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YFP 272: How Much Is Enough? (Retirement Planning)

Posted on September 8, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How Much Is Enough? (Retirement Planning)

On today’s episode, sponsored by APhA, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, sits down with Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP®, to discuss how much you need for retirement in part one of the four-part series focused on retirement planning.

Episode Summary

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, sits down with Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP®, to discuss how much is enough when it comes to retirement planning in part one of the four-part series focused on retirement planning. In this discussion, Tim and Tim cover finding a balance between saving for the future and living a rich life along the way, factors to consider including determining how much is needed when building a nest egg, what the 4% rule is and why it is commonly used as a safe withdrawal rate during retirement, and why time in the market and savings rate matter more than the rate of return on investments. Tim Baker shares his opinion on financial planning as an exercise in goal setting for the long term while balancing experiencing life in the present and how financial planning and even minor changes in your investment portfolio can have a significant impact on your total retirement amount. They dive into what many folks consider a safe savings rate and considerations for increasing that savings rate dependent on numerous factors in the financial plan. Tim and Tim explain the rule of 25, which is popularly used in the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) community as a guideline for retirement savings, how it works, and how it compares to the 4% rule. They close with general calculations and formulas for determining the nest egg for retirement and tease next week’s episode on the “alphabet soup” of retirement accounts.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

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

On this week’s episode, Tim Baker and I kick off a four-part retirement planning series by discussing how to determine how much is enough when it comes to saving for retirement. Highlights from the show include finding a balance of saving for the future, while also living a rich life along the way, as Tim Baker says, “It can’t be just about the ones and zeros in the bank account.” Factors to consider when building a nest egg and determining how much is needed. What the 4% rule is and why it is commonly used as a safe withdrawal rate during retirement. And why time in the market and savings rate matters more than rate of return. Before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does, and working one on one with more than 270 households in 40 Plus states.

YFP Planning offers fee only, high-touch financial planning that is customized to the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one on one with a certified financial planner, who may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. Whether or not YFP Planning financial planning services are a good fit for, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor, and then jump into my conversation with certified financial planner, Tim Baker.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[00:01:33] TU: Today’s episode Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast is brought to you by The American Pharmacists Association. APhA has partnered with Your Financial Pharmacist to deliver personalized financial education benefits for APHA members. Throughout the year, APhA will be hosting a number of exclusive webinars covering topics like student loan debt, payoff strategies, home buying, investing, insurance needs, and much more. Join APhA now to gain premier access to these educational resources and to receive discounts on YFP products and services. You can join APhA at a 25% discount by visiting pharmacist.com/join, and using the coupon code YFP. Again, that’s pharmacist.com/join, and using the coupon code, YFP.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:02:19] TU: Tim Baker, welcome back on the show.

[00:02:21] TB: Thanks, Tim. Yeah, good to be back.

[00:02:23] TU: It’s been a while. I mean, you’ve done some case studies with the planning team, which have been awesome. But we haven’t been back on the show together in some time, so I’m looking forward to this series that we’re going to be doing on retirement planning. We’ve got a four-part series plan, all about retirement planning, starting with determining how much is enough, what do we need as we look at preparing towards retirement, and ending with strategies and considerations for actually building that retirement paycheck. And a topic that’s often overlooked, we’ll talk about that in detail when we get to that fourth and final part.

I believe we’ve constructed this, Tim, in a way that whether it’s a new practitioner who’s just getting started wondering what’s this big scary number for off in the future, or someone who’s mid-career checking in to see if they’re on track, or pre-retiree thinking about, “Hey, this is coming up, and are there some tweaks that I need to make, or adjustments or perhaps confirmation that I’m on track.” I think this topic is relevant, regardless of where someone is at, at their career.

So, we’re going to get into the dollars and cents. We’re going to nerd out on the nest egg and some of the X’s and O’s. But first, I think it’s valuable that we consider what is the purpose, what’s the vision for what we’re trying to do before we start thinking about, is it 3 million? Is it 4 million? Is it 5 million? So, Tim, talk to us about number one, why is this so important before we actually determine how much is enough, and then how are we going to get there? And how do we practically begin to accomplish defining the vision that we have when we think about retirement, and what that life will look like?

[00:03:57] TB: Yeah, so comprehensive financial planning, to me, it really boils down to the idea of how do I best go about living a wealthy life today, say in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and a wealthy life tomorrow. We typically think of tomorrow, more in terms of like the long-term horizon of in my, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s through retirement. It can be really difficult for us, Tim, to kind of conceptualize time, or like, feel time. So, the further, when we kind of talked to clients, and we say like, what does success look like a year out, two years out, three years out, five years out, those conversations are a lot easier to have. But as that time horizon becomes more and more, we kind of lose sight of how to even like think in decades.

So, to me, that’s what comprehensive financial planning, is about is kind of coming up with solutions where you feel good about what you’re doing today and then what you’re planning for the long tomorrow. And I think what often happens is that individuals, kind of swing one way or the other. So, like in our household, I’m thinking about, “Oh, man, are we saving enough for retirement? Are we doing everything from the long term?” Whereas my wife is like, “Bro, we have two young kids, we need to make sure that we’re doing things with them while they’re young, and they’re still under our roof and all that kind of stuff.”

I actually think some people think that that’s like not a good thing, if you have two partners that are kind of diametrically opposed. I think it’s good, because I think it leads to balance and leads to address some of those conversations. So, if you’re all one way, then sometimes it’s really hard. If you’re like, save, save, save, it’s really hard for you to open up your hand and spend. But the other thing, sometimes people are afraid to talk about a planner is like, “I’m very spendthrifty. I’m not saving enough for the future, because I can’t see two feet in front of my face”, or just, “I grew up in an environment where we didn’t really save. We just kind of live for today and hope for the best.”

So, to me, this whole thing of like, how much is enough? It’s kind of an exercise in that and projecting out, okay, what is a reasonable number that we should be shooting for? And are we doing what we need to do to get there? I think the disconnect with this is, oftentimes, you’ll get a statement, Tim, or you’ll talk to a financial planner, and it’s like, “Oh, you need $4 million to retire.” It’s like, that’s such a big number and I look at what’s in my account, and I’m like, “Yeah, right.” It doesn’t even calculate or compute. So then, it’s almost like you give up, right?

But the problem is, is that the number for a lot of our listeners, it’s going to be multi millions that they’re not going to need to save more than likely. And we’ll get into things like, where does security play a role? And if that’ll be there, and all that kind of stuff? But to me, that’s really the exercise. Are we doing what we need to do today? And then are we doing what we need to do to ensure that we’re good to go for tomorrow. I think it’s about as simple as that, and I think when you talk about retirement planning, you’re looking at the full breadth of the timeline, and making sure that – because it just gets – the longer that you wait, I kind of look at it as, if you started in your 20s, you’re climbing like a steady grade. If you start in your 60s, its Mount Everest, because you literally can’t save enough to kind of overcome that, and the alternative is just a huge cut in your lifestyle, and what you’re going to be able to afford when you do turn off that W-2 or income that’s coming in every two weeks.

[00:07:47] TU: Yeah, and I think so many people, as you mentioned, feel defeated by and we’ll talk about the nest egg numbers and kind of how we get there. I think for many folks, maybe there’s confirmation of, “Hey, I am on track.” And for others, they’re like, they hit the stop button, because they’re like, “No way this is going to happen for me in the future.” Because of, it’s hard to really believe in trust the process and time value of money and compound interest and growth, and that’s a future thing. That’s a tomorrow thing. And as you mentioned, it’s hard to see and imagine our future selves, especially when we’ve got things right in front of us today. And so, this is where the balance comes in. We’re going to go through this exercise of how much is enough. But as we talked about over and over and over again on the show, like an investing retirement plan is another great example of that, we can’t look at any one of these in a silo because for many, if not everyone listening, this is not the only thing they’re worried about, right?

[00:08:39] TB: Yeah. And just to go back to that, like in terms of the numbers, basically, I was doing some research for the case study that we recently recorded with Kelly and Robert, and I was trying to construct, what was the reasonable purchase price for a home in Portland, Oregon. The average, I think, was something like $88,000, or something like that in the late ‘80s. So, think about that, like those numbers. And again, when I typically talk about investments, and I talk about the secret ninja, the termite that is inflation, I always say that, what is it, that $4 latte at Starbucks in 30 years is going to cost north of 10. Or my dad will say, “A nickel would buy the whole candy store.” Now, a nickel doesn’t buy anything. When he’s grown up, he’s growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s.

So, yeah, and to your point like, it is one – the investment and the retirement piece is one of many, many things that you have to consider. Just the overall risk to your wealth and planning for a catastrophic event is huge. Things like taxes, which are so overlooked, and how to pay your fair share, but then mitigate how much your – there’s so many things that kind of go into this, and a lot of it, we will talk about today, it’s not even about the rate of return or anything like that. It’s just about putting money in bucket.

[00:10:00] TU: Time and money.

[00:10:01] TB: Yeah, and it’s more about the savings rate, then the rate of return. So, even those mechanics and like the behavioral finance, that kind of bleeds into everything, it’s just so imperative that we’re looking at this and examining it. And unfortunately, because either it’s a boring topic, or it’s a painful topic, or we have head trash related to it with our upbringing, or name a number of reasons why we don’t necessarily want to look at this or work on it, it just becomes harder and harder as we go.

To give you some numbers, Tim. So, if you look at a pharmacist with medium pay, and they’re saving about 15% of income with an average annual rate of 6%, which is about what the market returns. So, that’s a fairly aggressive portfolio. If you started at age 25, by the time that you reach age 60, you have a portfolio of $2.6 million. Now, if you’re at age 25, and you’re saving 15%, and you’re an aggressive, that’s pretty good. The fact of the matter is, is that you’re probably not doing – a lot of people are not saving 15%, right off the bat.

At 30, when you get to – so you have 30 years now of accumulation, it goes to 1.8 million. So, a pretty big drop. At 35, just five years later, so 35 to 60, 1.2. If you start to the ripe age of 40, turning 40 this year, Tim, to age 60, so just 20 years, now, you’re not even crossing that million dollars. You’re at 822,000. So, a lot of this is just the mechanics of it’s better than what it was in the past. In the past, if you had a 401(k), you actually had to like sign up. Now, a lot of them will auto enroll you, so you are getting out of the way. But what I would encourage people if they’re not thinking about this, is add that 1% or that 2% every year, so you can get to that 15% or 16%.

During one of my recent courses, they were looking at what is the – everyone talks about the safe withdrawal rate. We’ll talk about that, the 4%. But what’s the safe savings rate? And the number that I remember is about 16%. So, if you are enrolled in your 401(k) and auto enrolled you at five, you are ways away. So, then the flip side of that is for you to make up, you’re going to have to be saving 20%, 25%, 30% later in your career to kind of make up for that. So, these are all things to kind of be mindful of as you’re navigating this minefield, so to speak.

[00:12:24] TU: Yeah. I think we’ve all had a parent, grandparent, friend, mentor, colleague. Somebody has told us, you got to start saving as early as you possibly can. And the numbers you just gave highlight that. If you start at 25, instead of 30, you’re adding about a million dollars. If you started 25 instead of 35, 1.5 extra, and that’s just simple math savings calculator, time value of money. And those numbers are hard to believe. But it becomes at a point where you see the exponential growth of those funds, but it feels like a grind for that first 10, 12 years, and you start to see the time value of money work, it’s magic. It really is 76ers style, trust the process long-term.

[00:13:03] TB: Trust the process, Jojo.

[00:13:04] TU: It’s hard, though, right? Because what did we talk about in this show? Homebuying with student loans, all these competing priorities. We got to have an emergency fund, we’ve got to be – we know folks are working hard to save for kid’s college while they’re also caring for elderly parents. We want to travel. I mean, all of these competing priorities, and pharmacists make a great income. But at the end of the day, there’s only so much to go around. And so, we’re not suggesting that this is an easy drop in the bucket, but something that we need to be intentional and consider with the rest of the plan.

[00:13:34] TB: I’ll say like, in our household, I’m always like, “Hey, can we increase your 401(k)?” “No.” It’s a battle in my household. And I’m like, “I do this for a living. Trust me.” But it’s that pool again. So, I’m like, “Okay. But if that’s taken away from what’s actually in our bank account, and then funding some of these other goals.” So, it’s a struggle. I mean, it’s a struggle in our household. And again, I probably am too diligent on the future, and not so much on the present, although I think some of the things that we’ve done in our financial plan is kind of said otherwise. But this is – it’s such a human thing, right? Because it’s that delayed gratification. But it is one of those things that if you can understand how to tweak it now, potentially early in your career, or even to say, even later in your career, knowing what to do for the final 5 to 10 years of your career can make all the difference.

The other side of that is, things like, what is your asset allocation when you’re in your 50s, if you’re trying to retire at 60? What do you what are you doing from a Social Security claiming strategy? Is there a way to lock an income through like an – there’s a ton of things that you can do to shore up your prospects, that just like what we see with student loans is kind of, sometimes you just follow the crowd. “Oh, my co-worker is doing this, so I’m doing that.” That never go goes away. “My brother in law is doing this, so I’m going to claim here.”

So, to me, it’s what I often say is like, you don’t have the same goals or the same balance sheet as whoever that is. But it’s hard to basically discern, “Hey, this is my situation. This is what I’m trying to do.” And wave through all of the stuff that’s out there to say, “Okay, this is the right – this is a clear path.” It’s just tough, and there’s so many variables that go into it.

[00:15:27] TU: Tim, one thing I want to share, and you’ve done a good job of opening my eyes to this, and we see this with clients over and over again, before we get into the numbers in the weeds is that we often talk about saving for retirement from a scarcity standpoint, as a, “Hey, I might not have enough, or are we going to fall short.” But we see many instances where you could argue like, is someone saving too much? And I think the value of this exercise, as you mentioned, is we have to find this balance between taking care of our future self and living a rich life today.

So, if we have a quick start in our retirement, we run the nest egg, and we see we’re not running a monthly deficit, perhaps there’s a surplus there, that begs the question of like, are we living the rich life today? So, just like an opportunity cost, of having too much in the emergency fund, there could be an opportunity cost of too much in a retirement account. Maybe a good problem to have, but it’s a problem, nonetheless. So, we’re going to talk about the balance of that, and I think that side gets overlooked often when we talk about retirement planning.

[00:16:24] TB: Yeah, I mean, we’ve definitely had clients that come in, where we actually do the analysis and it’s like, “You’re going to be fine.” So, we can afford to dial this back. And it’s not just retirement accounts, it’s education, especially if we kind of reframe what is the goal around education? What is the goal around retirement? A lot of the times, Tim, especially if you’re on the younger end of things, we’re planning as if so security’s not going to be there. So, you’re shouldering this all yourself. But the fact is, is that there’s a stat that says today, about 50% of people have Social Security makes up 40% of their income, or it’s flipped, the other way around. So, that’s not going to zero. It might be 25, it might be 30, and we can talk about Social Security more in detail. But if you think about that, and we say, okay, for every $10 that you’re going to spend on Social Security, or every $10 in your paycheck, $4 of that is going to come from Social Security. And if you claim right, that number gets bigger and bigger. If you kind of go through a proper claiming strategy, that’s huge.

So, we kind of plan as if like the worst-case scenario, that’s not going to be there. But if we can kind of back some of those numbers. If we use today’s averages, or maybe even like, on the low end, it really lends itself to saying, “Hey, this is not so bad. Again, if you have a lot of time.” Now, if you’re up against it, there’s a lot less wiggle room. It’s almost like you’re trying to steer the Titanic away from the iceberg. The closer that you are, the harder it is just to get around it. If you have miles, like a lot of younger pharmacists do, a few tweaks here and there just makes all the difference. And that could just be from again, the contribution rate, the allocation, or even just doing it and saying like, where am I tracking to like where we’re currently contributing, and then maybe back that off to then enjoy more today. Which I think is something that’s very unusual, because I feel like most financial planners will say, as much as you can, save. Because the more money you have, the more options you have.

But my view is, you can do that, and I kind of look at it as you can stick your head and run through the rose bushes to get your soccer ball. But you’re not really enjoying yourself on the way through. So, I think that’s where that balance comes through. I remember having conversations with clients about this very early when we were going through this of like, we back this off, we buy the home sooner, maybe we start our family sooner because of what this analysis shows us.

[00:19:03] TU: Start the business.

[00:19:05] TB: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, right. And to me, that is power. That’s options, right? So, that’s why I’m just a big believer in a plan and planning. It’s a dynamic thing.

[00:19:15] TU: Yeah. And I bring that up, because again, I think we don’t talk about much of that side of it, and it is more from that scarcity mindset. But I just heard from a client yesterday, it said, one of the greatest values I’ve gotten from the planning team is the permission to spend in an area that they have determined as richest in their own lives. And that was around hosting and welcoming people into their home. And obviously, there’s costs that come with hosting. But at the end of the day, if you’ve got 3.2 versus 4.1, but you’re going to look back on all those memories of friends and people in your home. What are you going to remember, right? I mean, it’s an obvious – so yeah, we got to take care of the future self, but also are we making sure that we’re living a rich life today.

Let’s talk dollars and cents. How much is needed? How much is enough? And there’s different ways of doing this. I want to start him kind of back of napkin math. Disclaimer here is that, this is certainly not the advice of, “Hey, I run some numbers. I punch some things in a calculator, and I know exactly what I need for retirement.” So, we’re going to plant some seeds. But there’s obviously a lot of in-depth analysis that goes into this. But I want to start with the rule of 25, which is a common quick math that’s used in the Financial Independence Retire Early Community, the FIRE Community, which says take 25 times your annual expenses, and that’s roughly the estimated amount that you’ll need to achieve financial independence.

So, let’s say someone’s listening and they look at okay, if I had about $100,000 per year of annual expenses, 25 times 100,000, I need about $2.5 million to get to the point of financial independence. And what that is really referring to, is the amount that you would need to have invested in a conventional stock and bond portfolio. We’ll talk a little bit more about that throughout this series, to probably, keyword “probably”, consider yourself financially independent, that you could not depend upon work income and be able to draw from that portfolio without concern that you’re going to be running out of money sooner than would be desired. And that comes from, Tim, and I want you to break this down a little bit further. That rule of 25, the inverse of that comes from the 4% rule, which as you mentioned just a few moments ago is about this concept of safe withdrawal rate.

So, break that down a little bit more for us. We’ll talk about this in depth when we get to the retirement paycheck piece. But what is the 4% rule? And I know this has been debated, but why might this be a good starting point for us to think about what’s needed in a portfolio?

[00:21:38] TB: Yeah, so the safe withdrawal rate is based on the work by William Bengen. And what he did was he looked at all of the historical rates of return for a portfolio and I think he did like a 60/40, portfolio 60% in equities, 40% in bonds, and he used a time horizon of 30 years. Basically, what he was trying to figure out is, what is the amount of money that can draw from the worst 30-year period where at the end of that 30-year period, there would still be money left over? So, the money would not run out.

He did the analysis and basically came out with – and I forget what the year. I think it was like 1961 to 1991? Or maybe it was like –

[00:22:31] TU: Yeah, it sounds right.

[00:22:32] TB: Yeah, right around, I think it was like ‘60s and ;90s and 4% — so what that presumes is that all of the other roll on your peers, you could actually take out more, and still be okay. But the worst period in, I think, he did it since like the 1920s all the way up until I think 2012. The worst period of that 30-year period was from the ‘60s to the ‘90s, and the safe withdrawal rate where their money was not going to run out was 4%. Now, there’s been a ton of debate of whether that is. It disregards things like taxes, it disregards things like fees associated, so whether you’re working with other fees, it disregards, kind of adjusting portfolio as you go through those 30 years.

And then the other thing is that, one of the observations of late is that for a lot of retirees in this low interest rate environment, obviously, it’s ticked up here this year, and equities performing what they’re performing, maybe 4% is not necessarily a good role going forward. So, there’s a lot of debate about that, and can you set it for 4% and be good to go? Maybe. But that’s basically what it’s based on. It’s like, okay, what is the worst, and when they’ve tested it in other, say, like, Italy, it failed, where this basically was successful 100% of the time, in that same period, it failed 80% of the time in Italy. Not to say that we would have, but they were dealing with a lot of inflation and things like that.

So, that’s basically it. So, the inverse to your point is 25 times your annual expenses. The problem with the annual expenses, Tim, is that if you ask somebody like what’s your annual expenses, unless they’re a FIRE nerd, they’re not going to know. And even that, when you’re trying to back into building a retirement paycheck, I know some financial planners, they don’t even ask the client for their annual expenses. They just assume that everything on their W-2 is basically they’re going to spend.

[00:24:29] TU: Their income, yeah.

[00:24:29] TB: And there’s other ways that you can discount and things like that. But that’s kind of where you get to it. I wouldn’t say that rule, I like rules of thumbs because they’re easy to remember, right? We talk about rules of thumb and other parts of the financial plan. So, if it’s $100,000, 2.5 million, I don’t think that that’s necessarily something that is not a bad thing to at least have in your back of your mind to shoot for. But there’s a lot of gray and again, a lot of gray with the accumulation but then also the kind of withdrawal phase of like, “Okay, I have this pot of money where there’s 2.5 or 4 million. How do I actually turn that into a paycheck that’s going to sustain me for the rest of my life?” And that’s a difficult kind of thing to tackle.

[00:25:09] TU: Yeah, and we’re going to cover that in more depth in the retirement paycheck part of the series. And obviously, we’ll dig into that after that as well. But just to bring my example back here. So, 2.5 was the number that we determined. Again, 4%, inverse of the rule 25. So, 2.5, 4% of 2.5 would be $100,000. So, that would be the idea, and correct me if I’m wrong, Tim. But I think the 4% rule also suggests that you’re essentially bumping that up 3% per year for inflation. So, the 100 would become 103, and then you would continue that on into the future.

So, there are a lot of nuances in there. You mentioned tax is one. Obviously, what types of accounts do you have saved up. We’re in a time period like we’re in right now, where inflation is obviously a lot higher than 3%. That can have an impact. So, if folks want to just back up napkin, okay, maybe three, three and a half, well, three would be 33 times annual expenses, you can run some of these numbers and kind of see what they would shake out to be.

Tim, let’s get a layer deeper then, which is the nest egg calculation, something that our planning team and works with our clients a lot on, which is we’re trying to get more specific about the individual circumstances for that client, what they currently have, say, projected age of retirement, how long they might live, how does Social Security factor in. And then ultimately, I think one of the great outcomes of a nest egg calculation is getting out of this monopoly money state of mind of 3, 4, $5 million into the future that I can’t relate to, to what I actually need next month, and the month after, and making this tangible as a part of the monthly planning.

So, tell us a little bit, high level, about the nest egg calculation and what are some of the factors we’re considering to ultimately get to that? Are we on track? Or are we not on track for what it’s enough?

[00:26:58] TB: Yeah, so I feel like very early in my financial planning career, I looked at the different approaches to this particular question of like, do we have enough? There are other things like Monte Carlo analysis, which we can talk about, or bootstrapping, which we can talk about briefly after this. But I found that doing the nest egg calculation was really important. But when I did it in my last firm, we would basically stop at, “Hey, you need 3 million, Tim.” And then we would move on to, “This is what you need to do for insurance or your state plan or whatever.” It was, like you said, it was like monopoly money. Nothing about that connect it to the client, especially if the further away they were. I went out to reference that. If it’s like you have a million dollars and need 1.5, and you’re four or five or six years away, then that obviously connects.

So, what I basically did was, I was like, okay, I asked the question, how can we make this more digestible? I’ll walk through kind of high level of the nest egg, and then I kind of see how we pivot from there. What we do is we take a client, we take their current age, we take what their target retirement age, which for a lot of people, it’s like, I don’t know, 65, or maybe it’s full retirement age for a lot of – 67. And that gives us the work life expectancy. That’s basically the amount of time left that you have to work for the man. That’s your timeline, your career timeline.

And then we look at what their life expectancy is, which you can go on to socialsecurity.gov, right now, put in your birth date, your gender, and it’ll spit out the year and the month you’re going to die. So, for me, it’s like 86.8 years old. Now, what most financial planners will do is they’ll go a little bit beyond that. So, 90 to 100. A lot of like financial planning software will go to age 100. You just kind of pick what is a good timeline for you. If you take the number that you’re going to retire at 67, for an example, and then say, we’re going to die at 95, then you have 28 years of basically, retirement, senior unemployment. And that’s what makes us really hard, Tim, is that we’re trying to solve an equation without all the variables, right? We don’t know when we’re going to pass away. So, we just make some assumptions. And then we look at what do we currently have in retirement savings, so that’s all the 401(k)’s, IRA’s, all the alphabet soup that we’ll talk about in the series.

And then what is your current income? Now, we use current income because we use a discounted amount called your wage replacement ratio, to kind of figure out what the need is in retirement. So, a lot of planners will use 60% to 80%. You just kind of figure out what that is. The logic behind that is that, as you are leading up to retirement, a big part of your paycheck, 20%, 30% is going to be just saving for retirement, and then when you retire, you’re not going to be doing that anymore. Then you have to make assumptions about what your portfolio looks like, so that’s where we kind of go into like a 6%. That’s a pretty aggressive portfolio. And then what that would look like in terms of draw down, and that gets your total needs.

So, as an example, if we look at a pharmacist that makes $120,000, and has $40,000, in the retirement accounts. They’re age 30. They’re going to basically work to 67. That’s 37 years. So, we start with at $120,000, and say, the wage replacement is 70%. That means that we need to plan for, 84,000. So, that’s 70% of 120. Now, if we zero out Social Security, that means that we’re planning the whole need ourselves, that’s 84,000. Now, in 37 years, Tim, when I’m 67, that’s going to be equivalent to about a quarter million dollars. What that means is that every year from 67 to 95, when I die, I need a quarter million dollars to live, which that’s where that kind of gets wonky, because you’re saying, okay, 84,000 is the same as 250,000 in 37 years. And the answer is yes.

[00:30:59] TU: Yeah. Tim, that’s the piece, like, as we’ve talked to so many groups on this. And obviously, for those listening that are near retirement, again, the disconnect is not there, because you’re close to that dollar, and you understand what the inflation that’s happened over time. But when we’re speaking with a group that’s earlier in their career, this is where they see the 3, 4 or 5 million and they’re like, “You all are crazy. The numbers don’t add up. How much money you need?” It’s because we’re thinking about in terms of today’s dollars versus future dollars.

[00:31:27] TB: Right. Correct. So, if we look at that, and you’re like, “Okay, quarter million dollars”, what do I need in the portfolio to sustain a quarter million dollars, essentially, for 28 years between ‘67 and ‘95? And the answer is about 4.4 million. Now, we know that social security is going to be there. So, even if we use something like nominal, and we say that the annual Social Security benefit is going to be something like 30,000, that drops it down to 2.8. So, it is a huge thing, but again, we zero that out. So then, we say, okay, let’s go at 4.4. And you say, okay, Social Security is going to be there. But let’s plan this, we’re going to do it all by ourselves.

That means that for us to get to 4.4, if we assume that we have $40,000 saved already, it’s basically a thousand bucks that we need to invest monthly with that current $40,000. So, to me, this is like the special sauce where I’m like, “Okay, 4.4 doesn’t really mean anything to me. So, how do I make it mean something?” We basically discount it back to like, how will it mean for me today? So, if we basically make a payment, this is a time value money calculation of $40,000, and we assume certain return everything, it’s $1,000. So, then what we do is we say, “Okay, client, how much are you putting into your 401(k), 5%? Okay, so 5% of 120? What’s your max, 3%? Okay, 3% of 120. That’s actually $800. So, 1,000 minus 800, the deficit is about 200 bucks. That’s basically on a monthly basis, where we have about $200 per month drag to get to that 4.4 million.

[00:33:07] TU: But 4.4 just became tangible, all of a sudden, right?

[00:33:10] TB: Right. That doesn’t necessarily account for everything like, fees, and taxes and all that kind of stuff. We’re just going to drag. But the idea is that, then we can say, okay, well, what happens if we max out the IRA? Or what happens if this isn’t an 80/20 portfolio, which is more conservative than like the example that we gave? What happens if we take a little bit more risk? What happens if we do this or that? That, to me, is where you could say, “Wow, we’re actually a lot further along than we thought. We have more options here.”

So, to me, the nest egg calculation, it’s a time value money calculator, that usually gives you this big pot of money that you need. But I think, the special sauce is to kind of discount it back for it, actually means something to me today. And that’s where, I think, great planning can kind of come from there.

[00:33:58] TU: Yeah, and I think one of the things we hear a lot from prospective clients. I know Justin does when he’s talking with folks, and we certainly see the value of this coming to clarity in the planning process, is this is one of those topics for good reason that there’s a lot of anxiety and uneasiness, because it’s a, as we’ve talked about, big number. It’s out in the future. We get into the what if scenarios. What if I don’t have enough? What about this? Am I going to be able to care for my family? Do the things I want to do? And we underestimate, in my opinion, we underestimate the mental toll that that running conversation has in our head. Do I have enough? Will I have enough? What about this? Could we be doing more? And whether we like the numbers, whether we punch this number and we see a thousand, we’re like, “Tim, I’m never working with you again. Don’t show me this number again.” But we have a picture of what’s it going to take each month. And just like we talked about budget and other things, what do we need to do? What do we need to change? Or perhaps nothing to make this goal a reality. So, we’re bringing the unknown, big scary parts of the plan into reality, and something that we can address on a month by month basis, and begin to work a plan if we don’t have it yet in place, that allows us to hopefully make this goal a reality.

[00:35:09] TB: Yeah, it’s so true. And I think that’s why it can be such a cliff to get over, is because when you’re going through this process, you’re setting things up. But idea is that, once you get past the initial setup, life is going to change, and you’re always going to have challenges. But if you know, it’s kind of like what we were talking about, I think before we turned the mic on. If you know in the background, that you’re funding these goals, whether they’re near term or long term, it’s like, that can kind of create scarcity, because you are kind of being very deliberate with how you’re directed money. In the back of your mind, you still know that you’re doing the pay yourself first, or you’re putting those goals that are really important for you and your family at the forefront.

Whereas, if you just throw everything into a pot of money, you’re not clearly distinguishing what are we actually doing? So, to me, that’s super important. A lot of it is like for retirement is, in this case, jacking the employee contribution up 1% or 2%, fixes it, without doing anything else at all. The other thing you could do is just change the allocation to aggressive, and you’re 200 to the to the front side of it. You’re 200 to the good side of it. And that’s what we talk about when we speak about investment, and kind of aggressive Jane and conservative Jane, and kind of highlight in what little tweaks to your portfolio can do. It’s huge. And not doing that, is to your point, can cause that mental bandwidth and kind of caused you to not do anything at all, which is not necessarily good either.

