YFP 134: One Couple’s Coast FI Journey


One Couple’s Coast FI Journey

Cory & Cassie Jenks join Tim Ulbrich to share their specific path and plan towards achieving financial independence through a Coast FI approach. They talk about why and how they have aggressively saved for retirement early in their careers, how they have worked together to achieve their goals, and how Cory’s side hustle doing improv comedy has helped their financial plan all while filling a bucket of doing something he loves.

About Today’s Guests

Dr. Cory Jenks PharmD, BCPS, BCACP, earned his PharmD from the University of South Carolina in 2011 and completed a PGY1 residency at the Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System in 2012. His past pharmacy experience has included time as a retail pharmacist, outpatient clinical pharmacist, and inpatient clinical pharmacist. Currently, he practices as an Ambulatory Care Clinical Pharmacy Specialist where he applies his passion for lifestyle interventions in the management of chronic disease. Cory is also an accomplished improv comedian, having started on his comedy journey in 2013. Since then, Cory has coached, taught, and performed improv for thousands of people. His passion for improv comedy led him to start ImprovRx, where he provides seminars and workshops for businesses and healthcare organizations on applying the skills of improv comedy for their employees and leaders.

Dr. Cassie Jenks, DNP, earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Arizona in 2009, and her Master’s and Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of Arizona in 2015. She currently practices in the Outpatient Pulmonary Department at the Southern Arizona VA. Beyond her pulmonary practice, Cassie holds a Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and loves pursing her passion for physical fitness and nutrition. She lives in Tucson with her (very handsome) husband and 20-month-old son.

Summary

Cory and Cassie Jenks share their unique journey to achieving financial independence through a modified Coast FI approach. Cory, a pharmacist at the VA, and Cassie, a Nurse Practitioner at the VA, were born in Tucson, Arizona and live there today. Cory became interested in personal finance when he came across the Mr. Money Moustache blog. He thought that they were doing a good job with their finances, but quickly realized there was a lot more they could be doing. Cory was empowered to dig into personal finance and saving for retirement and knew he was capable of learning it. This ultimately sparked his interest and really pushed him to focus on where their money was going.

Cory and Cassie are using a Coast FI approach to financial independence, which is a variation of FIRE (financial independence, retire early). A purist FIRE approach says that you should save enough for 25x your annual expenses which you can then withdraw indefinitely at a 4% rate. To get to that point, you have to work really hard for 10 to 20 years. Cory explains that FIRE is a very viable path and if they would have discovered it in their mid 20s before they had kids, they might have taken that approach.

After having a child, they realized that they wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. They worked with a financial planner previously who mentioned three different pathways to saving. One of those pathways sparked their interest and Cory later learned that they were using a Coast FI approach. Coast FI (financial independence) says that if you save enough at a high rate for a short period of time early on in your life and career, it’s going to have time to compound and grow to what it needs to be by the time you want to retire. This allows you to scale back your work, or stop entirely, and use your time in a different way. Cory and Cassie don’t want to hit a number and then completely stop working and contributing to retirement, however they do want to contribute less and work less while spending more time with family and doing things they really want to be doing. Cory and Cassie’s why behind pursuing this approach are that they want control and flexibility in their schedule and are ultimately seeking more time, not money.

To figure out your Coast FI number, look at your current spending and expenses to see what you need now vs what you may need in retirement. Currently, their savings plan will give them $80,000-$100,000 a year in income. They are saving for retirement by maxing out their thrift savings accounts, a backdoor Roth IRA account and they then put any excess into a tax brokerage account all while paying extra on their mortgage principal each month.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Joining me today is Cassie and Cory Jenks to talk about their journey towards financial independence. Now we’ve talked before on this show about the Financial Independence Retire Early movement, aka the FIRE movement. And we did that in episodes 104 and 111. And we’re going to talk today with Cassie and Cory about a modified approach to FIRE, the Coast FI journey. And I think this is really going to resonate with many of our listeners that don’t want to necessarily grind it out with super aggressive saving rates for a long period of time but really also don’t want to follow a traditional path to retirement, which is work for 40+ years, save up a bunch of money, and then sail off into the sunset and hope there’s enough time and health to enjoy all that life has to offer. So Cassie and Cory, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Cory Jenks: Thanks so much for having us on.

Cassie Jenks: Yeah, thank you. We’re excited to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: I am excited as well. And I’m typically a ladies-first kind of guy, but I’m going to break that pattern today and Cory, have you introduce yourself first as you are the pharmacy representative here in the relationship. So give us a quick background on your path into pharmacy, where you went to school, and the current work that you’re doing.

Cory Jenks: Sure, well, I grew up — we live here in Tucson, and I grew up here in Tucson. And so I made the obvious choice of going across the country to the University of South Carolina for undergrad and pharmacy school. And so when I was there, I had chosen pharmacy as a path in high school, and so I picked my college based on the availability of a college of pharmacy. And really enjoyed my time as a Gamecock, and when I was finished, I realized that all of my family was here back home in Tucson. And as much as I loved it out in the southeast, I wanted to come back home. And so I came back to Tucson and did a residency here at the VA in Tucson. And I’ve been there ever since I graduated in 2011.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So you have one of the highly sought-after VA jobs that I feel like many pharmacists — Tim Church, our very own at YFP, works at the VA in West Palm Beach, Florida, and loves it for many reasons. And I think it’s just such a good example of the level of practice that we often think of as the ideal level of practice for what a pharmacist should be doing. So Cassie, with that background, tell us a little bit about the work that you’re doing, your background, and a little bit about where you went to school.

Cassie Jenks: Sure. I’m also in healthcare, so I stayed here in Tucson. I went to the University of Arizona for my undergrad. And then got my bachelor’s of nursing in 2009. And after doing that for a few years, got a little restless. I toyed with the idea of med school but decided I wanted to have a life.

Cory Jenks: She met a strapping young pharmacy resident in 2012 that sort of —

Cassie Jenks: Yeah, met Cory —

Tim Ulbrich: That’ll happen.

Cassie Jenks: The year we met, I ended up starting grad school that year and became a nurse practitioner. And I finished with that in 2015. So I’m at the VA also, and I’ve been there pretty much since before I was even a nurse. So I’ve kind of grown up at the VA throughout my healthcare career.

Tim Ulbrich: So do you guys get to commute together or are schedules different enough that you’re kind of off sync with one another?

Cory Jenks: We had a good run of commuting. And then we had our first kid, and so the coordination of day care dropoff and pickup has sort of put a damper on the carpooling. But we did for a long time. And despite what many couples might experience, we actually really enjoyed the extra time together in the car. It’s something I kind of miss.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. And I was curious, we’re going to talk in a little bit later about cutting expenses and just curious if that was one area you were able to become more efficient on in terms of obviously gas and car maintenance. So let’s talk — before we dig into the Coast Fi and your journey to financial independence and how that differs from both the traditional, purist FIRE model as well as a more traditional retirement approach, I would love for our listeners to know why did you even become interested in this topic of personal finance to begin with? I’m always fascinated about where does this spark of an interest in this topic of money come from? Because I think you really see when people catch fire with this, it really just takes off. And often, in a couple, it can be for different reasons and maybe even different motivation levels, which is OK. So Cassie, why don’t you start? Talk to us a little bit about why and how you became interested in the topic of personal finance.

Cassie Jenks: Well, I’m going to have to give Cory some credit here. I hate to admit this ever. And especially so publicly. But he really started this for us when he came across the Mr. Money Mustache blog. He can tell you a little bit more about how he found that, but he kind of dove into that rabbit hole. And we both were always reading books and trying to learn new things, so whenever one of us learned something, the other person usually is at least willing to entertain the idea. So I started diving in myself, and it was kind of like a red pill moment. Once we started looking, we couldn’t stop.

Tim Ulbrich: So Cory, let’s talk about the triple M, the Mr. Money Mustache. So what was it about Mr. Money Mustache or even maybe some of what else you were reading that really ignited this passion to really get your financial house in order and then ultimately be on this path toward financial independence?

Cory Jenks: I think it was the gut punch of thinking that we were doing really well and realizing that there was so much more that we could be doing. We had worked with a financial adviser, and he actually had laid out — as we’ll talk about later — the different paths of savings. And so we were saving what we thought was well, and we had a couple vehicles we were using that maybe we regret, whole-life, for example, or high fee investment, after-tax investments. But it finally empowered me to feel like I can learn this. And so it’s just you read one article and then another, and it links to another blog that talks about it. And so from there, that like sparked our interest of wow, we’re spending — we’re saving “well,” but we could be saving so much more. And where is all of this money going that we work so hard to earn?

Cassie Jenks: Yeah.

Cory Jenks: And it was like a couple — it was like two periods. It was like the initial, this was 2017 of this freakout of like, oh my gosh, what are we doing? And then the sort of second impetus was as we got pregnant for the first time, thinking about moving to a new house, raising a family at a different place, we wanted to save for a down payment on our next house, and we looked down, and we’re like, well, we’ve read through Mr. Money Mustache, we’ve cut a lot of expenses, but where else is this money going that we’re going to save for our next house? And so it was just coming across YFP and any number of other different podcasts and books. And because we had done Mr. Money Mustache, it was a lot of library time. But.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think you hit the nail on the head, you know, the magic question of where is all this money going? That’s what we hear a lot from people in our community. I know Jess and I often talk about that. We’ve talked and thought that in our own journey. And one of the other, Cassie, you said, and Cory, you alluded to, which I’ll ask you a question at the end about what are some of the recommended resources or books, but I sense from both of you really a passion to learn, you know, a passion to read, to read blogs, to read books, to listen to podcasts, and I think that’s such an important takeaway for our community that man, once you catch that fire, it is a rabbit hole that you go down. And I think that’s true of so many things in life. But here, we’re talking about really catching that personal finance fire to say, OK, what would financial independence mean for us as the Jenks, as a family, what would this mean for us? And what are we willing to sacrifice to get there? And what would that sacrifice look like? And how do we get on the same page of doing that? So let’s dig into your approach to financial independence, which we’re going to refer to here as the Coast FI journey. And we’re going to link to an article in the show notes. And we know that you’re taking a little bit different path and modifying it, but really going to compare that to a traditional kind of purist FIRE approach, and as I alluded to in the into, a typical traditional retirement savings model, which is really work for 40 years, maybe save 5%, 10%, 15% of your income and then hope, as I mentioned, that you’re happy and healthy enough to enjoy everything that life has to offer. So Cory, walk us through briefly — even though we’ve talked about it in previous episodes of the podcast — walk us through the purist FIRE approach. What is FIRE? And then what really differentiates the Coast FI path from that purist FIRE approach?

Cory Jenks: Yeah. So you’ve had a couple great guests talk about their FIRE journey. But it’s essentially Financially Independent Retire Early. So you save enough and the number that is commonly used is you save enough until you have 25 times your annual expenses and then theoretically, you can withdraw that indefinitely at a 4% rate. And to get there, basically you’re going to have to really bust it for 10-20 years, depending on what your savings rate, depending on what your own spending rate is. And as Mr. Money Mustache and hundreds of other bloggers and people have shown, it’s a very viable path. And I think that if we had found that in our mid-20s before kids, like, OK, we could have sucked it up and both worked full-time hardcore to get there. But then we had a kid and realized we want to have time with them, as much as he can be a little pain. And so I came across this idea of Coast FI. And so the FI being Financially Independent. And this says that you, if you save enough at a high rate for a short period of time early on in your life and career, you’re going to have the time and compound interest to have it grow to what you need it to be by the time you retire so that if you hit this Coast FI number, you can scale back the work you’re doing, you can take a job that has a little bit more risk, knowing that you don’t need to continue to contribute to your retirement in order to hit that number. Now I love how you like to personalize this idea of personal finance because traditional FIRE people would get angry at you for not just going all the way through and maybe Coast FI people would get angry at us because our version of it is to try to get to a number but then still work some in order to save some. I don’t think we want to hit a number and then stop. So our version is like to get to the number we want and then have the freedom to contribute a little bit less as our lifestyle changes with our family.

Tim Ulbrich: And I love, love that, the personal approach. I think for many pharmacists and maybe some heard our previous episodes about FIRE and said, ‘Hey, that’s me. I really want to be there. I want to aggressively save for 10 years, I want to get to this 25x income or the amount that I would need and do the 4% withdrawal and stop working because I either don’t like my job or want to do something else,’ whatever. But I think many others, what you’re describing here is what really would resonate as well to say, ‘Hey, I want to put myself in a position of financial independence. Maybe I even love my job, but you don’t know what life will throw at you.’ It could be that you want to have more time with family, it could be that eventually hours get cut or positions get cut or one spouse in a relationship wants to have an option to work part-time or there’s a sick family member, whatever, but you put yourself in a position because you’ve gotten to some point of financial independence that as I like to say, the exponential curve of savings takes off. And I know our listeners who are in the weeds of saving right now, especially in that first five to seven to 10 years, you know what I’m talking about where you’re saving, saving, saving, grinding it out. It feels like it’s not taking off from a compound interest standpoint. And then boom! All of a sudden that really starts growing and you see that exponential growth. So Cassie, what resonated with you about this model? And really, how did you buy into this as a vision for your family?

Cassie Jenks: So the interesting thing is way back when we thought we were making smart choices and working with a financial advisor, he presented us with three different saving strategies. One was the kind of middle-of-the-road standard, save a little every year until you’re retired, one was you wait way too long and then you have to save a bunch at the end, and then he showed us one where you save aggressive up front and then it was 0s from there down and you were done saving. And we both saw that and not even knowing anything about FIRE or Coast FI, we thought, that looks smart because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. So that’s almost kind of always been our mindset to begin with was always do as much as you can up front. And then as I got into my working career, like you said, it’s not about not liking your job or not wanting to work. I realized I want control. I want flexibility, and I want to be able to make decisions that are the best for my family right now. And so that’s where bringing in the concepts of FIRE and Coast really made that initial idea really turn into what it is now.

Cory Jenks: Yeah, we were like accidentally Coast FI. Like we were doing this thing that we had not labeled on the Internet yet. And so I happened to come across this article about Coast FI, and I was like, “Honey, I think this is what we’re doing and now there’s a label for it.”

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. You should have branded it back then.

Cassie Jenks: Totally.

Tim Ulbrich: So you know, Cassie, one of the things that you mentioned when you met with the advisor that presented three different options, you know, the one that really resonated with you guys was aggressive upfront savings and then you can obviously continue to save, but you really could take the heat off in terms of needing to continue to save at that rate. And I think while that may resonate with many because obviously our listeners are very well educated on compound interest and time-value of money and the earlier you save, the better, the two biggest barriers I typically see to being able to do that model as it’s presented to them are student loans and that they may be in a home position that is sucking up such a big percentage of their income. So talk to us about those two areas for you guys: student loans and then ultimately the home — and I’m guessing maybe there’s some lessons here learned as well along your journey. But how have you been able to do that, despite what many pharmacists are facing, typically in high student loan debt as well as usually home expenses that certainly eat into that available income?

Cassie Jenks: So for the home expenses, I believe it was 2017, Cory did an Excel spreadsheet. And we looked at where every single penny we spent went, kind of coming back to what we were talking about earlier, where does your money go? And that was when we really started dialing down our home expenses. And we looked at all the places where we were spending money that wasn’t adding value to our life. So we stopped buying books and started going to the library. We started getting less expensive haircuts.

Cory Jenks: Cassie doesn’t charge me anything for my haircuts now.

Cassie Jenks: Yeah, I cut Cory’s hair now.

Cory Jenks: Huge savings.

Cassie Jenks: You know, they sound like little things. But we cut our phone bill, and we got rid of cable. And when we started adding all this up, it really changed our monthly expenses dramatically.

Cory Jenks: Yeah, there were a couple missteps when it comes to our housing and our student loans. I guess chronologically, I, again, am a proud Gamecock for life. But my dad teaches at the University of Arizona, not in the College of Pharmacy, but I could have had significantly reduced tuition. But they wanted me to go out of state, and so I did. And those were back in the good old days when it was only $100,000 of student loan debt that I had coming out.

Tim Ulbrich: So Cory, I think as I understand, working with the VA really afforded you an opportunity to have some of your student loans, even though you went to an out-of-state institution, had a cheaper option available, really afforded you the opportunity to be able to take some of the weight off your shoulders so that you could free up income to do other things. So tell us a little bit about what the VA provided for you in terms of student loan forgiveness.

Cory Jenks: Yeah, I was very fortunate at the time that they were offering student loan reduction program. It’s EDRP, Education Debt Reduction Program, that basically you give them your student loan debt, and they give you an amount that if you work for five years, you get x amount per year that you work. It’s an incentive to keep you employed at that particular institution. So I was fortunate enough to get that, and that really helped to cut down on my student loan burden, obviously, and I’m very fortunate to have gotten it. And so I was able to pay my loans off by 2017 I think they were totally gone. And so when you take that amount out every month, it really frees up what you have to work towards a goal like this. And for Cassie, her nurse prac school, we almost cash flowed that. She came out with like $7,000 or $8,000 of student loan debt. So that was another fortunate thing where we found each other and were able to help each other out in our journey. Once she was out and making full-time prac salary, we didn’t have that burden of her loans.

Tim Ulbrich: I love the ‘nurse prac’ lingo. I’ve never heard that before, but I feel like I’m in the club now. So that’s good.

Cassie Jenks: Nurse practitioner is just such a mouthful.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, right? So we’ve established with this model what worked for you guys is really saying, OK, we’re going to aggressively save up — not to the level of a traditional FIRE purist approach but more so than a we’re going to save a small percentage over 40 years, we’re going to save more up front, we’re going to let that really accrue in a short period of time, and then of course, we’re going to allow compound interest to continue to do its thing over your career so you can achieve your goals but also have options to reduce hours, change jobs, stay the course, whatever. But you’re in a position of decision-making. And we established that what, in part, allowed you to do that was putting yourself in a position obviously from student loans, we talked about some of the home buying, so I want to get in the weeds a little bit more, Cory. Can you talk to us about some more details of what is your savings goal? How did you determine that number for our listeners that are maybe trying to figure out OK, what does this look like? Where do I begin? And where are you saving that money? Because I know that’s obviously a point of interest and hey, I’ve got lots of different options and should I do this in traditional retirement accounts or brokerage accounts? So talk to us a little bit more about the specifics.

Cory Jenks: Yeah. I think what we did when we were trying to figure out our “Coast FI number” was to look at what our current spending rate is now and adjust around within our budget — we meet every month and have a little budget party — and so look at what our expenses we will have now, what our expenses we likely won’t have at our time of retirement, and just come up with a number. And then we padded some to that just assuming there could be other things that we want to do or will come up. So that’s where we came up with our number of somewhere between $80,000-100,000 a year of income in retirement, which is more than we spend now. But no one’s going to be upset having a little bit more than they need. And so that’s where we came up with that number. And of course, we haven’t heard the YFP Crystal Ball segment yet, so we don’t know what life is going to be like in 30 years. So this is our best guess, our best idea of what we’ll need.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Cory Jenks: And so what we do to save, we maximize our Thrift Savings Plans, which is the government word for 401k. And we also utilize backdoor Roth IRAs and any excess that we have, we just put into an after-tax brokerage account at Vanguard in just the total stock market fund. And that way, for us, that’s our other — when there’s nowhere else to put it in a tax-advantaged place or retirement-advantaged place, we put it into Vanguard. And then something that isn’t necessarily “saving,” but we do pay down our mortgage principal extra every month as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Yeah, I was just trying to kind of figure out — and I think this helps our listeners, you know, if you think about a traditional 401k or here a TSP, we’re looking at $19,000 a year. You think about a backdoor Roth IRA is $6,000 per year per individual. We’re going to see those go up obviously in 2020, but here we’re talking about 2019. So you start to put the numbers together, and you guys are making big savings progress, obviously those are big numbers, it’s a big chunk of your income, but it’s not the massive percentages that you see in a traditional FIRE type of model. So I think that really highlights the differences in what we’re talking about here. So I want to dig in, Cassie, to a little bit more of the why. And we’ve dodged around it a little bit, you’ve mentioned obviously for you guys a pivotal moment was the birth of your son. But talk to us a little bit more about your why, your motivation for achieving financial independence and really trying to get to this point of what’s behind the effort and at some level, the grind of both cutting expenses as well as aggressively savings, which means that you’re of course giving up some things in the short term. So talk to us a little bit about what really resonates for you, what’s most important, and then how did you and Cory have this conversation and ultimately get on the same page?

Cassie Jenks: Probably the word that would sum it up the best is control, getting to have control over how you spend your day, how you spend your time. I’ve always just not understood this idea that we’re all supposed to work 40 hours a week. It just didn’t ever make sense to me. And being able to pursue other passions, there’s things we both — we don’t dislike our jobs, but there’s things we really want to do that we can’t fit into the weekends and hobbies we want to pursue. Having time for family I think most people probably resonate with that.

Tim Ulbrich: Totally.

Cassie Jenks: Getting a balance of feeling like we are raising our child but also getting to be productive employees at the same time.

Tim Ulbrich: And Cory, what about for you?

Cory Jenks: Yeah, I think that the ultimate commodity we’re saving is not money. It’s time. And when you kind of lay out, we’re weirdos. We do a budget, but we also do a time budget every month, and so we sit down on our calendar and we have our friends that we want to see every month, we have family, we have — like Cassie said — our different hobbies and pursuits. There’s not a whole lot of other time left over after five days a week of work. And so to us, we use the term sacrificing. I think Cassie and I, we talk a lot about the gratitude is a word we throw around a lot, the idea of wanting to work less is not that we’re not grateful for all that we have, but we are very fortunate in the jobs that we pursued. My parents were both teachers, her father was in the military, so we grew up quite middle class. And so we’re very fortunate to what we have. So it’s to have that time, but it really doesn’t for us feel like it’s a sacrifice. I think we’re fortunate we found each other and that we have very similar values, dreams, ideas about money. And we frame it, we take care of veterans every day. They’ve had much rougher days at work than we’ve had. Our grandparents grew up in the depression, and they had to be frugal out of necessity, and we’re fortunate to be frugal out of kind of the privileged world that we live in now. And so when we frame it like that, it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. And then the ultimate goal or endpoint of that is to have more time with the people we care about and to do the other pursuits aside from our 9-5 day jobs that we care about.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I really admire, Cory and Cassie, just — I respect and understand that you guys are on the same page with this, which is awesome. When two people really come together and they have a vision and you start to execute it but also don’t want our listeners to take for granted that this is hard. Two people, even when you’re often on the same page, you know, we know the friction money can cause. And I sense very much for the two of you an openness of conversation, a willingness to work to get there. And I think it’s such a reminder for me and Jess and for our listeners that it’s so fruitful when you can have those really big conversations. And then the budget, the month-to-month, really becomes an execution of the vision. And I think that’s when things start to get I guess “fun.” I don’t know if we ever use fun and budget in the same sentence. But budgeting can be such a grind. But when we’re talking about things like gratitude and really being able to capture more time and really establishing more of that family atmosphere and thinking about the next generation, and that’s what gets me excited is your 18-month-old, the position that you’re going to put your family in going forward because of all the things that you’re setting up but also everything that he’s going to observe throughout this journey, said and unsaid, is really incredible and inspiring to hear. Now, I do have to ask, Cassie, I have heard Cory say “budget party,” and I’ve heard him talk about spreadsheets. So complete nerd, obviously, of course. You know, does that resonate with you? Or for maybe some of our listeners where maybe they’re married to a financial nerd, but that’s not them. What advice would you have in terms of how someone who maybe isn’t that budget part of your spreadsheet person can really come into the fold and make sure this is a priority to the couple?

Cassie Jenks: I think talking about the why is really what gets us on the same page. I have to admit, I do kind of love spreadsheets myself.

Tim Ulbrich: OK, OK.

Cassie Jenks: But —

Cory Jenks: She also loves dark chocolate, so I get a bar of that out and it’s not hard to get her in front of that computer.

Cassie Jenks: Make your budget party fun. Like we sit down on the couch together, we have a little treat. And like Cory said, it’s our financial budget, but it’s our time budget. So we get excited making up our plans. But for us, I think what works is just that openness that everybody has to navigate finances in the relationship in a way that works for you. I totally respect that. But what’s worked for us is we know every dollar each other spends. Every account is shared, there’s really nothing hidden between us. So we have a lot of accountability. There have definitely been times where I have — I’m a little bit more of a spender than Cory. I’m not a heavy spender, but there’s times when I have an impulse to buy something. And I think, he’s going to see that, can I really justify needing this purchase right now? And that’s worked for us because we’re comfortable with that accountability together.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think it’s important for our listeners to hear in your story that it’s not just all a grind, but I sense that the two of you are having fun along the way. And it’s not just all delayed gratification. I mean, that’s a big part of it, but it’s not no fun today and all fun later. So I think one great example of that is, you know, especially the year the two of you had in 2016, which was a 30-for-30 year. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? I think that’s such a great example of having fun along the way.

Cory Jenks: Yeah. So in 2016, if anyone wants to guess our age, we turned 30 in 2016. And we were kid-free, dual income, feeling pretty good. And we wanted to do something special for turning 30 to commemorate it. And my dad — I have to give him credit — came up with this idea probably after watching ESPN of like 30-for-30. Do 30 fun, interesting things over your 30th year. Now, for us, there was some really nice trips. There was also some trips to museums, some hikes around Tucson. But it really was a special year, and as a lifelong Cubs fan and somehow who she married into it, we ended up going to a World Series game because — and we didn’t go into debt for it. We were financially prepared for it. So it was a year that allowed us a lot of fun, but it wasn’t something we look back on with regret financially. We loved every minute of it.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think for — as I heard of that and I’m guessing our listeners think the same thing, you know, that concept can be done in a very inexpensive or a very, very, very expensive way, right? I think it’s to be just as much about the memories and the planning and the fun and could be day trips, it could be something more extravagant. But I love the creativity and really making that a priority for your family. And I’m guessing you guys have a vision to do something similar as your family continues to grow. Cory, I want to ask you about your side hustle because we talk about side hustles a lot on this show, and I think you have a really unique side hustle doing improv comedy. Talk to us a little bit about that, where the motivation, where the inspiration comes from, and where you’re currently doing this work?

Cory Jenks: Yeah, so I’ve always enjoyed comedy. I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live and Simpsons as a kid. And in pharmacy school, there was an improv group at the University of South Carolina, but I was just very focused on school at the time. And so once I finished my residency, was dating Cassie, she got me an improv class through a local theater here in Tucson back in 2013. And I just did it and loved it and kept doing it. And have taught, performed, coached it. But something that really sticks out for me is that the tools of improvisation: listening, communication, teamwork, are all things that as pharmacists, healthcare providers — Cassie’s done the classes too — they’re useful and really help you connect with your patients, help you get the most out of what can be really frustrating work environments. And so doing this now for seven years, I was like, pharmacists should do this. And I’m fortunate enough to help teach a section of it here at the University of Arizona. But my side hustle now, ImprovRx, is taking this to other healthcare organizations, other colleges, other businesses, trying to teach people these tools because love it or hate it — I think we have great intergenerational workforces, but I think millennials, which Cassie and I are a part of, the generation below us and every generation can use an improvement on these skills. And not to stereotype pharmacists or pharmacy students, but we’re generally kind of Type A people.

Tim Ulbrich: Just a little bit.

Cory Jenks: Just a little bit. We were talking about how much fun spreadsheets were just a couple of minutes ago. So I’m going and I’m doing this and I’m teaching this to other organizations and in students. And I’m getting a lot of really interesting and fun feedback from people who are like, oh my gosh, yeah, you could use this to be a better listener for a patient because, you know, when it comes down to it, we can’t control a lot of our work environments. But if you can be a better listener for a patient one day, if you could be a great team member on your healthcare team, be an ear, be a better empathizer, it’s a really great tool. So that’s kind of what I’m working on right now. And it’s really exciting to get to share that.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that. And I think that’s such a great example we talk about with side hustles — and shoutout to Tim Church, he does a great job with this on our side hustle series. But I think the best side hustles are those that certainly there’s a financial piece, it helps you accelerate your goals, but it’s those things that really hit into a spot that gives you that fulfillment and allows you to serve and meet others and really identify an area that you’re passionate about but also you can essentially generate some income and make a business opportunity out of that. So I think that’s just a great example of that. Great work on what you’ve done. And I’m guessing we may have some people listening, whether it’s from colleges of pharmacy, state organizations, companies, that say, “Hey, I want to work with Cory. I want to learn more about what he’s doing with ImprovRx,” or maybe just has a question about something we’ve talked about here tonight on the show with Coast FI or what does your budgeting process look like. So where can our listeners get in touch with you if they have additional questions?

