YFP 135: How Jessica Applied KonMari Principles to Jumpstart Her Financial Plan


How Jessica Applied KonMari Principles to Jumpstart Her Financial Plan

Dr. Jessica Louie joins Tim Ulbrich on this week’s episode. Dr. Louie is a Certified KonMari Consultant and Coach, creator of Clarify Simplify Align, host of The Burnout Doctor Podcast, Board-Certified Critical Care Pharmacist and Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at West Coast University College of Pharmacy. She shares about her journey being trained as a critical care pharmacist, how she quickly found herself burned out, how the KonMari method helped her and how she applied the KonMari method to her financial plan. These small intentional daily steps led to big changes in her financial plan including being completely debt free and having over 6 figures in savings.

About Today’s Guest

Hello there! I’m Dr. Jessica Louie, the founder of Clarify Simplify Align & The Burnout Doctor Podcast where I help BURNED out pharmacists get out of overwhelm and live with LESS clutter and MORE energy. As a former shopaholic, workaholic and pharmacist struggling with burnout, I know how it feels to live a life in overwhelm without clear goals or a clear purpose. Fortunately, I was saved by decluttering and simplifying my life and now my simple framework – Clarify. Simplify. Align Method – helps YOU go from cluttered & stressed to leading with confidence & curating a life YOU love! Are you ready to get started?

Summary

Dr. Jessica Louie shares how she became burned out as a pharmacy resident, how the KonMari method helped her recover from that burnout and how she applied the KonMari principles to her financial plan. Jessica realized that she was burned out in 2014. She thought that she was going to enjoy life after all of her pharmacy training but ended up not being fulfilled as she got closer to the finish line. She turned to shopping as a coping mechanism and wasn’t living intentionally. Her aunt suddenly died and she had a wake up call that life is short.

Jessica discovered the KonMari method which saved her from the burn out. She started looking at her life and seeing what things in her life that she spent her time and energy on sparked joy. Jessica shares that the KonMari method can be applied to not only your home but also your life.

Jessica went to a private school that cost $500,000. After grants, work study and an internship, she had to pay $300,000 out of pocket. When she finished her PGY2, she had $35,000-$40,000 in debt. Jessica was looking for another Japanese philosophy that she could use to take control of her finances and discovered the Kakeibo method which translates to “household ledger”. With this method, you track your spending with a pen and paper and break up your expenses into four categories: survival, optional, cultural and extra. Jessica reflects on her purchases each day to see where her money is going.

With this tracking system, Jessica was able to become very intentional with her spending, delay gratification by not purchasing items on a whim, and really put quality purchases and experiences in front of the quantity of them.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. It’s a pleasure to welcome back onto the show Dr. Jessica Louie. Dr. Louie came on in Episode 086 to talk about how to spark joy as an entrepreneur. And on today’s show, we talk more about her applications of the KonMari method and principles on her financial plan and the transformation that that has had. Jessica, welcome back to the show.

Jessica Louie: Thank you, Tim, for having me on the podcast.

Tim Ulbrich: Very excited. It’s been fun to track so much of what you have been doing in your own journey since Episode 086, so I look forward to bringing our audience up to speed as well as talking about some of the wins that you’ve had and how you’ve been able to tackle your own financial plan. So while I know that some of our audience is already familiar with your background from listening to Episode 086 or potentially following your podcast and the work that you’ve been doing, I certainly don’t want to make that assumption for all, considering that your background is such an important part of this story that led to the transformation that we’ll talk about in detail today on the show. So you do hold, as I mentioned in the introduction, you hold several roles, both as an entrepreneur and as a healthcare professional in the academic setting as well. So let’s start in the pharmacy space. What’s your current position at the university? And can you share about how you got into that work?

Jessica Louie: Yes, of course. So I currently am an associate professor of pharmacy practice at West Coast University School of Pharmacy in Los Angeles. And I’m a 2013 graduate from University of Southern California. And I then went on to pursue a PGY1 in pharmacy practice and then a PGY2 in critical care at University of Utah. And after I finished my residencies, I joined as an assistant professor at West Coast in 2015.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So you know, as I think about, Jessica — and I know you and I have talked about this before offline, obviously you went to pharmacy school, we all know the work that needs to be done before you even get to pharmacy school. You then go through extensive residency training. And as you’ve talked about before, it took you nine years to get through the training and become a board-certified critical care pharmacist, which our listeners know it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort. But I think many people think, wow, you’ve got everything that you needed and you’ve wanted. You’ve got obviously the PharmD, you’ve got residency training, you’ve become board-certified, you finally have made it to the finish line, it’s time to enjoy life. But that really wasn’t what happened when you got to that point. You found yourself burned out. So talk to us more about how you got to that realization of getting to that point of getting burned out.

Jessica Louie: Yes, that’s a great observation, Tim. I think that a lot of us feel that when we get to the end of our training and we get all the certifications, you know, life is going to be great. We’re going to be happy and fulfilled by it. And I definitely felt that that was the path I was on. I was going to enjoy my life. So back in 2014-2015 when I was finishing up everything, I realized that getting to the finish line was not fulfilling. I was so burned out from residency, my first year in academia, and to cope with all of that, I was turning to other things. And one of the things I was turning towards was shopping to try to fill these feelings of frustration and unfulfillment. So you know, I’ve talked a little bit about my journey before, but basically, I wasn’t living intentionally, I wasn’t bringing joy into my life. So when a life event happened, it really woke me up to show me how I was living and how life can be so short. So I invested a lot of time, a lot of money, into changing my situation. And you know, that’s how it’s led into my business. And I can go into a little bit more details if you’d like.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and we will — just real quick, we will link in our show notes to The Burnout Doctor podcast. I know you’ve documented more of your journey there, and I think our listeners, many of whom may be struggling with similar challenges, would get lots of value from not only hearing more about your story but also the great content and work that you’ve done with that podcast. So you mentioned some of the behaviors, you know, you mentioned the shopping piece that was really kind of a coping mechanism and that. How did you self-realize that, you know, something’s got to change? And then ultimately, talk to us about the KonMari method, what that is for our listeners that may not know and how that played such a big role in helping you get out of that cycle.

Jessica Louie: Yes. So I think that what really woke me up was the combination of a few things: realizing that I was still keeping residency hours during my first career. And you know, 60-80 hours a week wasn’t necessarily sustainable in the long term. And you know, one of the things that played into that was my partner and boyfriend was also in residency in medicine, so he was keeping long hours. So I realized, you know, maybe this isn’t normal in a full-time job situation. And I was putting work first all the time and still was not enjoying friends and family. And then when my aunt passed away suddenly from a very aggressive cancer, that’s really what woke me up and realized that wow, I really hadn’t been traveling and spending a lot of time with family that I really wanted to. So the KonMari method is what I consider saving me from a lot of my burnout. You know, it is a decluttering and simplifying technique, popularized in Japan by Marie Kondo. So it really is about how you spark joy in life and what you focus your time and energy on so that it is about decluttering a physical space first because that’s what is closest to you, that’s what has the largest impact on most people and can create a lot of distraction and overwhelm in your life. So you apply it to your home first, and then you’re able to apply the same techniques to other areas of your life. But you know, what made it a little bit more popular I would say is the technique creates this life-changing transformation because people don’t rebound when they go through the technique from beginning to end. So you’re not consistently organizing or hiring professional organizers multiple times in your life. You’re doing it once, however long it takes, one month, six months, a year, and then it really changes your habits of how you view physical items and that leads into how you spend your money and things like that.

Tim Ulbrich: So before we get into the weeds about the application of those principles to the financial plan — because I think that’s a really neat connection that those that are even familiar with the KonMari method may not see that. I know many people are aware of this through the Netflix series and others that came out. And I think people think about it — many people I think think about it more as just an organization, simplifying of your stuff at home, which obviously has impacts on your finances. But I think we’re going to talk in more details about how that can result in tracking spending and reflecting on spending. But for those that may not be as familiar, I want them to be able to visualize this, even about the physical space, before we talk about the financial aspects of it and how you apply to that. So if you’re working with somebody, and you’re going into the home and the goal is to simplify, walk us through like what does that process look like? And what are the common things that you see that are barriers that people may not even see themselves, right?

Jessica Louie: That’s a great question, Tim. So when I’m working with clients in their homes, the first step that I think a lot of people miss in the KonMari method is we don’t just start pulling things out and decluttering right away. We really take this intentional moment and my clients usually work on this as a pre-work in our workbooks to really set up the ideal vision for your life. So that’s what I call the Clarify step in my method. And you’re clarifying your why, your purpose, your values and really visualizing how you want your space to feel when you’re standing in it. So it’s not only about what it visually looks like because, you know, honestly, I don’t live in a Pinterest-worthy home or anything. And most of us don’t. So it’s more about what it feels to you when you’re standing there. And many people want that feeling to be calm, peaceful type of sanctuary in their home settings. So we’re really diving deep into that and getting into why you really want to get this done. You know, if you get stuck during the process, what’s going to help propel you forward? So we get that very well written down and on paper so it’s a good goal and very clear. And I think that you and Tim Church have talked about this as well with how you clarify in the financial process. So it’s very similar.

Tim Ulbrich: Ah, the ever-talked about why, right? We talk about that a lot on this show, as you mentioned, and I think it’s so important to the financial plan but also important here in what you’re talking about, certainly connections. And I know for you, speaking of the why, “Start With Why,” Simon Sinek’s book, which is such a great read, we’ll link to that in the show notes, was so critical for you in your own journey. So talk to us for a moment about that concept, the concept of start with why and why that’s so important as folks are thinking about this and how they may apply it to their own personal situation.
Jessica Louie: Yes. So Simon Sinek’s books are definitely transformative for me. It was actually my brother-in-law, who is a former pharmacist, who recommended them to me. It took about nine months for me to actually read them when he saw that I really needed that process. So Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” process, he has three or four books now. And it’s really about we live life, and a lot of times, we live it on autopilot and we don’t realize a lot of things in our lives connect to one another and really sitting down and writing out how our life experiences have shaped us and getting clear on why we get up in the morning, that’s really what it comes down to. And we don’t get up in the morning for a tangible things like money and family members, we get up for a larger purpose that we won’t necessarily achieve in life but we have in the forefront of our mind when we’re making decisions. And that kind of plays into our value system and how we do things the way we do them. So I actually went and trained with Simon Sinek’s team in New York back a few years ago. So it was really helpful to get those down on paper so that what you do is not what you’re defined by. It’s why you do things and how you make decisions then. So I definitely recommend the process. It’s a great read. Also an audiobook as well. It’s really helped me in how I view life and then how I view leadership as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. So good. And I know he’s got some really cool resources, obviously the book but also some workbooks and things that you can do that help you to articulate and go through the activities that will help you define your why. So important to everything we talk about on this show. So before we talk about the method and the steps of how you paid off your loans and have put yourself in the financial position that you’re in that I think our listeners will be able to apply as well to their own personal situation, let’s start with the position you were in. So talk to us about the debt that you accumulated through school and what was the amount that you were working with before we actually get into the how you paid that off.

Jessica Louie: Yes, definitely. So I will say that my dad was really influential in this. My dad is Chinese, and he actually kept all these Excel spreadsheets. So I actually have pretty exact numbers. So looking at it, so I went to a nonprofit private, so USC is private. And I was there for seven years for my bachelor’s degree and pharmacy school. So the school cost about $500,000. And I received $115,000 in school grants, so that’s money you don’t need to pay back. I took out $50,000 in student loans — so that was about $14,000 for undergrad. I spent three years getting my bachelor’s degree for that; I shortened it by a year intentionally — and $36,000 for pharmacy school. And then I rounded it off with about $40,000 in work-study and my intern pharmacist position at the hospital at USC. So out-of-pocket costs were just under $300,000 for my schooling.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow. Wow. So obviously big price sticker tag for what’s known as a great school, of course. And obviously, you mentioned having some grants, which is money you don’t have to pay back. You mentioned having some work-study components but still a huge out-of-pocket component. So when you found yourself — let’s fast forward and roughly, if you don’t have the exact numbers, but it sounds like maybe you do. You know, you’re at the point of graduation, you start one year of residency, two years of residency. Obviously, we’re talking big numbers, limited income during residency. So take us to the point where you finish your PGY2. Where were you at there at that point in terms of debt that you were working through and trying to pay off? And what was the mountain that you were after at that point?

Jessica Louie: So during residency, I was paying on my student loans. I wasn’t paying a large sum, I would say, but I still was paying probably about $300-500 a month, I would say.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Jessica Louie: And I came out, I want to say around $35,000-40,000 left. And after my PGY2 — so I started working in July of that year at the university. And it took me seven months to pay off the rest of the loan. So I want to say it was around $35,000 when I came out of residency.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So even though — and I think it’s important for our listeners to hear that. You know, we obviously talk a lot about the national debt loads right now, Class of 2019, the average was about $172,000. So here we’re talking about a lower payoff amount but a very aggressive window in which you were able to do that. And obviously, we’ll talk about the method that you were able to do that. Short period of time, aggressive repayment, but there was also things that I don’t want our listeners to lose that you were able to do through working, through work-study, through pursuing grants that helped to minimize that while you were in school as well. So let’s talk about the method that you were able to use to help ultimately pay this off in an aggressive period of time based on the KonMari principles, the Kakebo method. Talk to us about what exactly is that? How is it used? And then we’ll dive in further of exactly how people may apply that month in and month out to their own plan.

Jessica Louie: Yes, of course. So you know the KonMari method is a Japanese philosophy, so I actually was also looking for all their philosophies, and I came across the Kakebo method. And you know, translated, it basically stands for “household ledger.” And it is a really simple philosophy and concept, in my opinion where you’re able to track your finances on this ledger. So you basically use pen and paper, going back old school, to track everything. And each month, you come up with a plan of what are your fixed expenses and you’re going to track everything that you spend money on. So I consider this a daily practice as part of my evening routines. And then you have a savings goal as well. And then at the end of the month, you look at how you did. And I also do a weekly practice to check in and then the end of month practice. So when you’re tracking, it’s not the typical tracking, I would say. It’s broken into four different pillars. So the pillars are Survival, Optional, Cultural, and Extra.

Tim Ulbrich: So you’re categorizing as you’re — let’s say you’re making charges on a credit card, those charges are coming in, you’re manually tracking those. And then you’re assigning those to one of the four categories. Is that accurate?

Jessica Louie: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So break those down. Let’s go through those one-by-one. Survival, Optional, Cultural, Extra. So give me some examples — probably this one more self-explanatory than the others — but Survival items would include things like that?

Jessica Louie: So those would be things that you need to survive, so a lot of your fixed expenses, so your housing cost, if you have transportation costs, general food costs like groceries, and like health insurance, things like that. So things that are more difficult to change but things that are probably a large portion of your overall expenses.

Tim Ulbrich: So we often, as we’ve talked about budgeting before on the show, we would categorize these as necessary or essential expenses. So same idea. And I like to think, you know, making the connection here to something like an Emergency Fund, this is usually the number that I’m using when I think about 3-6 months of what I’m basing that off of. So that’s the survival category. What would you then put in the Optional category that I think we often refer to as the discretionary expense?

Jessica Louie: Yes, so these would be things that aren’t necessarily survival mode. So instead of groceries, this would be eating out, fast food, and those luxury type of expenses, so clothing that’s not necessary, skincare, nail salon, things like that.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. And what intrigued me is we — I see here that again, we have four buckets: Survival, Optional, Cultural, Extra. And when we tend to think of discretionary expenses, I see some crossover between the Optional and the Cultural bucket. So break down for us what would be some examples of things that would be in the cultural bucket. But why also is that important to separate that out from those things that are considered Optional?

Jessica Louie: Yes. So I think that the Cultural really plays into the Japanese philosophy of how we invest in ourselves, personal and professional development. So this is getting back into thinking about going to the theater and things like movies, music, that we consider more cultural nowadays. So it’s really about putting those experiences and memories into play. So the KonMari method really emphasizes creating memories and experiences in your life over investing in stuff. So this method also goes into that with how you view things that give back to your community or just have great memories that you don’t necessarily need to travel to.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that. I’ve never seen that separated out before, Jessica. But I love that because I think it does exactly what you just said is it forces you to be a little bit more intentional about prioritizing those things whereas I think especially if you’re in a mode of either trying to cut, cut, cut to pay off debt or you’re just a really aggressive saver and you have a hard time spending money on experiences and things like music and theater and books, things that would fall into that category, I like that there’s a manual process to keep yourself accountable to that and calling it out as a separate category. So that’s the cultural bucket. What would fall, then, into the Extra category?

Jessica Louie: So the Extra category would be kind of a sinking emergency fund. So these would be things that like unexpected car repairs, unexpected health things that come up that, you know — it can also be holiday gifts or gifts throughout the year that are just extra that aren’t always monthly expenses.

Tim Ulbrich: So car repairs, maintenance, gifts, holiday types of things. So are you saving for these in advance like in a sinking fund mode where you say, OK, I’m going to — I don’t know — put away $200 a month and then as these expenses come I already have the money saved? Or are you simply just tracking these expenses as the Extra category when they come to be?

Jessica Louie: So in the Kakebo, it’s really just about tracking. But you definitely can create those funds for you in different buckets.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So each day, you’re tracking your spending, which I think what I love — and I hope our listeners are catching the intentionality here. When you’re doing this daily and you’re thinking about this daily, you’re manually tracking this daily, you’re doing it old school pen and paper, you know, I think there’s power — obviously there’s effort and work — but there’s power, as you and I talked about before we hit record today, in really making that emotional connection back to your financials. I think with the advancement obviously in credit cards and great apps and tools — and I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t use those if that works as a system, I know it does for my wife and I — but sometimes that manual process is really what allows you to take a step back and reflect on and have probably some of those Aha! moments of wow, I had no idea I was spending this much here or there. And I know my wife Jess and I often have conversations where it’s like, oh my gosh, we forgot we spent this charge four days ago and how quickly that can happen, and obviously the tracking helps bring that back into play, back into perspective. So each day, you’re tracking your spending, you’re categorizing them into these four different categories, Survival, Optional, Cultural, Extra. And then at the end of the day and the week, you’re reviewing them, end of the month, you’re asking questions such as how much do I have right now? How much am I spending? How much do I want to have? How can I change my habits? So give our listeners some reflection, some example. What are some of the things that you’ve identified or you and your boyfriend have identified as you’ve gone through this that might some of those Aha! moments that you wouldn’t have otherwise identified if you aren’t using a method like this.

Jessica Louie: So I think that just seeing it on paper can be really impactful because, you know, I do use credit cards and I rarely use cash. So it is being able to see that without just scrolling through an app on your phone or your desktop. So in terms of some Ahas!, I think that really seeing how much some of those luxury type of things cost, you know, I used to have my nails done at salons, I have since don’t do that almost at all and I learned how to do that at home if I really wanted to. And just seeing restaurants — so one of the things that we’ve talked about, my boyfriend and I, is when we go to restaurants, we love to have like a main meal together because we don’t cook very complex meals at home. We’re very simple at home, so we enjoy that at a restaurant, but we don’t indulge in extra things we can have at home. So beverages besides water, we don’t usually order. And we don’t usually order dessert or appetizers. So those are all things that we can just have at home if we really want to, make our own cocktails at home, have some desserts at home and not spend that extra money when we’re going out for an optional type of item.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. And I’m guessing there’s already tracking sheets and things that exist to help people do this. Or is that something that you developed to do this categorization?

Jessica Louie: Yes, so you can pull a journal out. I do have a template that walks you through this and reminds you. You can write down what you want in each of the four categories. So that’s all on my website, free to download in a short workbook. And it has the template in there.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. We’ll link to that in the show notes. And I’m curious to hear more, Jessica, from you on the reflection piece. I think we talk a lot about reflection, we know it’s important, you hear people say how valuable it is, but it’s often hard to put a finger on what does that look like? So talk to us, what does that look like for you? As you’re doing this reflection piece, like what are some of the things you’re reflecting upon? And how detailed is that method? Is there any guidance there? Or are you just looking and kind of making some observations and notes along the way?

Jessica Louie: So in terms of reflection, you know, it’s obviously adding up some of the categories and then putting numbers, real numbers down of what are you able to put into savings this month? What are you able to put towards your loans or other sinking funds that you have going? I also track other benefits like retirement benefits when I’m going through my monthly check-in process. But really for the reflection journaling process, I think that it’s important to think about the method really emphasizes being able to invest in quality items instead of the quantity of items. So it really helps you with that delayed gratification step of we’re saving towards something that is going to be a quality trip and experience for us or quality item that’s going to last years in our home or some other place in our lives. So you’re able to take a step back and say, “Oh, I really want that now. But we’re waiting and we’re going to have this anticipation up to getting that trip or thing in your life.”

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Jessica Louie: So one of the things that we’ve done is that relates to our cars. We’ve been able to — even though we would like to both have new cars, we’ve still delayed that gratification step because it’s still kind of an Optional category for us. It’s not a Survival category yet.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. It’s such a richer experience when you save up for something, you think about it, you anticipate it, and then you enjoy it, knowing that you’ve had that much effort and intentionality along the way. I think that’s a great reminder for me and hopefully for our listeners as well. So a couple fun questions I have for you before we wrap up here. This has really been excellent. I know I’ve taken a lot away myself. You know, I have to ask you, as somebody who is running and created a podcast, The Burnout Doctor podcast, obviously we know that burnout and wellness is a big issue right now in our profession. Many are struggling. I can’t help but think here you are, working a busy, full-time academic job. And I know as myself as an academic, usually that’s not just a 40-hour a week job. You also have multiple businesses that you’re working on that I’m sure are taking up lots of time. You have these experiences that are important to you, obviously relationships that are important to you. So I’m assuming time is limited for you, and often you may find yourself in a position of being stressed and potentially burned out. So how do you functionally deal with that as somebody who teaches on this topic but obviously also needs to apply it in your own life?

Jessica Louie: That’s a great question, Tim. So I think you know, when you go through burnout, I don’t think that you ever solve it, you ever cure it. You really come up with strategies that are going to work in your life to really help you reset those feelings of burnout and make sure that it’s under control and you’re still thriving in life instead of just surviving. So what I teach my students as well and other pharmacists has been to come up with strategies where you are able to focus your energy levels because, you know, energy and time are some of our limited resources. So that’s really about — I focus really on the personal, what things you can control in your life versus outside things. A lot of people in the burnout world focus on organizations and leadership, but that’s really not my focus. So for me, it’s really focusing on how do I feel throughout the day? So that means that you’re time-blocking out your day and taking these intentional breaks every hour and getting up and moving. You’re really mastering transitions throughout the day to save up your energy levels. And when you’re not at work, you’re physically and mentally not cluttering your brain with thinking about work. So that means having healthy boundaries related to email and how you work and integrate your work into your life. And I think that’s been really helpful and that’s how you really align everything together in your life so you find harmony. So those are a couple things I do. I definitely go into individualized type of plans with my clients so that we can really figure out what’s going to work for them and really tackle the biggest struggle they’re having first before we tackle other items in their life.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great stuff. And I hope, you know, for our listeners, one word of encouragement I would send out there, which I heard from what you just had mentioned, has been so important in my life is just starting with reflection. Like being aware and building some of that self-awareness of what are the moments where I’m carrying extra stress? Or what are the moments where I find myself, work is melding with home and cluttering my mind? And being able to feel those and identify those first obviously I think is such a critical step before you even put in solutions towards those. So I know you’re a big reader, and I know you draw from lots of different resources for inspiration. Is there a book or potentially two or something that you are currently reading, have read recently, that you’ve drawn inspiration from that you would recommend to our listeners?

Jessica Louie: So many great books, I would say. But I’m going to pull from not necessarily a business book. But I really have enjoyed Tonya Dalton’s “Joy of Missing Out” book. So if you’ve heard of the acronym JOMO versus FOMO, it’s really about how do you look at life and find joy in missing out on things and experiences that maybe you compare yourself to others. So I think it’s a great read. It has some very similar philosophies to the KonMari method and Simon Sinek and everything.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. I’m putting it on my GoodReads wishlist right now and on my Audible list as well. Thank you for that. So where can our listeners go to learn more about your work and connect with you?

Jessica Louie: So they can go to my website — it’s my name, Dr.JessicaLouie.com — and get free resources on The Burnout Doctor podcast. And I’ll be launching a free Master Class on five ways to cultivate joy at work this month as well. So you’ll be able to listen to that for free and see if one of the programs on burnout is something that you are interested in. My next 12-week program launches in March 2. So we’re taking applications now through March.

Tim Ulbrich: Great. So we will link your website in our show notes. And really appreciate 1, you coming on the show and taking time to share your journey but also, it’s been fun to watch from afar here in Ohio the great work that you’re doing in California, helping many, many pharmacists and professionals that are struggling with many of the things we talked about here on the show. And I continue to look forward to watching your success in the future. So thank you for taking time to come on the show. We really appreciate it. And to our listeners, as a reminder as always, if you like what you heard on this week’s episode of the podcast, we would really appreciate if you would take just a couple minutes to leave us a rating and review in iTunes, Apple podcasts, wherever you listen to your podcasts each and every week. As always, thank you for taking the time to join us on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And we look forward to having you back again next week. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 110: How One Couple Overcame Hardship to Pay Off $150,000


Debt Free: How One Couple Overcame Hardship to Pay Off $150,000

Betsy and Casey Hoida join Tim Ulbrich to talk about their debt free journey paying off $150,000 of student loan debt, why and how Betsy left her secure pharmacy job after completing residency and getting board certification and how they managed to work together to get on the same page financially despite some highs and lows along the way.

About Today’s Guests

Betsy and Casey Hoida reside in Green Bay, WI with their two daughters, Mollie and Claire. The couple both obtained their PharmD from Ferris State University in 2006.

Casey is a home infusion and hospice/palliative care pharmacist. He has been working in the field of home infusion for 10 years. Casey specializes in infusions involving antibiotics, anti-fungals, TPN, chemotherapy, PCA, inotropic, immunoglobulin and other biologic drugs. His future plans involve continuing to expand biological services with in the pharmacy as well as introducing MTM services to his patients. Outside of work Casey’s interest in personal finance continues to grow and he plans on pursuing opportunities in fee for service based financial planning.