[00:36:49] TU: Yeah, Tim, this is a great start to this series, and starting with a question of how much do I need? And even before that question of where am I going and why am I going in that direction? Right? So, we talked about living a rich life today, making sure we’re taking care of our future selves. And before we talk about, which we’re going to on the next episode, some of the actual X’s and O’s. What are the vehicles that we could use to be able to begin to build this portfolio? So, once we identify, we need three, we need four, we need four and a half, whatever that number is. The next natural question is, “Well, how do I get there? What do I do? What are the options that I have available?” So, we’re going to talk about that on the next episode, but this episode is really about laying the foundation around how much is enough? And what are some of the factors that I may use to begin to make that determination?

Of course, we’re biased, but the team at YFP Planning, whether you’re a new practitioner, whether you’re in the middle of your career, whether you’re nearing retirement, or maybe have already gotten to the point of retirement, our fee only financial planning team of five certified financial planners and our in-house tax team, including a CPA, and an IRS enrolled agent, they’re ready to work with you to build a retirement plan among other financial goals that you’re working on as well.

So, if you’re interested in learning more about our one on one comprehensive financial planning services, you can book a free discovery call. To learn more about that service, determine whether that’s a good fit, and you can do that by scheduling an appointment at yfpplanning.com. Again, that’s yfpplanning.com.

Tim, this wraps up our first four episodes, and we appreciate everyone listening and we’re going to pick back up next week, talking about some of the alphabet soup of retirement accounts.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[00:38:28] TU: Before we wrap up today’s episode of Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, I want to again thank our sponsor, the American Pharmacists Association. APhA is every pharmacists’ ally advocating on your behalf for better working conditions, fair PBM practices and more opportunities for pharmacists to provide care. Make sure to join A Bolder APhA to gain premier access to financial educational resources, and to receive discounts on YFP products and services.

You can join APhA at a 25% discount by visiting pharmacist.com/join and using the coupon code YFP. Again, that’s pharmacist.com/join, using the coupon code YFP.

[OUTRO]

[00:39:08] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

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

[END]

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YFP 271: Financing a Home Purchase FAQ

Posted on September 1, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Financing a Home Purchase FAQ

On this episode sponsored by First Horizon, Tony Umholtz takes questions from the YFP Facebook Group related to financing a home purchase including how much down payment is required with a doctor type loan, what to look for when choosing a lender, and ways to reduce the interest rate in a loan.

About Today’s Guest

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

Episode Summary

This week, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes Tony Umholtz, a mortgage manager for First Horizon, back to the show. During the show, Tony answers common questions about financing a home purchase. Tim shares questions he and Tony often hear, plus questions from the YFP Facebook Group community. Through their discussion, Tony tackles the question of incentives, if any, that are available to first-time home buyers, the amount home buyers should expect to put down with a doctor-type loan, and differentiates between doctor loans and loans pharmacists are eligible to take out. Tony touches on home purchase financing for those that are not first-time home buyers, how pharmacist home loan products might be used to house hack, and limits on the various loan types for pharmacists. When asked about what to look for in a lender, Tony shares that his primary factor to look for with a lender is communication, but it’s also critical to make sure that the lender offers a product that meets your needs. We close with insight on lender types, the competitiveness of the doctor-type loan, ways to get lower rates, how student loans are factored into the debt-to-income ratio, and some forecasting on the home financing landscape if we move into a recession.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

This week, I had a chance to welcome back onto the show, Tony Umholtz, a mortgage manager for First Horizon, formerly IBERIABANK. During the show, Tony takes the hot seat as I asked him questions posed from the YFP Facebook group related to financing a home purchase. Questions we cover include how much down payment is required with a doctor type loan, what to look for when choosing a lender, and ways to reduce the interest rate on a loan.

Before we hear from today’s sponsor and then jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 250 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized to the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfplanning.com.

Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor, and then we’ll jump into my interview with Tony Umholtz.

Does saving 20% for a down payment on a home feel like an uphill battle? It’s no secret that pharmacists have a lot of competing financial priorities, including high student loan debt, meaning that saving 20% for a down payment on a home may take years. We’ve been on the hunt for a solution for pharmacists that are ready to purchase a home with a lower down payment and are happy to have found that option with First Horizon, previously IBERIABANK/First Horizon.

First Horizon offers a professional home loan option, aka a doctor or pharmacist home loan, that requires a 3% down payment for a single family home or townhome, has no PMI and offers a 30-year fixed rate mortgage on home loans up to $647,200. The pharmacist home loan is available in all states, except Alaska and Hawaii, and can be used to purchase condos as well. However, rates may be higher, and a condo review has to be completed.

To check out the requirements for First Horizon’s pharmacist home loan and to start the pre-approval process, visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homeloan. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homeloan.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:02:25] TU: Tony, welcome to the show.

[00:02:27] TONY UMHOLTZ: Tim, it’s good to see you. Happy to be here.

[00:02:30] TU: Excited to have you back, and I always appreciate your expertise and what you have to share with our community. This is an exciting episode, as we’re doing a commonly asked questions about financing of a home purchase, and we’ve got a handful of questions that have come in from the YFP Facebook group. We’ve got some others that we, either you or I, often get asked as well. So we’ll sprinkle those in throughout the episode.

I suspect most of our listeners now know who you are. You’ve been on the podcast several times, but I don’t want to assume that. So give our listeners some quick background on who is Tony and the work that you do at First Horizon.

[00:03:06] TONY UMHOLTZ: Well, thanks, Tim. Yeah. Scary to say it now, but I’ve been in the mortgage business 20 years, and I’ve been with First Horizon now. But it’s been almost five years, and I’m a residential mortgage lender. So I run a team. We’re able to lend nationally, and we focus on residential mortgage loans and specifically helping folks in the medical community and pharmacists. So it’s been a big, fun business, helping people get to the point of homeownership. The relationships we’ve built over the years has been very gratifying. So that’s what we do, a little bit about us.

[00:03:41] TU: Yeah. It’s been exciting to see the fruit of this collaboration. Actually, I haven’t even shared with you. I had someone reach out to me this week, and a colleague of theirs at the medical center had worked with First Horizon on a loan as a part of a move in a job transition, and she had some questions for me about what they were doing personally. So really cool to hear other pharmacists and colleagues talking and helping one another out, as they’re trying to navigate this decision.

We’ll talk here in a little bit specifically about the pharmacist home loan product that First Horizon offers, but let’s get started. We’re going to put you in the hot seat with questions that have come in from the YFP Facebook group about lending and securing a loan as a part of the home buying process.

So first question comes from Randy, Tony, which is what incentives, if any, are available to first time homebuyers? I thought this is a cool question. I bought my first home back in 2009. At the time, you can correct me on exactly what the dollars were and the program, but there was something like an $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit. I know that has changed. So what incentives, if any, are around for first time homebuyers?

[00:04:47] TONY UMHOLTZ: Well, there are several different options for first time homebuyers, but I’ll kind of get into high level. Then we can get into some more of the detail options that are out there. So for example, some of our programs will allow first-time homebuyers put down as low as 3% down. If you’ve owned a home before, you cannot do that, so you have to have been a first-time homebuyer. So it’s limited down payment options. Also, for non-pharmacists, for people who aren’t in that field, there are some limited PMI loans, too, if you’re a first-time homebuyer that you cannot get if you’ve owned before.

Now, there are certain programs that are available for folks that earn under the median income for the county. Now, this can change for lots of different parts of the country. So it’s very different in different states, different municipalities, different counties. But there’s grant programs that are out there, where you can actually get money towards the purchase of your home. The one thing that you have to look out for with this product or those programs is normally you have to earn under the median income for the county. So that’s a challenging thing sometimes to qualify for. This actually can be harder to qualify for that grant than it is to qualify for the mortgage.

The other thing to look out for too is a lot of times these grant programs are set up as like a forgivable loan, if you live five years or more. But those are certainly out there, and I encourage people to look for them if they think they qualify. But it can be a little tough to qualify for them, based upon that income qualification.

[00:06:24] TU: So many pharmacists probably won’t meet that median household income requirement. Certainly, we’re looking forward, but I think that’s a good segue to the other options that you’re referring to of potentially lower percent down for first-time homebuyers, which is the question we have that I think Matt is alluding to, which is how much should we expect to have to put down on a primary home with a doctor loan, if we can find a bank that will allow a pharmacist to qualify?

So important words we need to differentiate here would be the doctor loans and those that pharmacists are eligible for, which is not all of them, even though pharmacists are doctors. They worked hard to get that degree. So talk to us about the doctor loan umbrella, and then we can talk more specifically about the pharmacist home loan product that First Horizon has.

[00:07:10] TONY UMHOLTZ: Sure. So there is an MD, Do product out there that’s designated for that segment of professionals. Then, of course, there’s the pharmacist product that we offer. A lot – There is doctor loans that different banks have, and most banks do not include pharmacists in that MD program. They typically focus just on MDs and VOs. We do have that product too, and we have had a lot of success with that in that community.

But the pharmacist product is very similar. It has no PMI. Really, the only major difference is the loan size. It won’t go as high. So currently, our loan has a cap of about 650 for the maximum loan amount versus the MD product will go higher. But it’s got the same elements, similar rates, and, of course, the No MI is a nice – It’s the biggest benefit of it. To answer that question, definitely there’s two different types of programs out there. There are some for dentists, veterinarians that differ a little bit from this program that we’re discussing for pharmacists.

[00:08:19] TU: Yeah. That was one of the reasons we were excited to begin this collaboration a few years ago was to have an offering that reached most 48 states across the country for pharmacists. Obviously, the maximum loan amount, I think, for many pharmacists is within range. Certainly, folks that might be in higher cost of living areas, think about the Northeast, out west, might rub up against some of the limitation there.

But just to reiterate what you said, 3% down first-time homebuyers, no PMI, maximum loan amount around 650. Other thing that’s noteworthy here is minimum credit score is around 700. Is that correct, Tony?

[00:08:55] TONY UMHOLTZ: That is, Tim. Good job. 700.

[00:08:58] TU: So my next follow-up question here is what if someone is not a first-time homebuyer? So I’m thinking of the pharmacists listening that maybe have been in a home or two are still looking at taking advantage of a product where they might not have to give up so much cash or use some of the equity they’ve already built from their previous home. Is there an option still available, even if it’s not a first-time homebuyer?

[00:09:17] TONY UMHOLTZ: Definitely, yeah. Really, just the down payment just bumps up to 5% down. So you’re just going up slightly, with a little higher down payment up to 5%, still No MI, all the same elements of same programs, just a little bit more down.

[00:09:32] TU: Okay. One of the common questions I get is is there – We’re not going to talk specific rates because you and I know this change by the hour, by the day. Each time we record these, obviously, we’re seeing significant fluctuations over rate. But a common question I get is, is this product or doctor loans at large, are they competitive with conventional rates? So obviously, I’m having an advantage here that I’m not having to put maybe a traditional 20 percent down, especially if I’m trying to use that cash for other financial goals. But am I potentially giving up rate on a product like this? How do you typically answer that question?

[00:10:09] TONY UMHOLTZ: Well, you’re really not, especially on the 95% product. I’ve found that that program actually carries better rates than if I had like a non-pharmacist client that put 20% down. So you actually can feel good and confident that you’re going to be getting probably a better rate than most, even folks that are putting more down than you.

The 3% down product sometimes can be about the same as the [inaudible 00:10:37]. The 5% sometimes is a little lower rate, maybe an eighth to a quarter, depending on the day in the market. But it’s very competitive. I mean, I’ve compared it to 20% down, and some days it’s an eighth or a quarter better rate to do that program versus another client getting the 20% down. So I’ve been very happy with that.

[00:11:02] TU: That’s good information too, knowing the 5% down might be a little bit different than 3%. So as folks connect with you or learn more about the product, evaluating that in the moment doesn’t make sense to put an extra 2% down or not, and they can obviously run the math on that as well.

So is this just single-family homes? I’m thinking about folks that are maybe looking at multifamily house hacking type of scenario. So are these products limited to single-family homes?

[00:11:29] TONY UMHOLTZ: No, no. It’s available for condos, townhomes. Now, multifamily, two-unit properties, for example, that’s going to require more down. So the LTV does change if you do a two-unit, and the product will not do anything more than two units. So a triplex and quadruplex would not be available under this program. You’d have to do a normal conventional loan or an FHA loan if you’re going to live in the home property. But two units would require 15% down, but you have No MI. So that’s still nice because MI is much higher on a multifamily versus a single-family. So it’s a pretty solid opportunity if you were able to find a duplex.

Then I will mention, just because I have had numerous clients who have acquired triplex and four-unit, if you live in one of the units, it can be a great long-term investment. I do make this joke, though, because I was looking at one when I was usually dating my wife, and you probably can’t be married and move into a three or fourplex. I’m just generalizing, but I remember when I did it when I was much younger or looking at that time. But it can be a great investment because you live in one unit. You have three renters or two renters paying your rent building equity. I’ve seen tons of success with that.

It is hard to find them because they’re limited due to primarily zoning in most cities. But FHA is great because they expand the loan levels. You can put 3.5% down in some cities. I mean, I’ve written $700,000 fourplex loans with 3.5% down. So it’s pretty cool.

[00:13:10] TU: Under the pharmacist home loan product, there’s an option for two units, but it’s going to require higher down payment, still benefiting on the No PMI. But then if it’s more than two units, no good under the pharmacist home loan product.

[00:13:23] TONY UMHOLTZ: That’s right. Yup.

[00:13:24] TU: Probably looking at FHA or other type of loan. Gotcha.

[00:13:26] TONY UMHOLTZ: That’s right. That’s right.

[00:13:28] TU: Next question we have comes from Sarah. What should I look for when trying to find and select a lender and red flags to avoid? So what thoughts and, obviously, I think folks know the disclaimer is that we’re talking about the service of which we collaborate here. But generally speaking, as individual are looking at a lender, what are some things that they should be looking for to make that choice?

[00:13:53] TONY UMHOLTZ: Well, I think one of the most important is communication. I think that that’s critical. Are you getting your questions answered? There’s different types of lenders out there, and there’s a lot of good lenders out there. I think finding one that has a product that fits your needs is important. Obviously, communication, to me, is very important.

I’ll kind of just go into a quick little summary of the different types of lenders out there. There’s direct lenders that are part of a bank. That’s like myself. There’s correspondent lenders, and then there’s mortgage brokers, who are basically middlemen between the lender and the client. Correspondent lenders, they’re not bank typically banks, right? They’re just independent lenders that will borrow money essentially to lend your money, and then they get rebated on when they sell the mortgage, either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and service can be good across the board.

But the one thing that I suggest you look out for, and I find it’s really been a challenge with some of the really bigger banks and a lot of banks in general, is the service side because a lot of lenders are set up with what’s called a centralized processing center and closing and underwriting. So those are three critical elements of the process. For example, centralized processing is like a call center in a lot of ways. After the loan originator takes your loan application, you feel comfortable with that offer, they will send it through this centralized system, where a lot of times in that loan originator’s defense, they can’t get an answer. So they can’t really communicate with you.

I find that a lot of the times where I have to get involved in a transaction, after it’s been started with someone else, it’s because of that centralized process. It’s just hard because the service isn’t there. The communication is not there. Things usually don’t happen on time. So I would just say that that would be something that a lot of, especially first-time buyers don’t realize, is out there, and they get disappointed in the end. It’s just because of the size, the scale of the operation. They centralize everything.

One of the contingencies for me to come to this company was that we had our own group, our own processing group, our own closer, our own underwriting group. That way, that communication and that flow would be there, and we wouldn’t have that communication gap or miss any of the milestones that are part of the transaction. Again, just going back through the summary is the communication, to me, is critical. Having the right product, of course, and just making sure you have a process that is going to fit your needs, especially in the purchase market.

If you’re refinancing, you can wait three months, right? You don’t want to, but you could wait three or four months and be okay. But if you’re in a purchase transaction, you have to execute on time. You have to have your loan commitment on time. So you want to make sure you work with a lender that can do all of those things. Again, I’m being general here because there’s a lot of good lenders. So I’m going to take that as a general list.

[00:16:14] TU: Yeah. That reminds me, Tony, of we talked about shopping for a long-term savings account or shopping for car insurance policy, homeowners insurance policy. It’s easy to get stuck on comparing rates. It’s easy information to gather. You can’t easily compare things like closing on time or accessibility if I have a question or communication, quality of communication interaction. I think that’s where talking with peers, referrals of folks that have worked with somebody before are so important.

Anyone who has gone through this process knows that there will be a bump in the road. That’s going to happen. There’s a lot of moving pieces or parts when you think about everyone involved in the process of buying or selling a home and, ultimately, getting to the point of having keys in hand. So bumps are going to happen. I think, for first-time homebuyers, I know. I can remember being in the shoes. Those feel big, and they’re weighty, and they certainly are, especially if you’re trying to sell a home to buy a home, and you’re typing things up, and all those moving parts that are involved. But when those bumps arise, having someone that you can communicate with that you feel confident you already have some relationship with, and you can get a hold of quickly is so important. So I think that’ll resonate with many folks that are listening.

Another question from the group, from Sierra, that I think is a timely one is if we’re going into a recession, and the housing market is still overpriced, is it better to wait? Is it better to wait to purchase? You and I were talking a little bit before we hit record that even from three months ago, when we recorded, we’re seeing some changes that are happening in the market in terms of the competition that’s out there and the bidding wars. Certainly, we’ve seen a change in interest rates, as well, recently. So what are your thoughts here on Sierra’s question about the timing of purchasing a home, especially given the current economic conditions?

[00:18:53] TONY UMHOLTZ: Well, that’s a great question, and a lot can go into that question. There’s a lot of information that we could talk about here. The main thing I would say is everyone’s situation is different. We’re all in different situations. So if you’re in the middle of renting right now because rent rents are going up at a nice clip each year, and they’re forecasted to continue to go up over the next couple of years. So if you put that against homeownership, a lot of times it’s going to be way ahead to rent or, sorry, to buy versus rent.

What I’m seeing right now in the market is a very healthy normal market. What we saw the last two years, the last year and a half, wasn’t normal. We had a spike in demand, not enough inventory. I mean, I have a lot of clients that couldn’t get a property, and some of them bowed out of the market. A lot of them actually are coming back in now because the markets – It’s easier to get a home under contract, and you can get better terms, instead of having an appraisal gap contingency, can’t get an inspection, all these other things that were going on.

Now, you can get a normal inspection done. You don’t have to – You can have an appraisal contingency, maybe even some negotiating power on that appraisal. If something’s coming back on the inspection, you have some negotiating power to get the price lowered. I’ve seen that happen a few times lately.

[00:20:20] TU: Normal stuff, normal stuff.

[00:20:21] TONY UMHOLTZ: Normal stuff, right? Normal stuff, right? Great stuff. Then as far as the housing market recession – There is a chance, guys. There’s no doubt. There’s a chance we could have a recession. But one thing I’ve learned is no recession looks alike, and we can’t go back and say the recession of 2020 – Obviously, it’s unique. The 2008 recession was unique.

I started in the business in the dot-com one that we had, and that was unique, right? All of these have their own elements. The dot-com crash that we had, the stock market got penalized, but real estate actually did very well. So everything is – Nothing’s going to be – History does not always repeat perfectly. Everything’s unique in a lot of ways. We learn from history, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to repeat that way.

I would say you always want to be aware of what’s going on, and one housing metric I’ve used over the years is the Case-Schiller Index. Okay, that’s been one of the best housing metrics that I’ve used over the years, and it’s still forecasted to have positive returns I think over the next couple of years last time I looked. So that’s a good forecasting tool.

The other thing I’ll say is everyone’s market is different, okay. Everyone’s markets different. We can’t generalize and say, “Well, real estate’s just not going to be good,” because every pocket of the country is going to be a little different. So there’s actually been even the last couple of years but a few pockets that have went down a little bit, so not a lot. There’s been a few pockets. So just keep that in mind that real estate can be very much a geographic situation. To say it’s overpriced is tricky.

I had lunch last week with a builder that I’ve known for some time, and this kind of hit home with me when he told me what it cost for them to get trusses, materials, labor to build a home. It’s hard for me to see prices, really – I mean, if we look at that metric, it’s hard to say prices are going to really drop because those – I don’t see it as –

[00:22:22] TU: Cost [inaudible 00:22:22].

[00:22:24] TONY UMHOLTZ: Yeah. The underlying commodities are not going to fall that much, and labor is still there. So I mean, it’s still going the other way. So I think it’s a tricky – It’s a good question. It’s just hard to say that if we go into a recession, that that’s going to equal guaranteed lower housing prices because it may not be the case. I always say, if you’re going to be in a home for at least – If you project yourself living in a home or an area for five years, it’s going to make sense to own. It’s hard not to. I mean, if you look back at history, you’re usually going to come out way ahead versus renting.

[00:23:02] TU: Especially with your comment before about where rent rates are at today. That’s changed, even in the last three, four years. Certainly, the pandemic has escalated that as well. That is really where – We talked about is your home an asset. We talked about this on the podcast before. When you see people that have been in their home 20, 30, 40 years, and you see the appreciation and also not just the equity that’s been built but also the costs that come through transaction. So if you’re moving every three to four years, transaction costs, closing costs, moving costs, refurnishing the house costs come with all that as well.

I think that longer term view, if possible, and that’s not always possible, right? Jobs, family, certain things take us different areas. But if we can find that home and be in that home for the long run, that’s where we really start to see I think the home become an asset and a part of our financial plan.

[00:23:55] TONY UMHOLTZ: No question. Having that equity. Just the monthly payments going towards some equity every month, it adds up over time, the tax benefits. I mean, if you’re comparing it versus renting, it’s hard to not own, even if it’s a flat market, even if the market zero over five years. You’re still going to typically come out well ahead because rents are going to go up.

The one thing too you have to watch is these commodity costs. We’re still underbuilt as a nation. We didn’t build enough inventory the last 12 years to support our population growth and our incoming population by migration to the country, immigration to the country. So as long as that continues, we’re going to be in this situation of rising rents and rising prices. It’s inventory levels you have to watch. If suddenly you see in your area, you’ve got over 6 months to 10 months of inventory, then prices will probably come down some. So I think that’s the metric you watch too is inventory levels, and local realtors can provide color on that.

[00:24:59] TU: Which is another great reminder of how local the markets can be and how inventory is going to fluctuate from one market to another. Sierra also asked, “What are some ways to get lower rates?” I suggest the question. I suspect the question here is outside of just making sure that the individual product and offering is competitive. I suspect this is referring to perhaps purchasing points and trying to lower rate that way, which might be top of mind for folks right now, considering where rates are relative to just a couple years ago. So what thoughts do you have in that area, Tony?

[00:25:32] TONY UMHOLTZ: Yeah. It’s a great question. So a couple of things. I think one thing I would say is you always want to make sure your credit score is the best it can be. That’ll always help you with the best rates. Typically, 740 and above is going to be the best premium best rates available. Then there’s little segments under that.

I have different times – We look at the market quite a bit, right? I follow the market. I will admit, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to that stuff. So I do follow the mortgage market pretty closely and the rates. This has been a time since probably March, even earlier, maybe February. I have not been an advocate of buying points this year because I felt like they spike so quickly. We’d see lower rates, and we have. Since the peak a few months ago, rates are down about 50 basis points, which is half a point from the peak.

My gut is, over time, we’ll see rates come back to the mean a little bit. But points are always a way to buy a rate down, okay. So you can pay points for that. Again, you got to make sure you have the payback period in place because if you pay one point, you may only get a quarter or three-eighths. Usually, it’s a quarter off the rate on a 30-year fix. It’s going to take you four years of payments to just break even. At that point, you’d be in the money.

I’m only an advocate of it in certain times and when people are in a position where, “Hey, I’m going to be your forever. I’m going to keep this asset for a long time.” Then we’ll do it. But especially when we see these rates go up quickly, and the yield curve inverts, which is what we have right now, basically the 2-year treasury note is higher than the 10-year treasury note, typically, that is going to lead to lower rates in the future. So I’m not a huge fan of my client paying a lot of points for that, to buy rates where I think they could refi in the future.

But I think the other thing I’ll mention too, to answer Sierra’s question, is how to get lower rates. This takes a little bit more courage, and I’m more of a person that likes to lock loans, unless it’s a pretty clear market that rates could go down. Then the other thing, it’s the client’s decision. It’s not my decision. It’s not my staff’s decision. But there are times where – Like I have a few clients who are financial people, and they follow the markets, and they’ll say, “Tony, I want to float the market. And when you see this, do this.”

So there’s a couple people like that, that I’ll have every year that that will float the market and a lot of times can get better rates that way. It takes a little bit more courage and depends on the cycle that we’re in. But if we do like go into a recessionary cycle, floating the rates may be a pretty good way to get a lower rate. So that’s another way to do it.

[00:28:17] TU: Yeah. I think they get their risk tolerance, comfort level margin in the budget or not, right? I think especially for first-time homebuyers, you know, that may or may not be something that folks will be comfortable with.

[00:28:29] TONY UMHOLTZ: Agree, Tim. Sleeping at night is more important.

[00:28:31] TU: Yeah, that’s right. But for people that want to nerd out on that and feel comfortable with that risk, that’s an option. Two last questions I have for you, one about the pre-approval, one about student loans. So let’s start with the pre-approval. How long does a pre-approval last? I know this question is coming up a lot because of maybe people are going into this process, and then they decide, hey, I’m going to bow out. Then they decide to get back in. So talk to us about how long that pre-approval period will last.

[00:28:59] TONY UMHOLTZ: So when we do a pre-approval, and this is pretty much general for all lenders, when we do a pre-approval letter, we run a credit report. Typically, that credit report is good for about 90 days, is when that credit report is good through. Then after that 90-day period, typically, we’ll have to do another credit poll. I don’t always do that. I mean, if I feel like the client hasn’t had any credit –

Like we’ve had that conversation. Don’t buy anything new. Have you bought anything new? I haven’t bought anything, no new cars, new credit card things, or new credit cards. As long as that’s the case, we usually will keep it pretty active. But if they need an actual letter updated, we’ll typically run credit again. So 90 days is to answer the question. So I’d say every 90 days, if you’re going to go out beyond that, you probably need another credit update.

[00:29:48] TU: And a good reminder. If folks haven’t heard you say that before, just to sit tight. We don’t want to have major financial changes or decisions that are happening in that 90-day window.

[00:29:58] TONY UMHOLTZ: That’s right. We try to keep any of those big transactions to a minimum, when you’re looking.

[00:30:02] TU: Last question is student loans. This keeps coming up a lot because we’re now two-plus years into the federal administrative forbearance, set to expire end of this month. So we’re recording mid-August. We’re expecting an announcement literally any moment now from the Biden administration. But nonetheless, we’ve had more than two years since March 2020, where folks have not had to make a payment on qualifying federal loans.

So the question that comes up here is how are my student loans factored into the debt component, the debt-to-income ratio, especially since I haven’t been making payments, and there isn’t necessarily a track record of what repayment plan I’m in?

[00:30:42] TONY UMHOLTZ: Right. Now, that’s a great question. So there’s two ways to do it. We might have a lot of clarity in the next few weeks, so you may know. But in the case of absolutely no payments being made, there’s a factor we use on the total amount of student loan debt. It’s not as high as like Fannie Mae or FHA would, basically conventional loans and FHA loans require. It’s a lower factor. It’s about half of that. But we basically take a factor of your payments. So let’s just say you had a $10,000 student loan. It would be $50 per 10,000.

[00:31:19] TU: Yup. I’m following you.

[00:31:21] TONY UMHOLTZ: Yeah. So $100,000 would be 500 a month.

[00:31:26] TU: I think I’m doing the automatic conversion in my mind because we have so many people, and it’s 100, 150, 200, 250,000. Yeah. That’s one of the challenging things because some folks might be on a forgiveness pathway, where they’re paying a very small monthly payment, but they haven’t necessarily started making those income-driven repayment.

Again, another example where I think working with a lender who, number one, you communicate with, number two, who has some experience working through these issues and answering these questions that I suspect many of our listeners have would be really helpful.

Tony, this has been great. I love to see the engagement from the community on this topic. I know home buying continues to be a topic of interest among our listeners. So really appreciate you taking time and sharing your expertise.

[00:32:09] TONY UMHOLTZ: Thanks for having me, Tim. It’s great to be here.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:32:12] TU: Before we wrap up today’s show, I want to, again, thank this week’s sponsor of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, First Horizon, previously IBERIABANK/First Horizon. We’re glad to have found a solution for pharmacists that are unable to save 20% for a down payment on a home. A lot of pharmacists in the community have taken advantage of First Horizon’s pharmacist home loan, which requires a 3% down payment for a single-family home or townhome and has No PMI on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. To learn more about the requirements for First Horizon’s pharmacist home loan and to get started with the pre-approval process, you can visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homeloan. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homeloan.

[OUTRO]

[00:32:52] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

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

[END]

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YFP 270: YFP Planning Case Study #3: Financial and Life Considerations As Retirement Nears

Posted on August 25, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

YFP Planning Case Study #3: Financial and Life Considerations As Retirement Nears

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, YFP Co-Founder & Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP® is joined by YFP Planning Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA®, and Robert Lopez, CFP® to discuss a financial planning case study on financial and life considerations as retirement nears.

About Today’s Guests

Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA®

Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® is a Lead Planner at YFP Planning. She enjoys time with her husband and two sons, riding her bike, running, and keeping after her pup ‘Fred Rogers.’ Kelly loves to cheer on her favorite team, plan travel, and ironically loves great food but does not enjoy cooking at all. She volunteers in her community as part of the Chambersburg Rotary. Kelly believes that there are no quick fixes to financial confidence, and no guarantees on investment returns, but there is value in seeking trusted advice to get where you want to go. Kelly’s mission is to help clients go confidently toward their happy place.

Robert Lopez, CFP®

Robert Lopez, CFP®, is a Lead Planner at YFP Planning. Along with his team members, Kimberly Bolton, CFP®, and Savannah Nichols, he helps YFP Planning clients on their financial journey to live their best lives. To go along with his CFP® designation, Robert has a B.S. in Finance and an M.S. in Family Financial Planning. Prior to his career in financial planning, Robert worked as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician in the United States Air Force. Although no longer on active duty, he still participates as a member of the Air Force Reserves. When not working, Robert enjoys being outdoors, playing co-ed volleyball and kickball, catching a game of ultimate frisbee, or hiking with his wife Shirley, young son Spencer, and their dogs, Meeko and Willow.

