Behavioral Finance / Podcast

YFP 304: How This Pharmacy Entrepreneur Helps Pharmacists Transition Into Their Careers in Canada

Posted on April 20, 2023April 19, 2023 by Caitlin Boyle

Havalee Johnson, pharmacist and Founder of Immigrant PharmAssist, shares how and why she made the move from Jamaica to Canada, how her business helps immigrant pharmacists transition into their careers in Canada, and her business goals.

About Today’s Guest

Havalee is a Jamaican immigrant in Canada. She holds dual pharmacist registrations in both countries and has a combined 8 years of practice experience. Feeling the need for growth and expansion in her life and career, Havalee successfully pursued her pharmacist licensure in Canada, completely self-sponsored, and moved from Jamaica to Canada at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. She seamlessly transitioned and integrated into the Alberta healthcare system where she practices as a clinical pharmacist. Havalee is people-centric and multi-passionate and loves to help, empower and inspire others. Noting the myriad of challenges encountered by pharmacists’ peers and colleagues who have been unsuccessful in their many attempts to transfer their licenses to Canada, Havalee is on a mission to support and assist as many immigrants as possible. Through her business Immigrant PharmAssist, she helps international pharmacist graduates (IPGs) successfully navigate and accelerate through the licensure process so that they can smoothly transition into their lives and careers while thriving as newcomers in Canada.

Episode Summary

Havalee Johnson is a pharmacist in Alberta, Canada, and her new company, Immigrant PharmAssist, focuses on helping fellow pharmacists transition to a pharmacy career in Canada. After explaining why she stepped into a career in pharmacy, Havalee gives details on her community pharmacy experience, why commitment is one of her most important values, and the financial strategy she implemented to make the move from Jamaica to Canada. Havalee then opens up about what she wishes to accomplish with PharmAssist, whether pharmacies in Canada and America are going through the same struggles, common misconceptions that she encounters about moving to Canada, and where her business needs to be in the next three years for her to consider it a success.

Key Points From the Episode

A warm welcome to today’s guest, pharmacist and entrepreneur, Havalee Johnson.
Havalee’s background in pharmacy, including where she trained and her first job after school.
The community pharmacy experience that made her enroll in pharmacy school.
Why the John Assaraf quote about commitment resonates with Havalee and her life’s journey.
Havalee’s reasons for immigrating to Canada.
Her financial strategy for moving to Canada, and her unique relationship with money.
The problems that she is trying to solve with her business PharmAssist.
Why Canada is an attractive destination for pharmacists to consider.
Whether pharmacies in America and Canada are experiencing the same challenges.
Common misconceptions that aspiring pharmacists have about moving to Canada.
Where Havalee wants her business to be in three years to consider it a success.
The mindset shift that has had the biggest impact on her life since moving to Canada.
What Havalee does to reenter herself when she feels overwhelmed and out of focus.

Episode Highlights

“I’m a very committed person. And it’s not just in my professional life, it’s in every area of my life. If I have an appointment with someone, I’m going to make that commitment; I will show up for the occasion. If I have to do something, I just get it done.” — Havalee Johnson [08:47]

“When other people are having challenges or they have this sort of mindset that things will not work out, it’s because their level of commitment is not in alignment with what they think they truly want.” — Havalee Johnson [09:18]

“There’s so much wealth and information tied up in knowledge. It is very indispensable.” — Havalee Johnson [18:05]

“I worked, I saved, I bought the things that I needed to buy. I didn’t focus on the things that I wanted. It’s called delayed gratification. A lot of us know about it but we don’t subscribe to it.” — Havalee Johnson [18:40]

“It is not a matter of resources, it’s a matter of being resourceful.” — Havalee Johnson [27:39]

“I’ve embraced the fact that if I want to get to where I want to go, I need to do things differently and I have to invest in me. And not just investment in terms of monetary investment, but invest in my mindset, in up-leveling my mindset.” — Havalee Johnson [34:23]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

EPISODE 304

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.4] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrick 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 welcome to the show, Havalee Johnson, a pharmacist-entrepreneur from Jamaica, who helps pharmacists transition into their careers and thrive as newcomers to Canada. During the show, we discuss why she decided to move away from her family and hometown in Jamaica to live and practice some 2,000 plus miles away in Canada, some of the biggest misconceptions that folks have about moving to Canada as a licensed healthcare professional and the steps that she took financially to pay off her student loan debt, her car, accumulate savings, and to ultimately fund the move and transition to Canada.

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 280 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 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. Okay, let’s jump into my interview with Havalee Johnson.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:29.4] TU: Havalee, welcome to the show.

[0:01:30.6] HJ: Hey Tim, thank you for having me.

[0:01:33.1] TU: Really excited to follow up on the conversation from a couple of weeks ago to share what you shared with me, which is a really cool career journey and I think an inspiring story for many with the work that you’re doing now with pharmacists. We’ll get to that here in a little bit.

Let’s start with your career journey. What led you into the profession of pharmacy, where did you do your pharmacy training, and what was your first job out of school?

[0:01:56.1] HJ: Oh, that’s interesting. So interestingly, my first job, I will start with that one, my first job was in a pharmacy, that I think propelled me into my career being a pharmacist because I never wanted to be a pharmacist growing up. So my back story is that I was born and raised in Jamaica.

I lived in Jamaica for pretty much my entire life until I moved to Canada at the start of 2020, and that’s where I also did my training in Jamaica, at the University of Technology. I did my undergrad studies with my bachelor of pharmacy degree. So it’s interesting that I never thought of pharmacy, it wasn’t on my radar.

But as a student in high school, we were required to do some voluntary work prior to graduating and it so happened that I volunteered at the hospital’s pharmacy. So that was my first introduction to pharmacy but I never thought anything of it then. But after I completed six form, which is the equivalent of community college. In Jamaica, you can go to six form if you’re in high school.

You do your A-level studies and then you move into university. One of my colleagues was like, “My mom was saying pharmacy is a cool profession and all this stuff.” I was like, “Pharmacy? No.” I actually wanted to become a linguist. I was the Spanish student, I was the math student, and I did a mixture of the sciences and the arts. But as I’ve told you before, Tim, when we met, that I’m very multi-passionate and a multi-potential.

So I could just basically segue from pharmacy into just about anything, which to me that right now is really exciting. I started my pharmacy career in Jamaica where I practiced for five years before moving to Canada, where I interestingly transferred my pharmacist license and I practice as a pharmacist in Canada as well.

[0:03:45.1] TU: What I like about what you just shared there, Havalee, is that pharmacy is a part of your story, it is not the only story, right? So it’s an important part of the journey, you’re obviously helping other pharmacists but you know, you mentioned you can pivot in different directions. We’ll talk about the value of diversification here in a little bit and if I heard you correctly, it was a hospital experience that led you into pharmacy school. But you would end up practicing in community for a while, is that correct?

[0:04:11.0] HJ: Yeah. So after high school, so we had financial challenges growing up and my mom was basically a single parent and my sister went to nursing school prior to me going to pharmacy school, and she was like, “I can’t afford to send you both to university at the same time. So you have to work for a year.” And I was like, “No way, I’m not working.” Because for me, school was the only thing that I knew and actually, I found my value and my education.

As I told you from my back story that I never felt worthy, and I was told growing up that I was ugly. So, I just buried myself in academics. So when my mom told me I had to work prior to going to university, I was crushed. And I thought she was actually kidding but she was serious. So she went and got me a job basically. She made recommendations because she loves to talk about her children and she found a pharmacy owner.

She was like, “My daughter, she’s very brilliant, she’s interested in starting in pharmacy.” I did not want to go to work in a pharmacy. I wanted to go to university and I did an application to the pharmacy owner. That’s an interesting part of my story, we’ll have to talk about that another time, but it was my penmanship that was the hook. Like, my penmanship is really great, if I may say so myself.

So the owner saw my penmanship and he’s like, “I need to meet this person” and so I interviewed. My personality and I fit right into the pharmacy setting. I worked there for 15 months as a pharmacy assistant. So that was my first introduction to business as well because I got to do a little bit of cashiering, I did the OTC stuff, I got to do account reconciliation, I got to do just about every little thing in the pharmacy.

So I was like a floater and I worked there, but the impression that was left upon me by the pharmacist, who was the chief pharmacist at the time, her name is Alicia. Alicia, she was very impressionable. She was very proficient. She was very professional and I like the way she dealt with the parents, and that was my inspiration for going to pharmacy school. I wanted to emulate her and I was like, “Wow, this is really nice.” I enjoyed my 15 months there and I apply for pharmacy school.

Interestingly, I applied for pharmacy school prior and they didn’t have any space and they’ve gotten a letter, an email, a letter saying that I didn’t meet the qualification requirements. I reapplied the following year and I got through but all they needed to tell me was that they didn’t have any space. They didn’t have the capacity but I applied, I reapplied because I’m not the person who gives up easily. With the same credentials, I got in and then I had a whale of a time.

I suffice to say, I mentioned earlier that we had financial challenges and then the pharmacy was how I got through university. My mentor, my support system came through the pharmacy and that was how my accommodation was paid for. That was how my books were taken care of, that was when I got my first laptop.

I was 20 years old when I got my first laptop and just looking back now, it’s amazing to see how far I’ve come since then. Yet, that’s how I got through pharmacy school and I mentioned my friend Alicia the pharmacist, every single month that she got her salary, she sent me some pocket change, every single month, and I just feel so blessed.

[0:07:32.9] TU: Let’s make sure Alicia hears this episode, we’ll have to share it with her as you give a shout-out to her. But one thing that really stood out to me when you and I talked a couple of weeks ago is, you know, I have the opportunity to talk with different pharmacists, pharmacy owners, entrepreneurs all across the country every week, which is an incredible part of the job and the work that I have and doing the podcast.

But something really stood out about our interaction. I think it was your mindset, it was your passion, your enthusiasm, your resilience, you described that a little bit, your optimism, it’s contagious. And you shared recently on LinkedIn a quote by John Assaraf. You said, “If you’re interested, you will do what’s convenient. If you’re committed, you’ll do whatever it takes.” Tell us more, why does that quote resonate with you and resonate with your own journey?

[0:08:23.3] HJ: It absolutely does. Thank you for bringing that up. I tend to forget the things that I put out there sometimes because I’m just, you know, going from what’s inside that I wanted to share. But again, I buried myself in my academics and I found that for me, things just seemed so easy. And it’s just when persons are approaching me and asking, “How did you do this, how did you accomplish this?” that I realized that I was a very committed person. And it’s not just in my professional life, it’s in every area of my life.

If I have an appointment with someone, I’m going to make that commitment, I will show up for the occasion. If I have to do something, I just get it done. So there are no entrances and even if there are obstacles along the way, it doesn’t prevent me from going ahead because I’m so committed to whatever task it is that I have in front of me, whatever commitment that I’ve made. So, when other persons are having challenges or they have this sort of mindset that things will not work out, it’s because their level of commitment is not in alignment with what they think they truly want.

So I thought that quote was fitting for the post that I did. I didn’t realize that it had gone over on to your platform as well. So thank you for the reminder, but I’m actually very committed and it makes the process much easier. It makes things — like, you don’t focus on the problems when you’re committed, you find creative solutions, and one problem has more than a thousand solutions if we were to go through and think about it logically.

[0:10:01.2] TU: Yeah, I mean, mindset really matters, right? I think that’s what you’re alluding to there and you could have two people that are facing a very similar problem but how they approach it and how they receive that challenge can be night and day. I had a chance to talk with Lauren Castle recently on the podcast, who is the founder of The Functional Medicine Pharmacist Alliance, and she talked about a book that its purpose is not a side hustle.

Meaning, what you said is, we bring our purpose and our intentionality to every single interaction, every single day. Now, easier said than done, right? And I often wonder, “Hey, what would the day look like as a parent, as a father, as a business owner, what would it look like if I did that every moment?” But such a good reminder.

Let’s talk about your transition to Canada. So you mentioned your upbringing in Jamaica. After pharmacy training, you worked a little over five years in community practice and then ultimately, you make a bold decision to move 2,000 plus miles to Canada, away from your home country, your family, your friends, your professional network. Why, what led you to that decision?

[0:11:07.0] HJ: I just don’t, it just came out of nowhere. I think Canada for me signified not security, because there’s not security anywhere, but Canada had some of the things that I desired as an adult. For example, growing up, our healthcare system is not the best. I’m not here to criticize our healthcare system but I lost my dad through him having health challenges going through dialysis, kidney failure, we couldn’t afford the dialysis.

I recognize that in order for me to serve people, I need to be healthy and I need to have that access. I’m not focusing on being ill but if things were to happen, if things were to hit the ceiling, I want to know that I have the accessibility. Also, when I completed pharmacy school, I got a statement for three million Jamaican dollars for my student loan debt.

I was like, okay, I didn’t come from the typical middle-class or upper-class family that had the financial means to send me to school. I had that. I was like, “Okay, I need, when I start my family, for my children to have access to work less education.” That was one of, again, these things were my deep why’s. Why I decided Canada.

Canada is underpopulated and they love bright young minds. I should just try for Canada and I had that thought when I went into the pharmacy. The first pharmacy I worked in after I got my license, my boss actually, they were selling the pharmacy and they were like, “Are you interested in buying?”

I’m like, “No, I’m on my way out of here.” I just told her, “I’m on my way out of here.” That was 2015. I didn’t know how, I didn’t have any connections. At that time, I had persons telling me I needed to go back to school and here I am, in three million dollars worth of student loan debt, now I’m at the phase in my life where I think I need to acquire things, which no, in retrospect, I didn’t need to acquire things. I need to acquire experiences instead.

So I had Canada in mind and I made it happen. I was committed, I did whatever it took. I had the two jobs. I was trying to be very savvy with my finances because again, we had the challenges of not having things that other children had that you probably, why you would have had but no, I’m like, it’s okay. I didn’t really need them but the mind of a child is totally different from the mind of an adult.

When you’re a child, you’re very impressionable and we have very receptive minds but as an adult, you know that you might need to be receptive as well as fertile and the things that we allow into our spaces has to be totally different from the focus we had when we were much younger.

So, I had Canada in mind and I’m like, “Okay in Jamaica, you get two months maternity leave when you start your family” and I was like, “That’s no time for you to nurture and care for an infant” and I’m like, “Okay, Canada, you could get up to a year as maternity leave” and also the scope of practice.

I was frustrated at times, so I had to do a year’s internship in the hospital after pharmacy school and I was frustrated with the way things were systemically, like the things that patient — I’m very passionate about patient care and I’m an advocate for people because I treat people the way I would want to be treated, the way I want my family members to be treated. And they have to go through too many hoops and hurdles to get even a registration number and a prescription, for example. These are things that I would have done differently but I’m not in administration.

I’m not in a certain position to implement those changes. So when I completed my internship, I said, “I cannot work with this system because it’s not in alignment with me.” And then going into community, I had so much autonomy and my boss’s wife is a pharmacist and my boss. They respected me, they allowed me to practice to my fullest scope but my scope was still very restrictive.

If the doctor wasn’t available, I couldn’t fax, I could make changes to the prescription. I love that about Canada, because the scope of practice here is that much greater. You can adopt a prescription, you can prescribe for a minor ailment, you can order labs, you can see the patient’s actual lab results, and that to me was exciting and that was one of my reasons for wanting to move to Canada as well.

[0:15:29.1] TU: And when you take a bold move like that, whether it’s moving from Jamaica to Canada, whether someone decides they’re going to start a business, which you did that as well. We’ll talk about that here in a little bit. But any bold move I think often requires one to feel like they’re in a sound financial position to make that move with confidence, and I talk about this in the show all the time.

If you’re starting a business, not that we need to have every single T crossed and I dotted with our financial plan, but we want to have some level of a foundation that we can approach that business with confidence, and not be having the stress and anxiety of personally not being where we need to be. So I ask that because, for you, you shared with me before that you paid off three million dollars in Jamaica debt from pharmacy, which was equivalent to about 30,000 in Canadian, is that correct?

[0:16:20.1] HJ: Correct.

[0:16:21.1] TU: Paid off a car, you accumulated savings, there is cost of moving, what was the strategy for you to get yourself in the financial position to be ready to make that bold move?

[0:16:33.6] HJ: Thank you for that question. I think that my relationship with money is very unique. I used to say that I don’t know how my mom makes more than a hundred cents out of a dollar because she did it, and I think I got some of that from her in terms of being very savvy about my finances. The minute I started working, I said I’m going to start saving towards this Canada journey, and that’s what I did.

I earned, I took care of my obligations. So in pharmacy school, we actually learned about the reducing balance method. I’d never done any business subjects, I never done accounting prior, I learned about the reducing balance method. I applied that to my student loan and my debt payoff but I also did it smartly. I also referenced my friend Alicia. She allowed me, whenever I needed to do any business transaction, not business but any personal related transaction if I wanted to travel to buy an airline ticket.

She was the person that got the credit card print posts from. You use, you pay on time and in full so you don’t accumulate an interest, and then I just started learning that, “Okay, if I use it directly after the due date, I get at least 51 days to make that payment.” Because the date for the statement will come and then you’ll have time to pay. So I adopted that from Alicia, that was where it started initially and then I started reading the financial section of the local newspaper.

There’s so much wealth and information tied up in knowledge. It is very indispensable and I did that, and using my credit card to pay down my student loan was a part of my strategy because I had a credit card that had cash back. So I would pay the student loan and I’d get back some of the money and I built up great credit. I honestly never checked my credit back in Jamaica, but I knew that my credit was great because I started out with a credit card of USD 100,000 in 2016 and by 2018, my credit limit increased to over a million dollars.

So I worked, I saved, I bought the things that I needed to buy, I didn’t focus on the things that I wanted. It was called delayed gratification. A lot of us know about it but we don’t subscribe to it . And just being very disciplined in my finances, paying my debts, honoring my financial obligations, doing everything that I needed to do, it allowed me to save and I also set up, I didn’t even know for sure but I invested in a life insurance investment policy.

I just heard about this in financial advisor. I called him up and met with him, he explained some stuff to me, then it was just all his. I didn’t understand what were mutual funds, I didn’t know the jargons, I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes but I knew I needed to make plans and preparation for my future. So I invested in a policy and I started saving every single month from my salary.

I told myself, “This is my retirement plan” and over a period of time, it accumulated so much funds. I was like, “Whoa, this is amazing.” It is amazing to see the tiny steps that we take, and over time, we adapt quickly and I think that was a very big thing for me. But I think it really boils down to me being the disciplined person that I am with my finances. I have never paid any money for credit card interest while I work in Jamaica. Never.

I paid on time, in full, and over a two-year period, I got back over USD 130,000 in cash back just by using my credit card.

[0:20:19.6] TU: It makes sense when you’re paying big student loan payments, right? And the cashback of that. So I’d like what you share. I think there’s a couple of things that really stand out there, your relationship with money and really, understanding what is that, where does that come from, our upbringing typically, what are the good things that we have a positive relationship with money, what are the not so good things.

Being aware of that and then really, what I heard is a lot of discipline in setting your goals and being intentional with how you were going to achieve those goals, which obviously, allowed you to make some of the transitions and move that you did make.

I want to shift gears and talk about the work that you’re doing through PharmAssist and as you say on LinkedIn, “I help pharmacists transition into their careers and thrive as newcomers in Canada.”

So two questions for you here, what problem are you trying to solve with this business, and what benefits does living in Canada for pharmacists, that it may be an attractive option for people to consider?

[0:21:17.0] HJ: Thanks for that question, Tim. So in my business, actually I just studied shortly a backstory, PharmAssist started off as a podcast but it was a podcast to help patients, because I wanted to use my voice that I wanted –

[0:21:29.9] TU: I saw that, I found it, yes.

[0:21:32.4] HJ: You did? I wanted to utilize my voice in a way that could be meaningful and impactful. I’ve always stayed away from public speaking, anything that required me to be in the spotlight. So, I started PharmAssist but I didn’t, at the time, know how to get in front of the right audience, but it was well working in pharmacy. I’ve noticed certain trends, I saw the frustration, I heard the stories.

I’ve met several international pharmacists who were struggling and when I say struggling, in terms of transitioning into their careers in Canada. They’re already in Canada but their credentials have not been recognized. And if you have noted recently on my platform, I’ve been talking about decredentialization, having high credentials is not yet recognized. So you end up doing survivor’s jobs and so your income earning potential has been significantly diminished.

So what I aim to do is to empower especially persons who are coming into Canada to let them know, “Hey, there is a possibility for you to transition smoothly into your career.” You can take an alternative route than coming to Canada as an international student, which is I believe one of the most expensive roads to come to Canada, or even coming and not having your degrees transferred, getting, passing your board exams.

Getting your pharmacist license recognized so that you can continue in your practice to create impact but also to make an income so that you can have a higher standard of living. I successfully transferred my license and I started while I was working in Jamaica, because I was so fortunate I had the discernment to know that if I move to Canada prior to getting my license, I’m going to have to move into the fast lane, but also be doing menial jobs, low income, so I might end up burning out.

I need to be doing maybe two or three jobs just so that I can survive because when you convert the dollar, it’s totally about being a millionaire in Jamaica. I’m a ten thousand-narian in Canada. A million Jamaican dollars is 10,000 Canadian. So it doesn’t stretch very far, especially with the cost of living. I wanted to help those international students who have the misconception that they need to first move to Canada and get their credentials transferred.

But if their desires or they desire to move to Canada, there is a way for you to zone in focus on passing those exams and getting into practice because statistics show that it’s in the low 40s the amount of international students who pass the exams, the statistics are very low. I think, again, it’s because of lack of knowledge. People are not aware of the commitment that they need to make to pass the exam.

The investment that they need to make to get through the programs that they need to go through so that they can, and I believe every single pharmacist across the globe, they are capable of going into their careers in Canada successfully, it’s just that they don’t know the right strategy. They need someone to maybe hold them accountable, someone to show them what pathway they need to take, what direction they need to go. They just probably need like a human compass and I think that’s where I stepped in.

[0:24:55.8] TU: They need a guide, right? They need someone that will help them along. I’m curious, our listeners know very well that there’s many challenges right now in community retail practice in the United States in terms of burnout and expectations and staffing. There’s obviously a lot of work that’s being focused in advocacy on that.

Because of that, are you seeing interest from pharmacists in the US potentially moving to Canada as well, or are those same challenges we see in community retail practice here in the US, are those very similar in Canada?

[0:25:28.7] HJ: I have seen interest from pharmacists in the US who want to move to Canada for a myriad of reasons including — it’s like in the US, where it’s state-to-state practice, each state they have their own scope of practice or their own regulations. It’s the same thing in Canada with provinces, but a province like Alberta where I was practicing, we have a wide scope of practice.

So it may be for the scope of practice, it may be to escape the burnout. The thing about pharmacy practice in Canada as well, because immigration, and people are coming in full force. A lot of people are migrating to Canada then the workload becomes that much heavier as well. So there is burnout being experienced by pharmacists in Canada as well but it depends on the settings.

It depends on whether you’re working with a corporation or if you are working for an independent, or you could be working in just about any setting. But I don’t know if the challenges that are being faced in the United States if it’s that the same magnitude in Canada. Again, the cultures are very different, things are quite subtle here and maybe Canadians, they don’t want to seem as if they’re complaining.

But a lot of the challenges that people are experiencing in the US I can say that, from my own experiences, that some of them are similar in Canada. It’s just that people are not advocating at the level that it’s been done in the US.

[0:26:59.4] TU: Havalee, as you are talking to people that might be thinking about making the transition as a pharmacist to Canada, I suspect you hear from a lot of folks that their interested but they may have some type of misperception about what that transition may look like. Is there a common one that typically folks have that might hold them up in their journey?

[0:27:18.4] HJ: Yes, Tim. So one of the most common misconceptions that persons have in terms of transitioning into their careers in Canada, they believe that they don’t have the money to get it done. They don’t think they have the financial needs. And I am here to tell them that, like my coach said to me, it is not a matter of resources, it’s a matter of being resourceful. So a lot of these folks who, they will say, “I am going to pursue the school road, I am going to apply for school.”

And this is where the misconception comes in, because it is more expensive for you to apply as a student than it is to apply to transition into your career as a pharmacist, and even to move to Canada as a pharmacist, as a skilled educated professional. And this is not limited to pharmacy alone. I’ve had just today a connection on LinkedIn sent me a message saying, “Hey, I came to Canada as a student and it lasted for three months and then I just spent my six months and I returned home because it was so expensive.”

The connection just said, “I spent 15k.” And if you are moving to Canada as a skilled, educated professional and you are a single person, you need about 14k to show the government proof of funding, about 14k. If you come as a student for one semester for three months, that’s 15k. You will not see that money again. The money for a year of residency, you will get to keep that money.

So the misconception is, “I need to come as a student, ride along on the struggle bus, and then struggle to get my credentials transferred, and then five years later, I’m still not registered.” I’ve had a colleague in pharmacy who has been in Canada for 10 years and still unregistered. I’ve had a colleague who’s been in Canada for four years and still unregistered. Another misconception if I may is that the exams are too hard.

Because the statistics are low, it doesn’t mean that it’s not passable. You just need to have a strategy, you need to have a plan, and you need to have your commitment. You need to have these things in place and once you pursue the exam, it’s kind of like going to pharmacy school, there’s no difference. You go through the exam, you pass your exams, you can transfer your licenses. So those are two of the biggest misconceptions that I have had.

[0:29:48.8] TU: Havalee, I am curious, since you are on the front end of this business journey, which I think many people will find refreshing hearing some of the early experiences you’ve had of starting the business. I’m curious, as you think out let’s just say three years as a marker, what does success look like for you three years from now?

Personally, with the business, I mean, I’m sure there is a lot of overlap there but as you’re at the beginning of this and obviously, you’re in the day-to-day, you’re kind of in the weeds, you’re thinking about growing it. But I know when I have these conversations there’s often these feelings of, even if it’s not clear, I kind of see the vision of where things are going. What does that look like for you in three years?

[0:30:26.5] HJ: In three years from now? Wow. I see myself running a very well-organized, fully-automated, technologically included business that merges healthcare with immigration. In three years, I see myself there. I see myself onboarding more people to solve the many problems that we have, whether it’s in the health system and also to help a lot of people to change their lives. The way immigration and moving to Canada has changed my life, I want that other person to have a similar experience and especially if they have a family.

They will get that social support and also to help them to up-level in their finances. I could introduce them to Tim. I was like, “Tim is a financial pharmacist.” Yeah, so in three years from now, I can see myself positioning myself in the marketplace as the go-to person for any internationally educated pharmacist as well as persons who are interested in migrating to Canada.

[0:31:29.8] TU: I love that. Here’s the reason why I asked that question, well one, I’m curious but two, as I talk with a lot of aspiring or early pharmacy entrepreneurs, I’m often encouraging them like you’re in the weeds, you’re building it, you’re wearing every single hat of the business. That’s what you need to do when you get started but it’s so important even if you don’t know exactly where things are going to go, because none of us do.

This will evolve over time. It is so important to have even a fuzzy north star of what is this vision for a couple of reasons, one, that gives us the focus of, “Does the activities I’m working on, the products and services I’m developing, how I’m spending my time, does that line up towards that vision?” And obviously gives us clarity to the messaging that we have both for ourselves as well as externally.

Then I think it also provides a really important source of motivation, right? Because something you just shared there highlights that so well. You said, “In three years I really see running a well-oiled technologically included business with a lot of automation that is focused on the intersection of immigration and healthcare.” Now, pharmacists moving and practicing in Canada, that can be one piece of that business, right?

But the intersection of immigration and healthcare is a much bigger vision and obviously, you are taking a very important first step right now. So I love that you’ve thought about that. I think it is such a good example of what are the things that I am doing right now, the steps that I am taking, the efforts that I’m moving, the products and services I’m developing, and how does that align with where I want to see things going in three to five years, so really cool.

Thanks for sharing. I want to wrap up by asking you two questions, which I have stolen from Tim Ferriss who ask some really great questions on his podcast. That first question is, in the last let’s say couple of years since you’ve made this transition, what new belief, behavior, or habit has had the most significant impact on you personally or professionally?

[0:33:34.0] HJ: So over the last five years or let’s say ten years, let me just even say even three years, a lot has shifted for me both personally and professionally and I’ve had to embrace a new mindset, I’ve had to embrace a new philosophy and I’ve had to become a student. I have had to question my belief system and the things that I grew up knowing. I’ve had to unlearn a lot of the things, unlearn the belief that I wasn’t worthy enough, I wasn’t good enough.

That there were limited supplies of everything out there when there actually is an abundance. I’ve had to retrain my brain and I’ve gotten into personal development. But one of the things that I’ve done most is embrace the fact that if I want to get to where I want to go, I need to do things differently and I have to invest in me. And not just investment in terms of monetary investment, but invest in my mindset, in up-leveling my mindset.

So, I’ve had to surround myself with other women in business, in a community setting where there are people who are empowering you and inspiring you and not just settling for mediocre things. I’ve had to make that shift and I’m so grateful that I’ve had, again, the discernment to know that. If I see things going on a particular trajectory and they want a different outcome, then I can. I have the power within to change that direction, so yeah.

[0:35:05.5] TU: That’s a really good one. I think it’s so important that we are aware of what are those external influences or the stories that we’re telling ourselves that are leading to some of those self-limiting beliefs and behaviors that we have. Well, one of the real examples of this, you probably see this all the time is you mentioned the 40% passage rate of that examination, right?

I can almost assure you that if you talk with someone that does not know that number and you know, maybe they are confident about this transition, they’re feeling good about it, they’re confident in their abilities and all of a sudden, you throw that number on them like I am sure you can see the confidence and the demeanor change, and all of a sudden the ceiling comes down of what they think is possible.

I think it is so important that we’re constantly examining where do these beliefs come from and why do I have this ceiling in my mind? We all have them, when we think about our goals over the next year even in 2023, even if we are challenged to think big, dream big, we all have a ceiling. It is just a really interesting question of like, “Where does that come and why is that there?” Gay Hendricks talks about this in The Big Leap, which is a great book that I kind of –

[0:36:12.5] HJ: That’s the book that I just completed, just completed.

[0:36:14.5] TU: Oh cool.

[0:36:15.6] HJ: Yes, talk about that ceiling and how when we get there, we tend to self-sabotage. I love that book, I love the concepts that it brings across.

[0:36:25.7] TU: My second question for you Havalee here again, stealing this from Tim Ferriss is when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do to refocus and get yourself back on the right path?

[0:36:36.5] HJ: So, I tell people that I have a really short attention span but that’s not true. What I’ve come to realize is that I’m not focusing on the most important things that I need to get done, so I get distracted. I get sidetracked. Whenever I feel unfocused or overwhelmed, I first have to check my environment. What is it in my environment that I need to remove? What is it that I need to, what systems do I need to put in place? What habits do I need to reinstall?

For me, I listen to Patrice Washington’s podcast, where she said, “Clutter is a physical manifestation of chaos in your mind.” I check my environment to see if everything is organized, what do I need to clear out. I also try to do some brain dump, I do write out the things that just free up my mental queue. I also do journaling and sometimes I do meditation, I don’t do it often enough. I know I need to get centered and get focused and get realigned and write out the things that are most important to me.

What is it that I need to get done right now that’s going to have the greatest impact on the big goals that I have for myself and just to add to that, it’s funny that when I was operating in my imposter syndrome, that I felt fearless because I didn’t know that I had imposter syndrome. I was just smashing through goals and moving from one goal to the other and then when people were like, “Okay, so how did you do that?”

I was like, “It’s no big deal” because I was just operating. But now that I am more centered and becoming more aware of who I am and what I bring to the table, I am smashing through my imposter syndrome and just showing up anyway and trying to de-identify. It will take some time but try to de-identify, I need to divorce imposter syndrome altogether so that I can operate in my greatness and operate in alignment.

[0:38:38.5] TU: I love that reflection and I think the comments you have about clutter are really interesting. I found that as well that sometimes it needs to be a brain dump, sometimes it needs to be a physical organization of the space so that we can focus and align and get ourselves working on the thing that’s most important.

Other times I have found that sometimes we’re not working on the most important task, because typically there’s some fear that might be underlying us wanting to lean into that. We’re working on something that’s maybe a little bit easier or not as significant or that fear doesn’t reside is kind of an escape route, that typically fear of failure, but it could also be fear of our identity or what other people think, fear of success, exactly, so.

[0:39:20.2] HJ: I have experienced that myself.

[0:39:22.6] TU: Yeah, an important question for folks to reflect on, if you find yourself often not focusing on perhaps the most significant or meaningful work that you could be doing, what’s driving that and if it’s fear, what’s behind some of that fear? So Havalee, this has been awesome as I knew it would be. Where is the best place that folks can go to learn more about you and to follow your journey?

[0:39:44.8] HJ: Oh, absolutely. So I may be found on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. I go by my actual name Havalee, surname Johnson. On Instagram, I’m @havalee_89. On Facebook, I’m Havalee Johnson and that is in fact my real name. I’ve had persons reach out to me like, “What is your real name?” I say that’s my real name.

That it’s because a lot of persons have been scammed, a lot of persons have had encounters with people who are not authentic and so they’re questioning whether or not this person is real. Like out of nowhere Havalee showed up prior to March, April of 2022, I was a ghost on LinkedIn. I would not show up, I would not write anything, I would not advocate.

If Tim had asked me to appear on his podcast, well, he wouldn’t have known me but if he just mysteriously came across me and say, “Hey, would you like to be on my show?” I’d be like, “No.” I have passed up important opportunities in the past. So I appreciate being on your platform, Tim. Thank you so much for having me and it was so great connecting with you on LinkedIn, that’s where it started.

[0:40:53.2] TU: Thank you for saying yes and I hope folks will follow your journey. I’ve enjoyed it as well. So thank you for taking time to come on the show, I appreciate it.

[0:40:58.7] HJ: Thank you for having me.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:41:00.0] 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 on 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 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.

[END]

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YFP 303: How This Pharmacist Paid Off $115k in Two Years

Posted on April 13, 2023April 7, 2023 by Rose

Dr. Donisha Lewis talks about her debt-free journey, why and how she got involved in real estate investing, and how she and her husband got on the same page to achieve their financial goals.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Donisha Lewis is a clinical pharmacist at an ambulatory care facility where she collaborates with providers of the Hematology/Oncology and Internal Medicine departments to create treatment plans for patients. She attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe College of Pharmacy where she received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2011. During her career as a pharmacist, she has served patients in the community, inpatient, specialty, and ambulatory care settings. She is also a real estate investor alongside her husband. She enjoys traveling, spending time with family, and volunteering.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes Dr. Donisha Lewis to the show to discuss her debt-free journey. During this episode, listeners will hear the how and why of Donisha’s path toward financial freedom, how she got her start in real estate investing, and how she and her husband got on the same page to tackle $115,000 in debt in just two years. Donisha shares her pharmacy story, what drew her to the pharmacy profession, and her financial picture upon graduation from pharmacy school. With plans to tackle her $99,000 in student loan debt as soon as possible, her mindset and approach to debt payoff were critical in achieving this goal. She shares practical tips and tricks from her experience in paying off a combined $115,000 between herself and her husband, and advice for recent graduates who may not have started making payments on their loans due to the student loan pause. Making sacrifices while remaining realistic, Donisha built a budget that allowed her and her husband to combine the snowball and avalanche strategies. Using her budget, she identified wasted spending and analyzed her savings to determine the amount she was comfortable contributing to the debt payment. Tim and Donisha talk about the importance of having a shared financial vision with your partner and the benefit of having varied strengths in personal finance.