Betsy has a diverse clinical pharmacy background with experience in a multitude of practice settings. In December of 2017, she left her traditional hospital clinical pharmacist role to take on the position of CEO of the Hoida Household. Currently, she staffs part time in a compounding pharmacy and is obtaining a certification as a Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) Specialist with the hopes of using her entrepreneurial spirit to start a consulting business this fall.

Together they paid off $150,000 of debt in 6 years.

Summary

Betsy and Casey Hoida share their journey of paying off $150,000 of student loan debt. They both received their PharmD from Ferris State University in 2006 and have since had diverse careers. After graduating, Betsy worked for a year and then completed residency. In 2017, Betsy realized she was burned out and needed to step away from a traditional pharmacy career. Currently, she staffs part time in a compounding pharmacy and is obtaining a certification as a Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) Specialist with the hopes of using her entrepreneurial spirit to start a consulting business this fall. Casey had a retail pharmacist internship and worked for a retail company for a year after graduating. He took Betsy’s long-term care position and fell in love with the infusion portion of pharmacy. He currently works as a home infusion and hospice/palliative care pharmacist and has been working in the field of home infusion for 10 years.

Casey explains that when they graduated, the market for pharmacists was hot. He knew that they carried student loan debt, the majority being his, but he wasn’t worried about finding a job and having a good salary to begin paying it off. Casey took the lead on managing their finances and the couple began moving on paying off their debt. They did two things from the beginning to help them learn how to live off of less; automatically maxing out their 401(k) so they didn’t see the amount on their check and making the shift to living off of one salary.

Betsy explains that the driving force on their mission of becoming debt free stems from not wanting to feel trapped. Casey shares that he was raised to avoid debt, to pay it back quickly if you’re in it and to save. While in the process of paying debt off, he got to the point where he didn’t want to be owned by someone else for the debts he had.

Casey explains that in order to pay off the $150,000 of debt in 6 years, they had to become really intentional with their money and, most importantly, get on the same page. The first year that they were paying it off, they didn’t have a mortgage and used the extra money to chip away at it faster. They continued to remain mindful of their budget and made short term goals (six months or a year). They used overtime earnings and any extra income to go to paying off their student loans. Now that their student loans are paid off, they are so much more relaxed.

Betsy and Casey also discuss why and how Betsy left her secure pharmacy job after completing residency and getting board certification and how they managed to work together to get on the same page financially despite some highs and lows along the way.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. I know I say this often, but I mean it sincerely each and every time, and this week is no exception. We have a great episode for you where I’m going to talk with Betsy and Casey Hoida. We’re going to talk about their financial journey. Yes, we’re going to talk about the student loan debt that they paid off. But more than that, we’re going to talk about life, how did they manage this topic together, what does this mean for their future, and we’re going to talk about the impact and how they translate their finances and connecting that with their career. So Betsy and Casey, thank you for your time and welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Casey Hoida: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Betsy Hoida: Yeah, we’re super excited. Big fan.

Tim Ulbrich: I am excited. Thank you. We’ve been meaning to record this for some time, and here we are. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read briefly, Betsy, you had sent me an email about a month or so ago, and I think it’s going to help frame our conversation as it gives a little bit of background in your story and then certainly I’m going to ask you to build off of that. So you said, “Hi there. My husband and I love the show. I actually became addicted, and he listens from time to time as well. We’re both pharmacists, but I recently left the profession in search of something else. Not sure what. We’ve had a long but inspirational journey, currently debt-free, minus our mortgage.” So I want to talk about that journey, and before doing so, congratulations on being debt-free except your mortgage. That certainly is no small feat, and I want to talk a little bit about how you did that. So Betsy, let’s start with you. Take us back to your story, your financial journey. You graduate from pharmacy school at Ferris State, and tell us a little bit about your career path, what you did after graduation, and tell us a little bit about your student debt situation and how you viewed this topic of money.

Betsy Hoida: Sure. So I graduated in 2006, and I decided to work initially community pharmacy and then changed my mind last-minute because I had heard about a job in long-term care. So I took that position. I worked for a year, and then I decided to go back and do a residency. At that point, Casey had kind of taken over our debt together. So I really, I didn’t even know what my student loans were, to be honest with you. So I did a residency in our first year of marriage, which was interesting.

Tim Ulbrich: I did that as well. It’s challenging, right?

Betsy Hoida: Yes, it was very challenging. But we weren’t even to the real challenges in life yet like kids and so on. But anyways, to get back to my background, then I decided that we were ready to have kids. I guess we decided, not I decided.

Casey Hoida: It takes two people.

Betsy Hoida: Right. To move back home, which was the UP, but we didn’t want to move back home, so we chose Green Bay, Wisconsin. And I got us both jobs up here. I’m a networker, so at a residency conference, I kind of found about Aurora and got us both jobs up here. And my journey since then has kind of been finding out really what I wanted in the profession and also balancing being a mom, which was really hard for me married to a pharmacist as well.

Tim Ulbrich: And we’re going to come back to that because what really stood out to me when you and I had talked prior to the interview, Betsy, is that as I look at your career path, you know, PGY1 residency, board certification, you were involved in lots of different clinical services, you served as the residency program director, I mean that often for many is really viewed as kind of the premier career path into clinical pharmacy residency training, board certified and so forth. But you ultimately made a decision to pick up and walk away from that, and it’s a little bit of a teaser for our listeners, but we’re going to come back and talk about why. And we’ll talk about the impact of that obviously financially as well. So Casey, before we go into more of that, tell us a little bit about your background after graduating from Ferris State and some of the work that you’re doing now and how you got into that career path.

Casey Hoida: Sure, yeah. I graduated in 2006 also and at that time, we were one of the — not newest classes of PharmDs, but it was fairly new. So we had all this clinical knowledge and were ready to use it. And in pharmacy school, in doing my internship, I was in retail. And so I guess it just kind of made sense that I continued on there once I graduated. So I worked for a company for about a year, and then our career paths, Betsy and I, kind of intertwined here. When she left the long-term care facility to pursue a residency, I actually took her position, and that’s how I got into long-term care. To tell you how I got to where I am now, in long-term care, there was a small IV pharmacy department, and the pharmacist, who was a little bit older than me who was kind of running it didn’t really enjoy, didn’t care much for it. I said, “Oh, wow, this looks interesting.” Potential for me to use more of my clinical knowledge, and so I jumped in and just really kind of fell in love with the infusion portion of pharmacy. And so when we decided to make the move to Wisconsin, as Betsy stated, she was kind enough to find me a position. I didn’t even have to look. And it was for a home infusion position. And I had very limited experience, I interviewed for it, was asked a lot of clinical questions by my director, and he knew that I didn’t have a lot of experience but liked me and thought that I was going to be a good fit and gave me that opportunity to get into a portion of pharmacy that not a lot of people know about, a practice setting that’s not very familiar to many people. And I’ve been there for 10 years now, and I really, really enjoy it.

Tim Ulbrich: So to our listeners, if anybody needs a job or is currently looking for a job, we’ve learned that Betsy is the networker.

Betsy Hoida: You got it!

Tim Ulbrich: So she can help open up those doors. And I love that career path story, though. You know, in terms of the two of you working together. But Casey also kind of finding yourself in somewhat of a “nontraditional” career path, despite not doing residency and other things. But I think that speaks to the value and the power of networking and connections and certainly leaning on your wife where appropriate. So that’s exciting. So I want to hear about the two of you, you graduated from pharmacy school, you’ve got student loan debt, we still are in the time period where the job market’s pretty good, 2006-2007. Obviously, you’re facing somewhat of a significant indebtedness load. And one of the common things that I see among pharmacists, myself included, is there’s this tendency of, hey, I’m going to make great money or I do make great money, I’m not really worried about it. So let’s focus on buying a home and doing these other things. And then all of a sudden, you end up in a position where you feel like, wow, this is a little bit more stressful and we feel more pinched than we thought we would. So did you both have the stress as it related to student loans? Were you worried about it? Were you not worried about it? What was your perspective coming out financially. And let’s start, Betsy, if you want to talk about that.

Betsy Hoida: No. I did not. Because like I said, Casey naturally is great at finances. And I just let him have control over it. I didn’t even pay attention. That sounds horrible. It really does. But you know, that was his gift. And we bought our first house, we didn’t know what we were doing, and yeah. Do you have anything to add to that?

Casey Hoida: Yeah, you know, the first thing that I want to point out just kind of for the listeners is we were really in a different position back then when we graduated in 2006, like you said. It was — the pharmacy market was hot, there was money flowing everywhere, sign-on bonuses and stuff. And so yes, we had this student loan debt, but I wasn’t worried about finding a job and getting a top-end salary. So today, from what I know, that’s a lot different. Kids that are coming out —

Betsy Hoida: Kids.

Casey Hoida: Yeah, I say kids.

Tim Ulbrich: Those kids.

Casey Hoida: Yeah, professionals are coming out from pharmacy school, and the job market is a lot different. And salaries potentially are a lot different than what they used to be. So with that being said, yeah, I was concerned about our debt. I knew that a majority of it was mine, so there was a personal aspect of it that I brought a majority of the debt to our marriage. And I felt more responsible for it, and so it was a worry and it was something that I wanted to address right away. I didn’t want to, you know, utilize it for tax purposes for 20 or 30 years like some people think. So I was definitely on it from the beginning.

Betsy Hoida: We talked about that for awhile. But I wanted to go back, Casey, you talked about us always living on one income.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, go ahead. I’d love to hear about that because I think that’s something we’re seeing with graduates today where, you know, expenses go up to the income right away. Or you have two pharmacists or not even two pharmacists, but people that are able to live off of less than they make, whether that’s one income or just a lesser percentage, obviously put themselves in a position to be able to achieve all their goals that they want to achieve but also that you never know what life’s going to throw at you for a variety of reasons. So it gives you margin and flexibility. So I’d love to hear how you made that decision and why you made that decision because that’s a very intentional choice.

Casey Hoida: Yeah. I think there were two things that we did, and I had thought about this in the past and I couldn’t come up with anyone who might have mentioned this to us, so I’m going to take credit for it or Betsy and I can both take credit for it.

Betsy Hoida: No, totally you.

Casey Hoida: The first thing that we decided to do when we graduated and took our first job is we were going to — and we did — automatically max out of 401k’s. And the reason behind that is we wanted to start saving for retirement right away. And we didn’t want to know what our paycheck looked like when we weren’t contributing to retirement. And so you know, there’s pros and cons to that, but that was one thing that we did. And then the other thing that we did and being mindful about it is we knew that at some point in time, we were going to have kids and who knows what the future holds besides kids? And we wanted to be able to live off of just one salary. So when we were looking at purchasing vehicles and buying a home and a majority of our financial decisions were based on can we do this on one salary? And that’s something we’ve lived by since the beginning.

Tim Ulbrich: Such wisdom there. I hope our listeners caught on and especially the students and those transitioning post-graduation, I mean, the two themes that I really heard there were obviously living off of less than you make, which just has so many benefits in so many different areas — and we’re going to come back and talk to those, about those, here in a little bit as we talk about Betsy’s career transition — but also automation. Automation, automation, automation. And you talked about it in the context of retirement. We’ve talked about it before, Episode 057, we talked about automating your financial plan. But if you can put those automation principles in place as early as possible, you’re less likely to feel like you’re missing it. And obviously, that has a significant compound effect over time in whatever goal that you’re trying to achieve. So what I want to talk about here for a minute, before we talk about the specifics of how you paid off the debt — because I think that’s important. We often focus stories on this podcast where we talk about big numbers and short periods of time. But often, we may not necessarily talk about how you exactly did it, and that’s certainly the piece that listeners want to know. But first, I want to talk about this topic even matters to the two of you. So here, we’re getting into the concept of identifying and finding your financial why. What’s the purpose? What’s the vision? What’s the direction when it comes to the finances? Why do you want to become debt-free? Why do you want to save for the future? Why do you want to do all of the things that we talk about on this show? And that could be different for every person. But having that financial why is incredibly important to being able to have that motivation to achieve your financial goals. So I know this is a big, loaded question, but Betsy, when I say that concept of kind of finding your financial why and why does this topic of money even matter, what comes to mind for you first?

Betsy Hoida: Freedom. Just finding out I was not happy where I was. And you know, that could be a number of things. We have children. I was trying to do everything, but I think the biggest thing is I was not using my gifts to — I’m going to give a shoutout to Alex Barker with his book “Indispensable.” I’ve been following him, and my career path or personality is very similar to him, and I think I felt trapped. I know that there’s something for me, and I really want that freedom to be able to explore that. So that’s my why.

Tim Ulbrich: Love that. Freedom and trapped are two words that really start out to me there. Casey, how about you?

Casey Hoida: Well, for me, it goes back to kind of how I was raised. I was raised that you try to avoid or you don’t owe people money. And if you do, you pay them back. And you save. And that was initially my motivation is that’s how I was raised, and that’s how I viewed money. But as I got older and as I gained more experience, I’d have to kind of reiterate what Betsy has already said is that you get to a point in your life where you just don’t want to be owned by anyone. And carrying debt and having all of these payments to make keeps one working and indebted to the system. And we just got tired of doing that. And so we want to have a future that allows us to follow our passions and to just kind of go where we feel like we’re being led.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome, and that obviously directly plays into why you decided to get the student loan debt off your back. So Casey, talk to me for a little bit about, you know, $150,000 roughly of student loan debt, we’re talking about approximately six years, give or take a little bit of time, that certainly is not a plan where you’re just wandering in 10, 15, 20 years. There’s some intentionality in getting those paid off in a relatively short period of time. So how did you guys practically do it? Month-to-month, year-to-year, how were you able to pay off that amount of debt in a relatively short period of time?

Casey Hoida: Well, we first of all just sat down at one point in time — although we weren’t as serious as we are now — but we sat down, we got the number, we looked at it, we were both on the same page that we didn’t like it and we didn’t want it. And so obviously then the next step is how to go about it. And you know, the first couple years in our marriage, we didn’t have kids. So, and I think —

Betsy Hoida: Yeah, we did.

Casey Hoida: I think the first year — well, not right away, did we? Anyways, the first year, we didn’t have a home and so we had some extra income because we were living off of one to really start pounding away at that debt. And so initially, it kind of went fast. Like we were seeing gains month-to-month, year-to-year. And we’re like, oh wow, this is great. And then you add on a true mortgage, not a rental, and you add on some kids and expenses, vehicles and different things, and it starts to slow down. And so I guess what we really did is we just, we remained mindful that it was there, and we made short-term goals, whether that was six months or a year. And we said, OK, well, here’s the number where it’s at right now, and here’s where we want to be in six months or in a year. And so any overtime that was worked or any extra money that we would get from tax returns or anything like that, it all went to the mortgage — or excuse me, to the student loans — which isn’t fun, but it does decrease that number a lot quicker than just making the minimal payment.

Betsy Hoida: I’d like to jump in here, Tim, and say those were Casey’s thoughts. Honestly, honestly, I mean, I think I talked to you about where we hit a fall.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Betsy Hoida: I was — again, I told you, I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t pinpoint why. So I thought you know what, let’s move into a much bigger house. And let’s just live the ways of the world, this is going to make me happy. Which I was wrong. Spoiler alert. And what had ended up happening was I had after surgery, lost my job. And that was my wakeup call. And at this point — I’m just going to be open and honest here —

Tim Ulbrich: Appreciate it.

Betsy Hoida: That our marriage had hit a low point. And we’d signed up at church for this thing called Marriage Bootcamp. Little did we know that it was actually Financial Peace University. So I put it aside, we’re not doing this, until that low point. And I pulled it out, and I was like, wow, we need to start paying attention to this. Duh. I mean, Casey already was. But I really like how as a team, he is definitely the nerd, and I’m the free spirit. And I’m the one who was finally like, you know what? We have x amount of dollars to pay on this student loan. I know you love the security, but let’s just write the check. Let’s do it. And because I think we had identified that security is so important for both of us, so we did. And on top of that, we really hit the budget in that I wanted to see the numbers. That’s where I started listening to you, I started listening to Dave Ramsey, I just — I didn’t become obsessed, but kind of. I had to because I didn’t know anything about it. And our spending was very intentional.

Tim Ulbrich: So you were a free spirit with a little bit of a conversion to a nerd, you know, right? Along the way. So yeah, and I want to talk about that because I appreciate you sharing honestly some of the back story. And for those listeners that haven’t heard of the nerd-free spirit, that comes from Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. It talks about money personalities, and we tend to fall at different degrees in one of those two buckets, so a nerd or a free spirit. The terms are pretty self-explanatory when it comes to how we manage our finances. But to me, what I love about in hearing your journey is that neither one of those for anybody is right or wrong. It’s a matter of identifying which of those do you tend more towards and how can you effectively work together, especially if you tend not to approach it in the same way. I would even argue for Jess and I, it’s a blessing that we don’t approach this topic in the same way.

Betsy Hoida: Amen.

Tim Ulbrich: Because I think if we were both nerds or we were both free spirits, we may be down a very different path. And I am very appreciative of what she brings to the financial table for us and really helps me look at it in a much different and healthier way, then collectively, we’re able to help each other. So to that point, though, I think often with the nerd-free spirit mindset, there can be tension in that. And so talk to me a little bit more, Casey, about how you were able to navigate that. You know, it sounds like certainly there was some pain there, which necessitated the two of you getting on the same page. But often, I hear from people that say, ‘Hey, I’d really love to dig into this topic, but I feel like I may not be able to get my spouse or my significant other on board. So what worked and didn’t work for you in terms of the two of you getting on the same page financially? Casey, let’s start.

Casey Hoida: Well, I can tell you what didn’t work. And it was trying to impose my financial will on my wife, to simply say, “This is what we’re doing. And this is how we’re going to do it.”

Betsy Hoida: That’s never worked.

Casey Hoida: No.

Betsy Hoida: On anything.

Casey Hoida: And it hasn’t really worked for much of anything, correct.

Tim Ulbrich: She’s a true free spirit, yes.

Casey Hoida: Yes, yes. I mean, you know, I won’t speak for Betsy on this, but one, for her, it helped when she truly became interested in our finances and took ownership on her end. And that’s what I’ll say about that, but then that allowed us to really sit down and one, just have a conversation, what is important to us financially? And what I mean by that is savings, retirement, college funds.

Betsy Hoida: Giving.
Casey Hoida: Giving, yeah, yes, definitely. Giving and mortgage and everything else. And so first, we had to identify what was important to each of us because that, I feel, is important knowledge to have before you can actually put together a —

Betsy Hoida: Cohesive plan.

Casey Hoida: Cohesive plan. And see how wonderful she is at finishing my sentences? Awesome. And so that’s basically it. First, it’s just communication with each other. And then it honestly just started to fall into place. I mean, we would have monthly financial meetings, budget meetings.

Betsy Hoida: They could be heated.
Casey Hoida: They were heated at first, and then they — as we continued on in them because you need to gain experience, they were less heated and they were more productive, and we really started to gain traction at that point in time.

Tim Ulbrich: So Betsy, let me ask — to follow-up on that — ask it this way. I often will talk with people and they may say, ‘Hey, I’m really having a hard time getting my spouse or significant other on board,’ as I mentioned. So from your perspective where maybe Casey was all ready to go and obviously, again, there was pain there that helped to necessitate this, but what advice would you give to those nerds out there of how to effectively engage a significant other that may be more of the free spirit mindset? What works? And what doesn’t work?

Betsy Hoida: So I would approach it as just as, you know, marriage. You keep your side of the street clean, and you know, money is attached to emotion. So really hearing what the other person has to say. And that means sitting down, not duking it out, but you know what I mean. Like we’re going to sit here, and we’re going to get this figured out. And a lot of times, it’s shutting my mouth and listening.

Tim Ulbrich: And building off of that too, going back to what I heard you guys saying your why is that I often will encourage couples — and I’m speaking here out of things I wish I would have done differently and what it took for Jess and I to get on the same page, but if you can start with the why and start with the dream and start with the goals, these month-by-month conversations — I’ll never say easy — but become a little bit easier because you agree on the vision and where you’re going. But if it’s not a shared vision, then I think that month-to-month can be somewhat combative, people shut down, and then you’re certainly resetting the clock. So again, keeping that why and keeping that vision in mind. So the reason I wanted to talk first about the paying off of the student loans and how you guys worked together is because I think that directly relates to, Betsy, to the decision you made that you were kind of unhappy with work, family priorities, prioritizing your marriage, and making the decision to walk away from that and being in the position to do so is really what I want to talk about here. So talk us through for a minute, you know, where were you in terms of just work, you know, externally, people may look at that and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got residency training. You’re board certified. You’ve got a ‘good job.’’ So what was not going well? What wasn’t working? And what was going on that led to you to the decision to say, ‘You know what, I need to walk away and take a break from this.’

Betsy Hoida: First, people thought I was crazy, like you said. But it turned into my health was not — it was slowly going down the drain, I was not taking care of myself, we have a child with special needs, I couldn’t sleep at night, my hair was falling out, I had lost a significant amount of weight. It got to the point of I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore. I need a break. And that was really hard. And it’s still really hard, I’m not going to lie, being at home and finding out my why. But you know, I’m still working on the board certification stuff. But it’s slowly coming together, and I have a belief that if I keep this path, it’s going to lead me to something. I know it is. I listen to your show, and I’m so inspired. Listening to other pharmapreneurs talking about their journeys is so powerful. And that just kind of keeps me motivated.

Tim Ulbrich: When we had talked a couple weeks ago, Betsy, I took some notes. And you had mentioned that you felt like you were in a crazy cycle. You felt like you had “lost me.” And you felt like you were burned out. And you know, there certainly were physical things that you mentioned there, but I think that many people listening may feel some of that, and they start to see the impact of relationship with family or kids, and what I want to highlight here is the importance of the financial piece to allow yourself to make an alternative decision if you find yourself in that place. And that’s why I love the work that Alex Barker’s doing, his book “Indispensable,” and to me, there’s so much synergy here between finding a fulfilling career and making sure you have yourself in a financial position that allows you to make some of those bold decisions. And sometimes, that is a different full-time job, sometimes that’s working part-time to be with family, sometimes that’s pursuing an entrepreneurial dream. Sometimes, that’s traveling the world for a year and taking the year off like Nick Ornella did that we featured on the podcast.

Betsy Hoida: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: I mean, it can look many different ways depending on your why, but the point is you put yourself in a position to do that. And so talk me through, I would assume there was a significant amount of fear there when you made that decision. I’d love to hear from both of you here. But did you put some markers in place to say, hey, before we do this, we want to be out of debt, we want to have a fully funded emergency fund, we want to be here, here, and here? Or were things just at such a point that you said, you know, overall, we’re OK and we’re just going to move on and we’re going to figure it out. So talk me through how you figured out where that place was financially where you could make that jump.

Casey Hoida: Sure. The funny thing is that we were at a financial point where we could do it immediately. We had our emergency fund, the student loans were paid off at that time, we had moved on to paying off our mortgage and were making good strides there. We had no other debt, and yet it terrified — I’ll speak for me, I won’t say us. Betsy will probably agree, but it terrified me for her to stop working.

Betsy Hoida: Oh my gosh, yes.

Casey Hoida: Because we — it was multiple things. One, it was oh, we’re going to lose all of this income and we’re making such great strides on the mortgage and we’re putting additional away in savings, and I don’t want to lose that. But after stepping back and looking back at what our life had become, just a rat race of who’s going to pick up the kids this time, who’s going to — I have to be here to exchange them or I’m going to go to this meeting or whatever the case is. It’s just we were trading off our kids and our lives so each of us could work full-time. And it just got to the point, like Betsy said, where her health was being affected. Mentally, I was exhausted. And I guess —

Betsy Hoida: Or our children. What are we showing our children? You know?

Casey Hoida: Yeah. It just got to the point that we couldn’t take it anymore. And I wish there was something more magical than that. It just got to the point where it had to break. And so we had to say, OK, Betsy — it was best for Betsy to stop working as I carried the insurance and some other things. And so it was best for Betsy to say, I need to step away and take care of myself and take care of my family. And so that’s what we decided to do.

Betsy Hoida: Yeah, best decision. It was terrifying. We had summer coming up. And it’s quality of life as well, you know? Life is short.

Tim Ulbrich: So Betsy, how would you describe, you know, if we used words before like “crazy,” “psycho,” “lost yourself,” and you were burned out, physically, emotionally, etc., like how would you describe it now? I mean, give me some of the words that you would use after you made that decision, what that’s meant for you as a parent, you as a wife, and your family and what would you use to describe that?

Betsy Hoida: I would say I am so much more relaxed. I really, I am. And realize you just day-by-day, day-by-day. I don’t know the future. And we recently had a flood. That would have sent us both into a tailspin, and I’m not going to lie, it was not the greatest waking up in the morning and being ankle deep in water. But we’re able to handle that. And I think, you know, just being I’m at home during the day, so I can handle that kind of stuff and just the nitty gritty details of recovering from the flood.

Tim Ulbrich: And let’s not forget to add that Casey had flood insurance policies in place lined up.

Betsy Hoida: Oh, yeah. So smart. People in this area were shocked because we got hit really hard.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome, and I asked you too because I think I said, “Hey, are you guys in a flood zone?” And you had said no but had that policy in place. So great work, Casey. We talk about building a financial foundation and having a plan to protect your income in emergencies and all those things, and certainly just as important as debt repayment and investing and some of the other things that we talk about on the show. So Betsy, the last question I want to ask you about in terms of this transition away from work is talk to me about the fear of missing out, the FOMO, because I feel like that’s real in pharmacy. It’s real in any profession, but I think for whatever reason, moreso in pharmacy. So again, here you are, board-certified, you’re still working on those very tedious, long board certification exams, right? Residency trained, you’ve had a great career as running out since 2006, but you know, I’m sure you’re having these questions of what does this mean long-term? Am I going to re-enter? Am I going to forget things? Am I going to stay relevant? Am I going to be employable if I want to go back? So is that something you’re still struggling with, the fear of missing out? Or is that something that you’re able to get over quickly as you realize the benefits of the decision that you made?

