical aspect of establishing a “legacy folder” to efficiently organize essential financial documents and accounts. This folder serves as a vital resource in emergencies, streamlining access for loved ones and averting confusion or delays. Drawing from personal experience, Ulbrich shares how he and his wife maintain their financial plan and essential documents in a shared electronic folder and a secure physical safe at home, ensuring accessibility and peace of mind during unforeseen circumstances.

Tim explores the contents of the legacy folder, which encompass a comprehensive checklist, electronic copies, and hard copies of vital papers such as birth certificates and social security cards and other critical documents like insurance policies and estate planning materials.

Learn how to proactively organize your financial affairs to safeguard against unforeseen events, ultimately fostering financial peace of mind and security.

About Today’s Guest

Tim Ulbrich is the Co-Founder and CEO of Your Financial Pharmacist. Founded in 2015, YFP is a fee-only financial planning firm and connects with the YFP community of 15,000+ pharmacy professionals via the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast podcast, blog, website resources and speaking engagements. To date, YFP has partnered with 75+ organizations to provide personal finance education.

Tim received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and completed postgraduate residency training at The Ohio State University. He spent 9 years on faculty at Northeast Ohio Medical University prior to joining Ohio State University College of Pharmacy in 2019 as Clinical Professor and Director of the Master’s in Health-System Pharmacy Administration Program.

Tim is the host of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast which has more than 1 million downloads. Tim is also the co-author of Seven Figure Pharmacist: How to Maximize Your Income, Eliminate Debt and Create Wealth. Tim has presented to over 200 pharmacy associations, colleges, and groups on various personal finance topics including debt management, investing, retirement planning, and financial well-being.

Key Points from the Episode

Building a legacy folder for financial peace of mind. [0:00]
Creating a “legacy folder” for financial documents. [2:36]
Important documents, insurance policies, estate planning, and car titles. [6:50]
Organizing financial documents for emergency situations. [14:59]

Episode Highlights

“So when it comes to why having a legacy folder is important. Getting organized with your financial records plays a significant role not necessary in terms of moving the needle on your net worth but in making sure you and others have access to all the information that you need to make informed decisions.” – Tim Ulbrich [2:24]

“Now, what is the legacy folder? So essentially the idea of a legacy folder, whether it’s a physical copy and electronic copy, or combination of both. It’s a place where you have all of your financial related documents. So in the event of an emergency, others will be able to quickly assess your financial situation and get access to all of the documents and accounts that pertain to your finances.” – Tim Ulbrich [4:07]

“Don’t underestimate the peace of mind and the clarity that can come from having this information collected.” -Tim Ulbrich [5:25]

“Once you get organized with your information, you’re going to be walking from that point of confidence, you’re going to feel prepared in taking action on other parts of your financial plan.” – Tim Ulbrich [16:49]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

Tim Ulbrich 00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I’m talking through Legacy Planning 101: How to Build your Legacy Folder and why it’s important. To assist with implementing this important step and your own financial plan, make sure to download the YFP Legacy Folder Checklist at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy. This checklist includes a list of 15+ financial related documents that you can have a record of in your legacy folder. It helps you identify key parts of your financial plan that you may or may not have in place but need to get started. And it helps give you peace of mind knowing that in the event of an emergency, all of your financial documents are organized in in one location. Again, you can access that free checklist at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy.

Tim Ulbrich 00:51

Now before we jump into today’s episode, I have a hard truth for you to hear making a six figure income is not a financial plan. Yes, you’ve worked hard to get where you are today. Yes, you’re earning a good salary. But have you ever wondered, am I on track to retire? How do I prioritize and fund all these competing financial goals that I have? How do I plan financially for big upcoming life events? Whether that be moving, having a child, changing jobs, getting married or retiring? And why am I not as far along financially at this point in my career, as perhaps I thought I should be? The answer your six figure income is not a financial plan. As a pharmacist, you have an incredible tool in your toolbox your salary, but without a vision and a plan that good income will only go so far. That’s in part why we started Your Financial Pharmacists back in 2015. At YFP we support pharmacists at every stage of their career to take control of their finances reach their financial goals and build wealth through comprehensive fee only financial planning and tax planning. Our team of professionals including certified financial planners and a CPA, work with pharmacists all across the US and help our clients set their future selves up for success while living their rich life today. Ready to see how Your Financial Pharmacist can support you on your financial journey? The next step is to book a free discovery call with our team by visiting YFPplanning.com Again, that’s YFPplanning.com Alright, let’s jump in today’s episode.

Tim Ulbrich 02:18

Hi there, Tim Ulbrich here. Welcome to this week’s episode of the YFP Podcast. I’m flying solo this week to discuss legacy planning 101: how to build your legacy folder and why it’s important. Now this episode is going to be a brief one. But I hope you can walk away with a specific action item or to relate it to your own financial plan. Whether that be to create a legacy folder if you don’t already have one or if you do to make sure that you look at it and update that information if it’s been a while. So when it comes to why having a legacy folder is important. Getting organized with your financial records plays a significant role not necessary in terms of moving the needle on your net worth, but in making sure you and others have access to all the information that you need to make informed decisions. Think for a minute about all the various financial accounts, documents, records, insurance policies, tax returns that you have right, the list quickly grows to be one that is overwhelming. And the more you operate in your own system, the easier it is to navigate for you. But unfortunately harder for others to unravel, should they have to do so in the future. Right? Think of a situation where in the event of an emergency, you have this beautiful system you’ve created, you know where all your accounts are all your files, all your passwords, but unfortunately, others aren’t able to readily access that and to make sense of that information.

That’s where the legacy folder concept comes in. I actually first heard of this idea, it’s not my idea, I first heard of it when taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class, this was probably 15 years ago through our local church. And I remember walking away thinking, wow, that is so obvious, yet so important. And something that Jess and I hadn’t yet done at that point in our financial plan. Now, what is the legacy folder? so essentially the idea of a legacy folder, whether it’s a physical copy and electronic copy, or combination of both, which is what we have, and I’ll share more information about that. It’s a place where you have all of your financial related documents. So in the event of an emergency, others will be able to quickly assess your financial situation and get access to all of the documents and accounts that pertain to your finances. We just went through updating this – Jess and I did in our own financial plan, shifting everything to an electronic version with the exception of a couple things that we keep in a safe at home, so that in the event of something happening to Jess or I or both of us, those caring for our boys along with our financial planning team at YFP readily have access to all the necessary information that they would need.

So when I think of the importance of this, you know, it really is peace of mind but there’s a secondary part that we often don’t think about, which is it forces you to get organized right? When you go through this process, and I’ll talk about the different sections of our own legacy folder. When you go through this process, you quickly might realize, wow, I’ve got some areas of the plan that I need to clean up, I need to gather some information. And this like many other parts of the financial plan, sure, it takes a little bit of time to get set up. But once you have it set up, right, we’re then in that update or maintenance mode. And again, don’t underestimate the peace of mind and the clarity that can come from having this information collected. So what’s included in the legacy folder? Well, I mentioned our checklist before and if you didn’t already download that make sure to download the YFP legacy folder checklist, you can access that again, at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy that will give you a good guide.

There’s no one right answer to this. So I’m going to talk through what we have in our legacy folder. And you can see maybe some of that makes sense. Or maybe you have other documents and sections that you would want to include. So here’s how we have it organized in a combination of a Google Drive a shared drive, and a safe at home with the password the master password to our One Password, which is the the password account that we use the password management account that we use, I have the master key password in a safe at home, along with some hard copies of some documents like birth certificate, social security card, etc. Those things are in the safe, everything else is stored electronically and anything that’s in the safe as referenced as such in the electronic documents so so keep that in mind to combination of an electronic folder we used to have this all in a paper copy it was in a blue folder, we used to joke with our my parents and our in laws that hey, if anything ever happens to Jess or I – get the blue folder! For obvious reasons, having everything in a hardcopy wasn’t ideal in terms of updating that as well as making sure that the integrity of documents stay in place.

Okay, so section one is what we call important documents. Okay, so these are birth certificates for Jess, for me, for our four boys, these are our social security cards for us and the boys, this is our marriage certificate. These are our passports. And these components, we keep in a fireproof safe at home, obviously, because the hardcopy is important to have. So that’s section one important documents.

Section two is insurance policies, and information. So this is something that we have to update. Some of these we have to update annually, others not so much. So for example, long term disability policies or term life policies unless something changes with those policies, you know, we’re not updating those on a regular basis. But this includes things like auto insurance policies, homeowners insurance policies, or umbrella insurance policy, or health insurance policies, long term disability insurance policies, and our term life insurance policies. And we have a couple of different term life policies and long term disability policies. So all of that is included here in section number two. Now, what I have done typically in the electronic version, is I’ll list these out. And then I have the the actual policy hyperlink. So it can be easily reference to get to the actual policy, right, whether that’s a term life, disability, or another type of insurance policy. So that’s section two insurance policies and information.

Section three is estate planning documents. So we have an electronic copy on the Google Drive folder, the shared folder, and then we have a hard copy of these as well, because of the wet signature that’s needed on these and each state is different. Ours is a wet signature with a note notarized copy. So we have a hard copy in the safe at home. So these include our revocable trust agreements, this is our healthcare power of attorney, this is our living will, our last will and testament, et cetera, a lot of work to be done here. Now, if you’re hearing those terms, and thinking, Wow, maybe I need to get my estate planning documents in place. We’re gonna be talking more about that on the podcast, but I would reference you back to Episode 222. We’ll link to that in the show notes, when we brought on a couple of attorneys to talk about why estate planning is such an important part of the financial plan, as well as Episode 310, when Tim Baker and I talked about dusting off the estate plan, so this is not a you set it and you’re done.

Again, most of the work is upfront. Sure, there’s an investment of time and money to get these documents created. Again, the value is in the process of getting these created. And then you’ll have to update these periodically. So Jess and I often joke that our youngest son, Bennett, he wasn’t named individually in our documents when we created the so I guess that’s how it goes right when you’re the fourth son in the family. So he’s represented – it does address future children. But it’s just funny that he’s not called out individually. So we’ve got some updating to do there. So that’s section three – estate planning documents. And again, we keep a hardcopy in the safe. And then we have an electronic version of that available as well.