Episode Summary

In this week’s episode, YFP Co-Founder & Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP® is joined by YFP Planning Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA® and Robert Lopez, CFP® to walk through this financial planning case study featuring fictitious clients, The Kims, and their financial and life considerations as retirement nears. In this case study, Tim, Kelly, and Robert discuss Andrew and Courtney Kim and their current financial situation as they prepare for retirement in the next three to five years. As members of the “sandwich generation,” the Kims, in their early 60s, have concerns about caring for Andrew’s elderly mother and their adult son, in addition to a long list of financial goals, including saving for their grandchildren’s education. The team discusses how to best approach retirement by evaluating their investments, social security claiming strategies, and the budget to build their retirement paycheck. Robert shares insight on having open discussions with key players when planning for retirement and how Andrew’s mother and their adult son can factor into the timing and budget associated with their retirement. Kelly tackles some challenging questions surrounding long-term care insurance and whether or not having a policy will be a solid financial decision.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TB: You’re listening to the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, a show all about inspiring you, the pharmacy professional on your path towards achieving financial freedom. Hi, I’m Tim Baker and today, I chat with YFP Planning Lead Planners, Kelly Reddy-Heffner and Robert Lopez, to walk through our third case study of a fictitious family, the Kims. The Kims are in their early 60s and are very interested in how to best approach retirement in the next three to five years.

We break down how to best approach retirement question by evaluating their investments, discussing social security’s claiming strategies and looking at their budget in order to approach building their retirement paycheck. We also discuss other issues such as caring for an adult child and an aging parent, and some questions around long-term care insurance. I hope you enjoy this episode. First, let’s hear from our sponsor, and then we’ll jump into the show.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[00:00:50] ANNOUNCER: This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term, life insurance and own occupation disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top-rated term life insurance and disability insurance companies, so pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation.

To better serve you, Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage; supports clients in all 50 states and makes sure all of your questions get answered. To get quotes and apply for term life, or disability insurance, see sample contract from disability carriers, or learn more about these topics, visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again, that’s insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

[EPISODE]

[00:01:41] TB: What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to our case study series. I’m here with Robert Lopez and Kelly Reddy-Heffner. We’re going to be talking about the Kims today. Now in the previous two case studies that we’ve had, we’ve talked about different stages of life, whether it’s a newer pharmacist, a pharmacist that has a younger family that’s trying to work through different issues with college funding.

Today, the Kims, they’re going to be more closer to those years of approaching retirement and really asking those questions about hey, do we have enough? Can we start winding our careers down and look at retirement and more seriously? Robert, Kelly, welcome back to this third installment of the case studies. How’s everything going?

[00:02:25] KRH: Going pretty well. How are you doing, Tim? Welcome back from your –

[00:02:27] TB: Awesome.

[00:02:28] KRH: – sabbatical.

[00:02:29] TB: Yeah, appreciate it. I’m back, energized. I enjoyed the time off. I’m happy to be back. Shaved my head, so I’m in this weird period of, should I shave it again, or not? Yeah, doing fun. How about Robert? How’s everything going with you?

[00:02:42] RL: It’s going pretty good over here. Football season is upon us, so it’s the good time of year.

[00:02:46] TB: Yeah, go Birds. Excited for that. I told my wife, Shay, that we’re back to that time, where Saturdays and Sundays are going to be a little rough in terms of getting anything done. Yeah, I’m excited for football season. It’s actually starting to cool down over the weekend here. We’re in these knees, highs of 70s. Yeah, fall is coming.

Yeah. So let’s jump into it guys. As you guys can see, if you’re watching on YouTube, we share the case study, the fact pattern. Robert is going to kick us off and go through who we’re talking about today. Kelly’s going to go through the goals and some of the debt and I’ll set up the rest of it. We’ll put in protection, some of the tech stuff and some of the facts of the case. Go ahead, Robert. Kick us off here.

[00:03:30] RL: Yeah. Today, we’re going to go over Andrew and Courtney Kim, who are 62 and 60, respectively. Andrew is an operations manager for a defense contractor. He makes $205,000 per year. Courtney is infectious disease pharmacist working for the VA. She makes a $150,000 a year. They file their taxes, married filing jointly. They have two sons, Peter and Logan. Peter is a software engineer, 32, married, two kids, living in San Francisco. Logan actually is living back at the house. He’s 30-years-old, but he recently lost his job and is staying with parents for now. They live in Portland, Oregon. They have a combined gross income of $355,000, which breaks down monthly to $29,583. Their net, which is after taxes and contributions to retirement plans and insurance is $11,795.

They have expenses that break down as $3,500 for fixed expenses, $2,600 for variable expenses, and about $5,600 going to savings, which is better than the 50-30-20 that we aim for, and it’s closer to a 30-22-47. They live in a four-bedroom single-family house they purchased back in ’86 for a $105,000, which is where it’s worth well more now. Is completely paid off. Andrew’s mother who’s 82 lives about an hour away, but that may be changing in the near future based on her health concerns.

[00:04:50] KRH: Of course, as they approach this next transition phase, thinking through some of their goals, so they both are interested in retiring in the next three to five years. Hey want to make sure that they have enough and also, see what their Social Security benefit will be as part of that retirement nest egg and what they have available. Thinking about downsizing. That’s a common conversation. Also, with Logan back in the house and not sure about where mom may need to be residing and what assistance she will need, that’s a consideration. They also have another son and grandchildren in California. Want to make sure insurance is squared away. There may be a time with a gap in health insurance. Understanding what that means before they can be on Medicare.

They want to focus on some more leisure and do the traveling, see the people, do the national parks. Then, they also want to make sure that they can take care of mom and that their children are in okay shape as well, and maybe save some money for the grandchildren’s education in the future. As we start looking at strategy, they also have some debt. They do not have mortgage debt, so that has been paid off in the last year as Robert mentioned. They do have a car note, the very fun Tesla, which has balance.

[00:06:15] RL: You know a little bit about that. Yeah.

[00:06:17] KRH: I do know a little bit about that. Yeah. That apparently, pre-retirement, you need to get the fun car and then have to take care of it. 35,000 left on that car note at 4.5% interest. Then, they took out some private loans for Logan’s education, currently at a 6.75% interest rate with four years left, and that balance is about $24,000.

[00:06:42] RL: Yeah. As we look at the wealth building stuff and be jumping back and forth between this and the net worth statement. Their cash in checking and savings is right about a $100,000, which is they’re probably a little bit over funded there, given the expenses that Robert laid that in 401k that he has with his defense contractor job, he’s putting in 13.2%, which is about $27,000, which is what he can put in $20,500. Then after age 50, you can put the extra 65 in it, $6,500 there. $27,000 is what he’s putting in, plus a 6% match that he gets from his employer. It’s right now invested in target date funds for 2035.

Courtney has a TSP from the VA. She’s has in the middle of the VA long, where we received in the last couple of years. Her pension stuff can probably be similar to what we see with a lot of our clients with regard to that. She’s putting in 18%, which is $27,000. Plus, she gets a 5% match. She’s in basically, 50% CE fund, and 50% iFund, so all equity. Common stock and international companies. She has an old 401k that she hasn’t looked at for a while that has about $165,000 that we have to figure out what to do with that.

Taxable account, joint taxable account has about a $135,000 that they’re putting in $500 a month. It’s currently with an advisor that they speak with infrequently. Mostly C-class mutual funds in an 80$-20% mix. Probably some expense there that we’re not seeing that might be eroding some of the gains. A joint savings account, like I said, that they’re putting $600. This was the $600 a month. This was the mortgage payment, minus some property taxes. IRA is hanging out there, Roth IRAs, 35,000 for Courtney, 85,000 for Andrew that’s managed by that advisor, all equity institutional funds. Probably being charge a fee on that.

All in all, between cash and the investments, and then the value of the house, about 2 million dollars in assets. 2.1 million dollars in assets, so it gives them a total – if you subtract about the $60,000 in liabilities, about 2.036 in net worth million. 2.03 6 million in net worth. In terms of the wealth protection, they both have a term policy use, $500,000, some group life insurance from their employers, both set to expire. They’re their own policies in three years, so at 65 for Andrew and 63 for Courtney. They have some short-term and long-term disability, own occupation through their employers.

Courtney carries a professional liability coverage. Then from the state perspective, they have a will, but it hasn’t been updated in a long time, 20 years. Living well and power of attorneys also need to be updated. There’s some concern about Andrew, mom, if she has the right documents and how that’s going to affect their financial plan. Taxes, they’re doing it themselves right now through TurboTax, concerned about gains on the house if it’s sold. They would like to pay a lot less property tax in the future, which is also one of the reasons that they’re looking to downsize. Concerned about taxes when they take money out of their traditional investment accounts. Just how to best spend down those accounts without being killed in taxes.

Some miscellaneous stuff. They’re both in good health. Andrew thinks that they should take security ASAP, because he doesn’t want to lose out. There’s this idea that I want to get everything, every nickel that I put back in, so it’s definitely a point of conversation that we need to have. Not sure if they should move out of the state, or to a retirement community. Obviously, with the concerns with Andrew’s mother close by, and then should they go to a different state with family in California? Should they phase into retirement? Tougher with the VA, but Andrew could consult, be a contractor with his employer. Then Courtney is very worried about running out of money. “We’d rather be safe than sorry. I would rather work two more years if needed to retire to make sure that the money doesn’t run out.”

That is the facts of the case here, guys. I guess, if we look at goal number one, they want to retire in the next three to five years. If the Kims were our clients, what is the best way? Kelly, I’ll start with you. What is the best way to start breaking down that question of, hey, are we on track to be able to retire comfortably and have the money last in the next three to five years?

[00:10:52] KRH: Usually, what we would do is start with a nest egg, just taking a quick look at what assets they have available, time interval for when they want to retire. You can get a Social Security statement from the Social Security website. It would be good for them to download that data, so that we can see what their monthly and annual amounts will be. There are differences in that amount, based on the timeframe when they take the Social Security. There’s a difference between taking it early, taking it out for retirement age.

I’m guessing with their age range, it’s 67 and some change would be for retirement age. There’s also estimates at age 70. Sometimes age 70 can be a lot more advantageous than even full retirement age. It’s good to run the numbers and take a look. The nest egg gives a good high-level, like, how do things look in terms of being prepared for retirement? Then we also use software with e-money to take a look at a little bit more granular detail spending data. That was one of the things that we had talked about previously in preparing for this is, if they spend a little bit less in retirement, make some changes, it really will have a big impact on overall what they can do. E-money allows us to model different spending scenarios and take a look at what the cashflow is.

[00:12:23] TB: Yeah. I think, the big thing is it’s obviously looking at what they have, their investments, but then also, what is the potential drawdown rate, or withdrawal rate? A lot of people are familiar with the 4% rule, which is a general rule of thumb that if you have a million-dollar portfolio, and you basically take 4% out every year, $40,000, a lot of the math says that that can support 30 years of living off of that. There’s a lot of different ways to do it.

I think, let’s talk a little bit more about the Social Security statement. You mentioned that and I think that’s one of the things that we see that can often be influenced by what you read in the news, what your maybe colleagues have done. Like, they go to retire. Robert, how do you approach the conversation of when, because a lot of the times, a client already has their mind made up about Social Security.

It’s interesting, Morningstar did a study. They said that and a good advisor can basically add something like 30% more to your income in retirement. 9% of that, the biggest chunk of that is proper social security claiming strategies. How would you broach that subject with a client, particularly if they have their mind made up, in this case, Andrew, is saying, “Hey, we need to claim as soon as possible.” Walk me through your approach with that.

[00:13:46] RL: I think, one of the biggest things that you can do for a client is really just showing them all the data. That Social Security statement that you can pull from ssa.gov that Kelly mentioned, really has all that laid out. Now, when we look at Andrew and Courtney here, they look like they’ve probably been maxing out Social Security. Meaning, they’re putting in the most amount that they can per year. In 2022, if he draws now, if you were to retire today and draw, maximum withdrawal at 62 is $2,364 a month. If you were to wait until age 70, that draw would increase to $4,194 a month.

Really showing that differentiator there of this is 1,800 additional dollars per month that you would get by waiting. Then, if he just waits until full retirement, age to 67, then that is $3,345. Nice, in the middle of difference. Really showing them how that would work. Now, for their case, specifically, if they already have their minds made up and say, “Hey, I want to do this.” He says, “Hey, I want to retire in three to five years. I want to draw as early as I can.” Well, just as early as I can mean he wants to draw today and continue working? Because then, we can show the tax consequences of those dollars. How much tax are we going to be paying on the Social Security dollars if he’s continuing to work?

If he’s not going to continue to work and we’re going to wait, say three years and draw at 65, which is still before his defined for retirement age, then we’re not going to be taxed on the majority that that amount as long as she’s not working either. We can show, does this math work, right? Their expenses are not as high as they may believe that they are, because they’re saving a lot of money. If we double up both their Social Security at age 65, maybe she worked for two years longer than he does, so they’re both retire at 65. That solves both of them.

He wants to draw as soon as possible. She wants to maybe work a few extra years to make sure that they get the value, then their social security draw would be the same, but you would need to understand that if something were to happen, they lose one of those securities, right? It’s not that you would get the other person’s. If we were to wait, and we can show this benefit of it for Andrew, we say, wait until age 70 and we’re getting that $4,194, if he were to pass away, then Courtney would take over his larger payment.

[00:15:47] TB: Correct. Yup.

[00:15:48] RL: That’s generally an argument that we can make is whoever was the highest earner, we want to wait the longest amount of time, so that we can get the benefit of those multipliers on the years after full retirement age. The highest amount would be age 70 at this point in time.

[00:16:01] TB: One of the biggest things that we’re trying to solve in retirement is making sure that the money doesn’t run out for the amount of years that we’re going to be alive, which we just don’t know what that is. It’s an educated guess. I think, one of the things that a lot of people and Andrew is showing this like, the sooner the better, because that’s when I get the paycheck. For someone like him who’s the higher earner in the fact pattern, he’s right now making $205,000, Courtney’s making a $150,000 as the infectious disease pharmacist, his Social Security is probably going to be higher at a baseline. It might make sense, although he might be the first to pass away.

I think, probably some questions about Andrew’s mother is alive. She’s 82. Some history of the family, when did Andrew’s father passed away might play a part in this. To your point, when one of the spouses pass away, you basically have the choice. You can either take Andrew, which is probably going to be higher. Or if it does, in fact, be the case that Courtney should just keep hers. At the same breath, you’re still losing the stream of income that you didn’t have. Most of the time, a lot of the time, your expenses don’t basically get chopped in half when the other person’s no longer living. You still have all those fixed expenses, maybe food and things go down like that.

To really combat against this mortality risk of okay, how do we prevent money from not basically being completely spent down, Social Security is going to be one of the biggest attributes for that. With this particular type of client, it’s going to be a smaller percentage of the income, just because they make more money, and Social Security’s going to be capped at a certain amount of income. It’s really important to make a smart claim and decision with regard to the Social Security.

To your point, pulling the Social Security statement, I think, probably I would make sure that they both go through and look at their work years, and the earnings tax for Social Security, to make sure that that is accurate. Sometimes that can be inaccurate. Just seeing what their current benefit is at, it basically outlines from 62 to full retirement age, because they’re both born after 1960. It’s going to be, basically, 67 is full retirement age. Then how does that change by percentage if we can lock in income if we wait to age 70? Then, it shows that in the benefit calculator estimate.

Social Security website is actually pretty good, and be able to basically pull down those statements in real-time, I think is going to be solid. The way that social security is calculated is it takes your 35 most-highest paid years to make that calculation, which is another reason why potentially phasing into retirement, or delaying retirement is going to be a big tool to make sure that, because we might log another year where they’re earning six figures, which maybe they didn’t do that early in the career.

We look at the nest egg. We might look at some of the spending. Kelly, how do you approach looking at this? Because unfortunately, it comes back to the B word, which is budget. How do you actually walk clients through that and try to project what they actually will need from their retirement accounts? What does that look like in practice?

[00:19:18] KRH: I mean, that’s a great question. The nest egg does an estimator. Do 70, 80, 90, 100. In this case, seeing that their expenses were lower, the nest egg worked estimating lower expenses. I guess, from there, the question would be, if you estimated 50% of expenses for each side, I lean towards having the numbers in place, so that people can see, this is actually what this looks like. We do have a spending budget template and then we also can do things again in e-money, where there is an expense section where you can add in different anticipated expenses.

We see some go away. They’re not going to be making retirement contributions, if they’re fully retired. In this case study, it will be interesting and would be a conversation with the client. Although, I suspect that they would ask it back to us, to answer with Logan and mom, what can they afford to do? It is an interesting time period and not all that uncommon for kids to be in an age where they still need a little bit of assistance in trying to define what that is and what you can afford to do for them and with them. The circumstances, unfortunate with Logan, but I think it is worth having the conversation about. It is still a private student loan on the balance sheet. It is him in their household, what is he contributing? How long? Have they set some parameters for what they’re willing to do, and then us helping them figure out what they can possibly afford to do, if they are interested in downsizing, which is on that goal list.

Mom is a whole another host of questions. Understanding what resources she has available. Then trying to figure out what really they could afford to help her to do. I mean, I think the actual numbers are pretty helpful to see, especially when you do have other family members involved and really be as detailed as you can about what the budget might look like.

[00:21:35] TB: Yeah. I think, it’s one thing to fill out a spreadsheet, it’s like, okay, I think this is what we pay for food, or this is what we pay for utilities, or travel. Then, I think if you actually link it to credit cards and debit cards and savings accounts, checking accounts, typically, there’s a lot more there that we don’t necessarily account for. I think, probably it’s a good exercise to do both, and then compare. I think, there’s some planners out there that they’ll look at, hey, how much money came in for year 2021. They basically say, “This is what I need to plan.”

I almost build a paycheck with just the same thing in mind, even going into retirement. A lot of what we typically do with the nest egg, is we discount it by a certain amount, because we’re not going to be saving, in this case, 13% for Andrew for his 401k, and 18% for Courtney’s TSP. There’s a discount just in that alone. It comes back to that. It’s like, it’s the building block of how we need to be able to disperse. Once we made that decision with Social Security, what’s the gap?

Obviously, it’s going to be in phases. If they do retire at 65, maybe we draw down the investment portfolio a lot more aggressively, until we get to a delayed Social Security at 68, 69, even 70. Then that picks up and we let the investments take a little bit of a breather for that. In terms of this idea of sandwich, the sandwich generation. That’s where there’s a household that’s basically, they’re taking care of themselves, or trying to, but then they’re also taking care of a parent, and then an adult child. Tough conversations, guys. Robert how do you begin to have that in terms of like, “Hey, we need to take care of number one, which is you, versus, hey, I know, this is really important to you.” Because the other thing is they’re also talking about education for their grandkids. How do we begin to dissect that part of their financial plan?

[00:23:32] RL: I want to start off by saying, I’ve never heard the term ‘sandwich generation’. Since Kelly’s a member of that generation, I think it’s very interesting.

[00:23:40] KRH: I’m not 60 yet.

[00:23:44] RL: Generational. Generational. No, I think having that conversation with Logan is the most important part, right? We don’t know what he’s professionalized in this scenario. He says, he lost his job recently and had to move back in with mom and dad. Is he an engineer like his brother? Is he a developer? Is he a starving artist? What’s going on here? How does that really work out? Laying it out.

We can’t be the centers of the universe forever. They’re parents, so they want to take care of their kids. They want to help the generation after them, but they can’t take care of everybody all at once. Really coming to terms with that. Letting the kids know. Logan might be very open to understanding of, “Hey, mom and dad want to retire in the next year or two. We really need you to be on your own. Hey, grandma is not doing so well. She’s going to need your room, bud. You’re 30-years-old. It’s time for you to figure it out.” Really laying it out, I think would do well.

Then having that conversation with Peter as well. Peter may already have retirement – I’m sorry. Education savings for his kids set up. Those kids may have another set of grandparents that are also trying to set up accounts and everything. Again, they don’t have to be the center of the universe. They need to be center of their own world and make sure that they’re taking care of themselves, numero uno.

[00:24:53] TB: Yeah, they might be like, again, we’re not trying to solve everything right away. If this listed as the number five, the last goal, it might be that, let’s get the – let’s figure out the debt, which the debt isn’t bad. I think, there’s a question of, do we just take some of the cash that we have, the $100,000 between checking and savings and apply that to the $59,000 that we have between the Tesla and the private loans, and private loans between the six and three quarters, the Tesla being 4.50%. Clear the board there.

Then we start looking at as we get the expense information in a little bit better, if 65 is the goal, which is what I would be pushing for, because that’s when Medicare starts. There’s not necessarily a gap in that regard from a healthcare perspective. Maybe it’s like, your, your will is actually set to bequeath some of that money to grandkids. Obviously, there’s in Oregon, you can get some tax advantages if you’re putting money into a 529 today. It’s minimal. I think those things are possible, but I think we take it in bite sizes.

I agree with you. I think it’s like, had that discussion with Logan, have that discussion with mom and see where she’s at in terms of – because that’s, a lot of moms do not want to move back in. That can be a struggle, just to make sure that they’re getting care, but there can be that loss of independence if they’re now living with you, or if they have to go live in assisted living, or things like that.

I think, it’s level setting those expectations. Like what we always say, even with the education piece, you can’t take retirement loans. You can take student loans and other things, but eventually, someone like Logan has to figure it out and do their thing. That can be a very strong pull on the financials.

In terms of this idea of long-term care insurance. I guess, what’s your guys take on that, as they’re right in that age, where the challenge here is time in, if and when to actually purchase these policies. The sweet spot is usually 60 to 65. Some people say 50. The problem is, if you purchase that 50, you could be paying these premiums that go up regularly for 30, 40 years, before you even have the – you make a claim. I guess, what’s your guys’s takes on the long-term care insurance question that they have in terms of looking at policies and purchasing them for in the event that they need some assistance in that regard? Kelly, what do you think?

[00:27:24] KRH: This is a hard question, I think with the long-term care insurance, I’m going to be honest.

[00:27:28] TB: I agree.

[00:27:30] KRH: On the one hand, right, if you’re going to pay premiums for a long time, it may add up that you have paid more in premiums than what you’re going to get out of it. Care is expensive. It does involve a little bit of personality and understanding what people’s expectations are, too.

If you have someone who is like, “I am never leaving my house. I don’t want people in my house helping me.” I mean that personality would be hard to justify a long-term care policy, because they are going to be very resistant to using what you would get from it. But the care costs are expensive. At some point, that certainly should be a conversation piece, like how much could be anticipated in that cost, with all insurance products. It’s a tradeoff between paying a premium to have somebody else cover an amount that you cannot pay for out of pocket for a recovery that you would like to have in the event that something happens. Or you’re paying out of pocket. Like, you have enough resources to take care of the care that you have in your mind, that you want to have happen.

In the e-money data, we do usually build in two years at the end of assuming some type of substantial care is needed in those last two years. That data can help answer this question to see like, what would that cost be? It’ll project it out in future dollars and give a very realistic, like this could be what you would have to face. I mean, certainly things happen where care is needed ahead of those last two years. It can be a combination. Certainly, the quality of the long-term care product would be a big piece. Can you get in-home care as part of it, if that is what is desirable? There’s a lot of nuances.

The person that helps give some quotes for some of the life and disability. They do some of the long-term care insurance as well, so we sometimes will talk to them about some of these questions and see scenarios where it makes sense. Again, personality, cost, what’s the alternative if you don’t have it? Sometimes it’s a completely opposite, which is spending down and trying to figure out a strategy to not have so many sources.

[00:30:02] TB: Medicaid, right? Yeah.

[00:30:03] KRH: Right. Then are you okay with what that care looks like in your area where you might be receiving care? Those are all very difficult questions to answer. If the cash flow is good, and it makes sense to do it, and it’s affordable and you’re in that sweet spot. If you’re on the conservative side, you might lean towards doing it. If you like more risk, or more adverse to accepting care, it might not be as big of a priority.

[00:30:37] TB: When we talk about long-term care, that’s really – it’s insurance that provides assistance, usually through assisted living, a nursing home care, home health care. Sometimes personal, or adult day care for individuals, 65 or older that have a chronic or disabling. This is typically people that are having trouble using the bathroom, dressing themselves, feeding themselves, that type of thing. They did a study in 2020 that the average cost, the current medium annual costs for assisted living is $51,600. For an in-home health aide is 50, almost $55,000. For a private room in a nursing home, it’s a $106,000, which obviously, can be a pretty big chunk of that investment portfolio.

However, about 80% of long-term care is provided at home by unpaid family members. That’s where you might say, “Hey, Peter. What’s the plan for this?” I know conversations with my parents, they don’t want us to have to really have to deal with that. They rather have some care by something that they’re paying for. I think, it’s just family-to-family. A lot of a lot of families, you’re it, and that might be the case with Andrew and his mom is that it’s more of a self-insured type of thing.

As we know with most things, the price of this type of care is going up and as are the premiums for these type of policies. That’s the challenge. I know, some of the people that we wrote policies at my last firm is that they would buy these policies, and then a couple years later, the premiums would go up 10%, 20%, and they would let them last. I’m just going to go at it on my own. It’s really a personal decision in terms of what your strategy is, and how you want to attack it, but it’s definitely something that I think we as fiduciaries need to see what comes back from the client in terms of their approach. It’s a tough one. I’m with you. How about Robert, do you have anything to add to that?

[00:32:39] RL: No. I think you guys did a really good job on that one.

[00:32:42] TB: We talked about the insurance. Any other gaps and the protection? Obviously, I think one of the things, Robert, that we should be looking at is just the estate stuff, and making sure that that is all updated and good to go. Probably start to look at the mom stuff, too, right?

[00:32:57] RL: Definitely. Obviously, if you have an estate plan that was drawn up 20 years ago, there’s going to be some things that have shifted, or changed. In that meantime, your boys were 10 and 12. Best at that point, maybe you want one of them to be your power of attorney, or your health care proxy. Maybe you want a different family member to be that executor. Maybe you want to pass things along differently now that you have grandkids that you definitely didn’t even imagine at that point in time when your kids were in middle school.

Then definitely, mom, we really want to understand what mom has going on. Is she independently wealthy, and she’s never going to live with us by choice? Does she have a bunch of heirlooms that she wants to pass along? Does she have her wishes laid out in order? Or do you know them? Because Andrew is going to be in charge of those decision-making questions. When the doctors ask, what does she want in this situation? You’re going to have to know the answer or you’re going to have to have that document to provide.

Really having those conversations, or those legal discussions would be really valuable ahead of time. Most people, when we think about estate planning, it’s because we don’t want to become a burden to our family. We don’t want to be troublesome in that situation. We want to lay out as much as we can, beforehand. She may have all that flushed out in a folder ready to go. She may have none of those documents, hopes and dreams that she’s going to live to 200. It’s really important to understand where everyone lies on that and have really honest and open conversations.

[00:34:14] TB: Yeah, I agree. I think that’s probably a big risk that can be easily mitigated by just now with an attorney and writing those things out and just keeping it fresh in that regard. Probably, the only other thing that I would address, I think, there was concern about gains on the house that they sell that. I know a lot of that gain is going to be excluded, probably half a million, if they’re filing their taxes together. There might be some gain that they will have to realize and plan for. If they basically downsize to a property, they might be able to exclude some of that as well. I think, probably working with a tax person as they’re approaching retirement would be good.

I think, the only other big concern here guys that I have, would be just looking at the overall investment allocation. We’re saying that a lot of it’s an equity. There’s probably not a lot in bonds, 80-20 in the taxable account. They’re approaching the eye of the storm with regard to the – if they’re looking to retire in three to five years, really, that’s probably the one time in their entire investment lies, where they probably need to be as conservative as they will ever be. What we’re really trying to mitigate here is sequence of return risk. This is basically where the market corrects, or we’re in a recession, it goes down 20%, or 30%, and then your withdrawal and $40,000 out of that. That typically leads to unsustainable and rates of failure with regard to pulling money from the portfolio.

As you’re approaching that eye of the storm, so to speak, instead of having an 80-20 or 100-0, we really need to be closer to maybe a 60-40, 50-50 to make sure that we’re protecting the things that we’ve grew over the course of their career. Then as we come out of the eyes of the storm when they’re in their 70s, and so on, maybe we get a little bit more aggressive, because we have it figured out and we’re looking more towards making sure it’s long-term. There’s lots of different ways to look at that, whether it’s a systemic withdrawal, a function approach, or something similar to that.

That probably would be to look at the investments in totality and making sure that for these last couple years, we’re looking more from a safety perspective, versus let’s try to get the portfolio as big as we can.

Guys, I think that’s probably a pretty good place to start. I think, for this one, more questions than answers. I think that’s a good thing. I appreciate the look at this case study with the Kims and looking forward to next time.

[00:36:45] RL: Sounds good. Looking forward to it.

[END OF EPISODE]

[00:36:47] ANNOUNCER: Before we wrap up today’s show, let’s hear an important message from our sponsor, Insuring Income.

If you are in the market to add own occupation, disability insurance, term life insurance, or both, Insuring Income would love to be a resource. Insuring Income has relationships with all of the high-quality disability insurance and life insurance carriers you should be considering and can help you design coverage to best protect you and your family.

Head over to insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist, or click on the link in the show notes to request quotes, ask a question, or start down your own path of learning more about this necessary protection.

[DISCLAIMER]

[00:37:23] ANNOUNCER: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 269: How to be Frugal During Inflation

Posted on August 18, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How to be Frugal During Inflation

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, Jen Smith, a personal finance expert and co-host of the Frugal Friends Podcast, discusses strategies to practice frugality in a high inflationary period, how she was able to pay off $78k in debt while battling unemployment, and strategies for listeners to explore whether you are looking to get organized, make additional income, or grow in your investing journey.

About Today’s Guest

Jen Smith is a personal finance expert and co-host of the top-rated Frugal Friends Podcast. Since paying off $78K of debt in two years Jen has been on a mission to help people spend in alignment with their values and live for today while saving for tomorrow. She’s the author of two best-selling books on controlling your spending and paying off debt, The No-Spend Challenge Guide & Pay Off Your Debt For Good.

Episode Summary

This week, Your Financial Pharmacist Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, sits down with Jen Smith, a personal finance expert and co-host of the top-rated Frugal Friends Podcast. After paying off $78K of debt in two years, Jen has been on a mission to help people spend in alignment with their values while saving for tomorrow. She is the author of two best-selling books on controlling spending and paying off debt, The No-Spend Challenge Guide & Pay Off Your Debt For Good.