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 welcome Donisha Lewis onto the show to talk about her debt-free journey, why and how she got started in real estate investing, and how she and her husband have been able to get on the same page to achieve their financial goals. 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 yfpplanning.com. The team at yfpplanning includes five certified financial planners that are serving more than 280 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fee-only, high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. Whether or 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 in our interview with Donisha Lewis. Donisha, welcome to the show.

[0:01:02] DL: Thank you for having me.

[0:01:04] TU: Well, I am really excited for this conversation. You and I connected via LinkedIn through a mutual colleague, Dr. Jerrica Dodd. After we connected, and I learned a little bit more about your journey as eager to share your story with our listeners. So we’re going to dig into your debt-free journey, paying off the student loans. We’ll talk about some real estate investing as well. But before we get into all of that, let’s start with your career journey. Where did you go to pharmacy school and what led you into the profession?

[0:01:34] DL: Absolutely. I completed my pharmacy degree at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, back in 2011. As a child, I wanted to be a pediatrician, actually. My mom actually put me into a program, at the time, you could kind of shadow physicians. We didn’t shadow them seeing patients, but just the day in the life when they were doing their office hours. We went up to the operating room, and I saw all the tools and I just said, “You know, I have to find something else to do, because this is pretty intimidating.” I didn’t really want to perform any surgeries. I really didn’t think that I wanted to do anything that had that much patient contact as it related to doing surgery, stitches, anything like that. That really made me reconsider being a physician. So I started researching other medical professions that weren’t as hands-on, if you will. That’s when I came across pharmacy.

I actually have an uncle who’s a pharmacist too. That led me to the profession. I was still able to interact with patients, but not necessarily be as hands-on as I would have been as a physician. That’s what led me into the space.

[0:02:44] TU: I can relate to that. I went into pharmacy right out of high school and I was interested in medical professions at large. But the whole blood thing, you know, kind of scared me away. You hear that story often with pharmacists. One of the many reasons. I’m not sure that’s a great reason not to go into other ones, but it was an important one for me at that time. Tell us more.

So you graduated 2011. Coming up on your 12 years out into the profession, what have you been working on this point since graduation? I understand you’ve had experience in community practice, ambulatory care, a little bit in management as well. Give us that career journey over the last decade or so.

[0:03:22] DL: Sure. I began my career with one of the large retail pharmacies. I stayed with them for a little while. Then, during my time with them, I was able to get a PR, inpatient clinical pharmacist position, so I was doing both. From there, I was able to transition into a specialty pharmacy role, which was within a hospital practice. I like to say it was a combination of outpatient community pharmacy, as well as some inpatient clinical pharmacy. I really enjoyed that role. Now, I’m with an academic-based practice, and I’m helping them expand pharmacy services there. I am in a clinical role there, and we are expanding our services throughout the practice. We have some collaborative practice agreements in place. I’ve also started an ambulatory care clinic with the Department of Internal Medicine, and we’re launching specialty pharmacy there as well.

[0:04:16] TU: Wow. I love it. I love it. Some of our listeners, especially those that have graduated here in the last five or so years. I graduated in 2008, so we’re pretty close in that timeframe. When you and I graduated, student loans were – they were a thing, but they weren’t as big of a thing as they are today. We see lots of graduates coming out with you know, $200,000, $250,000 of student loan debt. Average right now is about 160,000. I think sometimes, when we talk about our own journeys, 10, 12, 13 years ago, people were like, “Oh, well. That was only $100,000.” It’s like context, context of what pharmacists were making at the time, as well as – that’s still a substantial amount to pay off. I think we’ve become a little bit numb to the indebtedness and the debt loads that are out there.

Let’s talk about your student loan journey. Give us the juicy details. How much did you have upon graduation, and what was your mindset at the point of graduation about how you wanted to approach the student loan debt?

[0:05:20] DL: Sure. When I graduated, I came out with right under $100,000 in student loan debt. Like 99,000 and some change is what I owed. For me, when I came out of school, we were at the end of the shortage, approaching really a saturation of pharmacist. One thing that I wanted to do was definitely be conservative in my spending because of that, but also not being comfortable with that type of debt that really led me to make decisions. Basically, like I was still a college student, related to my finances. I’m sort of grateful for that time coming out of school. It was an interesting time, because I saw a pharmacist when I started pharmacy school being offered all these incentives, and bonuses, and that stopped.

As soon as I graduated, those bonuses, and all of those incentives, they stopped. That’s a very big difference. I heard of people getting these extremely, just extreme amounts of bonuses, cars, all these things. For all of that to stop, I really wanted to be very cautious in my decision-making financially, because I really wasn’t sure what the future of pharmacy was at the time. One of the things to do with obviously, live below my means, but also reduce this debt. That was very important to me. With that large number, though, it’s intimidating.

Like you said, nowadays, 99,000 is not that much, unfortunately, for a lot of pharmacy grads. But to me, that was a lot. That was the framework, the mindset. I really did not want to have that debt looming over me like that for an extended amount of time.

[0:07:07] TU: It’s interesting to hear you share the timeframe you were in. I graduated in 2008, which was still at the time sign-on bonuses. We’re happy. I remember I made the decision to go do residency. I was going to make a whopping $31,000 salary all the while. Cars and sign-on bonuses we’re having. I remember one specific offer that was out there. It was one of the big chains that was offering a million dollars to go work in Alaska for a three-year deal.

[0:07:31] DL: Wow.

[0:07:33] TU: I remember, I mean, times changed significantly. You saw that happen, you graduate in 2011. We’re actually swinging back into some of that right now, which is an interesting discussion for another day. But you said something that I want to dig into a little bit deeper, which is, I’m not comfortable with that amount of debt, right? Whether the number was 99, or 150, or 50, I get a sense that just overall, you wanted this debt off of your shoulders. Tell us more about that, because I will talk with some people, Donisha that will say, “Hey, I’ve got $250,000 of debt.” And you’ll see a range of emotions to that debt. The number can be the same. In one instance, the house is on fire, it’s causing anxiety, it’s causing a lot of stress, and worry.

Then the other end, it might be, “Nah, it is what it is. It will kind of take care of itself over time.” Where was your motivation, your mindset around, “I want that off my shoulders”? Tell us more about why you felt that way.

[0:08:31] DL: Sure. For me, I, as a pharmacist, we have the actions to work part-time jobs, or pick up extra shifts and all of these things. Initially, I was thinking, “Oh, I can do that when I want to do extra things.” But I realized that that wasn’t very fun working all the time, so that was extra motivation to really have that time back and not feel like I had to work so hard in so much because I had this amount of debt. I felt like I couldn’t really do much else, because I owe someone else all this money. For me, personally, that’s just my belief with that, I really wasn’t comfortable making more decisions and making big purchases, and really moving my life forward the way that I wanted to, because I owe this large amount of money. It was really uncomfortable for me, but I do know, you know, like you said, other people, they’re totally comfortable with it. They’re like, “Well, hey, I’ll pay it off eventually.” But I just wasn’t okay with that, and I initially scheduled my student loans for a 10-year pay off. But even with that, I was like, “This isn’t going to work. Let’s speed this up.” So that’s what happened.

[0:09:37] TU: Yes. I would really encourage the listeners, especially those that are listening, that our students are just getting started. When it comes to the financial plan, I think what you’re highlighting so well here is there’s the objective numbers part of it, how much debt, what’s the strategy, what’s the plan. But then there’s the emotional side of it as well, which is really important. Folks often talk about how much a personal finance is behavioral. As each year goes on, I’m believing that more, and more, and more. There’s so much to be said about acknowledging the emotional side, the behavioral side of financial planning. There is no right or wrong answer. That’s I think it’s so important to communicate that, whether you are someone that looks at debt, and you have a lot of aversion to it, and it’s causing you stress, and it’s causing anxiety, like honor that. Honor that and develop a plan around that.

For folks that feel differently, making sure you’re finding a way to mitigate the risk, but just understanding having the self-awareness of where you are, emotionally in terms of viewing different parts of the plan.

[0:10:35] DL: Absolutely.

[0:10:37] TU: Donisha, I’m curious to hear your perspective. We are now approaching three years since the beginning of the pause on any payments being due for federal student loans because of the pandemic. So March 2020 was the beginning of the passage of the CARES Act, it’s been extended several times. We’ve had a freeze on payments, a freeze on interest rates. We now are coming up on class of 2023. We’ll be the fourth graduating class, and depending on what happens here, with the Supreme Court decision, and when the when the payments begin, potentially the fourth class that has not had to make payments on their student loans. I think that is a blessing, and it also presents some challenges. I’d love your perspective as someone who has gone through this journey, what would you have to say to those that are coming out, and those that are recent graduates about, “Hey, be thinking about this when these payments begin, because they will begin at some point.”

[0:11:32] DL: Absolutely. I think if you’re in the position where you are making the money that the average pharmacist makes. I would strongly consider starting to plan now, or starting to make those payments, and loan forgiveness and all of that. Those things are still in legislation. I really don’t recommend waiting for that to happen. It may very well happen. But I feel like if you’re in the six-figure zone, I don’t think the full amount will be forgiven. Even just now, thinking about your strategy, thinking about how you want to approach it, and especially if you’re someone who’s not comfortable with it, you definitely don’t want to just ignore it. There are different strategies that you can take to make sure that you aren’t – it’s completely ignoring it, but you’re still comfortable in your lifestyle. I would really do my research there and begin to plan and have a decision to take some action on that.

[0:12:30] TU: Yes. Such a good time to game plan, right? That timeline to game plan has been extended. We were saying back in 2020, use this window, come up with the plan. I think that’s had a – it’s lost its effect right over time, because it’s been extended so many times. But I love what you’re sharing there, because if payments start back up, and you’ve got a plan, great, you hit the ground running. If payments don’t start back up, but you have a plan, and you’ve just had expenses. That’s great, too, We can allocate that to different parts of the plan. I think my fear is that, especially with rising housing costs, often we have student loan borrowers, that are also first-time homebuyers, like pharmacists making a great income. But at the end of the day, there’s only so much income to go around.

When you’re looking at $200,000 of student loan debt, rising home costs, and obviously inflation. There’s been other competing expenses, I’m sure for many people as well. You start to get pinched in all different directions, and we’ve got a reset. What is that payment going to be when we come out of the pause? Look at the options. Are we doing a 10-year standard repayment? Are we doing an income-driven repayment? Are we doing a loan-forgiveness pathway? What is that monthly amount going to be based on the strategy, and then how do we work that into the budget to make sure that we’re ready?

I do think, though, that for folks that have really optimized this time period, the we have heard of situations of pharmacists that hey, I had a big student loan payment. But because that’s been on pause, I’ve been able to pay off credit card debt or I’ve been able to build up my emergency fund, or focus on another debt that was getting paid off as well. Hopefully, there’s been a lot of wins and opportunities that have come from this

[0:14:05] DL: Yes, I hope so too.

[0:14:07] TU: Let’s talk about how you were able to accomplish this. We can debate whether or not $100,000 is a lot. I think it’s a lot.

[0:14:14] DL: I do too.

[0:14:16] TU: It wasn’t just the amount, but it was the time period and the intensity. Couple years that you paid this off. I’m curious, you know, what sacrifices did you have to make to be able to allocate as much as possible towards the student loans, and then how did you keep up that momentum and the intensity of it knowing that two years, yes, it’s a short period. But when you’re in that type of intense debt repay off, that can feel like a long time. What were the sacrifices and then how did you keep the momentum?

[0:14:47] DL: Sure. I did this with my husband. Total, it was $115,000 together, between the two of us and that did include a car loan. We just included all the debt. We didn’t have credit card debt, but we did have the student loan debt and the car loan. I will be honest, in the beginning, we really didn’t know how long it was going to take us. We just knew we wanted to get more aggressive with our payoff. We use the snowball strategy. Some people don’t know what that is. You just put all your loans in order, you start with the lowest amount, and put them down in order, and you pay the first one off, and then you just roll that payment into the next payment, and you keep going.

The first thing we did, Tim, was we just looked at our budget. If you don’t have a budget, you can create one. I would say, look at the last few months of your banking statements, credit card, all that stuff, put it together, create a budget based off that. Now, the first thing you would do is, you want to see, “Am I spending more than I’m making?” If that’s the case, then you really need to, again, create some type of strategy. That’s what we did. We looked at our budget, we looked at our spending. Even though we did live below our means, I think everybody can identify areas of waste in their budget. For us, that was food.

We would go to the store, buy groceries for the week or so, get tired, go buy food out, because we didn’t want to cook. Meanwhile, those groceries, they’re no longer, you know, you can no longer eat them. They’ve gone bad. So now, we’re throwing away food and buying more food. We really identified that, and that was a big area for us that we could cut down on. So really, looking at your budget, identifying areas of waste. That’s another thing that we did. Then, we just looked at our savings to see what we were comfortable with going at the debt.

I know a popular snowball or the author of Snowball, they recommend the $1,000 for your emergency fund. That wasn’t realistic for us. I live in DC, my husband and I are both from Louisiana. If something happened, $1,000, we couldn’t even get home. We had to make that a larger number, but whatever is comfortable for you.

We did take some of our savings, and we just did the Avalanche Method, which is where you put a large amount of money towards the debt. We use that. During that time, we had just purchased our first home, which was a fixer-upper, pre-foreclosure. In that, the next year, we got a lot of tax benefits, because we did a lot of improvements. When we received that tax return, threw it at the debt, like that’s what we did. So, sometimes things like that happen. Anytime that happens, just throw it at the debt. I recommend being realistic. When I say create your budget, identify areas of waste, going back to the food example. If you’re someone that’s eating out five or six times a week, don’t just say, “Oh, I’m going cold turkey.” It’s not realistic, and you’ll probably be miserable. That’s not the goal, because then you really, probably will quit before you get to the finish line.

What I would recommend is, being realistic with your goals. If you’re eating out five times a week, maybe cut it down to one to two times a week, and also reduce the level of the restaurant. Maybe not the most expensive place, maybe like a mid-range place. You definitely don’t want to deprive yourself. For us, we also like to travel. We decided, okay, instead of maybe taking three to four trips a year, you just do one. That’s what we decided to do, so that reduced a lot of money going out as well.

Setting up some realistic expectations once you do your budget, identifying that waste. Another thing with a budget, some people don’t realize, if you get paid bi-weekly, two times out of the year, you get a third check. For us, that was a mini bonus. What we would do was really strategize with that check. Do I want to spend a portion of that to do something that I’ve kind of cut back on to pay off the debt? To pay off the debt, do I want to put the entire mini bonus toward the debt? Really like looking at different areas that you can strategize in. Another area of waste is subscriptions to the gym, to subscription services, with television or all those things. Just looking at your finances, there may be things coming out every month, $7 here, $10 there. Those things add up.

If you’re not using those things, you can cancel those subscriptions. That’s what I advise, looking at those bank accounts. That’s what we did. Identify as much waste as possible within reason. Then any type of extra money that we received via from tax return, a bonus from your job, or just that extra third check, being strategic about that, and putting it toward the debt. By doing that, we really started to change the way we viewed money during that timeframe, and we got excited about it, and we just really wanted to keep it moving, keep rolling, put more and more money toward it.

During that time, “Tim,” life was still happening. We had unexpected things come up, where we had to pivot, we had to make adjustments. But we never touch the emergency fund, we just adjusted how much we were paying on the debt. We still did it. In two years, we were not expecting that at all. So if you really are serious about it, and you set the foundation, and really make realistic goals, I think you can be successful and also run your own race. Don’t compare too much. It took us two years, but we were only responsible for ourselves financially at the time. That was another thing we knew, “Hey, we’re only responsible for ourselves right now. Let’s take this opportunity, because we don’t know what may change in the future to get this done now.” When your own race, if it takes you longer, that’s fine as long as you’re trying and you’re taking some action on that.

[0:20:48] TU: I love that. So much to unpack there. I think the theme I heard was really a mindset around the intentionality with the financial plan, and several things that you outlined, right? Making sure that you’ve got a budget that is realistic, that one is going to be able to keep the momentum so important. I think we often try to go from 0 to 60 budget. We get frustrated. It further disenfranchises us from the process overall, and it’s something as important as track back 90 days. You said a few months of looking at expenses, before we set these goals that may or may not be realistic. Let’s look at what we have been spending. Sure, we might pivot. You gave the example of eating out. But we want to pivot in a way that, yes, it’s going to free up some cash flow that allows us to achieve the goal. Whether that’s paying down student loan debt, whether it’s paying down other debt, maybe it’s saving for a home, saving for investment property. Whatever the goal is, we got to have cash flow. But just as important, if not maybe more important is the momentum to keep going.

We don’t want a system and a process that’s going to bog us down, it’s going to leave us frustrated. I think making sure that we’re finding that balance of enjoying things along the way, but also, whatever system we’re building, we feel that it’s built in a way that we’re going to be able to sustain it.

[0:22:04] DL: Absolutely.

[0:22:05] TU: I know. I’ve fallen victim too, and I think we see this a lot with people that are getting started, is they develop a beautiful system because they’re really motivated and excited. Then two months later, we’re kind of falling back into the patterns we were, because it’s so much to manage and so much to keep up with. We have a free template for folks that want to get started with the budgeting process, you can go to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/budget. We’ll link to that in the show notes, you can download that.

Then from there, you could use Excel. If you’d like to stay in Excel, you can use a bank tool, you can use mint, you can use – [inaudible 0:22:39] lots of different budgeting tools and options that are out there. Donisha, I want to dig into the we factor more, I heard you say we multiple times throughout the journey. We as in the debt, we as in the plan that we’re developing, we as in making the decisions on what was most important and what goals we’re going to achieve. There’s a lot to get on the same page with and I don’t want to take for granted how hard it can be to have a shared vision where two people are rowing in the same direction. I often have the opportunity to talk with folks, but that may not be the case. You may have one person who’s really engaged, one person who’s not engaged, or one person that grew up in a very different money household than someone else. For different reasons, they’re grown in two different directions.

It’s so hard for them to achieve the goals without first sharing the vision of being on the same page. I sense a very united we front as you were talking. Tell us more about what that looks like, give us the sneak peek into the kitchen table. How have you been able to get on the same page and keep that momentum together?

[0:23:45] DL: Absolutely. I appreciate you for acknowledging that. One thing about us, we’re blessed to go to a church that has a budget class. We took a budget class before we even got married together. That really put us on the same footing. We had the same vision and the same goals of what we wanted to achieve, but the pathways were a little different. In taking that class, we took it together, and we’ve really kind of established that foundation. The budget to me is the first step for everything. Now, once we got married and our finances were together, we really had to look at each other’s strengths. My husband is the big-picture person, I’m the day-to-day person.

When we were doing our debt payoff, I was the one looking at the budget every day and saying, “Okay, we need to slow down in this area because we’re only two weeks into the month and we’re not going to reach our budget goal if we don’t slow down.” That was my job. That’s okay. Then, what we would do is we would have meetings together where I would discuss certain things with him. He’s looking at the bigger picture, and also projecting what’s the next stage after that. That’s kind of his role. I’m the person that goes back, kind of works on the strategy, and looks at the day-to-day and the little details that he really does not want to do at all. We really show one another grace in that and really appreciate our differences, and use those differences for the benefit of the team. That’s how we do it.

[0:25:21] TU: I love that. I think just the awareness to acknowledge the different strengths to articulate that to one another, to embrace the strengths that come with those roles naturally, and then to align those so you can move forward. I love what you’re saying about the budget. I often encourage folks, “Hey, start with the vision and the dream.” Then as you work into the budget, the budget is really the roadmap for how you’re executing your goals. It’s a direct representation of what you are saying collectively is the priority or is not the priority. I think for folks that are listening, and maybe don’t feel like you’re on the same page with a vision, I would really encourage you to start there. Because I think when two people get excited about the vision, before you maybe get bogged down in the weeds of the numbers, like if we can get on the same page about the vision, awesome.

This is what financial success looks like for us as a couple or for us as our family. All right. Now, let’s develop the budget in the system that is the roadmap to achieve those goals. We said these things are most important. Are they represented? If not, why not? What can we change? What should we do differently? I think that that really helps folks get aligned. I think we often think of budgeting as restrictive.

[0:26:35] DL: Absolutely.

[0:26:36] TU: But if we reframe as, “Hey, this is the mechanism in which we’re achieving our goals. I’ll never say it’s exciting, but I think it’s a path in that direction of – and especially if we layer automation on top of that.” Okay. We’re now identifying the goals and automating the goals that we collectively said are most important. Then watch out, right? Because if you have come together on the same page to define the vision, and you’re starting to achieve that, and you both see that happening, things start to move from that forward of what else is possible.

[0:27:08] DL: Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head, especially for us, because the next move was real estate investing for us. That was something that my husband was much more on board with than I was. I’m a pharmacist. We like things to be in a nice little package. It all has to make sense. That was risky to me. I was interested, but I just really didn’t want to dive in. But once we work together to pay that debt off, and I saw the power of the teamwork for us, I just felt like, “Hey, we can do this.” Even if things go beyond what we expected, or things change, and we have to pivot, we have already done that with the loan payoff. So it really strengthened that teamwork, and I was able to get on board with the real estate investing afterward.

[0:28:01] TU: Yes, right. We’ve accomplished this as a team. Obviously, at that point, you’re working from a position of financial strength. We’ve got no debt. We’ve got a fully-funded emergency fund. We’re able to take on a little bit of risk, such that, if things go differently than as planned, it’s not going to create additional stressors. Let’s talk about the real estate. There’s lots of different types of real estate, from passive to active. The guys on the real estate investing podcast that we launched, every Saturday, David and Nate do a great job of talking about the spectrum of real estate, featuring different pharmacists that are investing in all different types.

I think that, at least for me, when I first heard about real estate investing, and really started to dig into learning more. I had a very active image in my mind of, you know, you buy a property, you hold it for the long term, you manage it, you’re fixing things, and a lot of people do that. But there are also more passive strategies, there’s fix and flips, short-term rentals, being in the bank, there’s a lot of different ways to go at it. Knowing the variety of pathways that are out there, tell us more about the pathway that you and your husband decided to go, and how you got to the decision to go down that path.

[0:29:06] DL: The first property that we purchased, it was a pre-foreclosure. It was a situation where it was in the budget that we wanted and the location was good. But the location is really what was most important to us. That’s why I got on board with something that needed renovation, because I realized if you want something that’s turnkey in this neighborhood, it’s far past your budget. I said, “Okay. We’re going to do this, and so we did.” We renovated the home, we didn’t do any structural renovations, but we did – basically got the house. We did that, that went off really well. We stayed in the home for a little while and then we sold it. When we sold it, we sold it before the pandemic when the prices just went crazy. It was before that.

But to see the amount of appreciation in that home, a light bulb went off in my head like, “This is what they’re talking about when they say, real estate can really propel you into financial independence.” From there, the plan was to continue to buy homes, renovate, and then maybe hold them for a little while, depending on what the market was looking like, and then to sell them. That was the plan. But we ended up moving into another home that was a newer build. From there, we have the home that we’re in now, we just renovated this one. We’re kind of still working out the strategy, but the other home is – we’re using it as a long-term rental.

Ideally, we would like to be able to do a flipping business, because we like to do it. But as we’ve done more research, we realize that being able to hold on to some of these properties, and leverage the equity in them, we can propel a lot faster. Our strategy really is to buy, renovate, hold. Then, you know, use that leverage to buy again, which is called the birth strategy. That’s really what we’ve chosen to do. We are open though, toshort-termm rentals. We are exploring other markets for that as well, and really just trying to have a somewhat diversified real estate portfolio. Not to diversify, because I do feel like if you focus on one or two things, you do a lot better. But that’s really our strategy.

We’re okay with doing construction, we’re okay with doing renovation, we’ve done it, and we’re okay. At this point, we’re doing long-distance investing. That’s really our next step.

[0:31:32] TU: I love it. I think it’s a great example of you, take that initial step and kind of get over that initial fear. Then, some things goes plan, some don’t. It opens up some different doors or opportunities. I think for everyone, their journey may be different of what they’re comfortable with in terms of risk tolerance, how active they do or don’t want to be in the process as well.

For folks that are listening to this and hearing some of the strategies that you’re talking about with the birth strategy and leveraging the equity in long-term rentals versus short-term rentals. The Real Estate Podcast, they’ve covered much of that and a future pharmacist stories as well. So we’ll link to that in the show notes. I would encourage folks to check out that podcast as well. I’m curious to know, it sounds like you’re fairly active, right? When you’re talking about the flipping, the construction, is that you and your husband? Is that you managing the project? Are you passive? It sounds like you’re very active. Am I reading that right?

[0:32:23] DL: We are very active. He’s more of the project manager. I’m the money person. I actually analyze the deals, I research areas, and research deals. Then I bring them to him, and we kind of analyze those together. He is the negotiator as well. When the negotiations happen, I walk away, Tim. I’m a lot more polite when it comes to that. I just walk away and let him do his thing. That’s him. He’s definitely the project manager. Working with the contractors and all of that, and I’m more so the person managing the budget, finding the deals, and then we work together on design.

[0:33:02] TU: Okay. Just like your personal finances, it sounds like you have identified strengths, and roles, and areas of responsibility. It’s your own business, within the family unit, which is really cool. I’m curious to know, deal finding. I think that’s one of the biggest barriers for people getting started is where do I look? It feels like people that are in this are just a huge disadvantage of somebody getting started. Are you looking off-market? Are you looking on the MLS? Do you have referral sources? How are you sourcing those opportunities?

[0:33:32] DL: Right now, as you know, these interest rates are very expensive. This market is very unique. But when we started out, we did a lot of driving, just driving ourselves around, and really looking for opportunities where a home may look vacant, or a home looks like it’s not being properly taken care of. Then from there, we will try to see if it was on the MLS. In the case of our first home, it was a pre-foreclosure. It was actually on the MLS as a pre-foreclosure. Then we use a realtor to help us with that.

Now, there are so many just groups of wholesalers and all of this that are out there. If you are trying to get started, there are ways to get in contact with other folks doing that. If you feel like, “Hey, I don’t really want to invest that much money into it” and you want to kind of get that experience and exposure, you can always ask people if you can just link up with them, and ask them what you can add to their system where their pain points are. That’s a great way for you to learn and a great opportunity for you if you’re not really at the point where you really want to invest a lot of money into it.

Right now, we’re currently working with realtors, especially since we’re looking in other markets. So we are working with realtors to try to find some of those properties. We don’t focus too heavily on off-market deals at this point in time. But I do know people do that, and they do that well. There are a lot of systems out there that can help you with that as well.

[0:35:06] TU: When done well, I think real estate can really add to, you mentioned, a pathway to financial independence that could potentially create wealth, lots of reasons to accelerate the financial plan, different tax advantages, et cetera. When not done well, it can be a hindrance on the financial plan, and there is a risk side of it. There’s obviously folks that have built systems and processes that have done this well. There’s individuals that maybe haven’t done as well, or analyzing deals properly, and not looking at the full breadth of what the numbers really are.

I sense that you guys really do have a system, a process. You’re looking at growing and scaling, which tells me the numbers are working. My question is, how do you view real estate investing, impacting and accelerating your personal financial planet. Is it a long-term strategy of building wealth, it’s part of the retirement plan, it’s a tax strategy? Is it short-term that the income from real estate you’re using towards other financial goals? How do you view the intersection of real estate with your financial plan?

[0:36:09] DL: Sure. That’s a good question. We like to kind of be right in the middle with that. What I mean by the middle, is by us holding those properties. They are a part of our long-term plan. But we also like to choose properties where we will cash flow pretty well, also. That’s a good balance there, because we know there are markets where you can really cash flow. But if you go to sell the home and 10 years, it’s going to be the same price you paid for it. You don’t really have a lot of appreciation on that front. That long-term game isn’t necessarily there. We try to find a good balance, and that’s one of the reasons we’re leaning towards short-term or midterm rentals. Because right now, in this market, especially, that’s really going to give us that that cash flow, but we can also have that appreciation.

We do have a long-term rental, and thankfully, it’s in a location where we’re doing very well on both fronts. But trying to get there right now in this market can be challenging. We’re looking towards that short-term, midterm. But we really like to have a balance, because we do want to use the real estate. Right now, we’re just using the money to purchase other real estate, not for our personal use. But we do want to get to a point where, “Hey, we could if we wanted to.” It depends heavily on our real estate income, and maybe transition into a lower workload on our W-2s or something to that effect. But we are in this for the long run, so we’re not trying to accumulate all of these rentals and get rich quick. That’s not really our strategy.

[0:37:45] TU: Yes. You’re not having to replace your W-2 income. I think that’s an interesting point, because for many individuals, there’s the initial strategy of, “How do I do this well, and then how do I scale the system, so I can invest more into other properties, more opportunities?” But then, there becomes a point of the portfolio where, depending on what else is going on, your retirement plan, et cetera, you might want to draw from that asset. There’s a strategy involved in that, and the tax optimization and so forth there as well.\

As we wrap up, I’m curious to hear your perspective. You’re on the other side of paying off your student loans, you’ve been out for over 10 years, you’ve got a good base in real estate investing. For all intents and purposes, you built a really strong financial foundation that you and your husband are going to grow upon for the next several decades and beyond. For individuals that were – just for you and I were a little over a decade ago, I think there’s both excitement and feelings of maybe some level of overwhelmed. Hearing a story of, you’ve been through that, you’re beginning to build wealth, you’re investing in real estate. What advice would you have for those individuals that are on the front end of this journey may be feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, confused with where they’re at with their finances?

[0:38:58] DL: Absolutely. That’s a great question. I would say, write down what’s important to you and your why. So really, write down what’s important to me, my values, and you can even project that out over the next 10 years, what do I want my life to look like? I think if you start with that, then you work backwards, and you look at what you’re facing right now. Then, you leverage the tools and all these podcasts like this one that are out there, and all the different strategies that you can take to reach your goals. If you do have a lot of student loan debt, and that debt is going to impede you from getting to those goals, then maybe that’s where you start. If you don’t have student loan debt, or it’s not a significant amount of student loan debt, but you do know in 10 years, you do want to have the option of working a W-2.

Then you may want to start with looking at different ways that you can invest your money, so you can make it work for you and make it accumulate even faster. That’s what I would do. I would kind of project out maybe 10 years. Because let’s be honest, a lot of new pharmacists are in roles, and they’re thinking, I don’t want to do this for 10 years, and that’s fair. Trust me, we understand. If that’s where you are, then definitely, think about where do you want to be, and what your goals are, and then work backwards. Look at what’s in front of you, and decide what the, what the priority is, and then start to educate yourself on different methods and strategies that you can use and get help. Get help, there’s no problem asking questions, meeting with a financial planner that understands your goals, and is willing to work with you to achieve your goal. That’s what I would recommend to someone who’s at the front end of this journey.

[0:40:49] TU: I love that. Great words of wisdom, and I’m so grateful for you coming on the show to share your journey. Congratulations on the debt-free journey. I have a sense you’re just getting warmed up here into the future. I appreciate you sharing that with our listeners, and I look forward to following your journey as well.

[0:41:05] DL: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve enjoyed it and we will definitely keep you posted on the journey. I appreciate you and this platform.

[0:41:12] TU: Thank you so much.

[0:41:13] DL: Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:41:14] 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 post, and podcast 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 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 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 301: On FIRE with Riley Protz, PharmD

Posted on March 30, 2023March 20, 2023 by Rose

Riley Protz, PharmD, MBA, a pharmacist on the FIRE journey since completing pharmacy administration residency training, discusses his career journey, student loan philosophy, and pathway to financial independence while living a rich and fulfilling life.

About Today’s Guest

Riley Protz, PharmD, MBA is a pharmacy leader and an industry expert on the 340B drug pricing program. He is the Director of Optimization at SpendMend Pharmacy. He consults with clients on opportunities to decrease their pharmaceutical drug spending and increase revenue-generating services through the 340B program. Prior to his current role, Riley was the Pharmacy Inventory Manager and 340B Program Manager of a health system in Salem, Oregon.

Riley earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree and Masters of Business Administration from Oregon State University. He then completed a PGY1/PGY2 Health System Pharmacy Administration & Leadership (HSPAL) residency with Providence Health & Services.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, discusses FIRE and the pathway to financial independence with Riley Protz, PharmD. Riley is a pharmacist on a FIRE journey since completing pharmacy administration residency training. During this episode, Tim and Riley delve into Riley’s career journey and what drew him into the profession of pharmacy, his student loan philosophy and strategy to tackle $80,000 in student loans given the climate with the pandemic and PSLF extensions, and how he is planning out his pathway toward financial independence. Riley speaks on his motivations for pursuing FIRE as a new practitioner with competing financial priorities, the various FIRE subcommunities, why he doesn’t identify with any specific group, the challenges of working towards FIRE, and how Riley manages to balance the importance of financial freedom with living a rich and fulfilling life now. Listeners will hear the strategies Riley has employed to reach FIRE, including having a financial plan, continuing to live like a resident, using high-yield savings accounts, not carrying a car payment, renting over buying a home, and mitigating early retirement risks through flexibility in investing. Stay tuned until the end of a library of FIRE resources, blogs, podcasts, and books that Riley recommends for those beginning their FIRE journey.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

Today, I welcome Riley Protz, a pharmacist who has been on the FIRE journey since completing his pharmacy administration residency training. In this episode, we’ll delve into Riley’s career journey, his student loan philosophy, and repayment strategy, and his pathway towards achieving financial independence. We’ll also discuss the challenges of pursuing FIRE and how Riley balances his desire for financial independence with living a rich and fulfilling life today.

If you’re new to the concept of FIRE, Riley will explain what it means and why he has chosen to pursue it. We’ll also hear from Riley about the resources that have been most helpful for him on his journey including books, websites, and podcasts. Whether you’re on the FIRE journey or taking a long, steady approach saving for retirement, at YFP Planning, we’re here to support you along the way. YFP Planning is a fee-only financial planning firm that is customized to the pharmacy professional.

The team at YFP Planning includes five certified financial planners serving over 280 households in 40-plus states. 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 by visiting yfpplanning.com. Again, that’s yfpplanning.com. Okay. Let’s jump into my interview with Riley Protz.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:29] TU: Riley, thanks for joining the show.