Cory Jenks: Well, I am on LinkedIn, so my name will be spelled in the show notes there. I’m also on Twitter, @CoryJenksPharmD, and then my Instagram’s more of a fun place, so it’s @pharmacomedian.

Tim Ulbrich: Love that.

Cory Jenks: And then Cassie, you’re on Twitter as well.

Cassie Jenks: I’m on, yeah, Twitter and Facebook and Instagram as —

Cory Jenks: @NPCassieJenks.

Cassie Jenks: @NPCassieJenks, yeah.

Cory Jenks: But we love talking about this stuff, whether it’s improvisation, finance, working in healthcare, it’s a really cool world we live in where I can send YFP an email saying, “Here’s a cool article about what I think my wife and I are doing.”

Tim Ulbrich: I know, right?

Cory Jenks: And we get to share that. And I think that’s really special. We really appreciate this opportunity to share our little slice of financial life with folks.

Tim Ulbrich: And I appreciate that. I’m not going to let you off the hook, though. You’re both readers, and I’m a big reader, and I’m building my 2020 reading list. So I need a book recommendation from each of you. What have you read recently that, you know, you just said, “Hey, this is a home run,” or maybe something you’re currently reading that you’re drawing inspiration from?

Cory Jenks: Alright, well, one of the books that I read at the beginning of 2020 was called “Atomic Habits.” And it’s a great book about how to break down habits — it’s not even about setting goals, it’s just kind of tricking yourself into having a better process with going about achieving your different goals. From that, I’ve developed a system for like a To-Do list that he mentions. It’s called an Eisenhower Box. People can Google it on their own time. But it’s really helped me organize all the different facets of my life, and I kind of get hung up in all of the different minutiae that can slow you down and send you into wormholes.

Tim Ulbrich: Love it. Cassie, what about you?

Cassie Jenks: Well, I have to say that Cory gave me this suggestion, so I have to give him a little credit here. But “Your Money or Your Life,” fantastic book that really dives into how much time you have to spend to make all the purchases you make in your life and to really reframe how we think about money and thinking of it more as currency of time than anything else. And that probably really drove home for me our why and what we’re trying to do with our financial journey.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Great recommendations. We’ll link to both of those in the show notes. Cory and Cassie, thank you so much for taking time to come on the show to share your journey, share your why for what you’re doing here with the Coast FI, and I think just a different perspective for our audience to consider. I know you have inspired me, and I’m confident you’re going to do the same for our community. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Cory Jenks: Certainly.

Cassie Jenks: Yeah, thank you.

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CIT Bank High Yield Savings and Money Market Account Review

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When you consider inflation, money sitting in regular checking or savings accounts can lose a lot of purchasing power over time given most interest rates are essentially next to nothing.

Sure you avoid market risk or the risk of keeping cash in other investments but there are other options that are less risky and can yield at least some return. These include high yield savings accounts and money market accounts.

High yield savings accounts and money market accounts are great options to house your emergency fund or when saving for large purchases such as a home, vehicle, or an awesome vacation because you have the ability to keep your money safe while earning interest.

The interest you can earn varies and will fluctuate depending on the Federal Reserve but, generally, you can get somewhere around 1% right now.

I recently came across CIT bank when evaluating high yield savings and money market accounts as they offer some of the highest rates available right now with a couple of different options that get close to 1%.

About CIT Bank

CIT Bank has been in business since 2000. CIT Bank is the banking subsidiary of CIT Group and is one of the top 50 U.S. Banks (According to Monitor Daily). They have over 60 physical locations in California and also operate as an online bank. They offer solutions for personal and business banking with a focus on savings products in addition to home lending.

As an FDIC bank, they have received a lot of recognition for their savings products including the Ascent’s Best Online Savings Account for 2020 and GoBankingRates 10 Best Money Market Account for 2020.

They have a Better Business Bureau rating of B-. Of the complaints made in the past 12 months, they appear to be related to financing and lending and not their savings products. Their Trustpilot rating is a 4.6/5 out of 191 reviews.

CIT Bank Savings Builder

The CIT Bank Savings Builder is a high yield savings account that currently offers an APY (Annual Percentage Yield) of up to 0.85% and requires a minimum deposit of $100. There are no fees to open or maintain the account.

To get the maximum APY you have two options: Maintain a balance of $25,000 or more or make monthly contributions of $100 or more.

On each evaluation day (the fourth business day prior to the end of the month), accounts with an end-of-day balance of at least $25,000 on the Evaluation Day or with at least one deposit of $100 or more that posts to the account during the Evaluation Period will earn the Upper Tier interest rate of 0.85% during the next Evaluation Period.

Through the CIT Bank mobile app, you can deposit checks remotely and make transfers.

CIT Money Market Account

The CIT Money Market Account currently has an APY of 1.40%. Similar to the Savings Builder account, you need $100 to open an account and there are no fees to open the account or monthly service fees.

The major difference from the Savings Builder is that you don’t have any balance or contribution requirements to maintain the APY. In addition, since it’s a money market account, you can make payments from it like you would from a checking account. However, this is limited to $50 per day if you’re paying an individual or making a Paypal payment.

There is a limit on 6 transactions per month per the federal rule, known as Reg D, which comes from the Federal Reserve with a penalty fee of $10 per excessive transaction and $50 monthly cap.

There is also a bill pay feature you can use from the app or online account as well and unlike the person to person max, the limit is up to what you have in your account balance.

Similar to the Savings Builder, through the CIT Bank mobile app, you can also deposit checks remotely.

Comparison of CIT Accounts

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My Experience So Far

What I really liked about their savings account options is the low amount to get started. Some banks and credit unions require thousands either to get started and/or to receive their highest marketed interest rate.

I decided to go with their Money Market Account because it offers a little higher APY compared to the Savings Builder and gives me a little more flexibility on how I want to deposit funds given there is no contribution or balance requirement beyond the initial $100.

The application process was smooth and straightforward until I got to the final steps. For some reason, I received a message that they couldn’t verify my identity and that someone would contact me within 5 days to get more information. However, the next day I received an email that my account was successfully set up.

In addition to that slight delay, when attempting to make the initial deposit, my bank was not able to be instantly verified despite going through multiple steps to verify so I had to wait two days for micro-deposits to be made in order to confirm. This didn’t surprise me though as I had to do this multiple times in the past.

The overall process to get the account up and running and funded took about 3 days.

The mobile app has most of the features and functionality as their online portal, was easy to set up and is pretty user-friendly. CIT bank is connected to Zelle, so you can easily pay someone if needed. You can also deposit checks and make external transfers. However, only through the online portal can you make your transfers between banks on a recurring basis in addition to setting up bill pay.

Conclusion

CIT Bank offers one of the highest APY on their savings and money market accounts making it a great option for your emergency fund or a short or long-term savings goal. And you only need $100 to open an account. Although their Money Market Account and Savings Builder offer a similar APY, the money market account gives you more flexibility since there is no balance or contribution requirement and also allows you to pay bills or other people.

YFP 133: Your Financial Toolkit for a Successful 2020


Your Financial Toolkit for a Successful 2020

On the first episode of the New Year, Tim Ulbrich talks about 5 ways you can accelerate your financial plan in 2020. This episode is full of resources you can use to put these ideas into action.

Summary

Tim Ulbrich shares five tangible ways you can crush 2020 in this week’s episode.

1. Get Clearer on the So What

Getting clearer on the “so what” pushes you to dig deeper into finding your why. Why are you focusing on your financial plan or financial goals for 2020? Is it because you are wanting to create flexibility in your job or time? Are you wanting to radically give? Are you hoping to have more control or choice in your life?

2. Build or Modify the Road Map to Achieve Your Goals

When you are clear on your purpose, it’s time to put your plan in place. Without a monthly plan, it’s easy to find yourself in a position where your financial plan is happening to you rather than the other way around. Creating a plan and executing your budget are key.

3. Get a Side Hustle off the Ground

Having a side hustle isn’t only a way to bring in additional income to accelerate your financial goals, but it also allows you to fill the creative expression you might be craving. Plus, it can also satisfy that entrepreneurial itch you may have! If you have an idea in place, what barriers are you facing on taking it to the next level? If you don’t have any ideas on what your side hustle could be, what’s one next step you can take to figure it out?

4. Set One Stretch Goal for 2020

A stretch goal is one that seems out of reach, but you’d absolutely love it if you could achieve it. These types of goals allow you to think beyond what’s possible. Set one big, audacious stretch goal for 2020 and focus on visualizing it into action.

5. Get a Coach

The value of a financial planner isn’t in choosing the right investments or allowing you to have the best return as you can ultimately learn anything online now. Instead, a financial planner carries the most value as being your accountability partner and coach. They help to see the bigger picture of what you’re wanting to achieve and help get you there.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Tim Ulbrich here, and excited to turn the page on the new year and a new decade. Wow, hard to believe here we are at the start of 2020. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m over the whole 20/20 vision thing. That seems to be trending over the past several years leading up to this year. So I’m going to spare you any of the cheesy references to having 20/20 vision or having a clear vision for the future. But we are going to talk about five tangible ways that you can crush 2020 and accelerate your financial plan. Now, many of these things we have talked about before on the show. However, I don’t know about you, but I know for me, sometimes it’s helpful to hear things more than once or presented in a different way. As I mentioned in the introduction, we have an awesome giveaway to go along with this episode to kick off the new year the right way. And for me and my financial plan, finding great resources and tools has been a big part of the success and of the learning along the way. So again, this giveaway includes five winners. We’re giving away for each of those winners a one-year YNAB subscription, a copy of “Your Best Year Ever” by Michael Hyatt, and a copy of “100 Side Hustles” by Chris Guillebeau. So if you’re interested in that awesome giveaway, head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/giveaway, and you can enter to have a chance to win.

OK, in somewhat of a rapid-fire format, I’m going to walk through these five things, five steps that I think you can take sooner rather than later to make 2020 an awesome year and accelerate your financial plan. So let’s jump right in.

No. 1, get clear on the so what. No. 1 here, get clear on the so what. So you’ve likely heard us talk about before several times on the show about finding your financial why. And that is exactly what we are talking about here in point No. 1. Why does this topic of money even matter to you? It sounds like such a simple question. But if you have thought about this in depth before, you know it is not that simple. This is really the “So what?” question. So before we get too deep into the x’s and o’s of whether it’s budgeting or paying off debt, loan repayment strategies, how to save for the future and think about asset allocation, nerding out about compound growth and real estate investing, all of these different things, this question is “So what?” Why does this even matter? When we talk about financial freedom, why does financial freedom matter? What does this mean to you? What is the ultimate goal of achieving this path?

So to give you an idea of a few things that you may have heard myself, Tim Baker, Tim Church or other guests on the show talk about when it comes to finding your financial why or really answering this question of “So what?,” it’s things that we have heard before like to have flexibility over how you’re spending time or even how you’re spending your money, to be in a position of control, to be in a position of choice, to be able to achieve goals around giving, or to be able to radically give, to put yourself in a position to leave a legacy, to travel and see the world without worry or stress or regret. Maybe it’s to start a business or a movement or a foundation or a charity. So these are some ideas of the bigger the vision in terms of the “So what?” question that we talk so often about on the show. So yeah, we can do a nest egg calculation and figure out how much you need to get to the point of retirement or we can talk about how to aggressively pay off $150,000 or $200,000 of student loan debt. We can talk about how to set up a budget and exactly what a zero-based budget looks like. But what is the ultimate goal of doing this? And that is exactly what we’re talking about here in point No. 1 of getting clear on the “So what?”

So my question here for you today as we roll the calendar into 2020 is what is your financial why? What is your “So what?” And how do you get to the point of defining this if you haven’t yet done this? And so to help you get to that point, I’d recommend if you haven’t already listened to episodes 032 and 033, Tim Baker talks with Jess and I about this concept of finding your financial why. So again, that’s episodes 032 and 033 of which we’ll link to in the show notes. I would also recommend — again, we’ll link in the show notes — there are three life planning questions that we’ve referenced before on this show. These are really big questions, big philosophical questions that are designed to help you answer this question of this “So what?,” finding your financial why. So we’ll link to those questions, the article about those questions, that you can spend some time answering those.

And so my request for you here today, as we enter this new year, which is an opportunity to really set a new path forward, is to put your “So what?” or put your why on paper, say it out loud, and share it with those closest to you. And then revisit this often. So again, I know it’s so easy to want to jump into the specifics of what’s in front of you right now, whether that’s the budget, whether that’s making that next payment, whatever it would be. But really taking a few moments to take a step back if you have not done this before, and to put down on paper your “So what?,” your why, say it out loud, share it with those closest to you, and revisit that often. So that’s No. 1 here, getting clear on the “So what?”

No. 2, build or modify the road map to achieve your goals. Build or modify the road map to achieve your goals. So once you get clear on the purpose, the “So what?” or the why, it’s time to put a monthly plan in place that will simply be the execution plan to see that your goals and vision become a reality. And that’s essentially the budget, the spending plan, and that’s how I like to think of the budget. It’s not necessarily overly complicated, overwhelming, restrictive, do I have to? type of activity, but rather it’s the execution plan of your goals. And we all know how months and at times, years, can fly by. I’m certainly feeling that lately with four young children. And without a monthly road map, without a monthly plan, without a monthly budget, it’s easy to find yourself in a position where your financial plan is happening to you rather than you dictating and directing what your plan is. You know, and credit here to Tim Baker. He does such a great job of this when he’s doing financial planning with clients — and I know I can speak to this firsthand with the planning he has done with Jess and I — one of the very first activities we did is that “So what?,” that why activity and really identifying what’s most important to us. And if we fast forward five or 10 years, you know, what should be happening that we would say, “You know what, things are going well, things are a success when it comes to making sure that we’re spending our money in the places that matter the most to us.” And then we really get into the spending plan and the budget. But he often then comes back to say, “OK, here’s where you’re spending the money. Here’s the budget. But here was the ‘So what?,’ the why we talked about. And does this picture, does this vision, align?” And often what we see is that again, it’s easy that time goes by quickly, it’s easy to get caught up in the month-to-month and sure enough, soon we find ourself in a different direction where the spending plan isn’t necessarily aligned with the vision and the goals. And I think that’s really one of the many values of having a coach in your corner to keep you on track.

So for those of you looking to either start, restart, reinvigorate, refresh your budget, I would encourage you to check out a few different resources: Episode 028 of this podcast, we talked about a budget, just actually I think two years ago. It was called “New Year, New Budget.” We also have a great article that walks you step-by-step, including a budget template that you can download. And that article is “Five Steps to Creating Your Best Budget.” We’ll link to that in the show notes. And then as a next step, as a follow-up once you get that budget template in place, in Episode 057, we talked extensively about how you automate your financial plan. So once you have that plan set, then how do you make sure that is happening each and every month and ultimately getting your own self out of the way so you can ensure success with that plan you set.

So you know, some resources here, obviously we’re highlighting one in our giveaway, and that’s the You Need a Budget software, relatively inexpensive. So whether it’s You Need a Budget, whether it’s another paid budgeting service like Envelopes, there’s certainly several others that are out there or maybe it’s a free tool like Mint.com, maybe it’s an old school spreadsheet that you do this manually, whatever the resource would be, it’s about finding a system that works for you. And so I would encourage you to check out our budget template, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/budget, you can download for free a zero-based budgeting template. And then that will help you get started. And then you can automate that into whatever tool works best for you. I would also point out — and credit here goes to Tim Church — we recently released a great tool that is essentially a financial checkup, financial assessment to see how you’re doing overall with your personal financial plan. So if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, you’ll see that there on the main page. You can go through a series of some quick questions. Tim Church has done a great job of making that easy, quick, he’s put some humor in there. And then essentially, that will help you identify what are the areas that need the most attention when it comes to your financial plan. So if you’re trying to think about does my budget really reflect the areas that I need to be thinking about that may need the most attention, that tool will really help get you there. So again, if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, you’ll see there that we have a tool — and we’ll link to it in the show notes as well — that will help you essentially do your financial fitness test is what we’re referring to.

OK, so that’s No. 2. And that is No. 2, build or modify the road map to achieve your goals.

No. 3 is get a side hustle off the ground. And again, that’s a book here that we’re highlighting as a resource and a giveaway. So yes, yes, the side hustle is by far one of the trendiest movements of the last decade or so and certainly something that we’ve been talking about extensively over the past couple years. So if you’ve been a part of our community for awhile, whether it’s on the podcast, in the blogs, in the Facebook group, you’ve probably heard us talk about side hustles and you know that we have a love for side hustles. And we think that for many, side hustles are a way to not only bring in additional income so that you can accelerate your financial goals and achieving those goals but also allows you to have a creative expression and allows you to work on something that is a passion of yours beyond the traditional 9-5 type of work. And so I think for many, I know this is true for myself, this can really satisfy the entrepreneurial itch that you might have but also can help you achieve your financial goals even faster. And we’ve got some great stories, people in this community that we’ve featured on the podcast, that people have started part-time side hustles and ultimately have turned those into full-time gigs, people that are continuing to do part-time gigs while they’re working full-time and is just something that they really love, but they’ve used it as a way to generate additional income. So I’d love to see when pharmacists are able to leverage the expertise and passion they have in their field and fill the needs that they’re seeing and their patience with the creation of a side hustle as well.

So a couple resources I would mention here. Episode 063 of the podcast — again, we’ll link to these in the show notes — we did an introduction to the side hustle series. Again, Tim Church did this, has done a great job with this. Episode 126, recently published, Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks is a great example. That episode is called “Going Beyond Six Figures Through Medical Writing,” has done a great job of really starting and scaling a side hustle business. And then recently, Eric Christianson came on the show, creator of Med Ed 101, in Episode 131 to talk about the secrets to building a successful side hustle. I would also obviously point you to the resource we have highlighted in our giveaway, “100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job,” and that’s by Chris Guillebeau.

So my call to action here for you, my hopefully motivation to get you going in this area if this is something that you’ve thought about. For those that have already have a side hustle in place, you know, have you validated the idea and the business need? And if so, what’s the game plan to grow it? So maybe some of you have started something and for whatever reason, it stayed status quo and you feel like it’s been a good idea but you’re in somewhat of an autopilot mode. Have you validated the idea and the need for that business or that side hustle? If not, what’s the game plan to validate that? How could you do that? And if you have done that, what’s keeping you back from growing that? And what’s the game plan to really grow and scale that? Now, for those that have an idea but have not started the side hustle, what is holding you back? That’s really the question I want you to reflect upon. Have you identified whatever that barrier may be? And what will it take to knock down that barrier? Maybe it’s even multiple barriers that are in place. And who is going to keep you accountable to moving forward? So I think I felt this when I started Your Financial Pharmacist back in 2015. I know at first when you have an idea, you tend to want to keep it quiet and you’re not sure if it’s going to work and you’re not sure what other people will think. But I think there’s real value in talking it out loud with people that you trust and respect their perspective that not only can help you think through the idea but also can help you keep you accountable moving forward to get that off the ground, encourage you, and even to challenge you in a positive way. And I think that ultimately will make your idea and your side hustle or business even better.

Now, for those that maybe don’t even have an idea or maybe are thinking through this at a very early state, you know, my challenge to you would be is what’s the game plan to learn more? What’s the next step you can take to be able to be one step closer in this first part of 2020 to getting something off the ground. So you know, what are you listening to and reading to that can help stimulate more ideas? Who will you reach out to this year that has done this well to pick their brain and learn more? And so I think with side hustles, again, we featured several stories already on the show and we have more planned for 2020. I think it’s helpful to hear others’ stories, even it’s not directly related to whatever idea or interest you may have yourself. So if you’re just in the early stages of this, the challenge really is what are you listening to, what are you reading, what can you be reading or listening to? And who will you reach out to that you can pick their brain and get some additional insights and information? So that’s No. 3, hopefully get a side hustle off the ground or take some steps to be in that direction.

No. 4 is set one stretch goal for 2020. Now, you’ve likely heard of this concept of a stretch goal before. But if not, the idea is setting a goal that seems perhaps out of reach, maybe too audacious, too unrealistic, despite it being something that if you were to achieve, you would say, “Heck yes, that was awesome.” So the idea is that setting a stretch goal allows you to begin to think beyond what you believe is possible and really starts to help you visualize what it would take to knock down those self-limiting beliefs that often hold us back from our true potential. And of course, the power of setting a goal and visualizing a goal then becomes the increased likelihood of achieving that goal. And for those of you that have set goals and visualized goals, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You might them on paper, and you look at them at first, and you say, “That’s bold. I’m not sure how I’m going to get there. And then you start thinking about them, more and more you visualize them, you relook at them, maybe it’s daily or weekly. And all of a sudden, you’re beginning to just train your mind to say, this went from a “I hope” to “How will I get this goal achieved?”

So now, we obviously know that there’s a time and place for setting realistic goals. After all, if we set a bunch of goals that we didn’t achieve, we would likely get pretty frustrated pretty fast. We’d get defeated, and we might move on from this whole goal-setting thing. So here we are talking about one additional bold, audacious goal in addition to the other goals that you have planned for 2020. So of course we want those realistic goals, you know, those goals that we look at our budget, we look at our numbers, we look at our direction of our net worth and our plan and say, “OK. We think we’re going to be able to achieve those.” But here, we’re talking about one additional bold, audacious goal. So maybe it’s something like paying off an extra $10,000 on your debt this year beyond what you think is possible when you look at the numbers. Maybe it’s buying your first real estate investment property, despite not knowing a whole lot about what’s involved and where the cash will come from. Perhaps it’s maxing out your 401k or 403b contributions in 2020, $19,500, although you thought you’d be only able to contribute up to whatever your employer match provides. Maybe it’s giving 10% or 20% or 30% of your income to something that you care about, despite looking at the current numbers and saying, “How am I going to do that?” Or perhaps it’s taking a bold step to start your own business, despite your fears of, you know, what if this fails? Or what will others think? Or I don’t consider myself to be a business-savvy person, so why even bother?

So again, I think there’s lots of resources out there that can help in this direction. And one that I would point to that really has had a profound impact in my life is the book “Miracle Morning” by Hal Alrod. And whether you’re a morning person or not, this idea of establishing a daily routine that includes things like setting goals and visualizing those goals, that includes things like reflecting on your day and gratitude and having a place for silence or meditation or prayer, having a routine and a plan in place, especially at a time when you have potentially a busy professional and personal life is incredibly important when it comes to this topic of setting big goals and achieving those goals. And I would recommend that resource, it’s a quick read, it’s a great system you can implement, “Miracle Morning” by Hal Alrod.

So my challenge to you here is to set one big, audacious goal for 2020. So for Jess and I, our big goal for 2020 is to buy four more rental properties this year. Now, I don’t know exactly how we’re going to get there. We were able to achieve our initial goal in 2019 of getting one property, thanks to the help of many others that were able to wrap around their expertise and really provide us with their time and their wisdom and help us get there. We wouldn’t have gotten there alone. So four is a big stretch goal. I really don’t know exactly how we’re going to get there, but we need to be thinking about it. We know this is a goal for our family for a variety of reasons. And so we initially talked about two, and we decided the stretch goal for 2020 is going to be four. So we’ll see where it goes, and that’s the big goal that we have for 2020. So No. 4 again here, we’re talking about setting one big stretch goal for 2020.

Now No. 5 is get a coach. And I think it’s fitting here that we have this as No. 5 because in order to do all the things that we’ve talked about, these are big things we’re talking about for 2020 when we talk about Nos. 1-5, getting clear on your “So what?” or your why; building or modifying your monthly plan to get there, obviously that’s the budget piece we talked about; getting a side hustle off the ground; and setting a big, audacious goal for 2020. We can see here in No. 5 why a coach could be so valuable. And what we really see when it comes to coaching as it relates to personal finance is that the evidence is getting more and more clear that a financial planner, a financial advisor, a financial coach, their value really is not to help you choose the right investments or to get the best returns because ultimately, we live in a world here in 2020 where you can pretty much learn anything that you want. And what the evidence is really showing, specific even to investing, is that the more passive you are in that process, typically the better the returns that you will have. So a financial planner, in my opinion — and we offer financial planning, so this obviously is front and center for us — it’s not about hiring a financial planner like us to be able to say, “OK, we’re going to outperform the market,” or “We’re going to help you choose the best investments that are going to beat another financial planner.” Now, we obviously want to have success in that area, and we’re going to help you fine-tune your investments, but that’s just one part of the financial plan. And when you think about this bigger picture, the why, the “So what?,” the budget, all the goals that are swirling around, a financial planner and the value of a financial planner is really having an accountability partner and a coach in the process that can help you prioritize and achieve all of these different goals that are out there.

And I can speak firsthand that the power of this and working with Tim, as Jess and I have worked with him over the past couple years. Now, this also reminds me of Episode 124, where we talked with Dr. Daniel Crosby, the author of “The Behavioral Investor,” somebody who studies behavioral psychology for a living. And really what I took away from his book and his interview is that at the end of the day, the two most important things that you can do when it comes to your financial plan is to automate your financial plan, which we talk about extensively on Episode 057, and to hire a coach to help ensure that No. 1 barrier, which is often yourself, isn’t getting in the way of having success with your financial plan. Automation and a coach. And that has exactly been my experience as I reflect back on the past several years. Automating our financial plan and having a coach has helped us to achieve our financial goals.

Other episodes that I would highlight here that you could get additional information, episodes 015, 016, and 017, Tim Baker and I did an entire series on financial planning and the different types of planners that are out there, questions to ask financial planners, how they get paid. In Episode 054, we talked about the importance of fee-only and fiduciary and why that matters. And in Episode 055, we talked about why you should care how a financial plan charges. We also have a great resource if this is something you’ve been thinking about, here we are at the turn of the new year, not a better time to make this decision, to make this a priority in 2020. We have a guide we have created, which is nuts and bolts to hiring a financial planner. And you can get more information and download that guide for free at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/nutsandbolts. And if you are somebody listening today that is ready to take this step or ready to learn more to say, is this the right fit for me? Please head on over to YFPPlanning.com, again, that’s YFPPlanning.com, and you can schedule a free discovery call with Tim Baker where you can talk out loud what our services look like, talk more about your specific financial plan, and determine whether or not it’s a good fit for you going forward. And again, that’s a free discovery call. And you can get that going at YFPPlanning.com.

So before we wrap up today’s episode, I want to remind you again about the giveaway that we’re doing for this month. We’re giving away five winners each a one-year YNAB subscription, a copy of “Your Best Year Ever” by Michael Hyatt, and a copy of “100 Side Hustles” by Chris Guillebeau. You can go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/giveaway to enter that today.

So here we are in 2020. We’ve got a fresh start ahead for this new year. And I hope you will consider these five things that we talked about as a way to have a successful 2020. And of course here, with these five or others that you think about, it’s all about being intentional with your financial plan, all about dictating your financial plan rather than letting that financial situation happen to you. And so I think it’s important to look back on 2019, to look at the trends, to look at the successes, maybe look at the challenges or failures as well. But looking back, while that is important, I don’t think we want to dwell too much on 2019. We need to look ahead to 2020 and say, “What did we learn? What went well? What can we replicate? What can we do a little bit differently? And what’s the game plan going forward for this year so that at the end of 2020, we will look back and be able to say, ‘Job well done?’”

So I hope you have a great rest of your week. Thank you so much for joining me on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And as always, if you like what you heard on this week’s episode and you have not done so already, please take some time to leave us a rating and review in iTunes. We’d greatly appreciate that as that will help others find our show. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 132: 2019 Financial Wins from the YFP Community


2019 Financial Wins from the YFP Community

Happy Holidays from the YFP team! As we near the end of 2019, it’s important to celebrate the wins, big or small, that we’ve had over the past year. Take a listen to several YFP community members sharing their 2019 financial wins on this week’s episode.

Summary

On this week’s podcast episode, Tim Ulbrich reflects on 2019 by acknowledging wins and also the hard work it took to achieve them. To celebrate wins, several YFP community members share their financial victories.

Liz paid off her car in half of the time of the loan. Drew shares that he completely paid off his student loans and the strategy he used to make that happen. Sandy paid off all consumer debt except their mortgage by really sticking to a budget. William purchased his first investment property. Marika shares that she fully funded an HSA account and started a side hustle. This allowed her to save aggressively, pay off her debt and increase her net worth by $48,000. Sally paid off $25,000 of debt and started her own side hustle.

Tim shares other wins from the YFP community such as paying off a car, cash flowing a dishwasher, budgeting a trip, starting a real estate investment business, paying off student loans and paying off medical bills.

Tim reflects on his experience in 2019. His family moved to Columbus and they welcomed their fourth son, Bennett. They started investing in real estate and purchased their first property.