Tim and Jen discuss strategies to practice frugality in a high inflationary period and how to spot and cut out unintentional spending. Jen shares her journey to paying off $78K in debt while battling unemployment and how getting on the same page with her partner, addressing her apprehension on debt repayment, and making intentional choices in her spending changed her mindset about money. Fighting lifestyle inflation with a “radical middle approach” worked for Jen, but she recommends each person find the debt repayment strategy that works for them. Jen closes with some frugality strategies for listeners to explore, including having exploratory conversations with your partner about financial goals, taking inventory of all of your accounts, planning out financial goals annually, and automating your money where possible to prevent unnecessary spending.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:01] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here. And thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jen Smith, a personal finance expert and cohost of the top-rated Frugal Friends podcast. Since paying off $78,000 of debt in two years, Jen has been on a mission to help people spend in alignment with their values and live for today while saving for tomorrow.

She’s the author of two bestselling books on controlling your spending and paying off debt. The No Spend Challenge Guide, and Pay Off Your Debt for Good. During the show, we discuss strategies to practice frugality in a high inflationary period, how she was able to pay off $78,000 in debt while battling unemployment, and strategies for listeners to explore, whether you’re looking to get organized, make additional income, or grow in your investing journey.

Before we jump into the episode, I’m excited to share that we’re doing our first ever virtual summit, The Employee to Entrepreneur: Building Blocks for Growing Your Business. The Employee to Entrepreneur Summit is designed for pharmacists who are planning or actively working on a side hustle or business idea.

This summit is going to be live via Zoom evenings of Tuesday, August 30th; and Wednesday, August 31st. Topics and activities include honing your mindset and uncapping your potential. How to grow a business from a position of financial strength? Retirement savings and tax optimization strategies as a small business owner, how to develop a system for achieving business financial goals, examples of pharmacists that are monetizing their clinical expertise, and much more.

And for those that register by August 23rd, we have three exciting bonuses. Those include a one-on-one implementation meeting with myself, or certified financial planner, Tim Baker. Access to a live goal-setting workshop that I’ll be hosting after the summit. And on-demand access to several bonus interviews, including evaluating health care, insurance options, marketing strategies, how to sell with confidence and more. Lots of information that we’re going to be sharing. You can learn more and register yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businesssummit. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businessssummit.

Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor, Insuring Income. And then we’ll jump into my interview with author, blogger, and podcaster, Jen Smith.

[00:02:19] TU: This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term life insurance and own-occupation disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top-rated term life insurance and disability insurance companies so pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation.

To better serve you, Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage, supports clients in all 50 states, and makes sure all of your questions get answered. To get quotes and apply for term life or disability insurance, see sample contracts from disability carriers, or learn more about these topics, visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again, that’s ensuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:03:10] TU: Jen, welcome to the show.

[00:03:12] JS: Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:03:13] TU: I’m really excited to have you here and to hear more about your debt payoff journey. And we’ll talk about that. But first, I’d love to learn more about your career background and the work that you’ve been doing with Frugal Friends and Modern Frugality.

[00:03:27] JS: Yeah. My frugality journey started back in 2015. I was about three years out of my master’s program. My degree is in acupuncture and oriental medicine. But it was a much more expensive degree than the income provided. So, I was very much ignoring my student debt. And I thought I was frugal, or I thought I was responsible because I would buy the generic products at the grocery store. But I would also turn around and like get Chipotle on the way home from the grocery store and go out and get Starbucks without thinking about it. There was definitely a disconnect between what I thought like financially responsible was and what it really is.

So, in 2015, I got married and my husband said that he wanted to pay off his student loans, and I wasn’t as motivated, but I felt guilty because my student loans were double what he had. When we got married, we started on this journey to pay off $78,000 of debt. And I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t side hustle my way out of it. That’s really what I tried to do at first. And I got shingles two months into trying to side hustle my way. Yeah, from all this stress, and at the ripe age of 26.

That’s when I realized I needed to be more were intentional about my spending. Not just paying attention to like what’s generic or maybe what’s like $1 cheaper than something else. Very intentional about my overall spending. And it very much freed up so much of my life. I thought it was going to be full of deprivation. I was an adult. I didn’t want anybody to tell me what I could and couldn’t do, much less me telling me what I couldn’t do.

But I found that being intentional and spending on the things that I value versus things that I didn’t think about gave the sense of freedom. And it’s really what allowed us to pay off $78,000 in two years on really average. Because we never made more than $88,000 a year combined. And so, after that, a few years later, I met my cohost, Jill, for the Frugal Friends podcast. And she and her husband were thinking about starting a podcast. And her husband wanted to produce and edit it. And I was like, “I’ll never start a podcast, because I’m a writer.” I had my Modern Frugality blog. But if I did, it’d be called Frugal Friends, because I love alliteration. And they took that as a sign to just start producing it. And four and a half years later, 227 episodes in, we have never missed a week of recording. And it’s been like one of the greatest joys of my life.

[00:06:30] TU: I love that. And we’ll link in the show notes of the Frugal Friends podcast, as well as your blog, Modern Frugality.

My question, Jen, around frugality. When I talk with those that are within the first, let’s just say, 10, 15 years of their career, I feel like the words budget and frugality feel like no-no words. Just things that we don’t love to hear. You mentioned kind of that restrictive. It can have that restrictive feeling. And so, my question is how are you making frugality exciting? Obviously, you’ve built a community, you’ve built a brand around it. Of course, that is resonating on some level with folks. Why do you think there’s a movement around this concept of frugality?

[00:07:11] JS: Yeah, because until you know what’s enough for you, nothing will ever be enough. And so, you’ll keep on this rat race, on this treadmill, looking for what is going to fulfill you. And you’ll keep buying more and looking to make more. And more time with family. More of this. More of that. And like, unless you realize what you truly value, what’s enough in these other places so you can have more in places you care more about, nothing will ever be enough. And it will be this continual unfulfilling race, which is exhausting, which is why so many of us are exhausted, like, 10, 15 years out of college. Because we thought we’d have it more figured out. But it’s so rare to do the work upfront of figuring out like, “Who am I? What do I want? What do I want that’s maybe unconventional? And how do I create boundaries to pursue that more easily?” And then just to do the hard work of retraining your brain to pursue those things, versus immediate gratification.

[00:08:26] TU: As you think about the time period that we’re in, my family is feeling this firsthand. I mentioned to you before we hit record, I’ve got four young boys that are literally eating me out of the house right now. And we’re in this time period of not only high inflation, groceries are wild as well. And I’m sure this topic of, how can I practice frugality in a day when inflation is through the roof? Things are so expensive. What advice would you have for folks that are feeling the pinch month-to-month given the price of goods, of gasoline, of food, and everything that’s going on, but want to be intentional? That concept of frugality. Of being conscious with how we spend. Of making sure we’re living that rich life today while we’re taking care of our future self. That resonates, but there’s the reality of the here and now.

[00:09:09] JS: Yeah. Well, we all want to be more responsible with our money. We want to all have more money left at the end of the month saved. And I think when we start thinking about budgets, and saving, and cutting expenses, we always jump to the things that we love most. Like, when I first started paying off debt, I was thinking, “I don’t want to get on a budget. I don’t want to do this.” Because I don’t want to cut out having dinner with friends. Like, community is one of my core values. And so, that was the first thing I jumped to.

Usually, it’s the first thing you think of is the last thing that you should cut out. When you are pursuing frugality and intentional spending, you want to look through all of your transactions in your bank account, and find the things you’re spending money on that you don’t even realize you’re spending money on. So, maybe a subscription that raised in price, or a subscription you’re not using it all, or these trips to the gas station where you’re going inside and you get a candy bar or a soda with your gas purchase. It’s stuff like that you are doing mindlessly that you don’t really care about, but you kind of probably don’t even realize you’re doing it. It’s those things that we cut out first. And it’s easier to retrain your brain to cut those things out than it is the things you care most about.

[00:10:35] TU: Yeah. I think, too, what I found in my own journey, Jen, that resonates with what you’re talking about around conscious spending. And you gave that Chipotle example earlier, right? Which I think was a really good one coming back from the grocery store. Like, guilty as charged.

And I think that, to me, it’s about the dollars, yes, because maybe we can allocate those towards another part of the plan and be more intentional with them, especially if it’s unconscious spending. But it’s also about that feeling of like, “I’m in control. Like, I’m mindfully spending my money,” right? And I connect this to a lot of eating patterns and behaviors as well. But if we’re going to make a splurge financially, let’s do it consciously, right? Let’s make sure we’ve thought about it. We’ve prioritized it. We’ve considered it among the rest of our financial goals in our plan. And then we’re not unconsciously making those decisions.

And I think what resonates with me of what you’ve shared in some of your blogging materials is that the financial plan, as we think about as a continuum over our lives, is really this balance of living for today while saving for tomorrow. Right? We talked about inside YFP, is we need to be saving and taking care of our future selves. But we also need to live a rich life today. And so, there’s nothing wrong with us spending money. But we want to do it consciously. We want to do it intentionally. And I love what you’re sharing as it relates to that and make sure we’re being intentional in how we’re spending our money.

[00:11:53] JS: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the only way to keep it sustainable, because you are – You’re not promised tomorrow. But also, you’re not promised that you’re going to die when you’re 70. You have to plan past that. But you also want to make the most of your todays. And that’s why I think it’s so important that you sit down and figure out, like, “What do I value most? What are the things that I love the most I want to pursue? And what am I going to say no to so that I can pursue the things I love more?”

[00:12:28] TU: When we think about lifestyle inflation, I think this is something that is so common in society at large, but especially as I think about our profession of pharmacy. Often, folks will spend six to eight plus years in school to get their doctor pharmacy degree. They’ll walk out with 170,000 something dollars a debt. They might go directly into a good six figure income or perhaps have a stepping stone with a residency. And I think that jump in salary can really lead to significant lifestyle inflation. And obviously, we have high costs of just what is reality today with homes and everything else.

Are there one or two things that you typically see, and whether it’s your own journey or your community that, is often contributing towards that lifestyle inflation that folks should be on the lookout for?

[00:13:14] JS: I think it’s the feeling of I’ve accomplished so much. I’ve graduated with this degree. I’ve gotten this job. I have done the hard work. And now it’s time to reap the benefits. And that’s the mindset. I had the same mindset when I graduated. And I think there’s nothing wrong with saying like, “Yes, you deserve a higher quality of living than when you were like eating ramen or whatever in college.” Yes, absolutely. But it can be really beneficial to commit to at least two years after college to say, “Hey, I’m not going to live like I lived in college. But I’m not going to live in the full potential.” Because the earlier you start paying off your debt and investing, you essentially are saving money on buying your freedom. The earlier you start, the more time you have to compound your savings in your retirement accounts. And the less money you’re going to pay in interest on your debt.

The earlier you start that, you will purchase your freedom for a lot less money than if you “enjoy your accomplishments early”. And then 5,10 years down the road, you’re like, “Oh, crap. What have I done? What have I spent all this money on?” And even if you are 5, 10 years down the road, committing for two years, give or take, whatever your situation is, to really focus on getting money into your retirement accounts, getting at least higher interest debt paid off, is really going to benefit you in the long run.

[00:15:02] TU: And so, as relates to this mindset change, you mentioned in your journey that was something that you encountered as well. As you ultimately paid off $78,000 of debt in two years, what was the turning point for you? When did you start thinking, “Okay, Jen, we really need to make a plan to tackle this?” What changed?

[00:15:21] JS: It was my fiancé at the time, now husband, saying, “I don’t care what you’re going to do. I’m going to pay off my student loan.” He wasn’t going to force me. And so, I always say, if you have a spouse that’s not onboard, you cannot force them onboard. But he was going to take it upon himself to do his thing. And then he also encouraged me to think about, what are the things you want to do long term? And how much easier could they be? How much sooner can you accomplish them if we just spent a few years upfront getting rid of this debt?

He really challenged me to think about that, because there were dreams and goals that I had. And I was like, “Yeah, it would be a lot easier if I had the option of working. If I didn’t feel forced to have a nine to five job, but I could have flexibility in that, these things would be a lot easier.” And so, that inspired me, and convicted me, and challenged me to convert.

[00:16:26] TU: I love that. Because it’s the vision, right? Start with the vision and the dream. And then you back into the details and you get excited. But, folks, if you jump in your studentaid.gov profile and you start inventorying your loans, and you look at your private and your fed, like, it’s overwhelming, right? It’s very overwhelming, especially if folks have a couple $100,000 in debt. But if you can begin with, “Okay, deep breath. I’ve got this mound of student loan debt.” The past is what it is at this point. Let’s focus on what we can control going forward. And how can we begin to think about the vision for what we want for our lives, for our financial plan that ultimately will support the debt repayment strategy?

And so, for you and, at the time, your fiancé, now husband, what was the strategy? How did you do it? There’s the snowball approach that folks talked about. There’s the avalanche method. You mentioned a side hustle. Like, what was the actual strategy for how you’re able to pay off that debt?

[00:17:19] JS: Yeah. We took a little bit of everything. And that’s why, on our show, we’re big proponents of being in the radical middle. Everybody wants to take an extreme to where, being in the middle and choosing your own path is very radical. That’s really what we support. And so, we did a little bit of – We started with the debt avalanche. And then in my student loans, there were a lot of different – They were all the same interest rate. But there were a lot of different sizes. I don’t know. Some semesters, I was poor, I guess. And so, we would do the snowball within that. All of Travis’s interest rates were different. So, then we did the avalanche there.

And so, we kind of just did what worked for us. And we just took it month by month. And we thought it was going to take us five years to pay off our student loans. Because Travis was unemployed when we started. We were not at a great financial place when we started. I got 25 hours a week at work, max. I had to find like a side job and side hustles. Travis started with side hustles while he was looking for a full-time job. We were definitely not in a place where anyone would have recommended us start paying off our debt. But we did it anyway. And we just took it month by month. And every month, built on itself. We got a little bit more every month being put towards debt, until Travis got employed. And we were putting just my entire paycheck towards debt every month and just living on his.

And so, that was kind of the strategy. We just went little by little until we were putting one whole income to debt and living off the other. I mean, even if you’re in a single-income household, I mean, we were making $88,000 max. That was like 44 plus thousand per year. And we were living – It was a lot lower cost of living at that time. Gosh! It’s crazy to think about just seven years ago. But we were able to put a significant portion down on our debt because we chose maybe not the most ideal living situation. And we’re just really intentional about every penny we spent.

And we are not as intentional as we were. We’re not as intentional now as we were then, because we really had a goal that we were focusing on. And like I said, focus on one year, two years to see how much you can get out of the way. Don’t look at all six figures of your debt and say, “I can’t do this.” Because that’s what I did at first. I looked at my debt and I was like, “This is almost double what I make in a year. There’s no way. I’m just going to ignore it.”

But if I had taken just a year, a month by month or a year by year approach, I probably would have started sooner and just said, like”, “Okay, how much can I get this year?” And just made it my goal to like go hard. And then the next year, maybe, “Okay, how much can I get here in this year? But maybe I’m going to also focus on my IRA or my 401k and see how much I can get and add in here.” And if you do that, you focus on the month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year, you’ll make a bigger snowball effect than if you’re looking at it as a whole.

[00:20:44] TU: I really liked the concept of the radical middle. I like that a lot. Because I think that we see that and conversations I have with folks who have strong opinions on debt repayment, right? Versus investing or saving for the future. There’re strong opinions on how much should I put down on a home? And you kind of put people in opposite corners.

I think, for everyone, what we realized when you get to individual conversation, like, as my partner, Tim Baker often says in the podcast, like, it depends. It depends on what your financial situation is. How do you emotionally feel? Whether it’s about debt, or saving, investing for the future. What else is going on in relation to the financial plan? And then from there, we can craft a plan that we feel comfortable with. So, I think that’s a really, really good approach.

For folks that are listening, I’m thinking of spouses, significant others, partners that maybe aren’t on the same page with a given topic. You mentioned your journey and your fiancé, now husband, at the time was like, “Hey, I’m moving forward on this, whether you are or not.” And obviously, that left you is kind of making some decisions. And ultimately, you guys getting on the same page. But I think it’s not uncommon that you may have someone that’s on fire about a financial goal, or a budget, or debt repayment, or saving for the future. And someone else may or may not be in that same boat that that other person is. From your experience in your community, what advice would you have for folks that are really trying to, “Let’s get on the same page and make sure that we share in the vision going forward?”

[00:22:13] JS: Yeah. There’s a number of reasons why a partner might not want to get on board. I think the first thing to do is instead of trying to convince them in the way you were convinced, figure out why they’re apprehensive. Some people, it’s like, they don’t like being told what to do. Some people love spending money in the here and now. Tomorrow’s not promised. They want to spend it now. Some people just get anxiety about money. They don’t want to think about it at all. There are so many reasons. And I think your partner may not even know what the reason is.

And so, just sitting down and figuring out like what are our collective goals individually and together? What do you want? And how can we get there. And I think as you start to have more of these explorative conversations, the reasons for the disconnect will start to come up. Whether you’re talking about like their childhood, or they didn’t have a lot growing up, and they want to enjoy what they have now, because they worked really hard for it. All this stuff like that. It starts with exploratory conversations about the future. Trying to figure out what from their past is making them apprehensive to adopt frugality. Because nobody wants to feel deprived. Everybody wants to feel good and confident about the way they manage money even your partner who may not be on board with paying off debt. There’s just some kind of disconnect, where maybe what you’re saying or what you’re thinking is different from the reality that you want to put forward. But you can’t force them in typically with numbers, or force like a lot of the force thing that sometimes I hear about. It is really more of like a pull and a push.

[00:24:06] TU: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. And especially for folks that might be listening to the podcasts or more of that financial nerd camp, like, if you got energized by the calculator, like that doesn’t necessarily mean that your significant other is, right?

[00:24:22] JS: Yeah. They probably are not.

[00:24:23] TU: Probably are not. Yes, exactly. On the blog, Modern Frugality, I think you do a really nice job of identifying folks that may be in a few different areas based on their goals. So, folks that are feeling like, “Hey, I need to get organized.” Folks that are wanting to make some extra money, could be side hustles, businesses. And then folks that are wanting to get started with investing. And so, I want to focus on two of those here for a few moments.

And that first one of I need to get organized, is there a tip or two that you could share for individuals that are just feeling overwhelmed, and maybe that organization step would be really helpful for them to be able to clear some of the fog to then move forward with their financial goals? Where do you start with organization?

[00:25:05] JS: Yeah. The first step is to figure out all of your accounts, your debts, everything. And you can do that by getting your free credit report either at freecreditreport.com or something like Credit Karma. And this is the report. Not the score. We’re not as concerned with the score right now. But your credit report will have a list of all of your debts, all the accounts you have open, and the amounts, like balances for each. If you look at that, and it’s not there, then it’s not there. It’s not associated with your social security number.

And so, when you look at that, it really gives you a whole picture of, “Okay, I am this much in debt. I have this much in my savings. This is where I’m at.” And so, it’s nine times out of 10 not as scary as you think. And some people just don’t want to gather everything because they don’t know where to find it. It’s like, “Where can I find everything?” It’s in your credit report.

And then next is just to look at your transactions. So then go to those checking and savings accounts and look at your transactions from probably the last three months. Which ones did you love and you feel good about? Which ones do you not remember making? The ones that you did not remember making or did not feel good about, those are the ones we cut out first. And you write down on a piece of paper, “I will no longer spend money here or on this for this reason.” And then we don’t spend money on those things anymore. And the things that aren’t on that list, you can spend money on without guilt.

And then as you go and you start to think, “Okay, well, this wasn’t on the list before. But I think I might be able to add it. Or maybe this was on the list.” And actually, do enjoy this for reasons I wasn’t thinking about earlier, we take it off the list.

But as you go, and you make baby steps towards intentional spending, we don’t start with those things that we love the most. We start with the things we don’t care about. And that’s how we make these steps towards financial freedom and intentionality.

[00:27:13] TU: As I’m going through this exercise, if I identify there’s maybe more unconscious spending that I would like there to be, what are some strategies that might help me bring some more awareness and consciousness to that spend? You’ve identified one. I think, if I’m hearing correctly, I’m writing these down, journaling them. Other people talk about using cash for a small period of time, which is not super convenient in 2022. Are there other strategies that you have found personally or you see in your community that helps increase the awareness and the conscious level to spending?

[00:27:47] JS: Yeah. I talked about baby steps. But actually, my favorite way to like shortcut this is to do a no spend challenge, which is the opposite of baby step. But it’s like short term. I would take a month. And challenge yourself to not spend any money on discretionary purchases. We’re still paying bills. We’re still paying mortgage. We’re still putting gas in the car to get to work. But it’s the discretionary things. It’s everything else.

In the grocery store, if it’s not in the list, we don’t buy it. It’s meal planning for everything. And you can even schedule like one or two meals out during the month. But if they’re not scheduled, they don’t happen. It’s saying no to – For like an actual no spend challenge, I would say no. When I was doing them, like no eating out, no coffee. Just anything discretionary. Because it helps when you are at the end of the day, and you’ve made good decisions all day. And you get to five o’clock and your brain is tired. It is done making good decisions. It’s done making the right decision. And that’s when you start you get decision fatigue, and you start to make the wrong decision when you have the option. When you’re on a no spend challenge the answer is always no. And so, that’s one – It’s decisions you don’t have to make, because you’re challenging yourself to say no to everything.

And I know some people will try and do pantry challenges while they’re on a no spend challenge. Only eating from their pantry and fridge and freezer during that month.

[00:29:20] TU: Ah! Get creative. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:22] JS: Right? I never carried enough in my fridge and freezer, nor have I ever had a full pantry to do that. But if you feel like you’re a little overstocked in your kitchen, another great way to not spend money. But once you do this for a month, you will get a really eye-opening view of what you care most about. What things you don’t even realize that you are giving up? Things you didn’t care about.

And so, you can go forward after the challenge to say, “Okay, these are the things I’m going to spend on without guilt. These are the things I’m giving up. Saying no to.” And it really just fast track that process.

[00:30:02] TU: One of the things that you’ve written about that we talk a lot about on our show is the concept of automation. And I’ll link in the show notes. We talked about this on episode 57, way back when, in the power of automating your financial plan. And you had a blog post that we’ll link to as well in the show notes on automate your money. Can you tell us about, from your perspective, what does automation mean when it comes to the financial plan? And why is it so valuable to help someone in achieving their financial goals?

[00:30:29] JS: Yeah. Well, it kind of comes back to the decision fatigue. Again, when you have to make the decision to pay a bill, you may forget, because you may have made too many decisions, and it just slipped your mind. Or the decision to put money into your 401 (k) or IRA, you may not put as much in when you’re in the moment when something just put you over budget or you had like a surprise expense from your kid, then you tend to invest less or put less towards debt.

We want to take that decision off the table. Make your spending plan for the year. Figure out how much you can feasibly afford to invest or pay off debt every month, and just automate it. It’s one less thing that you have to worry about. You can automate it for soon after you get paid. It’s very easy if it’s like first 15th on Fridays. I mean, you can sometimes change when your bills are paid so they line up better with your payday. But sometimes it’s just easier to get that money out of sight out of mind. For someone like me, I used to spend every penny that was in my account if I saw it. Now, everything leaves the account and goes to savings, investing or mortgage before I have the opportunity to spend it. So, then I look at my account and I’m like, “Oh, cool. I can spend all this money if I want. Or I don’t have to. Whatever.” But yeah, automating just takes that decision off the table. And it just – I mean, aside from allowing us to be lazy, who doesn’t want to be lazy when it comes to money? It’s so much easier to not have to think about it. But even when it comes down to the decisions of how much we put towards debt and how much we invest, much easier to make a neutral decision via a plan than an emotional decision in the moment.

[00:32:26] TU: Absolutely. One of things I love about automation is it forces you to be intentional, right? We talked about that earlier. But if you’re going to be proactively planning and setting up some of these systems around automation, we’ve got to define the goals. We’re already looking at the budget and expenses. We’re those funds towards different buckets and the goals that we’ve identified. It really forces our hand to make sure that we’re being intentional, and obviously increasing the amount of conscious spending that we’re doing.

Jen, this has been great. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Where is the best place that our listeners can go to find you and to connect with you further?

[00:33:00] JS: Well, wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you can find Frugal Friends podcast. We release a new episode every Tuesday and Friday. And we also have an ebook with over 200 ways to save money. And that’s at frugalfriendspodcast.com/ebook. Yeah. And then we talk more about intentional spending on the show. So, it’s a full circle.

[00:33:22] TU: Thank you so much, and I appreciate it.

[00:33:24] JS: Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:33:26] TU: Before we wrap up today’s show, let’s hear an important message from our sponsor, Insuring Income. If you are in the market to add own-occupation disability insurance, term life insurance, or both, Insuring Income would love to be a resource. Insuring Income has relationships with all of the high-quality disability insurance and life insurance carriers you should be considering and can help you design coverage to best protect you and your family.

Head over to insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Or click on the link in the show notes to request quotes, ask a question, or start down your own path of learning more about this necessary protection.

[OUTRO]

[00:34:02] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacists podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 268: Buying a Home with Spiking Interest Rates, Inflation, and Market Insanity

Posted on August 11, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Buying a Home with Spiking Interest Rates, Inflation, and Market Insanity

Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPh and co-host of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, discusses how interest rates, inflation, and market insanity are impacting home buyers.

Episode Summary

On this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes Nate Hedrick, PharmD, back to the show to discuss inflation, interest rates, and the market insanity impacting home buyers in today’s market. Nate explains how the current interest rates may determine the affordability of homes for many buyers and how the change in interest rates can even price some buyers out of markets based on the monthly payment buyers face when purchasing a home. He shares that with interest rates rising, people may pay a similar monthly payment for a home of equal or lesser size if they consider moving right now, leaving many folks “locked in.” Nate shares insight into how inflation affects home buying behaviors concerning supply and demand. He sees two patterns playing out in the market. Buyers are getting into the market as quickly as possible to try to beat future inflation, as well as potential buyers opting out of buying homes at this time due to the increased cost of living and fears of continued increases impacting their budgets. Tim and Nate close out with questions from the YFP Facebook Group about investing strategy, finding “white coat” loans, and best practices for working with a realtor when relocating out of state.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

This we got a chance to welcome a friend of the show Nate Hedrick, the real estate RPh and cohost of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. On today’s episode, Nate and I discuss how interest rates, inflation, and market insanity are impacting homebuyers. Have a monthly payment at today’s interest rates is the same for $375,000 home, as it was about six months ago for a $500,000 home at lower rates. And how to find out more information on pharmacist’s home Loans, aka professional home loans, or doctor loans.

Now, buying a home or investment property is certainly an exciting experience but can feel overwhelming at times. Between finding an agent, securing your financing, and actually searching for a property. It’s hard to know where to start. And that’s why we’ve teamed up with my guests today, Nate Hedrick the real estate RPh, to provide a simple solution to jumpstart your home buying process. Through this concierge service, Nate will help you craft a plan, connect with a local agent that you trust, and stay by your side throughout the process to lend an ear for helping hand.

You can learn more about the free concierge service with Nate, and book a call by visiting yourfinancialpharmacist.com. Click on Home Buying at the top of the page, and then find an agent. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com, Home Buying at the top of the page, and then find an agent. All right, let’s jump into my interview with Nate Hedrick, your real estate RPh.

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:01:32] TU: Nate, welcome back to the show.

[00:01:34] NH: Hey, Tim. Always great to be here.

[00:01:35] TU: Really excited to have a conversation with you, as always, to tap in your expertise on what’s going on in the market more timely than ever right now. So, we’re going to talk about some of the market insanity, interest rates, inflation, the impact that that’s having for those that are looking at purchasing a home. But before we get to that, I’m dying to know, you made the transition since we last talked, a half time, in May. So, tell us more about that transition. Why you made that transition? Cutting back on some of your pharmacy work and what that has meant for you and your family?

[00:02:09] NH: Yeah, I had this moment I think I shared the last time we spoke. But I had this moment earlier last year where I realized that Lucy might, my eldest was going to be going to kindergarten in the fall, and just had this panic moment of like, “I’m missing everything. They’re growing up too fast.” So, my wife and I sat down and Kris and I really talked to a bunch about it and said, “Can we make this work? Can we cut back just to spend more time with them?” So, that’s exactly what we did. So, I cut back to half time, 20 hours a week, and it’s been a really awesome fit. We’ve been having a ton of time with the kids, taking them on vacations, doing fun, dad adventure, summer stuff. But I also feel like I’m still involved at work in a meaningful way, which is honestly the perfect balance for me right now. I’ve been loving this. It’s been great.

[00:02:50] TU: That’s awesome. Summer of being a dad, right?

[00:02:53] NH: Exactly. It’s been really cool. After we record this podcast, I think we’re going over to Memphis Kiddie Park. So, anybody from the Cleveland area that knows that, big shout outs. That’s where we’ll be after this, if you want to find me.

[00:03:03] TU: I love that. We have fond memories of that when we were up in the Cleveland area for about 10 years. So, that’s a great, great place for the kids. I’m going to link Nate in the show notes, we last talked on episode 254. We talked about home buying, search, what to do and what to avoid, including evaluating listings, why open houses exists, how to navigate that, how agents get paid, that’d be a great resource, especially for first time homebuyers. We’ve got a lot more content on the site, podcast, blog that Nate has contributed, related to home buying. So, make sure to check some of that out.

But today, as I mentioned, we’re going to be discussing buying a home in the midst of spiking interest rates, inflation, holy cow inflation, and market insanity. Shout out to David Bright, your cohost of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast for giving us the alliteration of the three I’s, interest rates, inflation and market insanity. That was his idea. So, I can’t take credit for that.

So, Nate, let’s start with interest rates. Where are we at, at the time of this recording, and end of July? We just had the Fed announced a hike of three quarters of a point. So, give us an update of where we’re at in terms of interest rates and where we might expect for some of this to be going.

[00:04:12] NH: Yeah, so if you’ve been living under a financial rock, you may have missed it. But for everybody else, obviously the interest rates have been going up. The Fed is raising those interest rates in an effort to fight our second I, inflation. As a result, we’re just seeing everything is costing a bit more in terms of lending. So right now, today, I look back, just in prep for this recording, and on 7/14, the 30-year fixed rate was running around 5.67% as a national average. If you look back even a year, it was under 4%, if not under 3%, in some extreme cases. So, we’re really starting to shoot up in terms of interest rate and it can really affect a number of things. It can affect affordability, and for a lot of people that means their monthly payment on a property or on a mortgage.