Section four is car titles. Now I’m not sure how valuable these are based on the current conditions of our minivan and our other vehicle, but, you know, calling these an asset would be a stretch but nonetheless, they have some value. Okay, so we have the car titles, readily available in section four so that someone could quickly sell or transfer the title of the car if need be. That’s section four car titles.

Section five is all documents related to our homeownership, okay, this is the deed on our home. This is the HELOC that we have open in the event, essentially, we have this as a backup emergency fund or if we need to tap into some of the equity in the home. So this is the HELOC documents. This is another copy of our homeowners insurance just to have it all in one place as well. So any important document related to the home, obviously, information about the mortgage, all of that is here in Section Five.

Section six is probably the biggest document I think, or close to the biggest section, which is a summary of all of our financial accounts. It’s our net worth tracking sheet, which I’ve talked about before on this show. And it’s all of our social security statements. Now I was just talking with a group of pharmacists last night that I was presenting to and I was talking about, hey, how many of you have pulled your Social Security statements to see your projected benefits, and I kind of got this impression that it was very few if any, right. So if you haven’t done that, it’s a good action step you’re going to do if you go to ssa.gov, to look at your Social Security statements, it’s got good information on there on projected benefits, and you can see your work credits. It’s pretty cool.

But this is a section where I have a table of contents that explains every account we have, right. So at Ally Bank, we have our high yield savings account, we have our checking account. Here’s where we have our Roth IRAs. Here’s where we have our 401 K’s. Here’s where we have a Roth 401 K. For every single financial account that we have, what is the account name? What is the institution? Where’s the link to that account? And what are we using that account for. And then as I mentioned before, we use One Password to store all of our password information and shared between Jess and I and the master key to that Password account is inside of our lock safe at home. So essentially, in the lock safe, you get to the One Password document through that you can then access all the individual financial accounts.

Now I know I’ve talked about this before, but I really believe in the value and the importance of not only having a good idea of the summary of all of your accounts. But this is a good place to also be tracking your overall net worth and your trajectory of your financial health. Right net worth is your assets what you own minus your liabilities, what you owe. Tom Stanley talks about the importance of tracking your net worth in the book, The Millionaire Next Door, and he talks about those that develop and build wealth over time they think differently, right? What he’s talking about there is that they realized that their income is a good tool. But their income is only a tool if they’re applying that to building their assets and paying down their liabilities, which ultimately is translating into their net worth.

So Jess, and I track our net worth on a monthly basis. It’s a very simple spreadsheet. If you want to see what that spreadsheet looks like I have that in the toolbox, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/toolbox along with a couple of the resources that I use, you can make a copy of that make it your own, very simple- every financial account we have, it’s the value of the asset. It’s the amount of liability assets minus liabilities we track that month over month, I think about that as the 20,000 foot view of kind of where we’re progressing financially, of course, the real work to be done is on a much more granular level. So that’s Section six, summary of financial accounts, net worth tracking sheet, and social security statements.

Section seven is our tax returns, this is our tax returns. On the personal side, this is a tax returns on the business side. So for us that would be the business, Your Financial Pharmacist as well as the business YFP Tax. And then for the property that we own, we have a separate LLC for the property as well. So for any business filings or extensions, or important communications, documentations. Obviously, it’s important to retain your tax records for everyone. But here to have those readily available, as well whether it’s needed in the event of an emergency, or if you’re working with a tax professional or someone you need to reference that information that’s good to have. So that’s section seven tax returns.

Section Eight is all information related to business records. So this is a summary of the business entities, I have a quick summary of what are the different entities and then of course, all of the legal documents, including the incorporation documents, the operating agreements, the buy/sell agreements, really important that you not only have these in place, but you have these readily available and accessible in the event of something happening. So any important document related to the business is there. And then as I mentioned, I kick off this section with a quick summary. So that in the event that someone needs to look at this, they can quickly understand what are the entities, what’s my ownership in the entities, and then what are the important documents within each entity that’s included in the legacy folder.

Section nine is just a miscellaneous section. So this could be utilities information or other information that is not easily fit into one of the other buckets in the first eight sections. Pretty simple. Right? So yeah, it takes time. And I think even recently, when I went through a pretty major update of this, I want to say it took me you know, three, four or five hours just to update documents, things that I had to scan to get electronically and making sure I had the right setup, creating some of the explanation in the summary documents. But not only as I mentioned, is it helpful for whoever is looking at this information? Hopefully that never needs to happen. But it’s also helpful for you as you go through this to identify like, oh, maybe there’s some gaps in here in the financial plan that we could use as an opportunity to make some adjustments or changes as you’re looking at goals for the next year.

So in terms of who has access to this, of course, Jess and I have access. Also, my in-laws have access to this who would in our state planning documents become the caregivers of our boys in the event of an emergency so important for them to have access and awareness of it, as well as our financial planning team at YFP right. So I know that in the tragic instance, if Jess and I were to get in an accident tomorrow, and something terrible would happen, I know that instantly my in-laws, who would be in charge of the boys and I know our financial planning team who would be helping them and making decisions, they have access to all of this information. Now, it doesn’t mean it’d be easy. There probably are still questions, maybe things that I’ve missed or haven’t thought about. But it’s a really, really good start again, gives us peace of mind knowing that we thought through this in great detail.

So in closing, right, simple yet effective, simple, yet effective. And that’s so true for so much of the financial plan. Sometimes we overthink this, we overcomplicate this, yeah, there’s work to be done. There’s professionals to be hired, certainly on the financial planning side, on the estate planning side, on the tax side, but the gathering of documents and information. This seems like a bigger mountain to climb than it actually is. And I think for obvious reasons, right? Who likes to think about, you know, some of these circumstances that might be tragic, where someone would need to access your information. It also might expose areas of the plan really like ah, I don’t really like the progress that we’ve made, we’ve got opportunities to improve. So for those reasons, it seems like a bigger mountain to climb. But I promise you that as you go through the process, it likely is easier than you think. And once you get organized with your information, you’re gonna be walking from that point of confidence, you’re gonna feel prepared in taking action on other parts of your financial plan. If you have questions on this episode, as always, feel free to reach out to us [email protected]. Again, make sure to download the YFP Legacy Folder checklist. As you follow along in this episode, you can get that at yourfinancialpharmacist.com /legacy. Thanks so much for joining this week. We’ll catch you next week. Have a good one.

Tim Ulbrich 17:17

As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 350: Monetizing Your Clinical Expertise with Dr. Gauthier (YFP Classic)

Posted on March 15, 2024March 15, 2024 by YFP Media

Tim Gauthier, PharmD, creator of two learning platforms shares advice for pharmacists seeking to monetize their clinical expertise. Episode sponsored by APhA.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist and fellow pharmacy entrepreneur, Tim Gauthier. Tim is the creator of IDStewarship.com and LearnAntibiotics.com. During the show, Tim and Tim discuss the genesis for creating these two learning platforms, how Tim has monetized his clinical experience to create passive streams of income, and how he manages to stay consistent in entrepreneurship while balancing a full-time pharmacy career and fulfilling personal life.

Listeners will hear about Tim’s pathway to pharmacy, what drew him into the profession, his passion for infectious disease pharmacy, and what he was hoping to accomplish with his learning platforms, IDStwardship.com and LearnAntibiotics.com. Tim walks us through the content and resources available on his websites and how he has monetized them while providing a wealth of free content to his community.

Making things passive and generating passive revenue streams is crucial to Tim, and he shares the tools and systems he has put in place to make that goal possible while balancing other obligations. Tim also discusses the incredible value of community and how he has built an active, engaged pharmacists community that contributes to the platforms in multiple ways. Tim closes with advice for pharmacists looking to follow a similar path in monetizing their clinical expertise.

About Today’s Guest

Timothy P. Gauthier, Pharm.D., BCPS, BCIDP is a pharmacist trained in infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship. He is a clinician, researcher, educator, and author. He is an advocate for antimicrobial stewardship and pharmacy education.

Dr. Gauthier graduated from Northeastern University’s School of Pharmacy (Boston, MA) in 2008. He then completed a Post-Graduate Year-1 Pharmacy Practice Residency and a Post-Graduate Year-2 Infectious Diseases Pharmacy Residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital (Miami, FL). Since finishing terminal training he has worked in academia (Nova Southeastern University, 2010-2015), clinical practice (Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, 2015-2019), and a leadership role (Baptist Health South Florida, 2019-current), all focusing on advancing the fields of infectious diseases pharmacy and antimicrobial stewardship.

He holds certifications from the Board of Pharmacy Specialties for Pharmacotherapy and Infectious diseases. He has completed the Making A Difference in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Antimicrobial Stewardship Training Program.

He is the creator and editor-in-chief of www.IDstewardship.com, www.LearnAntibiotics.com, and the many @IDstewardship social media profiles. He co-hosts the #ASPchat each month on Twitter. He reaches thousands of people each day on the internet and on social media, where he aims share reliable and relevant information from the world of pharmacy and healthcare in general. IDstewardship.com alone has registered over 5,00,000 page views as of November 2022.

Key Points from the Episode

The genesis for creating two learning platforms (IDStewardship.com and LearnAntibiotics.com)
How Dr. Gauthier has monetized his clinical expertise to create passive revenue streams
How Dr. Gauthier manages and leverages his time to be able to consistently put out good content while working full-time and fulfilling his personal commitments and goals

Episode Highlights

“So it’s been a really rewarding experience, and collaborating with others from around the world has been something an area of success, I think, to be part of kind of the community that I’ve built. But I have a lot of flexibility, and that’s one thing that a lot of organizations don’t have.” – Tim Gauthier

“But that’s what drives me because I just really am totally obsessed with infectious diseases and microbial stewardship, and I think people need help learning. I needed a lot of help learning. I see where there’s benefit. I see where there’s value. There’s some monetary benefit that comes with it. It’s not anything that’s extreme by any means. But by having that win-win, it’s really been something that I think has been worth pursuing.” – Tim Gauthier

“I think that’s kind of the most important thing I’ve learned when it comes to telling people you have something to share with them, showing them that it’s meaningful, getting them excited about it, showing them that you’re a reliable person that has the know-how to get them the resource that they need to succeed. That is really critical. So that’s kind of some of the messaging there.” – Tim Gauthier

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:00] T. ULBRICH: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I had a chance to welcome antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist and fellow pharmacy entrepreneur, Tim Gauthier. Tim is the creator of IDStewardship.com and LearnAntibiotics.com. During the show, Tim and I talk about the genesis for creating these two learning platforms, how Tim has monetized his clinical expertise, and how he manages and leverages his time to be able to consistently put out good content while working full-time and fulfilling his personal commitments and goals.