Tim asks what your financial wins for this year are and what your big and audacious 2020 goal is.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Tim Ulbrich here, and welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And on behalf of the entire YFP team, happy holidays. We hope you’re enjoying some quality time with family and friends and getting recharged for the new year. So speaking of getting recharged, this week’s episode is about reflecting on this past year and taking a moment, just a moment, to acknowledge and celebrate the wins and all the hard work that you put in to get there. Yes, we’re soon going to be turning the page on the new year, where the conversation will naturally focus on setting and achieving goals, very important stuff. But we need to pause for a moment to acknowledge the path that we’ve taken over this past year. So in order to do this, we’re going to feature a handful of financial wins from the YFP community. We believe in developing a community that empowers one another on this path towards achieving financial freedom. And part of building community involves celebrating wins alongside one another. And we are going to do just that this week. So without further ado, here are some of the financial wins of 2019 from the Your Financial Pharmacist community.

Liz: Hi, my name is Liz. I’m from Lexington, Kentucky. And my financial win from 2019 was paying off my car in half the time of the loan. So I paid off my car in three years instead of six years by budgeting and talking with friends and realizing that this goal was achievable for me.

Drew: Hi, my name’s Drew Harmon from Cincinnati, Ohio. My financial win for 2019 was getting our student loans paid off between my wife and myself. We both went to private universities, so we had quite a bit when we started. But throughout the years since graduation, we’ve been really diligent on making sure that any extra windfalls or any extra money that we come into, be it bonuses or gifts or anything of that magnitude, go right to the loans. And by doing that, we’ve been able to steadily chip away at our student loans and get them paid off. Another opportunity that we had that some others might have is I was able to get student loan repayment through my employer. So the biggest advice I would have would be to make sure that you have a plan for any extra money that you do fall into, but as well as making sure you find your hidden paycheck when you’re working to make sure that you have all of your benefits, whether it be 401k matches or student loan repayment, just to make sure you take full advantage of all of those options.

Sandy: My name is Sandy Richey. I’m from Hillsboro, Kentucky. And my financial win for 2019 was that we paid off all of our consumer debt except for our house. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now, and I kept a budget for the most part. My big thing was that I kept a spreadsheet because I’m a little bit of a nerd, and every month at the end of the month, I would put how much that I had paid off and how much I had left. So I always had an idea of where I was. This year, we paid off a vehicle and credit card debt and a few other little things. My goals are to continue to stay out of debt by budgeting a little better and planning for things that need to be replaced like vehicles and things like that.

William: Hi, my name is William Amarkwe, and I’m from Tampa, Florida. And my financial win for 2019 was my first purchase of an investment property. I’m super excited about this investment property. I can’t wait to begin my journey of financial freedom.

Marteeka: Hello, this is Marteeka Martin. I am a pharmacist in Owensboro, Kentucky. My financial wins for 2019 included fully funding my Health Savings Account and starting a side hustle that provided me with additional income. So these and other wins have allowed me to aggressively save and pay off my debt. So that increased my net worth by over $48,000 this year.

Sally: Hey, my name is Sally Brown from Macon, Georgia. And my win for 2019 was paying off $25,000 of debt. The year started with a big change for our family. I left a pharmacy manager position at a chain pharmacy for a position at a local independent pharmacy. It was definitely the best move for our growing family as far as work-life balance goes, but it came with a $30,000 pay cut. My husband and I were anxious about how we would make ends meet, let alone continue paying down our debt. We realized we would need outside help to keep us on track. We found a local financial advisor and began meeting with him. The first thing he had us do was actually track where our money was going. We had always made a monthly budget, but we’d never sat down to see where the money was going at the end of the month. We were surprised to find that our family of three was routinely spending $1,000 or more a month on groceries and eating out. We started making changes to our lifestyle and got our spending under control. Once we made it over that hurdle, we really started working on paying off our debt, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of $320,000. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wasn’t making the strides I wanted to be making on it, so I decided to create my own side hustle, Stress Less Vacations, which is a home-based travel agency. It’s a slow process growing a business, but I hope to see some real changes to our income this year from it. All in all, we managed to pay off about $25,000 in debt from credit cards, medical bills, and car loans. And we grew our emergency fund from $1,000 up to $5,000. We plan to keep the momentum up in 2020 and hopefully have both cars paid off as well as a chunk of my husband’s student loan debt.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you to those that took time to submit a financial win from 2019. We appreciate you doing that. And again, we as the YFP community are excited to be able to celebrate that win alongside of you. And certainly exciting to see the progress that has been made in each one of your individual financial plans. We heard about, you know, cars being paid off, retirement accounts being fully funded, starting side hustles, paying off big chunks of debt, growing emergency funds, all key, important parts of a financial plan. Thank you again for taking time to submit those.

It’s interesting, as I listen to those, I hear some threads of keys that were allowing you to be successful in achieving those goals: things like budgeting, talking with friends and sharing some of these things, setting a vision, being intentional, something we talk a lot about on this podcast, and having a plan to be able to not only set that financial goal but ultimately to be able to achieve that goal. So in addition to those that were submitted that we just featured here, we had many others that shared their wins on the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook page. Let me take a minute to read a few of those as well.

“Buying my first real estate property for a future rental.” What an awesome win for 2019.

“Paid off my car. Cash flowed a dishwasher. Budgeted for a trip.”

“Started my own real estate investment business. That business part-time is generating more revenue than full-time pharmacist salary. Looking forward to working full-time with others in this area that are doing real estate investing.”

“Paid my last ever student loan payment.”

“Paying off two small loans. Ten more to go, then I’m debt-free.”

“Didn’t pay off student loans but making huge strides. Also paid off some unexpected medical bills. Thrilled to not be carrying those into the new year.”

Awesome, awesome, awesome wins by all of those that I just mentioned. So for those that are not yet a part of the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook group, I hope you’ll join us. We have more than 4,000 — might be 5,000 pharmacy professionals that are in that group, committed to empowering one another. And as I mentioned, part of that community is sharing wins. Part of that community is sharing challenges and asking questions and getting support. And I hope you’ll join us in that group and community if you’re not already a part of that.

So what was your financial win for 2019? And what will be your big, audacious goal for 2020? You know, for Jess and I, 2019 was a year that was marked by change where we adjusted to our new home here in Columbus and welcomed our fourth son, Bennett Michael Ulbrich. And he has been an incredible, incredible joy in our life. But certainly this has been significant time of change for us. And as many of you know, times of change present challenges financially. And we handled this at times I would say with grace, and at times, we could have done better. And that’s just reality, right? And on one hand, we can look back and reflect on 2019 and say, “You know, we should have done this,” or, “We could have done this.” Or, or we can choose to say, “Wow. That was a lot of change at once. And you know what? We handled it pretty well overall. And we’re on a solid path heading towards 2020.” Same situation, different mindset and approach. And so for us in 2019, you know, we said we really want to start investing in real estate as a couple of you mentioned as well in your win. And that was at the time, early 2019, really a big goal for us and somewhat scary. I’ve been listening to a lot and reading a lot on real estate investing but didn’t really know where to get started. And thankful for colleagues and friends and those that have been doing this and doing it well, was able to partner up and learn from others. And that became a reality for us in 2019. So in 2020, we’re hoping to hopefully look at two investment properties and potentially even more as we look at what success will look like for us financially in 2020.

So again, for 2019, what was your financial win? And for 2020, what will be your big, audacious goal for next year? So as a reminder, if you want to share a win or you have a question that we can tackle on a future episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please send that over to us. And you can do that by going to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/askYFP. Again, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/askYFP. I hope you will join me next week, the first episode of 2020, where we cover five tangible ways to accelerate your financial plan in 2020. So until then, happy holidays and wishing you a fantastic end to 2019 and a healthy and productive start to the new year.

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YFP 131: Secrets to Building a Successful Side Hustle


Secrets to Building a Successful Side Hustle

Eric Christianson joins Tim Church to talk about his business Med Ed 101. Eric discusses his why behind beginning his side hustle, how it allowed him to drop down to part-time from his traditional pharmacist role and how it helped him accelerate his financial goals.

About Today’s Guest

Eric Christianson is a clinical pharmacist passionate about patient safety, geriatrics, MTM, long term care, and helping pharmacists pass their board certification exam. He is the owner of the blog at www.meded101.com, a valuable resource for practicing healthcare professionals and students alike who are interested in learning more about the practical application of clinical pharmacy. He has also created Real Life Pharmacology, a podcast designed to teach pharmacology and provide some insight into the practice of clinical pharmacy. He has 2 wonderful children and the best wife in the world.

Summary

When Eric worked as a pharmacist consultant he recognized problems in long term care and soon discovered a passion for promoting pharmacy education. He started blogging and sharing content on social media fueled by his passion for getting this information out there. Eric quickly grew an audience and officially created an LLC, Med Ed 101. After building trust with his followers by sharing free content for so long, he decided to try to monetize the content he was creating.

Eric failed with his first attempt at monetizing his work and dug deep into what his audience was looking for. He realized that they wanted clinical content, case studies and board certification practice exams. He created a practice BCPS exam and also wrote Pharmacotherapy: Improving Medical Education Through Clinical Pharmacy Pearls, Case Studies and Common Sense. Eric has since expanded content both on his website and on Amazon.

When Eric began his side hustle, he had $145,000 in student loan debt. He was able to use the income from Med Ed 101 to get out of debt. Eric also experienced two professional instances where he was concerned about his full-time pharmacy job and was relieved to have extra money come in from his side hustle.

Med Ed 101 eventually brought in enough income to allow Eric to step down from his full-time pharmacy position and take on a part-time pharmacy job instead. Although he was losing benefits and insurance, focusing completely on Med Ed 101 has provided him with a lot of freedom. He has more time with his children and wife and more control of what he wants to do.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show and for being part of this side hustle edition.

Eric Christianson: Hey, I appreciate the opportunity. It’s always fun to share experiences. And hopefully it’ll help give somebody out there a little entrepreneurial bug. We need it in the profession of pharmacy.

Tim Church: Definitely. Totally agree with you. Now before we kind of jump in, I know you’re a baseball fan because you mentioned you had to make sure that we recorded on a day that wasn’t a day when the Twins would be potentially playing. So question for you —

Eric Christianson: Yeah, that was a little bit of brutal optimism there. Deep down in my heart, I knew their pitching staff was not — they’re pitching staff isn’t where it needs to be. So if they could spend a little money and get a pitcher or two in, a starting pitcher, I think their prospects look a little better next year.

Tim Church: So question for you around that, Eric: If you were a major league relief pitcher, let’s say maybe for the Twins, what would your entrance theme song be?

Eric Christianson: Oh, gees. You know, I saw a really hilarious video. And I’ve got a couple little kids. If you get time, check it out on YouTube. But one batter had “Daddy Shark” going as his entry song. And the whole crowd just erupted and they were singing the whole song. I don’t know if that would be it, but gosh, that sure was funny to watch.

Tim Church: That’s good. I like that. Now, are you from Minnesota?

Eric Christianson: Yeah. Yep, grew up here. I was actually in North Dakota but moved when I was about 5, so yeah. Pretty much been here and grew up most of my life in Minnesota.

Tim Church: OK, great. Well, one of the reasons I was so excited to get you on the show is that you’ve been able to do something that I think many pharmacists out there are aspiring to achieve. And that is generating enough revenue from your business or side hustle so that you no longer have to work full-time in a traditional pharmacist role or just rely on that one sole income source. So in other words, you’ve been able to take your side hustle to the next level. And before we get into how you did that, I want you to talk a little bit about the business and how you’re serving others.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so I mean, just I guess starting a little bit from the beginning, I mean, I really had no intention I guess of making it a business. And I really just wanted to help educate long-term care nurses, things of that nature. And I think honestly that helped a lot that that was my mindset, that I was really just going to be here as a pharmacist online, providing education to people. And I think that initial mindset really helped me gain a lot of trust with people. And I don’t know, maybe I’m just dumber than everybody else, but I did the blog essentially for free — or paying to have a website, that type of thing — I did the blog for probably a year or year and a half before I really even pursued income and that type of thing. So I think — I don’t know if that was an error or a stroke of genius or what, but I think that that level of trust between me and the readers of the blog was really developed over that time period. And I think that really helped when it came to obviously trying to promote something and sell something. That was kind of a unique development in the initial stages.

Tim Church: So Eric, what’s the name of your business?

Eric Christianson: Med Ed 101.

Tim Church: And how would you describe kind of the basic function of the blog, the website? And how does Med Ed 101 make money?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, the basic function I guess of the website was to promote pharmacy education. And you know, I mentioned that initial development. I recognized a lot of problems in long-term care. And I would see these problems as a consultant pharmacist in long-term care facilities, I’d see these common recurring problems over and over again. And you know, I just kind of thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice if I could share this on a big, open platform and everybody that I consult or facilities that I consult to could actually see it and learn from it so I don’t have to write all these recommendations and patients’ lives can be improved and better and patient safety and all that good stuff? So that’s really kind of how it initiated and developed. From that point, I really recognized through also social media channels, a Facebook page and Twitter feed, I recognized how many pharmacy folks were really coming for these case studies and things of that nature because the clinical thought process, especially if you’re in a busy community store, that type of thing, I mean, you’re not seeing lab work, you’re not seeing some of the other things that go into developing the clinical thought process. So definitely a lot of young pharmacists, pharmacy students, contacted me and said, “Hey, we just really appreciate these real-life scenarios, we appreciate kind of seeing what might happen, what can happen, common drug interactions,” and all those sorts of things. So I really developed an audience pretty quickly just by sharing some of those case studies on social media and obviously on the Internet through my website.

Tim Church: Obviously, there’s a need for great clinical content. And you saw that through the various channels that were there. How did you start to monetize that? And then what are the specific revenue sources that you have?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so this is a story for basically any entrepreneur and you know, I was probably a little embarrassed by it the first time. But basically created this PDF, “30 Medication Mistakes.” And it was a five- or 10-page PDF, that type of thing. And I thought it would be kind of interesting for people to read and recognize and some patient safety factors and important things there. And from that PDF, I was just like, “Ah, I could probably sell this, make a little bit of money.” So I think I put it up for sale for $5 or $10, you know, just a digital download type thing. I probably had 1,000 email subscribers, something like that. And I sold absolutely 0 in about three months. And so that really kind of brought me back to the drawing board. And it really allowed me to kind of ask the question, OK, what do people actually want? Why are people coming to my website? And I looked back through some of the emails I had gotten from people and things they were struggling with, things of that nature. A lot of it was the clinical content, you know, case problem solving, that type of information. And also, I had posted a couple of times about my experience and the challenge of obtaining board certification. And between those two things, my first two basically products, one was a practice exam for the BCPS exam, and the next thing I believe I released was basically a compilation of a lot of my most common case studies that you might actually see in clinical practice. And so one was a book on Amazon. And one was basically a digital download on my own website, a PDF file. And so those were really how me looking into generating revenue first initiated was through those two sources. Since that time, I’ve obviously expanded on the amount of content I have on my website. And I’ve expanded the amount of content I have on Amazon as well. And now, with the help of Tony Guerra, who I think you know, he took some of my early clinical books and turned them into audiobooks. And it’s a really cool medium, you know, that tons of people are using, obviously people probably that are listening to this podcast right now. And that’s — in my mind, that’s probably going to be another source of revenue and income in the future that I’m definitely going to focus on a little bit.

Tim Church: That’s really cool, Eric! And I like how you kind of started with what some people could look to as a failure or learning process when you kind of got crickets on your first product. And I want you to just talk about that a little bit. How did that feel coming out with something and first asking for money for something that you had created and then to really get no response? I mean, what did that feel like and how did that change your mindset going forward?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, it was definitely a tough thing. And I think when I look back on it, I think I probably put that up, and I think I probably waited two or three months. And obviously, like I said, didn’t make a sale. Honestly, I think it prevented me from taking the next step for a little while, just thinking like, oh, you know, maybe I don’t have what it takes or maybe I don’t know what I’m doing or what people want, that sort of thing. And yeah, it’s one of those things where you look back at it and it’s like, what if I did quit at that point? And not to be able to have some of this bigger income certainly I have now from the website and Amazon and book sales. You definitely think about that. So if you’re starting something, expect that you’re going to run into failures. I mean, it’s just inevitable when you’re doing something new. And that’s a really hard thing for pharmacists. I know it was a really hard thing specifically for me. You know, I did relatively well in school, I passed without issues. You know, when you’re a pharmacist and you talk to me, generally they’re like, “Oh, you must be really smart.” So it’s a common thing to feel that way. And when you talk to others and then you look at the business side of things and yeah, you have this totally epic failure, at least what it felt like at the time, but yeah. You just have to continue to keep pushing forward and try to learn from it as best you can.

Tim Church: One of my favorite books is John Maxwell, called “Failing Forward.” And kind of one of the essential quotes of the book is that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. And I think that’s such a key thing because like you mentioned, that it’s easy to sort of give up and to take that and to look at it as wow, I don’t know what I’m doing, how am I going to start this business, how do I start from nothing even though I have some of these subscribers? And really look at that and take that and say, “OK. This was an experience. I was OK to go out and fail. And actually, that failure may have been beneficial moving forward in what you had developed down the course.” And I know that that’s really been helpful for me is to kind of look at that. But I think you really hit that there is that pharmacists in general do not look at failure always as a good friend or as John Maxwell says, looking at failure as your friend.

Eric Christianson: Yep. And that’s one thing I’ve done a couple talks recently at colleges of pharmacy. And one of the big things that I tell them and that I try to teach them is we’re so ingrained as pharmacists when we think about failure, instantly what comes to our mind is somebody gets hurt, somebody dies, or you get sued. I mean, those are the things that come to your mind when you think about making a mistake as a pharmacist. And I mean, that is absolutely I think ingrained into you throughout school and throughout your work life. And that is not an entrepreneurial mindset for sure.

Tim Church: No. No, definitely not. Now, could you break down the different products and resources you have right now? And kind of break down those percentages in terms of what’s bringing in revenue.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so it definitely is a little bit variable, I will say, because I’ve got some NAPLEX content, so obviously this time of year, there isn’t a ton of people taking NAPLEX. So that kind of drops off. And then you’ve got spring and fall testing periods for board certification materials. So you know, prior to the exam, 2-3 months prior to the exam up until the exam, that can kind of come and go a little bit as well. Amazon, I would say is probably in the ballpark of 40-50% of revenue. Website’s probably in that ballpark. And then Audible as well. And you know, I would say I work probably 2-3 days a week as a pharmacist still, doing some consulting and things of that nature, which I love to do and I always anticipate doing that. So that’s definitely a piece of the income equation. But just that side income to be able to step away from your full-time job and to be able to — this summer, I spent a lot of time with my kids going golfing and doing different activities that they like to do. And I mean, that’s really what I’m after as far as income and that type of thing. Initially I will say, I was — which is why I listen to you guys once in awhile and I love your stuff — I was $145,000 in debt I think, I think is what it started at. And yeah, I used any side income basically from the business to pay off, pay down on that extra debt, so that helped me get out of debt much, much sooner than I ever would just working kind of my standard, full-time pharmacy job. So always got to have something on the side. I do want to also mention I had two professional instances in my career where I did absolutely feel like my job was a little bit in question. And those were two big stimuli for me to continue to do the blog and to continue, keep going, creating different content and selling different content. So I don’t think I would be here talking to you today if it wasn’t for those two instances either. So that’s another important point I think to make to students, to young pharmacists, and especially in this job market too, especially when we’re talking about community and retail pharmacy. There is not a job that is secure. And creating that Plan B, starting that Plan B, there’s no reason not to do that today. And so I think that’s a really, really important thing to remember.

Tim Church: I definitely agree, Eric. And I think that no matter how secure a position that you think it is, there’s always a potential for change, whether that be political changes, just job market changes in general, so having an additional side income or just some other way that you’re bringing in revenue, is a really smart thing to do. Now in your particular case, I think you brought up some awesome points. And I think many people would agree that that side revenue has helped you pay off your student loans but also, it’s given you something that I think is probably the most important thing when we talk about side hustles and what this extra income. And for you, it sounds like what it’s boughten you is time. It’s really given you the time and the freedom to do some of the things that you want to do, such as spending more time with your family, with your kids. Talk a little bit about how you made that transition. Because as I mentioned in the beginning, you were able to go from a full-time, traditional pharmacist role now to only doing a couple days a week.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, that — honestly, that was probably one of the hardest professional conversations I’ve — and decisions that I’ve ever made. You know, I worked seven years long-term care consulting, assisted living consulting, a little bit of MTM kind of an independent consulting group, and then I joined on with a health system and worked as a clinic pharmacist, basically, right embedded in the primary care office. So really unique experience, great experience. And I mean, for a lot of pharmacists, that is absolutely the holy grail of jobs. And I did enjoy that job, but it was consuming a huge chunk of time. When I factored in the time that I needed to put into the website and blog, it just got to a point where financially it made sense to try to make that leap. One other factor that went into that was my wife, who stayed at home with our kids, she was going to go back to work as well. So there’s kind of a conglomerate of things going on that made it a little bit more tenable to make that jump. But that was a very, very difficult decision for sure. And you know, I maybe waited on it longer than I should have, you know, looking back. But I think, again, that’s kind of that pharmacist mindset being a little bit more conservative about things and trying to cover all your bases. But very, very difficult decision for sure. But definitely at this point do not regret that decision.

Tim Church: So what did your wife say when you first brought that to her attention?

Eric Christianson: She was pretty calm about it, actually. You know, she’s very, very trusting in my judgment and my decisions. She’s pretty level-headed when it comes to that type of stuff. I will say one interesting story. It’s a story I’ll never forget because it’s actually the first time I actually made $1 off the website. So I did this BCPS practice exam. And you know, I think I charged like $10 for it or something, you know, just ridiculously cheap because I wanted to make sure I sold some. And I remember seeing those first couple sales come through, and I was just absolutely jacked up. You know? And if I think about all the hours I spent and if I paid myself an hourly pharmacist wage for those hours, it’s like yeah, this doesn’t make any sense at all. But just the idea that I could go out for supper and potentially make $10, that was the coolest thing in the world to me, at least at that time. And so I made this, I’m so excited. And I’d been doing this, again, for a year and half, hadn’t made $1, and I’m doing it mornings, evenings, weekends, whatever. And I go to my wife, and I said, “I told you. I told you I wasn’t crazy.” And just instantly, as calm and cool, as collected, she says, “Well, you’re kind of a little bit crazy.” And I’m just like, like looking back at that, that is so true. I mean, you have to be a little bit crazy — and some people might call it crazy. I mean, looking back, it’s like, I mean, it was passion and it was energy for pharmacy and what we do. But that was just kind of a fun little story that I’ll never forget with my wife and the process of actually trying to generate some income off of the side business.

Tim Church: So at that point, when you had approached her and then actually finally made that switch and dropped the hours you were doing at your consulting job, how many months had you been consistently generating revenue from the site and from the books and resources?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, it was — I started making test prep material and books, I think it was early 2015, maybe in February-March 2015. And I, you know, definitely had seen that grown year-to-year. And so there was definitely a little bit of a track record. And I cut back out of my job 2018, just last year here. So I mean, I had at least a two-year track record, probably closer to three of showing that yes, you know, I’m seeing more people come to the website, I’m seeing more sales over time as you gain credibility and reputation and customer referrals and all that sort of stuff. So you know, they always talk about the overnight success, and that’s just not the way it works for the majority of people. And certainly my story is no different from that. It’s been a slow growth over time. So my wife was able to see that and say, “Hey, what could I do if I actually had more time to work on some of these other things, other projects, that I’ve wanted to pursue?”

Tim Church: So when you made that move, one of the practical questions that is popping up into my mind right now is did you lose your health coverage and other benefits that you had access to?

Eric Christianson: Yeah. Absolutely. That was by far the hardest decision with a family of four and definitely one that it’s like, oh my gosh, we’ve got to make sure that that expense is covered now. I think that probably prevents a lot of small, a lot of people from quitting their full-time job is health insurance coverage. I mean, it was $1,200-1,500 a month hit that we now have to come up with that money that we’re not getting through our employer.

Tim Church: So that wasn’t offered through your wife’s employer, then.

Eric Christianson: No. Nope, nope. Exactly. So yeah, that was a big hit that we basically had to make sure that we could cover. One other thing that I did — because I had paid off my student loans I think in 2017. So as a family, I definitely saw that there might be some point in time like that I want to cut back, so we definitely saved up some cash as well, you know, just worst-case scenario where I couldn’t figure out part-time work as a pharmacist for a little while or the business isn’t going as good or whatever the case might be. We definitely did stockpile some cash too, just to be on the safe side.

Tim Church: So Eric, you talked about the side income has helped you pay off your student loans and then eventually has allowed you to drop down to just a couple days a week. What are you doing now with the income each month that you’re receiving from the business besides just kind of taking care of monthly expenses, health insurance, that kind of thing.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, definitely life expenses for sure, making sure that’s taken care of. I am investing a little bit more in retirement than I used to be investing. So that’s definitely another thing there. You know, one thing as an entrepreneur you’ve got to pay attention to is taxes too, doing quarterly estimates and that type of thing. It’s like, you’ve got to pay attention and keep track of that. I think it was a year or two ago, I don’t know if I didn’t anticipate or didn’t do something the way I should have in my job change, but yeah, we ended up in $10,000 or $15,000. And it’s like yeah, if you’re not prepared for that or anticipating for that or planning for that, that’s definitely a good chunk of money to come up with for sure. So you know, the planning, strategizing, figuring out what to do. I have spent a little bit of money getting people to help on certain projects, that type of thing, as far as the business goes. I do market and advertise some on Facebook, specifically. I have been tempted to try other platforms as far as advertising goes, but I feel like I’ve probably got the best sense for doing Facebook ads, so I’ve done some of that with some of the extra revenue. We’ve paid down a little extra on our house as well. So I think that’s a goal for us maybe longer term, later in life. Minnesota and the north is very, very cold. I don’t know if you knew that or not.

Tim Church: I’m from Ohio, so I know a little bit about that, yeah.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah. I mean, plans certainly change, but our in-laws live down in Arizona, and it’s definitely nice visiting them in the middle of winter, I will assure you of that. So that’s definitely crossed our mind too to kind of plan and prepare for that when the kids are growing up.

Tim Church: So how are you investing your money? Is it through a brokerage account? Or did you open up a SEP?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so I’ve got through my part-time employer, I’m actually investing into their plan. They allow me to do that with some of the income that I make through their organization. So that income doesn’t run through my business. I’m basically their employee. So I do a lot of my investing through that income just because it’s pretty simple and pretty easy. So that’s just through their retirement account. That’s the primary mode. Also, HSA, Health Savings Account, making sure that I’m putting some money into there as well. Those are the two biggies.

Tim Church: Yeah, and the HSA I think is a great — what has been termed a “Stealth IRA” or retirement account because there’s a lot of tax advantages to that but also just a great way to cut down your Adjusted Gross Income while you’re putting it into aggressive funds without even considering it to be used for health expenses in the near future. So you’ve got kind of a couple options with it. So definitely I have one through my employer as well, and I think it’s a great option.

Eric Christianson: Yeah, definitely.

Tim Church: So who do you have that supports the business, whether they’re contractors, employees? Can you break down, tell me a little bit about that?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so I’ve got a gal that really helped me get the main MedEd101.com website up and going as far as some of the sale of digital products. Initially when I first started, I think that was part of the joy with it was figuring out things. It was maddening at some times, and sometimes you waste a little bit of money not knowing what you’re doing. But I think, you know, as pharmacists, we’re kind of learners. And we like to appreciate and learn some of those things. As I generated a little bit of income, definitely a website person to help out with stuff, I’ve had various odds and ends as far as book covers and design people and things like that. And then my wife has been a fantastic resource. She’s an administrative assistant by background. And you know, just formatting, editing, stuff like that, she’s been an amazing resource and helped the business a fair amount for sure. I wouldn’t be here without her either.

Tim Church: And then do you work closely with an accountant, an attorney?

Eric Christianson: Yeah. Yep. I’ve got a personal accountant here in our smaller town. And then attorney work, yeah, setting up the initial LLC and the other business documents, that type of thing, I worked with an attorney a couple times as well.

Tim Church: So Eric, as a fellow business owner, especially one that is involved with website and publishing content, I feel like there’s a million things that you could be doing at any given time. And just there’s always something that you could be doing. How do you spend most of your personal time in the business at this point?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, I’m typically creating content, whether that’s a blog post, a podcast, a video recording, a book. That’s really what I’ve grown accustomed to doing. It’s actually what I like doing, for the most part, at least a little bit every day. I can’t create content eight hours a day. That’s just insane to be able to — at least for me — to be able to try to do that. But it’s pretty amazing what you can accomplish with 2-3 hours of good, solid, focused work in creating content and getting stuff done and how much you can accumulate by doing that day after day after day over a period of years. So definitely I’m the Chief, I guess, Content Creation person. And you know, that’s my biggest asset and I guess what I do in the business primarily to keep it running.