But it can also affect just lending in general, right? You might be pricing yourself out of a particular market. Because now, with the interest rates going up, you have a larger payment, which means you can’t afford the same size home, which means you might not be able to buy in the neighborhood you want to. So, there’s a number of things that are occurring as a result of that interest rate hike.

[00:05:16] TU: Yes, crazy, Nate. I think we’ve been spoiled. I graduated in ‘08, you graduated not too long after me. But we have been used to this ultra-low interest rate environment. So, I think some of this is just shocking to us. We talked to our parents and grandparents and they’re like, “5% 6%.” I remember numbers in the high teens, right? But we haven’t experienced that. And so, I think, this period of high inflation, we’re looking at 8%, 9% over the last year. What we’re seeing in interest rates, is really having a shock, and I think for many of us that look at things like monthly payment and budgets, especially for pharmacists that haven’t seen their pay necessarily expand proportionately, these things matter. They matter big time.

Let me give one example, Nate, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how folks are thinking about this that are in the buying process. But if someone is looking at a $400,000 home, and let’s assume a 30-year fixed rate loan, just a couple years ago, 3% was not too far out of the equation in terms of a 30-year fixed rate loan. That’d be a monthly payment of just shy of $1,700 a month, or about $600,000, that they would pay for that $400,000 home over the life of the loan.

Fast forward, if we use five and a half percent, which were actually a little bit higher than that right now. But if we use five and a half percent, instead of 3%, we look at a monthly payment of closer to 2,300 instead of 1,700. So, about a $600 difference. And instead of $600,000 paid out of pocket over the life of the loan, we’re looking at a little over $800,000 paid out of pocket over the life of the loan. I would suspect, Nate, that for many folks, while that $200,000 difference over 30 years is somewhat shocking, it’s probably that monthly amount that really folks are looking at most right now. Is that right?

[00:07:01] NH: I think so, too. I’ll put a kind of a similar example to you that I’ve been using recently. If you’ve got a monthly payment on a $500,000 loan today, at three and a half percent. So really, common. Lots of people out there have this. In fact, over 50% of mortgage owners or homeowners today have a mortgage interest rate less than 4%, that’s a national stat. If you’re at $500,000 loan at three and a half percent, your monthly payment is 20 to 45. That exact same payment is what you would get today on a $375,000 house at 6% interest.

So, we’ve got people out there who are maybe living in a $500,000 home or have a $500,000 loan, thinking about downsizing saying, “Oh, I sell this property off, I built up a lot of equity, we’re going to move to a smaller home, $375,000 house.” But you’re going to have the exact same payment in that new home. So, it’s really starting to affect the market. Because if I’m that person, and I’m thinking about selling, why would you sell? You’re just giving away your equity for free and it makes it really tough when you start to break down that monthly payment.

[00:08:07] TU: Yeah, that’s a really powerful example, because I think all of us can relate to scrolling through Redfin, and Zillow and realtor.com. Looking at homes at different values, but when you start to factor in the interest rates and pay a $500,000, home at what was three and a half percent, same as about a $375,000 home today, wow, like that really starts to put it in into perspective.

So, Nate, when I think about inflation, and think about interest rates, a lot of this, especially when we were talking about kind of the impact of the economy, a lot of this becomes a snowball type of effect, where when I hear that 50% of folks that have a mortgage are under 4%, and then conduct that with the calculation you just gave, that has to be furthering the supply and demand issue, right? Because if I’m in the home on that right now. My wife, Jessica, and I were locked in at 3%. Maybe we’re itching for something different, new home, new area, whatever, you quickly look at the math and the numbers. You’re like, “Wow, we’re going to give up a lot on home to be able to make that move. And is it really worth it financially, considering, maybe equity that we built up over time?”

So, I would imagine this is just furthering the previous issues we’ve talked about around supply and demand. Is that fair?

[00:09:18] NH: Yeah. I don’t know that I have empiric evidence of this. But I think when you run the numbers like that, and sit back and think about it, it makes a ton of sense. If I’m thinking about – even if I’m thinking about moving across town, because I want a different location of house or I want a slightly bigger house, when you run that math, it almost becomes, “Well, maybe we’ll make this work for a while longer”, because it seems terrible to move right now. I don’t want to do that. There are no houses available and I’m paying more every single month for either exactly what I have now or for a slightly bigger home. So, it feels like people are going to be – I’ve actually heard this term thrown around recently called, locked in, where like you said, I’m locked into an interest rate. Why would I bother moving when I’m sitting on this for 30 years at a lower rate?

[00:09:59] TU: Yeah. I think the question that everyone has is like, is this the new norm? Are we going to see returns to lower rates? Because I think often folks might look at that and say, “Well, maybe I do make that move for X, Y, or Z reasons, and I hope to refinance in the future.” But the question is, like, are rates going to go up? Are they going to go down? Again, in the future, no one knows. But certainly, as we think about this, from a financial planning perspective, when we zoom out for a moment, we certainly don’t want to be banking on rates going down and refinancing a later point. If that happens, great. We increase some of the cash flow, but we want to be making sure that this fits into the budget, as is, in case that does not happen into the future.

[00:10:38] NH: And you said something earlier too, that’s super important is that, this is – we’re spoiled, right? Every one of us that’s sitting in our current generation looking at interest rates, we’re spoiled with the low ones, right? We’re spoiled at 3%. So, five and a half, 6%, seems very high. But I think that will actually become pretty normal again. I think that over time, we’re going to realize that that is actually where we’re going to end up. Like you said, waiting for them to come back down to these pre-4% rates, don’t hold your breath, I guess is my point.

[00:11:09] TU: Speaking of being spoiled, Nate, inflation, our second I is a category we’ve been spoiled as well, again, thinking of my peers that graduated around the time we did, or perhaps even sooner than that. Other folks that have been in their career for longer have experienced higher inflation time periods. But we’re at a point in time where inflation is the highest it’s ever been, and I think we’re looking at a 40-year period. The Consumer Price Index, rose a little over 9%, from a year ago. Perhaps we’re at the peak, perhaps we’re not. But you’re probably feeling this firsthand. I know, our family is, with our four boys, food bills are insane. Obviously, we know a gas has been doing.

So, my question here is, how is this rising inflation on top of rising interest rates in a competitive market? How is this factoring into the equation?

[00:11:58] NH: Yeah, I think from a real estate perspective, it’s doing two things. One is you’ve got some people who have FOMO, right? They’re afraid of missing out, so they are trying to jump in quickly, which is keeping demand up. Where I’m looking at this and saying, inflation is only going to get worse, real estate is basically the inverse of inflation, right? It’s inverse or it’s protected against inflation in some capacity. So, I want to get into a house now, while interest rates are still reasonable. I think they’re going to rise and inflation is going up and up. So, again, I think that’s keeping demand quite high.

We’ve also got people who are looking at it and saying, “I was at the top of my budget before, now I’m spending all this extra money on gas and food and everything else, maybe I’m going to take a step back and see what happens in the next six months. Because this is getting out of hand and I don’t want to buy in right now, where it might get worse, and then I can’t even afford this property.” So, I think we’re seeing both halves of that – both sides of that coin, and it’s keeping demand up in certain areas. But also, having some buyers step back and others.

[00:13:00] TU: Are you seeing, Nate, in conversations you’re having with prospective buyers, are you seeing a significant shift in the wish list and the expectations for home? You and I have talked about this before, but I think of my parents’ generation, and that idea of very much a starter home and I grew up in a – it worked, it was great, but it was certainly much smaller than the home that Jess and our boys live in, in terms of number of bedrooms, and space and size and finished areas, and all those types of amenities. And it really wasn’t until I graduated high school and was in college that they really took that step to the home, I would say they would categorize as their forever home. But we definitely have seen a shift, where that idea of like that forever home is coming much earlier in one’s career.

So, is this causing for many folks like a shift in expectations of, “Hey, maybe that idea of let’s get into a home doesn’t have everything we have or want. We can grow into it and maybe we look at pivoting in 5 to 10 years.” Are you hearing more of that?

[00:14:00] NH: I don’t know. I’m only an n of one, right? So, it’s a hard perspective to give. For me, I’m not seeing it affecting first time homebuyers that much. I feel like most of those individuals are looking at it and saying, “I want to get into a house. Here’s what I can afford.” And then you just kind of look at the market and see okay, well what does a $300,000 house actually get me and how many things can I get on my wish list? Yeah, where I am seeing it start to impact my clients is on the investment side. That interest rate is really, and inflation in general because of price of materials, price of contractors, price of everything is going up. It’s really starting to affect that wish list, right? I don’t want to be doing as much rehab work. I don’t want to be doing as big of a project potentially.

So that, I’m seeing change in terms of wish list. But right now, anyway, I think as a first-time homebuyer, this stuff doesn’t come up as much. You just kind of look at your budget, you work out the numbers, and then you look for houses. I don’t know that people are that intentional as you and I would be looking at something like this.

[00:14:59] TU: Yeah, and that makes sense, because of exactly what you said. If I’m starting a home buying search, I’m looking at my budget, I’m looking at the numbers, and then I’m putting those filters into whatever tool I’m using, and you’re then evaluating from there, what’s the best fit for you and your family. So, maybe for some folks that have been searching for a couple years, they can really, really see like, “Oh, my gosh, $300,000, $400,000 does not go as far as it did.” Obviously, just –

[00:15:24] NH: Yeah. Anybody with a pulse on the market is definitely seeing that, for sure.

[00:15:27] TU: Yeah. So, our third our I, market insanity. So, if we put together interest rates, we put together inflation, what are we seeing? I mean, national headlines, it feels like we’re seeing kind of a cooling off in the market. Your boots on the ground. We’ve talked about some supply and demand types of impacts. What have we seen in terms of the impact of interest rates and inflation on what seems to have been a very hot and active market over the last couple years?

[00:15:52] NH: Yeah, I still think it’s a pretty hot market. It’s shifting in subtle ways, though. So, the two big things that I’m seeing is, again, you’re seeing national headlines about like price decreases in certain areas. I think with a lot of that price decrease is coming from, is places that were previously overpriced, or at the top end of a particular market threshold. So, if I’m looking at a neighborhood where all the houses are $250,000 or so, yeah, and somebody fixes up a place, lists it for 300 grand. Well, a year ago, that probably would have sold like that, and somebody would have paid over asking, over appraised value and not cared, right? Because that was just the market that we were in.

Today, those are not selling. People are not as able to overpay for a property as they were a year ago. So, I’m seeing those houses be the ones that get the price decreases, the people who are trying to be greedy for lack of a better word, and trying to tap into that crazy market, those are the ones that I’m seeing get danged.

The other area I’m seeing some shifting or some slowdown, is in the property that need a ton of work. So again, with the market we had 6, 12 months ago, even if your property was really in disrepair, you could usually get away with selling it pretty quickly. There were tons of investors out there, tons of capital, lending was super cheap, everybody wanted to buy something. So, you could get away with that, right? Someone would buy it, they would fix it up themselves and do something with it.

Well, now, with interest rates where they are, it’s harder to refinance out of that. You don’t know what the next six months is going to look like. So, I’m seeing investors who would have taken on $100,000 projects, $200,000 projects, are just stepping completely away from those. So, I’m seeing a lot of properties that are at that bottom end, that need a bunch of help. And they’re just sitting there and nothing’s being done to them.

[00:17:33] TU: That makes sense. That makes sense. I want to pivot here for a little bit, and a few years ago, you helped us put together a really awesome first-time home buying guide, we’ll link to that in the show notes. It’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homebuying, and you go through six steps for the first-time homebuyer. What I want to do is pick your brain a little bit of when you wrote that, the time period you were in, right now, are two very different time periods. I think as we look back on that now, different market in terms of buyer’s market, seller’s market, obviously, some of the factors that we’ve talked about here today and it’s just different.

So, as we look at some of these factors around being ready, and looking at what’s important, and negotiation, and inspections, and all those types of things, it’s a different landscape that we’re in today. So, I’m going to pick your brain here on a few moments of some of this. The first step, Nate, that you talked about in that guide, is make sure you’re ready. Know your budget, thinking about other debt, debt to income ratios. We’ve talked before in the show, but I want to highlight again, the 28/36 rule from a lending perspective. What is it, first of all, and what’s changed over the past couple of months, or even just the past year as it relates to lending? As folks are looking at, what they may or may not get approved for?

[00:18:48] NH: Yeah, great questions, Tim. So, the 28/36 rule, just to kind of highlight that for a second is the idea that lenders are going to look at your debt to income ratio, and give you an idea, a lending decision based on that number. So, what the 28/36 rule says is that you cannot spend more than 28% of your gross monthly income on housing expenses, and no more than 36% of your gross monthly income on all debt. What that can look like for, again, just to put a pharmacist’s example out there, is that if I’m adding up all my outstanding debts, meaning student loan, meaning the debt from my mortgage, anything that is a monthly payment, I had to pay credit card debt, you name it, it’s getting turned into that. And if that number exceeds 36% of my total gross income, they may deny you for that property.

So, those rules are still in place for a conventional loan established by – it’s backed up by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. But what we’re starting to see, the shift that I’ve been seeing, at least over the last –even going further back six, eight months ago, is letters that were kind of playing with that rule a little bit, using non-conventional products for certain individuals to try to get them into properties that they could afford, and really trying to push that limit. So, again, those rules are still in place. They absolutely need to be there for Fannie and Freddie Mac lending. But it is starting to shift a little bit in terms of the types of loans that lenders are offering up or that they are recommending to buyers, because there might be alternatives that can help them.

One of the things I’m seeing a ton of right now is lenders pushing arm products, adjustable rate mortgages, where that 28/36 rule might not apply, right? Where you’re going to have an adjustable rate after three years, or five years or seven. So, there’s changes in what’s going on in terms of the types of lending, but a lot of those rules are still in place.

[00:20:29] TU: Which is a really good place to remind folks that, as we’ve hit so many times on the show before, you really have to drive your budget and think about how this is fitting into the rest of your financial plan, especially, as prices are going up. If you are looking at a non-conventional product that increases that amount that you’re able to land, does it still fit within the context of your budget or not?

Nate, for those that are listening that have now had their student loans on pause for more than two years on the federal side, and we’re awaiting momentarily some updates on that, about the extension or not. Remind us of how those have been factored in? Or how lenders are looking at the loans where they have been making a payment.

[00:21:12] NH: Yeah, so it’s tricky, because the lenders can’t see that exactly right. So, they see that you’re paying zero, but that doesn’t tell them what they’re actually going to be paying. So, what I’ve seen from lenders, and again, not a lender, so don’t quote me on this exactly, but what I’m seeing from lenders right now is that they are trying to basically guess at what your payment is going to be. If you have past records you can provide them with and say, “Look, my normal payment is $1,400 a month, but now I’m paying zero.” They’re factoring that in. They know these are coming back at some point. If they’re wrong, if they don’t come back, for whatever reason, better to err on the side of caution.

So, those are still being factored in. You absolutely should factor that into your budget, because again, best case scenario, these go away somehow, or they get reduced or whatever. But you got to plan for that worst-case potential of these payments come back and they come back in full force.

[00:22:01] TU: That makes sense. Related to the making sure you’re ready in the budget, the other question I have for you is on the down payment. I would think in theory, that as home prices go up, as people are feeling stretched more month to month and budget, there might be more folks that are looking at some of those non-conventional options, where they’re not having to put 20% down on a conventional loan. Simple math, right? If you were a few years ago, looking at a $300,000 home, you’re looking at $60,000 down, 20%. $500,000 home, let’s say in today’s kind of market of what it is, obviously, that’s $100,000. So, that’s a significant difference in cash that you’re foregoing.

And so, folks are looking at, okay, not only is the potential for the down payment going to be higher, but also, we’re looking at a monthly cash flow difference because of interest rates. Are we seeing or do you anticipate seeing more folks are looking at some more of those non-conventional products where they’re having to put less down, and looking at different loan types that are out there?

[00:22:56] NH: Yeah, for sure. I think especially with the raising prices of homes in general, people who are sitting in the sidelines trying to save up enough money, they’re seeing their actual ratio of money saved versus down payment needed, decreasing as they fill up their account, right? And that’s just because the prices of homes are outpacing the ability they have to save. So absolutely, we’re seeing more people use those lower down payment options.

I was just talking to a lender yesterday or the day before, and he said he’s actually have a ton of pharmacists who are using FHA lending right now, not because they have bad credit or need FHA –pieces that come with FHA, but because they can do it at three and a half percent down. And so again, it’s interesting to see how things are shifting based on the rising interest rates and the increases in overall home values.

[00:23:42] TU: Nate, one of the other things we talked about in that guide, as well, as negotiating. Step five, you talked about find your home and negotiate. What leverage, if any, does exist in this current market of negotiation? Are we starting to see, in some cases, you mentioned just a few moments ago, that there may be scenarios where some homes that were just flying off the market are going for less than asking? Is there any place for negotiation in today’s market?

[00:24:08] NH: There is. It’s better than it was, certainly. I think, in those two areas that I mentioned before, the bottom of the market, and the very top, there’s a little more flexibility now. That middle zone, though, is still absolutely crazy. I’m seeing properties that when they come up, and they’re nice and priced appropriately, they’re still 10 offers and it’s inspections being waived, and all the other craziness that goes with it. So, it depends on where you’re buying. But absolutely. I’ve had a client recently that was able to get a pretty good deal on an investment property, just because they were buying a place that needed a lot more work and nobody else wanted to touch it. So, they were looking a pretty good deal on that.

[00:24:47] TU: You mentioned inspection waivers in those cases where there still are multiple offers, and that was my question for you as well is, have we seen any of that cooling off? Where there’s inspection waivers, we talked about appraisal gaps, people might need some cash, more cash at that table than they were anticipating. Is that cooling off at all? Or, again, just market specific type of property and the amount of demand that’s there?

[00:25:08] NH: Yeah, it’s pretty market specific. I was just speaking with a pharmacist last night, that is actually a pharmacist and her husband. And her husband is a structural engineer. He was looking at a property for a client, that the piers under the house, were leaning 20% or something crazy. Again, they probably waived inspections before they bought that property. And now, it’s a big problem. So, it’s still out there. It’s very market specific, but it’s still being done, and I still do not recommend it.

[00:25:37] TU: Again, if folks want to download that guide, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/homebuying. We’ll link to that in the show notes.

Nate, I want to pivot to a few questions that we got from the YFP community in our Facebook group, leading up to this episode, and if folks are not yet a part of that group, I would encourage you to join that awesome community more than 8,000 pharmacists across the country that are asking great questions engaging with one another, challenging one another, sharing wins, and so we’ll link to that in the show notes as well.

First question we have from the group for you is how are you changing your strategy for investment properties, given the current conditions that we’ve discussed on the show?

[00:26:12] NH: Yeah, so me personally, the biggest change that I’m seeing is just planning for interest rates to continue to increase. So again, if you talk to me a year ago, I was all in on BRRRR investing, right, the idea of buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. I still love the idea of BRRRR investing, but it’s getting more difficult because you’re talking about buying a property today. If you’re doing it with cash, or you’re doing it with even a mortgage that you’re going to then change down the road, that mortgage down the road, you know it’s going to be a higher interest rate and it’s hard to predict how high it’s going to be. So, it makes it a little trickier to make sure that your numbers are getting right.

So, we actually had a property that we’re dealing with right now. I actually just posted about this in the YFP REI Facebook groups, take a look, that we were going back and forth about whether or not we’re going to sell it, or rent it. When we bought it, it was all in. Like we were going to rent it, we were going to BRRRR it, we were going to cash out, refi. Well, if we cash out and refi’d today, with the amount of work that we put in, we’d be doubling our loan amount and doubling our interest rate. And again, because we bought it with a mortgage upfront, and then we were going to cash out, refi to a second mortgage or different mortgage. That strategy, basically, it could work, but it would totally destroy our cash flow. So, we made a decision to just leave it alone. We’re going to let that money kind of sit in the property for a while, as holding equity, and figure it out later if there’s a better time to refinance. So, it’s changing my philosophy in that way a little bit, but I’m sure it’s impacting others similarly.

[00:27:37] TU: That question actually came from Jenny, who we’ll link in the show notes. But Jenny White, we featured on the YFP Podcast Episode 148, how her and Mike got started in real estate investing. And you and David have also talked with Jenny and her husband, Mike, on the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, episode five. So, we’ll make sure to link to both of those in the show notes.

Second question is how to find white coat home loans? This question comes from Cassie. So, referring you here to Dr. Loans, pharmacist home loans, there’s different terms that are thrown out there. But quickly, Nate, what are those loans? And then information on where folks can find that?

[00:28:12] NH: Yeah, absolutely. So, there are loans that again, would typically fall into the conventional realm. But there’s different parameters out there for certain types of buyers. The ones that Cassie is referring to here are again, called professional loans or physician’s loans or pharmacist loans. The idea is that because of your profession, because of your potential of earned income, banks look at you a little bit different. They’re giving you basically some credit for the potential of your earned income. So, they’ll maybe give you a break on interest rate, or oftentimes, what we see is that they have very low-down payment options is the most common type.

We at YFP, have worked with first horizons in the past. There are many other loan officers out there, loan lenders out there that will do this type of investing or this type of lending, excuse me. But the idea is the same, where I can get a pharmacist home loan at two and a half or three and a half or 5% down only, but it has more conventional terms where I’m not paying PMI, I’m not getting hit on my interest rate, again, because of that potential earned income down the road. So, definitely worth looking at. I know we’ve got some great resources on the YFP page for accessing first horizons. And again, there are other investor or pharmacist friendly lenders out there as well.

[00:29:25] TU: Yeah, if folks want to learn more about that, you can go to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan. We’ll link to that in the show notes. And typically, Nate, just to build on that a little bit is usually there’s minimum credit scores that are involved in their maximum loan amounts, so folks can look at that based on region they’re in, budget, what they’re looking at. So, another resource I’d point to is the white coat investor has a list of some of the doctor loans that are out there. Many don’t offer that to pharmacists, but some do. So, to Nate’s point, there are several options that are out there.

Our third question, Nate, comes from Ivana and she asks advice on how to interact with a realtor when relocating to a different state and seeing homes in a relatively short period of time. What are the right questions to ask during that home buying process? That’s a great question.

[00:30:09] NH: Yeah, it is. And it’s something that we actually deal with quite a bit, where you get a pharmacist that’s maybe finishing residency, for example, and then moving across country for a job, or vice versa. They’re moving from their home state, and they’re going out for residency, and hopefully a future job, and they’re looking at buying. So, it makes it really tough. I’ve done this before with other clients, and generally, the recommendation I gave is figure out first what your level of comfort is, right? So, do you need to see that property in person to feel comfortable with it? If the answer is yes, then you’re going to have to do a lot more coordination of okay, realtor, we’re going to be in town for Saturday and Sunday, I need you to set up for showings on Saturday, five on Sunday, and we’re going to just go whirlwind look at all these. Or are you going to be comfortable giving an idea to your agent of what you’re looking for, and then doing video walkthroughs or virtual walkthroughs.

So, I think stepping back and looking at your own perspective of what is my comfort level, and then finding an agent that’s going to be able to work with you at that comfort level. I think that’s super important. So, I’ve worked with clients that do both, that want to fly out, or drive out and see the properties themselves. I’ve worked with those that are like, “Hey, send me some videos, Nate, post them into a Google Doc, and I’ll look at him after I get off at work.” It’s your level of comfort. I think the questions to ask is around that level of comfort. So, if you decide one way or the other, how am I going to work with that agent within that realm that I’m looking to follow.

[00:31:29] TU: And that question is a great segue, Nate, into the YFP home buying concierge process that you lead, and we’ll link to that in the show notes, and we mentioned it in the introduction as well. Folks can go to our web page, yourfinancialpharmacist.com, click on Home Buying, find an agent, and they’ll see Nate’s face and more information about the work that he’s doing to connect individuals that are looking to purchase a home with an agent in their area that has been vetted, and that certainly aligns with what Nate talks about here on this show, and the educational strategy that he has. So, Nate, tell us about that service. I’m looking to buy a home, I’m looking for an agent, perhaps it’s a situation like Ivana, where it’s relocating to a different state, or perhaps it’s even in their area where they’re not already connected with an agent. What’s involved and how can they get connected with you?

[00:32:15] NH: Yeah, the whole goal of this service is really take the guesswork out of finding a really high quality agent. So, we’re going to go out and actually interview agents on your behalf, or we’ve worked with those agents before with other pharmacist clients. So, we can get you connected with that individual free of charge, so that you can get off and running on the right foot, and not have to worry about does this person have my best interests in mind? Are they just trying to get me to buy and move on? Right? We’re looking for people who are going to be interested in building relationships, who know how to communicate, know how to deal with the pharmacist busy schedule, and are going to listen to what your actual needs are. Not just how do I get this person to buy a house as fast as possible.

So again, the whole idea of that service is that you’re going to meet with me for 30-minute planning call, maybe even less, and we’re going to talk through things like budget. We’re going to talk through goals, must haves, answer any questions you have about the home buying process, and then we can use that information to get you connected with an agent who is going to be a really good fit for you.

The other cool thing about the services that we don’t go away, once you connect with that agent. We remain on your team. I remain on your team, so that if you’ve got questions or just want a second opinion from somebody, you know who to come back to, and you can get that from somebody who has that experience on both the pharmacist side and the real estate side. So, definitely recommend checking that out. It’s a great way. If you don’t know where to get started, it’s an awesome place to jump in.

[00:33:32] TU: And again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com. Click on Home Buying, find an agent, you’ll see more information there. And Nate, I would point folks to Episode 160, where you interviewed Bryce Platt and Shelby Bennett talking about their experience going through the home buying process with the YFP concierge service that you lead. So, folks are looking at more information on what it is, as well as other pharmacists that have had that experience and talking through that experience. Make sure to check out Episode 160 on the YFP podcast.

Nate, as always, I love having your perspective on this very important topic for the YFP community. So, thank you so much for taking time.

[00:34:06] NH: Yeah, Tim. Thanks for having me here.

[OUTRO]

[00:34:08] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

[END]

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YFP 267: Second Half of 2022…Are You on Track?

Posted on August 4, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

Second Half of 2022…Are You on Track?

Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, flies solo to talk through a five-step system you can implement to set and achieve your goals to finish 2022 strong.

Episode Summary

In this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, YFP Co-founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, takes a moment to reflect on the first half of 2022, revisit goals from the start of the year, and prepare for the second half of 2022. He talks through a five-step system you can implement to set and achieve your goals and finish the year strong. As Tim works through this goal-setting exercise, listeners can follow along with a template provided in the show notes, completing it while listening to the episode. Tim reminds listeners to build S.M.A.R.T. goals during this exercise for health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, financial, intellectual, business or career, and relationships and family aspects of their lives.

Tim’s five-step system includes the following key components to successfully setting and reaching your goals for 2022 and years to come:

Step 1: The 10-Year Heck Yeah
Step 2: The ‘So What?!’ Check
Step 3: The 1- Year Mile Markers
Step 4: Accountability
Step 5: Implementation

Tim dives into each step, explaining the value each provides in meeting your goals and how to move through them with intention. In the implementation step, Tim shares a powerful visualization practice for motivation.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

On this week’s episode, I’m flying solo to talk through a system, five steps that you can implement to set and achieve your goals and finish 2022 strong. Before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 260 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com. Whether or not YFP Planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. All right, let’s jump into this week’s show.

[EPISODE]

[00:01:04] TU: So we’re officially past the halfway point of the year. We’re in the month of August. We’ve got five months left in 2022. By now, any goals that we’ve set at the start of the year may be a distant memory. I suspect we can all relate to times when we fell victim to the cycle where we set big goals. It’s the New Year. We’re excited. We have that initial momentum. We then fall into old habits. And soon enough, we give up on those goals, and perhaps we picked that cycle up again the next year.

The mid-year point or just past that is a great opportunity to dust off the goals, to do some self-reflection and determine the path forward to finish 2022 strong. Well, it’s valuable to reflect and identify opportunities for improvement. It’s not valuable to dwell in shame and judgment of yourself. Rather, it’s a chance that we can pivot. We can take responsibility for the actions that we’re going to take going forward.

So if you’re looking for a jolt of motivation for the second half of 2022, let me encourage you to set aside a few hours to work through an activity that I’m going to talk through on this show. I promise, the return on investment of your time will be worth it. I’m going to walk through a five-step process to set and achieve your goals, and this is going to correspond with a template that you can use to follow along and to fill in for your own goals. You can download that template by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals.

We’re going to talk about several different areas of our personal and professional lives. Yes, this is a financial podcast. Of course, we’ll include financial goals in there. But we’re also going to talk about other domains that I suspect are very important to all of us, whether it be health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, intellectual, and so on. So let’s walk through these five steps. Again, you can download that template, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals, and you can follow along and fill in the information yourself.

All right, step number one is the 10-year heck yeah, the 10-year heck yeah. So we need to start with this 10-year vision, and we need to dream a bit because short term goals without an inspiring vision will quickly fall off as a casualty of the busyness of life and our tendency to be led by our motivations, right? I mentioned the cycle before, where we set big goals, we get some initial momentum, we fall into old habits, and then we give up on those goals. So we need a bold vision that’s going to transcend us to be able to continue on, even when our motivations may not be where you want them.

I love this passage written by James Allen from the book As a Man Thinketh when he says, “Dream lofty dreams. And as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” Now, I’ve done this activity enough times with former students, residents, and colleagues to know that some prompts here are helpful. I get it, right? 10 years down the road is hard to imagine when the here and now can be overwhelming enough.

So use the following statement to get you started with crafting this 10-year vision for each of the domains that you’re going to see listed in that table, right? So financial, social and community, health and physical fitness. We’re going to set a 10-year heck yeah for each one of those domains. So here is the prompt. If I fast forward to August 2032, 10 years from now, what things need to happen with my – Insert the domain, right? So it could be with my health and physical fitness, with my financial situation. What things need to happen that would leave me feeling heck yeah?

So if I fast forward 10 years to August 2032, what things need to happen that will leave me feeling heck yeah? We want to think about that in each of those domains; health and physical fitness, social and community, spiritual and mental health, financial, intellectual, business, career, and relationships and family. For example, when I think about 10 years from now in the health and physical fitness category, one that’s really important to me, I close my eyes, and I visualize myself being 10 years older. That puts me at 48. It sounds really old, saying that out loud, 10 years older.