Betsy Hoida: Honestly, it terrified me until recently where I realized that I’m not going to go back. I really, really believe that there’s something else — I am currently working three hours at a compounding pharmacy, and I’m really interested in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and care of women around mid-life in that area and also just integrative health, that there’s other areas than just the current board-certification, the stuff I’m learning there, that there’s just more out there. There’s way more out there, that’s what I’m so excited about. And I don’t have to. And I don’t have to know today.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and again, just a shoutout to Alex Barker, the Happy PharmD. For those of you that are looking for something else, he’s doing great work over there, and I think he’s really helping people that are working through situations like what you have talked about. So I want to talk about kids for a minute because, you know, as I hear your story and obviously as a father of three young kids, soon to be four, one of the things that gets me so fired up about this topic is that you guys have put yourself in an awesome position in terms of what you’re teaching your kids, what you’re role modeling, but also what the legacy will be of your family going forward. You’ve become debt-free, you’re working hard to teach them financial principles, you’ve prioritized the time with the family. So the question I have here, which is sort of a loaded question, is you know, knowing you have 6 and 9, is that correct, how old your children are?

Betsy Hoida: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. Knowing you have kids that are 6 and 9, you know, when they’re grown adults, you know, how do you want them to talk about you guys? What is the legacy that you want to leave in terms of financially and how you’re raising your family and how you’re maybe changing that generation for them going forward?

Casey Hoida: I always thought initially what I wanted for my kids from a financial standpoint is just to have a big pile of money for them when they get older so life won’t be so hard for them. And that was years ago, even semi-recently, that was my thought. And then I started just doing some more searching and thinking. And you know, that’s not the answer. That is not the answer at all is just having money sitting somewhere. That doesn’t teach anyone anything. And so I guess what I’m looking at now is to teach my kids the danger of money and what the love of it can do to you, to your life, to your relationships, and how to hopefully avoid that in their lifetime. That’s the biggest thing, really, is I want them to not be ruled by money because it can put you into a life that is not at all what is going to make you happy.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And Betsy, talk me through a little bit about what you guys are doing to role model this. I know you’re beginning to do some more of this, but in terms of teaching your kids about money. I know that’s something that my wife and I talk a lot about, we struggle with at times, you know, how can we teach them about this topic that is so big and so important but also make it relevant at where, the ages of where our kids are? So how are you guys approaching the concept of money and teaching that to your children?

Betsy Hoida: Absolutely. I just was emotional for a second about that when he was talking about for me, when you’re giving up — you know, there’s quality time. The time that I’ve been able to spend with them is irreplaceable. And being around for them, they love it. I mean, you know, I’m able to pick them up from school and just invest more in them. But to get back to your question, we are just at that point where we’re starting to teach them. And our oldest is really grasping the fact that — well, she wants all the things. But no, Molly, we’re going to teach you about having a savings account, a spending account, and a giving account. And same with Claire. And I think Dave Ramsey has a program that we can look at, but I kind of, I stole my neighbor’s plan. She does a great job. She is an accountant.

Casey Hoida: I just want to add, I mean, some of the practical things that we’re doing is the girls see us having our financial meeting each month. And they know that it’s occurring, so they’re seeing that. Betsy and I are very mindful when we’re at the store with them that we don’t make just knee-jerk purchases or anything like that. If it’s something that is above a certain dollar amount, I don’t know, I’ll just say $100 — not that that’s our number — but that we have a discussion about it and we’re like, no, we need to save for this and put money away until we have it. We don’t just grab a credit card and buy it that day. Instant gratification, we talk a lot about that in regards to finances. And so along with —

Betsy Hoida: The cars we drive.

Casey Hoida: Yeah, just showing them. We don’t go out to eat all the time, and when we do, we build it up as something special and a treat and not just something you do all the time. Our vehicles are quite old and, you know, just things like that. We’re just very, very mindful about how we talk about money in front of the girls and then what we do with our money in front of them.

Tim Ulbrich: And every single one of those things matters and it has cumulative, compound effects over time. And you know, I can’t remember if I’ve shared this story on the podcast or not, but I can vividly remember — and a shoutout to my parents for this — vividly remember sitting at my kitchen table, probably as early as 7 or 8 years old and getting a weekly allowance and having some of it allocated to savings, some of it allocated to spending, some of that allocated to giving. It might have been dividing up $2 or $3, but it doesn’t matter. You know, eventually that’s going to be $5,000 or $10,000. And those principles get ingrained over time. So whatever you define as those priorities for those of you that currently have kids or will have kids, in addition to not only teaching them those concepts of saving, spending, giving, but also just talking about this. So them seeing that you’re having these meetings, them seeing that you’re working through these issues month-by-month, hearing the discussion, and figuring out that, OK, there’s a process of saving up for something before you spend it and talk it through and not necessarily swipe it on the card, and you know, not have a discussion. So kudos to you guys, I think that’s awesome. And they are, I’m sure, absorbing way more than maybe even you necessarily intend to teach them in the moment. The last piece I want to end up on here is giving. And I know when you and I had talked prior to this recording, you know, as we were talking about kind of a financial why and why does this matter, I had sensed some more philanthropic giving aspirations. And I think you all are in a great position to make this a priority of your financial plan going forward, and it is a hope I have for the YFP community that once you have your own financial foundation and personal finances in place, you’re in a great position to help in many capacities, whether that be with church, local communities, family, anybody that may be in need. And so talk to me about giving for you guys, philosophically how you feel about it and where it fits into your financial plan. So Casey, you want to start?

Casey Hoida: Yeah. Yeah. So just a quick little backstory, so about two years ago as Betsy had indicated, when we were really struggling, we kind of renewed our faith life and became true followers of Christ. And that was a stepping stone for us in regards to giving that — how important I guess it is in one’s life to give back. We’ve received so much and have so many blessings that it’s only right, then obviously, to give a portion of that back. At first, I’ll be honest, when we would go to church, we would give a certain amount because that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to just give some money to the church. And when I thought about it more and I thought about where that money was going and who it was helping, it changed for me. And I became more of a cheerful giver, if you will, than just checking a box like, yep, I gave some money to the church. And so I just, I don’t know, I feel that as we continue to grow in our faith life, we realized how important giving is. And I know when you and I talked a few weeks ago, something that you had mentioned and I’ve heard before about having your monthly amount that you give but then having kind of a discretionary amount set to the side for anything that is just put on your heart and you’re like, wow, now I have this money to help this individual or to help this cause or whatever. And that’s something that I had heard before. But when you had mentioned it, it kind of brought it back to the forefront for me. And I think that’s something that Betsy and I want to be more intentional about is having that discretionary money set aside for just anything that would come up. And then we’re really able to give and to help, and I think that’s important.
Betsy Hoida: Show the girls, show the girls. We had a Christmas party this year. You know, Christmas was a big point where it was a really good teaching opportunity in that they got to see we picked some families to sponsor, and they got to see the families themselves receive the presents. And we got to put together boxes to send overseas, and we got to pick out toys for children. And it was awesome. It was really great. I thought it was going to be a difficult time in Target, but they had so much fun. They really did. And —

Casey Hoida: I think they really understood what we were doing and why they were doing it, especially at what Betsy was saying, the Christmas party, where the children receiving the gifts didn’t know they were from us. It was set up a little bit differently. But the girls, our girls, were able to see those kids receive those gifts and the looks on their faces and just experience the joy of sharing, of giving, I think was prominent and right out in the forefront. And that’s what we were so happy that they were able to experience and see.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and there is — as you both know, I’m sure many of our community feel the same way — I mean, there is true power in giving, obviously not only for those that are receiving but also for the giver. I think it really just shifts your mindset and how you look at the rest of the financial plan, how you spend your money, prioritization of things. And so we actually talked about that in Episode 022 of the podcast, the Power of Giving, for those that want to talk a little bit more about that and again, hopefully that’s a vision that we can continue to inspire among this community. So Betsy and Casey, you have truly inspired me. I’ve enjoyed our time together here, also in our pre-recording. When we had talked prior to the recording, I ran home and shared some of your story with my wife. I was fired up about doing this. And I am 100% confident you’re going to inspire our listeners as well. So thank you so much for coming on the show, thank you for taking the time, and thank you for your willingness to share your story. I really appreciate it.

Betsy Hoida: It was wonderful. It’s our pleasure. It was great.

Casey Hoida: Yeah, we really enjoy just sharing our story. And thank you so much for having us on. I really appreciate it.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you both. And to the YFP community, again, we appreciate you joining us for this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. If you have not done so and you’ve liked what you heard on this show or on any other show that we record each and every week, please head on over to iTunes or whatever podcast player you get your information from each and every week. We’d love to hear your feedback. And if you could leave a review in that podcast player, that would help others recognize the show as well. Until next week, thank you again for joining. And have a great rest of your day.

 

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YFP 106: How This Pharmacist Got His Financial House in Order


How To Get Your Finances in Order as a Pharmacist

John Kohli, PharmD, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about his career journey, how he managed to rack up approximately $260,000 of debt despite graduating from pharmacy school with minimal student loan debt, what motivated him to get his financial house in order, and how he hustled to pay off most of this debt within a 2 year period.

About Today’s Guest

Originally from northeast Ohio, John Kohli currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona and works as a pharmacist in acute care and behavioral health. John graduated with a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2006 from Ohio Northern University. He moved to Arizona where he completed a pharmacy practice residency with emphasis in community pharmacy with Midwestern University College of Pharmacy Glendale. He has worked for independent pharmacies, larger retail pharmacies, and hospitals. His interests include bicycling, speaking German, and volunteering.

Summary

John Kohli has an incredible story to share that includes ups and downs financially and personally and a journey of discovering his true identity and how that impacted his finances. In this podcast, John speaks about how to get your finances in order as a pharmacist.

John, a 2006 graduate of Ohio Northern University, currently works as a PRN pharmacist at a psychiatric hospital. His pharmacist journey started his senior year of high school. He worked at a small independent pharmacy and the pharmacist there encouraged him to apply to Ohio Northern. John was able to graduate with only $60,000 to $70,000 of student loan debt. He received scholarships, worked during the summer full-time and also worked 10 to 20 hours a week during school to help reduce the amount of money he had to borrow. After graduation, he wanted to move to a place with warmer weather and landed a residency in Phoenix. He still lives in Phoenix today.

Although he graduated with minimal debt compared to other pharmacists, John began racking up a lot of debt quickly. After residency, he began earning his first pharmacist salary, thought money wouldn’t be an issue and bought a house in the summer of 2006. By the fall of 2007, the stock market crashed and the housing market in Phoenix was hit hard. He purchased his house for $233,000 with an interest only loan and adjustable rate mortgage. At this time, John was working part-time due to reducing his hours to handle the addiction he was struggling with. He realized he needed to get out of that mortgage and had to short sell his house for $72,000, which affected his credit. He accumulated credit card debt during this time, as well.

John refers to a period of his life as a spiritual financial breakdown. He liked his pharmacy career, but realized he put too much emphasis on his identify as a pharmacist. In recognizing his addiction, he had to acknowledge that there was something missing and that working as a pharmacist could allow him to have a life and find out what was missing, while not focusing on his work as the only goal.

After this process of discovery and reflection, John got serious about paying off the $260,000 of debt that he had accumulated post-graduation which included a second house mortgage, credit card debt, and student loan debt. He had been gradually paying on this debt, but got serious about paying it off between January 2017 to January 2019. To do this, he worked on budgeting to take control of his expenses and started saving 70-90% of his income. John built an emergency fund ($10,000 that grew to $50,000), contributed to retirement (not in a 401k, but in a Roth and stocks but then contributed to a 401k once he got a full-time job again), and rented and had a roommate. He purchased his second home once he was able to save 20% for it. When he got serious about paying off his debt, he got rid of his credit card and paid it off, paid off his student loans and then paid off his second mortgage. He picked up another job and worked a lot and also slashed his budget in some obscure ways, like not using air conditioning even in the hot Phoenix summer.

Now that John’s debt is paid off, he feels like he has options, feels serene, and can handle what comes at him spiritually, mentally and financially. Even though it was really hard and he doubted that he’d be able to pay everything off when he was in the trenches of it, he now sees how it was worth it. Although John isn’t planning on being as dramatic as he was when he was paying off his debt, he still saves 70% to 90% of his income and lives frugally. In the future, he wants to buy some sort of asset like real estate or a business.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. I’m excited to welcome John Kohli onto the show, a 2006 graduate of Ohio Northern University who has an incredible journey to share with our listeners that includes ups and downs financially and personally and a journey of discovering his true identity and how that has impacted his finances. John, welcome to the show!

John Kohli: Thanks, Tim. Glad to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: I appreciate your time. You know, here we are, Memorial Day weekend, 8 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. out in Arizona, so — actually 5 a.m., right? Out in Arizona?

John Kohli: Yeah, that’s correct. Yes. Bright and early.

Tim Ulbrich: Early morning, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and share your story with our listeners. I think, as I mentioned, incredible journey that I know has been inspirational to me and I’m sure will be the same for our listeners. So let’s start with your education and training. Tell me a little bit about how you got into pharmacy and then your career path since graduating from Ohio Northern in 2006.

John Kohli: Well, absolutely. I was working in a pharmacy as a senior in high school, actually. A small, independently owned pharmacy in the small town where I grew up, and the pharmacist encouraged me to apply to her alma mater, which was and is Ohio Northern. And I decided this would be a great career choice. I packed my bags, moved to Ada, and spent the six years there. And after that was looking at maybe I should move to a warmer place in winter. And I really liked the Southwest, so I found a residency out in Phoenix and decided to pack up my Honda Accord and drive on over to Phoenix, do a residency, and plans were to stay for a little bit and see how things went. And here I am, almost — what? — now 13 years later.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

John Kohli: Still here.

Tim Ulbrich: So growing up in northeast Ohio, as I recall, correct?

John Kohli: That’s correct.

Tim Ulbrich: So no wonder. I grew up in Buffalo. So no wonder you wanted to move out to Arizona. I mean, you spent time in northeast Ohio, you spent time in Ada, Ohio, where the winds and the polar vortexes are readily there. So going out to the warmer weather certainly makes sense. So talk us through, you got to Arizona, you do residency with a compounding pharmacy at Midwestern University. Tell us then about the career path that leads up to your current role at the psychiatric hospital.

John Kohli: It’s interesting. I’m glad that I did the residency out here in Arizona because I didn’t know anybody but a friend of a friend from Ohio Northern, who was also a student at Midwestern. So I came out here blind in terms of any friends or connections other than my job and that one loose connection. And I ended up starting to be an assistant professor at Midwestern and also working still at that compounding pharmacy. And that is where my journey continued. And I met a lot of people through the state association, through residency. We had some residents groups. And then I ended up leaving the college and just working full-time at the compounding pharmacy, although this specific one was more in terms of HIV specializing. So we helped patients there at that clinic. So it was about at that time that I really had what I call my spiritual and financial breakdown. And my problems with addiction really came into play. And I had to take about a year to sort of take some time off from pharmacy and just work part-time. I worked in a grocery store setting in another small, compounding pharmacy for a year or two, then bounced into a clinical pharmacy position with the prisons for a very brief moment and then back into the grocery store. So at that time, it was figuring out, is this the right career for me? What do I want to do with my life? A lot of the financial realities were starting to hit there. So there was a lot of questions about what am I doing? And it was during that time that I landed the director position at a psych hospital. And from there, spent about 3-4 years in that position. Also got into a PRN position at an acute care-trauma hospital and really built those connections in that aspect of pharmacy. And that’s where I am today now.

refinance student loans

Tim Ulbrich: And so before we get into, you know, what you referenced as your spiritual/financial breakdown, knowing that’s such a big part of your story, I want to talk about your strategy and debt position coming out of pharmacy school because you really had a lower amount of student loan debt, significantly lower, than is the average. So I’ve talked before with our listeners, also went to Ohio Northern University, because of my lack of education and awareness and different factors, I came out with a little more than $200,000 of debt during my repayment journey. But you had a much lower amount, $60,000-70,000, which is about $100,000 less than the national average right now. So how were you able to graduate with the lower amount of debt than is the norm, especially coming out of a private institution?

John Kohli: You know, Ohio Northern blessed me with some scholarship. So I already came in with some academic scholarship and also, through — there was an organization in the nearby small town, and they also helped with a portion of my student loan, or student tuition, excuse me.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

John Kohli: And then I basically worked throughout my years at Ohio Northern. I worked during the summer full-time and worked during the school year 10-20 hours a week from really freshman year until I graduated. So — and I paid some of that tuition and tried to minimize the amount of loan debt I had to incur.

Tim Ulbrich: So minimizing the amount that you needed to borrow for cost of living and other things, scholarships, it sounds like from that, as well as the work experience. I’m just curious, Ada, as everybody knows — for those that don’t know, it’s literally in the middle of nowhere — so I get the summer work, you know, you probably went home to northeast Ohio. Where were you working like throughout the year? Like there’s one pharmacy I think within 10 miles.

John Kohli: Yes. Well, I had to drive the 10 or so miles to Lima, Ohio.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

John Kohli: And luckily, I met an alumnus in the Rite Aid corporation, and from — I’d done some college work as a senior in high school, and I was able to get my intern license the winter of my sophomore year.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

John Kohli: So actually in December of that year, I started interning at Rite Aid in Lima, Ohio, and would drive there on the weekends, sometimes during the week, but almost every weekend. Sometimes I wished that I could be hanging out and enjoying the weekends off, but there was a lot of times I had to go into work.

Tim Ulbrich: A lot of hustle. And we’re going to come back to that because that’s very much your journey of paying off debt was a lot of hard work and hustle. You’re giving me flashbacks, John. I remember sitting in the chapel at Ohio Northern in our Profession of Pharmacy POP course winter semester of the P2 year, applying for intern licenses. So I was back on campus recently talking with our students, and I was like, you know, we had POP, Profession of Pharmacy in the chapel. And they looked at me like I was crazy because now they have like these nice facilities and buildings and all that. So good times and memories. So you know, let’s talk about what happened. I mean, we’re going to talk in a minute about paying off $260,000 of debt, which was a variety of things, student loans, a mortgage, some credit card debt. But what happened from graduating in such a good financial position to really, in some sense, the wheels falling off and racking up a significant amount of debt after graduation? Where did that debt come from? And why was that the case?

John Kohli: Well, the biggest thing that happened was after I finished my residency and got that first real pharmacist salary, and I felt like I was rolling in dough. I mean, this is what I wanted — this is why I went to school for six years and an extra year. And I bought a house here in Phoenix in the summer of 2006. And if anybody can remember, yes, yes. You know exactly where I’m going with this.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

John Kohli: Is by 2007, the fall of 2007, the stock market crashed, and the housing market just tanked here in Phoenix. So I bought with an interest-only loan. I didn’t put any money down, and I bought at the top, tip-top of the market. And that was a significant — that was over $200,000 of debt right there in that property. And this was at the time when I had to start working part-time and wasn’t full-time employed. So it was OK when times were good. I could pay that mortgage. But as soon as something unexpected happened and I didn’t have that income and the market wasn’t great, I was in a bind. And that’s where I also racked up credit card debt and was just not able, you know, would have been able to pay the mortgage but also, it was a burden.

Tim Ulbrich: So it sounds like several factors came together that, you know, the part-time work since you’re not working full-time, you mentioned interest-only loan, no money down, and all of a sudden, the market takes a significant hit. And so you don’t have that full-time income. Obviously, you have some student loan debt. But that leads then, I’m assuming, to some credit card debt because of a lesser salary and the mortgage challenges that are going on. So give me the details on the home. I mean, obviously what I know of Arizona and the financial crisis with the mortgage bubble being popped is they were hit probably harder than anybody else. I mean, maybe a couple other markets, but what did that actually look like number-wise for you? And how did that impact the rest of your plan?

John Kohli: Oh yes. So I bought in 2006, $233,000 as an interest-only, adjustable rate mortgage after a 10-year arm I think is what it was. And ended up short selling that house in 2012 for about $72,000.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

John Kohli: So that is how bad it was here.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

John Kohli: And even after I sold, that definitely affected my credit and ability to purchase something else. So I was looking at trying to find something for cash, and you could find, in those 2012-2013, you could find condos here in Phoenix, you know, nice 2-bedroom, 2-bath condos for under $50,000. So I was looking to pay cash for something. But I kept getting under contract and losing it or there was bidding wars. And then the market just was out of my reach in terms of paying cash after that. And it was, you know — now, we’re back up to where we were prior to the crash or the recession or even higher than where we were.

Tim Ulbrich: You know, it’s really interesting just to hear you say, John, in such a short period of time, you went from graduation, feeling like you’re rolling in the door, six-figure income to all of a sudden, what was I would argue a very good position, only $60,000-70,000 of student loan debt quickly turns into a lot of debt because of the mortgage position, credit card debt, you mentioned the car loan, of course the student loan debt didn’t go away. I think there’s something to be learned for all of us there in terms especially when you’re looking at those big purchases like a home, here we are again, right, 2019, super hot market here in Columbus. I think it’s the No. 1 market in the country right now. And I think it’s easy to buy these homes, the doctor loans are readily available, nothing down, arms, all those types of things, interest-only options, and for some people, they may be able to get away with that. Maybe the market doesn’t crash next year, maybe it does, but really looking holistically at the rest of your financial plan to say, hey, if the market goes down 20% next year or 30% or 40%, what’s my game plan, right? As I look at the rest of the plan, and I think that gets into a bias where we tend to look at things through the lens of today.

John Kohli: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: Assuming they’re always going to stay the way that they are today.

John Kohli: Yeah, everything looks great.

Tim Ulbrich: Everything looks great.

John Kohli: Like you said, what happens if the market crashes? Or what happens if I lose my job? Or some other unexpected thing happens? What do we do?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, you never know. That’s exactly right. You never know what that may be. So I’m assuming — I want to come back to you mentioned previously having a spiritual/financial breakdown. And I have to assume all of this was going on at the same time when I just see the transition from where things started to where things ended up and then obviously, we’ll talk about the recovery of that on the back end. So tell me more about this spiritual/financial breakdown, as much as you’re willing to share about where that came from and then how that played a part in eventually you turning this ship around.

John Kohli: Yeah. You know, I just realized that I had really liked my career and I liked pharmacy, but I think I was just putting too much emphasis on the career, you know, the career being my identity. Like it wasn’t just I’m John, who is a pharmacist. It was, I’m John the pharmacist. And everything I did was based on this job and also in the fact that I also wanted to make money. And that was the end of the goal. That was really it was just in, you know, pursuing this goal of getting that degree or getting that salary. And once it happened, there really wasn’t anything — it wasn’t that fulfilling. It was, OK, now I’m done with it. And what do I do now? And I think that in really recognizing my addiction, I had to say, there’s something missing here. And I need to find out what that is. And I think, you know, pharmacy could allow me to have a life to find out what that is but not be the end and only goal.

Tim Ulbrich: So much wisdom there. And I hope our listeners hear that because I think that’s true for many pharmacists, addiction aside, is the identity that can come from career. Something I struggle with on a regular basis, and I think it’s something that just constantly I’m hoping to challenge others to say, hey, at the end of all this, what’s the point? Why does this matter? As you look back in 30 or 40 years, like, what is this really about? And I like what you said about career is certainly a big part of the overall picture, but I think if that becomes the sole identity, there’s going to be a lot of disappointment for lots of different reasons. So where did that discovery process for you come from? Was that a part of you working through the addiction? You mentioned a spiritual component there. Where did you really pivot and say, OK, if it’s not this is my true identity, this is what is my true identity. Where did you get the freedom to discover that?

John Kohli: It’s been from just spiritual work. You know, in looking at the things in my life that I’ve done, you know, my character assets, my character liabilities, basically forgiving myself for the mistakes I’ve made and then also recognizing that I can have choices, and I can choose what I want to do and my actions have consequences, either positive or negative. So it really got — basically, seeing everything crash down around me and recognizing that I’m still here, I’m OK, and I’ve got a responsibility to take care of these things, but now I can deliberately make choices to basically put myself into a better option in the future. And that that is my responsibility, and I can use that through my relationship with God, through other ways — not just through my job but through other things, you know, through my church, through community organizations and my hobbies and interests, that it needs to all come together.

Tim Ulbrich: So let me build on that. And one of the things I often think about — probably too much, to be honest with you — is that I often think and try to picture a scenario where I’m 75-80 years old if I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to live that long, my kids are grown and they’re off, and my wife and I are reflecting back on life, and I try to think from those moments, from that moment, like as you look back, I try to think about what are the things that would need to happen that I would say, “Life well lived,” and I would have peace with that. And I often worry and am somewhat anxious that I’m going to look back at that and say, “Wow, I spent a whole lot of time doing a whole lot of things that didn’t really matter a whole lot in the scheme of this bigger picture.” So for you, John, as you think about that scenario, what are the things that you want to look back on when you’re 75-80 years old and say, “I’m so glad I did this or I spent my time doing this.” What are those things that are most important?

John Kohli: I think for me, it’s helping my family, you know, my parents. I want to make sure that they’re retirement and the rest of their life is taken care of. I want to help my brother and sister. And then I want to help friends and other people that are in addiction. I want to be able to show them that there’s a way out. And I think that, you know, as much as money is great and having great experiences, traveling and accomplishment, those are all great things, but I really think it’s that relationships with the people that you love and other just people in general are going to be the most important things that I look back on.

Tim Ulbrich: You know, one of the other things I just thought of, John, is that the data would show that there’s several people that are going to be listening to this podcast that may be struggling with some type of an addiction. Obviously, that can be in a variety of different things. And while there’s not necessarily data to show this, I would argue there’s many that are listening that are struggling with identity solely being tied up in career. If somebody is listening today and one of those two things resonates, what words of wisdom would you have for them?