[0:01:31] RP: Yes. Hey, Tim. Thanks for having me.

[0:01:33] TU: Before we jump into your FIRE journey, which is going to be the topic at hand for today, tell us about your career journey in pharmacy, where you went to pharmacy school, and what ultimately drew you into the profession.

[0:01:46] RP: Sure, yes. I mean, I honestly wish I had a better way pharmacy story. but I went to Oregon State University for undergrad, enjoyed the science classes. When it was time to choose a major, I had a friend that was doing pre-pharmacy and I thought, “Hey, Oregon State has an advanced degree program, maybe I’ll go and do an advanced degree. That kind of makes sense.” I chose pre-pharmacy as a major and thought, “You know what, something will come up that I want to do more, something more compelling.” Really nothing ever, you know, piqued my interest more than pharmacy did. I liked those pre-pharmacy classes I took. I got into pharmacy school on the first try at Oregon State University. It was a very easy transition.

I kind of stuck with it ever since. I didn’t really have any experience prior to choosing pharmacy, and kind of navigated those waters as I got into school. It luckily worked because I kind of didn’t have a great plan going into the process.

[0:02:34] TU: You and me both, Riley. I think sometimes, we have people on the show that have very motivational, very inspiring stories around how they entered the profession. I’ve shared before on the show that I liked science, I like math, I was undecided. From a major standpoint, I had a guidance counselor said, “Hey, why not think about pharmacy.” I did one shadowing experience. I think it was an independent pharmacy and made a commitment for six years and a whole lot of money from that advice. Sometimes that’s how the story goes.

But you decided, Riley, “Hey, I’m going to get the PharmD, but I’m going to go as well and do a PGY1, PGY2 MBA combined program.” For many of our listeners, they may be familiar with these as a PGY1, PGY2 MS. Some do an MBA program, where you’re doing all that two-year period. Why did you choose that pathway? Then what is the work that you’ve been doing since completing that?

[0:03:26] RP: Yes, I chose to do – around P3 year, I had an internship in community pharmacy. I worked in hospital pharmacy a little bit and I kind of decided that I wanted to do something around leadership and administration. Then the career trajectory and platform, there’s a lot less opportunities in community pharmacy than there is in health systems and hospitals. There’s just a lot more opportunities to be a manager director, whatever it may be in the administration realm. When I kind of looked okay, I have to go towards hospital. Residency just made sense and if I want to fast forward that pathway. The dual PGY1, PGY2, it’s HSPAL now, which is too many letters, but Health System Pharmacy Administration and Leadership residency seemed like the correct option for me. I was very fortunate to match with that, and it had a dual MBA tagged onto the residency, so I completed the MBA in the middle of residency.

Ideally, you’re supposed to have a lot of good opportunities, completion of residency, especially doing administration residency, getting that additional MBA. I graduated in the summer of 2020. Very early on in the pandemic, when everyone’s pulling back. There were almost zero job opportunities. But I had a great mentor who had left the organization I was at for residency, became a chief pharmacy officer somewhere else, and was able to create a position that I was lucky to have.

I was a pharmacy manager for a couple of years at a health system focusing on their 340B program, as well as their hospital purchasing. Then the last year, I’ve switched to the consulting realm, which has been super exciting. Still around 340B, so I kind of consider myself a subject matter expert around optimizing 340 programs for clinics and hospitals. The company is called SpendMend Pharmacy. My clients now are our hospitals and we help them around finding more savings, and helping with their possible purchasing in general, NDC optimization, really anywhere around decreasing their huge drug expense in hospitals. That’s usually one of your top three expenses for health system.

[0:05:21] TU: Riley, let’s talk about your student loans before we jump into the FIRE journey in more detail. Since 2018, so you graduate 2018, $80,000 when you came out. For those that have graduated since 2018, it’s really been a whirlwind, right? We’ve had the pandemic pause that’s now been going on for more than three years. We’ve had the expansion of PSLF eligibility. We’ve talked about that on the show. Then right now, this week, at the time of recording, the supreme court is deciding what they’re going to do related to the Biden administration debt cancellation program. Not looking too favorable in the moment for that program going through, but we’ll obviously provide updates as we get some final news there.

My question is, $80,000, that is substantially less than what we see as the national average today for pharmacy grads, right around 160. What was your philosophy and strategy related to your student loans, especially knowing some of the wrinkles that have come in over the last couple of years with the pandemic and with some of the PSLF extensions and waivers?

[0:06:24] RP: Yes. I was lucky to have graduated with $80,000. I went to in-state tuition. I lived at home for two of the four years of pharmacy school, worked every summer and I think that helped with getting that number low at the very end. But once I graduated pharmacy school, I was like, “Okay.” Well, there’s a lot of decisions to make, right? Do you want to go through income-based repayment, there’s repay, there’s PSLF, which in 2018, people were less likely to see that it would go through, but now it looks like it’s a great strategy. There’s refinancing loans as well. I think I probably pulled up multiple calculators, maybe the YFP calculator o your guys’ website. And said, “Hey, what makes sense with my five, five and a half percent interest rate to do?”

Financially, it made sense to pay it off sooner rather than later, and not to go through the income-based repayment method. That’s what I started doing. I was paying off my loans throughout residency. I was about to refinance my loans when I completed residency when the pause took place. I was like, “Hey, 0% interest rates are a lot better than what I could have gotten, maybe three and a half percent.”

I just took that as an opportunity to pay them as fast as I could. My strategy completing residency was, live like I’m still resident, right? That’s what we tell people. Don’t let lifestyle creep come into play, and so I just paid those off as quickly as I could. I did end up stopping a little bit and saying, “Let’s just hold on to the money. I don’t really need to pay it off. There’s 0% interest.” Once I think I had around, maybe $30,000, $35,000 left, I did refinance it just to get that cash bonus, and then paid it off.

I didn’t told you this last time we chatted, Tim. I had tried to do this student loan forgiveness, get a refund back. Not [inaudible 0:07:52].

[0:07:52] TU: I remember that. Yes. Yes.

[0:07:54] RP: Yes. I think it was back in October, I tried to get a $10,000 refund back because my loans are at zero percent now, but I would have qualified for the student loan forgiveness. Because my income in 2020, I was a resident for half of it, so I didn’t reach that income limit. Literally yesterday, I got the check in the mail about $10,000. You know what, who knows if it’s ever going to come into play, but now I have a student loan balance of $10,000, which if forgiveness happens, that’s great. If not, I’ll take a zero percent free-interest loan, and I’ll put that in my savings account for a little bit of time. Literally, I didn’t even think it was going to come. It was a request I put in. Four to five months later, literally yesterday, I had the check.

[0:08:34] TU: I say, what timing, right, with us recording the episode here today. I think your story is a really good. One thing I’m sensing, which I love Riley, and I hope other listeners will take from it is just the intentionality around understanding the nuances of student loans. There’s lots of different pathways that go. You mentioned some of those – whether it’s forgiveness, non-forgiveness, refinancing. It’s more complicated of a system than it probably needs to be, but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt, whether we like it or not. It’s really up to the borrower to take the time to understand the nuances, and really get into the optimization, which is what you’re doing, right? You’re putting yourself in a position to optimize, obviously, see what comes to be of the Supreme Court decision when payments are going to kick back in. I love the intentionality behind the strategy.

I’m sensing that’s going to be a good segue here as we talk about FIRE because that also relies on the strategy of one being intentional. Let’s go there. Riley, when you and I talked last year, what really excited me was talking to a new practitioner who is really on the front end of their journey towards financial independence. I think sometimes, it’s new practitioners. I just talked with a new practitioner this week. He’s been out about seven, eight years. They’ve been working through student loans, they got married, they started a family. That concept of retirement planning. It’s like, yes, it’ll be there, something I’ll worry about a little bit later. I think for some folks that are planning a very traditional timeline to retirement, that pathway of savings may certainly work. Obviously, we’ll talk here today more aggressive, early investing in your career type of a strategy.

I think for many new practitioners, it’s hard to reconcile this idea that I can accelerate and optimize the wealth-building part of my financial plan, while I’m being saddled by student loan debt, getting started with my career and all these other competing priorities. I’m really excited to dive in with you, as you’re on the front end of the journey of the FIRE, why did you go this pathway? How are you employing strategies on the FIRE journey? What are some of the resources that have helped you along the way?

Before we get too deep, though, for folks that have not heard us talk about FIRE on this show before, and we’ll link to some of those episodes in the show notes as well. What is FIRE? From your perspective, what does it stands for or what does it mean? What’s the purpose? What’s the goal?

[0:10:57] RP: I don’t think there’s a true definition of FIRE. I think it’s whatever individual to each person, what they think it means. I think of it as a maybe a money philosophy or a life strategy. It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. At the heart of that, I really think it’s, if you hit a point, there’s really a threshold where your passive income supersedes your living expenses. Passive income can include a lot of different things. Traditionally, people are thinking their retirement accounts, the 401(k). But you’ve got potentially rental income, you have Social Security, you have maybe a side hustle. I even put in PRN and part-time work. It’s definitely more passive than thinking about your classic W2 jobs.

If you hit a point where let’s say, it cost you $40,000 to live each year, and you have a point where your investments, and all of your other passive income, supersedes that number, then you really don’t have to work at your job anymore. That’s where that second half of retire early comes into play.

[0:11:54] TU: Let’s give an example, Riley. I’d love for you to chime in here about what you do and don’t like about this example. To your point, there’s no uniform, accepted definition of what it means to be financially independent. But as you’re alluding to, you get to this point of either assets diversifying your income, other sources of income, such that you really reach financial independence. Meaning that you no longer rely on your W2 income, but you can build essentially a retirement paycheck or an early retirement paycheck, however, you define that based on these other revenue streams or savings that you’ve built up.

The rule of 25 suggests that, hey, if you take your annual household expenses, we can talk about whether or not you include taxes and that. You multiply by 25. Once you get to that point in terms of savings, you’re able to get to that point of financial dependence. If our annual expenses are $100,000, multiply that by 25, $2.5 million. Really, this comes from the research on the 4% rule, which two and a half million dollars, if I safely withdraw, we can debate that 4%. I can replace that $100,000 and that becomes the source. Now, you start to get a little bit more wrinkles in that when you talk about, okay, is it coming from only your savings? Is it coming from rental income? Is it incoming from Social Security? But without getting too far in the details there, what do you and don’t you like about kind of that back-of-napkin math?

[0:13:22] RP: Yes. I think if someone’s going to Google FIRE financial independence today, at least in the first three paragraphs, they’re going to mention rule 25 or 4% rule because it’s simple, it makes sense. First things, people are like, “I don’t know if that’s true if I trust it. It almost seems too simple, right? But you know, the numbers don’t lie is a great point to make. Truly, we’ve seen people do it, it does work.

But as you mentioned, someone – I’m sure a lot of listeners have yearly expenses around $100,000. They plug that real 25 in, they say, “There’s no way I’ll ever get to $2.5 million.” They immediately dismiss the idea and say, there’s just no possible chance that I’m ever going to hit that point. They say, forget about it, I’m going to retire when I’m 65 years old. That’s my real hiccup with the 4% rule, is I think it dissuades people who might be interested in the idea. Of course, I’m not trying to push this this idea on folks, but I think it quickly dissuades people because they think there’s no way that’s ever going to occur for them.

But this rule puts a lot of assumptions in place, like number one, is they assume that you’ll never make another dollar again. Which, let’s say you’re retiring 10,15, 20 years early. The odds of you never making another dollar is probably pretty – I don’t think that’s going to happen. They assume that your nest egg, your 401(k), your Roth, everything, that meets at $2.5 million is all you have. But you could have a side gig, a side hustle. Let’s say your, for example, your expenses are $100,000 per year, but you’re still making – you’re working a little bit, you’ve got a side hustle going on, you’re doing maybe PRN work. That’s the benefit of being a pharmacist, is we can work one day a week, right? That’s a great aspect of our job.

You’re making $40,000 per year, much less than the average pharmacist makes. But then that decreases your yearly expenses to 60k. So your actual real 25 number becomes $1.5 million, so much more easily ingestible number to take. Another assumption, your expenses are going to remain constant throughout your entire life. But data shows that the older you get, especially at your 70s and 80s, you’re not going to be spending as much as you are in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. You take that in consideration as well. I think my last one is, compound interest is just really hard to visualize, and the amount of time and how it actually works.

If you’re telling somebody, “Hey, really, you should see that extra $2,000 because it’s going to grow to whatever it may be in 20 years.” I don’t know if that’s actually going to work. I can’t see it, but I can see a TV today, or I can see a new car today, and I can get those benefits now. I think it’s a great initial, just quick back-of-the-napkin math on how this works. But I think, too many people are just waiting and say, “Oh, there’s no way I’m going to get there.” A lot of those factors I just described, all of them would lead to a lower number. Potentially, if you can shave off five years of retirement, that’s great as well, right, because you can enjoy those years while you can.

[0:16:02] TU: Yes. I think that’s such a great point, Riley because you’ve highlighted well already that everyone’s plan is going to be different. I think that’s where we need to make sure we’re not falling into the trap of, that there’s one way to do FIRE. Are we talking about a retirement age of 40 or 55, or just a little bit earlier? Late 50s or 60? Is it more of an aggressive timeline, or just a little bit earlier than more of a traditional retirement? Might there be some side additional income? Are we interested in looking at real estate investment? Obviously, post-retirement. What about Social Security? What about health risks and health care. I mean, there’s so many layers to consider. But your point of the rule of 25, I think, often being overwhelming, especially to folks earlier in the journey is a really good one.

I can tell you the number of sessions or presentations I’ve done with folks where, when you talk about saving or investing for the future and compound interest, eyes gloss over. I mean big numbers, $3, $4, $5 million. One of things we really try to do at YFP, is how do we discount that back to today to make that a meaningful number, right? We can run an estate calculation and show that FIRE or not, you need three point, whatever million dollars. Okay. That’s scary. That’s overwhelming. I’m more depressed now about achieving long-term financial independence.

But what does that mean today, in terms of how much I need to be able to save, and what assumptions go into place. That number is probably still going to be big, maybe bigger than we want in terms of, maybe it’s going to take 800, 1,200, 1,500, 1,800 month, whatever, but we can start to put our arms around that. I think these big, huge numbers are like, “All right. Might as well just give up. I’m early in the journey. I’m just going to kind of focus on the here now. Point well taken. I think that can be a challenge.

Riley, let’s take a step back to your FIRE journey. What was the motivating factor or factors in terms of why you wanted to go down this pathway?

[0:17:56] RP: Yeah. I think I reflected on this a little bit recently on why I was so hooked on it when I when I first found FIRE. I think my reasoning has actually changed in the short years since I found it. I’ll take you back to, let’s see, I think it’s 2019 now when I was a PGY1. We have a big cohort of co-residents. There were 16 of us. I think we were talking about what to do with our 403B. As you can probably tell, I have a passion for personal finance, so I knew a little bit more than everyone else, and just trying to provide a little bit of guidance, but didn’t feel super confident, especially talking about that topic.

In residency, we spend so much time talking about certain disease states, and we had antimicrobial stewardship conferences, and ethics conferences, and professionalism. We didn’t spend a single second on personal finance, I remember going to my RPD and asking, “Hey. Can we have someone come in and just talk to us for an hour or two?” There really wasn’t an option for doing that. I thought, you know, why don’t I do it? It was during that, I was trying to treat it like a topic discussion and doing – trying to find empirical and objective data, which I’m sure, you know, it’s very hard to find on the internet.

But I did stumble upon the concept of FIRE and was immediately hooked. I think in the midst of PGY1, I probably should have been spending a lot more time on residency and MBA classes. But all I wanted to do was read about this concept, and like, it doesn’t make sense. There’s no way it’s actually real. Does the numbers line up? There’s a lot of blogs online, that I just kind of took up as much as I could. I think the reasons why – I think there were two main reasons why there were motivating factors for me to pursue. Number one being, I’ve always been a natural saver but didn’t really have a reason for why I was saving, ever since I was a child. I filled a piggy bank up when I got money for my birthday but didn’t know what I was doing. I just felt like, “Yes, I’ll just save it.”

Financial independence was kind of became a Northstar. Whenever I’m making a decision, being very intentional with every dollar. If I’m not going to spend it on one thing, I’m not just saving it, actually. I have another reason. I’m putting it towards another purpose, which was a big idea. Then the second reason, which I think is a big pushback of people who pursue FIRE is, I was once again in the midst of PGY1, probably not loving life at the moment. It’s not sustainable way to live and work. The idea of not working, I think, I was probably drawn to. That’s what a big pushback is. You shouldn’t be pursuing this idea because you want to escape your job and retire early. But you know, now, I absolute love what I’m doing. You think that my desire for financial independence would wane, right? But I’m still – I have a different reason, I guess for pursuing it. Bear with me as I make this point.

I have kind of a strategy now of maximizing overall life happiness, and fulfillment, and meaning, whatever that may be. If I’m trying to solve for maximum happiness, then treating, bringing that down into like every day, what would that look like in different buckets on things that would make me happy, so that’d be a strong social life. Today, there’s spending time with parents and friends, but let’s fast forward 15 years, we’ve got a plan for the future, right? Probably spending time with future children. I don’t think I’m going to have five boys, – sorry, four boys like you do. But if I do, then that’s going to be a higher percentage of my time is me spending with children. That’s one bucket.

Second bucket being health. If I work out today, there’s benefits. But main reason I’m working out is for future me. I want to have as many healthy days as possible, maybe two more buckets here. One of them being philanthropy, giving back in some way, whether that be resources or money. That’s going to skew much more later in life. The last one here, curiosity or learning. I love to travel internationally, read, whatever it may be. I stick with my current W2 job. That satisfies probably three of those four buckets. I got to get sense of social life. Definitely, a sense of philanthropy. It’s a great thing about being a pharmacist, is we have very fulfilling jobs.

Then definitely fulfilling that, that learning bucket. But I spend 45, around 45 hours of my waking life per week on this job. So it’s not filling everything, every single bucket. There’s plenty of other buckets that I’m not going to go into. If I’m trying to solve for maximum fulfillment, and happiness, I’ve just got a pretty high degree of confidence that in 15 years, or 20 years, or 10 years, I’m not going to want to spend 45 hours per week on this one job. I’m going to have a lot more other pursuits that are going to help me lead fulfilling and happy life. Let’s fast forward, let’s say 15 years. Maybe I want to spend 20 hours per week at my job, maybe at zero. If I’m lucky, maybe it’s 60, maybe I absolutely love what I’m doing, then that’s great.

I want to give myself the ability, and flexibility to make that decision when the time comes. That’s where financial independence comes in. If you save a little bit more now, that gives you the ability to make that decision down the line.

[0:22:24] TU: Riley, that’s beautiful. I’m glad you address this equation of solving for maximum fulfillment, maximum happiness. Actually, the research on this topic is fascinating, around deriving happiness from money, and how we connect the two. I think that it’s a natural evolution to be thinking about that, especially when you build a strong financial foundation. It’s hard to see that when you’re in the thick of all these decisions when you’re, obviously, you work through the student loans, you’re making a good income, you’re working full time, you’ve got a lot of places you can optimize a plan. I think that’s when you can really start to have some of that peace of mind, and be worried about things like solving for maximum happiness and fulfillment. Because you’ve got a strong foundation of what you’re growing from. I think that, too often, when we talk about investing, or savings goals, we leave out the so what. What’s the purpose? What’s the point? What’s the why? I think pharmacists, especially very analytical folks, I think we can get all excited sometimes about the spreadsheets. Hey, I’m on path to save $2.4 million. What’s the purpose?

If we ask that question of what are we trying to accomplish, what are we trying to achieve, and how do we reconcile taking care of our future selves while also living a rich life today? Both are important. I think one of the knocks, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on. I think one of the knocks of the FIRE community would be, typically we’re looking at very aggressive saving rates, right? There’s all different types of FIRE and we’ll talk about that here in a moment. But usually, we’re defining FIRE, and aggressive pursuit of financial independence by fairly high savings rates, more than the typical 10% to 20%.

So one of the knocks may be, well, are you giving up living a rich life today for a future point, that may or may not be what we envision that to be, right? I’m thinking about this, because I just finished the book, Die with Zero by Bill Perkins. He talks beautifully in a very non-traditional, non-financial planner way about ultimately, the goal being that we die with zero. He makes a strong case, I think that in your 20s, and 30s, and 40s, there is spending that needs to be done towards what you’re talking about this maximum fulfillment.

How have you reconciled this poll between aggressive saving? I can punch that in the calculator. I see the compound interest growing, but I’m also at an age where I can and should experience some of these beautiful things in life. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[0:24:50] RP: Well, you beat me to it. I actually also did – I also finished Die with Zero recently within the last couple months. I’ll be honest, has shifted my mentality a little bit as I was someone that can delay gratification, right? That was kind of my philosophy. If I want to do something today, let’s wait. I can double it in 10 years. It’s going to be just as much benefit or more benefit when I’m so saving for my 40s, is kind of a mentality I’d had.

But what Bill Perkins says in that book is very good idea, and something I’ve taken into consideration is, let’s think about, “Yeah, think about our life as a whole. If my goal is to maximize happiness today, but also in the future, there’s a balancing act because you need to spend more money today. You need to spend some money today in order to enjoy your life today. I was, let’s say, for the last couple of years, I was probably a little low on that end. I was saving a lot more money, and decreasing my expenses, and focusing on student loans, and maybe sacrificing a little bit. I will shift and have shifted a little bit in that regard towards enjoying life today.

I will say, a benefit for myself and maybe other listeners is, we have above-average income. When you’re looking at financial independence, and decreasing your expenses, and having that difference in what you’re able to save, because you’re spending less than what you’re earning, it’s a lot harder for somebody with an income of $60,000 per year. But as a pharmacist, I really don’t even feel like we have to sacrifice as much as others, because we just – as long as you’re intentional with your spending, and you’re cutting out unnecessary things, then, you’ll be able to achieve some sort of savings goal. You’re not depriving yourself and eating rice, and beans every day.

For myself, as I mentioned, being early on, I’ve been able to reduce lifestyle as much as possible, so I don’t live a lavish life. If someone else has an expensive $100,000 per year, it’s going to be a lot harder to cut out. Let’s say $40,000 out of that budget, or $20,000. But I never allowed myself to reach that level. I’ve never really felt that I’ve been sacrificing anything on this journey.

[0:26:46] TU: Let me prod a little bit more here, Riley, because this to me is a fascinating topic where I can talk with two pharmacists making the same exact income. Let’s assume they’re living in the same cost-of-living unit type of situation. But one can be living 95% to 100% of their income as their expenses, and a lot of that even being fixed expenses. Someone else maybe has find a way for that to be, I don’t know, 25%, 35%, 45%, or even, let’s say 50% or 60%.

I think often, what you see is, the home, or the car, those are probably two of the biggest things that you see that might be contributing to that. Sometimes private education would be a big contributor, as well. Saving for kids college, things like that. But two pharmacists, same income, same position in terms of cost-of-living area, but very different in terms of cash flow margin that they created. I think it would be helpful for our listeners to hear, for you and your situation as much as you’re willing to share, what has the strategy been. You mentioned before, continuing to try to live like a resident while you’re paying on your student loans. I sense you’ve probably have pulled off of that a little bit. But have you intentionally kept down on house, or you’ve decided to continue to rent, not carry carpet? What has been the strategy that has allowed you to keep those fixed costs low?

[0:28:05] RP: I think first and foremost, financial confidence is important, knowing reasonable – knowing why you’re investing something, you’re saving in the correct location. For example, high-yield savings account. Just making sure that you know you’re doing correctly with where your money is going, has been important for myself. I’m not scared to look at my checking account, right? I think there’s a lot of people who say, “I don’t want to look at it.” If you can spend a little bit of time to just be confident in what you’re doing, and have some sort of strategy in place, and be intentional with – you don’t need to track every single dollar, but just the big things.

I think low-hanging fruit, is what I tell clients. Let’s not make 100 little decisions, let’s make two or three big decisions. For myself, yes, I don’t carry a car payment. I did actually upgrade from a beater of a car that probably I could – I did sell for $1,000, so I’ve upgraded in that realm, but I had drove that car throughout pharmacy school. I do still rent for housing. I live in the Pacific Northwest. So yes, housing a little bit more expensive, but it makes sense financially. I looked into purchasing. I was actually going – shout out to the real estate podcast with David and Nate. I was with the first cohort of the None to One Program. I was looking at actually purchasing a condo and house hacking didn’t make financial sense. It made sense for me to continue renting there.

[0:29:16] TU: Riley, let me just interject here because I hear weekly if not daily, that, Tim, what do you mean like equity and homeownership? It’s always better to own than it is to rent. I think this is one of the stories that we’ve just accepted without running the numbers. Don’t get me wrong, there are scenarios where certain parts of the country, owning based on the market, based on what’s happening, based on interest rates, based on cash you have, based on appreciation. That makes sense, but I think we blindly accept this, especially higher cost of living areas. We tend to vastly underestimate the cost of homeownership on an ongoing basis. So we look at rent value, we look at mortgage payment, and we stop there. I would just love for you to help me make this case, that sometimes, renting makes sense over homeownership, and I think we really got to run the numbers.

[0:30:11] RP: The problem is, it’s the numbers. Humans are humans, right? They feel – you take into consideration, “Oh, I’m much more safe. I’ve been told by my parents, and my parent’s parents that buying is, you have to go as soon as you can. That’s the way to go. Once again, it’s a lot easier to see a house value go up in five to 10 years, rather than really knowing exactly how much would I have put in if I’d invested in it. You can run those numbers as well, right? The numbers, once again, numbers aren’t lying to you. I think it’s just tough because yes, that’s what we’ve been told to do. It doesn’t make sense everywhere. Sometimes, that’s the caveat, as well, as you know, it does make sense maybe in the Midwest. But for other folks, it’s not the case. If we’re all robots, then I think a lot more people would be renting, but it’s just unfortunately not the case.

[0:30:56] TU: That’s good. Now, you can get the hate mail as well as me.

[0:30:57] RP: Exactly.

[0:31:00] TU: Hey, I want to ask you a question. Actually, I hadn’t planned on asking you, which is interesting. Something I’m picking up on as we’re talking here, is I sense that you’ve used some words around the emotional side of money. Confidence, I can tell you have a confidence around your money. I can tell that there’s not a fear associated with money. You obviously have more of an analytical mindset, but you’re also considering – we talked about living a rich life, and kind of balancing the two of those out. So often, myself included, and it’s true for everyone listening. How we approach our money today, is a conscious or subconscious reflection of how we grew up around money.

In some cases, we grew up in an environment where it’s a very open conversation, it’s one that’s not only talked about, but it may not be a stressful, relatively even emotions, more of an abundance type of mindset. Other situation, I talked with folks where it was a very hostile environment or an environment where you just don’t talk about money, whatsoever, and you see those patterns carry out. So I would love for you to just give us a sneak peek as I pick up on the themes of confidence and security around money and more of a positive emotional approach towards money. Can you attribute? Did you raise up in an environment where it was a safe emotional landscape for learning about and growing your knowledge around personal finance?

[0:32:22] RP: I would say it was definitely a safe environment, but it was not – I did not grow up with parents telling me how much money they made. Oh, you need to – I did – I mean, for example, I chose a state school, I knew enough to know about the cost of private school versus public school, and what that would be down the line. That wasn’t – told, “Hey, it makes a lot more sense for you to make a decision by peers, or my parents, or anything. I don’t really attribute a lot of it to them being extremely open. But for example, I did have a Roth IRA, I think when I was 18 years old, so my mom helped me with that. I’ll give her credit there.

[0:32:55] TU: [Inaudible 0:32:55] a tuner.

[0:32:57] RP: Exactly. That was all her, so I’ll give her all the credit there. But anyway, I also had a financial advisor that she put me in touch with who had me investing in a taxable brokerage account when I clearly could have put more money in my Roth and stuff that didn’t make any sense. So I had to pull away once I felt more confident in myself a few years after that. We weren’t experts, but I definitely – I think it’s rare for somebody to have a financial advisor in a Roth account in their teams. It will attribute some of it to that. Yes.

[0:33:22] TU: It’s something I’m thinking a lot about Riley with my four boys, and I would encourage the listeners. I’m fumbling through it, I don’t have the answers. I’ve read books on teaching kids about money. I’m convinced, I think, and maybe I’ll tell you otherwise in three years if I screw it all up. But I’m convinced that 80% of it is just what they are experiencing, they’re hearing. It’s not the intentional teaching. I think there’s a place for that, like, “Hey, let me sit down. We can talk about compound interest and investing in Roth IRAs. But I think it’s more of what they’re picking up on around the emotional cues, the stress or lack thereof, whether or not it’s an open conversation. I think that is so foundational to their relationship with money.

What’s so hard about that, I guess it can be encouraging or discouraging depending on how you approach money is like, that stuff tends to come out. We’re, again, carrying that on generationally. Often, the stress or the positive environment, if it’s the opposite around money, that just is the undertone of the house, and you’ve got to be really intentional to shift it. Another topic for another day, but I think around emotional relationships, how we grew up with money. Even hearing you talk about your mom, and a Roth, and experience with an advisor clearly had an impact on you and your journey.

Let me shift gears and talk about the types of FIRE. Again, I think for folks that are just learning about FIRE for the first time, they may read a few blog articles, look at very aggressive saving rates without realizing there’s a wide range of how you may approach this. Whether it’s more of a traditional FIRE, a lean FIRE, a fat FIRE. Tell us about that these different terms and the path that you are choosing as it relates to your own FIRE journey.

[0:35:05] RP: In my mind retirement is a number of value, not a date, or an age, right? But everybody’s going to be different, and your FIRE calculation takes into consideration mainly how much you’re going to spend each year. So someone who spends $40,000 in a year versus someone who spends $150,000, in a year is going to lead completely different lifestyles, and probably take different actions to hit that point of financial dependence throughout their lives. That’s where these different names come from is, you know, FIRE’s become big enough that there’s been subcommunities of people, lean FIRE. I don’t know the definition. It’s maybe less than $40,000. Fat FIRE is, people got five plus million dollars.

I’m happy that that makes sense because people can be like – like-minded folks can learn from each other in that realm. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really look at – consider myself in any of those categories. I’m early enough along the pathway that I don’t really spend time stressing over it, because I know enough that I know that things are going to change on the future. We’re great at acknowledging how much we’ve changed in the last five years, but we still think we’re going to be the same person in the next five years, which doesn’t make any sense. I know I’m going to be different enough in ten years. I’m going to change a little bit enough to know that my expenses can change, my family situation is going to change.

But for myself, I kind of have just general numbers. I’m probably going to spend more than $40,000 in a year. I know myself well enough that I’m probably going to spend less than $120,000 per year. Do that rule of 25. I’ve got a pretty big wide margin, but there’s enough time that’s going to pass. There’s really just no point in stressing over and running the numbers, and some people love running these calculators and saying, “Oh, this is exactly. That’s my point.” That’s going to change so many times. There’s going to be so many factors that I don’t really bother myself with it.

[0:36:41] TU: Let’s shift and talk more about the strategy of getting to that number. You mentioned early on in the episode that often, people run a rule 25, or some type of FIRE calculator. They see a big number, they get overwhelmed, they shut down the computer, and they say, “All right, let’s move on. I think, even if folks can work through that, the next step can be just as overwhelming, which is, “Well, how do I get to that number, right? I mean, when I get the chance to talk with groups about investing, what I often say is, yes, we’ve got to know where we’re going, but then we’ve got to know how we’re going to get there. Then we’ve got lots of wrinkles to consider, 401(k), 403(b), Roth IRAs, brokerage accounts, HSAs, all types of vehicles to achieve that. Then within those accounts, we’ve got to choose how we’re going to allocate that. That would be the asset allocation part of the plan.

Again, eyes gloss over at that point of, “Wow, this is a lot to consider.” Tell us about, not advice for everyone listening, but tell us about how you approach your investing strategy as it relates to not just identifying that number, but how you’re going to get there.

[0:37:47] RP: Yes. Tim, we’ve used the word optimize quite a bit, but I’m definitely not – I’m not going to optimize as much as possible in this category, I like to keep things pretty simple. Yes, my strategy myself is, I’m actually currently 100% stocks, all broad-based index funds, keep the expense ratio as low as possible. That’s every account. All my 401(k)s, or HSAs, or my Roth IRA, everything is – different custodian will have a different five-letter or three-letter process, but as long as it’s US stock market or international stock market, that’s the process.

I know that numbers-wise if my investing timeline is, let’s say, 50-plus years, but the time to actually sell a stock is more than 10 years. To me, just the numbers, I just kind of try to pretend I’m a robot and don’t look at the stock market in the last year because I know that odds are, it’s going to go up in the next 10 years. And you want to hit the point where, let’s say, within five years of cutting back or selling any of stocks, and switching add bonds. You can do bond 10 to whatever it may be. But I keep things pretty simple now, just a handful of different low-cost, broad-based index funds.

Then the strategy around what accounts to put them in. Of course, prioritizing your tax-advantaged accounts. Kind of have a mental, financial order of operations, I guess what I would call it that I’ve been using, as I’ve gone through the process. For example, student loans is pretty high up on the list, and I’ve been able to cut that out. But first and foremost, think about this as an emergency fund, and then getting your 401(k) match. Then I put HSA up there at the top, because it’s your dual tax-advantaged account and my student loans filled in that slot there, and pulling that out, then it’s to a Roth IRA.

With my income now, very fortunate that doing the backdoor Roth IRA option. Then it’s back to the 401(k), and maxing out the 401(k). Those are pretty much all your tax-advantaged accounts. If someone’s gotten to that point, and they’re still able to invest in money, which I’m fortunate to be able to do it now is pretty – I think, if you look online, there’s a lot of people who say, yes, those are probably your top five categories, and list to go through in different orders, depending on each person. Especially if you have student loans, and you’re doing PSLF, it’s going to be completely different. You might prioritize your 401(k) first because you want to reduce your adjusted gross income.

But once you’ve hit all those tax-advantaged accounts, that’s why I did the None to One Program with the YFP Real Estate with David and Nate. Because you know, I was thinking, “Okay. Let’s look into real estate.” Since that didn’t pan out currently, and it probably will in the future, I just put the rest into a taxable brokerage account in the same low-cost, broad-based index funds. So keeping it simple once again.

[0:40:22] TU: Riley, address for me a common objection, which people have is, “Hey, I want to retire early.” I don’t know exactly when that will be, but let’s say late 40s, early 50s. Kind of a moderate to aggressive timeline versus a traditional retirement age. I’ve got all these assets tied up in retirement accounts, where I’m going to take on a penalty if I take it out before the age of 59 and a half. Insert brokerage account is one way to mitigate that. You astutely mentioned that you’re obviously optimizing your tax accounts before you get to that point. How have you thought through a reconciled what you may need from a point of retirement, which is unknown until you get to that age where you can draw from those accounts, and how you might mitigate some of that risk?