Tim Church: And then do you pass that on once you’ve created that to somebody to help put it on the website, maintain that, and then promote it on social media? Or is that also you doing that?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so with social media, I do use a tool called Meet Edgar. It’s an automation system. So that is part of my expenses. I think it’s $50-100 a month, somewhere in there. So that’s definitely a significant cost, a little bit of a cost. So that automates a lot of my posts and puts stuff out periodically. That’s the primary tool. I used to do that rather than sending it to a person or whatever. Yeah, I’m a little bit more on the automation side and trying to harness those technologies as much as I can.

Tim Church: Anything else you’ve done in the business to help automate processes and take time — reduce the time that you’re involved with it?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, so I recently — it wasn’t anything I did. It’s the hosting platform for my podcast. They actually provide transcriptions of my podcast — and maybe you guys certainly get all that done or get it done for free or pay somebody or whatever too — so that is definitely something I’m going to look at and maybe try to use going forward, just to help with utilizing some of the content that I’ve created, maybe organizing it a little bit better, making it look a little bit nicer and that type of thing.

Tim Church: Well Eric, you’ve certainly shared a lot of great information. And I think it’s just awesome advice for people wanting to get started with a side hustle or a business. And I think the bottom line is you just have to start and you have to not be afraid of failing. But I wanted to ask you, you sent me a photo of you giving a presentation. And the title of that presentation was, “Secrets to a Successful Side Hustle.” And I wanted to ask you, what is the summary of that? And what advice would you give to other pharmacists or even students out there who have an interest in entrepreneurship or starting a business?

Eric Christianson: Oh, that’s a tough one. You’re asking me to sum up an hour-long presentation in about 30 seconds here. Probably one of the main points I remember telling folks about at that presentation that I think resonates a little bit is to really find something you enjoy because then it doesn’t really feel like work. And that’s really what I did with the blog initially. I mean, it was just for fun and just because I enjoyed doing it. And once you get into a public space, public forum, people start coming to you with all sorts of different ideas and things you should do. But it really takes — like I think you had mentioned earlier — it takes that initial action of actually doing something to figure out hey, do I actually enjoy this or not? So keep trying new things, think about if you’re at work, what do you really like to do at work? When do you notice that the time just flies in the day when you’re doing such and such? Think about those times where you’re happiest and you’re enjoying being able to be productive and getting things done at work. And try to recognize that and then utilize that as an area where you can be an expert, where you can share information if it’s something that you’re excited about and passionate about.

Tim Church: Any books or resources you would recommend for those interested or wanting to get started?

Eric Christianson: Yeah. I would say the podcast that really got me going — I think I listen to it probably every day — was “Entrepreneur on Fire.” I don’t listen to it much anymore, just because you hear the same recurring themes over and over and over again amongst successful businesspeople/entrepreneurs. And it’s really that sticktoitiveness, keep going, keep learning, keep applying, keep changing direction, continuing to evolve and adapt. But really that action piece is the No. 1 piece of advice. And that’s probably the main message I got from that podcast.

Tim Church: Well Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story, tips for building a successful side hustle. I know that our audience is going to be better off hearing your story and sharing that. So we really appreciate that. What’s the best way for someone to reach out to you to learn more about you or what you do?

Eric Christianson: Yeah, you can hit the “Contact” button at MedEd101.com. That’ll allow you to send me an email directly. I’m pretty active personally on LinkedIn, so Eric Christianson, PharmD pharmacist. You can find me on LinkedIn and connect with me there. Those are probably the two main places where you’re probably going to catch me the easiest.

Tim Church: Thanks again, Eric.

Eric Christianson: No problem. It was an honor to be on the podcast.

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YFP 130: House Hacking Your Way to Financial Freedom


House Hacking Your Way to Financial Freedom

Craig Curelop is the author of The House Hacking Strategy and is a real estate agent, investor, and employee of BiggerPockets. Craig talks all things house hacking including what it is, how he got started with house hacking and why he claims it is the single most powerful way to build wealth.

About Today’s Guest

Craig is a real estate investor and agent living in Denver, CO where he moved in April 2017 and shortly after closed on his first property. His move to Denver also afforded him the opportunity to work for BiggerPockets where he is the finance guy talking and writing about all things real estate, personal finance and early retirement. Outside of real estate and personal finance, he is a self-proclaimed health nut where he strives to be able to perform the highest possible level for the most amount of time. For fun he loves to exercise, hike, travel, ready write, snowboard, golf and play and watch sports. Craig is the author of The House Hacking Strategy and has been a guest on The Bigger Pockets Real Estate & Bigger Pockets Money Podcast. He’s also been featured in The Denver Post, the BBC and numerous real estate/personal finance podcasts including Choose FI, Side Hustle Nation, and The Best Ever Real Estate Podcast.

Summary

Craig breaks down what house hacking is, how he got started with house hacking and why he claims it is the single most powerful way to build wealth. Tim and Craig also talk through several key components of Craig’s book, The House Hacking Strategy.

In 2017, Craig closed on his first property in Denver, Colorado. He had $90,000 in student loan debt and a negative $30,000 net worth. He quickly reached financial independence in a short period of time through house hacking, side hustles, and spending less money.

Craig defines house hacking as buying a property with a low percentage down (generally 1, 3 or 5%), living there for a year (required), and renting out the other units or rooms. If you purchase a single family home, then you would rent out the other bedrooms. With a 2-4 unit home, the other units would be rented out. The rent from those units covers your mortgage and you live for free and sometimes even have cash flow coming in. Craig explains that at this point, you’ve eliminated your largest expense while building equity, paying down your loan, and saving money. You can use the money you saved to do it again and again to create more streams of passive income. Aside from these two methods, you could also buy the home of your dreams and live in the mother-in-law suite or a basement room.

Craig’s first house hacking property was a newly renovated duplex in Denver that had a one bedroom unit upstairs and a one bedroom unit downstairs. He purchased the property for $385,000. Craig lived in the lower unit and rented out the top for $1,750. The total mortgage payment for was $2,000 and Craig wanted to live for free, so he put his bedroom up on Airbnb and created a quasi bedroom in his living room. By renting out his bedroom for a year and the top unit, he made $2,800, lived for free and also brought in additional money.

Craig also discusses what he learned from his first house hack, his concept of net worth return on investment (NWROI), the four main benefits to house hacking, and how to get started with a house hack

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And this week, we have a special guest for you, Craig Curelop, author of “The House Hacking Strategy” and employee of Bigger Pockets. A little bit more background on Craig before we get started with the interview: Craig’s a real estate investing agent living in Denver, Colorado, where he moved in April 2017 and shortly after, closed on his first property that we will talk about in more detail during this episode. His move to Denver also afforded him the opportunity to work for Bigger Pockets, where he is the finance guy, talking and writing about all things real estate, personal finance, and early retirement. Outside of real estate and personal finance, he’s a self-proclaimed health nut where he strives to be able to perform at the highest possible level for the most amount of time. For fun, he loves to exercise, hike, travel, read and write, snowboard, golf, and play and watch sports, and as a Buffalo Bills fanatic myself, I’m reluctantly supportive of his love of the New England Patriots. In addition to his book and being a guest on the Bigger Pockets Real Estate and Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he’s been featured in the Denver Post, the BBC, and numerous real estate and personal finance podcasts, including Choose FI, Side Hustle Nation, and the Best Ever Real Estate Podcast. Craig, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Craig Curelop: Hey, Tim. Thanks for having me so much. Grateful for the opportunity to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’m hopeful my Bills might be getting closer to catching your Patriots. We’ll see what happens this year.

Craig Curelop: Eh, we’re giving you a flicker of hope, but I think we’ll smother that flicker.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right. We’ll take a flicker. So I have to say, I’m a huge fan of both Bigger Pockets as well as the house hacking strategy, which you did a great job in the book talking about. And I think it’s a strategy that is such a good fit for so many pharmacy professionals. And we’ll talk about many reasons why. So it’s an honor to have you on the show and to share your experience and expertise. And before we jump into the weeds on house hacking, let’s start with your personal journey. So 2017, you find yourself, as you mention in the book, in $90,000 of student loan debt — many of our audience can relate to that — and a net worth of -$30,000. So take us from there to when you ultimately become financially independent just two and half years later in 2019. How did you make that transformation?

Craig Curelop: Yeah, so honestly, it all started with house hacking, right? But there are three things that I really did to allow me to get to that financial independence mark. The first and the most important and largest was house hacking. The second was kind of side hustles and all that kind of stuff, just figuring out how to make more money. And the third was how to spend less money. So between those three things is what has allowed me to pay off all of my student debt and achieve financial independence in such a short amount of time.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. What an awesome accomplishment. In the very beginning of the book, you talk about — which really resonated with me and I think will resonate with our community — you talk about the typical strategy for home buying, which is “go to the bank, see what you can afford, and purchase the largest possible house and live there for 30 or more years.” What is the problem with this strategy and why does it increase the likelihood of someone being trapped in the rat race?

Craig Curelop: Well, it’s because when you buy the most expensive house you can afford, you are going to live a very luxurious life. And you are going to get used to living that luxurious life, and you are going to be very difficult for you to scale back and to start saving in times when you need. When times are good, you spend your money because you can. But then when something happens, you may have to scale back, and that’s going to be really tough for you. So why not just never scale up, save as much as you can, do these strategies that we’re going to talk about in this episode, so you can have the financial freedom to then go do whatever you want so you’re not stuck in your pharmacy jobs or your doctor jobs or whatever your audience does. Like it’s great, even if they love their jobs, it’s great to have that option and say, you know what? I don’t need this anymore. If I want to go travel, I can. If I’m having a kid and I want to spend time with my family, I can take a few years off no problem. So that’s kind of what I really believe in. And that’s why this strategy is so powerful.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love what you just said about having options there. We recently interviewed a pharmacist, Aaron Howell, who got started in real estate investing really by accident but has built up a portfolio of 29 units. And he talks about this concept of getting to the point where you ultimately has choice. He loves what he does as a pharmacist, but he now is in a position of choosing how he spends his time. And I think ultimately, when we talk about the concept of money leading to happiness, I think that’s a great example of how that can become possible. So in the book, Craig, you say something that really resonated with me. And I’m just going to read the quote. It’s, “The concept of financial independence can be lost on some people. Growing up in a middle class family, it was lost on me. That was until I read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki. In that book, I learned the secret that separates the rich from the middle class.” So Craig, tell us about what is that secret? And why did that book have such a profound impact on you?

Craig Curelop: Yeah, well that book taught me that you don’t necessarily need to trade time for money. Right? You can make money by trading your time. You can spend less than you make and invest that difference wisely into assets that provide you passive income. So that money makes you more money but in your sleep. And once that passive income of more money exceeds your expenses, you now have the freedom and the flexibility to do whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want, which was just mind-blowing to me because I just was never — it’s such a simple thing, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Craig Curelop: But like it just — no one brings it up, no one talks about it. And because money is such a taboo subject in so many families and the American way is to go to school, get a job, work for 40 years, live in the house. But to challenge that conventional wisdom is mind-blowing.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I was so glad to see you reference Kiyosaki’s book in your book because that’s one I often recommend, I’ve mentioned it on the show here, I recommend it when we’re speaking at events, is that for me and even my wife as we read it together a second time, that fundamentally changed the way I just think about money and think about personal finance. So if you haven’t yet read it, I highly recommend you do so. Again, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. Alright, let’s get to the basics of house hacking. Definition. How do you define house hacking?

Craig Curelop: Yeah. So house hacking is when you buy a property for a low percentage down, typically it’s 1, 3, or 5% down. You’re required to live there for one year, so you live there for one year while renting out the other parts. If you’re buying a single-family home, you’ll rent out the other rooms. If you’re buying a two-, three-, or four-unit, you rent out the other units. And such that the rent from those units covers your mortgage, and you live for free and perhaps even get paid to live there. So you’ve now eliminated your largest expense, you’re building equity in a property, you’re paying down a loan, and you’re just saving so much money that you can do it again in a year and just have that compounding effect and build that passive income extremely quickly.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And the reason why I mentioned at the beginning of the show I think this will resonate so well with so many pharmacists is we know that for most individuals and obviously pharmacists as well, their mortgage payment becomes such a big percentage of their overall monthly expenses and ultimately can become a significant limiting factor in what they’re able to do in terms of cash flow, so this concept, essentially the idea here is one or two or three more people may be paying your mortgage and obviously allowing you to build up equity and other things, we’ll talk about tax advantages, but hopefully freeing up some cash flow as well. Now, Craig, before I read your book, when I thought about house hacking, I thought about it in the very traditional sense, which in the book as you outline, is a traditional house hack, which is buying a duplex, a triplex or a quad and ultimately renting out the other units. But you also talk about other options that are considered a house hack besides just that multi-unit situation where you’re renting out other units. So talk to us about the variety of what can be considered a house hack.

Craig Curelop: Yeah, so you can go as aggressive or as not aggressive as you want. And you know, we kind of talk about it on a continuum, right? We call it the comfort continuum where basically, you can sacrifice — you can be more comfortable, but you’re going to sacrifice profit for that. So it kind of depends on where you and your family and the people living in that house are going to lie. So my favorite strategy is the rent by the room strategy because you can buy a single-family house, you live in one bedroom, and you rent the other bedrooms out. Single-family houses are more liquid, they’re easier to sell, they tend to appreciate a little bit faster. And they’re just also kind of a little bit more cozy and nice to live in. So I like the single-family house strategy. But if you don’t want to live with roommates, the other strategy is a luxurious house hack where you still buy that single-family house, but instead of renting out the rooms, you have the house of your dreams that you love but maybe you have a mother-in-law suite in the basement or out back or you have like a casita or something out back, and you rent that out on Airbnb or maybe even long-term rental. And that may not fully cover your mortgage, but it may give you $1,000-1,500 a month. And that’s still $1,000-1,500 a month, which is still considered house hacking.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love the way you reference that in the book, you mention the continuum. You call it the least profitable, smallest lifestyle change all the way to the most profitable, biggest lifestyle change. And that really resonated with me because I was thinking about this for my situation with four young kids, obviously that may look very different from somebody else who’s listening that is single and open to roommates and other types of things. So ranging from renting out additional units all the way to live-and-flip, which our listeners can check out the book to get some more information on that as well. Why is the four-unit number so important? So as we talk about a duplex, triplex, or quad, talk to us from a loan standpoint of why that four, that number of four units is so important.

Craig Curelop: Yeah, so anything above four units, so five and higher, will be considered a commercial property. And banks will not lend to that as a — you wouldn’t be able to get that low percentage down that I talked about, the 1, 3, or 5% or 3.5% if you do the FHA. But if you keep it at four or under, you can then. They consider it a residential residence.

Tim Ulbrich: So if I were to buy a quad and it’s not an investment property, it’s my first property. It’s essentially treated like it would be if I purchased a single-family home, but in a percent down, interest rate on the property but also in a future sale beyond the year. Again, from a tax standpoint, it’s treated — obviously there’s rules around the amount of value and things of which there’s profit, but it has all the benefits of a single-family home as long as it’s four units or less, correct?

Craig Curelop: Yep, it’s basically treated like a single-family home. Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So let’s talk about your first house hacking property, a newly renovated duplex in Denver. So talk to us through that property, the numbers, and what you learned from that first experience.

Craig Curelop: Yeah, so that first property, it was, like you said, a newly renovated duplex, it was a one-bed on top, one-bed down below duplex just a few blocks north of City Park, which is Denver’s largest park and just a mile and a half away from the office that I worked. So it was a perfect location for me. And it was listed at $400,000. I purchased it for $385,000. And I lived in the bottom, I rented out the top.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Craig Curelop: So total mortgage payment on that property was just about $2,000. I rented out the top for $1,750. And I lived in the bottom not for free, right? I was still paying $250.

Tim Ulbrich: $250.

Craig Curelop: But I really, really, really wanted to live for free. That was my goal. So what I did was I rented out my bedroom on Airbnb. And I made this quasi-bedroom out of my living room where I put up a curtain and a room divider, like a cardboard box room divider. I threw a futon behind there with like a little tote for my clothes and lived behind there for one year while I had a revolving guest of roommates, a revolving door of roommates coming in and out on Airbnb. And you know, with that, I was making $2,800 a month on the $2,000 mortgage total.

Tim Ulbrich: OK, awesome.

Craig Curelop: So I was living for free, I was cash flowing, I was saving tons of money, and I was really set my foundation for what has to come in the years since.

Tim Ulbrich: So you started that in essence of living on one floor, renting out to the other, saw that you were getting close to getting the home mortgage covered but not the whole thing. You wanted to see that, so then you added in the Airbnb and set up shop in the living room, made that your bedroom and rented out the other. So on the continuum spectrum, obviously we’d put that on the little more of the extreme side but love the passion and energy to make that happen. So what did you learn from that? I mean, was that an Aha! Moment or did you take away from that to say, hey, I never want to live with roommates again? Or did you see that as a strategy that you’d want to replicate further?

Craig Curelop: That was a foundation for me. I knew that it was only going to be for one year, so that helped. It wasn’t bad after the first two weeks. I’ve said this in previous podcasts I’ve been on, but it’s basically what’s called hedonic adaptation. And that whole idea if your listeners don’t know is that basically, they did a study of people who lost a limb and people who won the lottery. And after two weeks, they’ve regressed back to their happiness before that event happened. So whatever happens, you’re basically going to get used to it within two weeks. And I’d applied that some type of wisdom to OK, I’m going to live behind this curtain. It’s going to suck for two weeks. If I can just get past those two weeks, it’ll be just super normal. And that’s exactly what happened. It just became normal. It became my bed. Even when my Airbnb was vacant and I had my bed available, I would still sleep on my futon because it was just, you know, it wasn’t even worth it to clean the sheets again for me. So yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Love that. And I think that’s a great reminder, Craig, you know, you gave the example there where two weeks you got used to it in terms of living in the living room and behind the curtain, but that’s true with so many things. As people are evaluating might I purchase a $500,000 home or maybe look at smaller and $200,000, they may have this built-up image of how painful it’s going to be or how awful it’s going to be. But ultimately, to your example in the research, you get used to it. But also, it’s all the other peripheral benefits. So when you in your case are living in your living room and you have roommates and obviously it’s cash flow positive versus if you’re living by yourself, fully funding the mortgage in a nice neighborhood, there’s other expenses that come along with that when we think about keeping up with the Joneses, taking care of your yard, all those other things that you can mitigate through some of these strategies. In the book, one of the concepts I found really interesting, Craig, is a concept that you call “net worth return on investment” or NWROI. What is this? Can you explain that? And why is this relevant to house hacking?

Craig Curelop: Yeah. So if there’s any finance people out there, it’s basically like a glorified internal rate of return or IRR calculation. But what it does is it takes all of the wealth builders of house hacking, so it takes into account cash flow, rent savings, loan paydown and appreciation, and it adds — it sums up all of that over the course of one year. And it divides it by your initial investment. So that would likely be your down payment and any rehab costs. And it gives you a percentage. Right? And that percentage is oftentimes well into the 100% or more, which just means that people are actually — like you’re making all of your money back on a house hack within that first year, which obviously allows you to then go ahead and save up for the next one and the next one and the next one. And it’s just such a powerful strategy, and there’s just no other investment out there that’s far from putting your money in a startup that has a 95% chance of failing. There’s just no other like risk-reward that’s better than house hacking. I just have never found it.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that’s why I love in the book, mention that house hacking for you — and I would agree — is the most logical first step to real estate investing. And I think in terms of building wealth and building net worth is something that many of our listeners can consider. So you outlined four main areas in the book in terms of benefits of house hacking. And I’m going to list these off, and then we’re going to go through each one of them briefly: cash flow and loan paydown, equity through appreciation — and that could be either natural or forced appreciation — learning to landlord, and then some of the tax benefits. So let’s walk through each of those. What are the benefits when it comes to cash flow and loan paydown, probably the most obvious here in this group of four?

Craig Curelop: Yeah. Well, you know, you obviously are living for free. So you’re saving whatever you paid for rent, that’s $0. You’re likely going to be cash flowing even more than that, so if you’re cash flowing $400 and you were just paying $1,000 for rent before this, that’s a $1,400 difference. Like that’s $1,400 a month difference. Like that is significant numbers, you’re talking tens of thousands of dollars a year just in cash flow, right? And a part of that payment you’re going to make is going to be your loan paydown. And so each time your make a payment on your loan, there’s a portion of it that goes to interest, and a portion of it that goes to principal. And the principal is what you actually owe to the lender. The interest is what you’re paying to the lender to borrow the money that you borrowed. And over time, the principal that you’re paying down goes up and the interest goes down. So you’re just — so you’re creating wealth that way by paying down your loan. But you’re not actually paying it down because your tenants are paying it down.

Tim Ulbrich: And your example, I think it was your first property, your example where if you would have moved into that home without renting it out, you would have been paying $2,000 a month. But instead of you writing a check for $2,000 a month, you had $2,800 that was coming in. So you’ve got to really think about what that net difference is and what that means to your financial plan. So No. 1, cash flow and loan paydown, which then obviously also impacts as that property increases in value. So here we’re talking No. 2, equity through appreciation. So talk to us about that point as well as the difference between natural and forced appreciation.

Craig Curelop: Yeah. So appreciation is exactly what it sounds like. It’s just your value appreciating or gaining value over time. And so forced appreciation is when you actually do something to the house, right? Maybe you remodel the kitchen. Maybe you add a bedroom or a bathroom or you add square footage to the house. You’re adding value to the house, and that’s forced appreciation. And that’s why real estate is so amazing too because you can actually just take an asset and you can change it yourself. Go ahead and try to buy Apple and then go try to change something that Apple does to force appreciation. That’s just not going to happen, right? So that’s forced appreciation, which is why a lot of people love real estate. Now, natural appreciation is just over time, real estate appreciates, right? It always goes up. Look at any 20-year period, and real estate has gone up over time, even in the pit of 2009, go back to 1989, and it’s still up from there. So over time, if you can just hold it, it’s going to go up. And that is what natural appreciation. And with my duplex, I got super lucky with this one. I bought it at $385,000, like I said. And I just got it appraised a couple months ago. And it came back at $550,000.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Craig Curelop: I’ve done nothing to that property except just hold onto it. And it appreciated that much in that short amount of time.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.

Craig Curelop: So you know, did I get lucky? Yes. But I also — you can’t get lucky if you don’t put yourself in a position to get lucky. So I went ahead and bought that property, put myself in a position where I could get lucky, and lo and behold, I did.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that. And speaking of putting yourself in a position to be lucky, going back to the beginning when you had $90,000 of student loan debt and net worth of -$30,000, digging yourself out of that obviously is a part, as it is for our community as well, to put yourself in a position to be opportunistic. So No. 3 is learning to landlord. And I think a lot of people look at that and say, “Benefit? Landlord? I don’t see the connection.” Talk to us about that as a benefit of house hacking.

Craig Curelop: Well, so when you’re house hacking and if you do want to get into real estate investing, you will be a landlord at some point. Now, you can always outsource that to property management. But even still, you’re going to want to manage your property manager, so you’re going to want to know the basics of landlording. And it’s just a nice transition because you’re basically just living there, you’re going to go home anyway, you’re going to be with your tenants, you’re going to see what your tenants are doing. They’re not going to be that day. You’re going to make sure to screen them well. And you’re just going to go through that process of being a landlord. And you know, it sounds like a daunting term of whatever it is, but honestly, it is very — it’s not as hard as it sounds.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I like — and I think you talk about this in the book — when you’re house hacking obviously a property, let’s say a duplex, you’re on one side, you’re renting out the other, I think that’s about as convenient as it can get in terms of landlording, you know, versus if you’re trying to manage another property at a distance or even in the other part of town. So learning that process and reaping the benefits as you look to expand your portfolio I think makes a whole lot of sense of getting that skill while you’re going through a house hack. And then No. 4, which to me is an area that I’m really interested in and I think often gets overlooked, is the tax benefit. So we talked about already not only do you have cash flow, somebody else is paying down your loan, the property’s appreciating either naturally or through force, you’re learning some skills, and then also we have this bucket of tax benefit. So talk to us — and obviously disclaimer, I’m not a CPA, you’re not a CPA — but generally speaking, what are the tax benefits that come along with real estate investing but more specifically here in house hacking.

Craig Curelop: Yeah. So there’s a whole bunch of tax benefits that come with owning real estate. The biggest one by and large, especially for buy-and-hold investors is what is called depreciation. So what depreciation is is that the IRS says that you own a house for $300,000 or whatever it is. You are allowed to take a portion of that house and deduct it from your taxable income every single year. And so you basically take that $300,000 and divide it by 27.5, and you get roughly $10,000 or whatever that is dollars a year. And you’re able to take that as a loss against your business of collecting rent. So now your taxable income is much lower. Frankly, it may even be negative. And this may not apply to your audience, if you’re under a certain threshold, then you take that loss from your real estate business and apply it to your W2 income so your tax basis is lower, you’re not getting taxed on any of the rental income that you have, and so you’re like double saving on taxes. And that’s hard to actually quantify because it’s such a case-by-case basis. And it depends on if you’re below that threshold or not. But either way, there’s tremendous other benefits as well in terms of like doing 1031 exchanges or if you live in the property for two years, you can sell it with no capital gains tax to $250,000 if you’re single or $500,000 if you’re married. So there’s just tons and tons of tax benefits when it comes to real estate.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I hope our listeners will check out the book. You do a great job of teaching this in a very easy-to-understand way. You talk about the tax write-offs, obviously the depreciation, you give good examples in there, and the 1031 exchange are two of the last five here. And this reminds me, Craig, I read — awhile back after reading “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” “Tax-Free Wealth” by Tom Wheelwright I believe is the author, which is connected to Robert Kiyosaki. And I remember hearing this for the first time, and I thought, wait a minute. So properties are appreciating in value, and you’re going to reap the benefits of that. But you’re capitalizing from a tax standpoint on the depreciation that you can write off. And the answer is yes. And it’s an amazing thing. And you highlight that in the book. So drawbacks of house hacking. Obviously, I imagine many of our listeners are thinking of objections. And you outline several in the book and you talk about ways to overcome these potential objections. But two that I want to specifically ask you about that may be most common objections that our community has: No. 1, living with or next to others, which you addressed a little bit already, and No. 2, which you call “living in a crappy investment property.” So talk a little bit more about those and how listeners may get comfortable overcoming those to be able to reap the benefits of the house hack situation.

Craig Curelop: Yeah, so it’s all — really, what it comes down to is delayed gratification if I had to sum it up in two words. It’s like, yeah, you could afford the nice house. And you know, your friends aren’t going to be impressed with you living in a dingy place with a bunch of roommates. And it may not even be dingy. You can still have a nice place and live in it with roommates. But — and it’s going to be slightly more work and all those things — but you’re making a couple sacrifices. You’re like, people might think a little less of you for a couple years, but what are those people going to think of you when you’re able to retire in 3-5 years and they have another 35 years ahead of them? Right? So think about like those — think about like 3-5 years out rather than just like in the now because this is going to be the huge, huge difference.

Tim Ulbrich: And I would encourage — as a follow-up, I would encourage our listeners pick up a copy of the book, I think you did one of the best jobs I’ve seen of talking about the importance of a why and giving a very specific activity of how you can identify and articulate your why and why that is so important before you jump into I would say real estate investing in general, whether that’s house hacking or otherwise is really spending time to figure out why is this idea of generating passive income important? Because I think ultimately, that will help uncover some interesting things but also keep you motivated along the way to achieve that goal. So the activity you have in the book is great for that. So Craig, I’m someone listening, I’m ready to pull the trigger and questions that I think of right away are, gosh, where do I even get started with finding deals? And what type of financing might I pursue? And where do I go there? But what advice do you have for people that say, yes, I buy into it, I love the philosophy, I love the idea, I’m ready to get going. Where do they go to get started in terms of finding deals?

Craig Curelop: Yeah. So I always say the first thing you should actually do is get in touch with a lender. Well, you can get in touch with a lender and an agent at the same time. So to find a deal, you need to be in touch with a real estate agent, tell them exactly what you’re looking for, tell them exactly what you want. It’s super helpful to find an agent that actually knows about house hacking and that knows about at least investment property. And you can find those on Bigger Pockets or you can find those — actually, I have like a website that I created. It’s just like www.CraigCurelop.com, and I have a thing where I can introduce you to a house hacking-friendly agent pretty much anywhere in the country.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, cool.