John Kohli: Well, if it’s addiction, there’s many organizations to help with that. And you know, I would encourage looking into those types of areas. And if it’s identity, you’re really reflecting. And if you can take some time off, maybe, you know even if it’s a couple days, if you are blessed with being able to take a couple weeks, to just look at what do you want? And find out what do you want? I’ve always had a bucket list of things that I wanted to do, from — basically from college. It was 100 things. List 100 things that you want to accomplish before you die because you’ve got to start doing it now. And you know, maybe that’s one way to start, to say what are some important things that you want to get done? And writing them down, and then taking a couple to start. And see what you need to do to do those things because that’s what I’m realizing is that life is short. I am in my late 30s, but I feel that — I still have a lot of time, but it’s not an endless amount of time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love your suggestion there of just taking time to stop and reflect, right? It’s just so easy when life gets so busy to run week to week, month to month, year to year. And as I’m sure you do, we’re still relatively, I guess, new graduates. I graduated in 2008. So 11 years ago, but I look back at that 11 years and I’m like, what the heck happened? Like that went extremely quick. And if you’re not intentional about it, it can fly by. And I think often, that can turn into a career without intention. So let’s talk about the practicalities of how you did it, how you paid off $260,000 of debt, which was a combination of student loans, a second house mortgage after the first experience you had, some credit card debt. And while this was of course over a period of time, I know that you did most of this between January 2017 and January 2019. So that’s a lot of money in a very short period of time. So talk us through how you did it, how you wrapped your arms around this incredible amount of debt, and what did this look like month by month for you to begin to knock this down and ultimately get it paid off?

John Kohli: Absolutely. It’s hard to think — when you say that number, I’m like, wow, was it really that much? But I guess it was. And really, it definitely felt when I was hustling the hardest, you know, I kept praying, I was like, “God, if this is the right thing for me to be doing,” — because I was spending so many hours at work that I was like, “If this isn’t, please stop it.” I was willing to do what it took and to be very intense in getting there. But at the same time, I kept asking and pausing to say, “If this isn’t right, show me the way to do it.” But I guess it must have been right because here I am. And so I short-sold that house. And I was working and saving money. I started budgeting after that short sale, and I started actually looking at my finances. I think that was the first and foremost thing was actually knowing where my money was going and being deliberate about it, writing it out. And that allowed me to save some money. I started with an emergency fund. I don’t remember exactly how much it was, but maybe $10,000? And then it basically grew up to about $50,000. And I was looking for a place to buy with that. But it never worked out, so I just kind of kept saving it, started saving for retirement in my own — I wasn’t in a 401k thing, so I just put some stuff in a Roth IRA and bought some stocks in a mutual fund. And then I did get the full-time job, so I did start contributing to a 401k. And then I just really kept up with budgeting, kept up with saving as much as I could, and I was saving a pretty significant percentage. I was renting, I had a roommate at certain times, so my expenses weren’t that high. But then I finally did decide to buy another property. And I put down 20%. But then I had this mortgage over my head. And that was — it stressed me out again because I felt, you know, maybe there was a little bit of PTSD from my previous experience that oh my gosh, what happens if something terrible happens? So I had that mortgage, I still had a little bit of student loan. But in 2017, January, I decided, you know what? I’m going to get intense, and I’m going to basically get rid of my credit cards — I had finally paid those off — get rid of the other student loan because I had the cash to pay for it, so I got rid of that student loan even though it was such a low interest, I’m thinking, man, I could make so much more money in the stock market, but you know what, I’m going to get rid of this debt. And then it was, I’m going to get rid of this mortgage because I don’t want to have any debt anymore. And there we go. So that’s where I picked up another job and basically just worked my tail off.

Tim Ulbrich: So no credit card debt, no student loan debt, no mortgage, no car payments. Put that into words for me. What does that feel like? I mean, what is that sense of relief and freedom that you get being in the position you’re in right now?

John Kohli: It just feels like I have options. You know, it’s the openness. I feel like — well one, I’m serene because I really do feel like I can handle whatever is thrown at me. Really, financially, I can handle whatever is thrown at me. I do feel even spiritually, I could handle whatever’s thrown at me. But here I am in this just — I feel very secure financially. And then from my kind of just a I guess mentally, I feel like I have so many options. So that is just for me, it just really does feel like freedom. It’s freedom to choose, freedom to take advantage of whatever opportunity comes up, and it just, it feels like it was worth it, even though at certain points of time during that process, I was doubting it or was unsure. But it definitely feels like it’s worth it now.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think freedom is the exact word that I think about when I hear your journey. I mean, whether it’s freedom to take a year off to pursue something that you want, whether it’s freedom to give in a radical way for something that you’re passionate about. Options, options, options, right? And that’s really where you are right now. And I think certainly, it’s an incredible journey to hear where you started, where you went, and now where you’ve taken that into the future. So now that your debt is paid off, what is the plan? What are you doing with all of this extra money each and every month? Have you slowed down the hustle and the grind and the cutting of expenses? Or have you kept that and are you reallocating that money in other directions?

John Kohli: OK, so I definitely got pretty dramatic in my cutting of expenses during that time. I spent last summer with no air conditioning in Arizona through the summer.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

John Kohli: It wasn’t that much, but you know, in terms of money saved, that was the commitment level that I was willing to do. I don’t know if I’m ready to do that this year. I think I could probably spend a couple hundred dollars on the electric bill this summer just to avoid that.

Tim Ulbrich: I think you could, yeah.

John Kohli: Yeah, just to avoid the extreme nature of that. But I still do save like 70%, sometimes up to like 90%, of my income now.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

John Kohli: And right now, I’m putting some away in like a retirement account, but most of it is going into just my savings because I — eventually, I want to — maybe it’s a business, maybe it’s a rental property, but some other income. I want to buy some sort of asset to, you know, in the future. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I know for me, it’s having the cash readily available when that option comes up is — to me, that’s important. And still saving for retirement and having investments in index funds, you know, that is still a priority, an area that I’m focusing on. But I still am definitely extreme in my frugality. I still bike to work. I rarely go out to eat because I like cooking, and I like making things for myself. But I think this year, I’m going to probably get air conditioning.

Tim Ulbrich: So you know, it’s interesting. As I hear you talk about the journey paying off the debt but as well as right now where you’re 70%, 80%, 90% of your income, obviously that tells me you have some system in place where you’re tracking and accounting for expenses. So I’m assuming some type of a monthly budget. Can you talk us through what that looks like for you and how you manage that? If you use any tools? I think that’s a practical way that we might have somebody listening who’s going to say, “I’ve got $200,000 in debt, and I just don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do here.” So what does that look like for you on a month-to-month basis?

John Kohli: You know, I have a — in my Notes on my phone, I have a discretionary budget, just in my Notes. And I set aside a certain amount of money, and then whenever I spend it, I document it in my Notes section. And then at the end of the month, I tally all of that up and make sure that it works — what that dollar figure is works with what has been coming in in terms of my income. And because I work sporadically, you know, some paychecks are much higher than other paychecks. But I have an idea of what the income that’s coming in is going to be. So as long as I’m keeping an eye on whatever’s coming in and what’s going out, you know, at the end of the month, they reconcile. And I reconcile it. And I just always use cash if I can. I take a certain amount out of the bank, and that’s what I use to buy things at the grocery store or whatever else I spend. I don’t have credit cards, so if my bank account doesn’t have the money in it, it’s not going to get — I can’t buy it, essentially.

Tim Ulbrich: So that’s a great example, you know, there’s a lot of varieties of budgets. We talk about a zero-based budget a lot on this podcast and on the blog and on the website. But what I’m hearing you say here is you essentially allocate x dollars per month for the discretionary, nice to have, expenses, and you make sure you don’t overspend that, but everything else, you’re allocating towards savings goals or maybe it’s giving or other types of goals. But you’re trying to identify a certain percentage that you’re just not going to overspend and then knowing that —

John Kohli: Exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: OK, very cool. Yeah, I think that’s a good way of doing it. And I think the message there hopefully for our listeners is, you know, there’s not only one way to do budgeting. And I think finding a system and a process that works well for you to allow you to be on the path toward achieving your goals is really what is important. So John, I want to again thank you for coming on the show, for your willingness to share your story. I look forward to following your journey in terms of what you’re going to do going forward, the impact you’re going to have on the pharmacy community, the impact that you’re going to have on those that struggle with addiction or career identity, whether you’re going to eventually invest in a business or real estate, other things. I think the future is really, really bright. And I look forward to following that journey and hopefully collaborating with you on some level going forward. And I thank you again for your time in coming onto the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.
John Kohli: You’re welcome, Tim. It’s been a pleasure, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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YFP 094: Debt Free Theme Hour


Debt Free Theme Hour

On this debt free theme hour, sponsored by Airbnb, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Matt and Amy Farley who paid off $207,000 in just under 4 years. They talk about what motivated their journey, how they were able to work together and what’s next now that they are debt free.

About Today’s Guests

Matt and Amy have been married since 2011. Matt graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 2015 and has worked in the informatics space since then. Amy is a high school choir director at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, IA. They have two kids and a dog named Millie.

Summary

Matt and Amy Farley share their journey of paying off $207,000 of student loans in 4 years. Matt accrued $60,000 of student loan debt from his bachelor degree and the rest in pharmacy school. When he graduated, his debt totaled $187,000. Fortunately, his wife Amy didn’t accrue any debt for her undergraduate studies.

Amy grew up in a frugal household where her parents didn’t make a lot of money but were able to provide them with a great upbringing. Amy says that her parents trained her and her siblings to budget and helped them find scholarships for their college education. With scholarships, Amy was able to complete her bachelor’s degree with no debt. She later completed her master’s degree which was cash flowed through their budget while she continued to work.

While Matt was in college, his view on money shifted. After reading Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, he began to view possessions and money differently. Instead of seeing success marked by the purchase of a new car or large house, he saw monthly payments and debt. When Matt graduated, he saw a high debt number and realized that his take home pay wasn’t as much as he expected, even with a 6 figure pharmacist income. His motivation behind paying off his student loans quickly was that he wanted to be free of debt and have options in the future for other experiences. Amy’s motivation came from faith and wanting to be free from the control of money so that they could give back to others and their children, as well as have money for future goals and experiences.

Initially, Amy and Matt planned to pay off their student loan debt within 2 years. They realized that this trajectory wasn’t sustainable and “slowed” down how aggressive their payments were so that they could start a family and buy a house. The couple shares that their secret of success was found in their budget. They used the budgeting tool YNAB and created a zero-based budget so that every penny went somewhere. They talked regularly about their budget and made sure they were on the same page regarding large purchases and big financial decisions. They also used a debt snowball calculator in Excel to gain momentum to reach $10,000 milestones. Additionally, they were both paid biweekly which allowed them to budget with 24 yearly paychecks and use the additional 2 paychecks for larger payments or other goals.

Matt’s advice to those in pharmacy school is to minimize your lifestyle and not live off of your loans or take trips using them. He also suggests that residency, although can be very helpful for networking and specialized training, may not be necessary for everyone. If residency isn’t pursued, your higher income could be used to pay off your debt or work toward your financial goals.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. And we have a good one for you this week. I have Matt and Amy Farley with me, who paid off over $207,000 in just under four years. And they hit submit on that last payment of debt just a couple days ago as we’re sitting here doing this recording today. They’ve got a great story to share about their journey, what worked, how they have worked together effectively as a couple and now what is the future ahead that they’ve gone through this journey. You might remember, we asked you, the YFP community, what you wanted to hear more of on the podcast, and Debt Free Theme Hours was near top of that list. So we have another great one for you today. We’re going to hopefully continue to feature more of these into the future. So Matt and Amy, welcome to the show. And thank you so much for coming on.

Matt Farley: Hey, Tim. How’s it going?

Amy Farley: Thanks for having us. Hello.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, excited. You have an incredible journey. We just talked briefly before the show, and I know Matt, you and I were messaging back and forth over the past couple months. But I am excited for our listeners to get a sneak peek into the journey that you went through. And it’s really incredible if you think about what you did. $207,000 of student loan debt in under a four-year period and just hitting submit on that last payment just two days ago. So first of all, congratulations on doing that. That’s an incredible accomplishment. And Matt, I’m guessing as you now log out of the Navient platform and you see that big $0, that has to be a great feeling, right?

Matt Farley: Yeah. Honestly, it doesn’t even feel real. You know? Like I’m so used to there being thousands and thousands of dollars on there that I just kind of started accepting that. But now, I log in and it says $0. It feels pretty good.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, it’s amazing when you log onto the platform and you see hundreds of thousands of dollars and, you know, we’ve talked before, it feels like Monopoly money. It doesn’t feel real, and sometimes, you send in those big payments, you don’t see the needle move very much. And I felt the same way when my wife and I hit this journey and we finished paying off our debt. Same thing, Navient platform, I was sitting at my kitchen table. I’ll never forget the moment, but it was like the fireworks, I needed them to come, and they never came. So it took awhile to really set in the reality of that. But you guys have a bright, bright future ahead. So Matt, why don’t we start with your background in terms of undergrad and then into pharmacy school? Tell us a little bit about your journey and some of the debt that you accrued along the way in terms of both undergrad and pharmacy school and then obviously, that collectively being the large part of the debt that you were working through paying off.

Matt Farley: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I went to undergrad. I did four years at the University of Northern Iowa and accumulated about $60,000 of debt. Wasn’t super wise with how I paid for school. I kind of lived on loans and paid for tuition all at the same time. Then I went to pharmacy school at the University of Iowa, accumulated the rest of the debt. Actually kind of going through pharmacy school got some pretty good scholarships that paid for a little less than half of pharmacy school. But you know, it just seemed like it still accumulated to when we graduated being at about $187,000. And so luckily and fortunately, my wife Amy didn’t have any debt from undergrad. So that was kind of the number we were looking at when I graduated pharmacy school. And so you know, after pharmacy school, I took a job as an IT pharmacist. My background’s in IT, in informatics, and I’ve been a part of a couple startup companies along the way and in pharmacy school and so was able to land that job out of school and just felt really motivated at that point to knock out this debt. And so that’s the number we started with, and yeah. Now I’m working as an informatics pharmacist for a pharmaceutical company.

Tim Ulbrich: Thank you for sharing. And Amy, talk us a little bit through your background. And as we talked before the show, my understanding is you grew up in a little bit more of a frugal environment and you kind of strapped your way through this with scholarships and ultimately, cash flowing a Master’s degree. And so I guess we can blame Matt for all this debt, right?

Amy Farley: Oh, absolutely.

Matt Farley: Unfortunately, it’s my fault.

Amy Farley: I reminded him of that once in awhile. But no. Yeah, so I grew up in a really frugal house where my parents didn’t make much, but they worked very, very hard to use every penny and give us a great upbringing. And then they trained me and my siblings along the way too of budgeting techniques and worked really hard alongside us to find a lot of scholarships going into college, so yeah. I went and got my undergrad at the University of Northern Iowa as well. But I was able to pay for all of that using scholarships that my parents kind of helped me figure out and learn how to do. And then I started working as a high school choir director and decided that I wanted to get my Master’s, so I did that online while working and while we were starting to pay off all of this debt. And just like you said, we cash flowed my Master’s.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. And so the work you’re doing now is in music education, and you had mentioned directing the high school choir, correct?

Amy Farley: Yeah, yep. So I direct show choirs and your regular choir that you think of and then a jazz choir as well. It’s a lot of fun.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Yeah. So Matt, how many thank you cards have you written to Amy’s parents for helping out with all those scholarships?

Matt Farley: Yeah, I mean, definitely. We talk about it. I haven’t written any cards, but we’ve definitely talked about it.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s fun, that’s fun. So one of the questions I want to ask — and I’d love to hear from both of you on this — is we talk a lot on the show about, you know, the why, the motivations, the what’s behind the hustle and the grit. And for everybody, that often is different. But when I hear your story, $207,000 of debt that you paid off in less than four years, to me, that really says there’s a significant motivation and why around getting this debt off of your shoulders, for whatever reason. So Matt, let’s start with you. Talk me through some of the motivations of why you wanted to have this debt paid off — and let me even add on to that, I guess. Was it always that way? Or can you recall a moment where that transition had happened?

Matt Farley: Yeah, you know, for me, my view of money throughout this process has shifted a lot. I discovered a book, “The Total Money Makeover,” when I was in my second year of pharmacy school that shifted a lot of how I viewed money and possessions in general, right? You know? I think I used to view when people had a nice car, I thought that they were successful. Now, I almost view that as a negative. You know, not that it’s bad to have a nice car, but I always kind of wonder if that car has a payment attached to it or if that ginormous house has a payment attached to it. And so for me, that was when I started this process of viewing money differently and viewing my student loans differently, right? I kind of just thought when I was in pharmacy school that yes, I’m taking out money for school, but I’ll have so much income that it won’t really matter, right? That my lifestyle will be able to be whatever I want it to be, and I won’t have to think about money very much because we’ll have that six-figure income that a pharmacist gets. And so, you know, we graduated and just kind of recognizing that that was a huge number and that when you look at the take-home pay that you actually get as a pharmacist, there really isn’t as much as you might think, right? And so kind of looking towards the future and looking down at like all these different loans you could potentially have and all of the interest that goes along with them. For me, the motivation was being free of that. You know? When you’re talking about loans at 6% or 7% on this debt and then if you have a car payment, you add in 3-5% and then your mortgage is 3-5% or whatever, right? You start doing the math on this over 10-40 years on some of these loans. And it really eats away at your financial success. And so for me, a lot of my motivation was just looking towards the future and wanting to have options for the things that we wanted to do. You know? I love working, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to, right? Or it would be nice if we could just take three months off and think about things or you know, like I love being a pharmacist, but maybe someday I want to start my own company or something. It just seems like the options are available to you if you become financially free from these loans, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love that, Matt, because we talked before the show a little bit that having options, it’s very difficult to put a number to how valuable that is. So you know, I’ve talked to pharmacists before that maybe they want to have an option like you mentioned in pursuing something entrepreneurial. Or they love their work, but they want to have the choice of doing it or how much. Or maybe they’re burned out, and they’re ready to seek something new. Or maybe they have an ill child and want to spend some more time at home. Whatever would be the case, the point is you have options, right? And that is incredibly freeing, and it’s very difficult in a financial plan to put a number on that. And I’m so glad that you had mentioned that. The other thing I really appreciate your comment there is just the concept of the future. And I think, you know, you had mentioned, if you look at really a pharmacist’s take-home pay after taxes and all the things that come out of your paycheck, that dollar amount isn’t necessarily as big as you may think it is. And when you look at the goals or things you need to achieve 20, 30, 40 years from now, you know, that’s not necessarily a whole lot of time to be able to get those things done, and there’s a lot of diligence that needs to be had there. So Amy, same question for you. Tell me a little bit about some of the motivations and why for you guys to be so aggressive because the reality is — and you know this well — is that as you’re dumping all this money at student loans, this means you’re not doing necessarily some other things and there is some sacrifice there. So what was the motivation for you to be able to pay this off so quickly?

Amy Farley: Yeah. I think one of the other things that was a motivation for both of us was our faith and just wanting to be free from the control of money. I think that we’re called to do that in our faith, and so just wanting to be free from that control and the love of money in that way so that we can give to others freely, that we can use our money to bless other people really easily. And then I think another side that Matt didn’t really touch on either is being able to give back to our kids or our future generations, you know, wanting to pay for their college or give them experiences that maybe we weren’t able to have growing up, those types of things too. Just so that we have kind of a freedom financially to live the way that we would like to.

Tim Ulbrich: Love that. Love that. Matt, you had mentioned that when you had initially started, you guys were thinking all in on two years, which I look at those numbers, and I’m like, that’s crazy talk. But and then you had to slow that down, “slow that down,” a little bit, and you did it in less than four. So tell us about that decision to pivot, slow down, be a little bit more flexible, because I think that’s important for our listeners to hear that is that sometimes, the plan changes, right? That’s just the reality. So talk us through that.

Matt Farley: Yeah, you know, kind of the trajectory we were on wasn’t super sustainable. I think it’s a good thing to be intense, but I also think that if you view getting to the point where you are debt-free is like the end-all, be-all of like accomplishment in your life, you’re kind of going to be let down, right? Like you’re going to get to $0 and be like, OK, well, that was probably not worth killing myself. It was really important for us to start a family when we did. And we had been living in an apartment, and we wanted to move to a house and kind of get closer to work. And so we made that decision about a year into that aggressive payoff that we’re going to just slow this down, we’re going to try to build up some down payment for a house, and then have kids, which obviously is expensive. We didn’t go crazy. We bought a townhouse, and we definitely did things that were below our means so that we could continue to be aggressive. But I guess it was just a heart change about viewing the debt. I almost was kind of idolizing it, like this is the reason for life. You know?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Matt Farley: And while I think it’s really important, I definitely think while you’re paying off debt, it’s important to make it a sustainable process. I almost compare it to like losing weight, right? Like if you go on a crash diet, it’s not something that’s going to be sustainable. But if you learn the fundamentals of eating right, exercising and having like a good lifestyle, that’s actually something that will last a lifetime. So I guess that’s sort of the change in mindset for us a little bit.

Tim Ulbrich: So as I look at that number, $207,000 in just under four years, you know, my first thought is, I want to know exactly how Matt and Amy did this. So as you look back on that journey, give us some insight for our listeners that maybe are struggling with a similar debt load and have the desire to become debt-free but are struggling with trying to figure out, how do I actually do this? What does it look like? So Amy, what was the secret of success for you guys in terms of getting this done? Is it the budgeting? Working together? You know, how did you practically get to the point where you could free up enough money each and every month to make extra payments toward your student loans?

Amy Farley: Yeah. Well, I would say the budget is No. 1. And we use a software called YNAB, which is You Need A Budget.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Amy Farley: YNAB. And one of the things in there is that every penny goes somewhere. So we got to the point where we were living on last month’s income, which I think was huge in all of this. So we knew going into each month, here is every penny we have to spend this month. And Matt’s our budgeting guy, so he would make sure that every penny went somewhere, and we really worked through like what is the minimum — or like what is actually what we need for groceries? What is what we need for all of these things? And then every penny that we didn’t need to use went immediately to debt. So I think that that’s a big thing is knowing where your money is going and having a plan for it so that you don’t just randomly spend and all of a sudden, you can’t make that loan commit, you know?

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. So it sounds like you guys used a zero-based budgeting process, I’m guessing if you’re using YNAB. My wife and I use that tool as well. It’s fantastic. We’ll link to it in the show notes, and I think it’s like $7 a month, right? Something like that if I remember right? $80 a year? Something not too crazy. But it is built off of — you’ve heard us talk before on this podcast about a zero-based budget, which essentially to Amy’s point, is accounting for every single — literally every single penny prior to earning that rather than tracking those expenses at the end of the month. And so we teach this process, we have some blog posts, we’ve talked about on the podcast. If our listeners go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/budget, they can download an Excel template that will walk them through that process, and then they can upload it to a tool like YNAB or EveryDollar envelopes, Mint, whatever tool that they would want to use. So Matt, you are, it sounds like, the budgeting person. So how does this work for the two of you? Are you taking the lead and then you’re bringing Amy in as kind of the final decision or to make sure there are certain goals or things you’re trying to achieve that you’re on the same page? What does this look like week-by-week, month-by-month?

Matt Farley: Yeah, so we talk pretty regularly about the budget. Generally, I’ll put it together and then if there’s anything that’s a major change, we’ll talk about it together. We use the functionality in YNAB where when you’re making a purchase, you can log what you’re purchasing and actually check against how much money you have, right? So if I’m buying groceries, I know I have $200 left in that category. So that’s sort of how we communicate just through the app, in a way, because we can just know how much is there. And then when we’d have big purchases to make or we would have big decisions about how much to pay out towards loans, typically I would just consult with Amy before doing that, you know? It seems like we’re at this point with our budget where it’s standard about what’s going to happen. And then anything outside of that, we have a discussion about. Like I feel like I’m blessed that Amy is very just frugal in general, so if I just put her on autopilot, she’s not going to, you know, rack up a credit card or something like that, which is great.

Tim Ulbrich: So Matt, besides the budget, anything else you would add in terms of the secrets of both you and Amy being able to pay off so much debt in such a short period of time?

Matt Farley: Yeah, there’s a couple, actually. You know, one that doesn’t work for everyone, but we happened to be paid biweekly. And so when you get paid biweekly, you can live off two paychecks a month, and then there’s actually 26 paychecks a year that get paid out, so for both of us, we had two extra paychecks each year. So we basically live on 24 paychecks but get paid 26 paychecks. And that was actually really helpful for us from the perspective of like little bonuses and big chunks of money that came off the debt. So I think anytime you can do that, that’s really helpful. And then we use a debt snowball calculator in Excel to really visualize the dates that certain payments were going to be made. Yeah. This probably isn’t totally popular with everyone, but we didn’t consolidate our debt. We had lots of little debts, and that was almost helpful for us to get motivated, you know. It was like, we paid off another $8,000 debt. And then we paid off a $10,000 one. You could almost see that progress. Now, if someone’s more mathematically motivated, that doesn’t make sense sometimes, right? But that was helpful for us.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure. Well, and I think you’re highlighting — just to make a comment there — I think you’re highlighting two very important things that are behavioral aspects that allowed you to be successful. So for somebody, and maybe it doesn’t matter for somebody else, but if you’re paying off debt in a very short period of time, and you’re able to see that progress because you have multiple loan debts that you’re paying off and rolling to the next one, rolling to the next one, and if you were to consolidate or to refinance into one big payment, then that would have maybe lost some motivation along the way, especially when you think about a short time period and interest that’s accruing, maybe that behavior was more important, you know, than the math along the way. The other thing I love that you said, Matt, is the concept of the biweekly pay and allowing you to have some chunks of money that you could strategically put towards goals or things that you’re working on or debt payments, whatever it be, because I think — and I’m guessing it sounds like for you and Amy — those moments when you had those bigger payments or those bonus type of payments, those are the moments where you feel like you’re really getting some momentum that keeps you motivated, that keeps you going and going and going. And I see this with the model you’re describing, I see this with tax refunds or things that people use, but those wins along the way really help keep the motivation as you’re in it for the long haul, even here just under four years, but obviously, it’s a grind while you’re going through that.

Matt Farley: Definitely. It’s like for us, it was really motivating every time we went to the next $10,000 increment, right? So OK, we’re in the $50s now, we’re in the $40s now, we’re in the $30s now.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Matt Farley: So the chunks of money helped with that when you can jump those increments.

Tim Ulbrich: Amy, one of the questions I have for you — and Matt, certainly feel free to build off of it — but as everybody knows who’s listening, you know, finances and relationships are sometimes like oil and water. Right? And it can be difficult to be on the same page. Obviously, as we zoom out, you two have been very successful. My question is, you know, has it always been rainbows and cupcakes? I mean, has there been difficulties along the way? Or if not, what really have been the strategies that have allowed the two of you to work together and to be on the same page towards this common goal?