Before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 250 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

All right, let’s jump into my interview with pharmacist and entrepreneur, Tim Gauthier.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:21] T. ULBRICH: Tim, welcome to the show.

[00:01:23] T. GAUTHIER: Hey, thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here. How are you, Tim?

[00:01:26] T. ULBRICH: I’m well. I’m excited to dig into the work that you’re doing and for you to share with the YFP community how you’ve been monetizing your clinical expertise. But before we jump into that, I’d love to learn about your journey into pharmacy school, into the profession, where you went to school, when you graduated, and what drew you into the profession of pharmacy.

[00:01:44] T. GAUTHIER: Oh, yeah, of course. So I went to Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated in 2008, which feels like yesterday, but it’s been four years now. I got into pharmacy because I really was interested in microbiology. It turns out it’s easier to transfer into microbiology from pharmacy than pharmacy to microbiology. So I started in pharmacy. I ended up sticking with it. I never thought I’d go into infectious diseases pharmacy, just because it didn’t really cross my mind, and I didn’t know much about that early in my years.

Then later on, after PGY1, I had the opportunity to do a PGY2 in ID. Lo and behold, today, I’m an infectious diseases-obsessed pharmacist, who’s out there to defend antibiotics and promote clinical pharmacy. So here we are today.

[00:02:27] T. ULBRICH: So the Northeast, Tim, to Florida. This is the time of year in the Northeast. I grew up in the Buffalo area, where it’s beautiful. I always say six months out of the year, I’d live anywhere else. But the Midwest I’m at now or the Northeast. But the other six months, included this time of year, is absolutely gorgeous. So do you miss the seasons at all?

[00:02:49] T. GAUTHIER: I do miss the seasons, but the winter in Miami, Florida, where I live now, is just absolutely wonderful. I love the culture, as well as all the different types of food here. We do visit. Periodically, I go to Boston, Rhode Island, Connecticut and stuff. So it’s nice to be able to have a little bit of the best of both worlds.

[00:03:06] T. ULBRICH: Yeah, yeah. So we connected several years back, and I’ve been following your work for some time. I wanted to bring you out in the show, as I think what you’ve built is a really cool example of how pharmacists can monetize their clinical expertise. Certainly, as we’ll talk about, it’s not just about the money, but it’s being able to leverage the skills, the passion, the interest that you have to fill a gap in the market and to help people looking to learn more about a topic.

Here, we’re going to be talking about infectious disease, of course, and we have featured a variety of individuals on the podcasts over the past year or so. So I’m excited to share your journey as well. So let’s start with IDStewardship.com. When and why did you start it? Who was it for? What were you hoping to accomplish?

[00:03:49] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah. So IDStewardship.com has been alive since about 2016, and I just had a friend who knew how to build websites, and I wanted to build something on my own, and he offered to help and put it together. Then I kind of took off from there, and I do pretty much everything on my own now. When I have a technical problem, he comes in? But why did I do it? There’s a couple of reasons.

One is I wanted to own my own space on the Internet, where I could have a voice, where I could publish things and not be restricted by a company or a manager or a group of people. Also, I just really enjoy your writing. So it gave me an opportunity to use a different part of my brain on the weekends and in the evening hours to share information that could be open access and someone else could benefit from. There’s a huge need in pharmacy. It has been for us to share our experiences and practical advice and insights so that others can learn and grow from it.

Also, just sharing information about antibiotics to make it easier for people to understand what drugs can I use for MRSA or Pseudomonas. But then some deeper things like what are five things to know about, I don’t know, Stenotrophomonas or Acinetobacter. So really, it’s just a myriad of content these days. If you’re a pharmacy professional, if you’re a healthcare professional, there’s some stuff on there that you’ll be interested in. If you’re just looking for fun stuff, there’s a drug name emoji that people really, really seem to enjoy.

[00:05:03] T. ULBRICH: So I’m trying to understand, Tim, the need you’re filling with this resource. So obviously, we all went through ID curriculums in our PharmD program. There are there are PGY2 residencies that focus on this fellowships who focus on this. Certainly, there are associations or interest groups within associations that focus on this. So what is different here that you’re trying to carve out to fill a need that you felt like either wasn’t being met for you or for other clinicians through those other learning pathways?

[00:05:32] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah. I didn’t do very well in ID in pharmacy school, ironically, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it until I was like halfway through my PGY2. Practical resources that are available that are insightful and that consider the things that are beyond just the obvious, those were lacking. That really motivated me to try to put out things that were interesting. But also, like when you go to practice, these are five things you need to know about [inaudible 00:05:55] come across [inaudible 00:05:57]. I think that the community has received it really well, but I use social media to amplify that voice in different social media platforms.

So it’s been a really rewarding experience, and collaborating with others from around the world has been something an area of success, I think, to be part of kind of the community that I’ve built. But I have a lot of flexibility, and that’s one thing that a lot of organizations don’t have.

[00:06:21] T. ULBRICH: Yes, yeah. The digestible nature of the content strikes me. You’ve alluded to it a couple of times with examples you’ve given thus far in the show. It reminds me of one of the pharmacist we’ve had on this show, Kelley Carlstrom, on episode 217. Her business called KelleyCPharmD. She does an awesome job of this in the pharmacy space, specifically in oncology practice, making it accessible, no matter where you are. She trained at the Cleveland Clinic, an internationally recognized institution. Not everyone can go do your residency there, right? Has the time to commit, potentially has to travel to do that.

Her vision really is what about all the other hospitals? What about all the rural healthcare settings that are trying to treat patients and get their clinical staff up to speed? Or perhaps different practice models that don’t have a lineup of board certified residency trained pharmacists with multiple credentials? How can we expand the accessibility of this content? That’s one of things I love about what you’re doing here, and it really does strike me as being much more accessible than what is out there and some more traditional training programs or those that are offered by other groups.

It’s also written and presented in a way that is easy to understand. It’s relevant. It’s things that, Tim, you’re experiencing daily as a clinician yourself or encounters when you’re precepting residents or students. So you know the pain points. You know the questions, the problems, the points of confusion because you’re living them each day. I love the platform of what you built to address that.

So take us, Tim, through IDStewardship.com, in terms of the content you have, the resources you offer, and how you’ve been able to monetize it, right? You give out a lot of great content for free. But you also been able to monetize the site and enable to reap some of the fruit for all the work that you’re putting in, and you’ve put in over the last seven years. So talk to us about what you offer and provide on the site and how you’ve been able to monetize that.

[00:08:14] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah. I offered way too much stuff for free, probably. But exactly like an altruistic passion project, it has to make some kind of money for my wife to allow me to continue it. So definitely, it’s a mixed bag. But the art of the IDStewardship.com offers articles, which are blog articles talking about the student experience, the pharmacist experience, clinical insights into common questions that we ask and that we see. Those are always written by content experts who have practical experience in the area, and I vet all that content to make sure it’s reliable, credible, and it goes beyond like the obvious content that you might find in a general article.

Also, there’s a study guide section, which is free and open access that has a picture of the drug, some of my key points, which I think you might find on your pharmacy school exams or maybe the BCPS or BCIDP exam and then links to some of the articles or some of the guidelines that are really relevant to that drug. I have a list of resources, which is pretty cool. If you’re looking for anything about antibiotics, that is a very robust list of resources. So like hepatitis C screening for Child-Pugh score. There’s a calculator in there. Just pick one random example. Or even if you’re looking for regulatory content from the Joint Commission, it’s linked there.

I also have the contributor section, where you can see who’s participated, and there’s really a lot of contributors to my website. So I do want to emphasize that that’s a really cool part of what I’ve been able to do, and it’s not just Tim doing it. It’s the community. But I kind of lead it because I’m kind of like the editor in chief of the content founder. The other part, though, which I really want to talk about for a second is LearnAntibiotics.com. So I’ve taken the opportunity to show people that, yes, these are articles that are available. But I’ve been able to produce content that you can use for learning. As a background in academia, I know that you have to go and be able to identify and define before you can analyze and assess and predict.

So I’ve built content specifically to help people through that learning process. If you’re looking to identify and define, I have cheat sheets on different disease states, on different drug classes. Those can help people to say, okay, like, “Pseudomonas drugs, these are my drugs.” But then I also make more fun content that has like a word search or a Jeopardy game. Those can be applied to the specific area. Then the practice tests I’ve built so that if you are able to pass that practice test, you can practice pretty competently as a pharmacist and know what questions to ask for infectious diseases and even some of them I’ll give you. Here’s the question, here’s the answer, and here’s the rationale for why each answer is right, and each answer is wrong. So it’s pretty robust.

[00:10:59] T. ULBRICH: I love that and I want to come back in a little bit to talk more about the LearnAntibiotics.com, in terms of what you’re trying to accomplish there. I think that’s going to give some folks some interesting ideas about as you’re considering monetizing your clinical expertise, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. I love what you’ve built there with that membership type of model.

Two words, Tim, that really stand out about what you’ve built and the vision that you have going forward are passion and community. You mentioned community just a moment ago, and I love that you’ve brought together a group of people that are, obviously, passionate about learning more about antimicrobial stewardship, learning more about infectious disease, bringing in contributors to the site, taking them from just a passive learner, to engaging them in the conversation, contributing to the community, and then passion. Your passion for this topic and furthering individuals’ knowledge and, obviously, the more our healthcare professionals know about this topic, the better they’re able to serve their patients.