Craig Curelop: And yeah. Basically the idea there is you want someone that either has done what you’re doing or at least knows a hell of a lot about it. So they can tell you what you’re going to get for rents, what your mortgage payment’s going to be, how you can extract the most dollar out of each investment. And so picking a good agent is really important. So I’d recommend finding a good agent that knows what they’re doing, they’ll send you MLS deals — and MLS is the Multiple Listing Service, which is just like a database of deals all around your area, and honestly, you don’t need to like — you know, if you’re into real estate investing and all, you’ll hear terms like driving for dollars or calling on foreclosures. You don’t need to get the best deal on a house hack because the difference between — like a $20,000 difference is going to be like $50-75 on your mortgage, which is peanuts compared to the thousands of dollars you’re saving a month in rent. So it makes way more sense to offer on a property whatever they’re asking and just like get the deal done so you can start saving on rent, start cash flowing, and most importantly, start that one-year timer until you can get your next one. So then you’ve got two working for you exactly one year from now instead of one working six months from now, then another 18 months from now. Those really start to add up as you get more and more farther down in the process. So tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars if you just continue to wait.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think the Bigger Pockets team does such a good job of emphasizing the importance of get started. Jump in and not get paralyzed in some of the weeds and details. Obviously you want to be educated, you want to be informed, you want to make sure you’re ready, it fits in with the rest of your financial plan, but ultimately, so much is to be had in terms of the learning, especially as you get started. And I think that’s great advice that you shared. So congratulations, Craig, on the work that you’ve done with the book, “The House Hacking Strategy.” It’s an excellent, comprehensive resource for anyone that is hearing this for the first time and wants to learn more as well as those who are ready to execute and certainly I think everybody in between. I hope our community will check it out. Available on Amazon as well as BiggerPockets.com. And really, we’ve just scratched the surface of house hacking during our interviewing time together today. We didn’t even get into all the information you have in the book about after you purchase the property such as marketing for rent, screening tenants, managing the house hack, etc. Again, all of which you cover in detail in the book. So Craig, where can our listeners go to learn more about you? Obviously, we’ll link to CraigCurelop.com, BiggerPockets.com, we’ll link to the book in the show notes. Anywhere else that our listeners can go to connect with you or learn more?

Craig Curelop: The best way is Instagram. My Instagram handle is @theFIguy. So @theFIguy. And yeah, follow me on there, hit me up, shoot me a message. I’m pretty good at responding within 24-48 hours. So by all means, yeah, I would love to hear from you guys.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Craig, thank you so much for your time again. We appreciate it.

Craig Curelop: Thank you so much for having me on, Tim. Thanks.

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YFP 129: How One Pharmacist Built a 29 Unit Real Estate Portfolio


How This Pharmacist Started in Real Estate Investing and Renting Properties

Aaron Howell, a real estate investor, real estate agent and ambulatory pharmacist at University of Virginia Health Systems joins Tim Ulbrich on this week’s episode. Aaron talks about his journey from accidentally falling into his first investment property when trying to sell his condo to how he built his current portfolio that includes 29 units in 3 different cities across the country. Aaron’s real estate investing and the cash flow it provides has put him in a position to choose how he spends his time.

About Today’s Guest

Aaron Howell graduated from West Virginia University with his BS Pharmacy in 2000. Aaron is a part-time pharmacist at the University of Virginia Health Systems and the Pharmacist in Charge at the Charlottesville Free Clinic. He is also a private pilot and recently became a real estate agent. Before he met his wife, he accidentally fell into real estate investing. They currently have 29 rental units in their portfolio in 3 different cities across the country.

Summary

Aaron Howell is a pharmacist and real estate agent. He accidentally fell into real estate investing when he couldn’t sell his condo in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2009. After having it on the market for a year, his realtor suggested that he rent it out to at least bring in some income. That’s when the lightbulb went off for Aaron and his passion for real estate investing began.

After renting out that property, his mother suggested that he look at properties in Las Vegas to purchase. In 2011, the market was very hot and properties were selling for a half or a third of their original listing. During a visit to Las Vegas, he got one property under contact for $90,000 (original asking price was $270,000) which would bring in about $1,100 a month while being rented. Six months later, Aaron purchased another property without even seeing it. In 2014, his local realtor showed him a listing for a duplex in Charlottesville which he ended up purchasing. In 2015 Aaron married his wife, a nurse, found BiggerPockets, and ended up purchasing property in Cleveland to rent.

Aaron was still working as a full-time pharmacist for Walmart, however, in 2016 the company started talking about cutting hours. At this point, Aaron knew he needed to get his portfolio in order and redid his home equity line of credit.

To buy properties, Aaron uses his home equity line of credit. He worked hard to pay the principal on his first house down and eventually built up equity in it. He then opened a HELOC and uses it as a bank to fund purchases. He’ll take a large chunk out for the principal and down payment and then will use money that’s cash flowing from other properties to pay the HELOC back down.

When choosing a property to purchase, Aaron focuses on three main areas: location, price and the condition of systems (roof, water heater, etc). When asked about his financial why, Aaron shares that his goal is to generate more time and to have more flexibility in their schedules. He currently works 3 days a week, however his wife is still a full-time nurse and he’d like to be able to provide her the option to reduce her hours if she wants.

They currently have 29 rental units in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Charlottesville.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. We mentioned before that we would be bringing more real estate investing content to the YFP community, and I’m excited to do exactly that this week through my interview with Aaron Howell, who is a real estate investor, real estate agent, and ambulatory pharmacist at University of Virginia Health System. Aaron, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Aaron Howell: Thank you so much for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: I’m excited to do this. We had a conversation a few weeks ago, and you got me fired up about your path in real estate. As I mentioned, we’re wanting to do more with this topic in the community. I think your story is really going to inspire many, so I appreciate you taking the time. And before we jump into your specific journey in real estate investing, including your current holding, talk us through your pharmacy career thus far since graduating from West Virginia University in 2000.

Aaron Howell: OK. I started out — kind of rewind that a little bit back to 1994. I graduated high school and my aunt — I kind of started college that August. My aunt was at the local pharmacy talking to the pharmacist there. She’d mentioned, hey, my nephew, he’s looking for a job. And the pharmacist there had mentioned like, hey, we’re actually looking for a technician. So I just kind of luckily got the job, started there, loved it, enjoyed it, kind of soaked everything up. You know, I knew I’d be kind of aiming for that as a career. So I was just like a dry sponge at that point just soaking every little bit of info, working extra shifts when somebody needed to trade or couldn’t work a shift. Got into pharmacy school, graduated, and moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, took a job here in town. And I didn’t know a soul. I remember talking to my mom and grandmother and they were like, “Why are you moving to Charlottesville?” And I just kind of just wanted to go somewhere and get kind of a fresh start — not that anything was bad back home, but I moved here, I didn’t have any relatives, didn’t have any friends that were living here, and kind of just started from scratch and started working. I worked for about probably a year and a half as a staff pharmacist. And then I took an overnight position at the pharmacy there. At the time, they were open 24 hours. Did that for about a year and then I started floating from various pharmacies kind of in central Virginia. And did that for about three years. At one point, you know, I was kind of approached by my district manager to take a PIC job at a local pharmacy, the one that was closest to my house. So I started there, did that for about three years, then I changed companies and then took a job with them. Worked for about 10 years, and so I worked up until about 2008 for Kroger. And then back in middle of 2008, I kind of had the idea of maybe changing companies. There had been some transition kind of with the leadership at Kroger. And so I made the move to WalMart chain. Literally, a good friend of mine was working as the PIC there and he’s like, “Hey, we’ve got a spot open.” It was like maybe half a mile, maybe a mile down the street, so I made the move then. And at that point, I had bought my first townhome at 2006 or so. This was 2008. And I worked up until June of 2018 at WalMart. And at that point, made the move down to a part-time position at the University of Virginia Health Systems.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. And that’s your work as an ambulatory pharmacist. And we’ll talk a little bit as we go through, I’m sure, how real estate investing allowed you to go down into a part-time position as you were able to supplement some of your income. But let’s start back at why real estate investing. Obviously, many pharmacists listening I’m guessing have much of their investments tied up in 401ks and 403bs and other areas, which certainly makes sense. But you obviously said, hey, I want to also get involved in real estate investing. Why was that the case? And where did that desire come from?

Aaron Howell: I mentioned that the house, or townhome I had purchased in 2006, you know, it really started kind of there. By 2009, I’d kind of outgrown the place just space-wise. I was like, I need a bigger place. I think I wanted a yard and a garage and things like that. So I decided to move a little bit outside Charlottesville to a small community called Crozet. It’s kind of to the west of Charlottesville, kind of toward the mountains. And bought a home, and this is kind of like in the height of the Great Recession. We had listed the house for sale, the prices were decreasing and decreasing and decreasing. So we had it on the market for about a year. My realtor at the time was like, “Hey, why don’t we go ahead and just rent this thing?” So I was like, OK, sounds good. So about a month later, he had brought a tenant to look at the place. She decided to move in, and you know, the lightbulb kind of went off at that point. She stayed a few months and then she lost her job and she had to move away, but I found the second tenant myself. And she did great. She eventually purchased the place in 2016. She was a great tenant for a beginner landlord like me. I’d go to fix something or go to go by to pick something up, and she had the place looking better than when I lived there. So she was a great start. But somewhere along the line there, I think the lightbulb just kind of went off. And I kind of thought to myself, OK, I can outsource my debt and take advantage of the tax benefits and maybe put a little bit of money, aka cash flow, in my pocket at the same time.

Tim Ulbrich: So I find it interesting you kind of accidentally fell into that first one. You mentioned the recession, not being able to sell the condo, and that person recommending that you get into a rent situation, which turned into a purchase. Obviously the numbers made sense. Can you talk a little bit about the cash flow with that property in terms of what was that doing in terms of month-to-month, which obviously I’m sure gave you the momentum to say, hey, I want to do more of this, you know, with other properties.

Aaron Howell: Grand scheme of things, I pretty much broke even. I might have maybe had $50 or $100 a month cash flow.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Aaron Howell: At that point, I wasn’t the one making both mortgage payments. I did that for a year. It was kind of painful. But you know, with her kind of making the mortgage payment and then long story short, when I sold the property in 2016, she had paid the property — or I had paid the property down to where I actually got a check at closing. Even though it was a monumental real estate fail, it was kind of like a high tuition real estate university for me over those seven, eight, nine years.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it’s a good strategy even though you accidentally fell into it, I think it’s often something that people might think about, especially if they’re in a good rental situation with their first home and they’re looking to buy a second home or a condo situation like yours. You know, do they have the financial margin, the capacity to keep that property if the numbers make sense, of course, and purchase their second property but ultimately be able to rent out their first? And I guess my question for you on that point, Aaron, is you obviously had put yourself in a financial position that although painful, you could short-term take on two mortgages as well as come up with a down payment on a home without having to sell that condo. So I think for some of our listeners, they might be thinking about, there’s no way I would move in unless I pull the equity out of this to put down a down payment. So can you talk a little bit about how you were able to put yourself in the position, you know, whether it was you had paid off debt at that point, you had solid savings that allowed you to be able to front the two mortgages as well as come up with the down payment on the new home without needing the equity from the condo?

Aaron Howell: Yeah. You know, at the time, I had done some good saving. I had some money kind of set aside in the bank. You know, all through those years, there was a great shortage pharmacy market-wise. So from when I graduated in 2000 to when 2008 I had left Kroger, there was a huge opportunity for overtime. I mean, I’ve got a picture of me holding up like five paychecks, and just kind of like — it was kind of crazy at the time.

Tim Ulbrich: The good old days.

Aaron Howell: The good old days, yes. You know, like Kroger would pay us monthly. But they would pay you weekly for overtime. So I had gotten I think maybe a paycheck or two and like two or three overtime checks. And it was just a good time. I saved that money, though, and kind of was able to get into the second home.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m guessing we have recent graduates that are like, what is this guy talking about? This doesn’t even exist. But what I heard there is you were intentional about saving it. Obviously, I think that could easily have been sucked up with other expenses. And I think being intentional to have liquid savings, whether it be for an emergency fund or beyond that, to put yourself in a position to be on the offense when it comes to something like a real estate purchase. I think that’s such an important, important detail in that story. So you accidentally kind of go into this first property, a condo you couldn’t sell, you turn it into a rental, you mention it’s break even, maybe a little bit better. Where did you go from there that ultimately obviously has led to your current portfolio? Talk to us about the second, the third, the fourth property and how you made those decisions.

Aaron Howell: Somewhere along the line, sometime after moving or right before moving out to Crozet, I become — got interested in hiking and mountain climbing. And I’d went to a mountaineering school in Alaska for a week on Denali, or in Denali National Park in 2008. I’d been to Mexico and climbed some of their highest peaks in 2009. So 2011 rolls around, and I fly into Las Vegas to go climb Mount Whitney, which is the highest mountain in the Lower 48 states. And my mom had mentioned before I went, she’s like, “Hey, get some of those real estate booklets that they give away for free like at gas stations and McDonalds.” And I was kind of like, “Huh?” And she’s like, “Yeah, the market out there is really depressed. You know, grab one of those while you’re out there or a couple of them and bring them back to take a look at them.” And you know, I completely blew her off. I’m Point A to Point B lots of times and I landed in Vegas and immediately made a beeline to Bishop, California, driving for brief stops in Death Valley and looking around a little bit. But real estate was not on my mind at that point. But a month or two later, she had sent me some listings via email and she’s like, “Hey, I’ve been in contact with an agent there in California” — not California but Las Vegas and you know, “Do you want to fly out there maybe and take a look at some of those properties?” And I’m just kind of like OK? Maybe? So we made the trip out there. And the market at that point, this was probably August or so, maybe late August, September of 2011.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Aaron Howell: The market at that point was just crazy. People were buying stuff left and right because it was half of the original price, a third of the original price, so we got one place under contract. It was pretty much Class A, you know, nice, gated community. The house was about five or six years old. We picked it up for like $90,000. I think it recently had sold for $270,000. It was getting probably $1,100-1,200 rent per month.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Aaron Howell: So it was kind of very easy. We had been recommended to a property management company there by the realtor. We used them from the get-go. They did great. So about six months later, I go back and I buy the second property on my own at this point kind of getting a taste for that first property. Again, the market was just crazy hot. Stuff would come on the market, it looked good, and it would go under contract by noon, 1, 2, 3 o’clock. So at this point, I didn’t fly out there at all. I just trusted the realtor’s input. She was able to get me into another property. We got it for $100,000. Again, $1,100-1,200 rent per month, pretty much Class A in a nice, gated community. And you know, the funny story is — and I highly do not recommend this — I never saw the property. I didn’t go out there to see it, I had the home inspector do the home inspection, I got the report, I had pictures, but grand scheme of things from purchasing it to selling it in 2017, I never physically laid eyes on the property, which was strange. Again, I don’t recommend that for the most part. But so things go well there, 2012, late 2012, get that property, and at the same time, I started getting my pilot’s license, so that kind of put property buying on hold for awhile. I’m still managing at WalMart, doing things there. The company was great to work for up until that point. 2013 rolls around, I have some mutual friends who introduced me to my wife. So I met her. 2014, we get engaged. Late May or so, maybe early May of 2014, I walked into my realtor’s office just kind of saying hey, shooting the breeze, and he hands me a listing for a duplex here in Charlottesville, which is near the college, aka prime rental market there. So long story short, after probably about four months of working on closing and whatnot, we purchased the duplex. And Day 1, it was pretty much a cash cow. It’s also been the problem child of the portfolio too.

Tim Ulbrich: There’s always one if not more.

Aaron Howell: Yes, exactly. You know, there’s been many days I’m like, sell it. Sell it all. But for the most part, like the last couple years, it’s had 0% vacancy. The property management company here just keeps it — if the tenant doesn’t renew, they have them move out four or five days ahead of time and then July 1, they’ll have a new tenant in there and ready to go. So 2014 rolls around, 2015, early in January, I got married. We at that point — I had kind of found Bigger Pockets online and was looking in the marketplace there and then discovered Cleveland. So we at that point, probably June, July, contact a realtor up there and we fly up there, take a look at some properties, we go to an Indians game, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a great time.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

Aaron Howell: But we get a house under contract, single-family home at that point and close on it probably November or so. And in the meantime, my realtor here again knowing kind of what I’m looking for, he shows me a townhouse that was a foreclosure just here in the neighborhood. There was no sign up in front of it. Lots of times, he and his partner don’t put signs up in front of properties. They just list on the MLS because they don’t want people just tire kicking. But I can see the townhouse from right here, from my back porch. And I had no clue that it was for sale, but we go in there, and there was an awful smell, the carpet was messed up, not one of the appliances in the kitchen worked properly. Like the refrigerator was dead, the microwave was missing the handle, the oven’s bake cycle didn’t work. But we end up purchasing that about the same time we did our first purchase in Cleveland. You know, again, that one here local, the townhouse I can see from here has been a great rental property. We’ve had pretty much 0 vacancy the last couple years. So 2016 rolls around, and we purchase another duplex in Cleveland, kind of later in the year. And then things at work kind of changed late 2016. You know, it was kind of happy-go-lucky. I had built a kind of great staff there at work, and then kind of late 2016, you could hear kind of like winds of change on the conference calls. Everything went from like, “You guys are doing great. This pharmacy is leading in this, this pharmacy is leading in this. You’re doing great,” to late 2016, it went from that to kind of like, “Hey, we need to cut hours.” And you know, at this point, it was kind of like, OK. So another couple months go by, maybe another two or three months, and I’m like, I need to get my butt rolling with my portfolio. So I redid some things. I changed our home equity line around a little bit. The things in our neighborhood were selling for a lot more than I had ever purchased for back in 2009. So we redid the home equity line and kind of got things rolling there in Cleveland. I went back I think maybe in April or so for a home inspection. We had got a quad under contract there. And it went from the home inspection, everything looked pretty well. And I remember kind of flying out that day to go to Cleveland for the inspection and this little voice kind of in the back of my mind was like, how dare you think you could leave pharmacy and be a real estate investor? How dare you? But I knew that other people had done it, so I was like, if other people can do it, then I can do it.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Now, so that’s really — it’s really awesome. And first of all, congratulations. I mean, what you’ve done here — and we’re going to dissect it a little bit more, I’ve got a lot of questions that I’m hoping our listeners are thinking as well — but first of all, congratulations. I mean, what you’ve done and I think obviously you’ve taken some risk, calculated risk along the way, you’ve taught yourself. And I think for many of us, especially when we’ve been in school for so long, maybe residency training, other things, there’s kind of that one-track mindset of maybe I can only do this. But I think what you saw as changes were happening in the market and obviously latching onto an area that was of interest to you that would diversify your income and give you options, also allow you to build your portfolio and long-term wealth, I think it’s really incredible. And so many things that I want to dissect. The first one — and you alluded to this maybe a little bit with the HELOC when you talked about the Home Equity Line of Credit, you know, if I’m somebody listening to this and I have no real estate investment properties, I’m thinking to myself, man, he’s just talking about buying properties, buying properties, buying a home in Vegas, buying a duplex in Cleveland, buying a quad in Cleveland. So what is your strategy? How are you coming up with the cash to buy these? Are you putting these on conventional loans with 25% down? Even that, where is the cash coming from? Has it been savings? Has it been a HELOC? Has it been a combination of? And what might be some strategies our listeners can find in that area?

Aaron Howell: Yeah, that’s a good question. So basically, the home equity line, I had purchased my house in 2009. And for a long time, I had worked really hard to pay it down, to pay the principal down. And I paid extra whenever I could. I would get a bonus at work and I would use that to just pay the mortgage down. So eventually, I’d build up equity. The market here, the values were improving, and you know, I was paying the principal down. So eventually, I opened up a home equity line and over the years, I’ve kind of used that as a bank to fund purchases. So I’ll take like a big chunk of principal for the down payment and then with the cash flow from Property A, Property B, Property C, I’ll take and pay the home equity line back down or use the home equity line to pay more principal down on the original property.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Aaron Howell: I just basically use that kind of as a bank. It could be problematic. You actually have to make payments on the home equity line.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Aaron Howell: And it’s almost like the bank’s giving you enough rope to hang yourself with.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Aaron Howell: But you had to be kind of somewhat responsible in a controlled kind of fashion.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m glad you mentioned obviously there’s risk there as well. But I think many investors — and I know several, and my wife Jess and I have explored a similar path — once you put yourself in a good equity position on your home, if done well with calculated risk and you understand the risk and you have a good emergency fund and you’re buying properties that you’ve done your homework and you know that the numbers and all those things, obviously you can mitigate that risk. But nonetheless, the risk is still there. And you have to be aware of it, but I think your point is well taken is that we don’t want our listeners to hear this and say, “Oh, well, I’ve got a decent amount of equity in my home and I’m just going to run out and purchase properties and use it as a bank and hope for the best.” So I think that obviously, there’s payments that come with the HELOC, obviously the longer you have that money out, you’re going to be paying interest on that depending on the rate, a whole host of variables to think about. But I think that strategy is one that our listeners should think about that especially when they either have their student loans gone or maybe have a really good debt payment plan, got a really solid emergency fund and have a good equity position on their primary residence, OK, how can they then begin to move into that next level, offensive position if they’re interested in real estate. And I think this speaks so well to some of the challenges with $0-down mortgages and other things that you know, if you enter into your primary residence with a good equity position to begin with and then you can ensure that home is at a price point that you can ideally make aggressive payments, even potentially extra payments to build more equity, it’s going to give you options in the future. And here, we’re talking about one option being that you can then potentially invest in real estate. What, Aaron, do you look for — and we’re going to talk in a little bit about, you know, maybe preference of property because I know you have a variety of things from duplex to quad to single-family homes, you started with a condo, but before we do that, what are you looking for in terms of general rules of thumb when you’re screening properties to say OK, I think this one looks good enough in terms of something I might want to invest in? Are there a couple rule of thumbs? And I know this is obviously a complex question, but a couple things that you tend to focus in on?

Aaron Howell: Yeah. You know, initially, I think I kind of looked for location. I wanted the property to be in an area where there are going to be tenants who want to rent the property. I mean, you could buy something in a population of a town that’s like 2,000, but it’s going to be hard to rent it. So that’s one thing. Probably No. 2 is the price, obviously. You want to be able to cash flow some. 3 is the condition kind of some of the systems in the house, you know, like how is the roof, the hot water heater, what are the condition of the units? Because at some point, you’re going to be putting that money back into or into the property, and you’d like to put it in later than sooner. Those are some of kind of the key things. But location, primarily is the big thing.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. And you mentioned, I know for our listeners, we could get into this in the future as well, but on Bigger Pockets, they often talk about a 1% rule, which is obviously a very general rule of thumb. But in short, the idea is if you buy a property for $100,000 and you’re able to rent it out for $1,000 a month, then obviously you’d meet that 1% rule. And the examples you’ve given so far were above and beyond that. Again, very general rule of thumb. But I’m guessing something along those lines is numbers you’re looking at but other variables that are included in there as well, correct?

Aaron Howell: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So one of the other questions I had for you is I find it fascinating that you have invested in multiple areas, so obviously you started with the condo, you mentioned the Vegas property, you talked about some others you picked up in Virginia where you’re located, you mentioned identifying the Cleveland market as a unique opportunity where you saw and have continued to invest. And then one we haven’t talked about is you’re also doing some investing in the Pittsburgh area. But I’m guessing as our listeners hear that, they might be thinking, man, how are you comfortable with investing outside of the area? You know, you can’t necessarily just drive down the street and see how everything’s going. And I could see that being both a blessing and a curse. And so talk a little bit about the out-of-area investing or long distance investing and how you became comfortable with that. And what are some things our listeners might want to consider if that’s an area they’re going to dabble into?

Aaron Howell: Yeah, originally the out of the area investing was in Vegas. We were just essentially at that point looking at the barrier to entry, which is price on the property, what would our down payment be? So that was a big thing. Some reservations generally you would have kind of at a distance would be like how are you going to manage the property? You know? And a lot of people ask me like, do you manage those yourselves? And I always answer like, no way, man. No way. So a good property manager is going to make your life a lot simpler or make your life a lot tougher. And that’s kind of my key is just honing in on that property management company. You know, the one we had in Las Vegas is amazing. The one we have here locally, they’re great. Our Pittsburgh property managers are great. I’ve recently just changed property managers in Cleveland, just kind of wasn’t comfortable or wasn’t necessarily real happy with the management there. So we’ve made that change. But investing at a distance, it’s a little less comfortable than you would normally like it. I mean, I would love for all my properties to be here in the Charlottesville, Albemarle, Virginia area. But the barrier to entry because of price is pretty prohibitive. So I’ve kind of got to go where the market is available, where I can purchase things that cash flow well. I mean, I could buy a house here in our neighborhood and buy it for $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 and charge $2,500 rent, but I’m not going to make the cash that I do say like if I purchase a duplex in Cleveland for $100,000 and I’m getting $1,500-1,800 rent.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think what that does is, you know, to your point, it allows you to look more strategically at markets where the numbers make more sense than the area in which somebody is. So for example, my wife and I are here in Columbus, Ohio, and I don’t claim to know the Columbus, Ohio, market as well as many other investors do, and I’m sure there’s plenty of deals to be had regardless of market. But we’ve gone outside and identified some opportunities with another pharmacist up in the Muskeegen, Michigan, area because of just more opportunity there where the numbers make sense. And one of the books I read — and I’m sure you’ve read as well — and we’ll link to in the show notes for our listeners is Bigger Pockets has a really good book on long distance real estate investing. And one of the takeaways I had from that in addition to being able to then shop by market and where the numbers make sense is it really forces you I think to develop systems and processes and checklists that I think allow you to scale and grow if that’s a goal that somebody has. And I’ve seen that firsthand where, you know, when I can’t drive down the street and see something or run by the property before work and have to work with contractors at a distance, you start to put some of those other checks and balances in place and develop some of those other systems because you can’t control, you can’t do all of those things. And I think that in hindsight, now that we have this first one behind us out of area, I feel more comfortable doing more knowing that I think we’ll be able to grow a little bit quicker because it’s not all on our back, you know? And again, property management being another one that I often hear people that want to do that themselves. And I, like you, tend to think about it as hey, look at the deal and calculate in property management, of course assuming it’s good, as a cost to ensure that the deal still makes sense with that cost included because I think that’s going to allow you to get to the point of growth that I’m assuming many people want to get to with their portfolio in the future. Do you have, Aaron, you’ve mentioned single-family homes, duplexes, quads — do you have a certain type of property that you would say, I really like these better for this reason? Or are you just looking at a variety of opportunities that come your way and looking at where the numbers make sense?

Aaron Howell: You know, I think a lot of people like to start with single-family. You know, I’ve graduated more to multi-family at this point. You know, I kind of think maybe the bigger, the better at this point. You know, I have the same issues on a duplex that I have on a six-unit apartment building that we purchased. Same issues, but scaling it is just a lot more manageable for the property manager and the six-unit absorbs the hit. Say if we had to change a hot water heater on a duplex, that’s $800-1,000 there that basically eats up cash flow for a month or two. Where if we have a six-unit building and we have to replace a hot water heater, that’s maybe a half a month’s cash flow.

Tim Ulbrich: Makes sense.

Aaron Howell: So over time, I’ve kind of graduated into the bigger, the better. But also too if there’s a deal in front of me on a duplex, I think I probably would take advantage of that also.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Yeah, that’s cool. I think just the reinforcement there of looking at the numbers and being open to the opportunities, whether it be something you hadn’t originally thought, whether that’s a duplex instead of a single-family home, or a quad instead of a duplex, or another variance of an area. So I mentioned in the introduction, Aaron, that you’re a real estate agent in addition to being a real estate investor. So give us that backstory. Why did you decide it was worth your time and effort to get an agent’s license?

Aaron Howell: You know, over time, as the portfolio grew bigger, I knew at some point in the last year or two that I needed to change my CPA services. And so I did change that last — I guess officially this year for the first time. But in the last year or so, I’ve kind of sat down with them on several calls, and they kind of planned out some strategies. And one of those strategies was becoming a real estate professional in the IRS’ eyes, that I was spending probably, you know, an hour or two hours a day just dealing with real estate stuff in general. And they said, you know, “Hey, you need to take care of keeping a log with your time you spend on doing things. And then you need some active hours.” And where I wasn’t managing the properties myself, they recommended me getting my realtor license because I needed to have some of those hours for the year to be where I’m materially participating in real estate. So where I didn’t have the management, where I’ve outsourced the management, that realtor status or license was the way to go about that.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. Got you. One of the questions — and you and I talked a little bit about this when we talked a few weeks ago, but I think it’s important, as I’ve said on the show before, that people have a purpose and vision behind their investment decisions, whether that’s investing a 401k where they’re saving a significant amount of money, whether it’s starting a business or here, whether it’s buying real estate. And we often talk about this as the financial why. Why do you want to do what you’re doing? So as you reflect on building this mini-real estate empire, what’s the goal? I mean, obviously you’re going to hopefully build wealth over the long term and you have positive cash flow, all of those things, but what is the bigger goal, the why behind what you’re trying to do with your real estate investment portfolio.