Amy Farley: Yeah, I think we have worked pretty well together and started off working really hard to be on the same page from the get-go, which has helped a lot. But yeah, it hasn’t been roses the entire time. I think there have been a lot of times when we’ve disagreed where our money should go. I know that like when we were buying a house, I really, really, really wanted that single-family home, and Matt was like, “Nope. We can’t spend that much money. We can’t.” You know? So we had arguments and disagreements in that way where we’d want to spend the money in different ways, and I think just being willing to sit down and really talk through it and, you know, make compromises where it’s necessary but also remind each other frequently that like someday, we will be able to have that single-family home if we want it. You know?

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Amy Farley: But for now, we’re going to make this sacrifice. And so yeah, it’s been good to just work together and be involved. For both of us to be involved in it so that when those hard times come up where we don’t agree that we can look back and be like, OK, here’s where the progress is, here’s where we’re going, you know, at this point in life, we’ll be able to do that. So I think it’s hard in our society where there’s a lot of comparison to other people. You know, you get on Instagram, and you see, oh, my friend just went to Cabo. Oh, crap. You know, like I would like to go. But just having to be like, that’s not for us right now, and that does not fulfill life.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Amy Farley: And having to remind each other of those things frequently.

Tim Ulbrich: And the reality — we’ll talk more about this here in a few minutes about what’s kind of ahead — the reality is if you guys want to go to Cabo in the future, you’re certainly going to have the option, you know, to do that among with many other things that you want to do because of the position you put yourself in. What I love about what you said there, Amy, is the reality of, you know, two people being involved in the process. And even if one person’s taking the lead, I think if two people can get on the same page with the vision, that for you all the debt-free was the vision that you were really working towards, and obviously, that was going to be able to allow you to achieve the other things that were most important to you, the why types of factors. If you can get on the same page with that shared vision, the month-to-month budgeting I won’t say is easy, but it becomes easier because that vision is in the background. Right? You shared the direction, and now it’s a matter of month-by-month, what do we need to do to get there? So Matt, one of the questions I wanted to ask for you — and really, on behalf of the listeners because one of the things I often get asked is, ‘Well, what about retirement during this aggressive debt repayment?’ And obviously, you balanced other things, so you purchased a townhome, you cash flowed a Master’s, you cash flowed a car, but what was your retirement strategy? And were you contributing? And if not, like how did you reconcile the delay of doing that?

Matt Farley: For sure. Yeah. So we did contribute enough for a lot of those four years to get the match at our employers. But towards the last year, kind of bumped that up to more like 10% of my take-home — or sorry, of my pay. And I did struggle with this a little bit because you’ll hear different strategies, right, when you’re getting out of debt. You know, should you? Should you be investing? Or should you not? For me, I wanted a little bit of a mixed bag approach, knowing that — I guess what I would say is I’d rather cut my lifestyle than I would the potential compounding you get from investing, right? So I wanted a little bit going in there to just get things started. But I wasn’t as aggressive as I would have liked to be, obviously, if I didn’t have any debt. I guess I wouldn’t ever yell at someone for like not investing. It’s really hard for me to mathematically not take a match from an employer, though, just to give that up is hard.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep, I share that with you. And we kind of preach that here as well of, you know, the free money, and it’s hard to dispute that. And I think the other thing that it does is it keeps it top-of-mind. It doesn’t distract you from the goal, but it keeps it top-of-mind, and you feel like you’re making some momentum, even if it’s not the 15-20% that you want to get to. You’re starting to move that snowball, right? And it’s going to eventually get downhill and pick up some speed. So Matt, this next question I have for you since you were the one that had all the baggage with the student loans, so as you look back now on this journey, 8+ years of school, accruing undergrad debt and obviously that compounded in pharmacy school, you know, I’m really asking this question on behalf of the students that may be listening. If you could start all over again, you know, what would you do differently? And what would you have done during school to help minimize this position?

Matt Farley: I mean, honestly, if I was coming out of high school right now — I know that’s not a lot of the pharmacy students listening — I would be so much more aggressive towards scholarships and trying to be involved in those types of activities. In pharmacy school, it’s hard, you know? There aren’t as many scholarships to go around. And so I think the main thing you can do is minimize your lifestyle. We did have some scholarships, and I was able to get some of those, but you know, I think mostly, I just wouldn’t live off loans, right? Like we went to Europe off loans, which was obviously a really stupid decision. I think it’s easy to tell yourself when you’re in the situation, pharmacy school is stressful, right? That you kind of deserve to have fun activities, you deserve maybe to go somewhere for spring break or you deserve to make a really awesome trip in the summer. And I guess I would encourage people to not do that and recognize that your lifespan is likely to be really long, and this is just a season of life where things are hard. And so if you can minimize that lifestyle as much as possible, that helps a lot. And then just get creative, you know? I’m sure there are more scholarships out there than I was aware of to apply for, and so I guess that would be my advice. And then you know, I guess the last part of that is if you’re considering residency, I think residency is a great thing from the perspective of experience and kind of widening your network. But I do think it’s over glanced over on the opportunity loss that it costs to actually do a residency. You know? I was considering doing a two-year residency in administration when I came out of school. There’s no way I would be debt-free if I would have done that. Now, that’s maybe not the worst thing if maybe that’s exactly what you want to do for your career, but I guess kind of what I tell pharmacy students a lot is employers are looking for you to solve their problems not necessarily be qualified for a job. And so if you can work hard and you can understand how things work in the field you want to get into, it’s possible to do things without a residency. Now, I’m not discouraging people from doing that, right? But I do think it needs to be considered when you’re actually looking at your finances.

Tim Ulbrich: Amen to that. And I hope our listeners heard that last part there. I firmly stand with you that that first door is opening is such a critical one to open, and sometimes, it requires a training to get there. But once that door opens, if you have a good work ethic, and you’re somebody that can identify problems and propose solutions, you’re going to be very successful and other doors will open into the future. So I think that’s great wisdom there. So Amy, here you are, you and Matt are a fresh 48 hours off of being completely debt-free from your student loans. And you know, obviously, you guys have a good household income. My question is, what’s next? I mean, what’s ahead? What from here becomes a priority of you were making massive student loan payments, and now you’ve got this monthly income that’s freed up. What’s the game plan going forward?

Amy Farley: You know, I think that’s a great question. We haven’t talked a ton, but we have kind of looked at the things that we weren’t able to put money into that we would like to, kind of life goals, putting a little bit more into retirement, paying off — being able to pay for our kids’ college, things like that, and starting to save up for those now. So we’ve already done a little bit of looking at how we want to shift around this money into new places. But it also means that we have a little bit more freedom to kind of enjoy life. So hopefully, maybe a trip to Cabo or you know? I think that there are some of those things that we will definitely take advantage of now. It also just frees us up to be able to, you know, once we have more kids or whatever that if we would like to get a bigger house to fit those kids, then we’d be able to do that. So we haven’t really made an exact plan, but it just opens up us to live in a new way.

Matt Farley: As you might imagine, I’ve already put together a spreadsheet of where our money is going.

Tim Ulbrich: Thought so, maybe.

Matt Farley: And we haven’t talked through it.

Tim Ulbrich: You might want to fill Amy in, yeah. No, what I’m excited to hear from you guys over the past few months and year and beyond is thinking of the zero-based budgeting process. What’s so powerful about that is you had a line item for student loans. It was a very big line item, right? In YNAB. And now the question is, what does that become? You know? Is it giving? Is it experiences with the family? Is it entrepreneurial interests? Is it buying a home? What is that? But that really becomes that exciting conversation about life after debt-free, which is something we’re going to be talking much more about on the podcast going forward. So Matt, one question — I know you mentioned you read “Total Money Makeover,” so that was an indicator to me that you’re a financial reader/nerd probably.

Matt Farley: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: So my question for you is, you know, how important was reading or listening to podcasts, you know, how important was that to your success? And is there a specific book or two or resource out there that you would recommend to our listeners?

Matt Farley: Yeah, definitely. So I think the biggest thing is just kind of consistently reading or listening to anything financially-minded because I think it causes you to pay attention to what’s going on, which is half the battle. You know, you might not be the best budgeter or the best investor, but if you just kind of know what’s going on with your money and understand the products that you’re purchasing from an investment standpoint, that is huge to me. So some of the books that I read — and I’m just going to preface it, I don’t agree with all these books. I don’t think they’re like perfect. Some of them tell you to do unwise things, but “I’ll Teach You to Be Rich” for me was an interesting book to read to understand investing a little bit better. I forget the author’s name, but he talks some about using credit cards more than I would be comfortable with using them. Actually, we did use a credit card to pay for a lot of our expenses, and we’re able to do that without any concern of actually carrying a balance. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. So if you have a tendency of doing that, right, I’d say avoid that. I listened to Dave Ramsey’s podcast pretty consistently and recently discovered yours, so I’ve been listening to yours recently too. And I think it’s another great podcast to listen to understand what’s going on with your money and hear from other folks that are like-minded.

Tim Ulbrich: So “I’ll Teach You to Be Rich” is a Rumeet Sethi book. That’s a great book. I would also recommend that. I share the same feelings that you do. There’s some things in there where, you know, I may approach them differently, but I really like the way he teaches. I think it’s very easy to understand, and it’s a very digestible book and resource. So we’ll link to that in our show notes as well. But I would echo, Matt, your comment about just absorbing information. And sometimes, you know, I’ll listen to something or read something, and I’ll walk away with a very tangible action item. But many times, it’s just that keeping the topic front-of-mind, right? And that’s true with anything, you know? It could be your goals around spirituality, it could be your relationship. But the things that are most important to you, always having those top-of-mind and making sure that you’re always prioritizing those, setting goals on those, and reflecting on how things are going. So.

Matt Farley: And one thing if I could add — I don’t mean to interrupt — but one of the things that I actually learned the most on that got me started with investing was a Frontline documentary on PBS called, “The Retirement Gamble.” It’s like a 40-minute video, and it’s pretty old at this point, but for some reason, it actually resonated with me for how to invest, what’s an expense ratio, what’s a mutual fund, what’s an index fund. That was really helpful for me to actually watch, so I would suggest that to anyone who’s interested in learning more about that as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you for that. And Matt and Amy, thank you so much for your time, for coming on to share your journey, really an incredible journey of paying off over $207,000 in just under four years. And I know you’ve inspired me personally, and I’m confident you’re going to do the same for our listeners. And I can’t wait to hear and talk from you in the years to come to see the amazing things that you’re doing. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Amy Farley: Yeah, thank you.

Matt Farley: Yeah, thanks for having us. You can do it, everybody!

Tim Ulbrich: Yes. Thank you guys.

Sponsor: Before we wrap up today’s episode of the podcast, I want to thank our sponsor, Airbnb. Today’s the day to consider joining the community of more than 2 million people that are earning extra cash by hosting on Airbnb. Whether it’s hosting while you’re out of town or making the most of that extra room that sits empty for most of the year, think about it as an investment in your future. Maybe it’s paying extra on student loans, maybe it’s investing more for the future or saving for kids’ college, whatever it be, this can help you fast-track the financial goal that you’re working on today. It’s free to list, and Airbnb has a tool that will help you price your place just right. Again, there’s no need to worry about your property as Airbnb offers a host guarantee that helps protect your property in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. And you’re the boss when you host on Airbnb. Your home, your rules. Host when you want, how you want. List one bedroom or the entire place. It’s completely up to you. So whether you’re looking for some side cash or a steady income, hosting on Airbnb might just be the best investment you haven’t made yet. When you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/Airbnb and start hosting, you’ll receive a $100 Amazon gift card if you generate $500 in booking value by June 30, 2019. Terms and conditions do apply.

Tim Ulbrich: And one last thing if you could do us a favor. If you like what you heard on this week’s episode, please make sure to leave us a review in iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, where you’ll find a wide array of resources designed specifically for you, the pharmacy professional, to help you on the path towards achieving financial freedom. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 082: Debt Free Theme Hour with the Teacher & Pupil


Debt Free Theme Hour with the Teacher & Pupil

On episode 82 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Ulbrich, co-founder of YFP, welcomes Joe Baker and Blake Johnson to the show for debt free theme hour. They talk about Blake’s journey paying off $150,000 in student loans in three and a half years and how the class he took at the University of Arkansas, taught by Joe Baker, helped prepare him to be on his way to achieving financial freedom.

About Today’s Guests

Joe Baker, MBA, has been a sales representative with Pharmacists Mutual Companies for almost 28 years and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy for 20 years where he teaches a personal finance elective for P3 students. Originally from Emerson, Arkansas, Joe graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree, and earned his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Central Arkansas. Joe is also a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and he obtained his Series 7 securities license in 1986. Joe has been a guest speaker at the NCPA national meeting five times, and has spoken to various pharmacy schools across the country on wealth accumulation, particularly as it relates to young pharmacists.

Blake Johnson is a 2013 graduate of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Upon graduation, he married his wife Kristyn and he began working in a small town independent pharmacy. He worked there for 2 years and is now working in Conway, Arkansas at a local independent pharmacy. Upon graduation, Blake decided that paying off student loans would be a top priority, while still being able to travel and save for his retirement. After three and a half years, he was able to pay off his and his wife’s student loans. Since then, Blake has been able to increase his savings and start purchasing rental property. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling as much as he can and teaching others about finances.

Summary

This episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcasts highlights an inspiring debt free story. Joe Baker is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy and teaches a personal finance elective for P3 students for the last twenty years. Blake Johnson is a pharmacist and former student of Joe’s who has paid off $150,000 of student loan debt in three and a half years.

In this episode, Blake shares his story of not only becoming debt free but also of building wealth through investing. Blake was inspired by Joe’s class and the principles he shared. His wife, Kristyn, grew up with the teachings of Larry Burkett. These two teachings combined helped to create a strong financial foundation for Blake and Kristyn. In regards to prioritization to get to this point, Blake first budgeted to see what they needed to live on. Budgeting is his biggest piece of advice to students while in school and upon graduation. He and Krysten lived like they were still in school after graduation which allowed them to develop a lifestyle of living below their means. After Kristyn graduated, they used her paycheck to pay off student loans and watched their debt melt away. Now, they continue to max out their 401k contributions, increase their savings, and are about to close on their six real estate rental property.

Joe Baker says that creating a lifestyle like this is crucial to getting out of debt and building wealth. He suggests living off of $50,000 as your income each year even if you are making much more. This way, you are sure to stay below your means and have extra money to pay off debt and start contributing to retirement funds or other investments. He has created a list of “Baker’s Dirty Dozen” that he teaches in his college course that are discussed in the show.

Joe Baker’s Dirty Dozen Tips on Getting Rich

  1. Invest in appreciable items, such as education and house. Minimize depreciable items, such as car, clothes, etc. Student loan money should be spent on bare necessities.
  2. Utilize the time value of money. Time is on your side when you are young.
  3. Max out on your 401(k), 403(b), Roth 401(k) and Roth IRA. Stocks, Bonds & Cash. 100% – your age = % in stocks. Stock Index Funds or Target Date Fund (2055 Fund). At the minimum, contribute enough for employer match – free money!
  4. Save money consistently and systematically throughout your life (dollar cost averaging). Don’t take money out of your retirement account. Penalties and taxes will apply.
  5. Make sure your future spouse has the same financial goals as you. Pre-marital counseling that includes financial goals and spending habits. If already married, try to get on the same financial page. Dave Ramsey offers a Financial Peace Workshop.
  6. Stay away from credit cards. “If I cannot pay balance off each month, I cannot afford it!” Debt is NOT your friend. ALL debt is bad. Proverbs 22:7
  7. A vehicle is NOT who you are – it’s transportation only! Beware of the illusion of wealth. This is one of the biggest obstacles in wealth accumulation.
  8. Keep an eye on the small choices you make in life. Buying Starbucks Coffee. Drink water at restaurants!
  9. Avoid lotteries, multi-level marketing (pyramid schemes) and time shares.
  10. Choose a 15 or 20 year mortgage over a 30 year. Pay 20% down (avoids Private Mortgage Interest). Make additional payments toward the principal.
  11. Protect your assets! Adequate personal liability coverage. Life & disability coverage protection. Have your own individual pharmacist liability policy.
  12. Read Seven Figure Pharmacist by Tim Ulbrich, Pharm.D & Tim Church, Pharm.D. Sign up for Your Financial Pharmacist blog. Kiplinger’s & Investopedia, like on Facebook.
  13. Make a difference in your family, community & place of worship. This will make you wealthy in your heart, body and soul. Amen!

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. I hope your new year is off to a great start. And boy, do we have a special episode for you today, a two-for-one special. We get to interview new practitioner Blake Johnson alongside his personal finance mentor and teacher at the University of Arkansas, Joe Baker. Blake really has an incredible story to share of him and his wife Kristen paying off $150,000 of student loans in a short period of time and building a strong financial foundation, which as you know, we talk about often on this show. And Joe Baker, nearing the end of his career, has a passion for teaching personal finance and has influenced hundreds, if not thousands, of new practitioners to pave a successful financial future. He has the famous Baker’s Dirty Dozen Tips for Getting Rich, which we’ll talk about briefly on the show today. So Joe and Blake, welcome to the show, excited to have you.

Joe Baker: Thank you.

Blake Johnson: Yeah, thanks, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: So I’m going to start with brief introductions so our audience can get to begin to know each of you before we unpack the story. So Blake, why don’t you start? Give us a quick background on when you graduated, what you and your wife Kristen were facing financially as a new graduate, and the current area of practice that you do in pharmacy.

Blake Johnson: OK. So I practice pharmacy in Conway, Arkansas. It’s about 30 miles north of Little Rock. And I’ve been out of school for almost six years in May. My wife’s a nurse practitioner, she graduated I guess about three years ago. And upon graduating, we had my student loans, they were about $120,000. And then my wife was in school at the time. It took her about two years to graduate after I did, and hers was about another $30,000-40,000, so all together, we had accumulated close to $150,000-160,000 in student loans once you added interest. And we’re proud to work for a community pharmacy in Conway now and been there for about three years. And prior to that, I had worked in Clinton, Arkansas, which is about an hour outside of Little Rock. So been in community pharmacy for since the time I gradated, and I really do enjoy it.

Tim Ulbrich: So we’re going to unpack that more here in a little bit in terms of what allowed you and your wife Kristen to be successful in that journey and how you did it, how you’ve worked together. But first, Joe, give us a brief introduction of yourself, the history of your work in the pharmacy world, and how you became so passionate about teaching this topic of personal finance, which resulted in I think you being the first, I believe, of starting this coursework in pharmacy curriculum. So give us some background.

Joe Baker: Well thank you, Tim. It really goes back to the late ‘70s, when I graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a business administration degree. And going from different jobs, including real estate, which unfortunately, at the time of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was 17% interest on mortgages. It was a tough time. But I did find my niche teaching high school marketing. And I really loved the education because of the immediate feedback. And I would probably still be there today if it had not been for a friend of mine who ran for Congress and asked me to help him, to get involved in his campaign. I did so. Unfortunately — or fortunately — as life has it, we lost in runoff by 2 points, so then, after that, I had to get a real job and found my way into insurance and was fortunate enough to get on board with Pharmacists Mutual Insurance, which was 27 years ago. And during that time, I always wanted to get back into education in some way. And I thought the best way or the one that I was looking for was to teach college on some level. So I decided after 20 years to get my Master’s degree, got an MBA. And during this time, I was about to wrap up, I happened to be at the College of Pharmacy at UAMS, University of Arkansas Medical School, and I was visiting with the dean and the assistant dean. And this was in the late ‘90s, 1999, and I said, “You know, what about teaching some type of business course for the pharmacy students?” And they were very open. They said, “Yes. Our pharmacy students are making around $45,000 a year and going out and getting broke making this type of big money.” So you can see how the money has changed.

Tim Ulbrich: Times have changed.

Joe Baker: And even today at $120,000, we have pharmacists and other professionals going out and getting broke. So the fall of 1999 was when we started the personal finance class, a 2-hour elective at UAMS College of Pharmacy in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it has really blossomed. And it has just helped me fulfill my education desire. And with the financial literacy, I just think it all worked out greatly.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I appreciate — I was actually stalking you on LinkedIn, Joe, I know we’ve been getting to know each other. I didn’t know the background of the congressional campaigns, and I knew the rest of the story. So appreciate your support of what we’ve been doing at YFP. And for those that have been following our journey at YFP, Joe has been at this long before we have. So speaking on this topic, he mentioned the personal finance course since 1999, we’ve got some exciting collaborations coming forward. You’re going to be hearing more from Joe and hopefully seeing about their speaking and on the blog, so we’re excited to be collaborating and working with you. And I certainly appreciate the path you’ve paved that has even made it a little bit easier for us at YFP as we’ve been on this journey. So what I want to do, actually, what stimulated this interview is Blake had sent an email over to Joe, so his former professor, on this topic. And I’m going to take a minute to read this email because I think, Blake, as I went back and looked at this as I was preparing for the show, I feel like it really helps outline your story but also helps outline what I think to be the importance of personal finance education and helping especially young pharmacists get started. So here’s that email, and then we’ll begin to unpack a little bit further. So Blake says, “Joe, things are going great for me. I’ve been out five years now. I am so glad I took your class. It has been a truly amazing journey. I came out of school and my wife, who’s a new practitioner and I had $150,000 in student loans. We paid those off in 3.5 years. During that time, I maxed out my 401k and was able to put 20% down on my house!! I’m about halfway to my ‘millionaire net worth journey’ that you talked about in class. The best thing that we ever did was partner up with a friend on some real estate. We have five rental homes right now. It has been very good for us. Anyways, I thought I would share that with you because I really do trace it back to your class. On top of that, I’m now able to teach this principles in a class at our church in Conway.” So Joe, as you saw that email, what was your feeling as you kind of reflected on the success that Blake has had and the impact that your class had on that.

Joe Baker: Well Tim, I was just ecstatic because, you know, to get that type of feedback from one of your former students is just — makes you feel really, really good that you’re really accomplishing what you have set out to do. I know there are many success stories out there, but to see it in print and to someone that I’ve known for several years, I just can’t put it in words how it made me feel.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, that’s great. I think as I read it, I got fired up. I can only imagine as you guys have that relationship and teaching that course. So Blake, as I read that and I read that email, five years out of school, no debt, of course, except the home, which you mentioned putting 20% down on. I’m guessing you have that even further paid down, you maxed out your 401k while doing that, which is no small feat. And you have five rental properties in that time period. And so to me, as I read that, this is really the definition of what we talk about on this show and on the blog about a good foundation. No debt, equity in the home, a fast start to retirement savings, and I’m assuming obviously an emergency fund in there as well. So my question, Blake, is what were the secrets for you and your wife Kristen that allowed you to have such significant progress in a short amount of time. If you had to distill that down to a few things, what do you think allowed you guys to have progress in such a quick amount of time?

Blake Johnson: I think two things. No. 1, Joe’s class. At that time, right when I was taking that, my wife and I had just started dating, and so I attribute it to Joe’s class and teaching that. But No. 2, also to my wife. Her parents taught her the old school Larry Burkett, Dave Ramsey-type stuff. So when we got married, we were able to within about six months, add to what she had saved up to be able to put 20% down on a real nice home just because of that and Joe’s principles, we were able to kind of kick it out of the gate with this good of money principles. I had read Dave Ramsey while we were engaged. And between Joe’s class and what Dave Ramsey teaches, we kind of took that, kind of agreed on what we would live on, and just kind of went from there.

Tim Ulbrich: And what I love about your story, Blake, as I mentioned, we talk so much on the podcast or when we’re speaking on the blog about the importance of this foundation and really investing the first number of years out of school to build this foundation where you’ve got a solid position to work from because as I’ve seen with so many practitioners that are 10, 15, 20 years out, it’s really hard to unwind some of the things and to play catch-up. And so Joe, I’m curious from your perspective, you know, what I’ve seen and I’m guessing you’ve seen — you’ve been at this longer than I have — is that it seems like some new practitioners like Blake and his wife Kristen get a quick start and really have some momentum at a very early point in their career whereas others, you know, maybe it takes 10 or 15 years or even longer to turn things around and kind of come to that “Aha!” moment where my salary is good, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a good salary is a secure financial foundation. What do you think differentiates the two of those? Is it mindset? Is it knowledge? Is it behavior? Is it a combination of it? What do you think?

Joe Baker: Well, I do think it’s a combination. But what I have stressed to the students is when you get out, making six figures, don’t live like you’re making six figures. Don’t buy a huge house, automobiles, which is the biggest obstacle for wealth accumulation. If you can just live like you’ve lived, hopefully like you’ve lived through your college years and put back the money, you can do great things. It all begins as soon as you come out of the blocks. Just like a race, you’ve got to live below your means starting out because then, it’s much more difficult to get where you want to be financially if you live like a person making six figures. So behavior and what you do.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think just to build on that, Joe, what I’ve seen — and I’m guessing what Blake and Kristen did almost treating it as if you make some lower percentage of your salary. If you can really convince yourself that I make $100,000 a year, but really I make $50,000 or $60,000 and budget off of that, and then use the remainder for paying down debt, building equity on the home, getting involved in investments, real estate, all of a sudden, it’s a lot easier to pivot to those opportunities. But then also when life throws you something unexpected, you’ve got margin, right? And I think that that peace of mind when you have margin — so as I look at Blake and Kristen’s story, no debt, equity in the home, fast start to retirement savings, they’ve got rental property, they’re building equity. If life throws them something that they’re not expecting, they’ve got options to handle that. Whereas if you’re living up to your entire income or beyond, obviously that can be taken away from you. So Blake, as you and Kristen were going at this, one of the things I see a lot of young pharmacist struggle with is trying to balance multiple priorities. And so I see here, you obviously were paying down debt, which is a lot in five years by itself. But then also, you were able to build up equity and max out retirement savings and get involved in real estate. So my question is, did you prioritize and focus on one or two of these at a time? Or were you really balancing all of these priorities at once?