[0:41:05] RP: Yes. I think of them in these three different categories, your pre-tax, your post-tax, and then your tax brokerage accounts. I think there’s – I’m sure there’s an ideal percentage where if you’re going to retire at age 45, for example, you want to have a good amount in your taxable brokerage account, right? Because you can’t get to your tax-advantaged accounts earlier on. But there’s, for example, currently, a Roth IRA conversion ladder is one process that people take in place, and they’re able to do that.

I think a simple strategy is make sure that all of those buckets have someone in there, so then you have the flexibility to do what kind of, whatever you want to do, whatever makes sense to you at the time. In that time, luckily, since I’ve been able to, I started the Roth IRA early on. I think that’s the one that people are going to have less on in life since I had that at age 18. But at times, I’m at a point where I want to scale back, I’ll have enough in the three buckets, and I’ve learned enough about the different strategies in place that I’ll figure it out when the time comes, is kind of my philosophy.

[0:42:01] TU: Awesome, one thing you mentioned Riley as we wrap up here, I think you mentioned during your residency year, you’re out learning about FIRE, you’re on various websites. There’s some great resources out there, blogs, podcasts, books. Anything you’d recommend to our listeners that you found to be especially helpful and insightful in your FIRE journey at least on the beginning as you’re learning more about this topic.

[0:42:23] RP: I quickly moved from – I think that the most resources out there are going to be in the blog space. If you look up different blogs, there’s probably plenty of them. The first one I would recommend is called the mad scientist. That’s where you get into the numbers of it. Of course, Mr, Money Mustache is probably the next one that people are going to find. He’s probably the most well-known and – if anyone’s going to find FIRE, first, they’ll probably going to find him.

Then for podcasts, the first 100 episodes of podcasts called Choose FYI. One of the co-hosts there was a pharmacist. It might be a little bit outdated now since those first 100 episodes are pretty old. Other podcasts I like listening to, Earn & Invest by – he’s called Doc G, Afford Anything by Paula Pant. Then books-wise, there’s some great ones out there, some classic like your money and your life. It’s just great, because it’s learning about the concept of your trading, your life hours to make money, and then you’re spending that money to get more of your life hours back.

Touched a little bit on Die with Zero. I’ll definitely be promoting that. That’s for folks that are maybe learning to, like myself, to maybe spend a little bit more, and enjoy more of life today. If you want to have a stress-free confidence on index funds, Simple Path to Wealth by J. L. Collins is a great book as well.

[0:43:30] TU: Great stuff. Library of information that you recommended. We will link all of those in the show notes. For folks that are listening, trying to write that down, don’t worry, go to the show notes. We’ll link those out. Great recommendations. Riley, really appreciate your time, your insights, your perspective. I love your intentionality around this topic. I love your financial IQ. I appreciate you sharing your journey, especially on the front end of this, and look forward to seeing, and track you along the way.

[0:43:52] RP: Yes. Thank you. This was an absolute blast. I love talking about this topic. Thanks for having me.

[OUTRO]

[0:43:56] 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’s 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.

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 298: Preparing for Retirement with Dean Emeritus Dr. Gary Levin

Posted on March 9, 2023March 16, 2023 by Rose

Dean Emeritus Dr. Gary Levin dives into the details of preparing for retirement. He shares how his career evolved from serving in the Navy to a career in pharmacy and then nearly 30 years in academia. He talks through how early investing and saving in his first job laid the foundation for his retirement, how he dealt with market volatility throughout his career, and why he started a charter company in retirement to supplement his income.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Gary M. Levin is retired following a career in academia moving up the ladder from Assistant Professor at Albany College of Pharmacy to Founding Dean and Professor of the Larkin University College of Pharmacy in Miami, Florida. He was recently awarded emeritus status upon his retirement. Dr. Levin has worked in numerous Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine including his alma mater the University of Florida where he also completed a residency in psychiatric pharmacy with the Gainesville VAMC and a Fellowship in Psychopharmacology and Pharmacokinetics at the UF College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Levin has been board certified in psychiatric pharmacy practice (BCPP) since 1996 as a member of the inaugural group to become certified. He is an elected fellow in the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (FCCP). He is a founding member and was the first elected president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP). During his career, he precepted students, post-doctoral residents, and research fellows in pharmacy and psychiatry. This has been his greatest professional passion, to introduce students and other learners about the impact a psychiatric pharmacist can have on improving people’s lives.

Dr. Levin has been active in many professional pharmacy organizations and has held various appointed and elected positions. He has reviewed for many journals in both pharmacy and psychiatry and has served on several editorial boards. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters, and scientific abstracts and has received close to 1 million dollars in research and training support over his career.

His research interests have included improving outcomes in patients with psychiatric disorders, pharmacokinetics of psychoactive agents, and pharmacogenomic applications in patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders. Since 2013, upon becoming a CEO Dean, his research interests shifted to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

In his retirement he is enjoying spending more time with his wife, Toya Bowles, Pharm.D., MS, BCPP who works as a principal MSL for the Janssen neuroscience division of J&J, more time boating, traveling regularly to the Florida Keys, The Bahamas, and Mexico, and working with a private tutor to become fluent in Latin-American Spanish. He is also preparing for his US Coast Guard Captains License. He trains in Pilates and weights and has a 47th-floor balcony garden including many fruits and vegetables and a Key Lime tree that is producing too many limes in his home in Brickell Miami Florida.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, chats with Dean Emeritus, Dr. Gary Levin, on preparing for retirement. In their discussion, Gary explains how he found his way into pharmacy, ultimately pharmacy academia, from his early start in the Navy. He walks the listeners through the early stages of his career to where he is today, with guiding advice for pharmacists in all phases of their careers. Gary shares how investing and saving while working in his first faculty position laid the foundation for his retirement and how even small investments can profoundly impact the retirement paycheck.

Throughout the episode, Gary provides his top tips for those pharmacists in the first half of their careers, experiencing market volatility and how to keep a long-term mindset in preparation for retirement:

Don’t panic.
Recognize the value of having a good coach, trusted advisor, or financial planner.
Start planning for and investing for retirement as early as possible.
When you get a raise, save the raise.
Minimize withdrawal.

In closing, Gary dives into the story of how he started his charter company, how he plans to utilize the company as part of his retirement strategy, and the services used to automate the process so he can fully enjoy his retirement.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast, for each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week, I had the pleasure of welcoming onto the show Dean Emeritus Dr. Gary Levin. Some of my favorite moments from the show include hearing his career journey from the Navy, the choosing pharmacy to spending nearly 30 years in academia, how early investing and saving in his first faculty job laid the foundation for his retirement nearly 30 years later, how he dealt with the market volatility throughout his career, to avoid panic and to keep that long-term mindset and why he decided to start a business, Captain G’s Charter Company in retirement to supplement his income and to help build his retirement paycheck.

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 280 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 yfpplanning.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:26] TU: Gary, welcome to the show.

[0:01:28] GL: Hi. Thanks, Tim. Thanks for having me.

[0:01:30] TU: I’m really excited to dig into your pharmacy journey a little bit, how you planned for retirement and how you’ve thought about the financial journey throughout your career, and then we’ll wrap up and talk about the business that you recently started in retirement as well. I have a feeling just based on some back and forth conversation that we had on LinkedIn and email that you’re going to have a lot to share in terms of pearls of wisdom for our listeners, whether it’s new practitioners that are listening, that are just getting started, maybe it’s some mid-career pharmacists that are feeling they’re in the thick of it as they look ahead towards the future, or perhaps folks that are nearing retirement and are able to gain something from someone who has recently made that transition. Let’s start with your career journey. What got you into pharmacy and where did you end up doing your pharmacy training?

[0:02:17] GL: Interesting story, but I was in the Navy for seven years right out of high school. I had just really been done with school. I didn’t really like school. Once I graduated, I was just working at local restaurants. I was working at a gas station back when you had an attendant pumped your gas. I mean, still New Jersey has that, but it was everywhere and I was in – I grew up in Philadelphia. Really just wanted to get out and do something completely different.

My best friend said, “Hey, let’s join the Navy on the buddy program.” We did. We went to boot camp together. Right after boot camp, we were separated. He ended up on a ship out of San Diego. I ended up as an airdale, so I actually in seven years in the Navy, I never saw a ship, except from the air. I flew on a plane that was too big to land on an aircraft carrier. When I say I flew, I didn’t fly the plane. I was back in the middle of the plane. They called us a two rat back in the middle of the two. I operated the equipment that helped us hunt Soviet submarines. My job was actually aviation anti-submarine warfare operator.

I liked it so much that I started college during some off time at – and I was stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. What we would do is we would train for about 10 or 11 months in Jacksonville for the next location that we were going to go to, and then our whole squadron of 11 planes and about 400 people would just move to a new location for six months, and then we would operate out of that location. I really got to talk about enjoying the world. I got to live for six months at a time in Sicily, in the Azores, which are Portuguese islands in the north Atlantic, Bermuda, which I was there during the height of vacation season. Was in Bermuda from April to October. That was an amazing – Not a tough deployment place to be. Okinawa and the Philippines and Spain.

I really did get to see the world. From all of those places at any given time, they would send us to another location. For example, when I was in Spain, they said, “Well, Greece wants to play some more games.” We’re going to go try and find their submarine, so we would go to Greece for a week at a time, or we would go to France for a week at a time. I really did get to see almost everything. While I was in though, I knew I wanted to go to college. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian and that was always my plan. My classes were pre-vet. After four years in the Navy, they wanted me to re-enlist. I had really just started to take classes. While I was in at my particular rating, as long as you got an A or a B in your class, they would pay for 90% of the tuition.

I took two classes while I was in Jacksonville. At the time, it was Jacksonville Community College. I think now it’s Florida State College in Jacksonville. I took two classes and just really loved it. When I re-enlisted, my squadron was going to Keflavik Iceland for a full winter deployment. I thought, Iceland is a place where people now go on vacation. My wife said, “I can’t believe that you didn’t go to Iceland.” I said, “Well, when people go on vacation, they go for two weeks and they go in the summer.” This was six months solid winter. I think it was September to March, maybe. Full winter I said, “No, I’ve done enough of my sea duty time. I’m ready to go to shore duty.”

Because they didn’t want me to leave the squadron, they wanted me in Keflavik, Iceland, they said, “Well, the only place we can send you is Memphis.” I said, “Well, that’s fine. I’ll use that time to go to college full-time.” I did go to college full-time while I was there and still doing my pre-vet. I went to Memphis State University, which is now University of Memphis. Anyone who is a former student of mine, or interviewed at any of my colleges that I’ve worked at as a dean, probably have heard this story, because I would tell it before the actual interview day started, what my background was. I apologize to any of those that have already heard this story.

I finished my sophomore year as a pre-vet, but pre-vet, pre-pharmacy, pre-dental, pre-med, they’re all the same courses. I had friends that were going to pharmacy school. At the time, this was the early and mid-1980s. Most people, really it was the BS in pharmacy that was the predominant degree. If you were not in California, there were only about four colleges in the country that offered an entry level Pharm.D degree. My wife was in pharmacy school about the same time and she went to University of Kansas and it wasn’t even an option. She had to do her BS and then she worked for a year and then applied and went back to get her post-back Pharm.D.

We didn’t know each other at the time. We didn’t meet until 15, 20 years later at University of Florida. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go straight through. Because I was already a resident in Florida by being in the Navy there, I went back to Florida to go to University of Florida. I thought, “Okay, what do I do? I’m now halfway through my junior year and I’ve been pre-vet the whole time.” I went and talked to a health career advisor. Of course, the first thing they say is, what about medical school? Oh, I didn’t say why I didn’t want to be a vet. I worked for a vet in my last year at Memphis part-time. If you’re not an owner and nobody can own a practice right out of vet school, you could do residencies if you want to specialize, but they don’t pay well. We had an associate vet, so he wasn’t one of the owners. He was just working for them full-time.

Now, again, this was 1985. At that time, pharmacists were making about 35,000 a year. I said, “Do you mind me asking, what do you make?” He said USD 18,000. He paid about a 100,000 in tuition. I said, “I mean, how long is it going to be for you to pay off your student loans? USD 18,000, that wasn’t much really more. It’s a little bit more than minimum wage.” He said, his goal was to work there about five years, build up enough of a clientele that ultimately, he can own his own practice. Very similar to what dentists do and even physicians right out of training oftentimes. That was really why I decided, vet school wasn’t for me. I wasn’t going through all these years of college to make at the time, what was just half of, or a third of what a pharmacist can make.

I still didn’t think pharmacy was for me though, because a lot of my friends that were in my classes in college were going to pharmacy school, and they were going at the time, it was the BS degree. At the time, they would even say, I would say, “What is your job going to be?” They would say themselves, “Well, we take it from the big bottle. Count by fives and put it in the little bottle.” I said, “You’re going to go to school for five, six, seven years and that’s what your job is going to be for the rest of your career?” They would tell me that there’s other things to do, but you have to do advanced training. Typically, you have to get a Pharm.D.”

At the time, Florida was transitioning to – I never even thought of pharmacy school. When I talked to the health care advisor at UF, they set me up to meet with a few of the faculty to explain that there were other jobs. It doesn’t mean to say that I didn’t want to work in the community. I actually worked in the community many times as a pharmacist in my residency, in my fellowship as an assistant professor, ultimately when I got to that point. I really enjoyed working with patients.

Med school was out, because I didn’t want to do another three or four years of residency. I said, when I graduate, I just want to graduate and be able to go into practice, or training, or into my career. UF was just transitioning from the post-back Pharm.D to the entry level Pharm.D. We had to make our decision after our first year. Everyone was together in one class. After our first year, we had to decide, okay, are you going to go into the Pharm.D track, or the BS track? It was about in my year, about 40 students went into the Pharm.D track and about 60 went into the BS. Interestingly enough, probably half of those people that went into the BS track ended up doing the program that Florida had, which was the working professional Pharm.D program, because they wanted to do something different, or just advance their career, beyond a chain, or a independent pharmacy.

They wanted to move up. Even if they wanted to stay with the chain, they wanted to move up into administration. They wanted to do something different. I went the Pharm.D track. Really, my goal was still at that point, to get my Pharm.D and to work as a pharmacist, not to do any post-doctoral training. A friend of mine was working for an independent in Tampa that had three different pharmacies. He had contacted me and said, “I would like to hire you. I don’t have any Pharm.Ds at the time, but I would really like to promote the fact that you can work with patient counseling, that you could do things beyond what are behind the counter pharmacists are doing, and we’re going to promote that we have a doctor of pharmacy. You would be probably one of the few in Tampa at the time.”

Again, because most of the people that were doing – that did the post-back program, a number of them are my friends now, went into hospital pharmacy, or they went into industry. Very few were doing community pharmacy. It sounded great. After I graduated, I went to do that and nothing was any different. I was doing the exact same job as all the “retail pharmacists,” and I was working behind the counter, not doing anything different. I did that for about six months and I left to go to the VA in Tampa.

While working at the VA, a number of my friends and colleagues, and by the way, I encourage people, I always encourage people to join, either be active in your student pharmacy organizations. For me, I was most active in Kappa side. That has really helped me throughout my career. A close friend of mine, who probably many people at least in the Florida area know, Doug Covey, was working as a clinical specialist at the VA in Tampa. I said, “Doug, I want to do what you do. I want to be a clinical specialist, not just working in the pharmacy.”

The VA had said, “We want to do an experiment. We have clinical specialists who are Pharm.Ds that have either been a Pharm.D for a long period of time and have either done a residency, or if they haven’t done a residency, they’ve been a Pharm.D for a while and they’ve built up trust with the clinicians that they work with. But at your level, you’re going to be in the middle.” I got to work with him in a cardiology clinic in the Coumadin Clinic and in a refill clinic. People that ran out of their medication, but they couldn’t get an appointment with a physician for probably three months. They would meet with us. It was me and three other Pharm.Ds from my class and we would actually review their chart, make sure that everything was stabilized so that we can actually write a prescription for them. This was before pharmacists actually wrote prescriptions in the VA.

What we wrote was a recommendation and the physician had, I think, about 72 hours to review it and say that he agreed with it. In all sense, we were writing prescriptions and this was in 1990. I really enjoyed doing that, but it was really only one day a week and then a half day a week working in the cardiology clinic with Doug and a half day a week doing the Coumadin Clinic, but I wanted to do that full-time. His best advice was, “Gary, you really need to go back and do a residency.”

The two things that I enjoy the most in pharmacy school, at least through my rotations, actually three. One was emergency medicine and toxicology. A friend of mine, who many people know in Florida and around the country is Joe Spillane. Joe was a year ahead of me in doing a two-year program in Jacksonville. It was considered a two-year fellowship. Another was ambulatory care, that was with John Gums at the University of Florida. Again, it was a two-year fellowship and probably, my favorite thing was psychiatry.

Now, psychiatry was a one-year residency at the VA in Gainesville. I got along amazingly with the preceptor. I got to know him during my rotation. They basically, this was before, if you did a specialty residency, you didn’t have to apply for a PGY2. This was before the time of PGY1s and PGY2s. Pharm.Ds could either do either a general clinical residency, which was pretty much what a PGY1 is now, or a specialty residency, what a PGY2 is now. But you could go into it right after your Pharm.D degree.

I wasn’t prepared to make a two-year commitment, so I did the one-year residency in psychiatry, or psychiatric pharmacy practice. Now, of course, actually, it was probably 1994 became the specialty board certified psychiatric pharmacy and I was in the first group of people to do that and I’ve maintained it ever since. I’ve re-certified four times, the most recent being for 2022. Three times, I did it by exam. The last time, because I was so far out of practice and I really wanted to do it just to keep my specialty, because I was the founding president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacy, which this year will become known as the American Association of Pharmacy Practitioners, I think. AAPP.

[0:17:55] TU: Oh, cool. I didn’t know that transition was happening. Okay.

[0:17:57] GL: This year is the transition year. Anything that you see about them, it’ll say CPNP/AAPP.

[0:18:05] TU: Yeah. Okay.

[0:18:06] GL: Because of that and because of still being known with them and associated with them, I’ve gone to every meeting, I think, since they started in 1992 and I helped found that original meeting. I kept my board certification. This will definitely be my last one. That’s a long background, but that’s how I got into psych. When I first started, my residency preceptor asked me, “Okay, do you want to do a fellowship?” His name is Lindsay DeVane. He is the editor. He’s retired, but he’s the editor now of The Journal of Pharmacotherapy. He’s been the editor-in-chief for probably about five years, six years. He still has some practice with research at Medical University of South Carolina. He asked me that my first day in. I said, “I really want to practice as a clinical psychiatric pharmacist.”

After about three months with him, I realized that I wanted to do what he did, which was academic pharmacy, have a clinical practice, have a research practice, had an academic practice and teach. When I said I didn’t know yet, he said, “Well, you do need to decide by your third month, because if you want to do a fellowship, we need to start applying for grants now.” At three months, we did. But I said, “Lindsay, but I don’t want to do a two-year fellowship. I want to do a one-year fellowship.” He said, “That’s fine, if you’re willing to do fellowship work as a resident. It’s going to be a busy year, but you’re going to be a resident, but you’re going to be starting, laying the foundation for the fellowship, basically, by writing grants.” I said, “I’m fine with that.”

I ended up doing a residency in fellowship, which is a total two years post-doc at University of Florida and with the VA in Gainesville, Florida. Really, that was it. That’s what took off as my academic career. At that point, I’d been in Florida, I think a total of 11 years, between being in Gainesville, in the Navy. Well, more than that, as you count my Navy time, UF time. I was ready for a complete change. I applied for a number of positions, but ended up as my first academic position at Albany College of Pharmacy, which I think now is Albany College of the Health Sciences. I was there for seven years.

Then, I won’t go through my whole academic history, but my mentor left to go to MUSC and the department chair at the time, Larry Lopez, called me and asked if I had any interest in coming back to University of Florida. I was already an associate professor, so I’ve made that first academic step. Ultimately, I did go back to University of Florida as an associate professor. That’s my career from there.

[0:21:04] TU: That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing. Most recently, you were the founding dean at Larkin University down in Miami. Since you made that transition into retirement, I want to talk a little bit about that transition and some of the planning that you did leading up to that. I think for many pharmacists in the first, let’s just say, decade, or the career that I talked to, for good reasons, they’re feeling overwhelmed with over six figures of student loan debt. Average right now is about a USD 170,000. Obviously, we’re dealing with high inflation right now, a pretty crazy housing market, uncertainty and volatility with the with the stock markets.

All that to say, I think the idea of saving for retirement and getting to that point of, “I’ve made it,” and we could talk about what that means, can feel overwhelming. To some, it probably just feels out of touch. It’s so far away. It feels so big, so scary and, “Am I really going to get there and what planning do I need to do?” My question for you as we get into a little bit of your strategy of preparing and getting to the point of being able to be in a financial position to retire, at what point in your career did you start thinking, “I need to start planning and saving for retirement”? Was that something that you were doing all along? Was there a mentor, or a guide that you had? At what point were you beginning to think, “Hey, I’ve got to really be planning for the future”?

[0:22:28] GL: I think I was very fortunate in my first academic position, Albany College of Pharmacy, because people there had a mindset of preparing for retirement. It was actually the only place that I’ve ever worked at that – I mean, Albany College of Pharmacy was the fourth College of Pharmacy in the nation. They’ve been around since the 1800s. Therefore, I mean, they have a, for just being a College of Pharmacy, as opposed to a large university with many colleges, I think they are very, very well endowed, because they have hundreds of – well, not hundreds, but well over a hundred years of alumni. Now many of those alumni have passed away. But they’ve had alumni for many, many years.

One of my favorite things to do when I had a break was to walk through the administrative wing and they had pictures, like most colleges do, of their – somewhere near the dean’s office is the big picture of all the graduates in a composite picture. One of my favorite things to do was to go and look at the founding, well all the classes, but look how the styles changed, of coats and ties, and the number of women that came into –

[0:23:46] TU: Demographic.

[0:23:46] GL: Yeah, the demographics of the program. But they had pictures going back to the first class, which I don’t remember the exact year, but it was somewhere in the 1880s. Looking at what that class was like. It was maybe 18 students, all male for 30 years and then you see the first female. But because they had this large endowment, they were really able to have a great benefits package. Their benefits package for all employees, faculty, or staff, or anybody was that they gave you a 10%, not match, but they just gave you 10% of your salary every year into your retirement fund, which was TIAA-CREF, which is the majority of colleges, universities and I think hospitals, probably have TIAA-CREF as an option.

It was their only option. It’s been at least one, or the only option at most of the colleges I worked for. I think I worked for seven colleges, or pharmacy, or universities. They just put in 10% right off the bat. I’ve never heard of that. When I was at University of Florida, they had a 10% match, but of course, it was a match. If you put in 2%, they put in 2%. But they go up to 10. The fact that Albany right off the bat gave you 10%, the first year that I was there, I was concerned about student loans. My wife had student loans.

Actually, I take that back. She didn’t have student loans. She had a different profession before pharmacy, so she was able to pay for her pharmacy degree all the way through. It was really just me. Now, I ended with about close to USD 30,000 of student loans. You’re probably better at this than me, USD 30,000 in 1990 –

[0:25:44] TU: Just thinking that. Yeah, yeah.

[0:25:45] GL: Then for two years, I didn’t pay back for my residency and fellowship and interest accumulates. Interest at that time, most people probably don’t remember, but in the eighties, I know housing interests when as hot housing to buy a house. I bought a house when I moved to Gainesville in 1986. My mortgage interest was 12%. That was an owner financed, because they did a lot and they said, “If you go to the bank, it’ll probably be 14% or 15%.”

[0:26:19] TU: That’s right.

[0:26:20] GL: People right now that are faced with 5% –

[0:26:24] TU: Five, 6% looks good, right?

[0:26:26] GL: Five, six. I think last week, it actually dropped a little bit when the Fed raised three quarters of a point, rates dropped below five. People should jump on that. Because we’re probably never going to see two and a half, or 3% again.

[0:26:42] TU: Yeah. That’s something I talked about on a recent show. I graduated in 2008, as our listeners know. We’ve been spoiled for those that are in or since that time period, we’ve been spoiled with extremely low historical interest rates. I think we’ve been accustomed to this is just the way it is. 0 percent car financing, 3%, 2.8%, 30-year fixed rate mortgages on homes. Student loan interest rates, especially for those that need to refinance on the private side, really low. That’s not what it’s always been. I think, I’ve talked to my parents about this and other guests as well, but there certainly have been time periods of higher inflation and will we see those lower rates again or not? We’ll see in the future.

It’s interesting you mentioned how impactful that early contribution from Albany; them providing 10%. Even when you got to Florida, the 10% match. I mean, outside of academic institutions, those are unheard of today for many of our pharmacists, especially that work out in the private sector. They’re going to have to work a little bit harder on their own. You’re not going to see 8%, 10% matches and you’re certainly not going to see a whole lot of contributions being made without a match.

My question for you and I think one that probably a lot of listeners are struggling with in the moment is dealing with the current volatility, and especially for those that have not been through this. I go back to my experience. 2008, just graduated. I was doing residency at the time, making a whopping USD 31,000. I didn’t own a home. Outside of gas being expensive, I didn’t feel that recession. If anything, I was able to start my investing career, buying low and really saw the upside of that for almost 14 years, until we had the recent dip. Even the dip in the pandemic, back to March 2020, it was so short-lived, I’m not sure we saw the impact, like a 2008 recession or others before, where maybe we have people that have now been 10 to 15 years into their career, have never dealt with this kind of volatility. Maybe they’ve accrued three, four, five, USD 600,000. This is the first time they’re looking at saying, “Yeesh. I just lost 30% to 40% of my portfolio.”

This is the first test, I think, for many of like, “Am I really in it for the long-term? And making sure I don’t make any decisions in the short-term that are going to hurt me.” What advice would you have for folks that are – especially on that first half of their career that are experiencing this volatility, that are questioning their investment strategy and are maybe even wondering, is it worth it when there’s other competing expenses where I could be putting these dollars? You’ve lived through some of these cycles and obviously weathered them. Tell us your thoughts on that.

[0:29:26] GL: My first recommendation would be to never panic. So many people took money, or took their money that they had invested in especially the 2008, which was the biggest. 2007 leading up to that. So many people took their money and just put it into cash, or money market, which probably pays 1%. Or you can move it into annuity which pays 2% or 3%. But me and my wife, we looked at it as, this is an excellent opportunity to buy low, because we’re continuing to put in every paycheck, so we’re buying as low as possible.

Anybody that follows the stock market and if they don’t, then I encourage that everybody have a financial planner. As a department chair, I’ve been a department chair twice and a dean twice. In both of those positions, I saw myself not just as an employee mentor, but as a life mentor as much as I could be, because I went through having – I have one son, he’s 27 now. I went through having a child, or a baby while I was in academia, changing jobs, spouse changing jobs, all the sorts of things, buying houses, all the sorts of things that they’re going through, we’re going to go through. I encourage them to start putting money away as early as they can.

I have had, and here’s the part where I would never name names, but I have had faculty, many of them say to me, “I have been told by my financial planner, or advised to pay off my student loans first before I put money away.” I personally disagree with that, because you will get your student loans paid off long before you retire. But I don’t know, but compound an interest, if you put a USD 100 a month away at age, let’s say 25, at age 65 or 70, that USD 100, if you go by the general rule and the general rule is every seven years, your money doubles. That includes ups and downs in the markets, that every seven years. If you have a longer period of no downs and there’s definitely more ups than downs, that USD 100 – I mean, I don’t know how many sevens that is, but that USD 100 is probably several thousand.

If you’re doing that once a month, I mean, you’re talking about getting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s not uncommon for people that do that, to retire with well over a million dollars. A lot of pharmacists are married to pharmacists. If they’re not married to pharmacists, they’re often married to other people doing very well in the health care, like nurses, physicians, nutritionists, any other health care practitioner that’s making 60,000 and up. These are people where both of them could be putting away.

The way I started when I had that 10%, I realized that it was 10% of not much and I didn’t know that pharmacy salaries – as a faculty member, I started at 48,000. I didn’t know that that would go to well over a 100,000. I looked at it as it’s 10% of not very much, but it’s USD 4,800 a month going in. The first year, we focused on buying a house. We really decided, okay, we’re not going to put anything away. I plan that every year, I’m probably going to get a raise. That’s another benefit of Albany College of Pharmacy. We had good raises. Many people that work for state universities, they might not get a raise like privates will get. Private universities will typically look at what is the consumer inflation index and the average, I mean, I realized this year is not a normal year, but the average is around 2%.

What they’ll do is most company, or most private universities will take that 2% and add 2% to that and they’ll say, “Our average raise this year is going to be 4%.” Depending on merit, it’s going to vary between the very worst person is going to get 2% and the highest might get 6%. At Albany, I typically ranged between 4% and 6% and 2 years in a row. I got the highest raise in the university. That’s great, but not normal. It wasn’t that way my entire career, but it was two great years.

My goal was always, whatever my raise was, if my raise was 4%, 2% I was going to enjoy in my salary and 2% I was going to put into the match. I did that every year, so that by the time I left Albany after seven years, I was matching that 10% that they were putting in. Again, that was 10% of a relatively no number, even though I was there seven years with some great pay raises. When I left there, I was making, I think, it was 67. Then I went to University of Florida as a associate professor in 1999 and started at 75.

Pharmacists coming out were making more than that. They were making about 80. It was not until I became vice chair for the department at University of Florida and the stipend that I got for being vice chair. At that point, about nine years in academia, vice chair for the department and I’m finally making as much as one of our graduates.

[0:35:09] TU: Yeah. I think there’s so much wisdom in what you shared of the habit that then has a compound effect. You mentioned your example of 4%-ish, maybe a little bit higher at Albany. Taking a portion of that and building the behavior of I’m going to save it and invest it. Because salaries go up if, you’ve built that behavior based on a percentage that not only is that number going to go up, but then the compound effect of that number is going to go up, even more over time. I think that’s a really good strategy.

I’ve been recording some of the lessons that you’re sharing here, and I’ve got four so far. Number one we talked about, don’t panic. We’re going to experience volatile periods in the market as we are right now. Number two is –

[0:35:49] GL: I guess, with don’t panic, try not to look every day if you’re invested.

[0:35:54] TU: Be informed, but not in it so much that you’re panicking.

[0:35:57] GL: Right. Because you’re not in it for day to day. You’re in this for 20, or 30 years from now. There will be ups and there will be downs, but no matter what, if you look at the market from the date they started recording, it goes like that.

[0:36:11] TU: Yup. That’s right.

[0:36:12] GL: It’s a mountain slope.

[0:36:14] TU: Number one, don’t panic. Number two is the value of having a good coach, a trusted advisor and planner. I think that relates to number one, because a good coach and a planner is going to talk you through some of the volatile time periods to make sure we’re looking long-term. Number three, you mentioned start as early as possible and you gave some good examples and numbers of what, it’s a USD 100 a month equal over time. Then number four, we just talked about this concept of save the raise, is what I call it. If we get raises over time, if we can build the discipline to put away a portion of that, that’s going to have a huge impact over time.

My last financial question before we transition and wrap up by talking a little bit about what you’re doing on the business side of retirement, is that saving for retirement is one thing. We talk a lot about building a nest egg. We talk a lot about how much might someone need. Is it one, or two, or three million dollars, but building a retirement paycheck and determining how you’re going to actually withdraw that money and the strategy for doing that is a completely different thing. We don’t talk as much about that, I think, in the financial services world. We talk about the accrual phase a lot, but we don’t talk as much about the withdrawal strategy. This is really where a lot can happen in terms of mistakes made, or opportunities, if we can optimize this phase. Can you can you share, especially for those listening that are getting ready, or see on the horizon that retirement phase, what your strategy has been thus far, or what you’re planning to do for withdrawing these various funds that you’ve accrued throughout your career as you begin to build that retirement paycheck?

[0:37:51] GL: I try to take out as little as possible. I’m very fortunate in that my wife is younger than me and she will probably work about five to six more years before retiring from J&J. She has a very healthy income, too. That allowed me to retire and really not have to touch any of my funds. However, I’ll try and make it for anybody that still has either a spouse retiring, or you both retired at the same time. Social Security, we have to mention that. Right now, they say, I think that there’s about 30 years left. This is just something I believe as a core in my heart that Social Security will not go away. I mean, it’s a promise –

[0:38:36] TU: I agree.

[0:38:37] GL: – that the government has made since what, FDR was president, when it started.

[0:38:42] TU: It would be catastrophic if it does.

[0:38:44] GL: I believe, it would lead to something like a civil war. Much, much worse than the January 6th insurrection. Because you’re affecting tens of millions of people, not a couple hundred thousand that are upset. Tens of millions of people. And that have been putting away. When Obama was president and they first started to talk about there being potentially an end, or a lifetime of Social Security that it has to come to an end. Well, if it has to come to an end, you have to stop taking from people. Social Security, and say, take this money and invest it on your own, but we can’t continue to take it and make money off of you and then say, it’s gone. It’s not. For those that don’t know, it’s seven and a half percent, I think, or 7.55% and your employer pays 7.55%.

[0:39:44] TU: That’s right.

[0:39:45] GL: If you’re self-employed, it’s double that, so you’re paying the entire 15% yourself. That’s a lot of money to take from somebody for 40, 50 years and then say, we’re not going to give you anything. Even the people that are billionaires, they took that money from them I think they owe them something in return. Now, I do believe that they can move to a sliding scale. People that are billionaires probably don’t need to get USD 2,000 a month. I’m very supportive of a sliding scale. But that sliding scale should not be the number that I’ve heard talked about, like 200, or USD 220,000, because two pharmacists could be making over USD 220,000 that are partners. Maybe not after they retire, but they might have more than that, a lot more than that in their retirement funds.

We all live, and I have this other – This is just the rule of Gary. Everybody lives to about a half a percent, or 1% beyond their means. If we didn’t, we would have no need for credit cards, lines of credit. We all tend to live at our means, but just a tiny bit over that that we’re always comfortable. We shouldn’t have to change that, because social security goes away. I don’t think that, again, that’s not a promise. That’s just my opinion. It’ll never go away. It may change, but I don’t think it’ll ever go away, that would lead to, I believe, something as big as a civil war, that catastrophic.

I’m one of the last few years. I’m a baby boomer, but on the last few years. I was born in 1960. I was eligible to start Social Security at ’62. Every year that you wait in not taking it, that goes up 8%. If I took it at ’63, it would be 8% more than when I was ’62. I’m not. If I wait till ’64, it’s another 8%. When we look at market volatility over time, we consider 8% per year over say, a 10 or 15-year of good, or average years. Six percent if you want to be conservative, 8% if you want to meet what the S&P has generally done over time and 10% if you want to say, “Well, I feel like I’m retiring, or the next 10 years should be pretty good.”