Aaron Howell: The bigger goal, I think it will change over time, but the bigger goal now is to be able to generate some just time. I’m down to three days a week as a pharmacist. If I need to go in more or if I want to go in more, like example, I think last week on Wednesday, I went in for like three hours. I had to be in Charlottesville for a meeting at the bank. And my wife, she had just went out of town for a nurse’s conference, so I was like, you know what, I’m going to go in. I’ve got to be in at 11:30 or so, so I’m going to go in and work from like 8:15 to 11:15. You know, I was scheduled for two days, and I’d taken off the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So I actually did go in Wednesday for the three hours, but I just, meh, I’ve got to go, see you guys later, bye.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Aaron Howell: And they were just kind of funny, they were short staffed that morning so I walk in there, they’re like, “What are you doing here?” And I just came to work a little extra. They were like, “OK. Great.” But you know, having the real estate portfolio, ultimately, I’d love to be able to generate some more flexibility with my schedule, if not just mine, my wife’s also. She’s working like nine days in a 10-day pay period now. So she works five days one week, and then she’s off one day the next week, so she works four that week. Maybe giving her the option of maybe working 2-3 days a week, just like kind of what I’ve done. You know, she’s had kind of a stressful two or three days at work, and she’s telling me about it last night and so I think down the line, maybe giving her that option too. Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Love it. Yeah, love it.

Aaron Howell: And we don’t have kids yet, but at some point, we’ll have kids. And we have a little park down from our house and they have soccer leagues. I’d like to be able to coach the kid’s soccer team at some point down the road.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Options, option, options. I mean, I think that we try to talk about that a lot in terms of when you’re putting together a financial plan — and here, we’re talking about real estate investing, but it could be a whole host of things that putting yourself in the position to make decisions rather than those decisions being made for you. Speaking of your wife, one of the things I was thinking about as you told your story is that you were already investing in several properties, I think out in the Vegas area, and then you mentioned you met your wife and you ultimately, of course, got married. Talk to me about that in terms of you were doing this investing, then you got married. I’m guessing we have many people listening that maybe one partner’s really interested and the other either maybe is not interested or is kind of like, yeah, I’m on board, I’m not on board, I want to learn more. How has that worked for the two of you? Was she instantly on board or was that a journey that you two have kind of come along together along the way?

Aaron Howell: To be honest with you, she’s not terribly involved in real estate investing. I think she kind of gives me a blank slate and just says, “Hey, don’t screw up.”

Tim Ulbrich: No pressure.

Aaron Howell: No pressure there, no pressure. But you know, I think at this point, she trusts me. I’m cautiously ambitious with the whole portfolio. But I think at this point, she trusts me. She’s really on board, though, with the realtor. She’ll ask me like, “Hey, what’s this couple? Do you think they’re going to find what they’re looking for?” Like, “Well, you know, I think they really liked the house today.” And she asks me questions about that. I mean, she’s aware of what’s going on for the most part, but she kind of after about 30-45 seconds, she’ll glaze over. But at this point, she trusts me and things are going well for the most part. So she kind of lets me take charge.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Aaron Howell: And just don’t screw up.

Tim Ulbrich: Don’t screw it up. And I would encourage our listeners, if anybody finds themselves in a situation where one person’s been eagerly learning this topic by listening to Bigger Pockets, reading books, and the other maybe is not as interested or just hasn’t been as eager in their learning, I think dragging somebody along is certainly never the right approach, especially when you’re potentially taking on some risk. And I would encourage people to dive into education together. I think when two people can learn together, just like we talk about with the budget, setting a vision, setting the goals together, and then working on the budget, I think the same thing is here true. If you can learn together, you know, watching webinars, listening to a podcast, reading books, I think it’s much more likely to be successful when you can both be on that journey. Before I ask you as a wrap-up question, ask you about your current portfolio because we talked a little bit about the beginning and some things you did along the way but haven’t talked about exactly where you are today, where would you recommend — I mean, Bigger Pockets is one resource you mentioned, which I would second, great resource. Anything else you’d recommend to pharmacists that are listening that say, “Wow, he’s really got me intrigued. I want to learn more. I want to think about getting started in 2020.” Are there certain books, other websites, other podcasts that you really have found helpful for you in your own learning and your own journey?

Aaron Howell: Yeah, I found at some point along the way, I think I had heard him as guest, the Michael Blank podcast on multi-family investing. It’s Blank. He’s German, so the k is pronounced a little differently than you would normally say it. But it’s spelled Blank. I’ve found that podcast, I found that ultimately to be very kind of informative as far as what I wanted to do with my portfolio and my career. That’s been a great find. Another thing too if you’re interested in investing, generally, there’s some local meetups for real estate investing. I’m sure, you know, any major city, you could probably go to meetup.com or find a meeting, maybe a once-a-month or twice-a-month meeting there. And just kind of immerse yourself with people who are doing the same thing or doing things that you’re wanting to do.

Tim Ulbrich: And we’ll link to the podcast you mentioned, we’ll link to Bigger Pockets as well in the show notes. And we’re excited, we’ve got some more content as I mentioned at the beginning of the show and hopefully some opportunities coming your way as well for those that want to learn more about this, for those that want to invest in properties. And we’re excited to build upon a lot of the existing content and education that’s already out there and bring a lot of that to the pharmacist community. So let’s wrap up, Aaron. Where are you at today? Tell us about your current portfolio and what you see coming ahead here in the next year or so.

Aaron Howell: So at this point, we spent a lot of this year kind of consolidating the stuff we’ve purchased in 2017-2018. And when I say consolidating, I mean kind of developing systems more so. We’ve had the property manager transition. But we’ve renovated a bunch of units. And at this point, I’m kind of with the portfolio, I’m looking to syndicate. We did our first deal in January as a syndication.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, cool.

Aaron Howell: So I’m looking to do a little bit more of that, kind of gathering some passive investors for that. But you know, just have been kind of enjoying things a little bit, kind of got the realtor status off the ground here in the last couple months and just kind of been enjoying things.

Tim Ulbrich: So how many doors do you have? And what cities are you at today here in 2019?

Aaron Howell: We are currently at 29 doors. We’ve got 13 in Cleveland, 12 in Pittsburgh, and then four here locally.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome, awesome. Very cool. Well, thank you so much, Aaron. I appreciate you taking time to share your experience with our community. I think it’s going to be inspirational. Again, as I mentioned, I think many people in the community have a desire to learn more if nothing else or maybe need that nudge to say, hey, I’ve been learning for a couple years, now I’m ready to get started. And I think hearing from others that have done it and done it well is really helpful. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and congratulations on the success you’ve had and wish you the best of luck in the future.

Aaron Howell: Alright, thank you very much.

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YFP 128: How One Pharmacist Helped Another Out of Homelessness


How One Pharmacist Helped Another Out of Homelessness

On this special Thanksgiving episode, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Melissa Akacha, a pharmacist that helped rally her community to bring another pharmacist out of homelessness. This is a story of generosity, of being aware of your surroundings, and extending a helping hand to those that encounter misfortunes that could happen to any one of us.

About Today’s Guest

Melissa Akacha was resides and works as a community pharmacist in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. She studied pharmacy and graduated from the University of Science in 2004. Melissa is divorced and has two daughters, Ava (11) and Emma (8) and is also mom to Paris and Milan, their two French bulldogs. In her free time, Melissa enjoys coaching cheerleading, crafting, watching movies, cooking and home projects.

Melissa has compassion for all living things and believes we all have a purpose. She trusts her instincts and takes time to slow down and enjoy moments throughout the day. Her children have taught her how to love in a way that is simple and pure.

Summary

Melissa Akacha, a community pharmacist in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, shares her story of rallying her community to bring another pharmacist out of homelessness.

Melissa first saw Lynn when she was taking one of her daughters to school. Lynn was living in her car with two large dogs in the Target parking lot. When Melissa saw her, she knew that something wasn’t right. She approached Jen, her friend, neighbor and former social worker, to let her know about the situation. Together, they decided they would approach Lynn and see if she needed help. In the meantime, they posted about Lynn on an app called Nextdoor to see if anyone in the community had seen her or knew what was going on.

Melissa and Jen walked up to Lynn’s car and asked her, “Is everything ok?” Lynn couldn’t roll down her window or start the car because her battery had died. She said that she was fine, but the two knew something deepers was going on. They offered to come back later in the evening with pizza so they could talk and help her figure out a plan.

When Melissa and Jen went back, they learned that Lynn had lost her husband died suddenly and that she was faced with a lot of medical issues and bills and felt embarrassed to be homeless as she was a former pharmacist. She didn’t reach out to anyone to ask for help, but she said that Melissa and Jen were the first ones to ask if she was ok.

A group of 15 community members joined together to help Lynn get her life back on track. Lynn now lives in an apartment with her two dogs and has a community to support her.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Tim Ulbrich here, and happy Thanksgiving on behalf of the team at Your Financial Pharmacist. I hope everyone is having a great day with family celebrating this important holiday and reflecting upon everything that we are thankful for in our lives. This week, we have a special episode for you highlighting an incredible story of generosity involving a former pharmacist that was forced into homelessness. And then her community, led in part by another pharmacist, stepped up to help. That pharmacist that stepped up to help is Melissa Akacha, who we welcome on the show today. Melissa, welcome and thank you for taking the time to come onto the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Melissa Akacha: Thank you so much for having me, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Before we jump into learning more about this story, tell us a little bit about yourself, why you wanted to become a pharmacist, where you went to school, and where you currently work and live.

Melissa Akacha: Sure. Well, I’ve always loved medicine, pharmacy, and my father actually was the one who had a great relationship with our local pharmacist and kind of sent me in that direction. I went to University of the Sciences, graduated in 2004, and since then have been working in retail. Right now, I reside in King of Prussia, and I’m fortunate to work in King of Prussia as well in the community.

Tim Ulbrich: And I sense that just based on the story, which we’ll get into here in a little bit, the sense of community and rallying around somebody that’s in need, I had a sense through reading that story that you’ve been a part of working and living in this community for some time. Is that true?

Melissa Akacha: Yes. Yeah, I actually grew up here and pretty much stayed in the area. Love King of Prussia, love the community, had a great experience with the schools here. And now I have two daughters, and they go to the same schools that I did.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.

Melissa Akacha: Yeah, so it’s great.

Tim Ulbrich: So this story really I think is a story of life’s unexpected turns and misfortunes that really could happen to any one of us. And here, it just happened to be a former pharmacist, Lynn Schutzman, that had found herself living in her car for two years, homeless. And from the article on WEUR 90.9 NPR, “After 43 years as a pharmacist, Lynn could have never imagined starting her days like this. In the morning, she’d go to McDonald’s to wash up and then drive around.” The story goes on to say, “That was the lowest point in my life. I had no dog food. I had just emptied the last bottle of water into the dog’s bowl, so I had nothing to drink. I was very upset because I realized I would have to surrender the dogs because I couldn’t feed them that night.” And I think that, Melissa, that many listening may be wondering, how is it possible for a pharmacist to become homeless? So tell us a little bit more about Lynn’s story and how she got to the point of ultimately living in her car for a couple years.

Melissa Akacha: Right. Yeah, Lynn was — unfortunately had many health issues. Well, rewinding back, she had lost her husband. He was only in his 40s, he died suddenly. After that, her life kind of started to fall apart. She had cancer, she had kidney problems, she was in and out of the hospital, she was wheelchair-bound for quite some time and was unable to work. She unfortunately had with medical bills, and also not a lot of — she wasn’t able to have children, so she didn’t have that family support that a lot of us are fortunate to have during those financial times when you need some help. She did not have that. And because she was a pharmacist in the community, a mentor to so many, she actually was just really embarrassed to be in her situation. And she still stayed in the community. She had a beautiful home in King of Prussia, and she still stayed in the same area and went to see some doctors. Nobody knew that Lynn was homeless. She kept in contact with some people, but she didn’t share. She was embarrassed because she was professional and she saw herself as a failure. And she probably, she was ashamed to ask for help.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. I think about your role as a community pharmacist and many others that are listening, and I think you become very much a pillar of the community, especially to those patients that you serve that come to see you, you know, every other week or every month. And people are often coming to you and looking up to you as a role model and looking for advice. As you mentioned and as the article highlights, Lynn was really trying to go unnoticed, didn’t want her previous patients and people in the community to see that she was homeless and living out of her car. But — but — you noticed her and you noticed something that was wrong. So when did you see Lynn? And what went through your mind when you saw her?

Melissa Akacha: Well, in the mornings before I go to work, I have two daughters and on my way to take my oldest to school, I’ll go at Starbucks and go through the Target parking lot. And a couple days, maybe it was about two days, I would see a car parked and there was a woman sitting inside. And I noticed her car was full to the brim of stuff, clothes, it looked like paper towels, and I saw an older lady sitting there. And I thought maybe she’s on break. I wasn’t really sure. But the second day, it was maybe the second or third day when I drove by, I looked at my daughter, and I said, “I just have this feeling I need to go check on this lady.” That’s it. I really don’t know how to describe it. It was just a feeling where I felt I need to check on her. And just having with the pharmacy background, the first thing I was thinking is dementia, maybe she’s confused, maybe she’s lost, maybe her family doesn’t know where she is. Something was just off about the situation. And I dropped my daughter off to school that day and I was with my best friend and neighbor, Jen Husband. And she has a social worker background. And I was telling her about the situation, and I said, us being the two nosy ladies we are, we said, “Let’s go up there together and see what’s going on.” And talking with Jen, my other daughter mentioned that when she was on a walk with her friends, she noticed this woman also. And she said she had two larger dogs in the car. So that right there was an indication that this woman is living in her car. And when Jen and I approached Lynn that day, she could not open the window, and she couldn’t turn the car on. She had no gas, and the battery died. So we spoke with her maybe like 2 inches of the window being cracked, and we asked her, you know, “Are you OK? Do you need help?” And she said, “No, I’m OK.” And we said, “No, we don’t think you are. And will you allow us to help you?” And she kind of gave us a look like, yeah, I’ve been down this road before. And I said, “You know what? There’s a lot of good people in this world. And through social media, we’re going to rally them together. And we’re going to be back later today.” I had to work that afternoon, and I promised her, I said, “We’re going to come back tonight and bring our children. And we’re going to have pizza together. And we’re going to talk, and we’re going to come up with some plan.” And as silly as it may sound, I wanted Lynn to trust us and our intention.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. Yep.

Melissa Akacha: And that’s why I wanted to come back and just have dinner together and sit in the parking lot with our kids and just talk to her and let her know that our intentions are pure, and we’re not going to take advantage. I didn’t know what happened, how she got here. That day, very important that we were just talking about where she worked. And she said, “I’m a pharmacist.” And I said, “Really?” And I thought, I still in my head thought, oh, OK, she’s probably crazy. Maybe she’s — and then she started saying names. She said, “I worked for CVS.” And she started saying so many names that I knew. And it’s just impossible. And when she said that, then she said, “I went to University of the Sciences.” And I said, “Oh my gosh, I did too.” And she, her face, when Lynn spoke about pharmacy, her face lit up. She loves pharmacy. She loved her job. She loved being a mentor to students. She loves telling stories. She worked at a lot of different places, and she’s just a great, vivid storyteller. That was a really special part of her life. And that day, I went to work, and I called the store where she had claimed to work at. And that pharmacist, I said, “Do you know Lynn Schutzman?” And I told her where I found her, and that pharmacist just started crying. “Melissa, please, this woman is so generous. Generous beyond words. And she’s always been a giver for everyone. And she would always buy everyone gifts on holidays and never accept anything and tell students to save their money. And she lost her husband and kept working and always said she was OK and never asked for help.” And she said, “Please help this lady.” And I’d never forget it. I just had chills. I thought to myself, wow, this is someone who really, really deserves being helped. Just the way she was described, I thought, wow. What are the chances that I would have came across someone and had this very, very similar background? And personally, in my life, a lot of people would say, “How can a pharmacist” — and I’ve had to answer this question because once we started doing fundraising, many people would say, “How could a pharmacist be homeless?” And they would Google salaries and say, “How could that happen?” And myself, I knew it could happen.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Melissa Akacha: Because I a couple years ago went through an awful divorce and if I didn’t have support, I could be in that situation. I was a paycheck away from that situation. And overnight, my life changed. And that could have me if I did not have family. And there was plenty of times I was embarrassed. Here I was, self-sufficient, and then overnight, the expenses are enormous and it’s embarrassing. So life throws a lot of different things to a lot of people, and it’s really important to prepare. I didn’t prepare because I thought, oh, I’m in my 30s, I don’t have to worry about anything, and what’s going to happen? And I wish I did more. And so I saw myself in Lynn a lot. And I personally was very, very draw to her because of that.

Tim Ulbrich: It’s such a good reminder I think for many of us, many listening, of why we went into this profession to begin with, to help people without judgment and to see need where need is, that need needs to be met, and I really respect your ability to just be aware. You know, I think I’d feel guilty that in life’s busyness of work and with young kids and running from one thing to the next, do we even have margin in the day that we can see those needs that are presented to us probably every day that we just may not even be aware of and then to be able to follow through and follow up on those. But to follow up in a way that doesn’t cast judgment. I mean, I think that it’s easy for people to maybe hear this story and sympathize and empathize with Lynn and be able to rally around her, somebody who was a helper to others in the community and also a pharmacist. But you didn’t know any of that before you initially decided to engage and to step in. And I think that’s great. And one of the articles, or one of the quotes from the article that really stood out to me is when Lynn says, “You feel like somewhere, you had to have failed. You accomplished all of this, but now, here you are in the gutter, and you don’t want people to know. You don’t want to ask for help.” And I think it’s such a good reminder to ask how you can help others or ask how somebody is doing. You never know where that conversation can go. So tell me, Melissa, a little bit more how the rest of the community got involved. So you identified this need, you begin to build that trust and relationship over a meal and having pizza — and I’m going to ask you in a little bit how you engaged your daughters and you alluded to that a little bit and the impact that that’s had — but the community specifically. How did you and your friend Jen get the community involved? And what was the response from the community?

Melissa Akacha: So the first thing we did was when we went on an app called NextDoor, and that’s a site that people in the community, they post things, everything from something they’re trying to sell to “I need a mechanic, can anyone recommend something like that?” And I’ve used that site before, and we posted on there saying that there was a homeless lady living in Target parking lot, and she needs our help. And I had no idea, Jen and I had no idea what response we were going to get. And I was working that day, and you know, we had said on there that she is unable at this time to get out because of her car battery, and she began getting I would say hundreds and hundreds of dollars of gift cards, food, water, dog food, there were veterinarians that came, dogsitters that came. That night, when we went back, she had — there was just random people coming all — like cars and cars of children, family, pet lovers, and Lynn could be — I understand now because she kept saying, I’m just overwhelmed. There was a time I thought, wow, is she upset?

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Melissa Akacha: And she just said, “I’m overwhelmed with love. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t sleep, I can’t talk. I’m just overwhelmed.” And now, I get that because I’ve had plenty of moments that I just was on a high and couldn’t sleep and just in awe of what people were doing. And sometimes, people were coming and they would just give her, they gave her something home-cooked and just kind words or a card. All sorts of things to the point that night, she said, “I don’t have room in my car anymore.” And we actually took some things out because she had no room. And we said to her that night, we said, “Listen, we are going to — we need some time, we’re going to plan this. But this is the last night, we give you our word, that you will be in your car.” And Jen and I went that night, and we had a big talk, and we were seeing a lot of donations and a lot of people were saying, “We want to give. How can we give?” And all these suggestions. And we knew that so many people wanted to help, and we weren’t expecting it. So we needed to organize it. And we set up a GoFundMe and a Facebook page, and people began donating through there. Although there was some backlash because there was some negative things that happened before with GoFundMe, but we were thinking that was going to be an issue, but clearly, it wasn’t.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Melissa Akacha: And we got her in a hotel with some funds immediately the next day. And then we had to think of our long-term goals, getting her healthy. She could barely walk at that point. She had a big ulcer in her leg and getting her wound care — there was a lot of stuff we had to do. So we kicked about — I think there was about 15 or 16 people from the contacts in NextDoor, between that and Facebook that we began to trust, Jen and I, and we had a meeting at our home and we delegated. We had one mechanic come and take care of all her car issues. We had another woman come handle all the dog walking because these were dogs that were bigger dogs, a Beagle and a Sheltie, and they needed exercise and getting introduced again, socializing because they were in a car two years. We had a woman take care of that. We had someone, we had a couple ladies help with her financing, seeing what we could do. So we had — that was really helpful. We all, everyone came together. We talked that night, and everyone kind of split up and did their thing. And we just got her life in order. And it was beautiful. We finally found a apartment complex, we definitely wanted her to be in King of Prussia because now she has friends and family. And she needs long-term support. And we need her. Everyone needs a Lynn in their life. She’s just an amazing lady, and we needed to be close with her. So she is in the area. And getting that apartment together, that was one of the most emotional things because so we had this place and we had lists of donations and people were purchasing new things and donating items, everything from forks to toilet paper to cleaning supplies to beds. Her place in about nine hours was completely furnished, repainted, decorated. It is such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful apartment. Everyone came together, and there was maybe I bet 20-25 people just coming in and out that day, putting furniture together, painting. And that night, when Lynn came through the door, she’d said that day, she said, “You know what? You guys just do your thing. I’m tired.” And we thought, OK, we’re really going to surprise her. And now, this was a woman who had traveled a lot, I mean, all of us, we can think of so many possessions that we have that mean stuff to us. Lynn had nothing. She even had to sell her wedding ring, just whatever she could fit in the car, and that was basically some clothes, dog stuff, dog bed, and water. And her diploma was all chewed up. So we even had a copy of her diploma, we had what was engraved in her wedding ring, which she had mentioned. We wrote that down and someone had a beautiful plaque, had that printed. We had a lot of, we tried to personalize it with a lot of things that she had lost in the moves and losing her — that meant a lot to her.

Tim Ulbrich: That was an incredible video that I think was linked to in the WBUR article of her walking into the apartment and just an incredible moment of seeing all that generosity come to fruition. And we’re going to link to our community in our show notes of the GoFundMe campaign as well as the Facebook page. I know we have a community that is generous and wants to be a part of giving in their own communities or even in situations like this. So we’re going to make sure to link to that. One of the things, Melissa, that you said that really stands out to me is that you mentioned before — I think it was the last thing, I think you said before, it was going to be the last night she stayed in her car, there was people coming, giving all types of things. And some were just coming to express that they were caring for her or thinking about her, others were actually bringing more tangible items, and I’m sure that was to all different degrees of how people were able to contribute. And I think that’s such a great reminder that I think giving, while financial giving is certainly an important part of giving, there’s many other ways that we can all give and contribute in our communities. And that could be time, that could be facilitating other people’s that maybe have the monetary means, it could be contributing financially, but I think there’s so much opportunity to give if we can just slow down and see that opportunity that is in front of us. Now, one of the things, Melissa, that really, really stood out to me as a father of four young boys where my wife and I are really trying to instill a mindset of gratitude and giving is in the WBUR article, there’s a photo of you and your two daughters. And I can’t help but think of the impact this story, as you’ve already alluded to their involvement and your role modeling of generosity and giving and the impact that that has had on them. Can you talk more about how you have included and taught your girls about giving and generosity throughout this story and this journey?

Melissa Akacha: Yes, well, the girls have, they have been with me through every step of the way, through cleaning out the car that night, which was a big project to moving to painting, and they’ve loved it. And they actually — it’s funny, every person with a messy car now, the kids nudge me and say, “Mom, I think they need help!” So they just, they really want to — they loved, loved, loved helping. And they had a lot of questions too, you know, as children. How could this happen? Where’s her family? And so I mean, I’ve tried to be as transparent as possible and also age-appropriate. But I really am so thankful that they got to experience all this and see — they would ask me, why are these people, why are they coming all day? And how do you know them? And I don’t know them. I don’t know these people, and they are coming all day because they’re good people and they want to help, and there are good people in this world. And we need that, we all need to hear that because there’s so much negativity.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Melissa Akacha: And many people — one thing that struck me is that many people that were helping, sometimes they would just start crying that day when we were painting and decorating everything, they would just cry because they would say, “Oh my God, you have no idea how my heart needs this right now,” because look at all these people coming in. And it is, it’s overwhelming. I sometimes right after that, I just couldn’t even talk about it because it was just — it was overwhelming to just see so many people. We couldn’t even answer. I mean, we literally couldn’t get a committee here at our house because it was too much for us — too many people wanted to help. And we needed to just organize it. And Jen and I were not expecting this at all. So it really changed our lives. Many people came up to me and said, I walked past her. I drove past her, and I didn’t stop. But now I’m going to stop, and I’m going to ask someone if something’s wrong, are you OK, can I help you? And Lynn did tell me, she said, “You know, I didn’t go out of my way asking,” she’s like, “But you guys were the first people that asked, can I help you?”

Tim Ulbrich: Wow. Wow.

Melissa Akacha: And a lot of people have approached me and said that, “Yeah, we saw her at the park. We saw her washing up in the bathroom, and I didn’t say anything.” And you know, also we have to use caution. So I do understand why some people would be hesitant or the situation, but I think the takeaway message is sometimes just take an extra step because our — my gut that day just told me, you’ve got to check on her. And I am so glad I did. And I now try to incorporate that in my life just little things, asking people if I can help them or smiling or how are you? And my kids, they do the same. And it’s been a very rewarding thing that I’m thankful I got that experience to meet her and also to see that in life, see just abundance of good people. People love hearing this story because they like hearing good things. They really do.

Tim Ulbrich: Exactly. Yeah. I think in a time where there’s so much negativity, I mean, I’m grateful. I don’t know you personally, but your story has inspired me and is just a great reminder of being aware, being intentional, asking is everything OK? How can I help? And I think that will be the same for our community as well. So thank you for your willingness to share. And let me end on this quote from the article that really, I think just brought it home for me. It says, “None of this was part of Lynn’s original plan. She did everything right: the right education, the right job, the right marriage. Still, there was so much misfortune outside of her control. Misfortune that could have happened to anyone. She thinks about others in that same situation, and she hopes all of us can step up to ask our neighbors a simple, life-changing question, is everything OK?” So as we take a minute to reflect upon this incredible of generosity on this Thanksgiving Day, we are hopeful, I am hopeful that this is an opportunity for you, for me, as individuals to reflect on opportunities for giving, for generosity, and for being more aware of our surroundings and furthermore, how we as a community can do the same. You know, Anne Frank is quoted as saying, “No one has ever become poor by giving.” And we have a vision for the YFP community to be a generous group and to inspire one another to work towards achieving financial freedom in part to be in a better position to give to others. So again, on behalf of the YFP team, happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones, and Melissa, to you and your family as well. And thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

Melissa Akacha: Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

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YFP 127: A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence


A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence

Michelle Cooper, author of I’ve Still Got Me: A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence, Director and Co-Founder of XML-W, a division of XML Financial Group, and former practicing attorney, joins Tim Ulbrich on this week’s podcast episode. Michelle shares her personal story and unique perspective on finances and law to inspire hope for those experiencing loss and provides sound financial principles for those seeking financial independence.

About Today’s Guest

Michelle P. Cooper is the Director and Co-founder of XML-W, a division of XML Financial Group which focuses on the planning and financial needs of women at all stages of their lives. She brings to XML-W over 25 years of experience in the estate planning, finance and tax fields. Prior to joining the XML team, she worked for Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust as a Director helping high-net-worth clients design and update their estate plans. She also had the responsibility of educating over 650 financial advisors on estate planning and trust services. Before starting her career at Merrill Lynch in 1996, she worked as an attorney specializing in tax and estate planning for the law firms of Ralph R. Polachek & Associates and Joseph, Gajarsa, McDermott & Reiner, P.C.

Michelle recently wrote a book called I’ve Still Got Me – A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence. In this book, Michelle shares her personal story of resilience after the loss of her husband to suicide. By sharing her journey and the life lessons learned along the way, she hopes to empower women to become more active and involved with their finances and estate plan so they can live a more healthy and secure life. Michelle has been featured on several local and national media outlets and was recently named one of JWI’s 2019 Women to Watch.