Blake Johnson: So we sat down when we got married and kind of made some decisions. No. 1, we kind of went against what Dave Ramsey teaches in paying off all debt before you start doing the 401k. Because we noticed at 25 years old when I graduated, I could at that time put close to $18,000 a year into my 401k. And it didn’t really reduce my paycheck by that much. So that was our No. 1 priority. The second priority was we wanted to put a minimum amount on our loans until my wife got out of school. So those two things were set. I mean, we did our whole budget based on those two amounts taken out. And outside of that too, we also love to travel. So we wanted to be able to travel some too. So what we did was just do a budget every month. We would say, “Hey, we want x amount of money to travel on a year. We’re going to put this minimum amount on the loans. And we’re also going to put towards the 401k.” So until my wife graduated, we did that. And as soon as she graduated, we had this lifestyle that was set, and we never increased it at all. We just basically took her paycheck as a nurse practitioner for about a year, and that literally took the hammer down on the loans. We were used to a lifestyle, we didn’t change it, and just kind of hammered it down until it was all paid off. We looked up, we had money in our 401k, we had equity in the house, and now we’ve been able to build more and more off the top of that. Our lifestyle — honestly, our lifestyle and budget hadn’t changed since the day I graduated.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and as you know, once you get to the point where you are, now it’s game on with really starting to see the benefits of those investments grow and compound and take over time. And I wanted to take you a little bit deeper there because I think sometimes, when we have guests on the show and we share a success story like yours, and it’s like five years, you paid off debt, you’ve got retirement, you’ve got some equity in your home. And it’s like, poof! It’s magic. But I heard in there, you know, you talked about budgeting. And I’m guessing that was a fundamental piece for you and Kristen in doing this. So tell us exactly what that looked like for you. What’s the budgeting method that you use? Did one of you take the lead on that? How did you come to consensus and agreement on it? What did that process look like for you and Kristen?

Blake Johnson: It was a rocky start to start out with because I’m all about Excel sheets. I can remember out of the gun, coming out of the — as Dave Ramsey says, coming out of the den with this huge spreadsheet. And it was overwhelming. I mean, it was ridiculous. I think I had like $300 for groceries per month and like $100 for going out to eat. And I mean, that’s evolved into a lot more. But I mean, it is tamed down kind of over 4-5 months, figuring out what we lived on, what we felt comfortable with, and other than that, we’ve used it from then on out. It took time to get a grip on things. The No. 1 thing too is set goals. So I mean, if you want to go on a vacation a year from now, why don’t you start now saving a small amount each month. That way, in a year, you’ve got the money set back instead of having to scrounge for it. So I just think it’s, you know, it’s a push and pull type thing. You sit down, work with your spouse and just kind of figure out what works best for you.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I like that. We talked about to your last point there, I think it was in Episode 057, we talked about the power of automation and sinking funds, getting your concept there. If you have a vacation in 12 months or whatever is planned, really being thoughtful about what those goals are and funding those. So Joe, my question here for you is, you know, when you hear Blake’s story, it appears from the outside looking in that he and Kristen were working together on this, although as he mentioned, you know, may have had a rocky start. But they obviously got there. And I know you’ve talked about this before, you and I have as well, is the importance of two people working together on their financial plan. So my question for you is what advice do you have for new graduates that are facing a financial uphill battle? Lots of student loans, maybe they have aspirations on a home, but they don’t have a down payment. So they’re really trying to figure this out. And what advice would you have for them in trying to get on the same page and work together?

Joe Baker: Well, a number of things. First, the keyword is lifestyle that Blake used. Starting after graduation, I know it can be overwhelming if you’re looking at $150,000-200,000 in student loans, just sit down and develop a plan. And if you are in a situation, relationship, married, fiancee or whatever, make sure you’re on the same financial page because that is very, very important. Blake was very fortunate. I know his wife, Kristen, and they were on the same page financially. And that is — I cannot stress how important that is to make sure you’re on the same financial page. Because it would be really tough if you were not so. But I do tell them that if you can start off with a lower lifestyle and I also even point out to plug your “Seven Figure Pharmacist” book, there’s a section in there — and I’m paraphrasing — about living on $50,000, which is the median income of the United States right now?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. Household.

Joe Baker: Yes. And $50,000, that’s — at least in Arkansas — that is a lot more than most make. So if you could live with that lifestyle of making $50,000 a year and start paying off your student loans like Blake and contributing to a 401k or 403b, Roth IRA, you’ll be just way ahead in the years to come. So that’s what I try to get across, not only to the students but also whenever I speak to pharmacy students is your lifestyle.

Tim Ulbrich: I think that’s a great point there, and I think there’s wisdom in reframing the perspective of your salary, right? Because I think that I know what I felt coming out of school in 2008 is there tends to be that pressure of peer comparisons. If I’m in residency and I’m making a whopping $31,000, and I look up and my friend’s making $120,000 with a sign-on bonus, which I understand don’t exist these days, that feels like it’s unmanageable, right? But if I reframe the perspective to me as a single person or even me and my wife as a combined income, and then you put that in the perspective of a median household income in the United States or we recently shared an article on the Facebook group this week about the top 1% in the world when you look at it in terms of the world economy, I think that helps reset the perspective of really what are you working with and what are the opportunities that are ahead. So Blake, one question I have for you is that as you think back, even though you’ve done a lot of things well, I’m guessing you look back to your former P1 self and say, “I wish I would have…” or “I wish I would have known this or done this differently.” What advice would you have for the students that are listening of some things that you may have done differently in your journey?

Blake Johnson: I think the No. 1 thing to look back on is budget while you’re in school. I mean, one thing that Joe talked about in the class is the power of compounding interest. It works for you, and it can work against you. If you come out with $120,000, you’ve got 6-7% interest working against you. Or you could have more money to put in the market and have that work for you. So I think during school, the less amount that you can take out, maybe by working more or just watching your expenses, I think that’s one of the big things because interest rates really do work against you and do take a good amount out of pocket.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And the follow-up question I have for you is we actually just wrapped up a book discussion with YFP, we’re doing a book discussion on “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki, which for those listeners who haven’t read that book, I would highly recommend it. It’s a great book that really just helps shape your mindset around money. But what really stood out to me in that book, second time through, is this focus on real estate investing, which obviously you are tuned into. You mentioned five properties. So tell us a little bit about why you are interested in real estate is my first question. And my follow-up is for those of the listeners that are thinking, maybe I want to get started in real estate investing, where would you recommend they even begin to learn more?

Blake Johnson: It all started, I guess about two years ago, right when we were wrapping up paying our debt off. I was looking at different ways for us to invest. And I love the stock market, we were maxing out our 401k, and I started a Vanguard fund, I started that and putting money in that. But I wanted something that could be “passive income” down the road. With the Roth IRA, you can’t access it until you’re 59.5, and other investments, it’s hard to get to. So I wanted something that could work for me and earlier in my lifetime that I could use as investment. So I started doing research, and me and my wife were talking about it for a long time. And I’ve always just enjoyed real estate. So it takes me a long time to decide on something. So after about two years of really looking into it, a friend of mine who moved back in town, we got back together, and he already had rental property here in Conway. And after about three or four months listening to him, I just kind of asked, “Hey, would you like to partner on something?” And we ended up partnering on something, and it ended up being nice because his interest and my interest as far as partnership meshed real well together, so we purchased two homes together out of the chute. That was back in April, and here we are in November. We actually just closed on our sixth home as of last month. So it’s been a fun journey and going back to where you can find info for that, there’s a great website called BiggerPockets. It’s basically a Facebook for real estate investors. And it is packed full of information. And I highly recommend it because real estate’s something you need to do a lot of reading on because you can get yourself in big trouble if you don’t get in there with good equity in homes to make the right decisions.

Tim Ulbrich: I second your recommendation of BiggerPockets, I’m actually binge listening right now to their podcast, so it’s fantastic. And I feel like every day, it just provides some new insight into I had no idea about this aspect of real estate or this aspect, especially if you grew up in a home where real estate investing wasn’t a part of growing up. So great stuff. Congratulations on the closing of the sixth property, that’s awesome. And I think the reason I wanted to bring that up is I know many of our listeners are interested in identifying potential revenue streams that don’t necessarily have to wait until withdrawal of retirement funds at the age of 59.5. So I think real estate is something we’re going to be talking a little bit more about. So Joe, I want to briefly just mention what I think are your famous Baker’s Dirty Dozen Tips on Getting Rich that I’ve seen referenced from coursework and people on LinkedIn where you’ve done talks and social media posts and engagement. I think they’ve become quite well known and famous. And we’ll link to them in the show notes, but I’m just going to briefly read through a few of them and then reference our listeners to the show notes and ask you a couple follow-up questions. So in this list, you have things like invest in appreciable items such as education and a house, minimize depreciable items such as car, clothes, etc. Student loan money should be spent on bare necessities. You mentioned utilizing the time value of money, that time is on your side when you’re young. You mentioned save money consistently and systematically throughout your life, such as dollar cost averaging. Don’t take money out of your retirement account; penalties and taxes will apply. You mentioned choosing a 15- or a 20-year mortgage over a 30-year, paying 20% down, avoiding PMI and making additional payments. So as you think through that list, do any of these stick out to you more than others in terms of their level of significance when you think of your own journey and mentoring numerous pharmacy students on their own financial path?

refinance student loans

Joe Baker: Well in class, I’m pretty much an open book. And not to go into any personal details of my financial path — I did not achieve true financial wealth until all debt was paid off. Because I believe — I disagree with a lot of financial planners that say there’s good debt and bad debt. Eh. I think all debt is bad. There’s some that’s less bad than others if you forgive my grammar, so being that, I say, “Listen. I didn’t make a six-figure income until I was 47 years old. And completely debt-free at age 50 and then it was just amazing how much money was accumulated.” And fortunately, Blake is, he’s 20-25 years ahead of where I was at his age. It’s just amazing. I don’t think it was mentioned, but Blake, I’m going to tell on you. You’re 30 years old. So quite amazing. When I was 30 years old, I wasn’t even married. And had a little credit card debt, but found a lady that was a math teacher, taught me a little bit about the time value of money and saw that I had potential and married me. So I was very fortunate in that. But I really stress to my students and even when I speak too is you’ve got to get rid of the debt. The debt is the biggest albatross, and then I’ll speak also on buying automobiles. That seems to be a big hindrance in wealth accumulation. But the debt is the biggie in my book.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m thinking back to Episode 068 where Tim Baker and I talked about what we thought are kind of the pros and cons of Dave Ramsey’s baby steps, and I think one of the things we’ve realized, whether it’s our own financial plan or talking with hundreds and thousands of pharmacists is that for everyone, obviously different situations are going to allow for unique circumstances, but I think the piece that is often consistently missing in financial advice — although to Tim Baker’s credit, I think he does an outstanding job of this — is the behavioral mindset components. And it’s very hard to put a value to that. And for some people, it’s more important than others. But I share a similar belief, Joe, and when my wife and I hit that point of becoming debt-free with student loans, there was a mindset shift that happened that I cannot even put a value on what that’s done for how we’ve thought in terms of opportunistic ways of our financial plan. Now, could we have gotten there while doing it while we were in debt? Maybe. But I think it’s hard to articulate exactly the impact that that had, and it certainly has been significant for us. So Joe, talk us through your course a little bit. How do you approach that course? And the reason why I want to do address this is I think that while we have a handful of pharmacy schools out there that teach personal finance, we have probably 90+% that do not, and I know we have many faculty that may be listening to this or students that may go back to the school and say, “Hey, we want to do something like what Joe is doing.” So what does that course look like? And what are the fundamentals that you’re trying to teach and address in that course? And even the level of students that take that course.

Joe Baker: Well first of all, if anyone is interested, I would be happy to share any information that I have for you to take back to your dean of the college of pharmacy, even my syllabus, etc. And the way you sell it to your college of pharmacy is to say, “Listen. We’ve got people going out, and if they become financially independent, accumulate wealth, it will benefit the college of pharmacy in the future because the students will be more — the former students will be more inclined to give because they have, quite frankly, deeper pockets.” So that’s how to sell it. But the course that I teach, it’s at the beginning, we talk about all the different styles of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs. Then I graduate a little bit into the — not a little bit, a lot — into the retirement plans and some of those all the while, showing them examples. And then we gravitate into some other areas. It’s a two-hour elective, which is 30 classroom hours. So it’s hard to get really in-depth for too many subjects. So I want to give them a little overview, get them a little excited, showing them how if they start investing early versus investing late, then we go into some areas like buying and selling a house. I have a mortgage speaker that comes in and speaks along that. I also have an income tax person that comes in. She is not only a CPA but an attorney, so we cover the basis in the income tax area. I personally cover the personal property taxes, which we have in Arkansas. Of course, the insurance areas and then towards the end of the course, I have the student loan speakers come in from the state and explain how, what to do with their loans, some ways of paying them off, etc. So basically, it’s we have 15 class periods, two hours per week, can’t get it all in, but at least it sets a foundation. I tell them, “If I can just motivate you to do the things that you need to do at the beginning, everything else will take care of itself.” But it’s a lot of fun. It is. It is a blast. I get immediate feedback and quite frankly, I tell you, “You’re not doing this for a grade because if you miss one class, it could be $1 million. So you want to make sure you come in for all the classes, participate,” and I will say, up until your book was introduced — and I will brag on your book again — I finally had a book that I said, “Wow. I have a true textbook for my class.” Because before your book, I had “The Automatic Millionaire,” but it —

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, David Bach, yeah.

Joe Baker: But it obviously wasn’t directed towards the pharmacy students. So thank you for that. But I was just so excited when I saw your book. And that’s the textbook, if you will, that we use in class.

Tim Ulbrich: And I love to hear your outline of the curriculum, but also obviously to hear Blake’s story and the success it’s had, and I think a key piece there you mentioned is motivation. It’s really planting seeds, right? You’re not going to cover everything about the financial plan in 30 hours. But you’re beginning to train behavior, beginning to establish mindset, and Blake’s story is one example. I’m sure there are hundreds of others that have had success because of that course. So I would also like to throw out there — and Joe, I know you and I have talked about this — we have a vision at YFP to see every college of pharmacy in the country be educating their students on personal finance. I personally believe — I obviously have a bias — but I personally believe this is a fundamental part of professional development of pharmacy students and new graduates, which to your point, has benefits to a college beyond their graduation, but I feel is an obligation that we have as a part of the professional development because what I’ve seen personally in my own life, in research I’ve done, in working with other pharmacists is personal finance and the stability of one’s personal finance impacts other areas of their life, including their career and the impact that they’re having in their day-to-day work. If we can help provide stability and a foundation through education, I think we’re going to have a better workforce that’s out there. So other colleges that are listening, this is the call to action. We would love to see you pick up an elective course. Anyone from ACP is out there listening — I’m not sure they are — we’d love to see this long-term as a portion of the accreditation standards in the future. So Blake, I want to end on this question. So you and your wife Kristen have done an unbelievable job in setting a strong financial foundation. We’ve talked about you guys becoming debt free, having equity in your home, maxing out retirement accounts, getting into rental properties, and you’re an incredibly young age. What is next for you guys? What are the goals that you have going forward?

Blake: You know, the biggest thing that I love about being debt free and being able to accumulate wealth is the fact that it frees you up to give. I feel like as a community leader, as a pharmacist, you know, we’re called to be leaders in the community. And through that, whether it’s to church or just to any type of organization, it frees you up to give more. So that’s kind of our goal. As years go by, we want to be able to give more and give more away. And we really do enjoy it. It brings a lot of joy to us when we can help others and do that type of thing. So outside of that, we’d like to get some more rental property and just continue to save. I’d like to leave a good inheritance to my kids and grandkids in the future.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. And I love your vision that you and your wife have on giving, which takes us to No. 13 in the Baker’s Dirty Dozen Tips on Getting Rich, which is make a difference in your family, community and place of worship. This will make you wealthy in your heart, body and soul. And I can see he has helped cast that vision to you all as well as obviously the impact that your family has had. So hopefully we look forward to having you back on the show when we get to that net worth of $1 million. And let me say to both Blake and Joe, on behalf of the YFP community and the YFP team, thank you so much for coming on today’s show and for your support of the work that we’re doing over at Your Financial Pharmacist. We greatly appreciate it. So thank you.

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YFP 079: Is It Time to Redefine Retirement?


Is It Time to Redefine Retirement?

On episode 079, Tim Ulbrich, co-founder of Your Financial Pharmacist, interviews Dr. Nick Ornella, a 2009 graduate of Ohio Northern University, about his journey paying off his student loans in 10 months and shortly after taking one year off to travel the world. Tim and Nick share thoughts of what it means to redefine retirement and why the concept of mini-retirements are gaining traction. They finish the show up by getting practical with 7 steps you can take to plan for a year off.

About Today’s Guest

Nick Ornella is a 2009 graduate of Ohio Northern University’s College of Pharmacy. He began working for Walgreens when he graduated. Nick was able to pay off his student loans within 10 months. In 2016, he decided to take a year long leave of absence from work to travel. Nick spent an entire year traveling around the western United States, Europe, and east Africa. In 2018, he married his wife, Alanna, and they currently live in Cincinnati. Nick is now back to working for Walgreens as a pharmacy manager. Nick also created a blog called the Young Professional’s Guide to a Year Off to tell the story of his year off and to show other young professionals how to take extended time off work to travel.

Summary

On this episode, Tim Ulbrich interviews Dr. Nick Ornella, a 2009 Ohio Northern University graduate. Nick knew in high school that he wanted to become a pharmacist and began taking the necessary steps to do so. His parents helped to financially support his college career. Nick worked hard in school to earn scholarships from Ohio Northern University that helped to offset his indebtedness. He worked as an intern at Walgreens during school and took advantage of their tuition reimbursement program. At graduation, he had accrued $35,000 in debt.

Nick went to work the day he became a licensed pharmacist. He wanted to build a strong financial foundation and decided to live with his parents so that he could pay off his student loans as quickly as possible. After paying off his loans, he started 401(k) contributions and maxed them out. He avoided big purchases, aside from a 2011 Audi A5, lived humbly in a small apartment, didn’t use a credit card or rack up any credit card debt and minimized costs any way he could.

Nick was fed up with his job and decided, after a lot of contemplation a research, that he wanted to take a year off of work to travel. He had a nice nest egg in his 401(k) and $40,000 in his savings account with no other debt. He purchased several books on how he could travel frugally and for additional inspirational stories and information to help make this long-time dream a reality. He decided he was all in and would have no regrets. He was able to receive a leave of absence from work giving him the ability to take a year off to travel several places in the U.S., Europe and Africa. During his travels, he found himself often living in the present moment and truly finding contentment in his life, a feeling he had never experienced before.

Nick has come to realize that the concept of retirement needs to be rethought and that it’s important to step out of the rat race of work to create pockets of time that you can truly enjoy. Since his return, he created a blog and also lays out 7 financial steps to take a year off.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 079 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. We have a special treat for you on today’s show, Dr. Nick Ornelia, Walgreens pharmacist, fellow Ohio Northern University alum — go Polar Bears — and blogger at Young Professionals Guide to a Year Off. He’s going to share his journey of crushing it to pay off his student loans and shortly after, taking one year off to travel the world. Nick, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Nick Ornelia: Hi, Tim. Thanks for having me. Really honored to be here on the podcast.

Tim Ulbrich: Super excited to have you. And I’m fired up about talking about this topic. We’ve actually had lots of interest. People write in about this concept of retirement, should we be thinking about retirement in a different way? Many people know of Tim Ferriss’ work in the 4-hour work week, where he talks about this concept of mini-retirements. We’ll get there, but first, I want to take our listeners — and I don’t know if you’ll remember this, Nick, all the way back to January 4th, 2016, I actually pulled up my email before we were recording — brand new, the Your Financial Pharmacist blog had just started, and you wrote me an email. And the subject line was, “Taking a year off of work.” And I’m going to read this email quick because I think it’s going to set the stage for our conversation today and obviously, show our listeners of what you executed on in taking this year off. So you said, “Hello. Just wanted to know if you’ve ever heard of a pharmacist taking a year off work to travel and/or spend more time with family. If so, what kind of financial impact did that have on them? And what kind of difficulty did they have rejoining the workforce as a pharmacist? Thanks, Nick.” So Nick, with that in mind, give us the back story at this point in time, almost three years ago, when you were thinking about this idea of taking a year off. What was stimulating this interest for you? And maybe what fears were going on in your mind at that time?

Nick Ornelia: That’s incredible that you still have that email because I was scouring the internet at that time, trying to find any kind of example of any pharmacist or similar healthcare professional who had done something similar, just to see kind of like what their experience was and to get some information. And your blog popped up, and actually, I recognized your name. I knew you had gone to Ohio Northern. So I shot you that email, and you know, your response and your quick reply was actually a big kind of help for me, kind of a push out the door. So I will forever be grateful to the Financial Pharmacist for that. But the idea had been kind of brewing in my mind for probably at least a year before then, probably even longer. I had heard about people taking gap years, taking extended time off, maybe like after college or a sabbatical at some point in their career. So the idea was always in the back of my mind as a possibility that sounded pretty awesome and pretty cool, and maybe someday, I can do that. But I’d never really given it too much though until probably about April of 2015, so this was about a year before I started my year off. I was in a long-term relationship at the time. And it wasn’t going as I had hoped it to go. We ended up being two completely different people, and that day I remember in April, I remember we got in a big argument, and it just wasn’t my day. I was having a bad day. A bad day at work, I was kind of fed up with everything. And I went down into the basement, and I ordered three different books off of Amazon. And one of them was the book that you just mentioned, “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss. Another one was called, “Vagabonding” by Rolf Potts. And then the third one was, “How to Travel the World on $50 a day.” And that right there was like the first tangible step that I took that kind of set me on that path. And I read those books in a matter of days, and from that point on, it was a daily thing where I thought about it, I dreamed about it. And I really at that point, wanted to make it happen. So as I said, I was in that relationship and later that October, I believe it was, October 2015, about six months before I started the whole year of travel, that relationship ended amicably. We just realized we weren’t right for each other. And the day that that relationship ended, which was probably the hardest day of my life up to this point, very difficult, but that was the day that I decided to go through with it, to take the year off and to jump into it and have no regrets about it.

Tim Ulbrich: So Nick, when you emailed me, you didn’t talk about financial fears, per say, but I’m guessing there were things at the time you were thinking about as a young practitioner, 2009 graduate, maybe fears around whether it’s job security or am I going to be delaying retirement? All these things. I mean, what was going through your mind at that point of potential financial barriers that you saw or — whether they were real or not or maybe perceived to be greater than they were — but financial barriers that you saw that may have prevented you from taking that year off?

Nick Ornelia: There weren’t too many, honestly. I had done a really good job — I’m sure we’ll get into this, but I paid off my loans super quick. I had a nice nest egg in my 401k. I had about $50,000 saved up in my savings account. And after reading that book, “How to Travel the World on $50 a day,” you know, if you calculate that out, 365 days, that’s about $19,000 I think is about what that works out to. That’s traveling relatively cheaply. I knew I didn’t want to travel that cheaply. So that’s where that extra money came in. So I knew, even if I traveled as cheaply as I could, I knew that I would have enough money to last the year. So I was not concerned about running out of money there. I did think quite a bit about the opportunity costs, so you know, you’re going a whole year without earning any money. You’re going a whole year without contributing anything to your 401k. And if you’re looking 30-40 years down the road, that money, if you max it out at $18,500, that’s going to be a considerable amount of money that you’re potentially missing out on. So I thought of those opportunity costs, but then I thought of myself sitting there at the age of 65, you know, with all this extra money but then the thought of never having gone through with this dream of mine to take a year off work. And that was kind of ultimately one of the main reasons why I decided to do it. I was afraid of that regret. Yeah, the money would be great to have at that age, but what are you going to spend it on then? I’m young now, I have the opportunity to do this right now, to live in this moment for an entire year. And so that’s one of the main reasons why I did it. But the financial risks, I mean, probably the biggest risk I was worried about then was my ability to make money. Our biggest asset is our ability to make money. And you know, just being concerned about coming back to a job, to full-time work. But I was prepared for anything. I was prepared to find a different job just to make ends meet for the time being until I was back to full-time pharmacist work. So the financial risks, you know, I looked at them, but I tried not to worry too much about them because if you worry about every single little thing like that, you’re never going to take a leap, you’re never going to take a risk. And you’re going to kind of be stuck sitting on your hands. So eventually, I just was like, whatever. Let’s just jump in and do it. And if I’ll end up on my last dime, I’ll kind of worry about that then. But in the meantime, let’s just do this.

refinance student loans

Tim Ulbrich: I really hope, Nick, our listeners will go back and rewind and replay the last few minutes of what you said. I think there’s so much wisdom there. And you know, we talk about the x’s and o’s of personal finance, all of which are important. But at the end of the day, this reminds me back to the conversation Tim Baker and I had with Jess, my wife, and I about really finding your why and not losing sight of your passion, your interests, your purpose, in addition to the x’s and o’s. And I think it’s easy to get hung up in making sure you have your t’s crossed, your i’s dotted with your personal finances. But one of my greatest fears that I share with what I think I heard you say was looking back 30 or 40 or 50 years from now and saying, I saved up all of that for what? What was the purpose? And I think the enjoyment of life experiences is huge. And I’m so glad you took that leap of faith, and I think your story is going to encourage so many others that are maybe feeling in a rut or they’re stuck, they’re stressed and really wanting to pursue a similar path. And we’re going to get tangible here in a little bit about how they can think about doing that. But what I also want to say is I don’t want to brush over what I know you did, which is huge, is you had a solid financial foundation, which allowed this to become a reality. And so many people that are listening are thinking, wow, I’ve got $200,000 student loan debt, I’ve got credit card debt, I’ve got this going on. I’ve got young kids and expenses and I don’t have margin to do something like this. And I think what your story resonated to me, as I’m reading right now through “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” for a second time, is he talks about the importance of having a strong financial foundation so you can take risk. Now, in his book, he’s really talking about risk from real estate, the business aspect, doing some things that are entrepreneurial, but I think taking risk of taking time off and developing yourself is another aspect of risk. So share with our listeners for a moment, how did you build that strong foundation? You paid off student loan debt in 10 months, you built up some savings, you began retirement, how is that possible? And what was the strategy of doing that in such a short period of time, which takes many other people maybe five or 10 years to get to that point?