I have not started taking my Social Security, because there’s nothing in life that’s guaranteed, right, other than death and taxes. This is something that’s guaranteed. There are three things is that every year, you don’t take your Social Security. It goes up 8%. My goal is to not take it at least until my wife retires. If that’s in five years, I’ll be 67 and that would have gone up five times eight, 40%. Right now, my retirement check would look somewhere around, I think, USD, 2,200. I think it would be 3,000 or over at 67.

[0:42:55] TU: Let’s shift gears here and wrap up with the work that you are doing in your own business. You’re retired from pharmacy, still working though not as a pharmacist, but have decided to start your own company. Tell us about Captain G’s, what the business is all about and what you’re working on.

[0:43:12] GL: Great. I still want to mention that I’m still licensed. I don’t know why I’m still licensed as a pharmacist. It’s just something we work so long on and have for so long. I don’t know if it’s a safety net. I think most places would rather hire someone that has a lot of a career left than somebody like me. But if I had to do per diem, I certainly would. I always said that I’d work behind a counter before I would live under a bridge. But I wouldn’t be behind the counter. Like I said, I’d be out there helping patients and hope all the pharmacists that are listening to this do that, or counseling, or anything else that you would consider helping their quality of life.

I retired about a year and a half ago and I really never planned to do this. Well, actually, I had planned to do it. That was creating a charter service with my boat. We had a larger boat. We had a 45-foot boat when I retired, with a fly bridge, which is a pretty big boat. Three state rooms, two heads or bathrooms on it, a full galley, an outdoor kitchen and grill. I probably could have lived on that boat. We tried it. We actually, when we lived in Coconut Grove, which is a very popular area in Miami, we did Airbnb for one week a month –

[0:44:33] TU: Oh, cool.

[0:44:34] GL: – for our house and lived on the boat to see if we enjoyed living on a boat. Because that was always my goal, to try and get my wife to say, “Let’s not have a mortgage on the house and a boat. Let’s just get a big boat, big enough to live on.” It probably would have been a 60-foot boat. That experience though, she said, “I can’t live on a boat. I just can’t do it. Too small of a space. Not enough closet space, etc., and not a bathtub. My wife loves a bathtub, not a shower.” But we still owed a couple 100,000 on that boat when I wanted to retire. She said, “Look, we’ve got a lot of equity in this boat. Why don’t you sell it?”

It was right around the time that quarantine had ended and people wanted to get out and the boating market and the housing market, that’s when they both really started to skyrocket. Boats were selling literally in a day, just like houses. I hired a broker. We had literally three cash offers. We had three cash offers before COVID. Then the pandemic hit and it cooled down. The same people that had an offer on the boat when the quarantine ended came back and said, “We’ll buy it.” They tried to offer us a lower amount. I said, “No, we have two other cash offers for one day. No survey. We’ve already done all this with you, a marine survey. Take it as it is,” and they did.

Then, I ended up with about USD 250,000 in equity. My wife said, that was the original plan was take what you get in equity and just buy a boat outright. I did that. I looked around for a while and found an amazing boat that if anybody’s interested in a boat, buy a used one and typically, look at three years. Boats depreciate at 20% the first year like a car, 12% the second year and 8% the third year. After that, they plateau and appreciate about 2% to 3% a year.

Really, 40% of depreciation is in the first three years and it hasn’t been used that much. We were fortunate to find one that only had a 100 hours on the engine. Two state rooms in it, full galley. We went to one bathroom, but a separate shower. I had thought about chartering it and I didn’t want to put all those hours on it. I talked to a couple charter companies and they said, “You know, when we do charters, it’s really about the people being in the water. You’re not really taking them on a tour of Miami and the Keys. You’re not cruising at 30 knots, or 30 miles an hour, which uses a gallon pretty much every mile, you’re burning about a gallon, which is a lot of money.”

I mean, when we go to Bimini or the Keys, it costs about 60 gallons to get there. Well, marine fuel is less expensive, especially marine diesel, it’s still about USD 4 a gallon. It’s a lot of money to get to Bimini and back. That’s what I was thinking is that’s a lot of fuel, that’s a lot of hours. That means more maintenance I’m going to be paying on the boat, everything. In talking to a couple of charter companies, I realized that the ideal charter is four hours in length. It’s basically an hour of cruising around and you’re cruising relatively slow, eight to 10 knots, which burns maybe one gallon during that time period. One, maybe one and a half gallon. That was about USD 6 of fuel during that first hour. Showing them around. Then typically, they want to anchor and go out in the water and swim. We let them do that. They typically play in the water for two hours and then it’s about an hour to get back. It doesn’t put a lot of time. Each charter puts about two hours of engine time on my boat, but the amount of money that people pay for a charter for a boat of my size is great.

[0:48:27] TU: Makes sense. They don’t want to own it. They want to enjoy it.

[0:48:29] GL: They just want to enjoy it. My company is Captain G’s. Www.captain.gs, g for Gary, S for Captain G’s .net.

[0:48:43] TU: We’ll link to that in the show notes, so people can see that.

[0:48:45] GL: Okay. If you see anywhere on that page, I also do a second job and that’s because I’ve had a number of people call me and say, I just went up from a single engine to a double engine, or I’ve moved to a boat that has an air conditioner, or a generator, or I’ve went from gas to diesel, there’s just a lot of new things that I don’t know how to manage. I’ve owned everything, from an 18-foot to a 45-foot, all over 30 years. I started with an 18-foot bow rider right out of my fellowship and I’ve owned a boat ever since. I’m on my 11th boat. This will be my last boat. No sense in getting a bigger boat, because I like the number of people that I take out on the charter. Maximum is eight people and average is going to be typically, anywhere from two to six.

My first three charters, two were last week. Two were two weekends ago and one was this past weekend and we’re in low season. They said, I’ll probably get five to seven a month in low season. Then in November, we pick up into high season and they said, I’ll probably get around 11 to 15.

[0:49:51] TU: Wow. Wow.

[0:49:53] GL: Now, that’s a lot of work for me. I don’t want to do all that work. I want to enjoy the income that it brings. I like getting out on the water. My goal is to do about four charters a month. I get one so far. I was on a vacation to Asheville, so I have a backup, Captain Natasha. She’s relatively young, but extremely experienced and she captains boats up to 75 feet. She does – handling mine is like me playing with a tinker toy. She doesn’t even hire a mate when she does mine, when she charters 75-foot boats, she’ll have a mate with her too, to help getting the drinks, helping with the water toys, all that. I had my first one where I captained it, just this past Saturday for four hours.

Because we were coming back at night, I had my wife with me, because Miami can be pretty busy even at night. She just helped as a lookout and helped me dock back in. She served as the first mate. We bought a pair of walkie talkies, so we could seem very professional.

[0:50:59] TU: That’s cool.

[0:51:00] GL: She had it in her ear. It looked pretty cool. It was great. It was just a couple and we dropped them off at a restaurant when we were done. If it makes enough money to pay for my slip, slips are not expensive, or not cheap, especially in Miami. I have a type of slip where it’s called a full-service marina. You can get fuel there. They do minor repairs for free. Major repairs, they’ll bring somebody in, but I haven’t had any major, knock on wood. Minor things, they’ll do for free. If it’s anything that a charter customer did, like let’s say, they put a hole in a seat, then the charter – the company that I work with, or partner with, which is called theadvantaged.com. It’s www.theadvantaged.com. If you click anywhere on my website to do a charter, it’ll go directly to my boat on their website.

[0:52:01] TU: Got it.

[0:52:03] GL: The reason for that is, I don’t want to deal with the clientele. I don’t want to deal with people saying, “Hey, I want it for USD 200 less. I want this. I want that.” I want another company to do that, so theadvantaged does that. Do they make a fee? Yeah, they make 50% after the captain is paid, which is either me or Natasha, but we get the tip 100%, which is typically 20% of the full charter price and we each split 50% of it at the end. It’s very good.

I probably figure that I will need a service more often than once a year, maybe once every eight or nine months, especially once we get into season. A service costs about USD 4,000. I do expect that I’ll have additional expenses, but things that I was paying for already. My slip is 1,295 a month. That fuel, these are things that I’m paying for already, regular upkeep. All this can be written off now as an expense of the company. I hired a company called Zen Business, which is an ideal company for people that want to start small businesses and don’t want to do all the paperwork themselves.

They’ve handled my Florida S Corp, creating an S corporation. They’ve handled getting my EIN number, which is basically the social security number of a business for federal purposes and taxes. They’ve handled everything. Theadvantaged handles everything with the clients. They actually even take the money, I deal with nothing unless somebody hands me a cash tip. It’s been great. I mean, I like to get out on the water. Like I said, I don’t want to be out there every day of the month, or even every other day, because I want my time to go out with me and my wife and our friends also. We take friends out, probably once every other weekend. Again, I’ll do it about four times and Natasha can do the rest, or second backup.

[0:54:08] TU: I love that. I mean, you’re already building the system of the beginnings, at least of the business and having other people involved, doing what you want to enjoy, but not taking up so much time. I think that fits in so well to that fifth lesson we were talking about minimizing withdrawal, because obviously, there’s an opportunity there for additional income that can further allow that delay of social security and other type of withdrawal.

[0:54:32] GL: Exactly. We were, without me starting social security, I was having to take out about USD 20,000 twenty a year. I don’t think I’ll have to take out anything, which again, just let’s continue to build.

[0:54:44] TU: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

[0:54:47] GL: I only wish that I had additional money to put in during this low time.

[0:54:50] TU: I know.

[0:54:51] GL: I don’t. If it gets big enough, I will continue to put money in. Because my wife’s still working, she’s still putting in –

[0:54:59] TU: Contributing at the low.

[0:55:02] GL: Yeah, at the low amount, knowing that it’s going to grow.

[0:55:04] TU: Yeah. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate your time and sharing some of your journey here with our listeners and especially for those folks that are looking ahead and thinking about the journey over the course of their career, I think this will be really insightful. Thank you, Gary, for taking time to come on the show. I appreciate it.

[0:55:21] GL: Tim, if there’s one biggest thing that I can say, especially for those that have student loans, by all means, don’t forget your student loans. But take something, even if it’s a USD 100 a month, USD 50 a month, USD 10 a week, anything. Just start it. Make it as an auto withdrawal, so you don’t even notice it. Remember, when you take it out if your paycheck to put into retirement, you’re typically going to do it where you’re not going to pay taxes on that amount. If you take out a 100 a month, it’s only going to look like you’ve taken out USD 70 a month.

Now, there’s a whole other option that you can do where you do it after taxes and put it in as an IRA. That’s probably a whole another session for Tim to talk about. That wasn’t an option when I started my career. That only started about seven years ago. If it was, I would have done that, because I’m going to be taxed on everything that I take out. Whereas, if you do this relatively new option, yes you’re going to pay taxes now, but not when you need it in retirement.

[0:56:24] TU: That’s right. That’s right. Many folks now have access to a Roth. Not just the Roth IRA, but also a Roth 401k, or Roth 403b.

[0:56:31] GL: Right, right. If you do a whole show on that, please let me know. I’d love to listen in on it.

[0:56:36] TU: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much, Gary. I appreciate it.

[0:56:38] GL: Thank you, Tim. Thanks, listeners.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:56:41] 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 pharmacists, 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 291: Redefining Retirement with Professor Emeritus David Zgarrick, PhD

Posted on January 19, 2023March 10, 2023 by Rose

Dr. David Zgarrick, a Professor Emeritus of Northeastern University, discusses redefining retirement. He shares why he views the next phase of life as a preferment phase of his career, why he started planning financially early in his career, and advice for new grads facing the financial headwind of competing priorities including student loans, saving for the future, and buying a home.

About Today’s Guest

David P. Zgarrick, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern University. His prior positions include Associate Dean of Faculty at Northeastern’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Acting Dean of Northeastern’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chair of the Northeastern’s Department of Pharmacy and Health Systems Sciences; John R. Ellis Distinguished Chair of Pharmacy Practice at Drake University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; and Vice-chair of Pharmacy Practice at Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy. He is a licensed pharmacist, receiving a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a MS and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Administration from The Ohio State University. Dr. Zgarrick taught pharmacy practice management and entrepreneurship in the health sciences. His scholarly interests include pharmacy workforce research, pharmacy management and operations, pharmacy education, and development of post-graduate programs. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts, is co-editor of the textbook Pharmacy Management: Essentials for All Practice Settings (5th Ed), and authored the book Getting Started as a Pharmacy Faculty Member. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pharmacy Teaching, Executive Associate Editor of Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, and an editorial board member of Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy. Dr. Zgarrick is active in many professional organizations, including the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). He served on AACP’s Board of Directors for 12 years, including as Treasurer from 2016 – 2022. Dr. Zgarrick also serves on the Board of Visitors for the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy, the Board of Grants for the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, and is a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomes Dr. David Zgarrick, a Professor Emeritus of Northeastern University, to the show to discuss redefining retirement. Some highlights from the episode include Dr. Zgarrick sharing his views on his next phase in life, after 30+ years in academia, as a preferment phase of his career. He shares how and why he started planning for his financial future early on in his life and career and hands down advice for new pharmacy graduates facing competing financial priorities. Throughout the discussion, listeners will hear Dr. Zgarrick speak on standout moments from his pharmacy career, the impact his financial choices have had on that journey, and ultimately his decision to enter this preferment stage of his career. He shares excitement for retirement and this next phase of his life, what he means by a preferment phase, and how retirement can be an opportunity to experience a rich, fulfilling life outside of pharmacy without the guilt of competing responsibilities. Listen for helpful advice Dr. Zgarrick took from his financial advisor regarding his first year of retirement and how factoring in a cross-country move played a role in his retirement and financial plan.

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 the pleasure of welcoming Dr. David Zgarrick, a professor emeritus of Northeastern University College of Pharmacy. Some of my favorite moments from the show including hearing Dave share why he views the next phase of life after 30-plus years in Academia not as retirement but rather as a preferment phase of his career. How and why he started planning financially early in his career to put himself in a position of having choice? And advice he has for new grads that are facing the financial headwind of many competing financial priorities, including student loan debt, buying a home and saving for the future.

Now, 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 280 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 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 on my interview with professor emeritus Dr. Dave Zgarrick.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:29] TU: Dave, welcome to the show.

[00:01:30] Dr. DZ: Thank you. Thank you. It’s great to be here, Tim.

[00:01:33] TU: Well, I’m really excited uh to have you on to dig into your professional journey and the impact that finances has had throughout your journey so that you could retire or perhaps better said, as we’ll talk about, take a half-time break at the age of 57. And you and I have known each other for several years through the academic circles. And when I saw your post on LinkedIn about entering this next phase, I knew that your story would have such a great impact on our community. So, thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:02:00] Dr. DZ: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really great to be here. And it’s great to think about half time. It was interesting, I’m a Green Bay Packers Fan. You’re a Buffalo Bills fan. Just thinking about half time. We’re about halfway through the NFL season. It’s time to make some adjustments. And I think both the Packers and Bills will have some adjustments to make. And so, we can talk about how we make financial adjustments as well.

[00:02:22] TU: I love that. I love that. Let’s start with your pharmacy career. When did that Journey begin and what drew you into the profession to begin with?

[00:02:31] Dr. DZ: I’m from an interesting community. I’m from Marshfield, Wisconsin, which is a relatively small community in Central Wisconsin. But it’s a very unique community and that Marshfield has a very large medical center. It’s the Marshfield Clinic. It has now the Marshall Medical Center.

I grew up with health and healthcare even though no one in my family was a healthcare professional. My father was an administrator for a dairy corporation. My mother is an educator. She taught special education. I was not brought up in a healthcare background. But I had lots of friends and knew lots of people that were in the healthcare space.

And as I was going through high school, I was thinking about health and healthcare a lot and thinking about wanting to go down that pathway. I was reasonably good at all the things they tell you you’re supposed to be good at in high school, math and science, and communications and all those things.

I had honestly probably was thinking first about medicine at the time. I was going to go to medical school. I guess, in some ways I was very fortunate. I went to a career day seminar and one of the speakers that came to that career day seminar was someone from the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy. And talked a little bit about pharmacy and what pharmacists did and so forth. And pharmacy hit a good spot.

And again, I’ll give my parents credit. They were very pragmatic with me when it came to where are you going to go to college? And what are you going to major in college? That kind of stuff. And they were said, “You know, you can go to college anywhere you want. And you can major in anything you want so long as you can support yourself when you’re done.”

And to that end, pharmacy seemed it was a great at the time. Keep in mind. It was a five-year BS degree at the time, which was a great fit. Because in some ways I’m thinking, “Okay, I’m going to learn all these things that are going to help me if I go to medical school. Become a physician. I’m going to learn a lot about drugs, and a lot about health and health care and so forth.” Worst case scenario, if I don’t get medical school, I could be a pharmacist and I’ll be able to support myself.

I’ll say two things happened along the way. One, I recognized that being a physician wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. And especially the pathway towards becoming a physician. It’s not just medical school, of course. It’s residency and training and everything that that life brings. And then I also learned that there’s so much more to pharmacy than I had envisioned there was. Probably many people, when you start down this path. Growing up in Central Wisconsin, honestly, my only connection with pharmacy was with community pharmacy.

I saw people, primarily men, wearing white coats working behind counters and seeing them take big bottles of pills and put them into little bottles of pills. And didn’t think that much more of it. Obviously, as I learned so much more of about not only what the role of pharmacy was at that time but what we were seeing it begin to evolve to. Towards not just dispensing medications, of course, but really using our knowledge and expertise to help maximize the benefits from medication therapy.

I was fortunate. I had some really good experiences along the way. I hooked up with folks that were doing research in a variety of different ways. I spent one summer doing medical research working in a lab. And honestly said to myself, “That’s not what I wanted to do.”

But I spent more time doing research with social administrative scientists and learning about the kinds of questions that they asked. My parents will tell you I am one of those people that always ask questions. I was one of those always kids that always asked, “Why? Why? Why?”

And as you can imagine, parents, you being a parent yourself, you’re probably – at a certain point, you just want to tell your kids go figure it out yourself. Because, honestly, that’s what we do as researchers. We ask questions and we have the tools to be able to learn how to figure it out ourselves.

Now, my questions I was very interested in asking were honestly about pharmacists themselves. The work they do. How they’re rewarded for that? What their ambitions are? Where they see themselves going with their careers? As a pharmacy workforce researcher, my interest is very much in who pharmacists are and what they want to do with that pathway.

And so, I got my pharmacy degree from Wisconsin. I went and worked as a community pharmacist for several years. Worked for a company that’s called Shopko. Unfortunately, Shopko is no longer with us. But many of us probably remember what Shopko was. And for a number of years, they were a great place to work with because I really used my knowledge as a pharmacist and as a pharmacy manager working for Shopko.

But then went back to – went to Ohio State for graduate school. That was a good place to be able to go to be able to learn the research tools that I needed to have to be able to do the research that I do is. As well as to get more experience with teaching and educating.

I had gotten some experiences as a teaching assistant, as an undergraduate student at Wisconsin already. But then at Ohio State, I got even more experience and learned what it was like to be in part of a classroom of 100 students and have to be prepared and have to help students understand how does their knowledge of this particular topic fit into a bigger picture of all of the things that we expect them to know as a pharmacist?

As I finished up my graduate work, I had options. I could go work for the pharmaceutical industry. I could go work with a managed care organization. I could work with wholesalers like Cardinal, or McKesson, or Bergen or something like that. There were lots of options.

Ultimately, I chose the academic path because I really enjoyed that ability to not just continue to do research but to connect with students and to really – it felt that I could have the biggest impact in my profession. And ultimately, the biggest impact on patients by continuing to train and help educate the next future generations of people that are going to go into pharmacy.

[00:09:00] TU: I love that, Dave. And you would ultimately spend 30-plus years across three different institutions in that area of work and I know have had an impact on so many other colleagues that you’ve crossed path with, obviously, the thousands probably of students that you worked with over the years.

[00:09:17] Dr. DZ: It’s interesting. At this point of one’s career when – yeah, one naturally does kind of look back at those types of things. And I started adding up the numbers between the institutions I’ve taught. And I’ve been the professor of probably close to 5,000 students over the years. I’m editor of a textbook and I work with several others on that book as well that I know is used in most colleges of pharmacy in the United States. And including not many colleges of pharmacy across the world. And so, it’s kind of cool to think about how one has an impact not necessarily even just directly like we are used to with our patients. But that indirect impact that the work that we do can be used by so many people.

[00:10:01] TU: One of the reasons I was so excited for this interview, Dave, is that I think there’s often a perception around retirement that folks might be limping towards that line. Or begrudgingly working late in their career. Or there’s a lot of energy around early retirement. But often, I think that’s with the context of that someone may not necessarily be enjoying the work that they’re doing.

And what’s really interesting about your story is the great career you have had. The fulfillment and joy you had in your work. The impact you had on many others. But also, this excitement around the next phase of life. And to me, that is what – when we talk about preferred retirement, when we talk about what retirement may look like and the vision of like that, that to me is the success I know that I’m yearning for, is to have an option and choice, of course. But also, to look back and feel like, “Wow! I love the time that I had and the impact and the opportunities I had.”

And you shared something really interesting on LinkedIn. You said that, “While I may have concluded the pharmacy educator phase of my career, I certainly don’t think of myself as being done.” And to borrow a phrase from Lucinda Main, someone we both know. You said you’re entering the preferment phase of your career. Fortunate to have the luxury of choosing what you’d like to do. Who I’d like to do it with? And taking the time to figure it all out. I love that, the preferment phase. Talk to us more about what that means to you.

[00:11:31] Dr. DZ: Thank you so much, because I feel so fortunate to be able to be at this phase of my career. And I want to share my wife, Michelle, who’s also a pharmacist who I met in graduate school at Ohio State. She has also started at her preferment phase as well. She was a pharmacist. Worked in the hospitals and outpatient oncology settings for many years. And has decided to start her preferment stage at this point with us.

But, no. I think when one thinks about getting to this stage in a career, I mean, there’s been so much that’s been rewarding and interesting about the work that I do. But like anyone, none of our career paths or jobs are perfect. They all come with sometimes things that we would just assume not be doing. Or the longer we’ve been doing something, we get to know ourselves pretty well.

And I say to myself, “Well, these are things that I really like that I’m really interested in.” And then there’s other parts of my job that I’m doing that, “Well, I’m not so interested in those things.” And I’m just doing them because at a certain point you kind of feel you have to. And I guess this is, again, a good position to be able to be in.

When one thinks about preferment, I mean, yes, I stepped off in academia what we call the tenure track. I was a tenured full professor, which in many respects is the ideal position. It’s the golden ring that many people go towards. This idea that you have a lifetime contract. And I was very fortunate to have a lifetime contract at a leading university and was well-compensated for what I did. I’m very fortunate to have been in that position.

That said, if you’re staying in that position, you’re going to keep doing all of those things essentially for the rest of your career. And I just kind of said to myself, “Maybe not.” Maybe there are other things I’d like to do. Again, there’s things I like doing. There’s things that I don’t like doing. And then there’s this whole outside of my job life, the things that make me, so to speak, that I kind of wanted to think I’d like to be able to do them without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else. And so, no, I decided that this was a good point in my life to be able to make this type of change.

[00:14:01] TU: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think – No pressure, Dave. But I think you and maybe Lucinda should work on a book on the preferment phase. Because I think – and we try to find this balance. But we focus so heavily on the dollars and cents, right? Really important. We got to have enough to cover our needs and the goals we have. Whatever those may be. But we tend to overlook both in retirement as well as throughout our careers. What does it mean to live a rich life? Not just dollars and cents. But at the end of the day, money is a tool, right?

[00:14:34] Dr. DZ: Oh, exactly. Exactly. I couldn’t agree with you more. Money is a means to an end. It is not an end in and of itself. The same as our career. We have to think of our career path as a means to an end. Not the end in and itself.

Again, when I stepped back and thought about that, I think about my family. And it was difficult sometimes especially during the pandemic. I mean, my family was back in the midwest, in Wisconsin, in Chicago and so forth. And there was a long time where we literally couldn’t travel to go see them. My wife’s family was in Ohio. The same thing. My wife was working at a hospital and they’ve literally told her, “Well, if you leave the state of Massachusetts to go visit your family, you have to quarantine for two weeks before you come back to work. And that, just for a long time, wasn’t viable for either of us.

We started thinking about our families. We started thinking about the things we enjoy doing. I mean, I enjoy skiing. I enjoy getting out on my bike and going on rides and that kind of stuff. And some of the mental type things that we all like doing and so forth. The things that honestly make us us.

I look to this point of life that we’ve entered now where it’s giving us more space and time to be able to do that and not feel like, “Oh, I’ve got to do this job aspect of my job or that aspect of my job.” I mean, we’ve figured out ways to be able to manage that.

[00:16:09] TU: One thing I mentioned to you before we recorded is I’m reading right now a book called Retirement Stepping Stones by Tony Hixson. We’ll link to that in the show notes. And this was recommended to me by a shared colleague that really John [inaudible 00:16:23] said, “Hey, Tim you got to read this book,” to really have perspective on what he and I were talking about at the time, which is more this concept of life planning. Again, need the dollars and cents. But also, what are the goals? What’s the vision we have to live life well?

And Tony Hickson, in this book, talks about retirement not as a finish line but how we need to be thinking about as a half time. And I love that. Because what do we do at halftime, right? You already kind of mentioned it when our Bills and Packers played. You adjust. You adjust and you have a plan.

Yes, it’s been informed a little bit by what’s been happening. But it’s a time to reset, to look ahead and to make sure we have a plan. We don’t just go out into the third quarter and hope it’s going to work out, right?

My question for you is it’s clear to me, Dave, when I hear you talk talking about investment of more time with family, with the outdoors, and skiing and traveling. That there’s these other goals. But there’s been thought and intention behind this transition. And talk us through that a little bit more and how you and your wife got to this decision point and ultimately painted the picture of what this vision would look like.

[00:17:28] Dr. DZ: Yeah, I think for many of us – I mean, in some ways, it’s been a conversation we’ve thought about for a long time. I mean, we knew from this point that we started working that someday we were going to retire. We weren’t just going to stay chained to our desks, or to our hospitals, or universities forever and ever.

We knew that that day was going to come. We didn’t necessarily know when that was going to be. But we started saving and thinking accordingly for that knowing that it would come. And so, there was an aspect of having a financial plan that we started to put in place.

Moving forward, I’ll say, like many people, we did get to the pandemic and kind of said to ourselves, “As our jobs were changing and our careers were changing, are these changes we wanted to make –” I mean, in some ways we made them because we had to. We all adjusted and so forth. But did we want to continue down this pathway? And I think we put some thought and energy into this.

And then now, I’m going to say we also sat down with a financial advisor. And actually, I’m going to mention just a little bit thinking about finances. Because, of course, there is a financial aspect to be able to make these decisions. Like I said, my wife and I had started saving. And we are savers. That’s part of our culture.

I remember one time you posted on one of your blogs or something, what’s the most fun thing one can do when you’ve got some extra money? And I think I remember my comment to that post was save it. And to some people that might not seem the most exciting thing in the world. But when I can take that money and put it in the bank, that tells me that I’m going to have that for – I’m going to be able to make decisions in a future based on having made that decision now to save that money. And it’s going to give me options that I know other people might not have if they didn’t save that money.

Like I said, we were pretty good savers. That said, we didn’t have – let’s say, we didn’t have a sense of when halftime was or how we were actually going to go about making that decision. And so, in some ways I was really fortunate that a financial planner, so to speak, somewhat fell into my lab.

My parents had set up a life insurance policy for me when I was born. Like, many families do with their kids. And it was a whole life policy that had a relatively small cash value. But let’s just say a number of years later somebody from that company reached out to me and said, “Have you thought about your retirement and retirement planning?” And for years I just kind of put them off thinking, “Oh, you’re just somebody trying to sell me more insurance or something like that.” And didn’t pay much attention to them.

But then, ultimately, we just kind of – I’ll give him credit for his persistence. But every year, he came back and touched base. How’s things going and all that kind of stuff? And then ultimately kind of said – it kind of hit me that, “Yeah, I could really benefit the perspective from somebody like this.”

Because like I said, I’ve done – I’m a pretty informed investor so to speak. I’ve done a pretty good job of saving and thinking about where my money was going to go, and making our money work the best for us and all that kind of stuff. But that still doesn’t give us necessarily a sense of when can you say it’s half time? And when can you make that decision?

Tom, our financial advisor, really helped us with that thought process. And I’ll say I remember this very well because it was January 2021. We’d all been living through the pandemic for the better part of that year. And he just kind of sat down with us and said, “Well, okay, given what you’ve saved to this point, if you guys decided today if you wanted to not continue to do the jobs you’re doing right now and start living off of your savings based on the lifestyle that you have, of course. The spending patterns that you have and everything. He told us, essentially, you could live within – you could live to be 95 and you have a 95% chance of not running out of money. And we kind of thought to ourselves, “Wow! That’s a really good thing to hear.”

And just having that conversation really kind of opened up our eyes to, “Well, what could we do? What are the things?” Not so much the things that we felt like we had to do, but what do we want to do? Where could we go from here? And I think that’s where we really started saying, “Okay, this is – we’re going to start moving down this path.”

I mean, I didn’t – needless to say, didn’t immediately go to my boss and say I’m leaving. We had a very good conversation about how this was going to look. And honestly, it was more than a year and a half after I had that conversation. I didn’t officially retire from Northeastern until this past August. We had that conversation. My wife had that conversation with her folks at our hospital. And then we started planning for what our next phase of our life is going to be.

We started thinking where do we want to be? Do we want to stay in the Northeast? Or do we want to start thinking about other parts of the country that we might want to live in and so forth? We landed on Denver is where we decided we wanted to be. We started going through the work of preparing to sell our places in the Northeast and find a place to live in Colorado.

And I’m going to add real estate to that mix of your financial picture that you go through in making these decisions about what your total financial picture is. Because we’ve always thought of our homes not just as a place to live but as an investment that we are going to buy and hopefully sell for more than we paid for them at some point.

But we went ahead and started making those decisions and putting that into motion. And as of last March, or this past March, we made the move from Boston to Denver. nd I’ve been very happy that we made that move. It’s worked out very well for us.

[00:23:59] TU: Let me ask for, I suspect, some pre-retirees that are listening thinking, “Ugh! Dave, I love the story and the journey.” Maybe they even look at their numbers and say, “I think it’s there.” But then they are living the reality of 8%,9% inflation, market volatility. There’s so much discussion out there of when you retire and what the market’s doing can have a long-term impact on returns and how you mitigate that risk around retirement. Talk us through – for you, obviously, we can plan scenarios. I don’t know if any of us were planning for this type of inflation volatility.

[00:24:35] Dr. DZ: Well, that’s a really good point. And believe me, I’ve had some thoughts about what we’ve gone through and in terms of the timing. I mean, when I think about even what the environment was back in early 2021 where in some ways, yeah, the stock market was starting to come back pretty strong at that time. Inflation was still pretty low. Interest rates were really low.

One of the things – Needless to say, we go into an environment now. One of the things my financial advisor advised us of. And I can’t begin to tell you what a good piece of advice this was, was to be reasonably liquid going into what essentially will be your first year of – I’ll keep using the word preferment because I’m just not convinced that I’m retired.

But he said, “Basically, you want to have a year’s worth of spending money, liquids, such that you don’t have to sell stocks in order to be able to have money to live on essentially.”

And I’ll say this, it was actually relatively easy for us to be able to do that not just with some of our financial instruments that we had been using. We used them for a variety of instruments. I mean, from equity, to bonds and other types of things that everyone else uses. But again, this was the aspect of buying and selling real estate. We owned two properties outright in Massachusetts – one in Massachusetts. One in Maine. And when we sold those, we were able to purchase a home in Denver, as well as have a little bit of cash on hand.

And having that cash on hand has made things a lot easier. Now, no one likes 8%, 9% inflation of course. And it’s certainly taken a little bit of a bite out of that cash at hand. But it’s also saved us from having to go and sell stocks at a time where stocks have taken like in the past year – What? A 20% dive.

The one thing, thinking about stocks – I mean, I have confidence that the markets will come back. I’ve seen markets go down before and they’ve always come back. And looking at our economy and the things that underpin it, the market will come back. I don’t know exactly when and how it will. If I knew that, I probably wouldn’t be doing the preferment thing. I’d be making a lot more money as a financial advisor.

But anyway – but I had that confidence that it will. And with that confidence I know that essentially the way we have things structured, this combination of different assets that we’re utilizing to be able to make these decisions. It’s not just one type of asset class that you look at. It’s not just your 401k, for example. There’s a variety of different ways that we can get to what we’re doing.

And you know what? Another thing, just to get to think about this preferment thing, too. I mean, preferment does not mean not working or no income. It’s likely going to mean different types of things. I mean, I’ll say, as I’ve moved into this phase, I’m doing what most of us would call consulting work. I’m working with a couple of different universities right now. I want to add some teaching stuff. I want to add some more administrative stuff. Helping them deal with some issues that they’re dealing with and so forth.

And, again, just utilizing the expertise that I’ve developed over the years to be able to do some things. I mean, it’s bringing in a small amount of income. Definitely not as much as I was making when I was working full-time. But that’s okay. I don’t need as much as I was working full-time.

My wife’s in the same position. I mean, she is a pharmacist. She could go back and work as a pharmacist. I mean, especially right now, there’s lots of demand. She could. I don’t actually know if that’s really what she wants to do. She’s been telling me that her next job may be working at a Trader Joe’s. And for her, that, again, this could be the perfect thing for her.

[00:29:02] TU: Store discount. Bonus. Right?

[00:29:03] Dr. DZ: Exactly. Exactly. Believe me, that comes in handy. But again, that’s the sense of my wife and I were both very money pharmacists. We were well-compensated people. We were not hurting for income. But I just took a step back and said, “I don’t need or even want to live my life where I have to depend on having that level of income for the rest of my life. I just looked at it and said, “I can do the things I want to do and live a very good life on not having that level of income.”

[00:29:44] TU: Yeah. And that takes me – Dave, I’ve been thinking as you’re talking, you’ve said several things that have caught my attention. Your somewhat inherent behavior around saving. Really, this mindset around, “If I had an option to spend extra money, I’d save it because I could think about the growth and delay gratification into the future.” And those are a sneak peek into a mindset around how we think about and how we handle our money.

And it feels like, as you’re talking, that this is something that has been ingrained in you for a long time either through personal interest, research, family experience, whatever may be the case.