I think this is so important for folks to hear, when you’re working on a side hustle or a business, especially when you’re working a full-time job, you have lots of other commitments, doing something that you’re passionate about, you mentioned that I probably got too much free content out there, right? It’s a passion project for you. Yes, you’re monetizing it. But that is going to really drive the energy and the enthusiasm to continue to build, especially in the early years, as someone who’s trying to get something off the ground.

Tim, as people go to IDStewardship.com and they see what you’ve built over several years, how much of this is what you have built and maintained? And how much of this is what you have other people that are helping you in building and maintaining the site?

[00:12:36] T. GAUTHIER: That’s a great question, and it’s definitely changed over time. When I started to look at developing a website, I talked to one of my friends who’s in website development, and he said, “Tim, we can do a website. But this is not a six-month thing, and this is not a one-year thing. This is like a 10-year journey, and you have to think of it very long-term.” So taking small bites has been one of the keys to success. As I’ve understood the workflows on developing different items, it’s gotten to be more efficient over time. I do produce actually the majority of the content on my own when it comes to the background work.

But the one thing that people send to the community of pharmacists, they’re willing to be a part of this journey. Them sending me articles and communicating with me and offering their assistance and trying to get their message out and share their passion, that really has enabled me to produce more content and put more information out there. But it is a tremendous amount of work. I do spend a lot of time between the hours of 8:00 PM and 11:00 PM working on this type of stuff. I think if you don’t have the passion for it, it’s probably going to be hard to do it long term.

But that’s what drives me because I just really am totally obsessed with infectious diseases and microbial stewardship, and I think people need help learning. I needed a lot of help learning. I see where there’s benefit. I see where there’s value. There’s some monetary benefit that comes with it. It’s not anything that’s extreme by any means. But by having that win-win, it’s really been something that I think has been worth pursuing.

One of the secrets that they say is not to do things alone, right? If you’re going to build a program like this, or you’re going to build a side business. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I love the freedom that I have. I have total creative freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with no one arguing with me. But at the same time, being in an echo chamber with yourself is not always a positive thing, and having a partner can push you in good directions. So I think partnerships are important, and you can choose to pursue things as a partnership or as an individual.

Something else I want to note that as I built out what I have online with IDStewardship is I’ve really purposely tried to make it about the brand and not about me. That kind of protects me in a way because the voice is the voice of the brand and not the voice of the individual. Also, people can engage within behind that brand and be a part of the community again, rather than it being part of what Tim is doing. So that was actually very strategic in the development.

[00:15:02] T. ULBRICH: Yeah, Tim. I think that’s a strategic move for the reason you mentioned also. I think about the passion and the mission of what you’re trying to do. Like there may be a day where maybe this isn’t only Tim who’s doing this. Or for whatever reason, you have others that are involved in the mission of advancing the education around IDStewardship and being able to have this information accessible, where folks can learn and perhaps be excited about learning it I think transcends just one person, right? So I think the contributors is another important aspect here of what you’ve highlighted.

[00:15:34] T. GAUTHIER: Like making things passive is also really important to me. I’ve learned that a lot during COVID because COVID has been absolutely horrible for all infectious diseases pharmacists and time management and when life was balanced. I mean, everybody in general. But I mean, trying to keep up with the literature and be engaged, on top of having this site and stuff going on, I need things to be able to put on pause, right? If I have no commitments that I’ve made, that’s not going to serve me well in the long term. So I really try to do things that are passive whenever possible and then only commit to like a couple of things at a time.

[00:16:05] T. ULBRICH: Yeah. One other thing I was thinking about, Tim, as I was looking at your site, that would be I think good advice for folks that are thinking about building their own, especially if they don’t have a huge budget upfront to be able to hire a web developer. If you’re building a content-based site, it could be blog articles that you’re adding, podcasts that you’re adding, e-resources that you’re adding checklists, guides, e-books, whatever, like you want to make sure you’re building it in a way that you understand and can add to it on a regular basis.

So even if you’re working with a developer or a contractor to help you, making sure you have enough understanding of the back end so that you’re not spending a whole lot of money long-term or frustrated that each time you’re trying to add a piece of content to the site, whether that’s a blog, podcast, an opt-in guide, whatever be the case, that you want to be able to have something that’s nimble, and you can add to over time.

[00:16:51] T. GAUTHIER: I’ve seen some people who built 20,000, 25,000-dollar websites, and they tend to be the people that follow a lot of podcasters in the space of like social media and engagement and business development. So I think if you’re committed to it, it can be worth the money. But you got to proceed with caution.

[00:17:10] T. ULBRICH: When I go to the site, Tim, and you mentioned already that LearnAantibiotics.com, www.learnantibiotics.com, we’ll link to that in the show notes, which takes you over to the IDStewardship site, that really is the membership portion of the site, where folks can be engaging with the community on an ongoing basis. Obviously, the goal there is that becomes some stability of recurring revenue that supports a lot of the time and effort and the free content that you’re putting out there.

Talk to us about – I think in content marketing, and I hesitate to use that word because I feel like you’re leading with such good passion and education that sometimes that word can sound dirty. But ultimately, the value that you’re providing and really good free rich education is naturally going to make people aware of what you’re doing on the membership side, which has a recurring revenue potential.

So what has your strategy or approach been to connect the free content with the membership model? Is it just that, hey, more eyeballs on the site and value that they’ll kind of find their way over there? Is it opt-ins that then point people to that resource? Tell us more about the strategy that you’ve employed to connect the free education people are viewing and receiving with some of the paid options you have.

[00:18:24] T. GAUTHIER: For sure. As you’re saying, this, I’m thinking about how I need to be more strategic. Sometimes, just go with the flow. That feels good. That feels good. Sometimes, I think of things, and I’m like, “Oh, I wish I had done that.” Even right now, there’s a list of things that if I had the time in my life to do, I would totally do.

But in general, what I try to do is capture a large audience and engage a large audience and do that through all these different ways that I think of, whether it’s something that’s like a clickable link on an Instagram story, or it’s a new blog post that I put out, or it’s putting a meme out there or just sharing like, “Hey, here’s like a part of my cheat sheet. If you’d like to see more of it like, shoot me your email address. I’ll shoot you a copy of this cheat sheet in full.” Then I have a way to communicate with those individuals. So if you’re just interested in the LearnAntibotics site or you’re interested in like all of IDStewardship, and you want to get our monthly newsletter, I’m able to reach you that way.

Another thing that’s important about having a mail listing is that if like tomorrow, Instagram decides to just delete my account, which they can’t, I have nothing. I’m left with nothing. Whereas since I have a Mailchimp account, they’re able to house my ability to communicate with my people. So in general, I provide something for free. I get the ability to contact these people. If you want to unsubscribe, I have no problem with that. Actually, when people unsubscribe, I don’t have to pay for you to be on my listserv anymore. I actually don’t mind at all. So if you don’t look at the newsletters we send out, feel free to unsubscribe. But if you want to subscribe, then we’d love to communicate with you.

I think that’s kind of the most important thing I’ve learned when it comes to telling people you have something to share with them, showing them that it’s meaningful, getting them excited about it, showing them that you’re a reliable person that has the know-how to get them the resource that they need to succeed. That is really critical. So that’s kind of some of the messaging there.

[00:20:18] T. ULBRICH: Yeah. I think one of the other things you’ve done really well, Tim, that I admire is you’re consistent in your content. We know and we’ll talk in a moment about how you balance time with other personal responsibilities. None of us are perfect and consistent in delivering the same amount of material, but you’ve been consistent over the years in terms of there’s not months and months of like quiet phases, and then you dump a bunch of content.

I think that’s so important for any – If we think about communities we like to be a part of or content we like to follow, it’s a consistent offering that we’re engaging with that content. So as you’re getting started, as someone’s getting started, I think thinking about what is – Once you decide on the medium, is it a blog, is it a podcast, whatever you’re looking at, is it something like a vlog, what is going to be your rhythm roughly that you’re going to be delivering content and making sure you’re showing up on a consistent basis with your audience and those that are finding value from what you’re doing?

[00:21:10] T. GAUTHIER: Along those lines, I think listening to your community is important. I had someone email me recently and say, “Hey, Tim. I wish you had a malaria cheat sheet because I’m studying for the BCIDP exam or the BCPS exam,” I forget which. I made one that weekend, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was super interesting. I learned a bunch about malaria. So not only does it like help people advance their professional goals. It helps me remember things. I use my websites all the time to remember some of these nuances that are details that are just – You can’t remember everything.

[00:21:40] T. ULBRICH: That’s where I think the community piece comes in well too. You’ve got a good social media following. I’m sure people reach out to your questions all the time. You have students on rotation. You start to put some of those repeated questions into content buckets, right? I know you have a list of running content ideas. I’m sure you do. But once you hear a question more than one, two, or three times, it’s like, all right, maybe there’s something here in terms of a piece of content that we should be putting out.

Let’s talk about time and balancing doing this. You’ve certainly made a strong case that there’s a lot of passion behind it. But nonetheless, like you’ve got a family. You’re working a full-time job. You’re precepting residents, students. You have expectations at home and at work. Like what strategies have you employed time blocking, or how have you been able to really leverage time so that you can continue to put out content on a consistent basis while working full-time?

[00:22:31] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah. Well, in the early days, and I was working at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Miami, and they’re very strict in terms of their hours. So when you’re off duty, you’re off time. So everything that I did in the beginning was during off hours. That’s still the same today, but it taught me that you should only work on these things when you’re not on company resources, etc.

But then I didn’t have small children in the early days, which meant I have had a lot more time, especially in the evening areas of the day. More recently, I have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old, and the evening hours are much more strenuous. So now, since we’ve developed more of an awareness in the community about IDStewardship, I reach out to people. When I see an article posted on like Twitter about something new that I’m interested in, I’ll reach out to the person who authored the article and say, “Hey, I’d love to have you write five things to know about whatever the topic is.”

People almost always say yes because they want to share their passion. But it’s not just about me getting content. They now have a way to share that information. Sometimes, it’s the resident or the student or the second or third author that I work with. So they get an opportunity to share their voice. Coming up with strategies where I don’t have to do all the work has been one thing. Then also, like when you look at the development of like research and scholarly work in an academic position, you kind of look at it like a conveyor belt, and you want projects in all areas of your conveyor belt.