Summary

Michelle Cooper joins Tim Ulbrich to share her personal story of navigating her finances during loss and grief and her unique perspective on financial planning for those seeking financial independence.

Michelle is the Director and Co-founder of XML-W, a division of XML Financial Group which focuses on the planning and financial needs of women at all stages of their lives. Michelle worked for Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust as a Director helping high-net-worth clients design and update their estate plans and previously worked as an attorney specializing in tax and estate planning. When she was 36 years old, she unexpectedly lost her husband to suicide. Although she talked about estate planning all day at work, she didn’t think something like this would ever happen. They luckily they had some aspects of their financial and estate plans in place, however, her husband Scott had previously handled everything financial. She was fortunate to have a background in estate planning and was able to find financial resiliency during such a difficult time.

Michelle shares three practical tips that every couple should think about: insuring both names are listed on every service account, having a conversation about bills before tragedy strikes, and automating bill payments.

She also shares her five building blocks to an estate plan which includes creating the following documents: a will, a revocable living trust, a power of attorney, a healthcare power of attorney and a living will. While not everyone will need each of these, it’s important to know what you want when you’re not here. Michelle shares that having a will and power of attorney are documents that everyone should have in place.

On this episode Michelle also discusses the importance of life and disability insurance and the process of getting your estate plan in place.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. We have a special guest for you this week, Michelle Cooper, an attorney who specializes in tax and estate planning and author of the book “I’ve Still Got Me: A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence.” A little bit of background on Michelle before we get started with today’s interview: She’s the director and cofounder of XMLW, a division of XML Financial Group, which focuses on the planning and financial needs of women at all stages of their lives. Prior to joining the XML team, she worked for Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust as the Director and Senior Trust Specialist, helping with high net worth clients designing and updating their estate plans. She also has had the responsibility of educating more than 650 financial advisors on estate planning and trust services. Before starting her career at Merrill Lynch in 1996, she worked as an attorney specializing in tax and estate planning. Michelle earned a BS degree in business from Miami of Ohio University and her JD and MBA degrees from Capitol University here in the great city of Columbus, Ohio. She’s married to Paul Cooper, and they have five wonderful children together. She enjoys yoga, traveling, a good bottle of wine — amen to that — and helping women thrive with their financial plans. Michelle, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Michelle Cooper: Thank you, Tim. It’s great to be here. Thank you for the warm welcome.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. I’m so excited to have you. I’ve really enjoyed your book and what we’re going to talk about in today’s interview, again, your book “I’ve Still Got Me: A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence.” I really think this book is fantastic. I would highly encourage our listeners to check it out. I think it’s well written, it’s easy to digest, it’s honest, it’s raw, and I think it’s a quick read. And I really do think the key principles that we’ll talk about here on the show are those that will stick with you and are action-oriented towards one’s financial plan. So your story that led to the book — and the book that we’ll discuss today — starts at the age of 36 where your life really took an unexpected turn. You were thriving in your career, you were a new mother to twins, you were happily married, and then in an instant, things changed. What happened at that moment in time?

Michelle Cooper: Yeah, like you said, Tim, I was happily married. I had been with my husband Scott for almost 11 years. And we just had a great time in our marriage. We did a lot of traveling and dining and just fun stuff. And then we decided to have kids and with the miracle of modern science, we were able to have twins. And they were quite small. We had a boy and a girl, but we were just elated. It was really I think the best time in our marriage and in our lives. We were so excited. And my career was going gangbusters. I was nine years in to kind of growing the corporate ladder at Merrill Lynch. And you know, one day, it was a March rainy day, I was sitting at my desk and looking out and the phone rang. And it was late afternoon because Scott usually called me about that time. And I was expecting kind of our normal banter, which was “What are you making for dinner? What do I need to pick up?” But instead, he kept saying, “Michelle, I love you. I love you. I love you.” And I said, “I love you too, honey. And I’ll see you at home.” And I buttoned up my desk and walked to the elevators, took the ride down to the parking garage, and it was in that elevator ride where I recalled the conversation, and my heart started racing. I was thinking, something was weird. That was not what Scott normally would say over and over again. And when I got into my car and out of the garage, I kept dialing his number, dialing his number, and there was no answer. And when I got home, he wasn’t there. And I filed a police report, and weeks later, I got a call from the police letting me know that they had found him in the Potomac River. And in an instant — he had committed suicide — in an instant, my life went from just a normal, everyday where I was happy with life to a day that changed me forever. I was a single mom overnight, a young widow, and I had more responsibility than I could ever have imagined. It was overwhelming.

Tim Ulbrich: And in the book, Michelle, you describe that evening you come home. And as a father of four young boys and happily married to my beautiful wife, I could just picture that moment you describe in the book where life’s kind of going on, you’re trying to bathe them and get them ready for bedtime and the uncertainty of the evening and just really, really a compelling picture into how difficult that moment was and the weeks to come. And as you talk throughout the book, not only that moment obviously personally, what that meant for your family, but what we’ll talk about here today in the interview just what that meant for your financial plan. And hopefully, it’s an opportunity for our listeners to really ensure that they have the right tools and resources and knowledge and understanding of their own financial plan, even if they have somebody else who’s helping them, whether that be a spouse or a financial planner or even potentially both. So at this point, you have 2-year-old twins, you’re working full-time as director at Merrill Lynch, so obviously you have what would be a unique background in this field in terms of estate planning attorney and working in finance where you’ve helped many, many couples plan their own estates. So surely, things were all in order and in place when it came to your financial plan, right?

Michelle Cooper: You would think so. But the answer, unfortunately, was not really. I talked about estate planning all day long. I knew it inside and out. I talked about finances with clients. And I knew that we had to do planning, and we had some things in place, but you know, frankly, I never thought anything like this would happen to me, especially not at that time in my life. I had read about lots of hypotheticals in law textbooks and I knew from dealing with client situations that things happen in life, but I just never expected it. So we divided and conquered. Our plates were full, and this is similar to so many other people in their 30s and 40s where you’re just juggling work, home, everything. And we divided and conquered the way gender roles typically fall. Scott handled everything money, he did our investments, bills, and taxes. He was really good at it, and I was like, great. I totally trust you. And I handled all things children and running the household. And I just, I had to pick up the pieces. And I was fortunate because I had this background knowledge, and we had taken some steps that really enabled me to find resilience and rebuild my life. But not everybody is that lucky to have some planning in place.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and my wife and I, we’re talking the evening or after that I had read through your book, and you know, it’s a very similar situation for us. And I would say on the other side would be for all the inner workings and understanding of the day-to-day of things that she’s doing with the kids, I’ve done similarly on the finance side. And we have a planner that we work with, and we have legacy folders and documents and estate wills and plans, but there’s that level of preparation, but then there’s also just the day-to-day. And we’ll talk about some of this in terms of paying bills and whose names are on accounts and what’s the monthly process look like and how important it is for each individual to make sure they have a solid understanding of that. One of the things, Michelle, that stood out to me in the book in Chapter 2, you start with a question from your financial advisor the day of the funeral. And that question from your financial advisor was, “Are you planning to keep the house?” Why was this question so overwhelming at the time?

Michelle Cooper: Yeah. I’ll never forget that day. I mean, I can picture it in my mind right now. And when he asked me, I was really taken aback because I thought, well, why are you even asking me that question? Is there a possibility I can’t continue living in this house? And I just remember my stomach turning more than it already was. And shortly thereafter, I started digging into all our financial details because I knew that in order to keep the house, I had to make sure I was able to pay the mortgage and the real estate taxes and utilities. And frankly, I had no idea. But that house, when you go through a tragedy, was my one source of stability.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Michelle Cooper: And so just the thought of moving in addition to everything else going on was overwhelming. And so that’s why that question really rocked my world. And I had to figure out at that point, what did we own? What were our assets? What did we owe? What were our expenses or liabilities? And did I have enough income coming in to cover all the expenses? So I did a deep dive into our whole financial picture.

Tim Ulbrich: And my hope with this episode is our listeners will be able to hear your story and certainly there’s many others out there and use this as an opportunity to make sure that they are effectively aware and educated and ready when it comes to certain aspects of the financial plan. So I want to get practical for a moment in that I’m guessing there’s many of our listeners that are hearing the beginning of this interview and thinking to themselves, I’ve got some work to do to bring myself up to speed with my significant other or spouse. Or potentially on the other side of that, I’ve got some work to do to help my partner, my significant other, spouse, get up to speed. And in the book, you go through three I think very practical tips that help people begin to execute and think about this. And I’ll read those off and then we can talk about each one in more detail. One of them is ensuring your name is listed on every service account. The second one is having a conversation about the bills before a tragedy strikes. And the third is automating payments or setting calendar alerts. So let’s tackle that first one. Tell us more about this idea of ensuring your name — and that it’s listed on every service account and why that’s so important.

Michelle Cooper: You don’t really think of these things when you’re moving into a new house or you’re renting an apartment. It’s either one person or the other if you’re in a relationship that just wants to check that it’s done, that the water is turned on, that you’ve got power, you’ve got internet hooked up, you’ve got your cable. And no one’s really thinking about hey, both people need to be able to talk to the service provider. So when all this happened, we had cable, I had telephone, and all of those bills were in Scott’s name. So when I called the provider, they would say, “What’s your name?” I’d say, “Michelle.” And they’d say, “Well, you’re not Scott. We can’t talk to you.” And then I’d explain the situation, they’d say, “Well, I have to get a supervisor.” And it was a long, drawn-out process that really could have been simplified if when we opened the account, my name and Scott’s name would have been on the ownership. We would have both had authority to talk to the provider, make changes. So I encourage everyone, know what your bills are and make sure that if something happens to your partner, you have the ability to keep the lights on. Very simple.

Tim Ulbrich: And you give a great example in the book, and I think you do throughout as well, where you talk about an example where a couple was living together, but they’re not necessarily married. Both are contributing to savings for expenses but that the bank account may have been opened in one of those individual’s name. So I think these are just situations to think about, whether it’s service accounts, whether it’s bank accounts, whether it’s people that are living together and maybe they have a home but the home’s only in one person’s name and the other is contributing to it. And therefore, that asset isn’t necessarily — that they would have a portion of that. It’s just a good reminder I think in this tip, and again, as you do throughout the book, to think about the implications of some of these as we sign up for accounts. Because as you articulated well, you know, we just want to make sure things are moving. We want to make sure the water’s on, we want to make sure the lights are on, especially when you’re in a very busy phase of life where you have lots of things that are happening. The second tip you give here is having a conversation about the bills before tragedy strikes, which I’m guessing everybody hears that and says, “Yes, of course, I agree with that.” So my question here is tips or strategies on how to have this conversation and why, of course, this is so important as well.

Michelle Cooper: Well, when you think of like the fun thing that you want to do in the evening, it’s usually not talking about bills.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Michelle Cooper: So I always try to advise people, don’t do this when you’re tired. Do it on a weekend when you’re relaxed. And start off by saying something positive like, “You know, I want to make sure that we’re both on the same page with our expenses.” And maybe bring in some wine or something fun like a nice dinner out. And you know, make it conversational where you’re not accusing the other person of spending too much. You’re a team. And you are taking care of each other by making sure that each of you know what the expenses are and how they get paid. So sometimes, bills are on autopay or you have to pay them through an online password because you turned off the hard copies that get sent. I mean, there’s a lot of things that have happened since my tragedy where bills are automated. So it’s important to know how to access paying them and what is currently set up? And again, don’t make it harder than it is. It’s helpful to maybe make a list of the bills that you think are there just to start the conversation. And then it will flow from there.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think you do a nice job just building on that in talking about the third tip, really automating payments. I think especially in the situation where a tragedy strikes and maybe there is an account that didn’t have both names on it that payments can continue to be made. And again, you talk about setting calendar alerts and the importance of that as well. One of the things in the book you mentioned is that “a larger percentage of people fail to have a financial plan that will help them track and achieve their goals. And if you can take away one tidbit from this book, please take away the importance of having a financial plan.” And so my question for you in the backdrop of somebody who’s maybe listening that says, “You know what? I’m single, I don’t have any children, I’ve got $200,000 in debt. I’ve got very little assets to manage.” You know, whether it’s them or somebody that does have some of those variables involved in terms of children and other assets, why is this concept of a financial plan so critical?

Michelle Cooper: So when you’re thinking about a financial plan, I like to look at it more of a life plan. And it doesn’t matter what age you are, how much you have in assets, what your income is. You need to have a plan to achieve your goals and to achieve inner happiness. And so I analogize a financial plan to getting directions through a GPS or Google Directions where you don’t know how to get to that address, but you have a roadmap to follow. And if someone doesn’t have a lot of assets but maybe they have student loan debt or credit card debt, a financial plan is going to help you structure how do I repay those debts? What’s the interest rate? What’s the underlying principle that I owe? Can I refinance? Can I consolidate? If you are newly married with young children, part of the financial planning process is making sure you have an estate plan with term life insurance, disability insurance. So there’s many different aspects to financial planning that are going to be important depending on what stage of life you’re in. So it’s super important no matter where you are on the spectrum of your life.

Tim Ulbrich: And as you were talking, Michelle, I was just reflecting on all the conversations that Jess, my wife, and I have had with our financial planner, Tim Baker, over the last three years and all the things we’ve talked about from goals and visions for our family to the what are we going to do next month in our sinking funds and our accounts and our estate planning documents. And I think what resonates with me is that certainly I think that’s important for everyone but especially when you think about in the example of when a tragedy or a situation like this strikes is that you have a plan, you have a roadmap, you know, to use your example, you have directions and where you’re trying to go and I think you have a planner who’s in your corner that can really help continue to move that forward and especially in such a difficult time, talk that out loud and continue the path and also continue to execute on the things that you were trying to move forward with.

Michelle Cooper: That’s exactly right.

Tim Ulbrich: I want to dig into this next section. It almost has a checklist, just like we did with those three tips. I want to talk about things around income protection, appropriate insurance coverage, and estate planning. We’ve talked about many of these things on the show before like life insurance, disability insurance, and estate planning. But I want our listeners to hear it in this show. And my hope is that they’ll walk away with each one of these say, “OK, what are the things that I need to be thinking about with life insurance and disability insurance or my estate plan?” And hopefully this can be a reminder that they heard us talk about it before and they didn’t execute on these things, and they need to execute on these things, that they can take that action step here today. So let’s start with life insurance. Why is life insurance so important? You know, who do you generally think about absolutely needs life insurance? And then you alluded to term life insurance. Talk to us a little bit more about this area.

Michelle Cooper: Yeah, so there’s two main types of life insurance. There’s term, which goes on for a period of years, and whole life, which covers you until age 95 or 100. Term is more economical the younger you are and the healthier you are. That’s also true of whole life. But term is so important in those years where you’re really relying on a dual income to support your family. So as you listen to my story, put yourself in my shoes and think, if something happened to my partner or my spouse, would I be able to continue living the same lifestyle with the income that I earn or the assets that we have saved. And if the answer is no, then you have to plan for enough life insurance to produce the income or the cashflow that you need to continue living your life. And it’s not just until the kids are in college, unless you want to go back to work. It’s really for the rest of your life. And that number could be a big number because if you think about a $1 million policy, I usually look at that producing about $50,000 of income. So depending on what your expenses are — and that’s one of the things that you do in the planning process is figure that out — depending on your expenses, that’s going to dictate how much you need in terms of insurance. And there’s different ways to buy the insurance. Sometimes, there’s group policies at your employment. You can also work with an insurance agent to get a separate policy. And I usually recommend if you can, having both because you never know what’s going to happen with a job. Sometimes companies downsize, you might decide to go to a different job that doesn’t have life insurance. And those policies that you get through employment are not portable. So a really good plan is going to have a separate term policy. And get it when you’re young because it’s going to be the cheapest at that point.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And what you said just resonates with a lot of what we’ve talked about here before on the show in terms of individual coverage on top of the employment coverage but also not using just a general rule of thumb for life insurance calculations. You do a really nice job in the book of encouraging people to take a step back and say, what are you trying to do in terms of replacing with this policy? And for everybody listening, that’s going to be different depending on their situation, depending on if somebody’s at home and whether or not they go back to work, do you want to keep the home, this is going to serve retirement funds, kids’ college savings funds, you know, what’s the purpose of these funds and really objectively trying to evaluate that to determine how much need there is before purchasing a policy. Now, disability insurance, again, we’ve talked about this before on the show, but I think long-term disability, especially for our audience, is so important where their income is typically their greatest asset. And I think many pharmacists, certainly like life, they don’t like to think about a situation where they may pass away, and they don’t like to think of a situation where they may become disabled and unable to work as a pharmacist. So talk to us about the importance of disability insurance, especially when you think of somebody like a pharmacy professional.

Michelle Cooper: Yeah, I mean, I think disability insurance is at the same importance level of life insurance. It goes to relying on that income for your life. And if you’re not able to work for whatever reason, you need to replace that income, not only for yourself, but for your spouse and your family. So if your employer has a disability policy, I highly recommend. And also with your insurance agent or financial advisor, evaluating what types of disability policies are out there and work it into your financial plan.

Tim Ulbrich: So to our listeners, life, disability, I know many of you out there listening have thought about these, haven’t executed on these plans for probably just a variety of reasons. Again, it’s not necessarily something that’s fun to think about it. I know as I’ve shared before on this show, it’s something that I delayed in my own financial plan. So make sure to head on over to the website at YourFinancialPharmacist.com. We’ve got a whole section that helps you understand more of what Michelle and I are talking about here in terms of types of coverage, what to look for, projected costs, so make sure to head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com and check out our section on income protection. Now estate planning — and again, I think this is a topic we cannot emphasize enough. We’ve talked, again, before on the show about this. But the quote I love that you have in the book from Suze Orman was, “Estate planning is an important and everlasting gift that you can give to your family. And setting up a smooth inheritance isn’t as hard as you might think.” So for a moment I want to break down the different parts of an estate plan, quick definitions that I think our listeners can take away and begin to think about and evaluate their current estate plan or if they don’t have one, begin to think about what they need to have in place.

Michelle Cooper: So we’re going to talk about basically what I call the five building blocks of an estate plan. And the first one is a will. A will basically spells out your intentions on how you want to be buried, that’s in there, that’s one of the first paragraphs. It also names a guardian for your children, so for all of you that have children under age 18, this is so important because if you don’t name a guardian or a contingent guardian and something happens, a court’s going to decide who’s going to take care of your kids. And we don’t want that. A will also spells out how you’re leaving property to your beneficiaries. So it could be leaving something outright, meaning they get it right away when they’re age 18. Or it could mean leaving money in trust until they’re a certain age, which is what I recommend. And a will could work by itself or depending on what state you live in and what the probate laws are, sometimes they go hand-in-hand with what’s called a revocable living trust. There are many different types of trusts, but what we’re talking about is a trust that is revocable, meaning you can change it. And the main purpose of a revocable trust is a few things. One is avoiding the probate. And probate, depending on your state, can be costly and time consuming and an attorney would be involved. So states that have very expensive probates, people or attorneys will typically recommend a revocable trust. It also helps for incapacity. So for your listeners that have older parents and maybe one has dementia or Alzheimer’s or some kind of illness, a revocable trust would allow the spouse to step in and manage the affairs quicker if someone’s disabled. The same thing for us. It’s also private. So when you open a probate estate, a will gets filed at the county where you pass away. A trust is private unless there’s some kind of litigation. So a lot of folks like the ability to have things private, avoid probate, and have that incapacity protection. So those are the two main governing documents that spell out your intentions. And then there are powers of attorney. So there’s what I call two different flavors. One is a financial durable power of attorney, and what durable means is it’s going to go through incapacity. So it’s a document that you would sign today giving your agent, usually it’s a spouse or maybe a brother or sister or relative, the ability to transact financial affairs in the event you’re incapacitated. You’re alive, but you know, mentally or physically, you’re just not able to. Very important to have and also healthcare power of attorney. And the people that you name in these documents might not be the same. For example, I am aging and my husband’s financial power of attorney, but in the healthcare power of attorney, he’s named my brother because my brother has more health knowledge — he’s a physician — than I do. And so he would be a better choice in kind of an emergent situation than I would. So you have to think about who you’re naming and if they’re the right choice. And then you have a living will. Some of you might have signed these if you ever had surgery in the hospital. It’s a document that spells out whether you want to be kept alive if you’re in a vegetative state, if you want the plug pulled. And that goes along with the healthcare power of attorney.

Tim Ulbrich: So you covered will, revocable, living trust, financial durable power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney, and living will. And you talked about those in more detail, all of those, in the book. So when I hear “revocable living trust,” that implies there is a irrevocable living trust. So what are the main differences between the two?

Michelle Cooper: So an irrevocable trust, there are so many different types. But when you hear irrevocable, it means that it’s a document that typically cannot be changed unless you go through the court process. So some examples of an irrevocable trust might be a life insurance trust, which holds an insurance policy to keep it from being taxed in someone’s estate. It could be a charitable trust like a charitable remainder trust, some people have heard of those. It could also be what we call a testamentary trust. And that is an example of is in your will, you might have provisions that delay when a child would inherit assets, say until age 40. So if something happens to you when your child is 25, your will would create a testamentary trust for them with the provisions that you and your attorney draft and talk about. And that trust is an irrevocable trust. Typically, irrevocable trusts are going to file their own tax return, both a federal return and state return. But again, there are so many different types of irrevocable trusts, you just need to know that they are typically not easily changed and they accomplish different things.

Tim Ulbrich: So Michelle, as I hear you talking about — I’m guessing many of our listeners, you know, I’m thinking of the objections as I hear this, like oh my gosh, it’s so much. There’s five documents that we talked about, it’s a busy phase of life, the costs of doing this. So you know, Suze Orman’s quote that I outlined before talked about these and suggested it isn’t as hard as one may think. So talk to us a little bit about the process of putting these together, the potential costs of doing it, and I think that will help our listeners get some guidance about OK, maybe this isn’t as big or as overwhelming as I thought to ensure these documents get in place.

Michelle Cooper: So you definitely want to look at this as something that you can accomplish very easily because you don’t have to know all the documents. All you have to know is you want this person taking care of the kids, you don’t want your kids to get money until they’re age so-and-so, and where you want your property to go. The attorney that you work with will figure everything else out. And being in this field for so many years, I do recommend that you meet with an estate planning attorney that specializes in this type of law because there’s a lot of nuances in drafting. And every family situation and different. And you want to make sure when you’re not around that what you think is going to happen actually happens. And it doesn’t have to be super expensive. You can get a plain, vanilla will and powers of attorney. Not everybody needs a revocable trust. You know, you can probably get it, depending on where you live, I would say low end, $500-800, and on up into several thousand. When you add an irrevocable trust, that could increase the bill. But the best way to find an estate planning attorney — I talk about this in the book — is you could ask your financial advisor, your accountant if you work with one, you can ask a trusted friend, you can also look at your state bar. They’re going to have different choices online. And then interview two or three of them because you want to like this person just like you like your financial advisor. You have to open up to them about your concerns with leaving money to family members because that’s the way the attorney is really going to make a good document for you.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I can attest to what you had said about a good attorney will ask you the right questions. And you don’t have to get bogged down in the legalese and the terminology of it. And that was the experience for Jess and I. We spent an hour with an estate planning attorney, they asked some great questions getting at the individuals listed and certainly talking about the basics of the documents as well. But they asked really good pointed questions, good conversation starters for Jess and I, things we needed to go back and think more about if we hadn’t thought about it already. And then that led to a follow-up meeting and essentially the drafting of the documents. We had I think one revision, and then we finalized all five of these documents. So it definitely — I think like life and disability, it’s one of those things you go through and you look at at the end and say, “Wow, I am so glad I did that. And I thought it was going to be way worse than it was in both time, expense, and how overwhelming it can be.” One of the quick tips you give, Michelle, in the book that I really like that I think is something that often gets overlooked is you mentioned outlining your burial wishes and personal property in a letter along with having a list of your digital assets. Can you talk more about that?

Michelle Cooper: Sure. So you know, we just talked about working with an attorney to get documents done. And I wanted to mention that when you sign those documents, it doesn’t mean that you never look at them again because your life is going to change, evolve and change, and some of the provisions might need to change. But at the same time, you don’t want to have to go back to your attorney every time you change your mind on how you’re leaving particular assets. So the letter that Tim is talking about is a letter that spells out for your personal assets who gets what: maybe a watch or an engagement ring, particular furniture, because what I’ve seen in my practice is that the most simple personal property can cause a lot of family conflict. And that conflict can take a long time to forgive. And by having a letter right attached to your will that spells out who you want to give what assets to, you’re going to make the job that your executor has of handing out all this property much, much easier. And the other thing is explaining what your burial wishes. Nobody really loves the topic, but when there’s a tragedy and your children or a family member is trying to figure out what you wanted, if they can see in writing that you wanted to be buried or cremated or you wanted a celebration of life party, it’s going to make them feel so much better when they’re in this challenging time trying to do what you want and what’s best.

Tim Ulbrich: And I was also thinking, Michelle, as I was reading the book and I saw you mentioned digital assets, I even just started to think, well, if my wife or I were to pass away tomorrow, like I’m thinking of things even just like family memories and photos and all those things that might reside on a computer behind a password that nobody knows how to get in or on my phone or on a Google shared drive or something. So you know, or is there letters to children or family members or other things that, again, not something you want to have to think about, but certainly memories and other types of treasures that you want to ensure can get passed on. As we wrap up, I’m going to end on a quote that you have in the introductory letter to your readers that I think sums up so well the conversation we’ve had here today as well as the takeaways from the book. And that quote is, “In order to be empowered and independent financially, we all need to take an active role in our financial well-being. The good news is that it can be done. And all it takes is the willingness to do it. I am living proof of that. You too can accomplish this by being proactive, starting early, and following a plan, whether you’re single, married, widowed, or divorced.” So Michelle, I want to thank you for your time. I want to thank you for your willingness to share your story. And I hope our listeners will pick up a copy of your book as we have just scratched the surface during our time together of the wisdom that you share in this book. We also didn’t talk about during the interview mommy guilt, finding love again, kids and money, working as a blended family, and elder care, all of which you do a great job of covering in the book. So in addition to getting a copy of the book, “I’ve Still Got Me” on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you’re doing?

Michelle Cooper: They can find me at MichellePCooper.com. I spell Michelle with two l’s. They can also find me on Facebook or on the XMLW Financial Group website. And I would be happy to talk to any of your listeners that have questions on the estate planning side or how to get the conversation started with a spouse, whatever your listeners have, I’m willing to help.

Tim Ulbrich: And again, that’s MichellePCooper. Make sure two l’s and a P between Michelle and Cooper. And the book “I’ve Still Got Me: A Widow’s Journey to Love, Happiness & Financial Independence.” Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Michelle Cooper: Thank you so much, Tim.

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YFP 126: Going Beyond Six Figures Through Medical Writing


Going Beyond Six Figures Through Medical Writing

Brittany Hoffmann-Eubanks, Founder and CEO of Banner Medical, joins Tim Church to share her side hustle journey in creating a company that’s on track to hit over $100,000 in revenue and what she did to get to this point.

About Today’s Guest

Brittany is the Founder and CEO of Banner Medical and a native of the Chicago-land-area in Illinois. Banner Medical combines her passion for writing with her medical background as a pharmacist; with the goal of improving patient outcomes through educating healthcare providers. Brittany is an expert in the development of needs assessments, continuing education, and scientific writing. With over a decade of experience in community pharmacy, Brittany tailors and delivers medical communication projects in any topic area in a balanced, accurate, and timely manner.

Brittany earned her Doctor of Pharmacy and Masters of Business Administration degrees from Drake University College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences in 2012. After graduate school, she completed a Post-Graduate-Year-1 Community Pharmacy Residency where she earned her teaching-and-learning certificate, dedicated herself to patient-centered pharmacy care, and learned the business of pharmacy. It was during her residency year that Brittany discovered her passion for education and desire to be an entrepreneur.