Nick Ornelia: Yeah, sure. First of all, you just mentioned the episode about the interview of you and Jess with Tim Baker.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Nick Ornelia: THat was my favorite episode by far so far, just hearing you guys talk about your whys and the questions that he was asking you just really got me thinking, and I literally, I was at the gym when I listened to that episode. And right when the episode was over, I just got out my phone and I texted my wife and I told her, “I love you.”

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

Nick Ornelia: So that, the stuff that you guys are doing is just fantastic in that regard. So I wanted to get that in there. But yeah, going back, my kind of financial story. I mean, really it started in high school, and I just decided to go to pharmacy school. I knew I was good at math and science, and I knew that pharmacists made a good salary, and that honestly kind of why I chose it. And so I went in knowing that I was doing pharmacy and knowing that I would have the degree after six years. And I went with the best financial package, which happened to be Ohio Northern. And so really did a good job of minimizing my debt. My parents were paramount in that. I know they helped me out quite a bit throughout my college years, and it’s something that I’ll never forget, it’s something that I plan on paying forward with my children. But I also, you know, at Ohio Northern, it’s a bit different for all the student listeners out there. Our last two years, our scholarship was based completely on our GPA from our first four years. And there were days that I buckled down, and I went and I studied and I got good grades and got a pretty good financial package for the last two years of pharmacy school. So I was able to come out of ONU with only about $35,000 in debt. I had also taken some money from Walgreens, I started as an intern there and took every single dollar that they offered as far as tuition reimbursement, which really helped minimize my debt as well. So upon graduation, I went right into work. I didn’t mess around. The day I got licensed, I went into work later that day. So I jumped right into it. I was living with my parents at the time and just continued to live with them and my sole purpose in life was to make that $35,000 in debt disappear. And I did owe my dad a little bit of money for a car so I had to pay that off as well. So I just lived at home with my parents, didn’t do much but work, picked up extra shifts and by I think it was January — I got licensed in I think June or July and then by that following January-February, I hit that final payment button. And that was the end of the student loans for me. I know it’s not as easy for a lot of listeners. And I’m forever grateful for that. That’s something that I’ll forever be grateful for. But at the same time, you know, once I paid off my loans, I still kind of kept in that saving money mindset, so as soon as I paid those off, I started my 401k contributions. And from the get-go, I maxed them out. I was throwing 15% of my salary. I started it that January right after I paid off my loans. So I had been maxing that out ever since then, ever since January of 2010. And then also, I really avoided the big purchases. I was young and dumb a little bit. I bought a 2011 Audi A5. You know, you guys call it the million-dollar car and essentially, it is a million-dollar car.

Tim Ulbrich: It might have been 2, right?

Nick Ornelia: But you know, I did that. And that was probably my biggest financial mistake leading up to my year off. I didn’t buy a house, I rented a small apartment that was easy to furnish, cheap, and all my other spending was kept in check. I wasn’t buying new gadgets, I never had credit card debt, never a penny of credit card debt. So I just saved as much money as I could and minimized my costs as much as I could. And that really helped build that financial base that you were talking about, really building the net worth. I know you guys are big net worth guys, and I was really able to do a good job of that over those four or five years leading up to when I actually decided to take a year off.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and Nick, what I appreciate about your journey there — and I hope the students listening heard that your financial foundation post-graduation starts when you’re in school. It’s the decisions you’re making. Yes, you had parental support, which is awesome, but also in there was scholarships and pursuing those types of things, being intentional about putting yourself in a position to get those scholarships. It’s about doing everything you can post-graduation to minimize accumulation of interest and keeping costs down and not buying big homes and other things. So yes, you had help. But there’s intentionality in that and all the way back to your P1 year at Ohio Northern, building that foundation and your parents helping you do that, obviously was a big factor in allowing you to do the things that you’re doing today. So let’s get to the point of, you make this decision, say, “You know what? I’m doing this. I’m taking a year off.” Walk us through that conversation with your employer. What was their receptiveness to it? What security, if any, did you have about if I take this year off, will my job be here? Take us through that conversation with your employer and what was going through your mind at that time.

Nick Ornelia: Yeah, sure. So when I decided to do it, that day that I decided in October of 2015 that I’m going through with this, no matter what, I knew I had two options. I knew I had the option of trying to figure out a leave of absence. And then the alternative option was to quit, to just walk away. And I had it in the back of my mind that even if I can’t work out this leave of absence, I’m going to do it. I’m going to quit. It’s what’s going to be required for me to do this. But I’m going to do it if that’s what it comes down to. So I had that idea in the back of my mind, that kind of promise to myself to do that. But you know, obviously, I wanted to work out a leave of absence. It’s a lot more preferable to quitting, obviously, to have at least some sort of guarantee of work to come back to in a year. It takes a big worry off your mind so you’re able to enjoy the year a little bit more. And to be able to walk back and make any kind of money to begin supporting yourself again is really important, if you can make it happen. So I started looking on the Walgreens website, on our internal website, and found the leave of absence form. And it was the same form that you use for — I think you used it for family medical leave, for personal medical leave, I think even for maternity leave. But the very last option, leave option, was just a personal unpaid leave of absence. And it was left completely blank, no discretion, no direction as what to use it for. So that was my route, so I printed that form out and I needed three different signatures on it. I needed a signature from somebody in my store, which I had my pharmacy manager Jason who happens to be one of my best friends. He was super excited for me when I told him about it, and he signed the form no problem. He was one of my biggest supporters, just an incredible guy.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.

Nick Ornelia: Forever thankful for him. So I got his signature, and then I needed my district supervisor’s signature, which she had the same thing. She was super pumped for me and excited. And then I needed a signature from somebody in the leaves department, and I got all three of them and got approved for the leave of absence starting April 1, 2016. And then I had to be back to work by March 31 of 2017. Otherwise, I would be terminated. So I basically had this entire year to do whatever I pleased. And I was completely up front with what I wanted to do. I told them, I said, “Hey, I want to travel for a year. This is where I’m going to go, this is what I want to do. I will be back in a year. I want to work for Walgreens, I don’t want to work for anybody else. I love this company, I like my job. But this is what I want to do right now.” And so I got the necessary signatures, and I’ll never forget the day that I got the letter saying my leave of absence was approved. It was a pretty exhilarating day to know that I had this great big adventure planned ahead of me. So it was pretty awesome.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. What I like about that part of your story, Nick, is that to me, when I hear about the reaction from your pharmacy manager and your district manager and how excited they were for you, that tells me the level of value that you had brought to the organization. You know, because if you’re somebody who’s a mediocre employee or a disgruntled employee or an OK, average employee, you’re probably not getting that reaction. So I think it just speaks more to what we’ve talked about before on this podcast about as we encourage and coach people through career aspects is focus on the value that you’re providing to the organization. What value do you bring each and every day? And the rest of it will take care of itself, whether it’s opportunities, whether it’s salary increases, whether it’s things like this where you’re granted a year off and ultimately, have excitement around it as well. Now, I know you and I talked a little bit before the show and before we hit record that technically, there was no guarantee of employment upon your return. But you know, you had some indications that there was support for you in that journey. So you had some peace of mind in that aspect. Is that correct? Is that fair?

Nick Ornelia: Yes. So going back to what you said about being a good employee. That’s paramount to getting a leave of absence like this approved. Just thinking from a manager’s standpoint, I’m a pharmacy manager now. Just thinking from that standpoint of, if I had an employee, one of my best employees, come to me and say, “Hey, I want to do this for a whole year. I’m going to leave, but I will be back in a year.” I kind of know that they’re probably going to quit if I don’t approve the leave of absence. But then I think about, you know, in a year, OK, I’ll be able to have a very good, fully trained, highly competent employee back working for me and no problems. So really, it’s almost — if you’re that good of an employee, if you work your butt off and you do everything that’s asked of you, then it’s to the benefit of the company and to your boss for them to approve that leave of absence and, you know, at least get some sort of a guarantee of you coming back to work for you. Now, on the flip side, if from their perspective it was we’re approving this leave of absence, but at the same time, we don’t know where we’re going to be a year from now. So we can’t completely, fully guarantee you any kind of promises as far as number of hours per week or where you’re going to be, where you’re going to be working. But I was prepared to hit the ground running from the bottom like I did when I was a new grad. I figured I would have had to go right back in the floating and it might have just been part-time work, but anything, even just a couple days of work a week would have been enough to kind of get me back on my feet and get me going again until I eventually work my way back into a store in a full-time position. So yeah, you’re right. There was no guarantee of anything coming back. All that leave of absence did was preserve my company start date. And it preserved — or it suspended my benefits. So that way, when I came back, my benefits would resume how they were before my leave of absence. So yeah, that was kind of one of the risks that I took, but it was worth it to me. It was worth it to me to have a year to pursue my dreams and passions and have to kind of start over with my pharmacy job and pharmacy career. But that was a risk I was willing to take. It’s funny how it all worked out, though. I ended up not having to start from the bottom. So the guy who replaced me in my store, I was a staff pharmacist at the time. I’d been at the store with Jason for I think five years at that point, four or five years. And so the guy that replaced me took a manager’s position at a different store about two or three months before I was due to come back to work. And Jason convinced the district supervisors to hold my position for me at my old store until I got back in like two or three months. So I was able to go right back into the exact same store, the exact same position, full-time work. I think my first day back was March 27, 2017. It was a Monday. And I was right back standing where I was a year ago at that time. So it was quite incredible how it all worked out.

Tim Ulbrich: So let’s talk about your trip. Let’s talk about what you saw, where you went, how much money it had cost you throughout the year. And for me, maybe more importantly, what you learned about yourself during that year.

Nick Ornelia: Sure. So the money aspect, I mentioned I had about $50k saved up in a savings account. $10k of that to me was pretty untouchable. It was my emergency fund and my fund in case I needed money when I came back to keep me going and get me going again. So I had about $40k to spend for the whole year. I had mentioned that book, “Travel the World on $50 a Day,” so I knew if I traveled cheap enough, then I could keep my costs around — my living costs, my living costs, my food, my shelter, my travel, plane tickets, that kind of stuff. I knew if I kept that around that cost, that would leave me about $20,000 extra dollars to basically spend on whatever I wanted to do. So that was kind of my budgeting plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was something. But I had limits in mind. I knew I wasn’t going to go over a certain amount. So yeah, so my first six months, I am an absolute huge fan of America’s national parks. I am just in love with them, so I had been to quite a few before then, but I wanted to try to hit as many national parks as I could and as many of these just incredible places out west. So the first six months, I spent out west. I drove all the way to California, spent a couple weeks in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which I know you and Jess are big fans of that. I climbed Mount Whitney, which is the highest mountain in the Lower 48 states. I did that as part of a charity fundraiser thing.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I remember that.

Nick Ornelia: Which was really cool to be able to raise some money for a pretty cool charity that I support. So yes, I did that and then headed over to Utah and spent like three weeks in Utah, just hiking around all the national parks there and exploring just an absolutely incredible state. And I met my buddy Tony in Colorado, spent a week in Colorado white water rafting, and then we drove home together, went to a couple Major League Baseball stadiums along the way. I went home — so I got home early June, spent a few weeks at home in June, and then at the end of June, I headed back out west. My buddy Sam accompanied me this time. We spent another week in Colorado, just hiking around the mountains, backpacking, camping. And then from there, I drove back out to California. I hiked the John Muir Trail, which is about a 220-mile trail through the Sierra Nevadas, which was two of the best weeks of my life, just the beauty of the places that I saw. Just stunning. And then from there, I headed north up into Washington and from there, I spent about three weeks in Washington. I climbed Mount Rainier, which is just one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, in my opinion. And from there, I headed east towards Wyoming. And we haven’t talked about this much, but I was dating somebody at the time. So I mentioned my relationship ended, and a couple weeks after that, I met Alanna, who is now my wife. So I met her — so we were dating at the time, and so she’d decided to fly out. She met me in Wyoming, and we spent two weeks together in Wyoming. And that was really when I knew I really liked her at the time, she was super supportive of my trip. And when she flew out to meet me and we spent those two weeks together, that was pretty much when I realized I wanted to marry her. So that was just an incredible back story of my whole year off, which we don’t need to get too much into, but from there, we drove home. After that, I flew to Europe in September. I spent two and half months in Europe, just backpacking around. My sister accompanied me for a week in Paris and London. And then I came back to Cincinnati for the holidays. And then right after Christmas, I flew to Africa. And I had signed up to do six weeks of volunteer week in Uganda. And then I went to Tanzania for three weeks, I climbed Kilimanjaro, went on safari there. Also in Uganda, I went on a safari, I went and saw the mountain gorillas, did all the fun stuff there. And then Alanna met me again in Kenya for my last two weeks of my year off. And we volunteered together, went on safari and just had an absolute blast.

Tim Ulbrich: And Nick, I’m getting chills just hearing the experiences you’ve had and thinking about obviously what relationally it did for even just building a good foundation for you and your wife now and that experience and some of the mission and service work that you did. And so I think you’ve partly answered that, but let me wrap that around about as you look back on that year, what are some of the things that you learned about yourself during that year? Because I have to imagine when you’re doing that kind of travel, you’ve got work set aside, there’s probably lots of time for reflection and growth. So what were some of your takeaways from that year?

Nick Ornelia: Sure. One of my goals was to learn as much as I could. So I read constantly. I think I read probably around 40 books throughout the course of the whole year. So you know, just learning practical day-to-day and just reading some great literature and great books. I think I learned, I learned quite a bit. A lot of it, in regards to my career, I learned quite a bit. So when I was volunteering in Uganda, I actually volunteered at a pharmacy there. It was a government-run healthcare facility. And they actually had a small pharmacy. It was a closet. It was like 6-foot by 8-foot. And they only had about 25-30 medications that they dispensed. And I was basically given the keys to the place after my second day of work. So I learned quite a bit about the differences in healthcare between a third-world country and our country. And I learned how it is so easy for us here in America to take everything for granted and the opportunities that we have and the long lives, the long, healthy lives that we live here, it’s just overwhelming to look at the differences between those two. So I learned to really appreciate my health, appreciate everything I have here at home, everything that we have here in America, the healthcare system that we have and the opportunity that we have career-wise as well as pharmacists. But there was a lot of personal things that I kind of learned and I think I improved on as well. I think I was always, you know, prior to my year off, I was always thinking ahead or I was always reliving past moments. I was never able to fully live in the moment and fully appreciate a relationship or appreciate my life the way it is. I don’t think I was ever able to just sit down and say, man, I feel like totally, completely content right now. Everything is just perfect right now. I was always thinking ahead or thinking back and worrying about this or worrying about that, and that year just kind of caused a lot of that to just evaporate. And it’s continued on now. I just notice things, just sitting down and just enjoying myself and just not needing any stimulation and not needing to have the TV on or anything like that. This might sound kind of creepy, but one of my favorite things to do is to just observe my wife. I just love just seeing her facial expressions and the way she laughs and the way she does different things. And it’s just really cool to kind of have that perspective and to be able to just slow down now and just take a deep breath and just say, man, this is exactly where I want to be in life. I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Tim Ulbrich: And to be present, I think just what you said there, again, to me, highlights how many things we miss each and every day of not being present, you know, that are right in front of us. So Nick, as I hear you talk about all of the things you did during this year, the things that you learned about yourself, the opportunities to serve, what you were able to obviously gain relationally — to me, it begs the question of do we need to rethink the concept of retirement? So I think kind of the concept that we all know, we’ve been raised in is you grind it out for 40 or 50 years, you save up a nest egg, and you hope you’re healthy enough to use it and enjoy it. And we know many stories of people that aren’t able to do that or things change or they never save it up, they keep working. Does your experience beg the question of whether or not we should rethink this concept of how we do retirement?

Nick Ornelia: I think it absolutely, most certainly does. You know, this idea of just working and working and working in hopes of this great and happy retirement, you know, I think it’s a lot more possible nowadays. We live long lives. The life expectancy is increasing, and you are able to live a good life. And there’s nothing wrong with that way of thinking. Millions, billions of people have gone about it that way and have lived very happy, fulfilling lives. So there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you’re given the opportunity to pursue something different, to maybe live life a little bit differently, I think you — when you’re able to step out of that rat race for awhile, of the busyness of everyday life and just step back and be able to think and reflect — it help you grow a greater appreciation for everything that you have. And it creates these pockets of time throughout your entire working life where you’re able to just be fully happy and just enjoy yourself and not be caught up in the rat race of life. It’s not an easy thing to do, you know. It takes pretty good financials and a bit of risk, but I think that’s kind of the wave of the future. There’s becoming more and more literature out there about that. There are countries, European countries, Australia, New Zealand, that sort of thing is actually encouraged — taking extended time off. Some countries actually even have walls that protect a worker if they do decide to leave work for a year that allows them to go right back into their same position. And I think you’re seeing more of that today now with — I know Walgreens and I know CVS just recently announced a new paternity maternity leave. We get eight weeks of paid leave whenever we have children. So I think there is a trend kind of in that direction. But yeah, if you’re able to pull it off, it’s a life-changing experience, and it’s incredible. I can’t speak more about it.

Tim Ulbrich: And that’s why I appreciate you sharing your story. I think as I’ve talked about this concept with many pharmacists, I would say most, if not all, say, “Yes. I get it. I agree,” but struggle with the tangible aspect of show me somebody who’s done it and how do I do it? So let’s there in this show as we talk about seven financial steps to take a year off. We’ll link to your blog post about this topic because I think it’s spot on. So we’ll do it in an abbreviated kind of a rapid-fire format. I’m going to pitch each of these out here so our listeners can hear all of them, and then we’ll go back through them one-by-one and hit the main highlights. So in your blog post — and we’ll link in the show notes over at your blog, which is at YPYearOff.com, you talk about seven financial steps to take a year off. Those seven are No. 1, create an emergency fund. No. 2, pay off credit card debt. No. 3, pay off student loans. No. 4, start 401k/IRA contributions. No. 5, start saving for your year off. No. 6, increase 401k/IRA contributions. And No. 7, add more money to your emergency fund, finish retirement savings and finish your year off savings. So first off, No. 1, create an emergency fund. What’s your recommendation for people here when it comes to an emergency fund?

Nick Ornelia: $10k. Quick and easy, $10k. I mean, that’s going to cover everything you need beforehand and then coming home, $10k is more than enough to last you until you get back to full-time work. So $10k is what I had.

Tim Ulbrich: No. 2, pay off your credit card debt. You know, I think probably the most common question some people may have here is how do you balance that with the student loans, which is No. 3. So what advice do you give people there?

Nick Ornelia: So the high interest stuff, get rid of the high interest stuff first. Credit card debt is going to be your highest interest stuff. So if you have any of that stuff, just get rid of it. It’s terrible. Credit cards are fine. You can earn some really nice rewards points and get some nice round-trip flights for your year off by using a credit card, but pay it off in full every month.

Tim Ulbrich: And then third, you have pay off student loans, which we’ve talked extensively about on this podcast. So let’s jump to No. 4, which is start 401k/IRA contributions, which I’m guessing many listening may struggle with this concept of I want to take a year off, I need to save some money. But I also want to be balancing and thinking about the future. So what advice do you have here in terms of people initiating retirement contributions?

Nick Ornelia: Yeah, before a year off, I think it is important to kind of get some money, a good chunk of money into a 401k or an IRA. You know, when you get it into there at a young age, you’re able to take advantage of compounding interest for a longer period of time. And it’s a nice financial cushion to have. Even though it’s pretty much untouchable, you know, it is money that’s yours. And if in the absolute worst case scenario, that you get into trouble during your year off, you have a serious injury or something and you absolutely need the money, you have that money there. Now, it should be completely untouchable in your mind. But it’s that extra financial cushion and that there’s extra years of compounding interest to keep your future financials in order as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. No. 5, you have start saving for your year off. What is typically — obviously dependent on where people want to go, what they want to do — but what’s a rough number that you give people in terms of how much they should be saving for a year off?

Nick Ornelia: I think $40,000 is — I mean, that’s how much I had. And I lived cheaply. I camped a lot, I stayed in hostels, I stayed in volunteer houses. But I never had to say no to anything that I wanted to do. So if I wanted to spend $1,500 on a safari in Tanzania, which I did, I had no qualms about that. I had the money to do it. Now, obviously if you can’t reach $40k, it is possible to do an entire year for less than that. You can do stuff a lot cheaper than $40,000. And the other thing is, you don’t have to be gone for a full year. You can cut it back to six months, $20,000 for six months. That would make it easier to get a leave of absence possibly. Or even cut it back even further to three months if three months is all you can get. Then maybe you only need about $10,000 or $15,000 for that three months. But $40,000 for a year will give you one heck of a year.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Nick Ornelia: You will have a great time.

Tim Ulbrich: And we’ll link in the show notes to the book you referenced earlier that talked about $50 a day. I think getting examples and things people can read will help with that. And obviously reaching out to you as well and hearing your story. No. 6 is increasing 401k/IRA contributions. We talked about that. And No. 7 is adding more money to emergency fund, finish retirement savings and finish your year off savings. What I love about your seven steps here, Nick, is 1, they’re tangible. But 2, what it does is it allows you to go off and to enjoy this year. And I think to reap all the benefits that you did with having a peace of mind that you’ve got a solid financial foundation in place. You’ve got an emergency fund, you’ve got no credit card debt, student loans hopefully are gone or minimized, you’ve begun retirement savings. You’ve got cash for this year off, so it’s really allowing somebody to enjoy that time, which goes to my last question here. And we’ll link to this in your blog as well. But you talk about the concept of calculating your year-off age, which I love because I think it takes this concept, which can maybe seem somewhat nebulous and start to become very tangible and start so that a lot of people can put a goal to say, “OK, at the age of x, I’m going to actually do this. I’m going to make this happen.” So briefly talk us through how to simply get to that calculation of what their year-off age is.

Nick Ornelia: Yeah, sure. I mean, really, all it is is kind of a net worth calculation. You’re trying to reach a goal net worth and based on how much money you make every year, you subtract out your expenses per year so you’re able to figure out, you know, an exact dollar amount of how much you’re able to save to put toward your net worth to pay off debt, to start your 401k contributions and to save for the year off. So based on what your difference, what the gap is between how much money you bring in per year and how much money is going out towards expenses, you can figure an exact age as to when you would have $40,000 for the year, when you would have a good start on retirement savings and when you would have your student loans paid off. So you can, based on that, figure out the exact age that you will be able to do it. So like you said, it does make things tangible to have an idea of what age it’s possible. And then it also opens up the avenue of figuring out ways to cut back on your expenses. And then you recalculate your year-off age, and you’re like, “Wow. If I cut out this expense, I’d be able to — my year-off age would be a year earlier than that.” So you know, it creates that timeline in your head and kind of makes it easier to adhere to your budget.

Tim Ulbrich: So make sure to our listeners, head on over to the Young Professional’s Guide to a Year Off, YPYearOff.com. Again, that’s YPYearOff.com, where you can get more information about the seven financial steps to take a year off. You can calculate your year-off age. You can follow Nick’s journey. And Nick, thank you so much for taking time to come on. You’ve inspired me. I’m confident you’re going to do that same thing for our listeners. So really appreciate you taking this step out, taking this risk, and then being willing to share your story with other pharmacists that are part of our community. Thank you so much.

Nick Ornelia: It’s been a blast, Tim. Thank you so much.

Tim Ulbrich: As we wrap up another episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, I want to thank today’s sponsor, Script Financial.

Sponsor: You’ve heard us talk before on this show about Script Financial. YFP team member, Tim Baker, who is also a fee-only Certified Financial Planner, is owner of Script Financial. Now, Script Financial comes with my highest recommendation. Jess and I use Tim Baker and his services through Script Financial and I can advocate for the planning services that he provides and value of fee-only financial planning advice. Meaning that when I pay Tim for his services, I’m paying directly for his advice, not for products or commissions that may cloud or bias the advice he is giving me. So Script Financial specifically works with pharmacy clients. So, if you are overwhelmed with student loans or maybe confused about how to invest and save for retirement, or just frustrated with the overall progress you are making on your financial plan, I would highly recommend checking out Tim and Script Financial to see whether or not his services are a good fit for you. You can get started by scheduling a free call with Tim Baker by going to scriptfinancial.com, and clicking on ‘Schedule a Free Call.’ Again, that’s scriptfinancial.com.

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YFP 059: Life After Debt Free…Now What?


 

On Episode 59 of Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Baker, founder of Script Financial and YFP Team Member, interviews Adam and Brittany Patterson. On Episode 31, Adam detailed how they paid off $211,000 of student loan debt in 26 months. Adam and Brittany are 2015 graduates from Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy. Brittany is a pharmacist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Adam is a pharmacist at Northeast Georgia Medical Center and Assistant Pharmacy Manager at Publix Pharmacy.

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Episode Transcript

Tim Baker: Adam and Brittany, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. How are you guys doing today?

Brittany Patterson: Good.

Adam Patterson: Great, thanks for having us.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, thanks for having us.

Tim Baker: So I would say, Adam, and you did a good job on Episode 031 when you were last on detailing your amazing debt-free that you did and excellent job of calling out Brittany and giving her credit to this journey of paying back debt, but I’m so happy, Brittany, to bring you on and kind of hear your side of the story. That episode, in particular, has been a huge success. It’s actually our third most downloaded episode with almost 1,600 downloads. And I think it just resonates with a lot of pharmacists out there. So kind of if you would, tell us a little bit about yourself and walk us through kind of — Brittany, I guess I’m talking to you of this debt-free story and kind of recap, you know, how it came to be, how you got through it. And let’s go from there.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, so it’s great to be here. I know Adam talked a lot about our story. I guess he made it sound it like it was all nice and easy, but we really did have a big struggle, you know, those 2.4 years that we went through this. You know, we got that first letter, I guess six months when we got out, and it said, ‘Hey, great job finishing school, but you know, we need our money back.’ And that’s just something that we didn’t really talk about in school. And so we were texting all of our classmates, trying to figure out what they were going to do, and they didn’t know. And so we kind of bit the bullet and that’s why we just decided to refinance. Both of us came out working retail jobs, and so we refinanced, about a year into your retail, you got your job at the hospital. And that was hard because Adam was working night shift, and I was working day shift, so you know, he would be driving out of the neighborhood when I would be driving in the neighborhood. I think we would go three full days of not seeing each other. So it may sound real great, oh, only 2.4 years, but that was really — I mean, it felt very long when we were in the middle of it. It’s not as easy as it sounds. It was very hard work. But it was definitely hard work that paid off in the end. And we had that support of each other, we were on the same page with money. You know, that’s what we — when we just spoke recently to students, we told them that money is one of the biggest issues that couple fight about. And I feel like for us, that’s something that we never really have arguments about. We’re on the same page with money, and we’ve been kind of there since Day 1, knowing how we were going to refinance and everything. And so even though it’s been hard work, we’ve always been on the same page, and it’s definitely helped our marriage too throughout all of it.