At the age of 48, I’ve got my four boys who are now 21, 19, 17, and 14. Now, when I think about what would make up a 10-year heck yeah in this domain of health and physical fitness, I envision that I’m in better shape than I am now, and I’m competing in various events that validate I can get stronger and healthier as I get older. More specifically, I’m screaming heck yeah, if the following are true 10 years from today, August 2032. I’ve completed an Ironman triathlon. It’s one of my big goals. I’ve hired a personal trainer and nutrition coach, and I’ve created a schedule that allows me to spend a couple of hours most days of the week shopping for and cooking fresh meals, something I love to do and would like to do more often if time weren’t a thing.

Those three things, if I visualize 10 years from now, August 2032, I’ve completed an Ironman race. I’ve hired a personal trainer and nutrition coach. I’ve created a schedule that has a couple hours a week that allows me to be able to shop and cook for meals each day. If those things are happening, that’s a heck yeah. That gets me excited.

Okay, it’s your turn. So visualize 10 years from now in each of the domains that I mentioned. Again, you can download the worksheet to continue to follow along. As you begin to visualize, I want you to take a walk. Reflect on these. Dream a little bit. Don’t hold back and do not rush this step because this is going to serve as the motivation and energy that’s going to drive your one-year goals that we’ll talk about here in a moment, and it’s also going to drive the daily actions that we take. So that’s step number one, is we’re looking at the 10-year heck yeah. That’s our motivation. That’s our compass.

Step number two is the so what check, the so what check. Now that we’ve defined our 10-year heck yeah, it’s time to check to see if that 10-year vision is inspiring enough. So for each of the domains, I want you to fill in what is the next column of the worksheet, which is your so what. So this should answer the question why is achieving this 10-year vision so important. Why is achieving this 10-year vision so important, right? This is the so what.

Let your responses to this so what sink in for a while. Because if you revisit them, and they don’t make you feel like you could run through a brick wall, it’s time to challenge whether or not you’re thinking big enough for 10 years into the future. Now, if I go back to my previous example related to my health and physical fitness, when I say out loud and visualize that I’ve completed an Ironman, I have a personal trainer and a nutrition coach, and I have a schedule that allows me to spend time each week preparing meals, it brings a smile to my face.

When I think about my so what, my so what is that I’m able to keep up with my four boys. My so what is it I’m in better shape heading into my 50s than I was heading into my 30s. My so what is that I’m more productive than ever in my work, in the business with YFP, in expanding our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom because I know how connected my physical health and fitness is to my ability and capacity to work and to work well.

Now, one last thing here is don’t hold the 10-year vision and the so what responses to yourself. Talking these out loud with a significant other, a friend, or colleague helps bring a different perspective. There’s something valuable that happens when we articulate our dreams. It either further confirms our energy and enthusiasm, or it exposes some BS or some clarification needed, such that we have to go back to the drawing board and refine them further. So that’s step number two, the so what check on our 10-year vision.

Step number three is the one-year mile markers, the one-year mile markers. So once we set that 10-year vision and confirm that we’re thinking big enough with the so what, it’s time to get some traction with specific mile markers that we can measure and that we’re confident, if achieved, will put us a step closer to achieving our 10-ear goal. Now, here we are, a little bit less than six months out from the start of 2023. So if you’d like to operate on a clean calendar year, think of these as the five-month mile markers or the half-year mile markers. You can then redo this activity heading into 2023.

Now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed at this point, keep it simple with one goal, one mile marker in each domain. But if you’re feeling inspired, consider adding a couple of extra but be careful. I would recommend no more than three in each area. Let’s not forget to write these goals in a smart format, right? This has been drilled into all of us at one or more times throughout our training in our career.

A quick refresher on smart goals, they should be specific, they should be measurable, they should be achievable, they should be relevant, and they should be time-bound. So let me give you a nerdy financial example of a smart goal because that’s what we do best at YFP. So instead of saying something like, “I want to have more saved for unexpected health care expenses,” I could instead reframe this as, “By December 31st, 2022, Jess and I will max out our HSA by contributing $7,300.”

Or better yet, we can add a why to this goal. So it may say, “By December 31st, 2022, Jess and I will max out our HSA by contributing $7,300 so that we can have peace of mind that unexpected health care expenses will not cause unnecessary stress and eat into our emergency fund or other savings.” Now, this goal was top of mind because of our four boys, their physical nature, energy and love for wrestling one another. That’s a recipe for visits to the ER. Thankfully, knock on wood, we haven’t had many yet. But we’re expecting those expenses will come at some point.

Now, going back to my previous example on health and physical fitness, the following are the one-year mile markers, the one-year targets that will put me on the path towards the 10-year vision. By July 31st, 2022, I’m going to complete an Olympic triathlon, which is about a quarter of an Ironman. By December 31st, I’m going to complete 260 cardio sessions that are divided between biking, swimming, and running. So it’s an average of five per week. And by December 31st, I’m going to evaluate three nutritionist options for consideration in 2023. This would include price offering, scope of work, and so on. That’s step number three. We have to be able to bring that 10-year vision and the so what into a one-year vision. So we need one-year mile markers, and that’s what we’re doing in step number three.

Step number four is accountability. So we’ve inspired a 10-year vision, we’ve challenged that vision with the so what in step number two, and we now have one-year mile markers to ensure that we stay on track. So let’s keep rolling. We all know from personal experience that goals plus accountability equals an increased likelihood of success. Goals plus accountability equals an increased likelihood of success. We see this every day at YFP, specifically with one-on-one planning that’s offered by the incredible team at YFP Planning. So folks come to us with big visions, big personal financial goals, and we’re able to provide some of the guidance, some of the expertise, and the accountability to help individuals achieve those goals through one-on-one comprehensive financial planning.

As we talk about accountability here in step number four, we need to ensure that we don’t internalize our goals, and that we have a system and a plan for accountability. Now, this is not simply a person or a group of people. It needs to be more intentional than that. For example, my wife, Jess, is a huge accountability partner for me. But if I simply list here in step number four that Jess is my accountability plan, that ain’t going to cut it, right? I need to get more specific.

For example, once a month, I’m going to review my goals and progress for Jess. This keeps me accountable, knowing that I’m going to update her each month. It also challenges her in her own journey and ensures we can get on the same page with knocking down any barriers to success, whether that be scheduling conflicts, watching the boys, and so on. Now, I would challenge you to find an accountability partner that is at least, if not more, on fire than you are about living an intentional life, someone that will challenge and push you along their own journey. So that’s step number four is accountability.

Then step number five, it’s time to implement. It’s time to make these one-year mile markers a reality. Remember, that’s our focus because we’ve written them in a way that if achieved will put us on the path towards our 10-year heck yeah. So after you populate that table, and again as a reminder, you can do that by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals to get a copy of that table. After you populate the table, print it off and put it somewhere visible. Build this into a daily or weekly rhythm that allows you to see these on a regular basis and be reminded of why you are trying to strive towards these goals. We need to ensure that the hard work that we just did doesn’t end up on a piece of paper that gets put away somewhere in a drawer.

If we can develop a system to remind ourselves regularly of our goals, they start to become ever present in our thoughts. When this happens, this is your signal that you’re on the right path. Because we want these to become so second nature that we begin to visualize and see them as a reality, not as a hope, a wish, or a dream. Now, there are many ways to remind yourself of these goals, but let me suggest one that I have found to be most impactful, and that is to incorporate the review of these goals into a morning routine in a way that they can be visualized.

Not too long ago, I established this a part of my morning routine where I record and listen to these words each morning, along with some other affirmations and truths that I have to be reminded of every day because there’s something powerful about hearing your own voice, encouraging yourself to strive towards the things that you’ve determined to be most important. It provides incredible energy and fuel to the day.

For example, back to the example around health and physical fitness, I would say something along the lines of, “Tim, visualize the following. At the end of July of 2020, you’re in the best shape of your life because you’ve just crossed the finish line of an Olympic triathlon, arms high in the air. The boys are beaming with joy seeing their dad complete this race and want to do one themselves.”

Now, just hearing those words make me smile, and I can’t wait to cross that finish line two weeks coming up this Sunday at the time of recording this, when I complete my first triathlon because it started as a dream in the fall 2022 and is nearing reality, all from setting a vision with a strong so what that led to the daily habits over the past six months that have prepared me for this race.

My challenge for you is it’s time to make the most of tomorrow. Start by designing what you want tomorrow to look like, rather than reacting to what the day brings. I hope you found this episode helpful. I’m looking forward to a great second half of 2022. Again, I would encourage you to download that template, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/goals. As always, thank you so much for listening and have a great rest of your week.

[OUTRO]

[00:18:01] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

[END]

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YFP 266: How One Pharmacy Entrepreneur Started a Keto-Based Medical Practice

Posted on July 28, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How One Pharmacy Entrepreneur Started a Keto-Based Medical Practice

Dr. Jodi Nishida shares what significant health event led her to a keto-based diet, why she saw an opportunity to launch her business and keto-based practice, and lessons she’s learned through helping over 1500 patients with medically-guided keto as a pharmacy entrepreneur.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Jodi is a Doctor of Pharmacy and accredited Metabolic Healthcare Practitioner who’s been in healthcare for over 25 years. After experiencing the ketogenic lifestyle’s effect on her own autoimmune condition, she decided to build a keto-based medical practice so others could benefit from it, too.

Over the last few years, she’s helped over 1500 patients realize the benefits of clean, medically-guided keto.

With certifications in ketogenic nutrition, cardiovascular disease management, pharmacogenomics, and medication management, she works closely with each and every patient to tailor keto to their medications, medical conditions, lifestyle, and socioeconomic situation. She is also in training for processed food addiction recovery as this is America’s true pandemic.

Episode Summary

This week, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by Dr. Jodi Nishida, a Doctor of Pharmacy and accredited Metabolic Healthcare Practitioner who’s been in healthcare for over 25 years. They discuss a significant health event that led Dr. Jodi to a keto-based diet, why she saw this event as an opportunity to start a keto-based practice, and the lessons she has learned through helping over 1,500 patients with medically-guided clean keto.

Dr. Jodi talks about her diverse experience as a pharmacist and the impact that stress had on her health in a retail role. Upon leaving the retail space due to stress and its effect on an autoimmune condition she developed, she found keto by chance when looking for solutions for a family member who had experienced a health event. In support of her family member, Dr. Jodi started a keto diet. After seeing her condition go into remission, she knew she had found something, if done correctly, could benefit others. Through meticulous planning, including building up her emergency fund, Dr. Jodi started her business – now the first cardiometabolic clinic in the state of Hawaii – with the annual goal of helping her patients collectively lose 10,000 lbs. and come off of 300 medications. Listeners will hear about her business challenges to date, and what success looks like for Dr. Jodi in the next five years.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

This week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Jodi, owner of The Keto Prescription. During the show, we discussed what significant health event in her own life led to pursuing a keto-based diet, why she saw an opportunity to launch her own business and keto-based practice, and the lessons she has learned in launching and growing her business, where she has helped over 2,000 patients realize the benefits of clean, medically-guided keto.

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

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:17] TU: Jodi, welcome to the show.

[00:01:19] JN: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:21] TU: Well, I’m really excited for this interview. Cory Jenks, a friend of YFP, a guest on the podcast episodes 134, 196, we’ll link to those in the show notes, connected the two of us, and I’m excited to have our listeners hear about your career and your entrepreneurial story. So before we get into all of that, tell us about your background, where you went into pharmacy school, when you graduate, and what ultimately drew you to the profession.

[00:01:46] JN: Yeah. Well, I graduated from USC, University of Southern California. This was way, way back in 1996. I’m actually pretty old compared to you guys, and I did all of my schooling there. I did my residency out there in LA as well. I was just drawn to the profession because anything in medicine that didn’t require me to have to look at anything too gross or cut anyone open is what I was pretty much interested in.

[00:02:15] TU: It reminds me of my journey into pharmacy. I had a guidance counselor. I said, “Hey, I love science, love math. I don’t want to see blood, so point me in the right direction,” right? That was in part how I got down the path of pharmacy. Let’s jump in to 2011. You’re working at big box retail pharmacy in Hawaii, where you currently live. Tell us about your experience working there, and what happened at that moment in your life and in your career that really led you to be reliant on medications, and we’ll tie that to the work that you’re doing now.

[00:02:46] JN: Yeah. It takes a special person to work retail pharmacy, in my opinion. I give them so much props because it’s a grind, as so many of you out there know. I had a horrible boss. She was a little crazy. I’m going to be honest. I was just – It was very soul-crushing for me. Working in retail pharmacy, it’s so busy and it’s just – I didn’t enjoy it at all.

I was going through some stuff with my family, my parents, single parent, and just at work I was miserable. My health was deteriorating pretty quickly, and I got diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. It literally was interesting because I woke up one day with it pretty much from head to toe. They say that because it’s autoimmune, it’s triggered by stress. So just all of these storm of events combined that happened at one time really is what led me away from retail pharmacy, really just to fix my health and reduce stress.

I did spend a little bit of time in Big Pharma. I actually did spend four years in pharmacogenomics and then by chance discovered keto, the keto diet.

[00:04:13] TU: Tell us about that discovery of what happened. We’ll talk a little bit later about what exactly is the keto practice, the model, and what you’re employing with patients. I think there’s a lot of preconceived notions out there about keto, and we can dig into some of that. But how did you get introduced to keto in that moment, which had become so critical,

not only to your personal journey in your health, but also to the work that you’re doing now? What was the introduction to keto? Where did that come from?

[00:04:40] JN: Yeah. One of my first degree relatives actually had a massive heart attack and almost died. His LAD, his artery was 99% occluded. Just in casually mentioning it to a colleague who’s a pediatric neurologist, he was like, “Dude, you should put your dad on keto.” I was like, “What’s a keto? I hadn’t even heard of it.” He goes, “I know how you are.” He goes, “You should research it.”

That just sat me down the whole rabbit hole. I mean, YouTube, books, everything. As I was doing my own learning, it was interesting because all of these things that I had learned in school way back when it started to resurface, and it made me realize like, “Oh, my gosh. We are completely practicing medicine backwards.” Just the whole western model of do labs, look at a number, write a prescription, right?

There’s not a lot of thought into that outside of, “Okay, am I going to use atorvastatin or simvastatin?” You know what I mean? Like that’s the degree of thought that goes into medicine right now. So I decided in that moment that I was going to try the keto diet. I was going to put my relative on it as well and do it together to support him. In doing that, my autoimmune condition completely went into remission. Where I had been injecting myself weekly with Enbrel for 13 years, I was now completely off of it, and it was just mind-blowing for me.

[00:06:11] TU: It’s interesting when you say, Jodi, do labs, look at a number, write a prescription. I was reflecting on this recently because I think for all the modern revelations that have come from medicine, which is incredible, and you worked in the industry. You know a lot of the research and development was done, and the advances that have been made over the last 75 years and much shorter is really, really incredible.

But I think we have forgotten about all of the time before any of that even happened. I think one of the things that I’m learning more and more in my journey, and I think keto here’s a good example, are the principles of keto or looking at other cultures in medicine and how there’s thousands of years of experience. When I think about the PharmD training and folks that are in school for six or eight years, we get very little, if any, on the foundation prior to some of the first medications in the 1900s.

We get a whole lot and, obviously, the advancements that have come in the last century, which have played a very, very critical role. But I think we often may be blind to some of those other opportunities and open to some of those other opportunities for how we may look at treating conditions. You mentioned kind of a backwards approach of do the labs, look at the number, write a prescription.

When you say keto, help me. I’m a person that I would say is probably lay understanding of keto. I’ve dabbled a little bit in keto diets and books, and I have found some of the science fascinating. But I have found there’s a lot of opinions out there. There’s a lot of definitions about carb intakes and monitoring the values. Like when you say a keto-based diet, tell us more. What do you mean by that?

[00:07:49] JN: Yeah. So let’s quickly differentiate. Most of what you see on social media I would call dirty keto or lazy keto. It’s like tons of bacon, huge burgers. Everything is covered in cheese. That, in my professional opinion, is actually not keto. So the definition of keto is a low-carb, moderate protein, high healthy fat diet. Healthy fat does not include eating a lot of cheese. The problem is that everyone is getting these ratios wrong of the carb, the protein, and the fat on their plate. So it’s giving keto, which –

I mean, I see it every day in my own private practice, is it has the power to literally reverse so many medical conditions from head to toe. It’s important that the right messaging about the diet get out there, and that’s why organizations like the one Cory Jenks and I belong to is on the leading edge of helping to define and validate this as a legitimate medical approach because it works. It really works.

[00:09:00] TU: So I find it really interesting that it’s one thing to try something in your own health or for the health of a family member, as you mentioned, to help keep them accountable and support them as well, and to see the positive impact and effects. It’s another thing to kind of share that story and that word with other people, get them excited. It’s a whole another level to say, “Hey, I’m going to make a business out of this. I’m going to start a practice, and I’m going to begin to really implement the transformation I’m having in my own life, but also be able to help serve other folks.”

It’s another, I think, great examples. We’ve shared other stories on this podcast of pharmacists that are using their degree in somewhat of a nontraditional way. But one of the things I’m really passionate about is that the PharmD is an entry point to many, many, many, many different pathways and opportunities. I think you’ve built out a really unique niche in practice. My question for you is what led you to make that transition from, “Hey, this is really having a positive impact in my own life,” to, “I’m going to take a huge step forward and actually start my own practice.”?

[00:09:59] JN: Yeah, which at my age, I’m 49 this year, that’s a risky thing. It’s a huge career pivot. Long story short, I started making these videos on Facebook about keto, how to do keto. What I did was I did 30 live videos in 30 days. It was like a contest that I was a part of, and I decided to do keto as my topic. I amassed like a pretty big following in that 30-day span. As people started messaging me and asking questions, that’s what made me realize like, “Wow, I think there needs to be an actual like keto clinic.”

Luckily for me, I’m out in Hawaii. If people don’t know that, it’s a smaller place. I’ve been in different facets of the healthcare industry for many years out here. So I know a lot of the right people, and I met with the head of Blue Cross Blue Shield Hawaii, and I said, “Hey, this is what I want to do. But I’m a pharmacist, and we are not recognized as providers out here. How do I do this legally?”

They literally sat down with me one day and helped me figure it out. Really, all I needed to do is partner with an MD, right? So I could bill incident to this physician, write up a collaborative practice agreement, and I got picked up. So just through word of mouth, people mentioned it to this one GI doctor who I’m no longer with, but that was how the whole thing started. Now, I’m with a cardiologist, and she is amazing. Like she has really embraced it. We just sent out a flyer to all the docs in the state of Hawaii that we are Hawaii’s first cardio metabolic clinic, and we’re using the keto diet to basically reverse metabolic syndrome in patients. It’s a win-win win-win all the way around.

[00:12:01] TU: So the business model there is partnering with a physician. You mentioned first an intestinal doc, now with a cardiologist, incident to collaborative practice agreements. You don’t need to share details, but I’m sure there’s some type of revenue share with incident too. You look at overhead expenses, other things at the clinic. But you’re operating in tandem with a physician incident to collaborative practice agreement. Is that right?

[00:12:26] JN: Yup. That’s the model. I mean, just I think pharmacists should know this because our pharmacists’ association out here, I am co-chair of our government affairs committee this year, and we are introducing a bill into our legislative season at the beginning of next year to be recognized and reimbursed as providers in the state of Hawaii. We’re using my clinic as one of the main examples of really the depth and the breadth of what pharmacists are trained to do clinically and how in something like diabetes, we make such a huge impact because only my clinic in the entire state is reversing diabetes. I tell people I don’t manage diabetes, When you come to see me, we’re going to reverse that sucker. Do you know what I mean? I don’t play around with that, so yeah.

[00:13:17] TU: Well, the audacious goal and the vision behind that. So that relationship with Blue Cross Blue Shield is you become all that more important, as you guys are able to move that provider status stuff forward.

[00:13:28] JN: Yeah. So that, hopefully, and you know what happens is the insurance companies will deposit my reimbursements into the cardiologist’s account, and all she needs to do is cut me a check for that. It’s pretty straightforward.

[00:13:41] TU: So I don’t want to gloss over. I talk with a lot of pharmacists that have really cool ideas. It could be for a side hustle. It could be for an aspiration of a business. Or it could be a product or service-based thing. But very few actually start, and I always talk with individuals about we get paralyzed in the big vision. We get overwhelmed. There’s fears. There’s insecurities, whole lots of reasons of why. But very few are willing to take that first step to say, “Hey, I’m passionate about this, and I’m going to see where it goes, and it’s okay that there’s some unknown territory ahead of me.”

When you say, “I put myself out there. I did 30 videos in 30 days. I met with Blue Cross Blue Shield,” like those are a big deal, right? So my question for you is what led you to the mindset? What led you to the willingness to take those steps? You mentioned, yeah, in your opinion, it was somewhat of a risky move. Knowing that, hey, maybe this succeeds, maybe it doesn’t succeed, like what allowed you to have that motivation and to take that step forward or those first few steps forward?

[00:14:48] JN: Well, of course, it was my own experience with the keto diet and what it did for me and having the ability to tell that story. Because of all the videos I had done on Facebook, this was five, six years ago, and people taking my advice or just I was saying don’t eat this, try to eat these things. Then I was getting all these testimonials through DMs of girls who had been deemed infertile are all of a sudden pregnant because they took the advice that I had shared and all this stuff. I started to see how much this would impact people.

Then it’s, of course, thinking it through, having mentors, right? What are the pros and cons? What is this going to cost me? Then having a basic business plan is really important too because you’ve got to understand the risks. I’m going to be honest with you. I was doing pharmacogenomics at the time, which I loved, by the way, that. I can’t wait to start doing that in my office too eventually. But I was doing really well, and I put away enough money in the bank to cover my mortgage and all of my expenses for 12 months. I made sure I had that in the bank before I did this, just in case it didn’t pan out.

[00:16:14] TU: I’m so glad you bring that up because, obviously, this is a financial podcast, and one of the things I like to ask aspiring entrepreneurs or folks that are looking to make this transition is I think for many pharmacists, good reason could be debt loads. It could be other expenses and things. Or there’s somewhat of a golden handcuff of being able to take a “risk” and make a transition. So that was your strategy, 12 months of savings. Give yourself some cushion so that you could really approach the business with confidence. Is that right?

[00:16:42] JN: Yeah. Because when you’re now billing insurances, and you’re working through all the medical billing, and Medicare doesn’t reimburse right away. Sometimes, it takes three months. Like these are all the things that you have to think that pharmacists don’t realize because if you’re not functioning and billing as a provider, and you work in a salaried position with benefits, you would never realize that. So there’s just a lot of pieces too to think about.

It’s interesting because Low Carb USA, they also go by the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners, they have their annual conference every August in San Diego. The talk that I’m giving on stage this year is the four pillars of a successful low-carb clinical practice. Honestly, Tim, my hope is that a lot of pharmacists think about attending this conference or attending it at some point in their career because this model of PharmD is working with MDs in the low-carb space, and MDs are looking for PharmDs to partner with. It’s like one of the greatest segways that we can get into to get out of the pharmacy and get into clinical practice.

Like I was saying earlier, I graduated a long time ago, and I’m dealing with every disease state medical condition from head to toe now. It was amazing how much of what I had learned came flooding back. You know what I mean? Just in diabetes management and all of that. I tell people that I’m the luckiest pharmacist in the world because I have the opportunity to use every single skill that I learned in all of my schooling and all of my residency in my own business now and the ability to help so many people. So it’s a lot of fun.

[00:18:38] TU: Transformative impact on others, right? I mean, that’s awesome. Pharmacists love frameworks. So your four pillars really resonate with me. I think that partly why I asked you the question of what led you to take those first steps is that even when there’s a strong motivation, often we want something a little bit more. So a few things you said that really stood out to me, number one is that strong why and motivation. You mentioned your personal experiences, that sense of obligation to serve and help other people.

The second thing I heard you say was really some mentors that could be a sounding board, that could provide guidance and I think probably some accountability. That was there as well. Then the third thing was really having a strong business plan to be able to understand. Moving this from idea to projections is a really important step, right? Because I think we can all become somewhat naive and optimistic about our idea, but rubber meets the road in the Excel document.

Pairing that with mentors to say like, “Where did you come up with this number? That sounds great but like how are you actually going to generate that kind of revenue? Oh, okay. I got to get a level deeper, a level deeper, a level deeper. Well, what’s that going to look like cash flow for the next – Oh, I need to have some cash flow saved up because of delays of billing insurance.” I mean, these are the things that for folks that have an idea, so much wisdom there in what you shared.

I want to come back to the importance of a strong why. I wrote a blog article recently, talking about how your why has to be greater than your motivation. You why has to be greater than your motivation because there are days, weeks, seasons in business when things are going to be up and things are going to be down. I really believe the why is the anchor, and I’m looking behind you, as we’re recording this, and you have a sign up that said, “Our patients will lose 10,000 pounds and stop 300 medications in 365 days.” That’s incredible. I mean, that is a guiding anchor of what you’re doing. How important is that vision to you to motivate you to keep going during those seasons that might be challenging?

[00:20:40] JN: Yeah. That’s my annual mission statement. It’s always my goal every January 1 for the last three years. I’ve come very close every single time, and it’s okay if I don’t hit it exactly, right? I mean, shoot. Last year, I think we did 8,800 pounds collectively and 265 medications. But when you look at those metrics compared to what you see in every other medical practice out there, this is the type of data that the payers are going to need someday to see the value that our profession brings.

So kind of back to why statement, it’s not only about what this can do for patients. I’m also personally working very hard to transform our profession because I think if we don’t, it’s going to die out pretty quickly. It’s a very pivotal time right now for pharmacists. So I allow pharmacy students to rotate through my clinic. They do rotations. Something – You’re talking about framework and pillars. If there’s a word of advice I could give to a lot of the younger pharmacists out there is pharmacy can be very siloed. You’ve got MDs. You’ve got lab. You’ve got your pharmacists. You’ve got nursing. A lot of times, these silos don’t talk to each other.

You have to be that pharmacist that knows how to go out and network. Very honestly, it was time I spent in Big Pharma in different positions that taught me how to do that. That came in so handy when I was thinking of starting this clinical practice. Having the ability to bounce things off of all of these different areas of specialty in health care and having connection is such a critical part of being able to move forward because you’ve got to get buy in. You’ve got to get buy in from key people.

[00:22:43] TU: That’s right. Yeah. Building alliances, having physician advocates, having relationships with payers, having folks that can help speak on your behalf. So when you’re introducing a bill in Hawaii, you’ve got physician advocates that are speaking to that. So I’m really hearing two big buckets of what you’re working on. One is the practice, the business, helping individual patients. Then the other is really the impact on the profession and really elevating what pharmacists can do as providers. Sure, that helps the business. But ultimately, that expanded scope is going to allow for expanded services and a greater impact on patients.

My question for you is how important has your involvement been? You mentioned a role in the state association. How important has your involvement been in the state association and that work in terms of the connection to what you’re trying to build and do in a practice? Because I think we’ve lost some of the juice behind the value of associations, and I am able to sit firsthand on the leadership team of the Ohio Pharmacists Group and really see the value at the state level. So I’m curious to hear your perspective there as well.

[00:23:51] JN: Oh, man. I envy you. You’re with Ohio because you got a lot of great things accomplished out there. Hawaii is so far behind, and we are a dying association out here. I’m going to be very honest with you. What we’re working on this year for the next legislative session, and really at the end of the day, it always boils down to just three of us that are doing the brunt of the work and me calling on every representative and senator in the state that I’ve known or grown up with. Again, it’s that networking thing, partnering with professional organizations like the American Diabetes Association, to get their testimony of support at the right time, beginning of next year.

All of this is so intertwined. It’s fascinating to me. If we don’t fix it, I fear what’s going to happen, and it’s so interesting because I see a lot of this where we’re on our monthly call, and it’s that problem where the hospital pharmacists only know hospital pharmacy things. The community pharmacists only know community pharmacy things. But they don’t necessarily know people outside of that. So we keep hitting this wall, and I think it’s because I took such an unconventional path in my career that I have all of these connections, and I know who to talk to, at least, if we’re trying to figure out how to do something.

I would strongly encourage people to just get out of the pharmacy. Get out of the pharmacy. I love what you’re doing, by the way, your podcast. You’re really good at it.

[00:25:31] TU: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

[00:25:33] JN: To get people to think beyond counting pills and doing IVs is so important because we’re poised. I don’t know if our pharmacists realize how perfectly poised we are right now to make a giant pivot. But we have to collectively do this. It can’t just be three of us. Do you know what I mean?

[00:25:56] TU: Absolutely. Yeah, we have more than 300,000 pharmacists across the country that are positioned in every community across the country that is trusted by the – We are perfectly positioned to have a grand impact on the health and outcomes of the country. I think your comment about being able to kind of get out of our silos is so important because at the end of the day, like we need to talk with the payers and the legislators with one voice, right? We can’t be having a conversation with a payer or legislator about this from a community pharmacy, this from a hospital pharmacy. We’re not big enough to start to splice and segment those things. We have to have one voice of what we’re trying to advance and do for the population.

Obviously, when it comes to the payer perspective, can we advance the outcomes and the work that, obviously, you’ve been able to do in your own practice? So 8,000-plus pounds, I heard you say in this past year, 250-plus meds that you’re able to prescribe. What does that look like in terms of number of patients that you’ve touched? I’m trying to get a scope of what the week to week, year to year looks like. How many patients have you reached through the clinic that you’ve established?

[00:27:04] JN: Yeah. So in just under three years, I’ve now seen over 2,000 people. I see roughly 40 to 50 patients a week. I try not to work more than four days a week in clinic. The reason why is because I’m dealing with food and eating behaviors and a lot of food addictions because sugar is in everything now. I do quite a bit of psychology in each appointment, whether I want to or not. After 14 patients in a day, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s a lot.

[00:27:36] TU: That’s a lot.

[00:27:36] JN: It can be very draining. So my average day is 12 to 14 patients, and it usually takes about six appointments for me to teach them everything. Really, the people that come to see me, they are like ready to make a change. A lot of them have already had gastric bypass surgery. A lot of them have gone through different weight management programs, and they’re ready. They get it. That’s why through my social media outlets, I’m very thoughtful, and I’m very intentional of the words that I use and the vibe that I put out because it’s only those types of patients that I’m trying to attract. My saying is I don’t want lazy and I don’t want crazy. Those people can go somewhere else. I want the people that really want to change their health.