After residency training, Brittany accepted the role of pharmacist in charge and clinical pharmacist within the community pharmacy setting. Brittany also precepts student pharmacists helping to prepare them for their future careers as pharmacists. In her free time, Brittany loves to travel to new and exciting places with her husband and family, playing with her dogs, and singing. She is also very involved in her State Pharmacy Association where she serves as a Board Member, Journal Editor, and Co-chair of the Public Relations Committee. In 2018, Brittany was awarded the Edmond P. Barcus Distinguished Young Pharmacist Award for her service to the Illinois Pharmacists Association.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Church: Brittany, thanks for stopping by and for being part of this side hustle edition.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited:

Tim Church: Well back in Episode 116, Tim Ulbrich talked with David Burkus, author of “Friend of a Friend.” He discussed how one and can and should grow their network and how to build key connections. And this really reminded me of how we met and ended up doing this podcast today. So do you mind talking about that story?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Sure. I was just looking to put my business into place with a website and kind of make everything official after unofficially starting my side hustle about four years ago. And so one of my connections that we met through a mutual friend, someone that I had been working with on my business. And I was like, “Man, I really want to get my website together, have a place where I can put my portfolio for prospective clients. Do you have any ideas?” And they’re like, “I have a person, and they’re a pharmacist.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s fantastic. Who knew that pharmacists do websites on the side?” So we were connected and got to talk to you, and I was really excited because you understood my vision of what I was looking for for the website and just turned out to be an awesome partnership. And I’m super excited with how things turned out. And we started talking about my business, and here we are in the podcast.

Tim Church: Yeah. It’s really fun. Is it OK if I mention who our mutual connection is?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Oh, for sure. I don’t think he’d mind.

Tim Church: Yeah, shoutout to Alex Barker. I think he knows everyone in the pharmacy profession, by the way. But a great guy and really cool opportunity that we got to meet through him. So Brittany, talk about your full-time pharmacist position and also your career path.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: So as a full-time pharmacist during my day job, as I like to call it, I’m a community pharmacist, and so I work as a pharmacy manager and clinical pharmacist with a large community pharmacy chain in the Chicagoland area. And as part of that role, I kind of wear a couple different hats of making sure that my pharmacy is running, we’re able to take care of our patients as well as managing my team and one of my passion of working with patients. So I do a lot of MTM with patients, Medication Therapy Management, hyperlipidemia management, diabetes, especially, and then also probably my favorite part of my job as a community pharmacist is the immunizations. So I’m travel health certified, I get to see people going all over the world. Traveling is a passion of mine, so that’s kind of the day-to-day job that I have in pharmacy. And then in terms of career path, I think I took probably a pretty traditional route. I went to Drake University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, got my Doctor of Pharmacy degree. Also did their dual program where I obtained my Master’s in Business Administration. And then after I graduated from college, went on to do a postgraduate Year 1 residency, community pharmacy residency, with the company that I now work for as well as Midwestern University in Chicago. And I loved my residency year. It was an opportunity just to immerse myself in direct patient care, learn about the business of pharmacy, do some ambulatory care projects on the side as well as obtain a teaching and learning certificate. And that’s kind of where my nontraditional pharmacy career that I have now happened by accident during that timeframe, my residency year. I didn’t jump into it right away. I just decided to work for a little bit and really just get my feet wet in being a pharmacy manager, helping take care of patients, really just immerse myself in community pharmacy before moving onto what I’m doing now, which is medical writing.

Tim Church: Yeah, so talk about how did that happen? Where did that vision come from during your residency and as you transitioned into your community pharmacy role?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, when people ask me about this story, I always share with them that my becoming an entrepreneur happened by accident. It was in my residency year that we were asked to write a continuing medical education written piece for a pharmacist to help educate them on a topic. And as part of that process, I received some really good feedback and just kind of got the wheel moving, so to speak, of is this something that I’m interested in? Could this be something I could do in the future? How can I earn some additional money on the side in addition to what I’m doing in my day job? I love to travel, as I said, and all of those student loans, trying to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Through that process of just trying to figure that out, what I was doing, what I wanted to do, I had a friend that I had worked with — I guess I should colleague that I worked with during my residency year who moved onto a different position with a large national publication, so I just reached out to them and said, “Hey, how do you get your content? I’m really interested in potentially doing more of this type of work. Do you take writers? Or how do you obtain new writers?” And that really kind of started it. And from there, I did my first project and just kind of morphed into what I am doing today with my full-fledged business.

Tim Church: So was that your first paid gig where you just reached out and you were looking for opportunities?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: It was. And actually, it’s kind of a funny story because they didn’t give me just one project. They actually gave me two to work on simultaneously. So it was a fun challenge, and actually the first project they’d given me to write about was a topic that I wasn’t an expert in. It was actually on pet medications, so it required me to just take a step back, think about what angle I wanted to attack it from, and go from there. It was such a great experience. It was an opportunity to get my feet wet and just really figure out how I wanted to move forward with this type of writing that I was interested in.

Tim Church: So how did that feel getting that first gig and actually getting paid to do it?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: It was exciting. I think oftentimes, we think about how can I make money on the side? And is it going to be worthwhile, so going to be that return on investment? Or what’s the opportunity cost? You know, what else could I be doing if I wasn’t doing this right now? And I think for me, the biggest piece of it was is that all it required was my computer and my time at that time. So it was easy for me and kind of exciting to be like, OK, I can go to my day job, come home, fit this into when I have time to do this and make some extra money on the side that I can either use to put towards traveling or I can add some extra funds to paying off my loans quicker.

Tim Church: And so those were the two biggest motivators, at least initially, for kind of pursuing this side hustle?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: It was for me. I knew — just to back up for a second, I came out of school with probably close to $250,000 in student loans, which is a ginormous amount of student loans. I’d done an undergrad degree first, so four years before I went on to Drake. Drake actually has a six-year program, and I didn’t go that route. I did the four years and then the additional four years. And in addition to that, added on a second degree where I obtained the MBA program and stayed during the summers to achieve that dual degree by the time I finished pharmacy school. So I knew going into that that it was going to be a lot more burdensome in terms of the cost factor. And so you know, having had that background with the MBA degree, looking at those amortization tables and the compounded interest, I was like, I’ve got to do something to get rid of this student debt as soon as possible. So I think paying that off as quickly as possible and having some extra funds was a big motivator in the beginning.
Tim Church: So your medical writing business is called Banner Medical. Talk a little bit about what your business specifically is all about, other than obviously we know it’s medical writing, but what is your mission of the business? And who are you specifically serving?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, that’s a great question. I appreciate you asking that. It’s probably the first question that everybody asks me of what is that? Or what is medical writing? So by now, I’ve gotten very good at explaining to people what it is that my company does. But essentially, if you were talking to a lot of the pharmacists out there and maybe other healthcare providers who are listening in your audience, it’s pretty simple. We write about medicine. And there’s a lot of different areas that encompass medical writing. It could be continuing medical education, it could be education grant writing, which is something that we now are experts and something that we’re typically sought out for with our writing for a needs assessment. It could be on the editorial side where we’re writing about maybe a new drug that came out or something that’s going on in the healthcare field. Or maybe even the academic scientific writing where we’re helping a company put together their manuscript for a journal submission or working with a pharmacy organization to spread some of their grant work that they’re doing. So it’s a wide, encompassing field. There’s a lot of different types of medical writing. And every business is going to excel in certain areas and have a focal point. So for me, the mission of my company, it really is a business-to-business company I would say. We serve many other businesses, helping them, whether it be through educational grant writing with the needs assessments that we do, but ultimately, it serves the patient and the healthcare provider in the end. And so for me, our mission at Banner Medical is really just to optimize that knowledge to improve clinical care or clinical outcomes for the patient. So if you think about it, when we’re writing these types of medical writing pieces, our goal is to help healthcare practitioners and clinicians, especially, make better clinical decision-making or improve their clinical decision-making so that they can ultimately take better care of their patients and improve the outcomes for them in the long run.

Tim Church: I love that, Brittany. And I think that’s so cool the way that you articulated that because it’s not just about the education piece of the healthcare provider but ultimately, what is going to happen as the end result of that education? I think that’s so great the way that you put that. So the businesses that you’re working with, is this primarily have pharmacists as the audience in terms of who’s reading this content and taking charge? Is it other healthcare providers? Is it a mix?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: So when I first started my business back in 2014, it was exclusively for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. And now, since we have been moving forward with expanding the business, we’ve moved into other clinicians as well. So for example, we now service regular physicians, we do non-physician clinicians like Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, really have gone beyond exclusively writing for pharmacists, which is really exciting for Banner Med because it opens up our opportunities, additional revenue streams and additional access to helping improve outcomes for patients.

Tim Church: Now you talked about initially reaching out and getting that gig or actually two gigs in the beginning. But how difficult has it been to acquire new clients and getting them on board? I mean, was it easy after you did the first couple and then you didn’t have to market as much? Or is that a constant thing that you’re doing in terms of getting new business?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: I think maybe the answer to your question is two-pronged. So when you have your own business, you spend a good amount of time working in your business as well as working on your business. And I think finding the right balance of that is really important, especially as you’re trying to grow and obtain new clients, especially. I think the biggest thing for Banner Med and me specifically is that it really comes down to the relationships that you build. So you always have to be making sure that you’re reaching out to new people, be it somebody you know through your network, just always be ready to have that elevator pitch, so to speak, when you meet someone knew and they may be interested or how you can help them or provide value to them for what they’re looking for. So to answer your question, I think for me, I spend a good amount of time each week looking for new prospective clients, now gotten to the point where a lot of times, people are reaching out to us now, seeking out our help, which is great. It’s taken a bit of time to get to that point, but I’m excited to be moving into that arena rather than having to constantly hustle to find new clients. And we have a group now of great core clients that are repeat business, which is fantastic because it makes it a little bit easier to not have to always constantly be looking for new work all the time to build those revenues. So to have repeat customers is really helpful too.

Tim Church: What percentage of the business right now is repeat customers?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: I’d say about 80% at this point in time is repeat customers. And then the other 20% is new clients that we’re working with that have either been referred to us or that we’re actively seeking out.

Tim Church: Great. So talk a little bit about what is the earning capacity for doing medical writing? Because one of the things that you mentioned was basically what you needed was a computer and you needed some time. And obviously, it takes time to do what you’re doing. But talk a little bit about how much you’re charging for the different pieces of medical writing and the different focus points that you have.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: So the revenue piece of it, of what you’re able to earn is to a degree, kind of limitless. It really just depends on the clients that you’re working with, what types of projects they’re asking you for as well as experience. And all of that kind of goes into the whole thing together. So there isn’t really like a strict fee that we charge for every single project. It’s always going to be individualized. But to give you an example, for this year alone, we’re on pace to be six figures this year, which is amazing compared to where I started when I had my first gig that I told you about where I was doing two projects and made about $700 for those two projects, which at the time was fantastic because it took me about two weeks to write the two different projects that I was asked for, and I made $700, which was really exciting at the time. Now, fast forward, it’s been a growth process over the last few years where I think year 2, we did a little bit over $10,000, and then it’s just gotten — the revenue stream has gotten bigger and better. So really, it just depends on how much you want to put into it and what types of projects you’re willing to take. And the other piece too that I think is really important, especially for new, aspiring writers is not to undervalue your work. You know, oftentimes, we’re afraid to charge a certain price or tell a client or a vendor that oh, I think this project’s probably going to be about $1,000 based upon the amount of work that you’re asking for and what you need whereas someone who is maybe less experienced and maybe has that fear of oh, $1,000, like can you afford that type of thing, they may undervalue themselves and say, oh, I’ll do that really big project for you for like $450. But at the end of the day, you’re putting so much time and effort into it that it doesn’t make financial sense. So it’s important to consider the type of work you’re doing, what’s being asked of you, and one of the biggest places I always start is I ask the client, do they have a budget? And what have they budgeted for this particular project to kind of help me determine if I’m going to be able to work with them within their budget or if we need to negotiate and talk about what the project fee should be.
Tim Church: Now Brittany, I’ve got to step back for a minute because you just nonchalantly said that your side business is earning about six figures on pace to do this year, which is really exciting and just pumps me up. And I think a lot of people who are listening are probably thinking, that’s incredible, No. 1. But No. 2, how have you been able to do that?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Well thank you. It’s been pretty exciting to see the business grow. And I’ve spent the last year working really hard to scale it. And frankly, I think a lot of the credit I would have to give to just working with Alex Barker through the coaching process for my business. And I’ve talked about this previously, but I think for me, it was initially when I thought about the idea of hiring a business coach, it seemed a little silly to me at first. But then I sat back and thought about it and I was like, well, we have coaches for a lot of other things that we do in our lives, sports, especially. So you know, why not for a business? This kind of makes sense. And initially, probably like a lot of other people who’ve maybe considered doing coaching wonder about the costs of it and is it going to be worth it and what’s the return on investment going to be? But I have to say, working with the Happy PharmD and Alex specifically just really helped push me to think outside of the box and how I wanted to expand this business and I was really worried about hiring someone because I was becoming that rate-limiting step, right? There was only so much I could do in the time that I wasn’t at work in order to build this business. I mentioned earlier about working in the business and on the business. And I was really tapped out for working in and on it. So in order for me to move forward and expand to where I wanted this business to grow, I had to get over that roadblock, so to speak. And Alex was instrumental in helping me do that and just kind of work through the process and figure out, OK, this is the fundamentals, this is where I started, this is where I want to be. How do I get to that next level? And I’m super grateful just for the time that I’ve spent and wish I probably would have done it sooner because it’s been amazing from last year to this year where I’m on pace now. And I think about oh man, what if I had done this in like year 2 or year 3 instead of waiting? But it’s been really exciting. And I think it’s a testament to how working with someone else to think about different factors in your business can really help you grow and move forward.

Tim Church: I think that’s such a key. I mean, we don’t know what we don’t know. And sometimes, it takes really that outside perspective to help get to that next level. What were the initial hesitations with working with a coach or just paying money out of pocket to do that?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, I think for me, it was just being comfortable with the amount that it was going to cost on a monthly basis and just thinking long-term of OK, well, I understand having a business background that you have to spend money in order to make money. But as I mentioned, paying off those student loans were really important to me, and my business at that point was — I was at kind of a fork in the road. Either I was going to go to the left or I was going to go to the right. And I just decided to just go full boar to the right and do something different and hope that the return on investment was there and that it paid off, and it has. Within the first six months of working with a business coach, I tripled my revenue, which was amazing to see that happen and just be a part of that and just have those small wins, and it really just helped invigorate me. And I never looked back, so to speak. And as a result of working with a coach for the business, it just helped me think about things from a different perspective, bringing on a new employee to the company. I now actually have three employees, which is really exciting compared to where I was just a year and a half ago where I was terrified of hiring one and how was that going to affect my business and the quality, which was really important to me to teach someone else how to do what I do and just working through all of those pieces to be where I am now. So it’s been a long journey, but it’s been exciting. Each new thing, just thinking about something differently, not letting analysis paralysis take over and just stopping me from moving forward with the things that I wanted to do.

Tim Church: That’s really exciting, Brittany. And you mentioned that you were the rate-limiting step in the business, and I think that’s really interesting to kind of realize and recognize that. And talk about how you brought on employees and what that process was like and kind of what are they doing day-to-day in the business right now?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, so for me, I really needed someone who could help me with some of the pieces that didn’t really require me in the writing process. So I decided that hiring a medical writing assistant made sense, someone that could help me with the research, going through all the different articles that we need for the evidence-based writing that we do. Can they help me basically go through the research and highlight the pieces that are important for the particular types of work that we’re doing? Can they help me with bibliography writing and going through all the different sources that we have and that we’re using? Just some of those basic tasks that didn’t necessarily require me or my writing as well as someone who maybe was interested in becoming a medical writer with my business. And so it’s kind of funny how it happened because I have a group of pharmacists now who are working for me. And I love working with them, anyone with an advanced degree is perfect typically for medical writing, although there are a lot of great non-advanced degree writers out there. So I don’t want to generalize. But for what we’re doing at Banner Med, it’s been awesome to be able to hire other pharmacists and bring them on. But now, it’s turned into kind of a whole new thing where we’re working one-on-one with them, teaching them how to write the different types of medical writing projects or pieces that we’re doing and really helping them go from medical writer — medical writing assistant to medical writer and just being able to see that process and where they start and how they’re growing and their individual goals that they have as it relates to their own professional growth as well as Banner Med has been really exciting. So I started in one place and ended up being in a totally new place as well as far as the business is concerned, so that piece has been exciting too just not only educating healthcare providers but also helping to mentor and educate new aspiring writers as well.

Tim Church: And how did you primarily find these additional writers? What were the channels that you used?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: So initially, this was one of the things that I think was kind of a hurdle for me to get over. In the beginning, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about that: Did I want to use a traditional place like Indeed or Monster or some of those places, the job boards that you think of when you’re going and looking? Or did I want to utilize a network and try to find people through that way? And I ended up actually utilizing a network, kind of a LinkedIn process of OK, I’m going to create an application, this is the qualities that I’m looking for, these are the things that are absolutely essential, these are the things that are ideal, and these are things that would be nice to have but aren’t necessarily required. I kind of went through that process, did a phone interview with them, made sure that they’re going to be a good fit for me, anyone that I work with, they ended up becoming like family to me. And my business is my baby, so to speak, so it’s really important to me that they’re just as passionate about writing. I can teach them a lot of the things that they need to know, but do they have good fundamentals? And so for us, we kind of went the more personal network route of utilizing LinkedIn and some other networking opportunities that made that process a lot easier. And now, believe it or not, just from some of the opportunities that I’ve had to spread the word about Banner Med, I actually have a lot of new aspiring writers that reach out to me now on a regular basis. And I’m always impressed by that. I think if you take the time to reach out to someone and tell them what value you can bring and how you’re interested in what they’re doing, then I can talk to that person a little bit more, find out what it is that they’re interested in, how they might be able to help us out or if it’s possible to work together. So there’s a couple — it’s changed from how we went about it in the beginning to how we do it now.

Tim Church: So are you still having a hand on each individual project? Or is your team taking certain project completely from start to finish?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yes, there are — it depends on where they are in terms of the training process, how long they’ve been working with us. Quality control for me and making sure that every project is still meeting Banner Med’s expectations is very important to me, so the writers that I’ve been working with are absolutely fantastic. I do have one full medical writer right now who takes a project from start to finish. And then I come in kind of in editor role as opposed to writer role and just go through everything, make sure it checks every box that the client was looking for, just kind of as that last piece before we send the project off. And then with my new writers, I do take on a more hands-on approach where I work with them directly, offer feedback, and probably have more of a writing role with those projects. So like I said, it kind of depends on the individual. But yes, I do typically still look at every single project that comes through for Banner Med, just making sure that it’s going to meet the client’s needs and that we’ve successfully put together the deliverable that they’re looking for.

Tim Church: And then depending on kind of what stage they are as a medical writer, does that also impact kind of their compensation for each project?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: It does. And unfortunately, in the medical writing world, there isn’t really a great compensation table, so to speak, where you can go and say, ‘OK, for this project, you’re going to make x amount of dollars,’ or, ‘This project, you’re going to make x amount of dollars.’ It’s really, for me, it’s a combination of their experience, their efficiency, their ability to write, along with what the total project cost is that we’re going to be receiving, the revenue that we’ve worked out with the client as well as my own just personal experience in terms of working with that individual of what the compensation’s going to be. But the one thing that’s really important to me is that the wage is always fair. And I strongly believe in that. I’ve gone back and advocated if a writer’s came back to me and said, “Hey, Brittany, you know what? This project took 10 extra hours more than we thought it was going to. And because of that, I had to spend all this extra time, x, y, z.” So in that case, you know, I have no problem going back to the client and saying, “Hey, you know what? We need to circle back on this project cost. These are some of the things that came up. Let’s talk about the compensation for this particular project and potentially renegotiate that.” Or I may even do that just on a personal level with that individual writer depending on how much extra time or effort that they had to put into it. So it’s a long answer to answer your question. But it’s so individualized that it’s impossible to say, OK, you’re going to do x and we’re going to pay you z every single time. It just really depends on the individual project.

Tim Church: So other than the payment to your employees for their assistance with the different projects that you receive, what are the other major costs of running your business?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: I think the other major costs really come down to some of the software programs that we use. There’s a particular reference product that we use that has saved just so much time and energy when it comes to doing the bibliographies for a lot of the different products that we use. So I would say primarily software would be the biggest expense that the business has on a day-to-day basis in terms of operating costs. Aside from that, there really isn’t a whole lot of extra overhead types of things. I mean, we have some of those fixed costs like internet and if we want to have meetings with all of us together, there may be particular software that we use to facilitate that process. So it just — I guess it really just kind of falls into that software, the things that make our job a little bit easier. All of my writers live in different parts of the country, so they’re all remote-based. And so it’s not like we’re just meeting up in an office, working together. We have to facilitate those online meetings in some way or fashion.

Tim Church: And do you guys meet together as a team to kind of help foster some of that mentorship that you’re providing?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, so we’re going to actually start doing that. Recently, we acquired two new employees that now make us a team of four. So I’m really excited about that. Prior to that, when I was working just with my medical writer that I’ve now had for almost a year, actually, you know, her and I would meet quarterly. Sometimes it would be on the phone, other times it would be through a video chat. But it’s really important for me to make sure that we’re not only discussing the projects that we’re working on but that I’m also helping them with their individual goals that they have, what things do they need help with, what is their biggest difficulty when it comes to the projects that we’re working on, and really just having that open communication, that feedback, so that we can keep improving and keep growing the business and help them move forward into new roles that they’re excited about or interested in or their particular topic. So yeah, I would say that group discussion, the mentorship, is really important for the business.

Tim Church: I think that is so cool how you continue to grow and bring other team members on. And it’s just really exciting to see that growth. I think one of the other burning questions that a lot of people probably listening right now, and including me, is how much time are you personally spending in the business? Because even though you have writers and you have some help, I mean, clearly you said that you’re still having a hands-on, even if it’s from an editorial perspective, but just on the business itself. So talk a little bit about that.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, it’s a significant amount of time. I’m definitely not going to sugarcoat that. Probably I’d say between my full-time job and this side hustle, which is probably can’t even categorize it as a side hustle anymore. Now it’s like a full hustle.

Tim Church: That’s right.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: I would probably say it’s easily like 80 hours per week. I’m definitely probably doing full-time on both right now. But you know, some of you guys may hear that and be like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t do that. There’s no way.’ You don’t have to do that to be in medical writing, right? You can pick the projects that you want to work on, you could do some extra money on the side if that’s what your goal is, or you can go full in like I’m doing. I think for me, I absolutely love this. And it doesn’t feel like work to me. So when I come home and I’m working on a project, it’s exciting to create this, to have my clients excited at the end of the day that they don’t have to spend hours upon hours redoing work and really come to us when they have those difficult projects or difficult topics that they know they need a good writer on. And I think that’s really important, and the biggest thing no matter what you choose is that at the end of the day, it’s awesome to make extra money on the side. But do you love the work that you’re doing? And if you don’t, then obviously you need to make a change or think about things differently. My grandfather always told me when I was a little girl, if you don’t like something, change it. And if you can’t change it, then change the way you think about it. And I’ve really just tried to use that as a guiding light for me in everything that I do. And this business is something that I absolutely love, so at the end of the day, even though I’m putting tons and tons of time into it right now, I know later on, it won’t be like that where I will have to spend as much time. But right now, we’re in that growing phase where it’s necessary. But I look forward to the days where I can step back a little bit and work on maybe some pet projects. But right now, it’s just fun and exciting to see things moving forward.

Tim Church: That’s so good, Brittany, and I think you just dropped a bunch of wisdom bombs in there, which was great. And what I want to know is because you’re doing so well and this is scaling, is this something that is going to take over your community pharmacist position? Is that going to cut back? What does that look like going forward?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Well, it’s hard to say right now. I absolutely love being a community pharmacist. I enjoy the patient interaction. I feel like to a degree, it helps me be a better writer, so to speak, in just being able to help patients navigate different difficult topics. In the community, I see people that are dealing with cancer, dealing with all kinds of just difficult types of long-term conditions or maybe it’s a short-term issue. So you know, I don’t know that I know the answer to that question right now, but I definitely know that I’m excited to see where things go in the future and depending on where the business takes me, you never know. This could be the final thing for me, or I may choose to scale back a little bit and do both. It’s hard to say right now, but I’m definitely excited for the future of what Banner Med can do.

Tim Church: You talked about you’re spending 80 hours many weeks out of the year trying to do both of your jobs, basically two full-time jobs.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah.

Tim Church: So one of the things that often comes up that people feel that time is that limiting factor to work on a passion project, a side hustle, or another job. What seems to work for you in terms of managing both of those but then also your personal life?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah. I get asked this question a lot, like how do you do it? And I think the biggest thing is that you have to be intentional about your time, right? So you know, if I’m working on a project, then I have to get rid of the distractors. I’m working specifically on that so that I can be focused and be efficient. But one of the things that I found during my residency year that was really helpful is just to schedule out my time. So my calendar — I’m that person that’s got thing color-coded and have a specific time I guess for everything. But that works for me. So I think the biggest thing — and everybody always says, oh, time management. But what does that actually mean, right? How do you put that into action? Are you the type of person that you need to work on something for 30 minutes and then take a five-minute break and then come back at it for another 30 minutes? You just really have to figure out what works for you. For me, scheduling my time, be it the time I’m going to work on projects or am I going to work out at 5 a.m. tomorrow? What time am I doing dinner with my husband, date night, etc.? It’s just really helpful for me to make sure. And then when that time comes up and I’m supposed to be working on that particular project during that time or whatever it is, make sure that you actually do it. I think that’s the biggest thing is just that follow through of whatever way that you find to manage your time, that you’re being consistent and that you follow through. Don’t say on Tuesday at 6 o’clock, I’m going to set time aside for my family and then be like, oh, sorry guys, this came up. I can’t do that. Like you need to honor those commitments and just stick with it.

Tim Church: I think that’s so true. There’s such power in that intentionality but then figuring out that system on how you’re going to actually execute. One of the things that you wrote to me before we jumped on the interview is that your husband has been one of your largest supporters. So I wanted to give him a shoutout because clearly, you seem to have written that with a lot of enthusiasm. And it seems like that’s probably necessary for the undertaking that you have.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Oh, 100%. I honestly couldn’t do what I’m doing right now without his support. I mean, just think about that for a second. You’re married to someone, you have committed to spending your life together with one another, and here I am going to work 40 hours during day, either work typically 8-4 or 2-10 at my job, and then when I come home, it’s like, “Hey, honey. Let’s have dinner. OK, I’m going to work again.” So I could totally understand him being frustrated or like what the heck, she has no time for me. But I think you know, we try to always schedule time with each other, which sounds very unromantic, I get that, but I’m in that phase right now with the business where these things have to happen, and I think he definitely understands that it’s a dream of mine, something that I’m pushing really hard for. And he’s just awesome. I can’t thank him enough for being super understanding about it, never gives me a hard time when I say, “Oh, I have this project I have to work on,” or, “Oh, I have this deadline.” He’s my biggest supporter, and I love him for that.

Tim Church: That is awesome. What’s his name?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: His name’s Matthew.

Tim Church: Matthew, you’re doing an awesome job. Keep supporting Brittany. So Brittany, one of the questions I think that often comes up — and I feel like especially with medical writing — but just in general with trying to start a business or a side hustle, one of the things that comes up is just how do I get started? How do I break in and get going? Because I think it’s easy to kind of sit back, hear your story, and obviously it’s taken a lot of hard work to get to the point where you are now, but what advice, what guidance would you give to somebody who’s just trying to start to break in?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, I get asked this question all the time, actually. And so much so that I am actually working on a new project that’s hopefully going to help new, aspiring medical writers solve that problem. So stay tuned. There’ll be more to come. But just in general, to answer your question, I think the biggest thing that people who are aspiring to be a medical writer have to think about is one, what type of writing do they want to do? Do you want to have a staff position? Do you want to be a freelancer? Although that isn’t my favorite way to characterize what it is that we’re doing, but it’s in the vernacular to describe this medical writing role when you’re not working full-time for a particular company. And then ask yourself what types of things do you like? What are you interested in? And then seek out those types of opportunities. This is a gig economy where you can seek out different projects, let people know what you’re interested in, and just make sure that you come in prepared too. We want to make sure that you’re not only just asking people but that you’re letting them know what it is that you can provide to them that’s of value because that’s the biggest thing when it comes to different companies is how can you provide that value to them?

Tim Church: Well said, Brittany. So if somebody wants to reach out to you to learn more about your business, what you’re doing, or maybe just needs a couple key pieces of encouragement about getting started, how can they do that?

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Yeah, so they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks, can also find my email address on my website at www.BannerMedicalWriting.com. Either one of those is a great way to reach out to me. I love hearing from new people and talking about your story. So don’t hesitate to reach out. And if I can help you, I’m happy to do so.

Tim Church: Well, thank you again for coming on the show, sharing your story, and just really looking forward to hear about the progress as you continue to grow your business.

Brittany Hoffman-Eubanks: Thank you. I’m super excited. Thank you so much for having me. I hope that anyone who’s out there listening that if you’re really interested in being an entrepreneur, starting your own side hustle, start small with the things you can control. And you never know where things will take you.

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