[00:30:20] Dr. DZ: We were talking a little bit about this before we came online. I mean, it’s almost fair to say I’ve been thinking about this essentially from the time I was born. Because I was born into a family of savers essentially. I like to use the example of my folks – again, like I said, my father was an accountant who went to work in the dairy industry in Wisconsin. And my mother was a teacher. Between the two of them, they had a decent middle-class income, of course, and everything. But again, always saved. Part of it was to be able to save to send myself and my two brothers to college, which again I cannot begin to tell you how fortunate I was to be able to have parents who had saved for our college education and then gave us that ability to be able to start our lives without the debt that I know that many of our students have today as they’re getting that education. That, again, I know that I was so fortunate. And I’m very thankful to my parents for that.

But even more than that, it created a mindset in me that I saw what they did to be able to not only to provide a college education for me and my brothers, but to create the life for themselves as well. And my dad also retired at the age of 57. And now, – And again, retirement for him wasn’t retirement. It was. And I’ll still say is. Because my dad’s 82-years-old and is still doing this. It’s very much preferment.

My dad was – Like I said, he’s an account who had always specialized in tax. And while he was working in the dairy industry, he started doing people’s taxes during tax season. And then when he decided he didn’t want to work in the dairy industry anymore, he just said, “Well, what am I going to do?” He just essentially start – his side gig has been doing taxes. And he still has about 200 clients to this day, including myself.

[00:32:32] TU: In his 80s, right?

[00:32:32] Dr. DZ: In his 80s. It is that – I’ll say for this. It’s that great mental thing for him. It keeps him very engaged. A matter of fact, every year, this time of year actually, he goes back to tax school. It’s like a one-week seminar that he goes and learns about like, “Okay, what are all the new tax codes?” and all the new things that he needs to be able to work with people as a tax advisor on and all that kind of stuff.

And so, every year he goes to just that. And every year he shares it with me and tells me what I should be doing and how I should be preparing myself financially and that kind of stuff. But again, I just give so much credit to my parents because they had instilled in me mindsets about the value of saving and about just think about your finances really is just another one of our tools in our toolbox so to speak. It’s not an end of in itself. It’s a means to an end.

We have money and we manage our money because we want to be able to live a life that’s meaningful to us. And however that is, I’m not here to judge how one spends their money or what one does with their money. So long as you’ve got the money to be able to do it, that’s our choices. It’s your choices to be able to do that how you wish. But it’s just having those tools and having that mindset to be able to make those decisions has been a really great thing.

I remember probably likely somebody we both know, Karen [inaudible 00:34:13]. I went to graduate school with Karen back at Ohio State. She introduced me back, and I want to say this was probably 1990, 1991, to this little financial tool called Quicken.

And I have to think back. Back in 1990, ’91, I don’t know if you remember the Macintosh computers that were literally like these cubes. And so, I got one of the first versions of Quicken for Mac that was – it started – And honestly, it was this way of tracking your finances. Tracking how you use your money. Doing the checkbook thing but doing it on the register on Quicken and everything. And then the fact that it keeps track of everything.

I mean, I’m pretty proud to say now, I – what is it now? 30 some years later, I have – I still use Quicken to this day. And I have a record of my financial transactions that goes back over 30 years. And that’s been valuable to me. I mean, I can’t say that I go back and look at every transaction from 1992. But it does tell me when – let’s say if my financial advisor wanted to know, “What kind of money do you need to live on?” so to speak. Well, I had that data. I could get those answers relatively easily. And that’s been – Again, one of my bits of advice is whether it be Quicken or any of the other tools out there that help us get in that picture of ourselves financially, utilize those tools. I say I probably put one to two hours every other week into managing my various aspects of my finances. And for me, that’s always been time very well spent.

[00:36:14] TU: Yes. Yeah. And the consistency and compound effect of that is huge over time. And it’s interesting, you’re talking about tools and Quicken. Here in 2022, obviously, there are more tools than ever, apps, that will help us, software tools. But I would argue, some of the mindset and behavior, it is getting harder and harder just because of all the things that are competing –

[00:36:39] Dr. DZ: Or time and attention.

[00:36:40] TU: Yeah, tracking, easier execution I think is even becoming a little bit harder. Let me ask you one final question. I know we have some new practitioners that are listening. You obviously work closely with students and new grads as well. But folks that are feeling the headwind financially despite obviously making a good income, having a good potential for their income into the future but they’re facing large student loan debts. They’re looking at potentially the housing market and wanting to buy a home in this market. Inflation. Tim and Dave, you’re telling me I need to start saving early and max out my retirement accounts. I need an emergency fund. I need to get rid of my credit card debt. Just overwhelming, right? What advice would you have for those folks about some of the early wins and behaviors and habits that they can employ?

[00:37:32] Dr. DZ: I think you nailed it right there. Early wins. One step at a time. Rather than getting overwhelmed by all of these things that are hitting you. Focus on one thing that you can do that you can impact.

Yeah, a good example would be like my wife. Or my wife and I, shortly after we got married, she did have a little bit of college loan debt. And she was somebody – she had gotten a bachelor’s degree. She went to graduate school. And then she decided to go to pharmacy school. And so, it took her a little longer to go down that path. And she had a little bit of financial debt. We decided to focus – to prioritize on paying down that debt. It was the highest interest debt that we had.

And we did the things that we had to, which in the short term, yeah, everyone probably meant making some sacrifices. There were some vacations we didn’t go on. Maybe we bought the used car rather than the new car or something like that. There are all the little things that one does to be able to then have a little bit more money to put in the areas that you want to prioritize.

So, whether it’d be paying down student loan debt, or sitting to make a down payment on a house, or all the other things. I mean, the great news is, as pharmacists, we are relatively high-income folks. We have access to funds. It’s just a matter of how we decide to utilize those funds.

But, yeah, should focus on that one thing. Don’t get overwhelmed by all of the different things and thinking to myself, “Oh, gosh. There’s so much going on here. How am I going to handle all of this?” You can handle things. Do one thing at a time. Then use that leverage, that success you have in doing one thing. So, then go do the next thing.

[00:39:22] TU: Yeah, I love that, Dave. I talk a lot with new practitioners about that early momentum. And while any one financial decision or win may not feel monumental in the moment, it’s the compound effect in the momentum that comes from that over time. And there’s a natural excitement of like, “Okay, small win. What’s next?” Another win, what’s next? What’s next? And you look back three, five, ten years later, and some of those behaviors start to really compound and add up over time.

[00:39:49] Dr. DZ: Oh, that’s the one thing. I remember back, I was thinking in high school, you learn about compound interest. And the idea that interest builds on interest builds on interest. And again, I think about 30, 40 years into my career span, so to speak. The decisions we made very early on are definitely paying dividends today and how they do things.

Now, that said, I also don’t want to turn off or upset your readers who maybe aren’t that young anymore or maybe thinking of themselves, “Gee! I didn’t do that when I was you know 25-years-old. What am I going to do?” It’s never too late to start. And there’s a lot that one can do to make good financial decisions even – again, another really good habit I picked up from my parents is while I have credit cards and use them liberally, it’s with the sense of never – my dad just instilled in me. You will pay off your credit card in full every month. You will never carry a balance on these cards.

And that’s, again, always just been part of my mindset, that I use a credit card. I get that bill out of it every – Actually, I don’t even get a bill obviously. Everything’s electronic these days. And honestly, it’s automatically withdrawn from my checking account. But I – essentially, I use the credit that’s available. Credit is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not one of these people who will say never use credit cards. Or don’t take out interests. And don’t take out loans. I mean, heck, a lot of us, the reality is we wouldn’t go to college. We wouldn’t be able to buy a home if we didn’t take out debt. Debt can and is a good thing. It just has to be used in balance with everything else. Because if it’s not in balance, it will take over in a not so good way.

[00:41:55] TU: Well, this has been fantastic. I knew it would. And it’s delivered. And I’m excited to get this out to our community. And really excited, Dave, for you in this next phase of your preferment. I think I’m going to adopt that term.

[00:42:09] Dr. DZ: That’s a great thing. I do think Lucinda and I should get together and write a book on preferment. But as always, one of the great things about being an educator is – you know, Tim, is you – it’s not just the impact you make on students when they’re in your classroom. It’s the impact you see as their careers move forward.

And I’ve been so blessed and fortunate to be able to stay in touch with many of my former students and not only see the successes they’re having and the things that they’re achieving in their lives, but to be able to share what we’re all doing and so forth. And to that end, I hope some of my former students are out there and are seeing this. And I would love to be able to stay in touch if there are things that I can share more with your listeners about how one prepares to get to the point in this life. The thing, decisions that we make as we get to this point.

I will still say, keeping on our football analogy, it’s still half time. And my wife and I are sitting in the locker room still making those plans for what we’re going to go out and do in the third quarter. And just like I’m offering advice to some folks. I’m also appreciating advice from people who have been down this pathway ourselves. And whether it’d be books or whether it’d be other folks that have made similar decisions to what we have. There’s a lot to learn. And to me, that’s always been the best part about the academic path, is it’s not the teaching. It’s the learning.

[00:43:45] TU: Absolutely.

[00:43:46] Dr. DZ: And the more that we can learn, the better off we’ll all be.

[00:43:49] TU: Well, that’s great. We’ll link to, in the show notes, your LinkedIn if folks aren’t already connecting with you. I know that’s a way they can reach out. All right. Thanks again, Dave. I really appreciate it.

[00:43:58] Dr. DZ: Thank you. Appreciate it a lot. Thank you very much.

[OUTRO]

[00:44:01] 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.

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 pharmacists unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the date publish. Such information may contain forward-looking statements 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 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 288: An Interview with Suze Orman (YFP Classic)

Posted on December 29, 2022March 10, 2023 by Rose

This week we replay a YFP Podcast Classic. Suze Orman, #1 New York Times bestselling author on personal finance with over 25 million books in circulation, joins Tim Ulbrich on today’s episode. They talk about her most recent book Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure and the advice Suze has for pharmacy professionals feeling overwhelmed with their student loan debt and managing their financial plan.

About Today’s Guest

Suze Orman has been called “a force in the world of personal finance” and a “one-woman financial advice power house” by USA today. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, magazine and online columnist, writer/producer, and one of the top motivational speakers in the world today, Orman is undeniably America’s most recognized expert on personal finance.

Orman was the contributing editor to “O” The Oprah Magazine for 16 years, the Costco Connection Magazine for over 18 years, and hosted the award winning Suze Orman Show, which aired every Saturday night on CNBC for 13 years. Over her television career Suze has accomplished that which no other television personality ever has before. Not only is she the single most successful fundraiser in the history of Public Television, but she has also garnered an unprecedented eight Gracie awards, more than anyone in the entire history of this prestigious award. The Gracies recognize the nation’s best radio, television, and cable programming for, by, and about women.

In March 2013, Forbes magazine awarded Suze a spot in the top 10 on a list of the most influential celebrities of 2013. In January 2013, The Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television has honored Suze’s broadcast career accomplishments with her recent inclusion in its historic Emmy TV Legends interview collection.

In 2010, Orman was also honored with the Touchstone Award from Women in Cable Telecommunications, was named one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes and was presented with an Honorary Doctor of Commercial Science degree from Bentley University. In that same month, Orman received the Gracie Allen Tribute Award from the American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT); the Gracie Allen Tribute Award is bestowed upon an individual who truly plays a key role in laying the foundation for future generations of women in the media.

In October 2009, Orman was the recipient of a Visionary Award from the Council for Economic Education for being a champion on economic empowerment. In July 2009, Forbes named Orman 18th on their list of The Most Influential Women In Media. In May 2009, Orman was presented with an honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Illinois. In May 2009 and May 2008, Time Magazine named Orman as one of the TIME 100, The World’s Most Influential People. In October 2008, Orman was the recipient of the National Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign.

In April 2008, Orman was presented with the Amelia Earhart Award for her message of financial empowerment for women. Saturday Night Live has spoofed Suze six times during 2008-2011. In 2007, Business Week named Orman one of the top ten motivational speakers in the world-she was the ONLY woman on that list, thereby making her 2007’s top female motivational speaker in the world.

Orman who grew up on the South Side of Chicago earned a bachelor’s degree in social work at the University of Illinois and at the age of 30 was still a waitress making $400 a month.

Episode Summary

Happy Holidays! This week, we bring back a YFP Podcast classic! YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by the one and only, Suze Orman. Suze, #1 New York Times bestselling personal finance author with over 25 million books in circulation, talks about her book, Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure, and shares advice for pharmacy professionals feeling overwhelmed with their student loan debt and managing their financial plan.

Suze shares her journey of being a waitress until she was 30 years old and going through a loss of $50,000 from an investment through Merryl Lynch in a three month time period. This is where her passion for personal finance began. Suze landed a job at Merryl Lynch, quickly began rising in rankings and eventually started her own firm. Suze became an advocate to ensure other people’s investments make more money than she’s earning.

Suze says it’s important to have a healthy relationship with money and that there is no shame big enough to keep you from who you are meant to be. She shares that fear, shame and anger are the three internal obstacles to wealth.

In regards to student loans, particularly for those with the biggest debt loads, Suze says that first and foremost you have to understand the ramifications that unpaid student loan debt will have on your life. She suggests following the standard repayment plan to minimize the additional interest and amount added on the end of loan (if following an income driven plan), and the taxes to be paid if the loan is forgiven. After paying off your student loan debt, Suze says that you can start dreaming. If an employer offers a 401(k) or 403(b) with an employer match, Suze suggests to contribute to the retirement account only up until the amount of the match.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Happy holidays. 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, our team at YFP is taking off an annual tradition for us, as we reflect on the year behind us, plan the year ahead, and most importantly, spend time with family and friends. Since our team is on a break this week, I’m bringing back one of our most listened to episodes of all time. That’s an episode from July 2019, where I had the pleasure of interviewing the one and only Suze Orman, a number one New York Times bestselling author on personal finance with over 25 million books in circulation.

On the show, we talked about one of her books, Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure, and the advice she has for pharmacists, as it relates to managing their finances. Now, Suze has been called a force in the world of personal finance and a one-woman financial advice powerhouse by USA Today. She’s a number one New York Times bestselling author, magazine and online columnist, writer, producer, and one of the top motivational speakers in the world. Orman was a contributing editor to the O, The Oprah Magazine, for 16 years, the Costco Connection magazine for over 18 years, and hosted the award-winning Suze Orman Show, which aired every Saturday night on CNBC for 13 years.

With that said, it’s without question and honor to welcome Suze Orman to the YPF Podcast.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:28] TU: Suze, before we jump in to discuss how pharmacists can be more intentional with their financial plan, I want to give a shout-out to one of our avid listeners, Amanda Copolinski, who is a super fan of yours that said, “Tim, you need to interview Suze on the podcast. Her message will resonate so well with your listeners in the financial issues that pharmacists are facing.” So while you have impacted millions of people, Amanda is one of those. Because of your work, your message will now impact thousands more in our community. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:02:00] SO: You’re welcome. But, Tim, I just have to say one thing about Amanda, seriously. Amanda asked, and because she had a voice, because it is so important, particularly, that women have a voice, and they ask for what they want, and because she asked for what she wanted, even though it was for the good of all, it obviously was also good for Amanda. She got what she wanted. So if we can just learn to ask for what we want, I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen? I say no. So then it wouldn’t have mattered if even – Do you see what I mean? So, Amanda, you go girl, you go girl, you go girl. All right, we can go now.

[00:02:41] TU: So before we jump in and talk more about your book, Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure, I’m curious and want our listeners to know as well a little bit more about your background into this world of personal finance that has led you to transform millions of people on their own financial journey. Were there a series of events or an aha moment for you that set you on this path, on this journey to teach and empower others about personal finance?

[00:03:07] SO: Yeah. It was a very simple story, actually, where I was a waitress till I was 30 years of age in Berkeley, California. Having been a waitress for seven years, making $400 a month, to make a very long story short, I had this idea that I could open up my own restaurant because I made these people a fortune with all my ideas. My parents had absolutely no money. My mother was a secretary. My father was sick most of his life, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the customers I had been waiting on lent me $50,000 to open up my own restaurant.

So I’m, again, making a long story short. They had me put that money in Merrill Lynch, which was a brokerage firm. I had a crooked broker. Within three months, all $50,000 was lost. Now, I didn’t know what to do, and I thought I know I can be a broker. They just make you broker. Because during those three months, I really loved starting to learn about a world that was so foreign to me. I didn’t even know what a money market was or Merrill Lynch was.

Anyway, I went and applied for a job at Merrill Lynch because I knew I wanted to pay these people back that lent me $50,000, and I wasn’t going to do that at $400 a month, which was my salary as a waitress. They hired me to fill their women’s quota. While I was working for them, I realized what my broker did was illegal, and I also had been told that women belonged barefoot and pregnant. They had to hire me, but they would fire me in six months. So while I was working for them, I sued them with the help of somebody who worked for Merrill Lynch who told me what had happened to me was illegal. Because I sued them, they couldn’t fire me.

During the two years until it came to court, and they then settled outside of court because I was their number six producing broker at the time, but what happened was during that time, those two years, I realized, oh, my God, how many people out there don’t have the money to lose? Like all right, I was young. I could have somehow come back. But what if it were my parents? What if it were your parents? What if it was somebody who that was every penny they had to their name?

Even though I was a financial advisor, in terms of serving people at that time, I became an advocate to make sure that every single person that invested money, that their money meant more than the money I was going to earn off of them. I put them before me. People first, then money, then things. It was those people that mattered because I was one of those people. Before you knew it, I just rose and rose in the ranks, started my own firm, and here we are today.

[00:06:20] TU: Indeed. I think that’s a good segue into talking about your million-copy,

number one New York Times bestselling book, Women & Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure. As you may or may not already know, the profession of pharmacy is made up of a majority of women, approximately 60-40 split, two-thirds, one-third of graduates today, roughly speaking. So I think this message in your book is certainly going to resonate with our audience.

You start the book with a chapter titled Imagine What’s Possible, and there’s a passage in there that I want to briefly read that really stood out to me. You said, “Women can invest, save, and handle debt just as well and skillfully as any man. I still believe that. Why would anyone think differently? So imagine my surprise when I learned that some of the people closest to me in my life were in the dark about their own finances. Clueless or, in some cases, willfully resisting, doing what they knew needed to be done. I’m talking about smart, competent, accomplished women who present a face to the world that is pure confidence and capability.”

So why, Suze, is this topic of personal finance, even for well, smart, accomplished women, such as the pharmacists listening, and heck, regardless of gender, I would say this is true. Really smart people that often can’t effectively manage their money. What are the root causes for them?

[00:07:42] SO: Yeah. You just used the word can’t. Oh, they can. Women have more talent in their little fingers, I’m so sorry to say, more capability than most men have in both hands, really. I don’t say that as a put-down to men. It’s just that women hold up the entire sky here in the United States. They take care of their parents, their children, their spouse, their brothers, their sisters, their employees, their clients, their patients, everybody, their pets, their plants. When it’s all said and done, when they’re 50 or 60 years of age, that’s when, for the very first time, they start to think about themselves.

You have got to remember that women have the ability to give birth, in most cases. They have the ability to feed that which they have given birth to, in most cases. So a woman’s nature is to nurture, is to take care of everybody else before she takes care of herself. So it’s not that she can’t. It’s she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to. She wants to make sure that her kids, in particular – A woman will do anything to make sure that her children are fine. That is not true with men. That is not true with men.

I used to think that it was until 2008 came along and when people were laid off of their jobs. They lost their home. They lost their retirement. They lost everything. Women would go back to work, working three or four jobs, a waitress, a cocktail waitress, anything, just to put food on the table. A man, if they had a $200,000 job, would not go back to work if all they were offered was $60,000. They weren’t going to do it.

Again, it’s not putting men down. Please, men, don’t think that because I don’t put you down. It’s the socialization effect of the difference between a man and a woman. So a woman just will do it all, but she won’t take care of herself. She chooses not to. In any aspect, she’ll only take care of her household expenses. You know why? Because her house holds everybody that she loves. That’s the only difference. That’s the only difference, boyfriend. That’s the only difference.

[00:10:06] TU: Which is a good segue to talk about healthy relationships with money because in the book, you mention that in order to build a healthy relationship with money, there are attitudes that women need to get rid of, with the first of these being these weights or burdens that you referenced that are commonly carried around, one being the burden of shame and the second being the tendency of blame. Can you tell us more about this concept of blame?

[00:10:29] SO: Yep. You know, in the book, I talk about truthfully that there is no blame big enough or shame big enough to keep you who you are meant from being. There just isn’t. Sometimes, we’re ashamed that we don’t know about money. Sometimes, we’re ashamed that we don’t have the money that we need to be able to give our children what they want.

Now, what I just said was very heavy, believe it or not, because it’s really difficult. I mean, I just experienced it. I had my niece here. In fact, I had all my nieces here, but one in particular that has a five-year-old child who loves Pluto more than life itself. He literally thinks Pluto is alive. He said to me, “Aunt Suze, how do I get a real Pluto?” I mean, “You mean a dog?” He said, “No, really. I want this Pluto to be alive.” You could just see, you want to give this kid anything this kid wants because he’s so fabulous. Not that – All your kids are fabulous, to you, anyway.

So a mother feels, especially if she’s a single mother, that she has to make up for the loss of a father figure or another mother figure or parent figure, and she does it usually by purchasing things for her kids because when they go to school, oh, but this kid has this cute backpack, and this kid has this, and look at these watches, and look at this iPhone. So it becomes very interesting that a lot of times, you’re ashamed of what you yourself don’t have. You’re not proud that you have anything. You’re ashamed of what you don’t have, and you blame it, usually, on somebody else. Or you blame it on yourself.

It’s – Fear, shame, and anger are the three internal obstacles to wealth. They just are. I have people – I know you’re talking about the book right now, but my true love at this moment in time is the Women & Money podcast because it’s on the Women & Money podcast that you can hear. You can hear via the emails that are sent in the shame and the blame that women feel, the anger that they have at themselves for staying in a relationship that they don’t want to be in, but they don’t have the money to leave, the confusion that’s out there. A lot of these women are so powerless because they’re not powerful over their own money.

[00:13:10] TU: In the book, you go through a detailed financial empowerment plan, which I think is incredibly helpful for our listeners to hear more about since we know many pharmacists are struggling with spinning their wheels financially, graduating now with more than six figures of student loan debt, the average about $166,000, having many competing financial priorities with home buying, starting up a family, building up reserves, saving up for retirement. The list goes on and on. So the question is where does one start when they are looking at so many competing financial priorities, and it can feel so overwhelming?

[00:13:42] SO: You start by, number one, really understanding the ramifications that student loan debt that goes unpaid will have on your life forever. So your number one, bar none, is your student loan debt, and you have got to understand the difference between paying back student loan debt on the standard repayment method and the income-based repayment methods. You have to understand that in your head, if you think, “Oh, I have all this debt. I’m just going to pay back a little bit because I don’t have that much of an income, and they’re going to forgive it in 20 or 25 years. I’ll be OK,” no, you won’t.

You won’t because if under the standard repayment method, your monthly payment should be $1,500 a month, and under income-based repayment, you’re only $750 a month, that $750 difference gets added onto the back end of your loan, plus interest. When they forgive it, when a debt is forgiven, you need to pay taxes on that, as if it were ordinary income. It is possible that if you do that over 20 years, you’re going to end up owing more than you even started with that they’re going to forgive.

So you have to be realistic here. If you’re going to go in this industry, if you’re going to become a vet, if you’re going to become anything with massive student loan debt, then you have to put your priorities in place. Your first priority is your student loan. After your student loan, hopefully, on the standard repayment method, it is paid off, then start dreaming. Ten years isn’t that big of a deal. It will come, and it will go. But don’t try to do it all at once.

[00:15:45] TU: Yeah. That’s really timely. I know for many pharmacists that are listening to this, they’re looking at, as I mentioned, six figures of student loan debt, $160,000, $170,000, $200,000 of loan, unsubsidized many of those, interest rates that are at six to eight percent. So obviously, those interest rates and the growing interest and the baby interest can have an incredible negative impact on their financial plan.

That being a good segue, I think, into the conversation about loan forgiveness, which has gotten a lot of attention with the upcoming presidential elections, and we’ve had some discussion with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, have forgiveness plans that are out there. Not even getting into specific candidates or politics or the individual policies, I think it brings up an interesting discussion around loan forgiveness and the positives and benefits of that, relative to what people learn through the process of paying off student loans.

I know, for me, individually, going through the process of paying off more than $200,000 of student loan debt, there was a lot I learned and that my wife and I learned through that lesson in terms of budgeting, working together, setting goals. But I also understand that for many, and certainly would have been the case for us as well, not having that debt would have been fantastic. So how do we reconcile forgiveness relative to being able to learn through that process?

[00:16:58] SO: First of all, let’s talk about student loan debt to begin with and the viability of it. Is everybody crazy that we should have to pay, our children should have to pay $200,000 for a college education?

[00:17:13] TU: Amen.

[00:17:14] SO: Like is that, just to begin with, the sickest thing you have ever heard in your life? So while everybody’s dealing with the debt that we have, what we also should be dealing with is why are we paying that kind of money? Listen, if that’s what these financial institutions need to keep the buildings and the teachers and everything going, maybe we need to go to online universities that are fully credited that everything is done online because the burden that these kids are leaving school with is so heavy. It is the number one question that I am asked. What is so sad, it is the number one question that I do not really have an answer for because they will not let you discharge it in bankruptcy. They do not –

I mean, it is crazy that you pay the same amount of money to get a master’s in social work as you do an MBA. Really? So tuitions, number one, should be based on the area that you are specializing in. Hey, if you’re going to graduate and you’re going to make $200,000, $400,000, $500,000 a year, fine. Then you start spending money that then subsidizes those that are going to make $30,000 a year because they want to be a teacher. Or whatever it may be. But I do think what’s going to start to happen is that people are going to have to start going to community colleges for the first two years or so, and then probably switch over. But then, you have to be crazy if you go to a school that’s $50,000 a year.

Now, with that said, I get when you want to be a vet, when you want to be a pharmacist, when you want to be a doctor. That’s what they charge. So if you know, if you know beforehand that that’s what it’s going to cost you, and you have an unsubsidized loan, which means that it is growing while you are in school, can you at least pay the interest on that loan while you’re in school?

I know everybody’s going to say, “But, Suze, I’m working full-time at school. I can’t.” Oh, yes, you can. I had to put myself through school. I worked until 2:00 AM every morning. I started at 7:00. I worked seven days a week for four years straight. Don’t you dare tell Suze Orman you can’t do it. You most certainly can. You just don’t want to. When you have debt that you can’t pay back, this is not a choice if you can or you can’t, if you want to or you don’t want to. You have to, and it’s – I don’t mean to sound harsh to you, but you’ll thank me years from now that at least you haven’t accumulated an interest rate on top of everything else.

[00:20:02] TU: Suze, one of the most common questions that I get and I’m sure you get all the time as well is how do I balance paying off my student loan debt relative to investing and saving for the future? As we think about pharmacy professionals specifically, many of them have gone through lots of education to get where they are. They may have four years of undergrad. They have four years – Likely, some people more in terms of getting their doctorate degree. They may go on and do residency training.

So here they are, and they look at the clock and say, “Yes, I’m young. But I also know I need to aggressively save, and I keep hearing the message of I need to be putting away money for the future. But I’ve got $160,000, $180,000, $200,000 of student loan debt, unsubsidized loans, six to eight percent. So how do I balance the two of these?” What advice do you give people to help them think through that?

[00:20:48] SO: I would not not pay a student loan under the standard repayment method in order to then save in a retirement account. Obviously, if you work for a corporation that gives you a 401(k) or a 403(b) or whatever it may be, and it matches your contribution, then you have absolutely no choice whatsoever but to absolutely at least invest up to the point of the match. After that, your very first bill that has to be paid before you can decide anything is your student loan repayment.

After you know what it’s going to cost you to pay on your student loan, then you have to make a decision. Oh, do I have to move in with six or seven kids and all live together in order just to do whatever? What do I have to do after that payment? Is there any money left over? If there is, what will it allow me to do? It may only allow you, I know you’re going to really think I’ve lost it, to move back in with your parents for a number of years.

[00:21:53] TU: You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

[00:21:54] SO: You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. For all of us to make it in today’s society, we have to either really enhance the nuclear unit and nuclear family, and really help each other. Or if we can’t do what we’re born into, then create our own nuclear family, whereas five or six of you get together and you go, “Okay, we have this problem.” It’s not like communal living, but it’s how do we solve this problem? So rather than you each have your own individual apartment, you each have your own car, you each have all of this stuff, what can you do as a group of people? Uber and Lyft and Zipcars, all of that came, especially Zipcars, about people who couldn’t afford to have their own car.

Again, I don’t mean to be Suze Smackdown here. But I do want you just to be realistic about your life and the independence dream, living on your own, having all of these things. Nothing will give you more pleasure than having money versus things.

[00:23:08] TU: Yeah. My wife and I talk often, as we think about our own financial situations, that we felt some of that pressure in our mid-20s of wanting to live up to the lifestyle that our parents have gotten to after 30 or 40 years. So I think really reshifting expectations and thinking about specifically today’s pharmacy graduates just really has to be intentional with their financial plan and change some of those expectations to set them up to be successful in the long run.

Shifting gears a little bit, I want to talk about planning for the future, and we recently had on the show Cameron Huddleston, author of the book, Mom and Dad: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents About Their Finances, an excellent book that has me thinking more and more about the significance and importance of healthy and open financial conversations with family about money and ensuring that the estate planning process is well thought out and is in place.

I noticed that you offer a protection portfolio that is meant to help people take the worry out of protecting themselves, their assets, and their family. So tell us a little bit more about why this process of having a protection portfolio in place is so important and what information is compiled in a portfolio like this.

[00:24:19] SO: What’s really important is for everybody to understand that we have no control over the things that happen to us. Are we going to be in an accident? I mean, really, just the other day, Tim, you know I live on a private island, and I’m driving down this road. I mean, there are no cars on this private island. There are only golf carts. There were only like – There’s 80 homes. There’s nobody here most of the time. I’m driving back to my house, and I come up on a golf cart that overturned on these four 20-year-olds, and they were seriously hurt, all right? I mean, five minutes before then, they were on this private island, having a fabulous time. Now, I’m like, “Oh, my God.”

So anything can happen at any time, and every one of you needs to be protected against the what ifs of life. May you always hope for the best, but may you plan for the worst, whether it’s an accident, an illness, an early death, whatever it may be. The number of emails I get from 40-year-old women, 50-year-old women, 30-year-old women saying, “Suze, my spouse died. I have three kids. I never expected to be in this situation.” They go on and on and on about it.

This is also, what I’m about to tell you, very important if you have parents. Because if you have parents, the question becomes like – My mom lived till she was 97. If something happens to your parents, they lose their mind, so to speak, they have dementia, they have Alzheimer’s, and they can’t write their checks anymore or pay their bills, who’s going to take care of them? You can’t do anything for them, unless you have what I call the must-have documents. Not only a will, a living revocable trust, an advanced directive, and a durable power of attorney for healthcare. You must have those.

But most of the time, lawyers tell you, “All you need is a will.” Oh, give me a break. The less money you have, the more you need a living revocable trust because wills make it so that in most cases, if you own a piece of real estate or whatever it may be, your estate has to go through probate. Guess who gets the probate fees? The lawyer that told you all you need is a will. So a living revocable trust not only passes your assets from one person to another within a two-week period of time, no fees, nothing. But in case of an incapacity, it will say you can sign for so-and-so. So-and-so can sign for you. It sets up your estate every way you want it, and it also helps you because minors cannot inherit money.

So if you have young children, and both you and your spouse are killed in a car crash, something happens, the money can’t go to your minors. If you left your money to them via your will, good luck. It’s going to end up in a blocked account until they’re 18. So with that said, most trusts, if you go to see a trust lawyer, first of all, you have to know there are good trust lawyers. Most of them are not, are at least $2,500. Every time you make a change, $500, $1,000, you’re just sitting here talking to me about you don’t have even have enough money to pay your student loan debt. Where are you going to get $2,500 to do a will, a trust, an advanced directive, a durable power of attorney for healthcare? Every time you need to make a change, where are you going to get the money to do that?

So years ago, with my own trust lawyer, I created what’s called the must-have documents. These documents are my documents. If you were to look at my trust, my will, everything, you would see these. But I wanted to do it at a price that every single person could afford. So we created over $2,500 worth of state-of-the-art documents for approximately $69. What’s great about these documents, not only are they fabulous. Every time the law changes, they automatically get updated, but you can change it as many times as you want.

So if you go from one kid to two kids, you go back to your computer, you change them. So you never have to pay for it again. If you’re interested, really, in that offer, you can just go to suzeorman.com/offer. Through there, it’s $69. Otherwise, you’ll see it sold for $100, $90. They’re sold for all over the place. But these documents have changed the lives of millions and millions and millions of people over the years.

[00:29:28] TU: Yeah. I think it’s also important for our listeners just to consider the peace of mind of having all of this together. When you think about all of the things that are found in estate planning documents, and my wife and I went through this process we’ve talked about on the podcast before, where you put together insurance policy information and where your accounts are at and birth certificates and all of the papers that would need to be readily accessible, in addition to all of your estate planning documents. To get there and the conversations you have and the peace of mind it provides is incredible. Again, suzeorman.com/offer will get you there.

Suze, I want to wrap up our time together by talking about legacy, and I’m fascinated with learning more about what drives very successful, highly influential individuals such as yourself to take on the life’s mission and work that they do. So for you, as you look back on a career that is undeniably wildly successful and that has positively transformed the lives of millions of people, what is the legacy that you’re leaving?

[00:30:31] SO: I hope the legacy that I leave is that women in particular, but men as well, but women in particular really know that they are more capable than they have any idea, that they will never be powerful in life until they’re powerful over their own money, how they think about it, how they feel about it, and how they invest it, and that every one of them, one of them, has what it takes to be more and to have more. They just have to want to.

I don’t really know. I don’t know how to answer that because I never think about what I’m going to leave. I only really think about what I’m doing. I can tell you right now, like one of my friends said to me, “You just can’t help yourself, can you, Suze Orman?” So with the Women & Money podcast, people write in their emails. I keep saying, “I’m not going to answer them. I can’t answer all these emails.” Now, I’ve answered almost every one, except four. I’ve got four left, and then they’ll mount up again, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I have such a desire for every single woman and the men smart enough to listen, but really for every single woman to get the right advice, the best advice, to start to educate them so that they become smart enough, strong enough, secure enough. So they can start educating their daughters and their sisters and their aunts and their moms and their grandmas and everybody. So that we start really teaching one another because I’m just so afraid of where this world – Truthfully, the hatred in this world that we are experiencing right now, I am very afraid of where it’s going to take us next year. So I hope I leave a legacy of love and power. That’s what I really hope I leave.