[00:28:25] TU: Yeah. It reminds me of the readiness to change spectrum that we all learned about in pharmacy school, right? Whether it’s weight loss, tobacco cessation, there has to be a readiness and a mindset. Obviously, you’re helping to facilitate that change there as well. What has been one of the more challenging or a couple of the challenging things of running and growing your own business?

If you think about the scope of things from you’re setting up cloud practice agreements, you’re working with payers, you’re trying to figure out the financials of growing the business, the referrals, provider relationships, your own mindset as a business owner, what has been one or two of the most challenging things as you’ve grown your business?

[00:29:05] JN: Oh, man. I already know the answer to this. Okay, the first thing is, you guys are going to love this, two doctors who run weight loss clinics filed a formal complaint against me with the state of Hawaii that what I’m doing is fraudulent because I am not allowed to call myself doctor. I am not a doctor, and so I guess they were so threatened by what I was doing.

[00:29:32] TU: I was going to say fear anyone fearful. Yeah.

[00:29:35] JN: Yeah. So that sucked because I had to – Luckily, I have a great attorney and just having to put all the dots. I mean, come on. Like we’re PharmDs. They were so upset that I was on social media. My patients, they call me Dr. Jodi, and I like Dr. Jodi, instead of Dr. Nishida. To me, it’s less formal. If feels more personal. So that was the first thing that really kind of threw me, and my attorney laughed. He goes, “Well, Jodi. This is how you know you’re doing something right because if –”

[00:30:09] TU: That’s right.

[00:30:10] JN: Yeah. If no one’s paying attention, that means you’re not making an impact. The second thing that happened that I want, hopefully, people can learn from this, is that first doctor I mentioned, the GI doctor that I partnered with, he ended up stealing over $50,000 of my reimbursement. So the incident to billing model is they deposit it in his account. All he has to do is write a check. Well, he stopped writing checks and was really such a jerk about it because – This guy makes like 2.5 million a year.

I remember, he looked me in the eye day and he goes, “What are you going to do? Sue me? You can’t afford it. I have all your money.” But if that didn’t happen, if that hardship didn’t happen – Remember now, luckily, I put enough money away in the bank for one year, and that floated me during this very difficult time. That led me to the cardiologist. So everything happened for a reason. But that’s a valuable lesson, and that’s why I’m working so hard on getting us that provider status here is so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

[00:31:24] TU: Yeah. What’s really interesting, and I want to call out for a moment, is your mindset through that difficult situation, right? Because I think that someone could look at that and say victim and tap, right? I say for 12 months, and I was going to start this business, and here I am this first big challenge. You know what? Like I’m just not cut out for this. This isn’t going to work out. I’m just going to fold it in, get my paycheck back, and keep moving.

So I think the financial foundation helped you be able to weather that storm. But despite those funds in the bank, you also had to have the resilience through that scenario to say, “My mission and my why is greater than my motivation and the situation that I’m going through in this moment,” right? Because you knew that you had a bigger mission to serve and, ultimately, patients to take care of.

[00:32:13] JN: It’s not just me, right? As pharmacists, we tend to focus a lot on medications. But our value and actual disease state management and what we do for people’s lives, I think we lose sight of that so many years after we graduate. But we can’t do that because we’re really good at what we do, whether we realize it or not. You’re not going to realize it in retail pharmacy very often. But if you can find these little niches, we are so valuable. I mean, really, we are.

[00:32:46] TU: So, Jodi, if we fast forward to 2027, five years from now, right now, you’ve got this bold vision. You’re obviously making great progress towards 10,000 pounds, 300 medications that you’re going to stop. What does success look like for you five years from now, as you continue on this journey?

[00:33:03] JN: Honestly, I also do a lot of restaurant collaborations here in Hawaii. So I help them keto-fy menu items.

[00:33:10] TU: Oh, that’s cool.

[00:33:11] JN: Yeah. Or have a keto section. For me, that’s the real fun part of what I do outside of the office. I really would love to have my own little keto cafe. It’s more so like I can just hang out there too. But I think it would go really well, and I think I’ve built enough of a brand and reputation out here. But that would just be something fun. So the clinic aspect, growing that, bringing more PharmDs on board, number one, so that I don’t have to be in the office all the time. Then I can build this additional thing as well, which is a dream for me.

[00:33:49] TU: I love that and, obviously, the advocacy efforts you mentioned, being able to train up the next generation of pharmacists on this podcast. I know you’re going to motivate others that are out there to consider options in their own journey as well. So I love that. If you get the keto cafe up and running, I’m making a trip out to Hawaii.

[00:34:05] JN: Please, yeah. Come out.

[00:34:06] TU: Count it. I’ve never been, so this will be my first trip out there.

[00:34:10] JN: You got to come out.

[00:34:12] TU: Well, this has been fun. You’ve been an inspiration to me, and I’m so glad Cory connected the two of us. Where can folks go to learn more about you and to follow your journey?

[00:34:22] JN: Yeah. My website is theketoprescription.com. I’m on Instagram @theketoprescription. You can also type that into YouTube, and I have a bunch of videos up there that talk about different things. I talk a lot about food and the origin of the food that we’re eating nowadays, so it’s pretty interesting. You guys should educate yourself on that because the food industry is pretty crazy.

[00:34:47] TU: Well, this has been great. I really appreciate you taking time, especially with the time zone difference and early morning for you. So thank you so much.

[00:34:55] JN: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:34:56] TU: Looking forward to following your journey. Thank you.

[00:34:58] JN: Thanks, Tim. Same to you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:35:00] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

[END]

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Posted on July 21, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

10 Lessons Learned: Employee to Entrepreneur

On this episode, sponsored by Insuring Income, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, shares ten lessons he has learned on his journey from employee to entrepreneur.

Episode Summary

This week, Your Financial Pharmacist Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, shares the top ten lessons he has learned over the past five years while taking Your Financial Pharmacist from a hobby to side hustle to a full-time business. Tim shares his most impactful takeaways on his journey from employee to entrepreneur and advice for those looking to take the same path. Tim shares how he found the motivation and inspiration to get started, the importance of the foundational why of the business that transcends motivation, the mindset required to move from employee to entrepreneur, and the incredible value of partnership. Tim shares ways to build on and nurture business partnerships and shares a helpful resource for maintaining successful business partnerships that help your business thrive. He shares why it is crucial to establish your core values early and how and why you must embrace the role of CEO. Considering growth and expansion, Tim outlines the need for implementing systems and processes. More specifically, he mentions having a system for evaluating the business. Tim shares a common theme he has discovered in the last five years interviewing pharmacist entrepreneurs, a passion for learning that drives entrepreneurial success. Lastly, Tim shares how identity and role differ and how embracing failure is necessary for business leadership.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week, I fly solo to talk through 10 lessons learned through the first five years of starting your financial pharmacist and making the transition from hobby to side hustle to business.

Before we jump into the episode, I’m excited to announce that we’re doing our first ever virtual summit, employee to entrepreneur building blocks for starting and growing a business. The Employee to Entrepreneur Summit is designed for pharmacists who are planning or actively working on a side hustle or business idea. The summit will be hosted live via Zoom the evenings of Tuesday, August 30th, and Wednesday, August 31st. Topics and activities will include how to hone your mindset and uncap your potential as a business owner, how to grow a business from a position of financial strength, retirement savings and tax optimization strategies as a small business owner, how to develop a system for achieving business financial goals.

We’ll also be featuring several examples of pharmacists that have made the transition to entrepreneur and are monetizing their clinical expertise. Some awesome bonuses for those that sign up by August 23rd, including a one-on-one implementation meeting with myself or certified financial planner, Tim Baker, access to a live goal setting workshop that I’ll be leading to help focus on setting and achieving big personal and business goals. Finally, on-demand access to several bonus expert interviews, including how to sell with confidence marketing strategies and how to evaluate healthcare insurance options as you make that transition from employee to entrepreneur. You can learn more and register at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businesssummit. Again, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businesssummit.

Okay, let’s hear from today’s sponsor, Insuring Income, and then we’ll jump into the show. This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term life insurance and own occupation disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top rated term life insurance and disability insurance companies, so pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation. To better serve you, Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage, supports clients in all 50 states, and makes sure all of your questions get answered. To get quotes and apply for term life or disability insurance, see sample contracts from disability carriers or learn more about these topics. Visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again, that’s insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

On November 6th, 2015, I wrote the first blog post under the name Your Financial Pharmacist. That post was a chronicle of the journey that my wife, Jess, and I took into and out of $200,000 of debt. Furthermore, it was an acknowledgment that there was a need to develop a community of pharmacists that could encourage and inspire one another on their path towards achieving financial freedom. Fast forward to 2022, the YFP community is now 13,000-plus strong, but it started with a list of less than 100 individuals that I twisted their arms to say yes to receiving my first blog post. Those blog posts led to some speaking engagements and more pharmacists coming forward to share their own stories.

After that, I was invited to do some speaking engagements, which would eventually lead to relationship with a National Pharmacy Association that helped increase the awareness of the mission of the work that we’re doing at YFP. Shortly thereafter, I would co-author the book Seven Figure Pharmacist with Tim church. Not too long after that, I would connect with my business partner of now five-plus years, Tim Baker. Funny enough, we recently discovered that Tim began his work to start a fee-only financial planning firm for pharmacists within the same week that I wrote that first blog post in November of 2015. Tim Baker, after we met, we would decide to launch the YFP Podcast in July of 2017, which was the beginning of a friendship and a partnership that was essential to grow the business to where we are today.

When I reflect on the past five years and the ups and downs of going from hobby to side hustle of business to making that transition from employee to entrepreneur, here are the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned along this journey. Number one, start. In July of 2015, I was traveling to the AACP Annual Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. The book I selected for the trip to read on the plane was Start by Jon Acuff. It’s a special moment when a book collides with your life path, and this was one of those moments. You see, at the time, I had been thinking about the idea of YFP but was struggling with what to do with the idea. I was reflecting on my first business venture, a company called Farm Forward, and the lessons that I learned from taking those initial baby steps into entrepreneurship. It was the words Jon Acuff penned in Start that would push me over the edge to formalize the initial idea of YFP to get the name established, to set up the legal entity to build the first prototype of the website. It was rough, and to ask 100 friends and colleagues to join the start of my email list and ultimately published that first blog post.

I needed the words of encouragement from Jon Acuff to just start. I knew I had to heed this advice because the idea of YFP would not leave me alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about building a platform for pharmacists to learn more about personal finance, to bring a community together. I knew it was needed, and I knew it could have an impact. But fear still crept in, with questions like, “What if it doesn’t work out? What if nobody likes the blog post? What if this is a good idea only in my head, and who am I to write on this topic, not being a financial planner myself?”

Speaking with many entrepreneurs over the last five years on the YFP Podcast, this theme of just start keeps coming up again and again. Those who have built something that is solving a problem and serving others all had to work through their own fears, anxiety, and unknown to take the first step. You see, many great ideas never see the light of day. Too often, individuals get paralyzed in the analytical phase where passion gets muted by excuses, questions, and doubts. Sometimes, you just have to jump in the deep end and figure it out. The idea of just start has stayed with me through the entire journey so far of YFP. It doesn’t just apply to getting a business off the ground.

As I reflect back over the past five years, we’ve evolved from three companies to one company. We’ve changed our logos and branding, we’ve redesigned our website multiple times, we’ve reformatted the podcast, we’ve identified better tools and solutions inside of the business, and we’ve taken the lead to grow our team. None of these were smooth-sailing, and the only way we were able to identify and grow is because we ended up in the first place of just starting. There had to be a beginning. So that’s number one is start.

Number two is a strong why, a strong why. In his book, Start with Why, Simon Sinek talks and says that every one of us has a why, a deep-seated purpose, cause or belief that is the source of our passion and inspiration. Making the shift from employee to entrepreneur will inevitably include bumps along the way. Challenging days and seasons are to be expected, but getting stuck and being a prisoner to your motivation is not an option. Motivation alone may not provide enough fuel during the challenging seasons. Therefore, it’s critical that the why of our business and its offerings transcend the level of motivation that we have on any given day. We need a strong enough why that drives us to commit the time and effort that the business needs.

One of my favorite podcasts over the past several years is How I Built This with Guy Raz. On this show, Guy takes the listener behind the scenes with a founder to hear about the movements that they have built. Many of these stories have trials and tribulations, and it was in those moments, in those trials and tribulations that the passion behind the idea and the problem the product or service was solving would help propel the founder through that difficult time.

At YFP, our mission has helped pharmacists achieve financial freedom. Why? Because having a financially well pharmacist workforce is in the best interest of the profession and, ultimately, the patients that we serve. Furthermore, the profession of pharmacy needs big ideas. We need disruptive ideas, ideas that are going to improve the health and wellbeing of our nation. But the problem is big ideas, disruptive ideas, these rarely come from someone that is living in a state of financial stress.

If someone’s overwhelmed with student loan debt, if someone’s confused about how to best save and invest for the future, if someone’s frustrated by the fact that they’re making a good income but not progressing financially, or if they’re anxious that they feel like they’re financially behind, any one of these is a killer of a dream, a killer of a big idea. So we’re on a mission to change this narrative and to empower pharmacists, to ensure that future generations of pharmacists are financially well, and to embed financial literacy into the core and fabric of our profession. I remind myself of this mission every day, and this propels me through the highs and through the lows. Our mission is greater than any one challenging season of the business.

Number three is mindset, mindset. Since leaving my work in academia most recently in a position at Ohio State to work full time on the business, I did not anticipate the growth that would happen and that was needed related to my mindset. Thanks in large part to an incredible coach and mentor, Chris Caldwell, I would begin a journey that dug into some serious self-reflection that was stimulated by some really deep questions, questions like why is achievement so important to me and my identity? Why have I struggled to just be present, without work or accomplishment? How could my life look if I embrace the purpose of just being the best version of myself? What do I actually want? What are the stories that are telling myself? In what ways am I showing up as an inauthentic version of myself? What artificial ceilings have I created in my personal and professional life, and why have I created these ceilings?

Over the past year, I’ve come to appreciate that I’m just beginning a lifelong journey of digging deeper. This journey of leaning into some hard questions with the goal of living to my fullest potential and being the best authentic version of myself that I can be has been one of the greatest gifts of entrepreneurship that I did not see coming.

Number four is the value of partnership, the value of partnership. In the summer of 2015 after meeting on Twitter, yes, that is a real thing, I had the chance to connect with Tim Baker in person. We met at a Bob Evans of all places off I-71, about halfway between Cleveland and Columbus. As Tim Baker likes to tell the story, he found me on Twitter and is wondering, who was this other Tim that was talking about personal finance in pharmacy? At the time, Tim Baker was living in Baltimore and was visiting his sister in Columbus, which provided the opportunity for us to connect in person.

The timing was perfect because at that time, I was struggling to connect the education piece of what I was doing around personal finance, with a sound financial planning offering. I knew that was going to be an important piece of the puzzle of transition to work into a viable business, and I knew that service was needed in our profession. I was in the process of talking with several planners in Northeast Ohio, trying to understand the lay of the land and how the industry works. You see, at this time, I was not aware of terms just fee-only and fiduciary, and I quickly realized the complexities of the industry after having several conversations with different planning firms. I was frustrated by the lack of transparency in pricing and how the industry historically has not served folks in the early stages of their career, since how much one has an assets was usually a prerequisite for a planning relationship.

When I met Tim Baker that day in Bob Evans, he shared his journey starting in the United States Military Academy at West Point that would lead him to a career in logistics for a major retailer and then a construction company in Ohio and California. After realizing that he wanted something different, he made a pivot to a career in the financial services industry. After working at a small independent financial planning firm, he decided to take the leap to start his own business, offering fee-only financial planning services focused on the pharmacy profession. At the time, the business was Script Financial. Through a friend at West Point, who was married to a pharmacist, he identified that there was a gap in the industry in serving pharmacy professionals.

Now, I was hooked when I learned about the meaning of fee-only and the fiduciary standard, and that combined with the alignment on values and growing a small business led Tim and I to start collaborating on the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. This collaboration furthered our friendship and respect for one another, which led us a step further towards eventually becoming business partners.

Now, growing up in a family business, I observed firsthand the challenges that can come from partnerships, especially when it’s family members that were involved as partners. From that experience growing up and hearing many other individuals’ words of caution about partnerships, it shouldn’t have given me a pause, but it never did. I knew if there was alignment on vision and respect for one another, we could thrive and work through challenges. That has been exactly the case, and I’m so grateful for the friendship and partnership that Tim and I have.

One resource that’s been key to our partnership is the Book Partnership Charter by David Gage. This book takes two or more individuals going into business together through a series of activities and challenging discussions that lays the foundation then for the operating agreement. Tim and I have made it a priority to annually review and update our charter and check in on the health of the partnership.

Number five is establish your core values of the business early. Establish your core values early. When starting a business, it’s easy to be off and running in the day-to-day such that activities like strategic planning or vision setting or setting core values might not be the priority that they deserve to be. I’m so grateful that early on, we decided to set a set of core values that several years later serve as the guiding path for the culture of our company, for the benefits that we offer our team, for how we hire, and for how we evaluate our team members. One resource here that was really helpful was the book Delivering Happiness by the late Tony Hsieh, the Founder of Zappos.

Number six is embracing the CEO role, embracing the CEO role. I can easily fall victim to squirrel syndrome. As the founder and leader of a business, it’s a fine line between identifying new opportunities and getting sidetracked and losing full focus on the core mission. A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Samm Anderegg, CEO of DocStation, and he would provide some advice to me that has stayed with me and helped me to refocus when I’m feeling overwhelmed or sidetracked. The advice he would share that is at the end of the day, the CEO has three main responsibilities, and that is vision, people, and resources.

For vision, it’s the CEO’s responsibility to ensure there is a compelling vision and that the vision is core to the business and well-understood and accepted by the team. The products, the services should be aligned to the vision, and new opportunities should be evaluated for alignment to that vision or perhaps lack thereof of alignment. When it comes to people, as a business grows beyond its founders, the success of achieving its mission is dependent upon the people that are hired. I’ve come to appreciate how important it is to build the right team and to ensure those team members have alignment with core values. Beyond the minimal technical expertise for one to be able to do their job, it’s the other things that matter most. For us, that includes alignment with our core values, including be kind, value team, optimize, you serve the community, and embrace ownership.

When it comes to the third component, that third main responsibility of the CEO, in terms of money and resources, the CEO has to have oversight to ensure the resources are sufficient to keep the ship moving forward. Cash money in the bank to keep the lights on, pay the payroll, and keep that vision going in the right direction. Now, depending on the nature of the business, one may have cash flow, decide to cash flow the business, or they decide that they’re comfortable taking out some type of debt or additional capital from investors to be able to fund the business.

Number seven is implementing systems and processes, implementing systems and processes. When starting a business, it’s all hands on deck and all roles. It’s natural to wear every hat there is, and the energy behind the idea typically sustains us through this phase. Whether it’s content creation, marketing, sales, finances, HR, IT, we do our best to wear every single hat. But at a certain point, if the goal is to expand the mission and reach of the business beyond yourself, naturally, two things need to happen. One, you have to be comfortable delegating that work to someone other than yourself. Two, you have to download that information in your head in such a way that a process or service can be replicated and built upon by someone else.

Let me give you great examples. I think my business partner, Tim Baker, has a really good mind in this area of the importance of systems and operations and being able to document those systems and operations. In 2020, we realized that in order for us to achieve our mission of helping as many pharmacists achieve financial freedom as possible and being able to transform the financial wellness of the profession of pharmacy, we were quickly going to run into a barrier if Tim Baker remained a full-time financial planner. That was eventually going to be a ceiling for us.

One problem here is that was going to quickly lead to burnout, as he was trying to be an owner and a full-time planner. Two, him stepping out of that seat was going to force us to develop the systems and processes to replicate the financial planning model and approach in a way that could be scaled. This was really our first aha moment of needing to fire ourselves from various roles, and that has been our mantra ever since. What should we be doing next to make the business less dependent on us so that we can further expand the mission of the offering?

Not only does this mindset allow the business to grow, but it also makes the business more valuable because it’s not just dependent upon you. It also increased the likelihood the business could go on when you decide to retire or take an extended break, and it reduces the risk that you will become a prisoner to your own business. Two books that have really helped shape my mindset on the value of systems and processes inside of a business are The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and Traction by Gino Wickman.

Number eight is developing a system for evaluating the business. Now, building upon the previous concept, which was implementing systems and processes, once you begin to systematize and process the processes and operations and bring others into the business, we need to make sure that we have a system to regularly evaluate the success of the business. Now, this will naturally evolve over time, but this would include things like key performance indicators, KPIs, and a method to track and review those.

In the book Traction by Gino Wickman, he recommends developing a scorecard that has 5 to 15 of the most important metrics that can help you quickly identify the health and direction of the business. Now, naturally, the question is, well, what are those metrics, right? He proposes a great question in the book to get you thinking about what those 5 to 15 metrics might be, and that question and scenario who presents is imagine you’re on a desert island somewhere. All you have is a piece of paper with a handful of numbers on it. These numbers must allow you to have an absolute pulse on your business. What are all of the numbers that must be on that piece of paper, right? That activity is designed to help you come up with what those 5 to 15 metrics might be for that scorecard.

In addition to Traction by Gino Wickman, I would also recommend here the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. We’ll link to all these books in the show notes. The Profit First methodology has really been instrumental for how we handle our business finances and really helps expose whether or not you are accounting for all of your expenses. It ensures that as a business owner, you’re taking some amount of profit home each quarter, even if that’s just 1%, that you’re putting aside money for your taxes, and that you’re paying yourself a sufficient wage for your time and efforts. For many, this model helps expose the true financial health of a business and often can shine a light on a business that is not as profitable as it thinks it is or that is not charging enough for its services.

Number nine, become a voracious learner. Become a voracious learner. In conducting over 200 interviews for the YFP Podcast, I’ve noticed a common thread among the entrepreneurs that I’ve talked with. Those interviewed often demonstrate humility in knowing that no matter what credentials they carry or success that they’ve had, there is always room to learn and grow. They are hungry to learn. This is evident in the books they’re reading, the professional development courses they’re taking, and the time and money they’re investing in services to grow personally and professionally.

In the book, The End of Jobs, author Taylor Pearson argues that we are rapidly moving into a time period when one’s credentials and degrees have limited value, thus requiring continuous learning and growth. The good news is that we live in a time in history when learning is more accessible than ever, and I’ve come to appreciate that one of the greatest things I can do for my company, our team, and the community we serve, is to continuously learn and grow.

This has led to a constant growing list of podcasts and audiobooks, and here are some of my favorites from the past year. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden, The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster by Darren Hardy, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, and Changes That Heal by Henry Cloud. Again, we’ll link to all these books mentioned in the show notes.

Number 10 and perhaps most important is identity versus role, identity versus role. I alluded to this a little bit in number three when talking about mindset, but it’s worth coming back to this one a little bit further and another shout out to Chris Caldwell for bringing this concept to my attention. Based on the IR theory, identity and role theory, it’s common for us to believe that our identity, our self-worth can be derived from how well we perform in various roles. That could be as a spouse, as a parent, as a pharmacist, as a business owner. If we can’t separate our identity and our roles, our self-worth can ebb and flow with how well we have or have not performed or a perception of that in various roles.

This is natural, considering that we are taught from a young age, many of us, to tie success to the affirmation we receive from others. But here’s the problem. We are naturally going to experience failure in our personal and professional lives. Experiencing failure and being a failure are two very different things. Experiencing failure and being a failure are two very different things. But if we’re not careful, through experiencing failure, we can convince ourselves that we are a failure, and this can lead to a shake in confidence. This can lead to playing it safe and avoiding future risk.

But in my mind, that’s not the biggest threat. The biggest threat and tragedy is when we let failure escalate to a feeling of less than and a feeling of having a diminished self-worth. Without the right perspective and accountability, these feelings can quickly creep into every corner of our lives, and we must not let this happen because experiencing failure, again, is not being a failure. That does not equal being a failure. As many leaders and entrepreneurs know, experiencing failure is to be expected and can be welcomed with the right mindset. Albeit painful at the moment, through failure, there can be great growth. If we can begin to accept that there is growth in failure, we can entertain the idea that failure is essential.

I’ve struggled with this mindset shift, which is also true, I suspect, for many of my peers in the profession because it’s drilled into us from our education and training that mistakes should be avoided to prevent medication errors as close to 100% accuracy as possible is the goal. This makes sense for patient care, but this mindset of getting it right all the time shouldn’t carry into all aspects of our work and our lives for that matter. That mindset of 100% accuracy all the time is exhausting, and it prevents real growth because it doesn’t embrace failure. But if we can anticipate and welcome failure, our mindset shifts from disappointment to learning and minimizes the likelihood that we’d let the experience of failure creep into our identity and our self-worth.

So those are the 10 takeaways, the 10 lessons that I’ve had in this journey of starting YFP back in 2015 and making the transition full time and reflecting back on the past five years, from hobby to side hustle, to business, from employee to entrepreneur. That’s why I’m so excited. We’ll be digging into these points and so much more during our upcoming virtual summit, employee to entrepreneur building blocks of starting and growing a business.

The Employee to Entrepreneur Summit is designed for pharmacists who are planning or actively working on a side hustle or business idea. The summit will be live via Zoom the evenings up Tuesday, August 30th, and Wednesday, August 31st. Topics and activities will include how to hone your mindset and uncap your potential as a business owner, how to grow a business from a position of financial strength, retirement savings and tax optimization considerations as a small business owner, how to develop a system for achieving business financial goals. Also, we’ll be featuring several examples of pharmacists that are monetizing their clinical expertise and have made that transition from employee to entrepreneur.

Bonus content for those that sign up by August 23rd, including a one-on-one implementation meeting with myself or certified financial planner, Tim Baker, access to a goal setting workshop, I’ll be leading to help focus on setting and achieving big personal and business goals, as well as access to several bonus expert interviews, including how to sell with confidence marketing strategies, evaluating health care insurance options, and more. You can learn more about the summit and register at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businesssummit. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/businesssummit. As always, thanks for listening and have a great rest of your day.

This week’s podcast episode is brought to you by Insuring Income. Insuring Income is your source for all things term life insurance and own occupation disability insurance. Insuring Income has a relationship with America’s top rated term life insurance and disability insurance companies, so pharmacists like you can easily find the best solutions for your personal situation. To better serve you, Insuring Income reviews all applicable carriers in the marketplace for your desired coverage, supports clients in all 50 states, and makes sure all of your questions get answered. To get quotes and apply for term life or disability insurance, see sample contracts from disability carriers or learn more about these topics, visit insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist. Again, that’s insuringincome.com/yourfinancialpharmacist.

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

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

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YFP 264: How a 2022 PharmD Grad Left School Debt Free

Posted on July 14, 2022November 2, 2022 by yfpadmin

How a 2022 PharmD Grad Left School Debt Free

Dr. Alexis Miller talks about graduating from pharmacy school debt-free because of her service to our country, by joining the Army in 2017. She shares why she decided to join the Army while in pharmacy school, the ins and outs of the GI Bill and tuition assistance, and how she plans to apply her pharmacy knowledge to her role in the Army.

About Today’s Guest

Alexis Miller, PharmD recently received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and is a postgraduate resident at Steward Carney Hospital in Dorchester, MA. Alexis is originally from Wayne, OH, and currently resides in Boston, MA with her fiance, Curtis, and their golden retriever, Hudson.

Alexis enlisted in the Ohio Army National Guard in 2017 for the tuition benefits. Because of the Army, she obtained her Doctor of Pharmacy completely debt-free. In the Army, Alexis is a motor transport operator and retention NCO (non-commissioned officer). Alexis holds the rank of Staff Sergeant.

Alexis is looking forward to connecting with the YFP community and helping young pharmacists and pharmacy students utilize another option to minimize student debt and maximize financial freedom.

Episode Summary

This week, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by Dr. Alexis Miller, a 2022 graduate of Ohio Northern University, who discusses her recent graduation from pharmacy school debt-free because of her service to our country by joining the Army in 2017. In this episode, Alexis explains her incredible story and motivation for joining the Army when selling cows didn’t cover her education cost. Alexis shares her feelings about graduating debt-free, her plans to complete her six-year commitment to the Army, and her unique pathway in transitioning from a student to a new practitioner as a doctor/truck driver. Alexis dives into the ins and outs of the GI Bill and tuition assistance and how she was able to piece together various forms of funding and scholarships to get her annual education payments to roughly $1,000 annually. She provides insight into working with recruiters and why choosing a recruiter who cares about you and your goals is incredibly important. As a ‘type A’ personality, Alexis speaks on her desire to seek perfection while juggling her Army commitment as a pharmacy student and how her mindset shift from being the best to doing her best made all of the difference in her educational experience.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

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

This week, I had a chance to welcome a 2022 graduate of Ohio Northern University, Dr. Alexis Miller, to talk about her journey graduating from pharmacy school debt-free not just from scholarships or from selling her cows. Yes, you heard me right. From selling her cows. But also, because of her service to our country by joining the Army in 2017.

Some of my favorite moments from the show include hearing Alexis talk about why she decided to make the decision to join the army while in pharmacy school. The ins and outs of the GI Bill and Tuition Assistance, and what she learned about herself during the journey of completing pharmacy school and joining the army, and why she realized that bare minimum is not in her DNA.

Now, before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP planning does in working one-on-one with more than 240 households in 40 plus states. YFP planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized to the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yftplanning.com. Whether or not YFP planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for, you know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

Okay, let’s jump into my interview with Dr. Alexis Miller.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:35] TU: Alexis, welcome to the show.

[00:01:36] AM: Hello. It’s so exciting to be here today.

[00:01:39] TU: Well, in the intro I put together for the show, I referenced you were a 2022 grad of Ohio Northern University. Go! Polar bears. And now, officially Dr. Alexis Miller. How does it feel to finally be done with pharmacy school?

[00:01:53] AM: I think the moment that you graduate and you realize you’re done, it’s absolutely surreal, because you’ve spent the last, really, 20 some years of your life being a student. And that’s all you’ve been used to. At that point you’re like, “Wow! Like, I am done.” And quite frankly, I don’t necessarily know how to pursue the next step like. I don’t know what awaits me. But I guess I’m ready for the world.

[00:02:18] TU: I love that. And I’m excited to dig into your story and share how you were able to graduate debt-free from Ohio Northern University this year. And we often talk on this show about debt repayment strategies. Or we’ve shared debt-free journeys where folks have really worked hard or through forgiveness programs to get to the point of having no more student loan debt. This is different because you avoided it all together. And we’re going to talk about how are you able to do that through the journey that you’ve taken.