Some things are in – You’re designing. What do you think it might look like, and you have your concepts, your list of projects? Then other things are going into publication, going out on the newsletter. So you’re constantly just like feeding that conveyor belt and keeping it going in different areas, and that’s how you stay productive over a long period of time. It’s not about taking one thing and rushing it forward but just maintaining that conveyor belt. There might be different conveyor belts that go faster or slower, and some things might take two years to do.

But I always move forward with projects based upon what I think is like fun and interesting, and I don’t put pressure on people. I’m not out there saying, “Hey, if you don’t get back to me in two weeks, you’re not going to be allowed to do this.” If you don’t feel like doing this later because you have a problem, whatever. Don’t do it. If you want to circle back in two years, circle back into years, like no pressure.

[00:24:39] T. ULBRICH: Take us a little bit behind the scenes. I think one of the barriers that folks run into is they’re just trying to get started, and they go to someone’s site. They don’t necessarily have a picture of what are some of the tools and the systems and the processes that you have in place. You’ve mentioned a couple things already. Obviously, you’ve got the website infrastructure. You mentioned the email list. So like for us, we use WordPress for our website build. We use Bluehost for our domain hosting. We use ActiveCampaign for our email marketing. Then we have several other tools we use for project management and other things.

So what are some of the tools that you use or that you have found to be helpful as you’ve been working on IDStewardship?

[00:25:18] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah, for sure. I use WordPress, and then I use WPX Hosting. Then for like the memberships, it’s PMPro or Paid Memberships Pro. I’ve been pretty happy with those overall. The WordPress in particular, it’s just overall really easy to use. You add a plug in. It updates. It’s no big deal. WPX is really – Once a year, I pay a fee. Once in a while, I’ll have a bandwidth issue. So I’ve learned that I need to downsize the images that I use when I post, which I think a lot of people kind of learn that lesson.

I mean, that’s really the gist of it. Outside that, I use Mailchimp for my emails. I don’t really love how much they charge. I think they’re charging me like 250 a month for like 25,000 subscribers. So it’s great to have that many subscribers, but it doesn’t feel good paying $2,500 a year for that. But it also motivates me to put out content to use that tool that I’m paying for. So those are some of the key things that I’m using now.

Otherwise, I just maintained like Excel sheets for a while. In the beginning, when I didn’t have as much content, I would do a lineup, and I would remind myself of when I posted to Facebook about a specific blog post, and I would just keep cycling through them. So I was always posting like one thing a day on Facebook. But it’s gotten to the point that I can’t do that anymore. I’d need to hire like a social media manager or something like that. I think as you grow, you need to start considering how can you work with who can you bring in.

Another thing is as I’ve kind of met people in life through my way or through other venues, I work with them. So I just met a guy over the weekend that he prints things for a living, right? So there’s so much opportunity for us to collaborate with printing things. My audience is interested in topics of pharmacy and infectious diseases. So being entrepreneurial is one of the definitely keys to success here and also not being stuck in your ways, being able to evaluate things, and then accept feedback. If it’s not going well and someone tells you it’s not going well, take that advice and see how you can make it better and ask them, “Hey, how can I make this better?”

[00:27:13] T. ULBRICH: Yes, great advice, Tim. I think for people that are listening, and they hear 25,000 people on an email list and again not getting paralyzed from Jump Street. I think I love what you shared of it was a spreadsheet to begin with, right? I’ve shared before on this podcast that the first 100 subscribers on our email list were a combination of text messages and Facebook messages and LinkedIn posts that I had, and that eventually got added to an email software. Eventually, we added automations. Eventually, we added opt-in funnels and all those things, project management, social media management tools, things like that. But just getting started, you can do a lot of that manually. Get some of the things off the ground. Then as you get momentum, you can build out the systems and the processes that will help with efficiencies.

Tim, if someone is listening and they are on the very front end of this, so let’s just pick another specialty that’s out there, and they’re thinking, “I’d love to build something in this domain, similar to what I see Tim doing with IDStewardship, Kelley doing with oncology. I also think about what Jimmy Pruitt’s doing with acute care out there in pharmacy,” like what advice would you have with them at the very beginning of their journey? If you think back to where you were when you started in 2015, like now looking back seven years later, like what piece of advice would you have to share with them as they get started on this journey?

[00:28:33] T. GAUTHIER: Well, I mean, first of all, not just because I – If I say something, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. So it’s just my opinion on some of this. So feel free to disagree. But one thing I feel is that, especially when it comes to social media, people go on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook because they’re looking for things for themselves. So if you’re not putting out things that are going to be interesting to your audience, then your audience is not going to grow like they should.

So everything that you do, no matter what you’re doing, should be aligned with why your audience is going to that area, and that’s going to help to get them to like it, get them to share it, which is very, very difficult in the pharmacy profession. We’re like 90% passive users. We love to learn.

[00:29:11] T. ULBRICH: That’s right.

[00:29:13] T. GAUTHIER: I’ll post something on Facebook, man, and it’s like five likes. But then I’ll see that I got 250 link clicks. So it’s very interesting. From an outside, you might look at my Facebook page or something and say, “Oh, I got a couple of likes or clicks,” and you can’t see the clicks, but you’ll only see a couple of likes, and they got lots of clicks. So it’s kind of one thing that’s important, I think, as you’re starting off.

Another thing about starting off would probably be considered like long-term how you’re going to grow, and you’re talking about the design of your product. I think that core message and that core what am I doing here is really important. Over time, is that going to change? Because if it’s focused on something that’s relevant now like COVID, for example, or moneypox, maybe that’s not relevant in two years from now.

[00:29:59] T. ULBRICH: It’s pretty cool. Yep, absolutely. That’s great stuff, Tim. I’m excited for our listeners, if they’re not already aware to follow the journey, and I hope they’ll opt in your newsletter. Where is the best place that folks can go to follow you and the journey and the work that you’re doing?

[00:30:16] T. GAUTHIER: Yeah. I mean, definitely IDStewardship.com, and you can sign up for our newsletter there or just follow along on Instagram or our Facebook or goods areas. Twitter, you can find me there as well. It’s a little bit more focused on infectious diseases and as a whole and staying up with the literature on Twitter. So either of those but the newsletters are really a good place to start.

[00:30:37] T. ULBRICH: Awesome. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate you taking time to come on the show.

[00:30:39] T. GAUTHIER: Oh, it was my pleasure. We’ve worked together for so long over the years. It’s really a wonderful opportunity for me, and I appreciate your time.

[00:30:46] T. ULBRICH: Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:30:47] T. ULBRICH: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts, and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements that are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

Thank you, again, for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 349: Your Top 3 Questions Answered by a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™

Posted on March 7, 2024March 6, 2024 by YFP Media

YFP’s Tim Baker addresses key questions from the community, covering retirement savings, cost of living, and the importance of the nest egg calculation.

Episode Summary

On this week’s episode of the YFP Podcast, host Tim Ulbrich is joined by YFP Co-Founder and Certified Financial Planner, Tim Baker, to dive into some of the most common questions from the YFP community. He covers topics ranging from debt repayment to investing and retirement planning in three key questions:

How much do I need to save in order to retire? How do I determine what is enough?
The intricacies of cost of living and understanding the income you’ll have in retirement.
Why the nest egg calculation is crucial in financial planning.

Our discussion also delves into the pros and cons of paying off low-interest debt, such as student and auto loans, versus investing. Tim Baker also shares the strategies for prioritizing debt repayment, retirement savings, and saving for a house down payment.

In a particularly insightful segment, Tim and Tim tackle a question from a listener with a $200,000 student loan balance, where Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) isn’t an option. Tim Baker shares his perspective on weighing the decision between paying off the loans and pursuing forgiveness over 20-25 years, including the potential tax implications.

Join us as we navigate the complexities of financial planning and empower you to make informed decisions for a secure financial future.

About Today’s Guest

Tim Baker is the Co-Founder and Director of Financial Planning at Your Financial Pharmacist. Founded in 2015, YFP is a fee-only financial planning firm and connects with the YFP community of 12,000+ pharmacy professionals via the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast podcast, blog, website resources and speaking engagements.

Tim attended the United States Military Academy majoring in International Relations and branching Armor. After his military career, he worked as a logistician with a major retailer and a construction company. After much deliberation, Tim decided to make a pivot in his career and joined a small independent financial planning firm in 2012. In 2016, he launched his own financial planning firm Script Financial and in 2019 merged with Your Financial Pharmacist. Tim now lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife (Shay), two kids (Olivia and Liam), and dog (Benji).

Key Points from the Episode

Debt repayment, investing, and retirement planning.
Retirement savings and investment strategies.
Retirement planning and nest egg calculation.
Retirement planning and the “Nest Egg Exercise” to connect long-term goals with current actions.
Prioritizing debt and investing strategies.
Prioritizing debt payoff vs. investing for financial freedom.
Financial planning and prioritizing goals.
Managing $200,000 in student loans without PSLF.
Student loan debt and financial planning.

Episode Highlights

“I think what, what sometimes happens, Tim, is that we try, we try to do a lot. We try to do a little bit of a lot of things versus a lot of like one or two things. Yeah. So I think working with a planner to help you prioritize is going to be really important.” – Tim Baker

“So I think the best thing, and we we’ve done this a lot, and when we speak, Tim, the best I think way to determine if we’re on track to retire is to do a nest egg nest egg calculation” – Tim Baker

“But I do think that that push and pull between today and tomorrow is really important. So let’s focus on that trip to wherever; let’s focus on the down payment for a real estate property or whatever that is, like those things, I think, have to be part of the plan as well.” – Tim Baker

“The cons of paying off debt, I think, is the opportunity costs of, like, what you might miss in terms of if you were to invest that, especially if the interest rates are really low, and then just kind of just overall money,less money for investments. The pros, I think, of investing, is potentially higher returns, although not guaranteed, compounding growth, potential tax benefits, if you’re putting in things like 401Ks and IRAs.” – Tim Baker

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode 272 – How Much is Enough
YFP Planning – www.yfpplanning.com
YFP+ – yourfinancialpharmacist.com/membership
Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
YFP Open House on March 14, 2024 at 8:30pm EST – yourfinancialpharmacist.com/openhouse
YFP Disclaimer
Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
Tim Baker on LinkedIn

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich 00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week, YFP Co-Founder, Director of Financial Planning and Certified Financial Planner Tim Baker joins me to answer your top three financial questions. During the show we tackle pros and cons of paying off low interest rate debt versus investing strategies to optimize student loan repayment for those not pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness and how to determine how much one needs to save for retirement. Before we jump into the show, I want to make sure that you’re aware of our next YFP Open House that I’m hosting on Thursday, March 14 at 8:30pm. Eastern. If you’re wondering how working one-on-one with a financial planner can help you achieve your financial goals, the best place to begin is by signing up for our open house. You can do so by visiting YourFinancialPharmacist.com/openhouse.