[00:32:45] TU: Yeah. What really stands out to me, Suze, the work that you’re doing, and you alluded to this, is the generational impact that it’s having, and that will forever go on. I mean, that’s an amazing thing, when you think about transforming somebody’s personal financial life. Let’s say they’re a mother, and they pass it on to their kids and their friends and their cousins and their network, and that gets passed on to another generation. That is incredible transformational work that will forever have impact. So I thank you for that work, and I know it’s had an impact here on me in even having the opportunity to talk with you today.

To our listeners, as Suze mentioned, she responds to her requests as it relates to the podcast that she has each and every week, the Suze Orman’s Women & Money podcast. So if you have a question for Suze that we did not touch on during today’s show, make sure to reach out at [email protected].

Again, as a reminder, make sure to head on over to suzeorman.com, S-U-Z-E-O-R-M-A-N.com, where you can learn more about Suze, including her blog, the podcast, comprehensive resources, live events that she hosts, and books and products that are designed to help empower you in your own financial plan.

Suze, again, thank you so much for coming on the show, and I’m grateful for what you were able to share and the impact that it will have on our community. Thank you very much.

[00:34:04] SO: Anytime, boyfriend. Anytime.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:34:07] 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 281: The Connection Between Finances and Fitness with The Fit Pharmacist

Posted on November 10, 2022March 11, 2023 by Rose

Dr. Adam Martin, The Fit Pharmacist, talks about practical strategies you can implement to help you thrive, five areas of the SMILE framework for living to your full potential, and the most effective antidote and prevention to disempowering feelings.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Adam Martin works with people to write their scripts for success using proper nutrition, stress management, and the power of a positive attitude. He earned his doctorate of pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, and with over 7 years of experience working full-time in the community pharmacy setting, he’s passionate about empowering other pharmacists and pharmacy students to put the health back into healthcare through leading by example in their professional practice to not only live their best lives but to

inspire others along the way to do the same. He pairs his PharmD with his expertise as a certified personal trainer and nutrition consultant to guide self-care back into healthcare.

Dr. Martin is the founder of The Fit Pharmacist, LLC. As a National Speakers Association (NSA) Professional Speaker, Adam’s core passion is traveling to pharmacy schools across the world to speak to pharmacy students, sharing practical plans of action that will empower them to maximize their careers and create a competitive edge in the profession to maximize their success and degree of impact.

He has made his life’s work showing people how to take control of their overall wellness, sharing SimpleSolutions through his writing for numerous pharmacy publications including PharmacyTimes magazine, and is the author of the best-selling book “Rx: You: The Pharmacist’s Survival Guide for Managing Stress & Fitting in Fitness” as well as “Gen-Z Pharmacist: Dominate Pharmacy School & Script Your Dream Career.” He is the host of The Fit Pharmacist Healthcare Podcast, sharing successes and practical strategies from the most successful minds in the profession of pharmacy with a new episode released every week.

With a passion for learning and serving his patients, he’s an inaugural member of the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association’s Leadership Excellence and Advocacy Development (LEAD) program, and strives to serval the global community of pharmacy as a medical missionary, having served in Honduras and Panama as a pharmacist in the field. In 2019, he was named the “Most Influential Pharmacist” by SingleCare’s Best of the Best Pharmacy Awards.

Episode Summary

In this week’s episode, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by Dr. Adam Martin, The Fit Pharmacist. Dr. Adam Martin is known for working with people to write their scripts for success using proper nutrition, stress management, and the power of a positive attitude. In today’s show, Tim and Adam discuss the eBook, “5 to Thrive Healthcare Habits,” and how those mindset habits for thriving in life mirror the mindset for financial fitness. Adam shares how he came up with the SMILE framework, how to operate from a thriving versus surviving mindset, and how to form a realistic work-life balance with practical strategies that anyone can implement into their lives. Tim and Adam work through the five areas of the SMILE framework, created to help others live with intention and unlock their full potential by providing examples and demonstrating the concepts with real-life examples.

The SMILE framework consists of the following:

Shift Your Focus
Move and Groove
Identify the Best You
Let Loose and Celebrate
Electrify Your Spirit

Together they discuss what Adam calls the most effective, instant antidote and prevention to disempowering feelings. Adam shares a technique, “GRIN (Gratitude Ripple In the Now),” for celebrating and igniting joy.

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 had a chance to welcome a friend and colleague, Dr. Adam Martin, The Fit Pharmacist, to talk about Five to Thrive Health Care Habits. Highlights from the show include Adam and I talking through practical strategies you can implement to help you not just get by or survive but to thrive, the five areas of the SMILE framework to live with intention at your full potential, and the most effective instant antidote, as well as prevention, to disempowering feelings.

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 280 households across the country. 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 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 The Fit Pharmacist, Dr. Adam Martin.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:21] TU: Dr. Adam Martin, The Fit Pharmacist, welcome.

[00:01:24] AM: What’s up, Tim. How you doing today?

[00:01:26] TU: Man, I’m doing great. How’s your week been, and how are you doing?

[00:01:30] AM: Dude, it’s Fit Pharmacist Friday. Let’s go. Let’s go.

[00:01:35] TU: Let’s do it. So you recently published a resource, and we’ll leave a link to this as well, Five to Thrive Healthcare Habits, simple and quick ways to use what you have to live a lifestyle you dream about. It caught my attention because of how much overlap there was between those five habits and what I often think about as it relates to the financial plan. So I’m going to dig into each one of those in more detail.

This has been a long time in the making. You and I had the opportunity to present together at the OPA Annual Meeting last year in Columbus. That was on fire, right? That was an awesome session that we did together, and I’ve thought so many times, when you and I have a chance to converse and dig deep, like there is so much synergy between a lot of the work that you’re doing and the focus on the mindset in the healthcare and how we often need to, should be thinking about the financial plan as well.

So this is going to be a party of sorts. It always is when Dr. Adam Martin is on the line. So before we get into those five habits, we’ll walk through them one by one, I don’t want to just gloss over the significance of operating from a mindset of thriving, rather than just getting by and surviving. Since the focus of our time together is going to be all about thriving, tell us more about why that is center to what you’re doing and what you’re talking about and how you’ve developed that mindset and learn that through your own experiences.

[00:03:05] AM: Absolutely, Tim. Well, first off, thanks so much for the opportunity. Like you said, it’s always fire getting together, especially in person, but we’ll roll with this. But, yeah, OPA was awesome. First live event since COVID, I believe, for both of us in a long time. So that’s kind of where that idea stemmed from because there are so many overlaps with wellness and fitness and also your money because you won’t feel very well if you’re broke or in debt, so it just kind of goes with that through line.

But the reason that I made this, and just so y’all know, this is a free e-book, so I’m not selling anything, this is such a needed resource. I created it, like put a ton of time, made it simply applicable because there’s so much information out there that, yeah, it’s great. But how are you going to apply it?

[00:03:54] TU: That’s right.

[00:03:54] AM: For example, we all want to get healthier, right? So we go and hire a nutritionist, dietician, whatever. That’s outside of our normal, and they say be mindful when you eat. Chew your salad 30 times before you eat. We don’t get lunch breaks. What are you talking about?

So when you take the science, the research, and you say, “How can I practically apply this in a simple way,” because here’s the reality, you ain’t got more time. You don’t got any time. You ain’t got more things, and you’ve got no room left on your to-do list. So how are you going to make a change that you know you need to make and you want to make when you don’t have time, when you don’t have money, and you don’t know what’s going to actually work and what’s a scam?

I took all the things that I’ve learned in my journey in coaching my clients and working with some of the best in the world of mindset of fitness, of nutrition, and I condensed them down into a practical framework that is easy to understand, and more importantly, easy to implement, that actually gets results. So that’s kind of where that came from, from the need of burnout and stress and how do I manage a work-life balance. There’s such a need for it. That’s where it came from.

[00:05:12] TU: That’s why they call you The Tony Robbins of Healthcare right there, right? That is why. I think that the practical implementation is huge, and we see this every day from the financial side. I live it in my own personal financial journey. We can have these big lofty goals with big numbers. Until we break that down to something that means something to us today, that we can put our arms around, that we can grasp, that we can implement, that we can get some momentum and wins on, those are just nebulous, big, scary goals that we can have somebody coach us and say, “You know what, Adam? You need $3.5 million in your retirement account to save.”

What does that mean for today and how we can practically implement this? Again, I just love the synergy between the work that you’re doing and what we’re obviously talking about over at YFP. So let’s jump into these five habits to thrive, and the acronym here to remember is the SMILE framework, okay?

[00:06:10] AM: That’s right.

[00:06:10] TU: S is shift your focus. M is move and groove. We’ll talk about these each individually. I is identify the best you. L is let loose and celebrate, and E is electrify your spirit. So number one, shift your focus. In this habit, you talk about how we often set a goal. It could be around losing weight. It could be around healthier eating, connecting to our community, in our case, improving our financial situation. Despite knowing what to do, we don’t do it. The choices that we make that do or don’t lead us to our goals often revolve around our state of mind.

So my question for you here, Adam, is why are we drawn into these negative thought patterns and habits that can put us in ruts and prevent us from achieving our goals, even when we don’t want that to be the case?

[00:07:02] AM: Excellent questions. Why don’t we do that? We’re like – It’s like in the moment. We know we’re not supposed to do this, but we’re doing it anyway. So big picture, I just want to simplify this. The reason it’s called the SMILE framework is that regardless of your nutrition, your job, your career, your personal brand, all of it, the reason you do anything is so that you become happy. You want a happy life. What’s the most characteristic thing that would kind of show that someone’s happy? A smile. While this might seem mute, it is absolutely true. We all want to be happy. That’s why we do anything. By being happy you SMILE.

The reason I did this is to make it simple, so that you can see that you are focused on the outcome. You’re focused on what you want. A lot of times, when we get overwhelmed or we’re pulled in all these directions, for example, what do I do with my finances? The world’s going into recession? What do I do with this? What I do with that? What’s the best workout plan? What’s the best nutrition plan? How do I manage stress? The question you have to ask is what is your outcome? What do you want?

That comes right into your question, ironically, because that’s the answer. The first kind of pin of that SMILE framework is S, to shift your focus. What you need to ask yourself is what do I want? What is the outcome that you want? If you reverse engineer that, it will lead you upstream to realize that it all starts with the quality of question that you ask. To your point or question, again, the answer of why do we ask questions that get us so worked up, that get us so stressed out and focused on what’s wrong? It’s because that’s our survival brain.

Here’s something that I want you to hear and understand. Your brain does not exist to make you financially successful, to make you happy, or to make you thrive or live your best life. Your brain exists to keep you alive. That’s it. So when you’re taking a financial risk for a potential gain, that is interpreted as dangerous.

[00:09:11] TU: Scary. Yup.

[00:09:12] AM: Threats to your survival.

[00:09:14] TU: That’s right.

[00:09:15] AM: Your subconscious is going to hijack you and say, “Oh, no. That could mean death. Let’s not do that.” Going to work out, that is painful, right? I mean –

[00:09:25] TU: Literally tearing muscles. Yes.

[00:09:26] AM: After not going for a while, that is painful. That is a threat to survival. So whatever area of your life you want to improve, you inherently know that when you start that process, that it is uncomfortable. We’ve all heard that phrase, nothing grows from comfort zones. So you have to recognize that you will have resistance from the good intention that your brain is trying to protect you. So don’t be hard on yourself and say, “Why is my brain so stupid?” It’s trying to keep you alive because that’s what it’s designed to do. So you have to identify the purpose. You have to identify what you want, and then recognize there’s a gap there that is going to require your active participation.

[00:10:09] TU: Yeah. Adam, my mind is spinning with the financial connection here. So a great example, I just mentioned a big scary retirement number before, $3.5 million. That often is not the question we want to focus on. So we’ve been trained societally through a lot of financial information commercials to ask the question of how much do you need in your bank account to retire, right? It’s an important question, but it’s not the question that we need to be asking ourselves, right?

The question we need to be asking ourselves is what does it mean to live a wealthy life, not just in dollars and cents, right? How can our financial plan support and get us towards living a wealthy life? Why do we even care about this topic of money to begin with? Money is a tool that derives value, only because you and I and the rest of the world say it has value. Objectively, by itself, it doesn’t have value, right? So why does money matter to you? What does it mean to live a wealthy life? How can we support a financial plan that aligns with that?

Because to your point about some of the pain, it’s no different with our finances. If I say that, I want to be able to save money for the future because of X, Y, and Z, and that’s a compelling reason, well, guess what? That means I’m going to have to not spend it today to save it for the future. There’s pain in that, right? There’s pain. So I love how you focus. Again, we’ll link to this, so folks can download it and read it in its entirety.

But you have a whole page, maybe two pages. I remember at least one page of questions that we can be asking ourselves, right? Better questions, give us better information that we can live with more intentionality. I think that’s so important here, when we talk about shifting your focus. So that’s habit number one, shifting your focus.

Number two is we work to the SMILE framework. The M is move and groove, and you argue that this is the most effective instant antidote, as well as prevention to disempowering feelings. That’s a pretty strong statement. Tell us more. Why is that the case, and what does this practically look like?

[00:12:14] AM: Absolutely. So without a doubt, if you’re in a funk mood, if you’re scared, if you’re terrified, the fastest way to break out of that state is to move your body, the fastest way. You can do it immediately. For example, if you ever had like an argument, a confrontation, or you’ve heard the phrase, “Go walk it off,” there’s truth behind that. So this comes to go like, well, if we just move. What are you just saying? Like run away from your problems? Running away from your problems burns zero calories, okay?

But what you have to recognize is that when you move your body, you are changing your state. So I’m not saying go run a marathon. But I’m saying, for example, if you’re out in public, and I told you that I would give you 50 grand if you could tell me which of the people in public was depressed, I guarantee you could do it. You’re not a psychiatrist. You’re not a therapist. You don’t have ESP. But how can you see that? Because when they’re walking, their heads’ down. They’re walking slow. They’re chests in, right? They’re kind of like this. From someone that has overcome that, I can tell you, that’s absolutely spot on.

But if you – If I do the same to the other side, I say, “What if I gave you 50 grand to identify the most confident person that you encounter?” You can already see in your mind what that’s like. They’re walking with purpose and intention. Their shoulders are back. Their chest is out. Maybe they’ve got like a little swag in their step. It’s because that motion is inducing the emotion. If you look at emotion, I don’t want to feel bad. I don’t want to feel better. I want to be happy. I want to feel fulfilled. Emotion is energy in motion. So to snap that, it’s very simple. Change how you’re carrying yourself, moving yourself.

Now, to the practical implementation part. Well, Adam, how do I just snap out of it if I’m having such a bad day, week, month? Music. Let me ask y’all a question. Have you ever worked in a community pharmacy or just been out in public and on the PA system, on the radio in the store, a song comes on? Maybe some Gloria Estefan, if we want to throw it back. All of the sudden, you see Granny Smith in Aisle 5, tapping her foot to the point where she’s like, “[inaudible 00:14:38] pop out or what?” She can’t help it. She might not even be aware of it.

Everybody is moving, tapping their feet, bobbing their head. Music is the fastest way to change your emotion. You can do it without even being aware of it. So that’s the fastest way to snap out of your state. Play a song that makes you jive.

[00:14:59] TU: So are we talking dance party in the pharmacy? Is that what we’re doing here?

[00:15:02] AM: So true story. When I started as a pharmacist back in 2012, it was, I mean, busy store, like super busy. When I retired there in December, we were doing over 600 scripts a day on Monday with no pharmacist overlap. That’s the reality. So there’s a lot of stress as you can imagine. So in order to kind of refocus, I would actually create something free on Pandora called Happy Radio. So whenever I noticed stress coming, the levels of tension going up, I would literally play that.

That’s where – If you ever heard the term club pharmacy, I coined that term back in 2012 because it’s how you frame your environment. If you say, for example, I have to go to work today, how does that make you feel? Versus I get to go to club pharmacy today. That’s going to interrupt your state. What is he talking about? What, like Sam’s Club? Like what? Yeah. So you frame it, and then you entertain it, and you do something different. That’s how you kind of snap out of the norm so that you can rescript what you want to get.

[00:16:06] TU: I love that. I think some people, this is more natural than others. For me, it’s music. You talk about the idea of creating your playlist. Have it ready, right? Walking is a huge daily rhythm or routine. It just provides like, for me, some perspective, some space, and some peace of mind as well. So find that piece that really helps you. That’s number two, move and groove.

Number three, the I in the SMILE framework is identify the best you. What do you mean by this, identify the best you, and how can individuals work towards accomplishing this?

[00:16:42] AM: Excellent question. When it comes to psychology, the most defended aspect of the human condition is your identity. People will defend that to the death. Look at any religious war that’s ever been fought. Look at anyone that’s done anything drastic. Look at people who refuse to do anything. What do they say? I’m not that kind of person. That’s not who I am. Your identity is the strongest driving force in your psychology.

When we’re talking about goals with finances, with fitness, why are you doing that? Why do you want to save three and a half million? Yes, that is, obviously, a good goal. But what is the means behind that? What does money mean to you? What will that afford you? There’s got to be some sort of compelling future because the reality that we all know is that whatever your goal is, whether it’s small or large, think big, by the way. Whatever your goal is, you are going to have resistance. You’re going to come across adversity. You’re going to be exhausted. You’re going to start with a lot of motivation.

But if you’re not committed to exactly with a perfect picture in your mind to visualize exactly why you’re putting in the time, why you’re putting in the work, why you’re sacrificing a comfortable lifestyle, and instead going after it, facing rejection to make calls, to grow whatever you’re trying to achieve. You have to have a clear, compelling future that pulls you towards what you want. Keyword, you, what you want. Not what your friends want. Not what you think you should want or should have or should do. Quit shoulding all over yourself, please. You want something that is genuinely authentic to what makes you happy. That’s the secret.

[00:18:43] TU: That last point is huge in the financial services space, right? Because I talked to people weekly. I experienced this myself as well, where often our goals aren’t truly our goals. The reflection of what we feel like should be our goals. Or we interpret it as someone else says it should be our goals.

One thing you said there I want to dissect a little bit more, you kind of mentioned like, by the way, think big. As you said that, my mind went down this path how often the goals I hear from individuals, guilty as charged, no judgment to anyone else, we often limit those. I’m wondering why? So for example, right? If someone says, “Hey, I really have a goal to give philanthropically or to give,” like usually we’ll put a qualifier on that like 3, 5, 10 percent of my income, or I really want to save for retirement.

It’s a big number. Don’t get me wrong. But we’re kind of defaulting to like what is a limit low number that is acceptable or that we’ve heard elsewhere, and our mind doesn’t naturally go towards, well, if instead of making $120,000 a year, and I gave 10% of that or $12,000, what if I made $500,000 a year? 30% of that or – Why doesn’t our mind go in that direction? Why are we kind of defaulting to this low norm, if that makes sense?

[00:20:11] AM: Excellent question. So another thing that we all know of, and I want to kind of bring this back home, is the only thing that’s going to stop you is you. Not the economy, not your circumstances, you. When I mean you, what I mean is your fear. While there’s lots of specific fears with everyone in specific situations, all humans have two fears. There’s two fears that are the most common fears, the fear of not being enough and the fear of being unlovable.

When you’re looking at, “I want to set a goal,” if you say like, “Oh, this would be a nice increase.” Let’s say, for example, you’re making 120 grand a year, and you want to go up to 150. Just a little bit. Well, if I set 500 grand a month, that is a huge jump. That is a risk that if I don’t get it, it might mean that I’m not enough. It might mean that I can’t be loved because I didn’t get this. It’s not what’s going on. It’s not your circumstance. It’s the meaning that you give to your circumstance that is the driving force of whether you’re going to face everything and rise or fall into that fear. It’s all based on the meaning that you give something that becomes the outcome.

[00:21:29] TU: In that example, we’re essentially trying to set ourselves up to avoid failure or not even actual failure. Our perception of what that failure would be in that. So that’s interesting. Okay. That’s number three, identify the best you. Habit number four in the SMILE framework is let loose and celebrate. You say, “You need to party more, like seriously.” You will feel like you’re losing when you’re actually winning, if you do not celebrate your wins. My question here is why do we not celebrate our wins, in the same way that we dwell on our losses?

[00:22:03] AM: Let me paint a scenario that those of you watching or listening might resonate with. You work for years, for months, for, let’s say, getting a job as a pharmacist, and you get the job. You get the email. You’re on stage, getting a promotion. As they’re calling your name and reading your bio, you say, “What’s next?” You get the promotion. Then you say, “I’m going to go after this goal.” Let’s say that you launch a book. Let’s say you’re trying to get your name out there and build your personal brand. So you decide that you’re going to publish a book. So it gets released. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next? You’re so focused in the future that you’re living in a state of anxiety.

Now, here’s something that I want to just share, as far as emotion, like why do I feel this way? What’s wrong with me? Those kinds of things that get us twisted. If you’re living in the past, you’re living in depression. If you’re focused on the future, you’re living in anxiety. But when you’re focused on the present, it is a gift, which is why it’s called the present. The attitude of gratitude is honestly the antidote for fear.

Try this. If you’re angry, frustrated, or ticked off, I want you to think about and just look around and say one thing that you’re grateful for. Then say another and then another. It is literally impossible to be both grateful and angry or upset or overwhelmed at the same time. It is impossible. So the antidote to this, really, is to be grateful at your progress.

Now, there is a thin line for this, and I think the best way to do it is to live it and really go after your goals because on one hand, you don’t want to rest on your laurels and take your foot off the gas, because if you’re not growing, you’re dying. So you want to constantly be pursuing the best version of you. But if you’re living in that what’s next, what’s next, what’s next, here’s the reality. You will feel like you’re losing when you’re actually winning, if you don’t take time to note how far you’ve come.

[00:24:16] TU: 100%. Yes.

[00:24:19] AM: That’s really it. So you say like, “Oh, Adam. There’s so much going on. I don’t know. How do I be grateful? I’ve heard this before. It’s not practical,” blah, blah, blah. So we’re going to go with the grin, with the SMILE framework, and stay on theme here. I actually found this out of a necessity when I was in a really dark time in my life many years ago because I heard this over and over and over from so many successful people. Gratitude is the antidote to everything, all this sort of stuff.

I woke up in an anxiety attack, and I thought, how can I start this gratitude thing? So I was laying in bed, and I said, “What can I be grateful for right here right now?” So I just rolled my feet around like, “Wow, these sheets are really comfortable. I’m really grateful to have comfortable sheets.” “Wow, I’m on a comfortable mattress. I’m really grateful to have this mattress and not be laying on the floor.” “Wow, I have my own bedroom. I’m grateful to be in this bedroom.” Oh, my goodness. I own a house. Wow, I own a house, and it’s in a neighborhood that’s quiet. Just be quiet and listen. I can’t hear anything. It’s so quiet. I live in the city.”

It became a ripple effect from wherever you are in the moment. State and feel and focus on wherever you are in the moment so that it’s real. It’s one thing to say that you’re grateful for something that might have happened. But when you can be lying in bed and feel your soft sheets, it gives evidence and makes that real. When you’re in your room, and you like peace and quiet, and you just listen to the silence, that is evidence that, yes, this is something I can be grateful.

So the acronym I made for this is to GRIN. It’s the gratitude ripple in the now. So wherever you are, just pause and start thinking like do you have clothes on? Those probably. I mean, not everyone in the world has clothes, right? Are you standing somewhere that is safe? Is it raining outside, but you’ve got to shelter over your head? Just start where you are, and ripple from where you are outwards, and just watch what happens inside. That is truly the secret. But it’s so simple, people throw it out like, “Oh.” It’s so simple, it can’t fix my complex problem. The antidote really is that simple, and it’s so simple that it actually works.

[00:26:40] TU: Yeah. I really liked that. You and I have talked about this before. This has been transformative in my own life. So I am notorious for living in the future. Living in the present is not my jam. I will say I’m not a big dweller of the past. So that is something I’m grateful for. But what I have found is like what you describe. Publishing a book, what’s next? Giving a speaking event, what’s next? Achieving this milestone, what’s next? It’s not natural for me to really pause and be present in the moment.

But the gratitude piece, what I have found is, and you described it perfectly, an example, when you’re laying there in bed in the midst of an anxiety attack, as you’re going through a gratitude, exercise, and reflection, it forces you to be present in the moment. It shifts your perspective and focus while you’re there as well.

I think the trick for this, in my opinion, which you’ve really addressed here with the gratitude rip on the now, the GRIN acronym, is it doesn’t have to be like a one time in the morning, I’m going to do a gratitude exercise for five minutes. This could be a quick reminder as you’re going throughout the day because as you highlight, I mean, at any given moment of the day, we can all stop and find one thing that we’re thankful for in that moment. So I love that.

[00:27:57] AM: One caveat to that, I don’t want to say that thinking in the future is a bad thing. You want to always be planning. This is one of the biggest sources of anxiety that pharmacists have. When you’re in pharmacy school, your goal is to graduate and get a job. So when you graduate and get a job, if you don’t have goals, you have a problem. That’s where a lot of pharmacy students transitioning to pharmacists life are.

I don’t want to downplay how valuable forward thinking is. Just make sure that as you make those milestones, you pause, you note them, and you celebrate them however you actually can feel that celebration of your progress in the process.

[00:28:37] TU: I love that. Great input. Number five in the SMILE framework is electrify your spirit. It’s clear as we’re talking that consistency is the key here when we talk about the SMILE framework and the importance of a daily routine. You say in the e-book, “Stand guard at the doorway of your mind at the most critical time of the day, the beginning.” Tell us more about why standing guard at the beginning of the day is that important, and what are some of the habits that folks can implement to help here?

[00:29:07] AM: If you ever woke up, and you stub your toe, and then you realize that you’re late, and you get a red light, and then your tech doesn’t show up, or someone comes and yells at you, and what do you say? Wow, this day keeps going from bad to worse. It is a ripple effect from what you focus on, literally taking all that we’ve looked at through the SMILE framework, starting with shifting your focus.

When you wake up in the morning, you have a clean slate. You are starting with a brand new bank account of time for those 24 hours. If the first thing you look at or think about is your to-do list or the news or all the things that you wish you did, then that’s going to ripple and transcend the whole mood of your day. So it literally – You all know this is true, but we all do it.

Again, simple doesn’t mean easy, especially if this is a habit that you’ve had for a long time, the simplest thing, to stand guard at the door of your mind is to not touch your phone for the first half hour, hour, whatever that might be. For me, it’s two hours because it’s that sacred of time. Because think about it. People want to get your attention, news highlights. They’re not talking about new puppies that were given out for free. They’re talking about stabbings and murder and death.

[00:30:35] TU: Push notification. Push notification.

[00:30:37] AM: Yeah, yeah. All that stuff. It’s grabbing your attention. Your eyeballs are the new real estate. That’s what everyone is after. The best way to get them, again, coming back to an original point, is your brain, and your brain is wired to keep you alive. So it is going to be focused on any potential threat as a means to protect you.

So knowing that, that’s how media and everyone uses that fact of your physiology to grab your attention, to lead with danger and all these negative things. So if you can just give yourself an hour to instead of let other people direct how your day is going to go and really own your hour and decide and declare that I am going to fill the first hour, half hour, whatever you allow, that that first fruit of your day needs to be given and stewarded in a way that it sets the tone and ripples you towards the compelling future that you want. Instead of I have to avoid all this stuff that I don’t want.

Really start simple. The phone is the most effective thing, and that’s hard for a lot of people. I remember when I first did this years ago. It was like an addiction, and it’s just how we are in society. But it’s become normalized to the point where no one really questions it. But when you realize that by doing that, you’re giving control of your mind and focus to other people that just want your eyeballs, and want you to click and scroll and all this stuff, it puts you in the driver’s seat so that you can now intentionally be present on what you want to do.

You can start simple. This is my routine. This has evolved over the years. I start off by saying, “Good morning, Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, fill me and guide me, so I can be a blessing in your way through this day. Today is going to be an amazing, outstanding day.” Then I take a five-minute freezing cold shower, I read my devotional, I jump in the Bible, and then I’m off on my 45-minute walk. That’s how I start.

Now, that might not be practical for you. You might genuinely like realistically have five minutes. In those five minutes, don’t be on your phone and start with the gratitude ripple, the GRIN. So start where you are to start listing things you’re grateful for. I promise, if you do that every day for 30 days, you’ll feel like a totally different person.

[00:33:11] TU: Yeah. It’s about winning the start of the day, whether that’s five minutes or three hours, right? Some people, maybe there’s more flexibility and time, whatever. Many folks, that’s not the case. Winning the day and the momentum and, as you mentioned, the ripple effect that can come from that. I love that.

Mine has evolved over time, and there are certain seasons where I’m humming every day. There’s other seasons where I kind of fall off track. You give yourself some grace. You get back on. But I consistently come back to a noticeable, palpable difference. I’m sure Jess and the boys would say that they can see it as well when I start and win the day. Because what I have found, and this has taken a while to really, I think, realize and work through, is that things can just begin to quickly unravel, and you throw your hands up, if things aren’t going in the steps I think they should go.

What I’ve really, especially with my four boys, is that it is rare, very rare, actually, that their behavior changes in any given day. It’s my perspective, patience, and mindset, coming into my interactions with them. When I walk out of my home office door, that first two to five minutes, which is on me and my responsibility, sets the tone for the rest of the evening, the rest of the evening. For the longest time, I’d kind of throw my hands up a little bit of a victim mentality of like, “Ah, man. They are so loud, Adam. They are so loud. Can’t they just be quiet?” It’s like I remember I had this conversation with my wife one time. It’s like, “They really don’t change a lot in any given day.”

I mean, sure, there’s a behavior thing here there, but like it really is like my mindset, my preparation, my awareness. That, obviously, is talking more about the second half of the day. But same can be said, I think, for the first part of the day as well.

[00:35:04] AM: Yes. Tim, you said something that was such a gem, I have to bring it to the forefront. You said, “I have to give myself some grace.” I really want everyone listening to this to understand, embody, and implement that. Because if you’re listening to this, chances are you’re not like – You’re going after the best version of you.

I mean, if you’re listening to a podcast, if you’re in this community, it’s because you want more. You know you’re destined to be more, to give more, to do more, to contribute. Not just to improve your life but to be an impact on those that you are blessed to influence. That’s ultimate leadership is influence. So when you’re in this journey, remember that it is not about a destination. It’s about who you become in the process. It is about progress, not perfection.

So if you’re wanting to be a good leader, if you’re wanting to be the best employee, wherever you are in your career, if you want to receive something like grace, because we all are very human, the best way to receive something is to give it. To the point of finances, so many people, one of the reasons that they want to save, and call me on this, if I’m wrong, Tim. You’re the pro of the pros. One of the reasons that people give to save money and make more is so that they can have more to give away. They can contribute to their church, whatever it might be. True or true.

[00:36:36] TU: True, true. Yep.

[00:36:38] AM: So here’s the challenge. This is very humbling, but this is literally the cheat codes for life. This is how it works. Whenever you identify whatever it is you want to receive, you must become it and go give it because, especially with finance, here’s the reality. If you won’t give a dime out of a dollar, you’ll never give a million out of a billion. So it’s not I’ll wait until. It’s how can you give from where you are right now. Because whatever you give will come back to you tenfold.

Now, that’s not the reason that you give. But the secret, the life hack, the behind the scenes truth is that the secret to living is giving. When you embody that and say, “If I want this to come in my life, how can I become it,” and then use that to give and serve others, your life will never be the same, and you will actually start to find that you are smiling more than you ever thought possible.

[00:37:39] TU: Oh, man. That is so true and so much wisdom in that that I think we can fall into that trap, and it is a trap to think that in that day in the future, a future state when I’ve got X in the bank, at that point, like I’ll be ready in a position to give. To your point about building that habit and that muscle and making that a priority, so important.

There you have it, the SMILE framework. As always, Dr. Adam Martin, it has been a pleasure. I’m so grateful for you as a friend and a colleague. For folks that don’t yet know you and follow your work, which I think are few and far between listening to this, but for folks that don’t, where’s the best place that they can go to stay in touch with you?

[00:38:22] AM: Thank you, Tim. So, so honored. So I’ve had the honor and privilege of working with and helping many pharmacists and students grow their personal brands all across the world. Your brand is my favorite because you embody the principles and values. You are the best steward of your gifts I’ve ever seen in my life. So it is such an honor.

[00:38:40] TU: Thank you.

[00:38:41] AM: I just want to give a shameless plug of real talk real real quick there. But if you want to see more smiling faces and goofy things, feel free. The best place to interact with me is on Instagram, all one word, @thefitpharmacist. I also have a podcast that I’ve been running for a little over five years now a new episode every week. It is The Fit Pharmacist Healthcare Podcast. That’s on your favorite podcast platforms, iHeart Radio, iTunes, Spotify. You name it, I’m there. So feel free to subscribe on there if you want more content, also on LinkedIn. But, yeah, feel free to interact and engage.

But definitely make sure, if you’re not for some crazy reason, following Tim and Your Financial Pharmacist because he has such a gift for connecting and nurturing people that have an incredible spirit and value within them. That he invests and nurtures so that they can then become the people that go and nurture and gift them. Just an amazing quality that you have, Tim, and I’m just really inspired by you personally. So seriously, thank you for who you are and who you continue to become.

[00:39:50] TU: Awesome, man. That means the world to me, really, guys. I really appreciate that, and I’m so grateful for you and appreciate you taking the time to come on here. Thanks, Adam.

[00:39:59] AM: An honor. Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[00:40:01] 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 277: How This Pharmacist Teaches Financial Principles As a Preceptor and Parent

Posted on October 13, 2022March 14, 2023 by Rose

Dr. Frank McCabe discusses his career in pharmacy and how he teaches financial principles as a preceptor and parent.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Frank M. McCabe is currently a Pharmacist Consultant with over 37 years experience in the Healthcare industry. He received his undergraduate degrees from Orange County Community College-SUNY Orange (Business Administration) and MCPHS University-Boston (BS Pharm) and his graduate degrees, Masters in Business Administration (Management) from the West Point Military Academy Program (USMA) of Long Island University-CW Post Campus and Doctor of Pharmacy degree from MCPHS University-Boston. Dr. McCabe is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist (BCPS). He has served as a preceptor to pharmacy students and pharmacy practice residents. Most of Dr. McCabe’s pharmacy professional experience was in Hospital Pharmacy, including leading one of Nations leading healthcare institutions (St. Joseph’s Health of NJ) acute care hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic (St. Joseph’s Wayne Medical Center, Wayne, NJ). Dr. McCabe also has had experience in Community practice and Pharmaceutical Industry (Medication Safety and Pharmaceutical Sales Management/Data Management). Dr. McCabe is also a Certified NJ Consultant Pharmacist, which is recognized Nationally by the VA. He has extensive engagement in Professional Societies, including when practicing in New York State as Secretary for the Mid-Hudson Chapter of the NYS Council of Health System Pharmacists and over 10 years as Treasurer for the North Chapter of the New Jersey Society of Health System Pharmacists. Dr. McCabe was also a frequently requested speaker on Nutrition and Vitamins for Corporations and Community organizations in the North New Jersey area.