You posted this on LinkedIn a couple months ago. That post went viral. I think maybe surprised you a little bit as well. Had almost 30,000 reactions. And excited to share your story with the YFP community. But before we get into that story, tell me a little bit more about your interest in pharmacy and what ultimately drew you into the profession.

[00:03:05] AM: I always like to say it wasn’t necessarily why I joined pharmacy. Just because with Ohio Northern, it is a direct admit program. You’re joining as you are still a high school senior. I was 17-years-old and really didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do with my life or really what I necessarily wanted. But I always say it’s really what made you stay in pharmacy, especially in a direct admit program like that. You have so many opportunities as you’re going through to change your major. Get out. Take a whole completely new path.

And I always like to say, it was a lot of the people that I encountered between doing experiential hours or my internships and even the people that I just went to school with. I realized like those were the kind of people that I wanted to work with for the rest of my life. And those were the kind of people that I wanted to impact. And that was the thing that I couldn’t give up. Even when pharmacy school got to be at the point where I didn’t know if it was for me anymore, it was always the people that were really telling me I could do this every day.

[00:04:05] TU: I love that. One of the things I like to talk about is that your why and your purpose has to be stronger than your motivation. Because your motivation can wax or wane, right? You live that firsthand in pharmacy school. There are some tough seasons. But if you’ve got a strong purpose and why of what you’re doing and why you’re doing that, I think that can really carry through. That’s really cool to hear that.

Alexis, I’m going to share your post. What you wrote on LinkedIn that really garnered so much attention. And then I’m going to ask you kind of how you got to the decision that you did. You said, “In September 2017, I decided the only way for me to complete my pharmacy degree without being in debt was to join the army. I joked that I was “young and dumb” signing my name on the dotted line, committing myself as a pharmacy student to basic training and six years as a truck driver. I was enticed by the idea of the GI Bill and Tuition Assistance. And my original plan was doing the bare minimum to get my degree paid for. Getting in, getting paid, and getting out. Today, I pinned staff sergeant at only four and a half years in the Army.”

First of all, congratulations. Really appreciate your commitment and your service. My question is I think this thought maybe has crossed other folks’ mind especially in the health professions in a pharmacy. But few I think actually make the decision to move forward. How did you come about this opportunity? And why did you ultimately make the decision to go forward?

[00:05:27] AM: When I started my freshman year throughout high school and summers and everything else, I came from a farm. I was selling livestock. I was selling animals. And I was selling crops. And I had this dream that, with my cows, I was going to pay for my school. But it came down to freshman year, after one year of tuition, I had about a thousand dollars left and five more years of school. And I realized that my goal of graduating debt-free, if I were just trying to do it on cows, really wasn’t going to work anymore.

And I was already paying for school with cows. It was already a very abnormal decision. I just kind of looked around, chopped around of like how can I get this paid for now? And maybe in the generation of instant gratification, the first thing that I found was the Army. And I ended up in a recruiter’s office and was talking about the opportunities, the options, and essentially how much I could make out of it. And, of course, the idea is very scary. I kind of got myself in a position where it’s like I have to commit now or I’m going to change my mind. I just immediately, “Let’s commit to the bit. Let’s go.”

[00:06:32] TU: Alexis, would this have been – I’m trying to think 2017. Would this have been your P2 year? You’re still like in pre-pharmacy?

[00:06:39] AM: Yes.

[00:06:39] TU: Okay. I think back to my time in academia. And if a student would have come to me – I did a lot of career counseling with students. If a student would have come to me and said, “Hey, Tim, I want to join the Army.” I’d have been like, “Uh, I don’t know how to help you. But let me find out.” And I don’t think this is an area that we talk enough about from a career development opportunity standpoint. How did you navigate finding that information?

Because I think for others that are listening that are thinking, “Hey, I didn’t think about this pathway. Maybe it’s something I consider.” Where could one go? Tell us more about how you’re able to navigate this opportunity.

[00:07:12] AM: A lot of it myself where I started was with Google of like what recruiters are in my area. Who can I talk to? In terms of my family, I don’t have any military background in my family. And especially at school – And Ohio [inaudible 00:07:25] private school as well. I knew I wasn’t going to get as much assistance there.

And especially when recruiters came in to talk to students in high school, I ignored them. I didn’t think that was an opportunity, a path that I was ever going to take. I had to go back to the route that I ignored, and I went back to finding recruiters. And I found one nearby. And I ended up switching a couple times trying to figure out who I really wanted to be with. That’s a big thing, too, for people who, pharmacy student, are looking at that path. Sometimes recruiters are going to sell you on anything. They’re looking to increase their numbers. They’re looking for that next bullet point. And you are part of that bullet point, whereas others really do care. And that is very important that you just don’t jump on the first hook. The first bait that comes to you. It’s important to look for somebody who actually is there because they want to be there.

And so, that was me just kind of looking around. And I finally found one person who he was adamant, like, “You’re here for school money and you want this deal. And that’s it.” That was really awesome when I found – My recruiter at the time, his name was Sergeant [inaudible 00:08:31]. He’s now retired and rides his Harley every day. He’s living a great life.

But when I talked to him, he would frequently take his time, come down to Ohio Northern, which was an hour drive from where he was. And that’s my biggest tip, is find a recruiter. But make sure it’s one who really cares about you. Or as well as somebody who’s already done it. They can tell you the ins and outs, the good, the bad, the ugly. And those two are your best avenues to kind of get that information. For me, I had Google and Sergeant [inaudible 00:09:02]. That was the only way I was able to get my information.

[00:09:07] TU: That’s great, Alexis. That was one of my hopes of bringing you on the show, was to share and celebrate your story. But also, I suspect for many that are listening, perhaps some that are even currently in school, maybe not thinking of this as an opportunity. And I didn’t know for example that it really matters what recruiter you talked to. I kind of had this impression, all information is equal and consistent. Just being able to have someone like yourself to reach out to, to ask questions, to point in the right direction I think can be really helpful.

You’ve already achieved, Alexis, two firsts on the YFP podcast. One, being that we’ve never had anybody that has sold cows to go to pharmacy school. That’s a first. And only folks that maybe grew up in our area will understand that. And second, being you’re the first person we’ve had on the show that has combined – That at least we featured combine this pathway in the army with being able to graduate from debt-free. So, really, really excited for you.

Were there other branches of the military that you were considering? I know, often, when I talk about being able to consider military pharmacist positions and how that relates to student loan debt, I kind of talk broadly about positions. Here, we’re talking specifically about a role in the army. Talk to us about was this an obvious choice? Or were there other branches in the military you were considering?

[00:10:22] AM: The two options that offered the National Guard near me to be able to pay for school in the manor were the Air Force and the Army. And I’m going to be honest, I never once looked at the Air Force. Hindsight, when we are in the field and we haven’t showered, and it’s hot, and we’re miserable. Sometimes I think maybe I should have looked at the Air Force. But I definitely will say, when I was 17 and looking for that path, maybe my ego got the best of me and I wanted to be in the Army instead of the Air Force. Whereas, in our world, we called the Air Force the chair force. And I look at that now and I’m like, “That’s so stupid.” Like, why did we think that way? And why did I think – But I wouldn’t take anything back. But that was – I looked at the Army simply because of its reputation and the ego behind it. I hate saying that. But it really is the reason why.

[00:11:15] TU: Tell us more about the specifics of joining the army and how that allowed you to graduate debt-free. I’m thinking here about like the requirements of service, the time commitment. How the stipends work or the tuition reimbursement? Tell us more about the ins and outs of how that service in the Army ultimately allowed you to graduate from Ohio Northern. Great school. I’m a little bit biased. But a great school. And to do that debt-free.

[00:11:40] AM: The way it begins when you first join, in order to get the four years for school credit, it’s good at any – At least in Ohio, it’s good at any public school in the state. And then it will do the max public school amount going to any private school. It does fluctuate year by year of what you can get. But in order to get that four years theoretically for your undergrad, you have to commit six years. And that six years is the moment you sign the dotted line until six years later.

Even when you’re not completely doing a whole lot and you’re still waiting to go to basic training, that still counts towards your time in. I had about, I want to say, seven months like that, that still counted towards my six years. But I really wasn’t doing what I’m doing now.

With that, with the six years, you’re able to get 13,000 about per year through your scholarship. Mine fluctuated sometimes a little over, a little under. But on average, I was getting 13,000 for four years sent automatically to my school. If you were at a public school, per se, it would be entirely covered. They cover the max there.

And then, because I was a full-time student, I automatically was able to get the GI Bill. My GI bill was about 400 per month. And then following the GI Bill, you had your drill pay. Drill pay is like when you go in every single month and you do your work. It could be anywhere from two days, to four days, to – I want to say my longest was a week. While you’re doing it, it’s a little tough. But the paychecks are really nice when you get it.

But anyway, drill pay where I was at, average ranking, it depends where you’re at. Your rank and how long you’ve been there. But you can expect to make anywhere between 300 to 600, potentially more, on your drill pay per month. And then once a year you do two weeks typically out of the summer. And that’s your annual training. And on annual training, you can expect to get about 1500. In total, in the one year that you’re there between your scholarship, your GI Bill – Your GI Bill you just get for being a full-time student. You do not have to do anything for the GI Bill except call the VA and say, “I’m a full-time student. And this is my school.”

And then drill pay and annual training pay combined, you can make about 23,000 per year just from being on that. And then as well, wherever you’re at, any school regardless, you get to tack any other scholarships you receive on top of that.

[00:14:07] TU: Oh, wow!

[00:14:08] AM: That’s why, at Ohio Northern, I was able to do really well, because I was able to tack on – Especially during undergrad, my 19,000 a year that I got from ONU to that 23 to where suddenly I was paying minimal. Less than a thousand dollars per year in my first four years of undergrad to go to school.

[00:14:26] TU: Wow! And so, therefore, the cows could handle the rest of that, right? We could get down to the zero balance.

[00:14:32] AM: Yes. The cows, the internships, the on-campus job, that was easy to manage.

[00:14:38] TU: How were you – When I hear you say on-campus jobs, you obviously had requirements here through the Army. When I was in pharmacy school, granted you’re obviously more mature than I was at the time, but I felt like it was all in on time and effort just to be able to get through pharmacy school and to do that well. Here, you’ve got the commitment piece in the Army. You mentioned other on-campus work requirements. I’m guessing you were involved in other things as well. Talk to us about how the balance of this works. And were you ultimately able to feel like you were going through pharmacy school and completing that well while also filling your other service obligations?

[00:15:12] AM: There were different times, especially I want to say my third year was when I really started to experience a few of the challenges of the service obligation combined with pharmacy school. Everything else seemed, especially on campus, with sports, and organizations, and work, it all just seemed to bend to the whim of pharmacy school.

Pharmacy school always trumped that. It never seemed to get in the way. But with the military, it’s kind of like taxes. You don’t get to say no, even if it’s a bit of a challenge. There were days starting in my third year when school started getting more intense. And I started picking up more rank in the military that I could be going out of school for a week at a time.

There was a point when I was gone for almost 10 days and then you come back and you’re like, “Hi! What happened? I’ve been gone.” And your inbox is full. People are emailing you, “Where are you?” And you’re like, “I didn’t even have a phone for the last 10 days.” Like, I don’t know what’s going on. Those were the really challenging times.

And just kind of missing things of like rearranging things with professors of like, “Hey, the exam is Friday. I’m leaving Tuesday. And I won’t be back until next Tuesday.” It was a lot of taking – My third year, I took everything early. I think every quiz, every exam, it was like, “Oh, I’m here.” Five o’clock at night to take my quiz three days before everybody else.

It was kind of at that point when I realized I didn’t necessarily have to be at the same point as everybody else. And I know, like, especially with type A personalities, as pharmacists and pharmacy students, you really get caught in that pressure of that person A did this. And person A was able to do all these other things. And person B got an A in this class and an A. And I wasn’t going to be a 4.0 student. And that was the hardest pill for me to swallow, was that I couldn’t be all these other things because I had this one nagging thing that a lot of other people didn’t necessarily have. That was the hardest part, is to kind of realize you can’t compare. And I really think we get caught in that comparison game.

And so, that was when I realized, like, “I’m not going to be a 4.0 student anymore. I have to make it through, do my best. And as long as I put in all the effort that I could put in, use all the energy that I had.” I couldn’t be ashamed of myself at the end of the day. As long as the effort I know I couldn’t have put in any more, I couldn’t be upset with that.

[00:17:37] TU: Yeah. And, Alexis, arguably more important than your grades is what you learned about yourself through this journey. And I think I’ve come to appreciate that more and more since being out of pharmacy school where in that moment, as you mentioned, especially I think in a very competitive program, it’s very easy to draw that pure comparison. It’s very easy to get caught up in that. But big picture, I’m hearing you talk and talk about your journey. And I can tell there’s a lot of self-discovery through that journey. And one thing I wanted to hit on specifically is in the post you put on LinkedIn, you had mentioned that you were enticed by the idea of the GI Bill and Tuition Assistance. With your original plan is that you’re going to do the bare minimum. Get your degree paid for. Get in. Get paid. Get out. But then you would later say good things come to those who put in the work. Bare minimum is not the kind of person I am or will be. That’s a significant jump from where you started mindset-wise to where you kind of ended. Tell me more about that and what you learned about yourself during the journey.

[00:18:33] AM: I guess when I started, I first looked at strictly money. And that’s all it was about. It was only about money. I felt like some people go through the military and they’re like, “Oh, I love my country.” I felt like I didn’t have a patriotic bone in my body. I just wanted that money to get my pharm beat.

There was no like family history. There was no massive drive. Like, no bald eagles cried when I woke up. It was money. Honestly, whether you put in the max effort or the minimum effort, you’re still going to get the same amount of money in the end. And that’s where I was looking at it and was like, “Okay, I don’t have to do anything spectacular.” I just have to get in, do the bare minimum, get out. Show up one week in a month, I don’t have to do anything extra, and also get paid.

But then the more that I was there – I hate saying it. But it’s always the toxic leaders that you seem to learn a lot from. The best leaders and the toxic leaders. And I saw in that environment there were some that were absolutely phenomenal people. And they busted their tail every single weekend we were there. And even in the times outside, like, they just really cared about people. They really cared about their small part-time job. But then there were other people who I could tell had only received their leadership roles and promotions because they’d been there long enough and they were running out of people to promote. And that, to me, I was like, “Wow! Like, there are people like you here taking care of soldiers, young individuals, and you’re trying to mold their minds. And this is how you’re acting.” And I just felt like that wasn’t – It wasn’t a strong environment to be in. But I saw that there were enough people that really did care. I was like, “I want to be like those people.”

And I always like to tell myself that I’m going to just show up. And sure, I’ll do the minimum. That’ll be fine. I never end up doing that. I should have known I was not going to do the minimum. But basically, I always wanted to help out the people who were doing so much.

And then it came down to a lucky break. There was an extra spot to hit a promotion. And I had all of my stuff turned in. I was just waiting for a slot to come up. And out of 150 some people, I was the only one in the position waiting for it. I was able to nav my first promotion, my E5 sergeant, at two and a half years. And that, again, is not very common either.

And then I just kind of took the same steps into the next role. And as I always like to kind of just tell my own soldiers, you have to stay hungry. Because there’s people around you that aren’t. You’re getting out of this what you put in. And there are people who want to improve themselves. But then there are people here who they don’t care. And you can easily go around those people. You should want to be better than those people, because that’s the legacy you’re going to leave. When you leave here, people are not going to remember who you were, or they’re going to remember who you were. Probably not have very good things to say about you. And that’s where you kind of have to worry about the impact and the impression you’re leaving. I’m sorry. That was a very long-winded answer.

[00:21:33] TU: No. That was fantastic. And the thought that came to mind as you were speaking there, Alexis, is that we stand on the shoulders of the folks that have provided us opportunities and led before us. And so, you talked about great leadership and not so great leadership, which obviously we can learn from. And now, you’ve got an opportunity to pay it forward with your soldiers. But also, to the folks that are listening, others in our profession, that I think are certainly going to look up to you and the work that you’ve been doing. I appreciate you sharing that.

If I’m doing my math right, you mentioned six years of a commitment from signing the dotted line. A little over four and a half years in, you were pinned staff sergeant. You mentioned to me before the show started that you’re getting ready to make a move from Ohio to Boston. Tell me, we got a little over a year left in your six-year commitment, and I’m trying to kind of understand, like, what is the career path? What’s the trajectory as you think about this transition from student to new practitioner? And where the intersection of pharmacy and the work that you’re doing in the army? Tell us more about what lies ahead.

[00:22:33] TU: The way I arrange my contract and the choices that I made, granted I am a doctor. And, theoretically, people once they get a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctorate, will advance into the officer realm. But because of the choices that I had made earlier on and chose to stay enlisted, I will be a doctor and a truck driver all at the same time. And some people think that’s a little bit odd of a choice. But for me, I wanted that flexibility. I only have that year and a half left. But had I chosen to go an officer route, I would have had a bit more of a commitment.

And I wasn’t sure where I wanted to be tied with it. And I do have the option. If I really wanted the commission, I most definitely could. I could drop my packet, the packet to go commission and go off of the route. And I could be in in the next year. But I’m not committing that time yet just because I don’t know where – Especially with residency, and potentially a PGY2, and really where life is going, I don’t necessarily know where that’s always going to fit in. I have stayed enlisted to give myself that flexibility to get in and get out.

But since I started in Ohio, and that’s where my first unit was, and I am moving to Massachusetts, I have met phenomenal people who will live in a different state and then fly back to their drill weekends. I knew a man from Arkansas and he would come up once a month to Toledo where we would drill and work. I’m not that tough as an individual. I don’t want to catch a flight. I don’t want to deal with it. I ended up transferring to a unit in Massachusetts. And I’m in the process of doing that now. You pretty much fill out a bunch of paperwork and transfer.

I’m in that process of waiting to get picked up in Massachusetts. And I’ll stay there until I leave. And right now, I don’t have any intentions of following that commitment past six years, just because I don’t know where my career will take me. But, really, I don’t think the door has closed yet. I think I will probably come back as an officer once I have a more stable location and more stable job other than a residency. But for now, we’re going to put it on pause.

[00:24:41] TU: And so, if I’m following you correctly, Alexis, you’ll be doing residency while you’re continuing out the six years of the commitment. Is that correct?

[00:24:50] AM: Yes. I will be doing my residency as well as finishing my commitment out in Massachusetts.

[00:24:54] TU: Awesome. I love that. I think – Not I think. I know your journey is going to be an inspiration to so many. And as I shared with you before we hit record, this is a topic we don’t talk often enough about of the intersection, I think, between the health services and opportunities in the military and to serve our country. And obviously, how that can intersect with one’s financial plan here as we talk about being able to graduate debt-free. And I’m confident that several people are going to listen to this and say, “Hmm, I hadn’t really thought about that. But I don’t know where to get started.”

And so, my question for you is – I don’t want your email to get inundated necessarily. But for folks that want to follow you and your journey, where is the best place that they can go to do that?

[00:25:35] AM: They can obviously go ahead and connect with me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn – My name is Alexis Miller. Kind of hard to find. But if you go to the linkedin.com/amillerx. It’s a play on amillerrx, no one gets it. I thought it was funny. No one else did. But that’s where you can find that.

And then of course, I will give out my email. I don’t get too many emails. It is [email protected]. I’m not always the fastest on my email. But I will try to get back as soon as possible.

[00:26:07] TU: Awesome. We will link to both of those in the show notes. And I’m so grateful for your time. Again, thank you for your service. Thank you for taking the time to share your story with our community. And Dr. Alexis Miller, a staff sergeant, really appreciate your time and the contributions you’ve made here. Thank you so much.

[00:26:28] AM: Thank you so much for having me.

[OUTRO]

[00:26:29] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder, that the content on this show is provided you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archive, newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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NFTs 101 for the Pharmacy Professional

Posted on July 13, 2022June 22, 2023 by yfpadmin

NFTs 101 for the Pharmacy Professional

The following is a guest post from Samantha Boartfield, PharmD. Samantha Boartfield is a pharmacist in Phoenix, Arizona, who also writes for women and mother entrepreneurs (Mamapreneurs) on her site at SamanthaBrandon.com.

Disclaimer: This post is intended for general, educational purposes only. This post and the information herein are in no way meant to serve or act as a replacement for professional investment advice. Investing in cryptocurrency or NFTs may be high-risk with high losses and should be done at the investor’s sole risk.

If you’re scanning your newsfeed in the morning, I’m willing to bet you’ve seen NFTs making their headlines more often than ever these days. Watching people pay millions of dollars for an NFT and high-profilers like Marc Cuban endorsing them had me scratching my head until I finally took the time to understand the basics.

Because really. What exactly is an NFT?

This is a question that is being asked more and more in the pharmacy community. With unprecedented student loan balances and financial futures to secure, many of us may be wondering if we should be jumping into the digital world of cryptocurrencies or NFTs. It seems like all healthcare professionals have been trialing at least one online side hustle or another to generate some extra income.

If you’re looking to gain foundational knowledge of the NFT space, this article is meant to provide a high-level overview. Now, let’s start with the basics.

What is an NFT?

To define an NFT, you have to have some basic understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrency, as NFTs are built on the blockchain and often paid for by cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain

Blockchain is, simply put, a public digital ledger. Everyone in the world has access to it. When a transaction is made, such as Person A sending cryptocurrency to Person B, the details of the transaction are packaged up into code, put in a digital “block,” and then added to the end of a blockchain. Because this is a public ledger, everyone in the world sees this purchase (so you can’t dispute it), and once a block is made, it cannot be altered (doing so would be caught by the other millions of users who would recognize the alteration).

I like to think of blockchain as a giant poster in a public square, where everyone writes their trades for everyone to see. When a transaction is done in front of the entire town, you can’t dispute it and say you didn’t receive or send the money. Now just digitize this experience and amplify it on a global scale.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies are digital money that utilizes the blockchain to trade directly. You likely know the popular versions such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, or Ether. Each currency has its own blockchain standard and is a decentralized method of exchange.

Another important note is that crypto is “fungible,” which means each coin is just as valuable as another coin. Think of this as the U.S. dollar; a $20 bill is just as valuable as another $20 bill.

If you would like a better foundation of this, I recommend reading Cryptocurrency 101 for the Pharmacy Professional first for a more in-depth review.

That leads us to an NFT, which stands for “Non-Fungible Token”.

These tokens are not interchangeable like bitcoin, but rather each token is unique or “non-fungible.” And that’s because each NFT is attached to the URL of a digital or physical asset.

So instead of just having the simple details of a crypto transaction (like the sender, receiver, and the amount), an NFT will include other details such as the URL of the product you are attaching. Therefore, each NFT acts as a unique identifier of a digital asset that is secured on the blockchain.

The Smart Contract

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t fully explain how the NFT can be transferred and packaged into the blockchain, and that answer is simple: through the use of a smart contract. Essentially, a smart contract is a bit of code that is written to automatically execute a contract when certain conditions or terms are met.

In the case of NFTs, the contract will include the URL of the digital file, as well as any other details that should be included, such as the seller, buyer price, and any royalties that could be owed.

To summarize: A smart contract operates under certain conditions that when met, will automatically execute its contents (in our case selling/giving away coins).

I think I’m following you. Can you give me an example?

As a recap, an NFT is a way to transfer a digital or physical product from one person to another, with this transaction being done on the blockchain and often purchased or sold through cryptocurrencies.

Now, as I mentioned, you can attach virtually anything to NFTs. Digital art and collectibles have by far been the most popular. CryptoPunks is one of the most popular collectible NFTs. Bleeple, a very well-known digital artist, created a collage of 5,000 original artworks and is the most expensive NFT sold to one owner, just shy of $70 million. Major brands have also jumped into the scene, including Disney, Louis-Vuitton, and Coca-Cola.

And NFTs are not limited to artwork. Since you can attach anything (including physical products), they have been used for entertainment purposes such as Coachella tickets to selling the first home as an NFT in Florida.

So, if I purchase an NFT, that means I own whatever product is attached, correct?

Okay, this is where it can be a bit complicated. Just because you purchased an NFT does not mean you have full rights to the product.

Ownership does not equal copyright, and many people confuse this.

What you own depends on the contract terms of the NFT that you purchased, and each may have its own degree of what extent you can use it.

Here’s a relatable example: Let’s say you purchased a physical, collectible copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Does that mean you own the copyrights to Vitruvian Man? Can you make more copies of it and distribute it? Surely, if you have a physical copy that you purchased and a printer. So you have the capability to distribute it as you please?

We all know that the answer is, of course not. Just because you own a copy of Vitruvian Man, doesn’t mean you own the copyrights of the product.

So I don’t get a physical product. I don’t own the copyrights. What’s the point?

At this point, you may be wondering, what’s the point? I don’t have a physical copy to hang up. I don’t own the copyrights. What do I do with an NFT?

There are many ways to enjoy an NFT. First, you can display your NFT digitally in many ways including social media accounts or digital frames. Like any other collectible, you can hang on to it as an ‘investment’ and resell it later.

The better question yet is, what is the appeal of an NFT?

The biggest appeal to artists going the NFT route comes down to one word: Royalties.

If you’re an artist wanting to sell a photograph or artwork you have two options. You can go the traditional route and sell that printed photograph to the highest bidder. Or, you can turn your photograph into an NFT and attach royalties. This means that every time the artwork is resold in the secondary market, the artist can receive a royalty that they have predetermined (typically anywhere from 5-10%).

As you can imagine, this is very appealing to artists, as typically subsequent sales tend to be much higher than initial sales.

How Do You Buy, Sell, and Trade NFTs?

One of the biggest obstacles to making NFTs mainstream is that there is quite the learning curve, particularly when it comes to buying and selling them.

To purchase or buy NFTs, you will need a few things:

1. Cryptocurrency

NFTs are almost always bought and sold using cryptocurrency. The majority of NFTs are made on the Ethereum blockchain, so you will need to purchase some Ether via a crypto exchange such as Coinbase or Gemini. Solana is another blockchain that has been rising in popularity for NFTs.

2. NFT Wallet

Next, you’ll need an NFT wallet that’s capable of trading NFTs. From one of these, you’ll be able to sell and receive your NFT, as well as view your assets. You don’t actually store your NFTs in this wallet, because remember, your NFT is stored on the blockchain with access to a URL for your product.

There are two types of wallets: “hot” or software wallets, and “cold” or hardware wallets. Software wallets, such as MetaMask or Trust Wallet, are popular ways to trade NFTs. However, because they’re connected to the internet it leaves them susceptible to hacks. Therefore, it’s recommended that you always backup your NFTs with a hardware wallet, which is not connected online and will protect them from hacks.

3. NFT Marketplace

This is where you will buy and trade NFTs (think of this as eBay or Etsy). Some are more exclusive, where they individually curate the NFTs that they present on their marketplace. Others are open-access marketplaces where anyone can buy and sell on the platform. Some popular NFT marketplaces are Opensea or Nifty Gateway.

Other companies have also created their own marketplaces such as NBA Topshots, which sells NBA NFTs exclusively. Veve Marketplace has also partnered with Disney to release its Golden Moments collection.

What Are Some of the Potentials of NFTs?

NFTs are such a new field that only time will tell if this is going to be the future of the way transactions are done or if it’s a short-lived concept. Here are some reasons that NFT technology may be here to stay:

1. Cuts Out the Middle Man

NFTs are stored on a blockchain, which means that there is no need for a third party such as Paypal to facilitate the transaction. This also eliminates fees that come with using a third party (but replaced with blockchain fees).

2. Transactions Without Borders

Since NFTs are stored on a blockchain, they can be traded with anyone in the world as long as they have cryptocurrency. This makes international transactions much easier than traditional methods, which involve wire transfers and banks.

3. Royalties for Artists

As we mentioned before, NFTs have the potential to revolutionize the way artists are paid for their work. By attaching royalties to their NFTs, artists can receive a percentage of every sale made in the secondary market.

This could create a whole new stream of income for artists and help support them financially.

4. The Metaverse & Gaming

The Metaverse is a term used to describe the virtual world that has been up and coming. NFTs are being used in the Metaverse as a way to represent ownership of virtual property and assets. As we see the Metaverse expanding, NFTs will likely have a role.

Play-to-earn gaming is another gaming industry that’s on the rise. It’s a model where gamers can earn rewards by playing video games. NFTs are being introduced into P2E gaming as a way to reward gamers for their achievements.

5. Brand Expansion

Luxury brands are taking notice, and have jumped into NFTs to increase their brand marketing strategies. Also, it’s an easy way for them to generate sales as the costs to create are very low, with a high marginal profit percentage.

What Are Some of the Downfalls of NFTs?

1. Hacks and Security Concerns

Even with an immutable blockchain, scams and hacks are still rampant. Hackers may not be able to change the code on your NFT, but they certainly can attempt to empty your NFT wallet and run with your assets. And because there’s no central authority, if this occurs, then there’s not much you can do. It’s important you store anything valuable on a hardware wallet to prevent this from happening.

Also, how do you know the NFT you are purchasing is legitimate? It’s similar to buying a fake designer bag, you need to know what to look for when you’re purchasing to protect yourself from getting scammed.

2. High Transaction Fees

Another potential downside of NFTs is that transaction fees can be high. Whenever you make a transaction that has to be added to the blockchain, there is a fee for doing so. This fee is also not standardized and fluctuates hourly depending on how many users are on the network.

3. Regulations, Regulations, Regulations

The world of NFTs is still largely unregulated. Governments have only just begun to take notice and it’s unclear what their stance will be on NFTs. How will NFTs hold under the Copyright Act? Only time will tell.

4. Volatility

As I’m writing this, NFT sales have plunged and are flatlining. NFT investments are very volatile, so it’s important to only risk what you’re okay with losing.

In Summary

At the end of the day, it’s important to see what NFTs are for what they are: a novel piece of technology that can transfer digital or physical assets across the blockchain. They have the potential to change many industries by simplifying transactions between parties, but they are still in their infancy. Do your research and invest carefully.

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What is an NFT?

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I think I’m following you. Can you give me an example?

So, if I purchase an NFT, that means I own whatever product is attached, correct?

So I don’t get a physical product. I don’t own the copyrights. What’s the point?

The better question yet is, what is the appeal of an NFT?

How Do You Buy, Sell, and Trade NFTs?

What Are Some of the Potentials of NFTs?

What Are Some of the Downfalls of NFTs?

In Summary

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