During this open house, we’ll help you gain clarity on your vision for living a rich life and how the financial plan can become the engine for achieving that vision. We’ll also help you determine how much is enough when it comes to retirement planning whether or not you’re on track. I’ll be taking the group through nest egg calculation. You can learn about the nuts and bolts of hiring a financial planner including what to look for different types of planners that are available and why fee-only planning matters.

And finally, we’ll cover an overview of YFP services, including our financial planning, and tax and accounting services. Make sure to sign up to attend live. We won’t be recording this workshop. For those that attend, they’ll receive an interactive workbook as well as a free resource: Where Should My Next Dollar Go? that will help you assess your overall financial well being and provide clarity on how to efficiently deploy cash, avoid overspending and prioritize various goals. Again, you can register for this Open House on Thursday, March 14 at 8:30pm Eastern by visiting YourFinancialPharmacist.com/openhouse. Alright, let’s jump into today’s episode.

Tim Ulbrich 02:04

Hi there, Tim Ulbrich here. Welcome to this week’s episode of the YFP Podcast. I’m excited to welcome Tim Baker back to the mic as we’re gonna put him on the hot seat with some rapid fire Q&A with some of those common questions that we get from our community, including those around debt repayment, investment, and retirement planning. Hey, Tim, it’s been a while since we’ve had you on the show, what’s new, what’s exciting?

Tim Baker 02:24

What’s new? We’re in the throes of tax season. So I’m, we’re busy there. I’m talking to a lot of potential clients coming on board. Baby number three is about a month away, Tim. So we’re preparing for that. I joke we have about 1000 projects that we have to complete before the baby gets here. So you know, kind of maneuver in my my wife’s lifts list here. So but yeah, all good. Thanks. No complaints.

Tim Ulbrich 02:55

Well, we’re excited to jump into these questions. I know it’s a busy season for you, busy season here for YFP as you mentioned in the midst of tax season. And, you know, we’ve been, we’ll talk at the end of this episode about our YFP Plus community, our new community that we’ve been offering now for a few months. And it’s been really exciting to see the questions and the engagement that that group has, and one another jumping in answering those questions. And we wanted to pull three of the most common questions that we get, whether it’s inside of that community, whether it’s, Tim, questions that we get when we’re speaking that come up on repeat. And so they may be variations of these, but you know, common questions around things like hey, how much do I need to have saved for retirement? What are the pros and cons of paying off debt versus investing? That’s probably the most common question that we get. And, you know, what should I do with my student loans? And how can I best optimize the repayment strategy? So let’s jump into these one by one. Tim, the first question that we have is a big one, but how much do I need to save in order to retire? How much is enough? And how do I begin to determine what that number is?

Tim Baker 03:57

Yeah, so I mean, it depends. Just gotta get that out of the way, right. I mean, this is such a multivariable thing. I think it’s just really hard to determine, you know, without a, you know, pretty deep level analysis to be honest Tim, you know, I know, you know, I’ll talk through some rules of thumb here and things like that. But, you know, like I was talking to a couple last night, and, you know, I think the the wife, the pharmacist was, like, you know, I kind of want the same level of comfort in retirement that I have today in terms of like my standard of living and the husband, the spouse, was like, I could live in a tent and be completely content. You know, so like, so like, that’s, that’s a big thing. You know, like if, if what your need is in retirement, you know, you could have enough saved today, Tim, like it’s it really don’t know. So the variables there, some of the variables could be you know, the standard of living the time in retirement. There’s a lot of clients that we work with that like, will say like, Hey, like I don’t know how long I’m going to be around because of my family history. So we, you know, we put that in, in in play, taxes, inflation unexpected, you know, expenses, a lot of that can be medical, even the inability to work so that, you know, a lot of people, when they’re when they’re doing this calculus, they’ll say, Oh, I’ll work till 70. Or I’ll work part time. And the stats say that 40% of the people out there are going to going to stop working earlier than they think that they do. So you know, what I always do, there’s, there’s lots of fancy ways to kind of calculate this. And you know, if you’ve ever heard of Monte Carlo analysis, this is where we, we simulate portfolio returns 1000s of simulations and say, with, you know, X percent probability of success, we typically want, anywhere from 70 to 80% probability of success, you might say, Tim, why not 100%. Typically, if we’re, if we’re lower than, you know, 70%, we’re going to adjust the plan accordingly, in real time to get it to the end of that.

So I think the best thing that and we we’ve done this a lot, and when we speak, Tim, the best I think way to determine if we’re on track to retire is to do a nest egg nest egg calculation. And this was really born out of, Tim, like, back in the day, when I started advising people on their on their, you know, retirement stuff. What I learned from a mentor is we would say, hey, based on your based on these assumptions, you need $3.5 million to retire. And then we would just move on to the next thing. And I would see the, the look in people’s eyes were like, that number just didn’t hit the mark at all, like it was just like, it was kind of equated to like student loans where it’s just like Monopoly money, that doesn’t make any sense to me at all. So what I started to do is I would take that number, and then I would kind of use another time value of money calculation to discount it back to a number. So if you’re the client, Tim, a number for Tim in 2024, that actually is digestible to you, that’s palatable to you that says, okay, like that makes sense. And typically, what we’re doing is that we’re comparing, you know, what you’re putting into your 401 K, your IRAs, what you already have, you know what your allocation is, so we can kind of make some assumptions on performance returns, how long you’re going to work. And then we can say, hey, you’re on track by this amount of dollars per month, or you’re off track by this amount of dollars per month. And obviously, that that hill gets steeper, if we’re off track, the closer that we get to our target. So, to me that that’s a huge thing to actually connect the dots to, like when I ask people like, are they on track? A lot of people say I have no idea or they’ll say, like, I’m using a calculator, that typically is not a great indicator of where they’re at. So, but I think a lot of this goes back to kind of, you know, move the answer forward is like, you know, what do you need, you know. A lot of the estimates, you know, a lot of the estimates will say, you know, a lot of retirement planners will say, hey, you need 70 to 80% of your pre-retirement income in retirement. And that’s typically the reason for that. It’s like, you’re typically saving 20, 30% of your income, pre retirement, like so leading up to the years of retirement. And you’re not doing that in retirement. So, but a lot of that, Tim, also misses the mark, right? Because it’s like, alright, well, if I’m, like, 20-30 years from retirement, what does that even mean to me? Right. But if you take, you know, I did a kind of a, an example here, if you’re making $125,000 today, and you have a 30 year career ahead of you, and you get a 3% cost of living adjustment every year, in 30 years, that equals $303,400.00. Three or three 400.

Tim Ulbrich 08:55

Almost hard to believe, right? When you when you put the numbers on that.

Tim Baker 08:58

Yep, But then if you look back 30 years, like look back at, like, what a total cost of like a house was or like, what the… you know what I mean? Like, so you have to, you know, it’s perspective, right? So, so 30% of that $303 is about $212. So, essentially, what you need is $212 for 30 straight years, so every year $212. And then we had to, you know, account for inflation and things like that.

Tim Ulbrich 09:22

$212,000?

Tim Baker 09:24

$212,000. Right. So you need a portfolio. So if you just do it in simple terms to earn 12 times 30 Like, that’s kind of like, that’s a very, you know, linear way to look at it. But then you have to, you know, factor in things, you know, like variable expenses and things like that. So, what a lot of people will point to which, I don’t love it, because I think it can steer people wrong, but I think at least gets a like a foundation of where to think about this is the 4% rule. So the 4% rule is, you can withdrawal 4% of your savings in the first year retirement adjusted for inflation ever year thereafter, to ensure that your saving, you have enough saved for 30 years. So the way to kind of backwards plan to that is if you multiply your annual retirement expenses, so let’s say you need 40, that let’s say you need $60,000 per year, let’s say 20,000 of that comes from Social Security, then we need $40,000. $40,000 times 25 years, so we’re just doing the 4% inverted is a million dollars, or a million dollars times, you know, point 0.44% is that $40,000. So that’s a way to look at it. But again, like, I don’t know, if that does a great job of, you know, planning for longevity, you know, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of errors in that, you know, in that assumption, but I think it’s a good place to start thinking about this. So, I mean, it’s a, it’s a really big question that has a lot of, you know, at anytime that you look at something over, you know, 2030 years, I guess, if you’re closer to this, maybe maybe the questions a little bit easier to answer, but, you know, looking at expenses, you know, looking at budget, the budget never goes away, you know, people are like ugh budget, you know, scenario analysis, I think all of those things kind of play into this.

Tim Ulbrich 11:10

Again, this is why I love as you mentioned, the the nest egg exercise, you can see the connections that people start to make in that exercise. Now, of course, especially if we’re looking over a long horizon, right, 20-30 years out, or even if it’s 10 years out, like things are going to change, this is not a one and done, you know, type of thing. We’ve got to be looking at it on a regular basis. But when you’re able to take people from that overwhelming shock number, right, 3 million, 4 million, 5 million to as you said, Hey, here’s what we need to be doing this year and actually, this month. Like this is what we need to be doing based on what we have saved, based on a set of assumptions that we obviously have to think through and think about risk tolerance, capacity, all those kinds of things, based on what we choose to assume or not with Social Security, you know, based on what you’re getting through your employer, all these things are going to feed into where we at currently, and what do we need to be doing per month. And, you know, I did this recently, during an Open House that we did in February, I’ll be doing it again, in our next open house coming up on on March 14, again, you can register for that yourfinancialpharmacist.com/openhouse.