Episode Summary

This week, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, is joined by Frank McCabe, PharmD, BCPS, MBA. Frank is a pharmacist consultant with over 37 years of experience in the pharmacy industry. This week, Dr. McCabe discusses his career in pharmacy, how he caught FIRE early in his career, strategies he employed to allow his children to attend out-of-state schools with very little debt, and how he incorporated personal finance education into his rotational experiences for student pharmacists as a preceptor.

Frank’s advice to younger pharmacists includes being active in professional societies for continuing education, networking, and helping the future generation of pharmacists. He also encourages younger pharmacists to look for opportunities and training, as he did, so that when opportunities in the pharmacy field present themselves, they may take advantage. He shares a reminder to take care of your mental and physical health while seeking opportunities to make additional income. Being conservative with spending and living frugally while paying off student loan debt can be balanced with putting money into your retirement accounts as well. For pharmacists in the latter part of their careers, Frank explains his view of the current time of financial challenges and high volatility during this period of his retirement. The episode closes with Frank’s strategies for educating student pharmacists and his children on financial principles. His methods include building an understanding of the value of hard work balanced with finding and enjoying your life’s passions.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

YFP Planning: Financial Planning for Pharmacists
Schedule a free Discovery Call with YFP Planning
Seven Figure Pharmacist by Tim Church, PharmD and Tim Ulbrich, PharmD
Bankrate
Email Your Financial Pharmacist: [email protected]
Your Financial Pharmacist Disclaimer and Disclosures

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 interviewing Frank McCabe, a pharmacist consultant living in Pittsburgh, with more than 35 years of experience as a pharmacist spanning institutional practice, pharmacy administration, and pharmaceutical industry.

During the show, we discuss how he caught fire with personal finance early on in his career. Some of the strategies that he employed to allow his now adult children to attend out of state schools nearly debt-free. And why and how he incorporates personal finance education into rotation experiences for student pharmacists.

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 250 households in 40-plus states. YFP Planning offers fi 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 yfpplanning.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:27] LB: Frank, welcome to the show.

[00:01:29] FM: Thank you, Tim. Glad to be here. And hopefully we can help the next generation and admire what you’ve done with your financial pharmacist and being an entrepreneur. And it’s really much needed in our profession.

[00:01:42] TU: I really appreciate that. And I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. And just some background of how we got here, as you had reached out to me about purchasing a copy of the book Seven Figure Pharmacist because of a student that you were precepting and wanting to pay it forward. And that initiated a conversation. And we went back and forth with a few emails.

And I quickly realized that you had a passion for, as you mentioned, training up the next generation, paying it forward, teaching some of the principles that have been so important to you in your own personal journey and your own career journey as well. And so, that’s what we’re going to be talking about here today. We’ll talk a little bit about your personal career journey in pharmacy. We’ll talk a little bit about your family journey and how you taught your children about money or still teaching children about money.

[00:02:26] FM: Absolutely.

[00:02:27] TU: And the work that you’ve done precepting students and thoughts that you have on teaching personal finance as a part of some of those experiential rotations. Let’s start, Frank, with your own personal journey and pharmacy. Where did you go to school? When did you graduate? And what drew you into the profession?

[00:02:43] FM: Oh, gosh. Tim, it’s a long journey. 37 faithful years ago. And actually, over 40. I was in the top 25% of my graduating class in high school. And in New York State, in Orange County. Applied to Albany College of Pharmacy. Didn’t get in. Oh, no. But I really admired my family pharmacist, Stanley Moroknek, who own Thrift Drugs in Monroe, New York. So, okay, I did what was convenient and easy to do. But it worked out real well.

I went to SUNY Orange, the State University in New York, community college. Got a two-year degree in business. And you’ll see how that ties in later on. Completed my associate’s degree. Applied to Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, which is now MCPHS University, Northeastern College of Pharmacy.

And what was unique about going to a SUNY school, I was guaranteed a spot in a four-year school. I got accepted at SUNY Buffalo for business. But really wanted to pharmacy. So I went off to MCPHS University. And so, I did my undergrad degree there, my Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy. Graduated in December of 1983 and came out into practice. Eventually, I did go on and earn an MBA and also a my PharmD.

[00:03:53] TU: Tell us maybe the cliff note version, 1983 to 2022. Tell us about your career journey, the different areas of the profession that you’ve been in and leading up to the work that you’ve done most recently.

[00:04:07] FM: Yeah, thank you, Tim. I work for CVS when I first graduated school. It was 13-hour days. No lunch. No dinner. No break. Because you were part of management. I graduated 160 pounds. After a year, I was 130 pounds. I said, “I can’t keep this up. I’ll waste away to nothing.”

I took an opportunity to work for the New York State Office of Mental Health at a large inpatient psychiatric center. It had 1,000 patients when I started there. And that’s where I cut my hospital chops. Like, institutional pharmacy jobs.

I realized that working there was very good for the patients. Worked with a great group of people. Pharmacists are just smart people and just great people to collaborate with. But also, had a yearning and a desire to do other things in pharmacy and to be a director and assistant director in New York State OMH, often mental health, you would have to have an advanced degree.

At that time, the Continental Health Care Systems, we’re switching to pharmacy automation. Back then there was no computers, no clinical. It was all typing everything out. Going back years and years. And we visited one of the booths at the New York State Council of Health System Pharmacists. And I should weave in there, Tim. Still to this day, for most of my career, I’ve been active in professional societies. And that’s one way I do give back. And I really implore the younger generation to become involved, whether it’d be a community practice, or institutional practice society. Because you meet a lot of good people and you also have opportunities for continuing education and also to help the younger generation.

It was through that meeting that I went back and realized I really needed to get an MBA. We were very fortunate at West Point, the New York State Military Academy, Long Island University. Had a program there for 30 years. It was half civilian, half military. Did 60 credits in 18 months while working full-time.

[00:06:05] TU: Wow! Wow!

[00:06:07] FM: And that gave me the opportunity, and my X as well. And I went into pharmaceutical sales, and rose through there. Became a district sales manager. But the industry changed after 2000. The regulatory climate changed. The political climate changed.

But one thing that sales was very good for, and I think I say to the younger generation, everybody should do a stint in sales. You’re selling a product, but you’re also selling yourself, Tim. You need to articulate your ideas and things.

And I’ll tie that in for when I was at St. Joseph’s Health, St. Joseph’s Health in northern New Jersey. And I was at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center for six years. It is the fifth busiest emergency room in the entire nation with over 170,000 ER visits a year. Clinically, it was great. Interacting with residents, the pharmacy residents, the clinical pharmacist. But you really need to be able to have opportunities.

And along my career, besides continuing education, having an MBA, going back for my PharmD, you don’t know what doors are going to be open to you. And there was a management shake-up at St. Joseph’s, and I had the opportunity to become the manager, the pharmacist in charge, at our small facility, St. Joseph Wayne Medical Center. But nobody had figured this out, Tim. I have an MBA. I’m good with numbers. Most pharmacists are excellent with numbers. Nurses are not so good with numbers. But boy, they’re so good at other things and just have such admiration and appreciation for what they do.

But because of that MBA and that additional education, it paid off that many years later. I got my MBA in December of 1991. But here we are in 2018 and my career and realized that St. Joseph’s Health, between both facilities, we had $2.1 million in expired drugs. Not unusual. Probably on the higher side. But the only way you’re going to get a handle on that, Tim, is through automation.

But also, I was responsible for – neither facility had other pharmacy upgraded in 40 years. We didn’t have any clean rooms. Hey, where are we going to get the money for this? And better yet, we need clean rooms. We need carousels.

I saw Omnicell’s IVX. I don’t know if – Are you familiar with IVX at all, Tim?

[00:08:35] TU: I’m not. No.

[00:08:36] FM: In terms of sterile compounding. It’s a modular device that’ll go in the hood. It has a scale on it. It has a printer. It has a camera. And there’s a cloud library of the specific gravities of the active ingredients and the inactive ingredients. You’re checking that process. While the technicians are compounding, you’re capturing that for regulatory and legal purposes going forward.

I went out – in fact, we came out here to cranberry, Pennsylvania, to Omnicell’s headquarters for their automation, and realized, “Hey, we can do this.” I was with my boss, Mike Cairoli, who’s now a VP at St. Joseph’s Health, and got a two and a half million-dollar contract signed. They don’t guarantee it anymore. But we also had guarantees of two and a half million dollars in savings over five years.

I was able to go to the C suite at St. Joseph’s Health. And they’re second biggest provider of charity care in the state of New Jersey and very poor, but to get these contracts signed. And it’s because of my passion. And I tried to inculcate in my staff, whether it’d be the pharmacists or the technicians. And it was true, Tim. On a given day, a patient upstairs could be a colleague, could be a family member, be a friend. It’s our obligation and to practice at our highest level as pharmacist. But to do that, you need technology. I had the opportunity to do that. And also, appeared before the New Jersey Board of Pharmacy twice to educate the board on technology.

And for reasons, and we wanted to be closer to family here in the Pittsburgh area, we relocated here. But St. Joseph’s Health, last March, the New Jersey Board of Pharmacy requires that a pharmacist be in the cleanroom or the compounding area when the technicians are compounding. But because of my background in sales, my MBA, always been trying to get educated, just not in our profession, but also outside our profession, St. Joseph’s Health was the first institution in the state of New Jersey to get approval and have a pilot once they’re up and running with their cleanrooms and Omnicell’s IVX to have the pharmacists remotely located outside still having line of sight with the technicians compounding, but not having to be in there.

And the rationale for that, human beings, a simple matter of our head, Tim, you kick off 50,000 flakes of skin and bacteria. More people are introduced to that clean space, the risk of breaking that sterile compounding area. And also, if you had a pharmacist in there, as I talked to Linda Weitzel, the board president Anthony Rubinaccio, the Executive Director of Board of Pharmacy and other members of the board, that you could have 15 technicians compounding. But one pharmacist? How is that safe?

If you look at that career progression, I would implore the younger generation. It’s tiring. You’re working. You get family. You have children. But always look for those opportunities to latch on to education, whether it’d be a formal education through advanced education, or certificate programs. Because you don’t know down the road where those opportunities are going to happen. And if you have the skill set and that education and training, when that door opens, you can step through it.

[00:12:04] TU: That’s really great, Frank. And it’s really cool to see the thread. One of the things you mentioned, which resonates with me a lot, is the importance of some of the sales principles that you learned, obviously, through the work that you did in the pharmaceutical industry. But as you mentioned, it’s not just about selling the product. It’s about selling yourself and some of the confidence that comes through that process. But I can see where that sales background comes to be when you’re in front of the C suite at St. Joseph and making a pitch. When you’re in front of the board of pharmacy, the New Jersey board, those are sales principles. You’re not, per se, selling a product. But you’re really bringing yourself forward and obviously making a pitch for what you want to do. Really cool to hear and see the thread throughout the journey that you mentioned.

I want to shift a little bit and talk about some of your own personal financial journey, but also how you’ve been able to instill these principles not only within your own family, but also with students and others that you’ve precepted. And something that really stood out to me in our email exchange was how you instilled the financial knowledge in your children. And before we jump into that, I’m curious how and why did you get interested in personal finance? Was there a moment? Was it through the MBA training? Was it something that you’ve always had an interest in that you’ve always self-taught yourself? Where does your passion and interest around personal finance come from?

[00:13:21] FM: Good question, Tim. And you and I spoke about that a little bit before the recording. It really has to go back to my mom. She passed away just this past April. I miss her every day. On 93 years of age. But she was a bookkeeper, Tim. And a different generation. But her high school education at Walton High School in the Bronx really put her in good stead for lifelong earning ability.

She reveled in telling us, children and grandchildren, the story of looking for – back in the old days, there was ads in newspapers. It was an ad for a Ford dealership. And back then, they only wanted a man. But she went and said I have the skills. And she got the job.

I learned that a young age that from mom, genetically, but how to manage your checkbook. How to manage finances. But also, kind of like you, you were saying your mom and dad put up envelopes on the refrigerator. We didn’t have that sophistication.

I’m the youngest of four. I have three older sisters. The other one is deceased. But we always have the ability to earn extra money. I would clean mom and dad’s car. Hey, if I need extra cash, you can go vacuum and clean their cars, clean the windows. And then we used to – maybe about a mile away, we grew up in a mountaintop in Orange County, New York, there was a convenience store at the bottom of the hill. But we would go buy candy and then resell it at a candy stand. I learned about the multiplier effect of money.

And then I worked in food service for seven years, Tim, on the New York State Thruway while I was going to community college. And you name it, I did it. I was a cashier. And then I worked in the office on the weekends when I was doing my community college studies. You learn that early.

And then off to MCPHS University, and mom and dad was very helpful. But I kind of ran out of spending money halfway through the year. We were at Emmanuel College, which was an all-girls Catholic college at the time, MCP, leased a dorm from them. I went off down the block to McDonald’s by Fenway Park and work to get some spending money.

[00:15:36] TU: Yeah. I love it.

[00:15:38] FM: Just had that drive and that initiative. But also, making sure I kept up academically as well. I think your question, it comes from genetics. It comes from a good mentor. And then also, the rewards of working and having goals. I’ve really admired our family pharmacist, Stanley Moroknek. I was an otitis media sufferer growing up. And he was just fantastic. I had a goal. And I needed the money. It’s, “Okay, I got to do the academics.” But it needs some spending money because I want to go to Fanueil Hall, or I want to go see a concert. That’s what I did, Tim.

[00:16:16] TU: We talked a little bit about before we recorded today that there’s some challenging times for new practitioners that are out there making this transition from a student pharmacist to the first decade of their career. The student loan debt is well known. We’ve talked about it extensively on the show. The numbers are somewhat mind boggling. North of $170,000 on average of student loan debt.

[00:16:39] FM: Oh, easy.

[00:16:40] TU: Many, may be higher, private education, longer pathways of education. We’ve seen somewhat of a flattening and stagnation of wages. We’re in a high inflationary period. Pharmacists, certainly still, relatively speaking, make a good income. But many folks may have a ceiling on that income. My question for you, as we think about the next generation of pharmacists and those that are listening, is there a piece of advice or two, Frank, that you would share now looking back 37 plus years of your career? Things that you learned along the way or words of wisdom that you wish you would have had early on that could be helpful to those that are in the front half of their career?

[00:17:19] FM: You have to look at self-help, Tim, in terms of your mental health and your physical health. You’ve got to take care of yourself first. But I think what is put me in good stead over the years is taking the opportunities for overtime. And also, the skill set. Though, here I am a hospital pharmacist, and then a hospital pharmacy manager. But there’s a small chain of independent pharmacies in North New Jersey. And I would add – I get a phone call during the day, “Hey, Frank, can you work tonight.” I would ask the younger generation, besides working 40 or 45 hours a week, whatever your primary job is. And if you have that debt, is to pick up additional shifts elsewhere.

I know as a hiring manager at St. Joseph’s Health and a short stint here at Allegheny Health Networks, it’s very difficult to find qualified, competent hospital pharmacists. If somebody’s working in community practice, pick up a hospital shift or two as a per diem pharmacist. And that’s one way you can make a transition to hospital pharmacy.

But what was nice about hospital pharmacy, I work shift work. And at St. Joseph’s, they were a little unique. My shifts were 6:30 to 3:00. I always had my – 90% of my evening is free. I could pick up if somebody called me and they needed coverage on one of the stores that night.

And funny enough, at St. Joseph’s Health, Monday nights were the biggest nights for call outs. 99% of time, I’d pick up extra shifts. And also, besides earning money, Tim, I’ve always driven my vehicles in excess of 100,000 miles. Even here I am today mostly retired, I am driving a Subaru that’s got 175,000 miles. Can we afford to go buy another car? Sure. But it’s the principle that matter. I don’t need that new flashy thing.

But also, it’s also putting money into the 401k, and making sure, at a minimum, you’re getting that match. So many institutions or corporations, you don’t have a traditional pension plan. St. Joseph’s Health, they had what was called the church plan. There were lawsuits. But come next year, I’ll be getting a small pension from them. They had switched to a 403b. As soon as they switched with that, they had grandfathered the pension plan. But I started putting money into that 403b.

And even despite the downturn in 2008, Tim, I did nothing. I let it ride. Because I believe in the stock market historically. Part of the conversation you and I talked about was it’s not what you earn. It’s also what you save. Try and live frugally.

And also, another way that I do that, another passion of mine, and that may be for a little bit of another segment of our discussion today, Tim, I had the opportunity at St. Joseph’s Health to present and lecture to corporations and community groups over 30 times on supplements and nutrition. Where that ties in terms of your own personal health and well-being, I would bring my own food to work.

Not only wasn’t that frugal and savings, but it was always available to me. I didn’t have to go to the cafeteria. I made sure that what I was getting was healthy. I never understood about hospital institutional cafeterias selling deep fried chicken and French fries. But they do.

[00:20:46] TU: They do. Well, and I think the frugality message there I think is really important. Maybe a word that my generation doesn’t love necessarily. But I think, frugality, it’s important to remember. It’s not just about the dollars and what we do with those dollars. Certainly, that’s very important, whether we’re paying down debt, or investing, or saving for the future. But it’s also about the momentum and the mindset.

Here you are nearing retirement. You’ve had a successful career. And you share that, after this interview, you’re going to be working on your Subaru, which is 170,000 miles plus. So, you can keep that thing going and not have to buy another car. And could you? As you mentioned, yes, you could. But it’s that mindset and that momentum that transcends any one financial decision, right? I always say it’s not just about the used car. It’s about the mindset with a used car, which then transcends your ability to save, your momentum to save, and the ability to move towards other financial goals.

One question I’d have for you, Frank, especially for pharmacists listening that are maybe in the latter part of their career, here we are in a very challenging, volatile time period of the market. You mentioned, you’re mostly retired, how are you viewing this time period? You’ve done all this work to accrue your assets leading up to retirement. And here we are in a very challenging time period. But you’ve always had this long-term view of investing. Just take us inside Frank’s brain in the moment as someone who’s nearing retirement and how you’re viewing this high volatility period as you’re approaching a time where you may need to draw upon those funds.

[00:22:21] FM: One point that is unique in my situation, Tim, that helps me a lot, my wife, Marge, is a retired public school business administrator for the state of New Jersey. And she continues to work. In fact, she’s doing CE today. But I have her health benefits. That affords some flexibility.

Do I get worried about the market? Yes. But I lived through the downturn in 2008. I have my 401k monies, my 403 monies, in lifestyle funds. As you go through time, they’re morphing more towards bonds. I’ve seen the growth in my retirement funds from 10, 15 years ago. And also, because I was in pharmaceutical sales, and I worked for GlaxoSmithKline, when I left their employ, I left my 401k monies there, because they pay – It’s a much bigger corporation. Lot more monies.

At some point, I will have to consolidate this. But a lot of the fees they’ve paid to manage those funds. That has allowed my money to grow. I think that the days of staying with an employer for 30 or 40 years is rare. I think for the younger pharmacist is, okay, don’t panic. Leave the money. And then at some point – it’s a little bit of a hassle sometimes to tie that money together to roll it over. But you don’t want to take that out.

If you need money –I can. And I looked before I started with Allegheny General Hospital last year, within 14, 10 miles of my house, I think there’s 14 independent pharmacies, Tim? And you’re looking at, from my knowledge, the first pharmacist in the history of the state of Pennsylvania, because of my perseverance and persistence to get his immunization licensed by reciprocity. They’ve never done that before. I would say to the younger generation, believe in yourself. Follow through. But it takes a lot of work.

I sent 30 pages of documentation to the board here in a pandemic. Okay, I didn’t get my education training for immunization. It was back in 2013. No, it’s not two years ago, like the board requires. But I’ve been immunizing up until then. I think tying in financially, and that long view outlook is that persistence and perseverance. Believing yourself. Taking care of yourself. Eating right. Getting exercise.

[00:24:53] TU: Yep. And letting the time value of money do its thing, right? You live through a couple of steps. And one thing I was sharing recently with some folks is I graduated in ’08. And for folks that have graduated somewhere around that time period, or since then, this is really the first test of that long-term view and philosophy that we talk about.

And it’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to live it, especially for folks that have maybe been saving for 12, 13 years. You look at your portfolio, it could be down 20%, 25%, 30%. But to hear from folks such as yourselves that have lived through these dips. And we know the history. If we look at the market since the Great Depression, this is not unique. It’s happened before. The reasons are different. But this is not unique. And this is why we’ve got to have that long-term view of investing and make sure that we’re keeping that long-term view in mind.

[00:25:43] FM: I agree. I agree. And one thing we left out of there, and maybe that’s another segment, is also real estate.

[00:25:49] TU: Mm-hmm. Tell me more. Is that been a part of your journey?

[00:25:52] FM: It has been. Yeah, I’ve not been a real estate investor in the sense of some people could do it if you have the stomach for it. It’s just not my personality. But some people do get investment properties and rent out. But I’ve been a homeowner since 1986. And this is probably my fifth home. I don’t own the other homes. But the market long-term has been good. Because the current structure, it’s a little bit different especially living – Well, we lived in – Pennsylvania can be higher in taxes, but New Jersey certainly was one of the highest in the nation. And that limit would solve taxes. But getting that home equity over the years, and sweat equity.

For me, Tim, growing up in high school, I took power mechanics and woodworking. And I worked with my hands. And I find that relaxing. But now, gosh, the younger generation, don’t forget YouTube. You can learn how to hang a drape. You can learn how to do a minor Plumbing Repair, do those kinds of things. I would also suggest that the younger generation, when they can afford it, is to get into their own home.

And I kind of laugh, but I don’t want to laugh. Mortgage rates are at 5%, right?

[00:27:08] TU: That’s right.

[00:27:09] FM: But historically, my first home was like 13%.

[00:27:11] TU: Yeah. Perspective, right?

[00:27:13] FM: And our current home, Tim, we have a mortgage. We don’t need it. But it’s a 2.375%. We’re using somebody else’s money. You think of that time value of money, as you talked about, and how you deploy those assets, how you deploy your savings, how you deploy your long-term goals.

[00:27:34] TU: Frank, let me put myself in the shoes of a student on rotation with you, and you’re teaching me all these things, time value of money, and home appreciation, and equity in the home, and all the things long-term. And I hear all that. And I’m like, “Frank, that’s great. But I’ve got $200,000 in student loan debt. Homes are at crazy prices right now. Pharmacist income is relatively flat.” If we get tangible for a moment, it really comes down to we need to live off of less than we make so that we can create the cash flow to be able to allocate money towards these longer-term goals.

And so, what does that look like? I’m a new graduate. I’m a transitioning graduate. What are the principles that I’m putting in place that allow me to live that discipline lifestyle so I can live off of less than I make and I can ultimately try to really save and invest the difference?

[00:28:24] FM: Tim, I don’t think it’s dissimilar to high school education today. Nevermind college graduates and pharmacist graduates. They fill our heads with so much clinical knowledge, and it’s great, and it’s a value to the patients that we serve. But I don’t think the schools are doing a good job in terms of what is this tuition mean.

And when you’re going through, try and be frugal student. But now here, you graduate, and you said the average is $170,000 in debt? Well, how the heck am I going to get out of this debt? Well, you got to have a job. You get your primary job.

Also, do a time value analysis. You can go to bankrate.com. You can use Excel. And I’ve done that with my students that, “Okay, here’s your debt. What do you think the current interest rate is going to be? What’s your minimum payment going to be?” Nevermind how do I get rid of this debt?

And the students that I talked with, the schools have not done a good job of providing them with resources and information. They’re smart enough. Heck, hell, yeah. Yeah. We’re two percenters, Tim. Do you know what I mean by two percenters?

[00:29:29] TU: In terms of the 2% that are applying? Or what are you referring to?

[00:29:33] FM: No. Only about 2% of the US population has doctoral level degrees.

[00:29:38] TU: Oh, okay.

[00:29:39] FM: It’s probably evenly split between professional degrees like MD, PharmD, and PhDs. Let’s face it. You get through pharmacy school, they’re smart people. But they’ve just not gotten a sense. It’s like, “Oh my gosh.” And I think what I’ve done, and I think any graduating pharmacist can do, once you get that job, is hopefully you’re eligible for overtime. If not, you pick up extra shifts. Find another job. Maybe it’s outside of your passion or what you’re doing. But there’s usually – because there’s no benefits involved.

I know probably – I’m 99% sure, Tim. I go and throw my CV around within 10 miles of here, and somebody’s looking [inaudible 00:30:25]. I’ll pick it up.

[00:30:28] TU: Yup, absolutely.

[00:30:28] FM: Yeah. I wouldn’t say, “Okay, I got this debt. What’s my minimum payment? What’s my maximum payment?” Because that’s going to impede their ability to get a mortgage, to buy a car. Got to pay for benefits out of your paycheck, for health insurance. But also, if there’s a retirement plan, you want to make sure you maximize that. Because the time value of money, you graduate ’24, ‘25. And you’re going to retire. Let’s say they raise social security to 68. Oh, boy! The value of compounding that. And you could do that through easily on bankrate.com. If I put 50 bucks a paycheck, times 52 weeks, and do that over 30 or 40 years. But you need to – Yeah, I can do vancomycin dosing. But nobody’s taught me how to do this.

[00:31:20] TU: Yeah. No. It’s so true. And I think there’s a gap. We’ve been fortunate to partner with over 40 colleges and to do some personal finance education. Often, those are one-off sessions. But for several of them, we’ve seen individuals at the dean level that have really bought into, “Hey, we need to be doing this and doing this longitudinally for our students.”

And what I love hearing preceptors like yourself doing this, it needs to continue from the didactic curriculum to the experiential curriculum. And obviously, my hope is even post-graduation associations and others will pick up some of the education as well. And then we need to pass it on and pass it back, so that when we’re precepting students, we’re able to help them in their own journey.

And step number one is often just that awareness. You give the example of student loan debt and the calculator. And before we can put a plan into action, we have to know what we’re working with. And so, $170,000, as I’ve said on the show before through my own journey, that feels like Monopoly money. But when you look at it as a monthly payment, and what does this actually mean? Okay, this starts to become real. Now we can put a plan in place.

And we first have to accept that, yes, pharmacists might make a good six figure income, but you’re not taking home six figures, right? And this is simple math. We all know this. But students may not be thinking about that. Or what is the actual take home amount? And coming down a little bit off of the high of that, and then looking at what’s that going to mean in terms of bills, mortgages, student loan expenses. And really starting to work that budget so we can make sure we’re achieving those longer-term goals.

[00:32:54] FM: And I think, Tim, sometimes you look at that big figure of 170,000, you throw up your arm.

[00:32:59] TU: That’s right. Yup.

[00:33:01] FM: But so often, you got to slice that pie. Here’s the pie for food. Here’s the pie for the rent. Here’s the pie from a student loan. Okay, I can do this on my salary. But I don’t want to be paying this off for – I want to get a house. I want to go on vacation. How am I going to accelerate this? And I think the way to do it is you have no choice. I think you’ve really got to pick up an additional job. And that’s okay, because it’s a sprint. You get through that. Get that loan paid off. And then you can start doing what you really want to be doing.

[00:33:37] TU: Frank, one of the things you shared with me is that your daughter became debt-free at the age of 28. Your son, very small amount of debt. He’s an engineer for Tesla. And so, for me, as a father of four young boys running YFP, teaching them about personal finance is a really important topic. And I’ve tried a few different things with my kids. And it’s been interesting to see some of the behaviors and habits that they’re picking up on. As you look at now, parenting adult children, I would guess this journey never ends, right? In terms of teaching and –

[00:34:08] FM: Tim, it never ends. Parental love. And I just talked to my children last night, and it’s just you think and worry about them, and frighten them every day.

[00:34:19] TU: Yeah. What worked for you? As you look back on that journey, and teaching your kids about money, what were some of the strategies that you employed, or even things that you’re currently employing? For folks that are listening that maybe have younger children or perhaps will have children into the future, what are some of the strategies? What are some of the tips when it comes to teaching kids about money?

[00:34:40] FM: I think it starts off with, Tim, that my ex and I are both pharmacist and believe in higher education. And also, believe that idle hands are the devil’s hands. And there’s a cost associated with that. But we always kept our kids busy, even if we’re both working parents. It might be after care, during the school year, going to parochial school, and during the summer, going to enrichment camps. But that also tied in.

My daughter, she played town rec ball, high school basketball, AAU basketball. And she went on to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth for sculpture and graphic design. And she played division three basketball. And that was her passion. As parents, we didn’t expect her to get a part-time job.

But my son had the good fortune, from Montclair, New Jersey to get accepted. We lived in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. But by taking the train, the path into New York City every day, he got accepted into Xavier high school in Manhattan. And that’s a Jesuit school, all boys. But also, by getting accepted, he also got the Sons of St. Patrick’s scholarship. And that required him to work.

He worked at a mom and pop local gardening store all four years. Of course, I was beneficiary, because I got the shrubs for half price. I did some of my own landscaping. You know, sweat equity. Both children, they learned to work hard and be passionate through different avenues.

I’m wrestling my daughter being academically, getting scholarships, but also working hard. She was never a star player, but she really enjoyed it. And living in New Jersey at the time, both kids went to state schools out of state. You’re paying out of state tuition. We just buckled down. I picked up extra shifts so I didn’t have to eat pork and beans. But we, me and my ex, paid a majority of their education.

But you were talking – And this is not that long ago, Tim. It was $30,000 a year tuition, room and board. They both have cars. You’re talking $50,000 a year each. Marissa graduated with, I think, about $8,000 in loans. And she has paid those. And then Matthew had about 17,000. That was it, from Purdue University. And he’s down to 5000. And he’s in no rush, because there’s been no need.

It’s teaching your children the value of money younger, of hard work. Also, following your passions. Marissa is probably lifelong – She’s had some injuries. But she goes to the gym. I was a skier. My son took to snowboarding like a fish to water. And also, mountain biking. It’s not just teaching your kids the value of money and hard work, Tim. But it’s also introducing them to sports activities they can do lifelong and be healthy. Because not only just physically healthy, but mentally healthy. Both of my children, yeah, when I talk with them, they go to the gym, they do hiking. Matthew just loves being out in Reno, Nevada, because he’s an hour and a half from the Sierra Nevadas. And buys the epic pass and whatever passes, and every time he can when he’s not at work.

[00:38:10] TU: Tough life, huh? Tough life out there. Yeah. I love, really, the message of work. I think so often, for good reasons, we talk about strategies, like, 529 accounts, and saving, and scholarships, and cash flowing it, and all of those have value. But one of my hopes with my boys is, sure, we’d love to help where we can financially, whether that’s 529 accounts, whether that’s guiding them to scholarships, whether that’s cash flowing it. The expense so they’re not burdened with the debt. But also, there’s a lifelong lesson that comes from that hard work component, right? And that is something that transcends any type of transfer of here’s $10,000, from a 529 account. That’s great. But the lifelong lesson of the hard work that can come from that is going to have a much, much bigger return on investment. I think that’s a great reminder. And I’m grateful that you shared that.

Frank, my last question for you is I suspect we have many pharmacists listening that have students on rotation with them, residence on rotation with them, and perhaps have thought before, “How can I incorporate this topic of personal finance into the rotation? Into the learning experience?”

And I’ve actually had a handful of people email me over the past couple years that are doing some cool things around this topic. And so, my question is, for you, that others might be able to adopt or build upon, what have you done, practically speaking, with students around the topic of personal finance that others might be able to apply in their own situation?

[00:39:41] FM: What I’ve done – and I just did it with Jordan. As you know, I bought a gift. And we’ve got to get together. I’ve been so busy. But I did reach out to him. I do have your book. And within the next couple of weeks, him and I will get together. But one of the first things we did, I have no – Hey, when are you going to graduate? Depends what year they’re in. How much money do you have in loans? And what does that mean? Here’s that dollar figure. What are your plans for paying that back? How are you going to pay it back?

You introduce them to tools, whether through Excel or bankrate.com. And make a realistic, concrete example of what their payment is going to be when they graduate? And what jobs are available to them? And also, suggest, and try, and push, and prod, and share with them what I’ve done and what’s been successful for me.

And my mom, at a young age, she – They said, “Well, how are you going to be successful in college?” Well, I like nice things, Tim. Nice things doesn’t necessarily mean new, shiny things. But it means the ability – my days off, I want to go skiing. I want to go mountain biking. It’s putting concrete things to that student and saying, “How are you going to get there and follow your personal passions, as well as your professional passions?” But also, because it’s become so competitive, Tim, I also encourage the students to become board certified.

[00:41:10] TU: Yeah, another credential that can help there. And I love the angle of the passions, right? Because one of things we often talk about is that a good financial plan – Yes, we need to be taking care of our future self. Yes, we need to be planning for retirement. But we also have to make sure we’re living a rich life today, right? Throughout. There has to be this balance between the two.

And I think that connects and makes the topic come alive, especially as we’re talking about working with students, that when I talk about 401k accounts, 403b accounts, Roth IRAs, HSAs, insurance policies, those are tomorrow things in their mind.

[00:41:45] TU: That’s Greek. That’s Greek.

[00:41:46] TU: Right. Exactly. Yeah, it’s overwhelming. It’s confusing. But what’s right in front of them are student loans. I’m thinking about buying a home. There’re these things that I haven’t done for the last six or eight years when I’ve been in school that I’ve enjoyed that were hobbies or passions that I haven’t done that don’t want to do again. And so, being able to really lean into those areas that they can resonate with, that they can hook on to, I think can really help make the financial plan come alive.

And then from there, take those jumping points, right? To talk about time value of money. To talk about Roth IRAs, and 401k’s and HSAs. But we’ve got to often meet the learner where they are, and then take them on the journey towards the future as well.

[00:42:24] FM: Yeah, absolutely, Tim. Yeah, because they’re going to be with you for many weeks on rotation, for 8 weeks. You don’t need to bludgeon them over the head day one. But just bring that into the conversation.

[00:42:36] TU: Yeah. Well, it’s great. And one of the ideas we’ve had for a while that has just hit the backburner, among other things, is coming up with a preceptor toolkit of sorts around this topic. I’ve taught a personal finance course at a couple universities that we can use as a jumping point. But if there’s any preceptors out there listening that would like to join me and put something together that we could perhaps share with others, I suspect that we all have different resources or tools that would be helpful, shoot us an email, [email protected]. And we’d love to get a small group together to talk about this further.

Frank, thanks so much for taking time to come on the show to share your journey, the wisdom with the next generation of pharmacists. Really appreciate it. And your mindset towards paying it forward. Thank you so much.

[00:43:18] FM: Tim, thank you so much for having me. And I’m looking so forward to some people, pharmacists, viewing this and latching on to an idea. And your good hard work that you’re doing is just much needed in the profession. Hats off to you.

[00:43:32] TU: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[OUTRO]

[00:43:34] 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 Pharmacists podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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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 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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