And what’s fascinating about that is I can see this come to life, when people start to just see how these numbers are calculated and see the assumptions in place. Because, again, we’re actually making it mean something today, right? When we look at a number per month, we can start to see how that does or doesn’t fit in with the budget, we might not like that number. But we can start to actually work with that. And in fact, sometimes we find out through this exercise that people are over saving, you know, and there’s a conversation to be had there about, hey, how do we feel about it? What other goals are happening? And might we shift around, you know, different priorities? And then you can toggle some of these factors like, Hey, I said, I wanted to retire at 67. But what happens if it’s 62? Or 58? Or, you know, hey, I’d like the work that I’m doing, and I don’t really see myself going from full time did nothing for 30 years. What if I’m working part time and having an income? And these changed things significantly when you look at these calculations.

Tim Baker 13:08

Yeah, I mean, if I do say so myself, I think it’s a great tool. I think it was born out of like the misconnection between that big number in the future and what we’re doing today. And I think to your point, like being able to, like toggle those levers and pull those levers, you know, whether it’s, you know, working longer working less, you know, dialing back things, you know, down up things like I think it’s really cool to see. And to your point, yeah, we’ve had a lot of clients that have definitely, you know, we talk about, you know, living a wealthy life today and will live in a wealthy life tomorrow. Sometimes the calculus shows that they’re really focused on living a wealthy life tomorrow, in spite of today, meaning like, you know, I think it’s rare for a financial planner to say like, Hey, you’re saving too much for retirement. But I do think that that push and pull between today and tomorrow is really important. So like, let’s focus on that trip to wherever let’s focus on you know, that, you know, down payment for a real estate property or whatever that is, like the like those things, I think, have to be part of the, of the plan as well. So yeah, it’s a great question to ask. It’s just really hard to, to to answer without, you know, a lot of detail. A lot of, you know, what’s the balance sheet look like? What are the goals and, you know, go on from there.

Tim Ulbrich 13:14

It is.

Tim Ulbrich 14:34

If listeners want to dig deeper on this topic, first love to have you join us at the Open House. Second, we’ve covered this as a stand alone topic on the episode on the podcast before Episode 272. Tim and I talked about how much is enough and how do you determine that. We’ll link to that to the show notes. Make sure to check out that episode as well. Our second question we have as I mentioned before, probably the most common question that I get when I’m presenting is Hey, what are the pros and cons of paying off low interest debt, such as a student loan or auto loan versus investing. Furthermore, how do you think about prioritizing strategies for paying down debt, saving for retirement and saving for a house down payment? Tim, I’ll add to this before you jump in here that this is a really common question that we see, especially among, you know, those within that first 10 years of graduation, right. They’ve got a lot of things that are coming at them. I’ve got, you know, a bunch of student loans, I’m looking at buying a home, you’re telling me that I should be investing in saving for the future? I need an emergency fund. How do I begin to prioritize and weigh all these things? And, again, before you say, it depends, like, I think this is an example question where the value of planning is so important, because we got to get all those things out of our head on the paper, so we can start to plan. So what are your thoughts here?

Tim Baker 15:46

Yeah, I mean, I always look at debt as like a spectrum. I think you have, you know, good debt, which, you know, I would I would categorize as, like a mortgage. I would still put student loan debt in there, because, you know, a mortgage is a, you know, typically appreciating an asset that you can, that you’re living in, raise a family. Student loans, typically, you know, the price of doing business to become a pharmacist, you know, higher levels of of income, you know, post degree. But then as you go like, like auto loans, again, again, these are used assets that are typically depreciating. You’re typically paying higher interest than you have in the past, but it serves a function of like getting you to work. But then as you go, it might be things like, debt for furniture or other types of personal loans. And then credit card debt is typically at that, you know, other end of the spectrum of bad debt, where it’s, you know, you’re typically, this is the purchase of of wants not necessarily needs, or, you know, it’s there because of a lack of an emergency fund or kind of planning, planning for those unexpected things. So, you know, I think like, where you sit, where you draw the line between good debt and bad debt, it’s going to different be different for everybody. You know, typically, it’s, it’s the car to the right is good debt. So car, student loans, mortgages, are okay. And then everything for the left is not. Some people will put cars like a bad debt. So I think it just depends on what your again, what your goals are, what your what your aspect of debt. You know, I was asked recently by a prospective client about like, you know, hey, was watching something that Dave Ramsey said about paying off, you know, a mortgage that’s less than 3%. And he’s very, paints with a broad brush and said, like, you know, really any debt, you’re kind of a slave to the master is kind of how he describes it. And I think like, there’s a psychological thing of this, like, if you if you feel like that debt, is preventing you to be financially free, that I would treat that differently than something else, you know, like, I have no qualms about sitting on my two and a half percent mortgage for 30 years, I just don’t. So I think if we look at this, like the pros of paying off debt, versus invest in, you know, the paying off debt, it’s a guaranteed return, right? So if your debt is 6%, that’s, you know, you’re not necessarily gonna get that in the market consistently. So it’s a guaranteed return. I think it reduces financial stress. So eliminating debt can reduce stress and kind of simplify your finances. You do, I think, if you are completely debt free, I think you can you operate differently, you think you look at the world a little bit differently than if you have, you know, multiple liabilities. That’s kind of, you know, weighing on you and we see this with student loans, Tim, right. Like, you know, I feel suffocated, because I have this $200,000 in debt. The cons of paying off debt, I think, is the opportunity costs of like, what you might miss in terms of like, if you were to invest that, you know, especially if the interest rates are really low, and then just kind of just overall money, you know, less money for investments. The pros, I think of investing is potentially higher returns, although not guaranteed, compounding growth, potential tax benefits, if you’re putting in things like 401Ks and IRAs, The cons are again, market risk, there’s no guarantee. And, you know, complexity, like you know, if you’re just paying off debt, you know, a lot of people will make investing more interesting or sexier than it needs to be I look at as an as an investment as it should be super boring, but not everyone does that. A lot of people don’t do that. So that’s, that’s kind of my, there is no right or wrong answer. I kind of have my own biases.

When I’m working with a client, I’ll look at their risk tolerance. I’ll look at what their goals are. I’ll look at like, what are they saying to me? If they’re saying things like, this debt keeps me up at night, I’m gonna treat that very differently than if someone’s like, yeah, like it’s whatever. But there is a mathematical component to that as well. In terms of prioritize and financial strategies or just get the financial, like, what do we do, you know, for paying down debt versus saving, you know, I was speaking to, you know, a prospective client the other day, and they have real estate, they have some investments, they have a brokerage account, no emergency fund. So like, we’re we’re doing steps, six, seven, and eight, before we’re doing step one, really. So building an emergency fund, having a high yield savings account with, you know, those non-discretionary, you think expensives, just stowed away. Super important. That’s, that’s a foundational thing. I think from there, it’s also like the consumer debt, so like credit cards, you know, furniture debt, whatever that looks like, I think is really important, because it’s typically higher nterest that you want to get get out from underneath.

I would also put taken advantage of the employer match up there, like, you know, most of the time, I think that is really, really important to get the free money. But still see people that don’t take advantage of that. And then I think looking at higher interest debt, paying that off. So, you know, maybe that is a car, you know, we’re seeing, you know, car rates, I think you you mentioned it in YFP plus community, just what those rate rates are. Shocking, you know, they’re high. So I assume, yeah, I would I, I would pay that off before I would go into the market. So I think that that to me, and again, like the one thing that the questioner asked, you know, it’s like, what about saving for retirement, again, I kind of look at, get the match. And then I look at it as that as you are navigating these other things to me, in the back of your mind, it should be a race to 10%. Like, get the match, which may be 5%. But then you really want to get to 10% as quickly as possible, and then assess from there. And then I think, like, to me saving for a house down payment. That’s a really tough one to prioritize, Tim, because oftentimes with this one, like, like you’re, you, you rationalize it, you know, you rationalize your decision. So like, it’s a super emotional decision, once you start going down the path of looking at houses, being a Zillow warrior, actually go into houses, like those timelines get cut overnight. And I always joke, like, I was talking to a prospective client. And they were like, Yeah, I want to buy a house in the next two or three years. And I talked to them two weeks later, and they were under contract. So to me, like, if that’s important for you, I would put that to the top, you know, put that at the top of the list, you know, and prioritize that. I think what, what sometimes happens, Tim, is that we try, we try to do a lot. We try to do a little bit of a lot of things versus a lot of like one or two things. Yeah. So I think working with a planner to help you prioritize is going to be really important. And it’s hard to do. Sometimes it’s hard to do that when you’re stuck inside your own head, or even with like a spouse. So sometimes that you know that that third party objective viewpoint to help you guide guide that conversation, I think is important. But again, there’s really no right or wrong answer here. It’s just tailoring to like when I say it depends. What I mean by that is, you know, it depends on what your balance sheet are, like, what your balance sheet looks like, and what your goals are. And unfortunately, you can’t like look at a neighbor or a colleague, because like you’re going to be different. You are a unique snowflake. So you know, your your experience, your life experience, your your finances are going to be different than than everybody else’s. And I think, you know, developing a plan that navigates that is super important.

Tim Ulbrich 22:39

Yeah, Tim, the visual that comes to mind, as you’re talking and I alluded to this, when I asked the question is, you know, we so often live with all of these competing priorities that are swirling in our minds, right? Guilty as charged. And it really is a step that often is hard work. But it’s really important because we’re a third party can be so helpful for us to kind of get out of our own way and make sure we’re looking at all the factors, making sure we’re not thinking of things in a silo. But it’s like, we got to put all the puzzle pieces out, we got to get them out of the box. So we can start to figure out how they actually come together. And then to implement the plan, looking at our cash flow, looking at our goals and things to actually begin to execute on that. But we tend to go into execution mode, without really considering all the pieces and parts and how they impact one another. And this sounds easy, but it’s not right. You know, in this question, you know, we’re thinking about paying down debt, you know, and that could be more than one type of debt. We’re thinking about, hey, when might we buy a home we think about saving for retirement, when you look at the percentage of take home pay that these things will take up it is huge. These are these are big decisions. And we’re not even talking about other types of goals, right vacation, travel, what else is going on the financial plan, so I feel like there’s such an important step here of, before you start running in any one direction. Hey, let’s get on with This down on the paper. You know, you did this for Jess and I back in the day, like, let’s create a prioritized list of these. What’s the target? What’s the goal? How much do we need? What priority, how much per month? And then we start to actually create the buckets and the mechanism and the thing to actually make these come to life. And when you’re doing that, and you’re automating that, I can’t even adequately describe the feelings that come when you know that that system is in place working for you.

Tim Baker 25:26

Yeah and I think like to go back to the first question, like, we’ve had conversations with clients that like, you know, they’re saving so much for retirement, and they’re like, we can actually do a little bit less than get into the house sooner. Right. So like, like, if you think about it, like, my, my Pop Pop back in the day, like he had a pension, there was no such thing as 401k is like, all of these other things that have like, like, made financial, you know, even my parents, like, it’s very different. Now, you go into the workforce, and you have 30,000 things that are like, like, vying for your attention and your your dollars. And it’s just different than what it was before. And now, like the onus, especially on retirement is up to you versus like, your employer. But it’s also like, a lot of the advice that that you’re getting is from, like, the old generation of like, hey, buy a house, make sure you’re saving for it, and those are all good things. But the world is different now. And I’m not saying that, like, that’s, that’s bad, that’s bad advice. But like, you got to kind of have to, like, you know, walk to your own tune, so to speak. And I think like, a lot of people get get anxiety because they’re like, I’m not like, I’m not doing enough here. I’m not doing enough here. And, you know, I think like, if you’re doing a plan, you’re doing enough, right.

And I think part of the part of the great thing about plan is that you are slowing down in the day to day of like busy living and objectively looking at your situation and reflecting, self reflecting or forcing to reflect of like, Hey, are we on the track that we’re supposed to be on. And also to like, celebrate the wins, like, you know, when we start with a client, you know, the the first two meetings that we go through is what we call Get Organized, where we’re building out a nice clean balance sheet of all the assets that we own, minus all the liabilities that we owe. That’s our first data points. Think of that as like the before picture. And then the second meeting is what we call Script Your Plan is all about, okay, now that we know where we’re at, where are we going, so let’s talk about you want to buy a house, you want to have a family, you want to be able to retire at this age, you want to be able to, you know, build your real estate empire, you want to be able to do XY and Z. And once we have those two foundational thing in place, the answer “it depends,” then transforms to this is what I think you should do because I know what your balance sheet looks like, I know what your goals are. And this is the you know, the the objective advice that we think is in your best interest. So like, that’s going to be different for everyone. And I think like that, you know, tracking that from data point one to three, you know, two years, three years in the future, we start to see quantifiably the benefit, we think, you know, net worth is the best measure of that, the benefit from a net worth perspective, but then also the qualitative benefits of like, wow, like, I took that trip, I am spending more time with my family, like we had a family sooner than I thought, we bought the house. You know, I thought it was gonna take us five years, we did it live in less time. So to me, those are the benefits of, of, again, working on a plan, working with a planner to help prioritize all these things, right?

Because, you know, we talked about this in the in the tax world, we feel that working with one of our CFPs and a CPA side by side and stacking years of intentional financial planning and intentional tax planning will get you to where you need to, you know, be quicker. But you know, I was working, I was working, talking to one of our planning clients that’s considering tax, and they have a tax person, but they’re just you know, and it’s a question of filing separately and filing jointly. They’re just looking at it from the perspective of tax. They’re not thinking about how that affects how the filing status affects the student loan payment. So to me, you can’t look at these things in a vacuum. They they’re all interconnected. And I think as you go, that becomes, you know, more true and more obvious. So, again, I’m biased though, right?

Tim Ulbrich 29:33

It’s great stuff. And that’s why I’m glad you brought up the quantitative, qualitative stuff because yes, it translates into actual dollars and cents net worth is the indicator that we’re, you know, looking at most assets, what you own minus liabilities what you owe, but it’s also is the qualitative stuff, are we achieving that living a rich life and also as I alluded to, just the mental clarity and the peace of mind that comes from like, I know that I’ve thought about these or I know that me and my partner or spouse I thought about these together. And we have a plan like targeted dollar amount to that. But that really is incredible. And for folks that want to learn more about our one-on-one financial planning service, you can go to YFPplanning.com. Let’s have a conversation with you to learn more about that service, learn more about what you have going on in your own individual plan and see whether or not that service is a good fit again, YFPplanning.com. From there, you can click on the link to book a free discovery call. Alright, Tim, question number three. If PSLF, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, is not an option for me, what should I do with $200,000 of student loans? How do I wait paying them off versus pursuing 20 to 25 years of forgiveness, which would then result in what we call what others call the tax bomb? So what are your thoughts here?

Tim Baker 30:49

Yeah, and again, forgive the continued commercial, Tim, but like, I think when you’re dealing with six figures worth of debt $200,000, I do think some type of an analysis is really important, especially with like, the moving goal posts, that are the student loan repayment plans, and then the strategies that are out there. So I think, you know, this is a math equation that comes from the analysis, but I think you have to also overlay how you feel about the debt, right? So again, if you’re like, like, I need to get through this, like, ASAP, like, it’s a weight on me versus like, it is what it is, I think that with the math equation is going to color how like, I would advise you as your planner. So I would say back in the day, you know, when we would look at a potentially non PSLF, you know, strategy. So, just to remind everyone PSLF, you know, was implemented in 2007. And the so that means that, you know, the first the first time someone was able to be forgiven was 2017. So you had to, you had to work, you had your loans had to be federal, you had to be in the right type of a repayment plan, you had to work for a non-profits 501C3, the government. You paid, you know, 10 years worth of payments didn’t have to be consecutive, and then you were forgiven tax free. You can, you’re eligible for forgiveness, you’re still eligible forgiveness outside of PSLF, we call it non PSLF. The, it’s a little bit different, you still have to have the right loans and the right plan, it doesn’t matter who you work for. So you can work for a for-profit. But instead of paying it for 10 years, you are paying it for 20 or 25 years of their graduate loans. And then that forgiveness amount is taxable in the year forgiveness, whereas PSLF, it’s a tax free event. So in before, you know, the new, the new plan, the save plan, typically the calculus was if your debt to income ratio was higher than two to one. So meaning I made 100,000 and I had $300,000 in debt, my debt to income ratio was three to one in that case, then a non-PSLF strategy was on the table. Because by the time we looked at $300,000, and a standard or even a refi, by the time we looked at that compared to a an income driven plan, plus, you know, a couple $100, or whatever that was invested for a tax bomb, what you paid per month, and what you paid in total was less than what you would pay in standard.

Now with the save plan and the payments a little bit different that it’s it’s it’s changed a little bit. So I would say that, you know, and the other thing that’s changed, too, Tim, is that, you know, we’re, if if we were looking at non-PSLF, we were also looking at like, typically a refi. So like if we, if our rates were 6% Wait it, you know, you might be able to go out. And for the same 10 year, find a 4.5% or 5%. So you’d get a little bit of a better rate. That’s changed too, right. So now what we’re having a way is a non peel PSLF strategy, versus staying in the federal system with potentially a better interest rate, but meet just maybe keeping the standard, you know, the standard plan. So if you have $200,000 in debt, the standard plan is going to be $2,171 for 10 years. So I think the play here is potentially looking at a refi which I don’t know if you’re necessarily going to be you know, I would look at a 10 year if you can go a little bit more aggressive seven year, five year. But your your, you know, your your payments going to go up accordingly. So, again, the goalposts have changed a little bit here. You know, I would say that, you know, I would say that probably a non-PSLF strategy here if I’m assuming you’re making $125, $130, is probably not the way to go. So probably something in the standard, maybe even being more aggressive in the standard or, again, looking at refis if rates come down, you know. I’m not sure what the 10 year if you do an apples to apples, but there are some benefit, there are still benefits to staying in the federal that I wouldn’t want there to be a pretty, pretty significant interest rate decrease for me to move off into a private loan. And that’s irreversible. So before Tammy, we would just say, Hey, this is kind of the rules of thumb, this is the way to look at it. But it’s a lot different because of the new save plan, the interest rates, etc. You know, so that’s basically where we’re at today.

Tim Ulbrich 35:35

Yeah, I think as you pointed out, the income of this individual is a really important piece of information we don’t have, right because if they’re making $180k, versus they’re making $95k, that’s going to impact that debt to income ratio. And to your point with the new save plan, that ratio, in effect has gotten more favorable. What I mean by that, is because of the change in the plan, the debt to income threshold could potentially be lower and it might make sense to pursue a non PSLF pathway. And, you know, let’s zoom back out, right? We’ve been kind of preaching on not not getting into the silos have to decisions, when you’re talking about hey, do we go more aggressive? Do we not that gets back to conversations about cash flow? What does the budget actually support? What other goals are in mind? You know, are we someone who graduated in their mid to late 20s? Or is this someone that pharmacy’s a second career, and they’re behind on investing in retirement – all of those things, just a few examples are going to impact, right, what decision we make with the student loans and how it ties into other decisions that are happening in the financial plan. So, Tim, great stuff.

These are just a few of the types of questions and conversations that we are seeing inside of our new online community called YFP Plus if you’re not already familiar with YFP Plus, we’d love to have you check out that community. Inside you’ll find exclusive on demand courses, We’ve got weekly live events, we have monthly themes and challenges. So for example, this past month in February, we were talking all about preparing for Uncle Sam and taxes bringing in Sean our CPA into the community. For the month of March, it’s all about FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early. We’ve got several events lined up throughout the month, the space to ask questions of our financial planners and our tax professionals and to be in a community of other like minded individuals. It’s really an incredible community. We hope you’ll check it out and use our 30 day free trial to determine whether or not it’s a good long term fit for you. You can do that by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/membership to get more information on YFP Plus. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/membership. Thanks so much for joining us. We’ll see you next week. Take care.

Tim Ulbrich 37:37

[DISCLAIMER]

As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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