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s funny, when I was preparing for this episode, I went back and it’s one of the few times, actually, to go back as a listener. And I listened to Episode 031 again, and one of the things that Adam said was, smart decisions, hard work and sacrifices, those are really the three things that allowed us to propel you guys forward to pay off the debt. And another thing that Brittany, you mentioned was the refinance. I think you guys refinanced your rate of 6-7% over 10 years down to I think it was 4.25% over five years, kind of locking you into more of an aggressive payment process but also saving you about $65,000 in interest over the course of paying that off. So I guess for you guys, what has been since you paid off the loans, what’s been going on? Like what’s been the big driver of like where do you go from there? Like what’s been the big difference in life since the loans have been paid off?

Brittany Patterson: You know what’s funny is we were just talking about that this morning. I think we work more now than we did when we paying off loans.

Tim Baker: Really?

Adam Patterson: I can agree 100% with that.

Brittany Patterson: Yes. People are like, oh, your loans are paid off, you’re going to enjoy it so much. And I’m thinking, I think we work more now than we did then, but we’re so accustomed to it that it doesn’t seem like a big difference to us.

Adam Patterson: I think it’s about goal-driven too is setting your sights on what’s into the future and just trying to get there. But also, you have to enjoy every bit of it and take some time and have free time for yourself. But yeah, hustle’s been real. We’ve been hustling since we finished paying off loans, still keeping both jobs, Brittany’s been working a little bit extra too, and I work my full 70 and then turn around and pick up a whole other 44, 45 hours in my off week and then back around again, 70 hours again the next week. So it’s been nonstop.

Tim Baker: It’s funny though, because like I think what, you know, it’s kind of like the get-rich-quick schemes that are out there, one of the things I often say to clients and even when we’re speaking is, you know, the key here, especially if you want to retire early or if you want to get through the debt is a lot of it is just elbow grease and is just kind of putting your head down and working hard. There’s not a lot of fancy schemes or tricks. It’s about, you know, really maximizing income and being smart with, you know, budget. I know, Adam, you talked about how, you know, Mint.com was a big part of this. And Brittany, I know you are a Mint.com addict, it kind of is safe to say that.

Brittany Patterson: Yes.


Tim Baker: So and then just having that kind of 100% transparency between the two of you and really looking at it as your loans, but you know, so not much has changed. Obviously, I knew that you guys — and to kind of full disclosure here, you know, Adam mentioned he would be reaching out to me and Script Financial about working together. And you guys did in February, you kind of came on and became clients. And that’s why I have a little bit of an inside track to what’s been going on. But I was reviewing your finances, just in the time that you guys have come on, your net worth has grown exponentially. And it’s really just exciting to see because you guys obviously took a negative of the $211,000 and in two years and change, took that off the balance sheet. And now, you’re perpetuating that same type of mentality and really deploying your resources to your goals. So one of the things that you guys talked about when we did kind of the ‘find your way’ was experiences. And you guys took a vacation here recently. Where did you guys go? How was that?

Adam Patterson: We took a trip to Ireland. We went for a little under two weeks. It was breathtaking. It was amazing.

Brittany Patterson: So much fun.

Adam Patterson: Being able to cash flow pretty much everything and knowing you’re not having to worry about spending this, spending that, because you’ve worked hard, we’ve worked hard, we’ve saved for it. It’s a great payoff, treating yourself to something like that after you finish accomplishing one of those goals.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, we didn’t have to limit ourselves on the trip, which is nice. We weren’t afraid about not being able to afford a dinner or buying a souvenir because we knew that we worked hard before we went on this trip, and we were able to, you know, buy the things that we wanted to buy. We didn’t go overboard on things, but we just knew that we didn’t have to limit ourselves while we were there, which was really nice.

Tim Baker: Well, and I know kind of when we talk about your goals, obviously experiences is a big part of that. And you know, like when I look at some of the things that we’ve done, you know, as kind of just simple, you know, we’ll get to kind of your next big goal here in a bit, but obviously vacations, so having a travel fund, you know, a savings account that you can cash flow, having a, you know, obviously a fully funded emergency fund, having your home purchase fund, which is kind of the next big thing on the horizon, I think those are just naming the accounts the goals that are out there, you know, psychology says that that alone is a big win. And you know, for me as kind of working with you guys, I know that, you know, if the next trip is Australia or New Zealand or Germany or attending a sporting event to the Panthers or Steelers or Cooperstown, whatever those things are that we kind of outline, my job is to kind of help you make sure that this is the next on the docket and we’re cash flowing those appropriately. So walk me through, you know, since the debt was paid, why did you guys — what was the genesis around, hey, we need to work with a financial planner? What was the big driving force to kind of email me and contact me and say, ‘Hey, Tim, we want to see if working together is a good fit.’?

Adam Patterson: I would say the first thing that got us talking about it is — and I tell other people this too — is we went to school to be pharmacists. We understand certain things when it comes to financial stuff, but we’re not a professional in that. So seeking out professional help, it was our No. 1 goal, whether we should have started before we paid off loans or not, that’s up in the air, but we tell people all the time, it’s never too early to find a financial planner or somebody to help you with that because that’s what their profession is. For us, it was being a pharmacist, serving patients and things like that. So seeking out a financial planner, it was our next step, our next goal simply because we wanted somebody to give us more directive, be able to help balance more things in our life.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, and to hold us accountable. We know we do have a good income that comes in, but making sure we are putting that income towards our goals and making sure our budget is correct. Just we knew that you could help us more financially than we could help ourselves in that area.

Tim Baker: Well, and I think the other thing that I think resonates or resonated with me in the last story — I know, Brittany, like you just said, kind of confirms that is — I think one of the things that a lot of pharmacists do is they kind of drink that six-figure Kool Aid that says, hey, I come out, and I’m making x amount of dollars, I don’t really have to worry about the debt, it’ll take care of itself. And I think for you guys, and I know, you know, kind of the backdrop is Adam, you went through the Dave Ramsey — I’m not sure if both of you guys went through the Dave Ramsey stuff — but it was kind of this no-nonsense approach to paying off the debt. So talk to me, what’s the big thing right now that is kind of top of mind with where you want to take your financial plan and where we’re going? So I know the big one is the home purchase, right? So we’ve talked about this at length and what that looks like. So walk me through kind of where you guys currently are in that part of your financial plan and what you’ve learned thus far.

Adam Patterson: Right now, like you said, our next step is financially purchasing a home, working with you, setting up, figuring out what we can actually afford. I think that’s one of the biggest things and knowing that you’re not spending too much but you’re going to be comfortable. That’s something that we are working with you, getting approved, working with a bank to get approved. We have a real estate agent now, so we’re in the process of shopping for a home, whether it’s one month, two months, six months from now, we just know that we’re ready for it. And that’s what we’re doing right now is we’re continuing to work towards that goal.

Tim Baker: And I think, I think the idea was to be almost singularly focused on that, similar to what you were with the debt until you guys are moved into the house. And I know, Brittany, that’s kind of like, you want that to happen yesterday because you’re ready to make the purchase. But I think being smart about it and surrounding yourself with a team of people that have your best interests in mind. And I think sometimes that is lost in the home purchase process just because most people, most professionals are incentivized about how much you actually purchase in terms of the size of the house, but I think you guys are going about it, and I think when we went through, ‘Hey, what can we actually afford?’ it was with this discount that you guys are not going to be hustling like that for the rest of your life, you can actually afford something probably greater than you probably would be if you were kind of working consistently. But I think it’s been great working with you because I think you are very open to advice and kind of the education that surrounds a lot of these decisions. So from my end, it’s been awesome. And I think, you know, we see it a lot because I think your story resonates. So walk me through kind of what you’ve been doing speaking-wise since, you know, we’ve last had you on the podcast.

Brittany Patterson: I think — was it June, Adam?

Adam Patterson: Yeah, it was around June.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, in June, we went to the Alabama Pharmacy Association convention, and we were invited to come speak to the students there. So there were Stanford students, and there were also Auburn students. And we went in, and we had a whole PowerPoint presentation, and it was funny because I don’t think we spoke until about 7, 8 o’clock at night.

Adam Patterson: Yeah, it was 7 or 8.

Brittany Patterson: And it was after they’d all been to the pool, they were all outside, all having fun, and I’m thinking, there’s no way they’re going to want to sit in here and listen to us talk about finances at all. And we walked in there, gave our presentation, and they ate it up. I was shocked.

Adam Patterson: It’s just — it’s crazy when we’re presenting and seeing these students’ mouths drop just because we’re providing them with this information that whether they knew about it or not, it’s just resonating with them and telling a story not in trying to convey that they have to pay off this much money in such a short period of time, but the fact that we’re giving them these resources that, you know, they’re just not provided in school. And I think Your Financial Pharmacist, I think we’ve all harped on this, is making the education relevant and putting it out there for everybody. That’s just something, it’s a passion that we’ve kind of taken up on now is wanting to speak at more events and do more things to try and share our story.

Brittany Patterson: Right, because I think it’s something that we wish we would have had too, coming out of school.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think Adam, I think one of the things that you said was, you know, when you were looking around, kind of looked to your left and looked to your right at hey, what’s the best way to tackle the loans, there wasn’t really anything there outside of maybe like a colleague and a few opinions. So you know, I think shining a light on this and having more people kind of like just openly speak about some of the trepidations with their loans. We hear a lot of people say, ‘Hey, you know, if we would have known now what we know today, we would have made a lot better decisions,’ and I think that’s why, aside from the facts of, you know, the facts and figures around your particular case, you know, there’s no — like I said, there’s really no silver bullet. It’s just like, OK, we worked a lot, we sacrificed, and you wake up, and you’re through the loans. And now, it’s what’s next? So I think your story, you know, is amazing. But then, you know, the fact that you can stand in front of people and say, ‘A few short years ago, I was in a similar spot, this is kind of what we did,’ is really amazing. So do you guys see yourself speaking more? Did you enjoy that part of it?

Brittany Patterson: Yeah. We both really enjoy it. And we actually have another one in November coming up, and we’re speaking at the National Community Pharmacists Association in Auburn. And so we’re going to go back to Auburn and be able to speak to those students. They came up to us after, I think it was the president of NCPA from Auburn, she came up, she’s like, ‘Oh, we loved y’all so much. We really want to have y’all back. I feel like these students could really learn from y’all since this is something that we don’t hear much about in school.’

Tim Baker: Well, and I think, you know, and that’s what I’m kind of hearing more, especially from NCPA, you know, or at least people associated with, pharmacists associated with NCPA is, you know, the decision or start, you know, an independent pharmacy is so huge. You have to have your own financial house in order or at least have a plan to have it in order, so I think there’s a lot of — you know, especially with that group, you know, a lot of relevancy to say, ‘Hey, if this is something that I really want to pursue, you know, I need to make sure that, you know, this big kind of elephant in the room at least is accounted for and there’s a plan in place,’ and I think that’s a great group to be talking to. So I guess for you guys, if I’m a recent pharmacist grad, what are kind of the big takeaways — I’m a new PharmD, I’m out, I’m earning income, I have kind of the average $150,000, $160,000 in debt. What would be the kind of big takeaways for, that you would impart on me in terms of how to tackle it?

Brittany Patterson: I know no one likes to hear this, but the biggest thing that we did was we lived below our means, which I know everybody hates to hear that because you feel like you’re constricted, but we weren’t because we were so used to living like that in school. And I think that’s one of the biggest reasons we were able to pay off our loans. We weren’t buying expensive cars, we weren’t buying expensive boats. Nobody told the students. We had friends who went and bought cars and boats, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we just didn’t want more debt on top of the debt we already had. So I think that was one of the biggest things was really watching what we were spending and not overspending.

Adam Patterson: Yeah, I would say that would probably be one of my biggest things is living below our means. Something other to add to that is, you know, work hard for what you’re given. I mean, there’s too many people that just expect or receive things, and it’s all about hard work. Like we’ve talked about before, you know, putting in the hours, trying to maximize that income. As a new grad, I mean, what else do you have to do?

Brittany Patterson: Right.

Adam Patterson: I hate to say it, but to go on top of that, while you’re working hard, you have to treat yourself every now and then. I think debt’s something that we all can get caught up, and just working nonstop but not ever reaping some of that benefit, some of that benefit is to take a vacation every once in awhile.

Brittany Patterson: Yeah, and we don’t really eat out much, and that’s something that, you know, we really appreciate when we do get to eat out. We enjoy those moments more because of the fact that we aren’t doing it all the time.

Adam Patterson: Right.
Brittany Patterson: So we don’t take those moments for granted when we are able to enjoy evenings out together, which is nice.
Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s a treat rather than the norm, right?

Brittany Patterson: Right.

Tim Baker: Exactly. Well, and maybe, you know, you grow an affinity for Mint.com and logging in every day, right, Brittany? And making sure that the spending is in line, and you’re good there, that would probably be another piece of that.

Brittany Patterson: Right, that is true.

Adam Patterson: What is it they say? Eat, sleep. And Brittany’s is eat, sleep, mint.

Brittany Patterson: Mint, unfortunately.

Adam Patterson: So I will add, you know, something we got a lot of questions about. As a new grad, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Using your resources and everything, that’s huge coming out of school is finding the information and going off, adding to that is talking about a financial planner and stuff. You know, that question’s came up to us a lot. Should I invest in a financial planner early on? There’s nothing that hurts from investing in a financial planner early on because they’re going to be able to, you know, guide you to those resources also. So that is a big thing I would harp on coming out of school.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I think to play on that, you know, in terms of extra resources, obviously, I think what we’re trying to achieve here at Your Financial Pharmacist is just with the Facebook group and the different guides, to have information and kind of a community surrounding the information to put you in a position to tackle the debt or investments or if it’s insurance questions, so you know, I know you guys talked about — to kind of bring it back to the loans is one of the big things you did is refinance. So if you are looking to refinance, you know, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/refinance, we have calculators, we have different refinance companies that will give you bonuses and we have podcast episodes that are about student loans. So there’s a lot of good information there if you’re a YFP listener that you can digest and kind of learn more about the process. And I think it’s key to continuously push the envelope in terms of what you want to do with your financial life. Well, Brittany and Adam, thank you so much for coming back on the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast and sharing your incredible story. It doesn’t sound like you guys have let off the gas at all. I know you took your trip to Ireland and took some of that time to decompress, but it sounds like with the home purchase and some of the other things you’ve got going on that, you know, you’re kind of going back to the hustle and making sure you’re making moves with your financial plan. So it’s been a pleasure working with you guys, and I can say that your story truly resonates with a lot of our listeners and just a lot of pharmacists out there that it’s truly inspiring. So keep up the good work, and we’d love to have you back for the next major milestone. So you’ve done the debt-free theme hour, maybe we’ll have you on for the millionaire theme hour when you hit that millionaire status for net worth. So again, thanks again for coming on.

Adam Patterson: Thank you so much for having us.

Brittany Patterson: Yes, we really appreciate it.

 

 

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YFP 050: One Couple’s Journey Paying Off $197,000 of Student Loans in 28 Months


 

In celebration of the 50th episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we have a special Debt Free Theme Hour for you where we interview Jill & Sylvain Paslier about their journey paying off $197,000 of student loan debt in 28 months. They share how they practically accomplished this goal, their strategy for working together to knock out this debt and what is next up for their financial future now that they are debt free!

About Our Guests

Jill Paslier graduated with a Doctorate of Pharmacy from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy in 2014. During the past two years, Jill has been involved in developing workflows and clinical services for a brand new specialty pharmacy with Banner Health. Her professional interests include working on projects to improve patient safety, optimize pharmacy workflows, and improve pharmacy quality. She leads the pharmacy Quality Council and precepts pharmacy students and residents.

Sylvain Paslier works as an Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Reputation.com.

Mentioned on the Show

  1. Financial Peace University

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 050 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. We have a special treat for you in this episode as we celebrate making it to 50 episodes of this podcast. So as we approach 50,000 downloads of the podcast, and as we celebrate the 50th episode, on behalf of Tim Church and Tim Baker, from YFP, I want to say thank you for your support. It’s the encouraging discussion in the YFP Facebook group, the emails and support that we receive from you, the listeners, about the positive impact this podcast is having with regards to your own finances that keeps us excited about getting you a new episode each and every week. As we approach this mark of 50 episodes and 50,000 downloads of the show, I want to use this as a chance to ask you to help us share the good news with your friends and colleagues and to leave a review in iTunes or whatever podcast player you use, that will help more people learn about the show. And finally, if you have a story to share, a question we can answer or a topic you think we should address on a future show, shoot us a message inside the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook group or by email at [email protected]. OK, let’s get started with today’s debt-free story.

Tim Ulbrich: Jilly and Sylvain, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. So glad to have you on the show.

Jill Paslier: Hi. Happy to be here.

Sylvain Paslier: Thanks for having us.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So Jill, why don’t we start with — I had a chance to get to know you a little bit, actually recently. I was in Tucson, Arizona at the University of Arizona doing a financial talk and got to hear a little more about your financial story. And as the listeners are going to hear just like I did, really an incredible story of what you and Sylvain have done and done together as a team. So why don’t we start with just giving us a little bit of background about where you graduated from pharmacy school, where you and Sylvain met, how long you’ve been married, and I think that will be a good kickoff to the episode.

Jill Paslier: Sure. So I am a 2014 of the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. Sylvain and I actually met in 2008 when I was in my senior year of undergrad. I did a study abroad in France, and we met in France at the church there. And we kind of just kept in touch long-distance for a couple of years, started dating in 2010 and then get married in 2012, so right in the middle of my schooling. And then so from Minnesota, we moved out to Arizona for my first job out of school.

Tim Ulbrich: I think that was probably a good choice going from the weather of Minnesota to the weather of Arizona, so that’s a big plus. And Sylvain, tell us a little bit about the work that you do. And I’m also curious, just as a follow-up to that, knowing that you grew up as a French national, tell us a little bit about student loan debt and how that’s different and obviously, from what I understand, you voluntarily opted into marrying Jill with all this student loan debt, right?

Sylvain Paslier: Yes, that’s correct. When I said, “I do,” I said, “I do to the student loans as well.” Yeah, so, you know, in France, higher education is subsidized, so I was privileged to pursue an education for free, essentially. You know, paid back in taxes. And so obviously, that was pretty different moving over to the U.S. and realizing that most of my peers had a lot of financial baggage. So I’m very fortunate that I did not have that. And so it was quite an adjustment to get into that, understanding how to pay it back, obviously. And to your question, I currently work for a tech company. I do account management. It’s one of these dotcom companies, headquartered in Silicon Valley, but they have an office in Tempe here.

 

 

Tim Ulbrich: So Jill, take us back all the way to 2014. You graduate from pharmacy school, you get your PharmD, you look up, you’ve got over $180,000 in student loan debt. And obviously, that number would accrue some additional interest. I mean, at that moment, take us through what you were thinking and how that debt load impacted you and obviously secondarily, Sylvain, when you were a new graduate.

Jill Paslier: So I didn’t really keep track of my student loans while I was a student. I did a private undergrad. I took an extra year in the middle where I kind of worked and did some prereqs for pharmacy school and then, of course, the four-year PharmD. So I knew that I was taking out a lot of loans because a lot of times I would max it out. Almost my entire education was financed. So I knew it was going to be a lot, but I really had no idea what that number was until I graduated. So that summer, I got the paper that says how much it is. It was $187,000 right out the door from pharmacy school. So I just thought that was like a huge number. At first, I was really optimistic, you know, we’re getting a good salary, and we’re going to be able to pay it off really fast. But it was a lot harder than I expected.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I’m glad you brought that up because you mentioned kind of the lack of keeping track and awareness of it. We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about, you know, step No. 1 for students and new practitioners, residents, whomever, is really just inventorying your student loans and knowing what you have before you can obviously start to put a plan together to attack them. So Sylvain, talk to us a little bit about the journey of when that moment hit you guys of saying like, wow, we’ve got to pay this off. And obviously, as I alluded to in the introduction, you did it relatively — not relatively, you did it really quickly, I mean two years and four months — but what was that moment where you guys said together, wow, there’s got to be a different way of doing this. And then a little bit about just practically, what did that look like in terms of adjusting other expenses to attack those loans?

Sylvain Paslier: Yeah, absolutely. So at first, it was very overwhelming to realize the amount of student loans. But at the same time, it was almost numbing. And there is such a normalization of student loans that we didn’t feel any pressure to attack it very quickly. So it’s only through a series of events that made us aware of the issue and of the opportunity in our lives that would emerge from paying it off quickly that we took action. And some of these steps were becoming educated around personal finance and then modifying our lifestyle to increase our income and reduce our outgo lifestyle choices. So it’s really been kind of this series of events that — basically all that to say, we didn’t get it all at once. It was a number of little things that got us to the point where we realized we needed to work at it very hard.

Tim Ulbrich: And is it fair to see — Sylvain, were you guys kind of both on the same page from day one of we’ve got to attack this? Or was one of you taking the lead and then the other person caught up over time?

Sylvain Paslier: So we were in it together. You know, as soon as we got married, we combined our finances and you know, this is what we think — what we thought and what we still think is the best for our marriage. So you know, when Jill and I got married, Jill had two more years of pharmacy school to go through. And so I was the breadwinner of our household. And you know, there’s times when maybe one of us is not going to be able to work as much, and it just — basically, we need to be a team in good times and in the bad times, and so there was no doubt that Jill’s debt had become my debt, as much as I didn’t like that, and that we were going to tackle it as a team.
Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I love that, and I’m thinking even back to previous podcast episodes we’ve had, Adam Patterson is coming to mind from Episode 031, Allen and Ethan Coe (?) is coming to mind as well. And I think both of those podcasts really resonated this idea and power of team and how important it is to say, this is our debt. This is our issue that we’re going to tackle. And I don’t know how you guys feel, but once you get through that, the thing that my wife and I felt is, you know, when you’re going through that process of paying down student loans and in some regard, almost grinding it out together, when you get on the other side of that, you’re like, wow, we did that as a team. Like we accomplished that, and now what’s next? You know, what other goals are we after? What are we trying to achieve? So Jill, I’m doing just some quick back-of-napkin math, and the numbers are really unbelievable. I mean, you think about that debt load, you mentioned graduating 2014, $187,000, obviously that would go up a little bit with interest, you pay that off in two year and four months, that’s a lot of money per month that you guys are throwing at these loans. Can you share a little bit about just what that looked like each and every month and how you practically carve that money out? I mean, was that side hustling, earning extra income, working extra shifts? Was that cutting expenses and budgeting? Or was it a little bit of both?

Jill Paslier: So it’s a little bit of both. So we both kind of worked two jobs for about two years. So we didn’t really dive right in for the first couple of months after I graduated. I only started working in October, so there was a few months where, you know, we only had one income and we were putting tiny bits of money towards the debt, but we really started in October after I graduated. Shortly after, I got kind of a second job code with my company so that I could work nights and weekends on additional projects, I guess. And then Sylvain was also working two jobs. So I think we were both really motivated to work extra, try to get our income up. Another way that we were able to get our take-home pay up so that we could put it towards the debt is that we actually minimized anything coming out of our paycheck. So for example, retirement, we did not contribute to retirement for the first year since we weren’t getting the match. The second year, as soon as we were eligible for the match, we only put in that 3-4% for the match, nothing else. And then for health insurance, we are choosing like the HSA plan so that we have the lowest monthly premiums. And I think those things altogether really help to increase our take-home pay, which is what we could use to pay off that debt. I can also talk about like some decreased expenses, like what did we do there. So when I graduated, you know, we see our friends on Facebook, and we see them buying new cars, maybe getting a house, you know, going up in lifestyle right away. It was tempting to do that, and I would still like a bigger kitchen to this day because we’re just in the apartment that we started off in. So we’re still in a very modest apartment, it’s the same rent as what we were paying when I was a student, for the most part. We haven’t moved up in our cars; we have the same cars we were driving as students. We limited kind of other expenses, things that we like to do like eating out and traveling. We really reigned those in, and we said no sometimes, even when we wanted to. So those are kind of the ways we were able to decrease our expenses. One other thing I’ll just mention quickly is that we got really into an idea called minimalism, which basically means that you’re living with minimal items, I guess the amount of items and things that you need, but not excessive. So I think that that helped us to stop shopping as much because we realized that we were giving it all away to Goodwill a couple months later anyways. So that definitely decreased our expenses, just like we didn’t want to buy things anymore because we knew, you know, we probably wouldn’t use it in the future, and we were much more selective on that too.

Tim Ulbrich: So much wisdom there. I mean, I love the practicality of what you guys did, and I think one of the pieces so many people struggle with is, you know, they hear all those decisions about you know, giving up on potentially some of the house things or the car things or vacations or eating out or whatever. And I think a key piece there is that, you know, those can be, but they’re not necessarily forever decisions, right? So you’re a 2014 grad, you know, you’re approaching that four-year anniversary from graduation, now you’re in a position of debt-free from your student loans and obviously the doors are wide open in terms of what you guys can do. And I’d be curious to hear your opinion — I know one of the things Jess and I felt, my wife and I, as we went through our journey is that you get to the end of this journey of paying off all of your student loan debt, and you start to realize that over those years, you build these disciplines and these behaviors that carry on obviously beyond that repayment period. So how are you guys practically — for lack of a better phrase, like toning it down, you know, now that you have all this debt repaid? Or have you just said, we’re going to shift this money we were paying towards student loans and we’re going to now put it towards other priorities such as retirement, giving, home buying? How have you made that adjustment to that post-debt life?

Sylvain: Yeah, so the irony, first, is that the day that you pay off your debt, sure you jump up and down and you’re so excited, but the reality is after all, not much has changed. And so you’ve essentially practiced over a number of years, discipline and contentment, and I think those are huge investments in our personal character. And so really, one key is to realize that although yes, paying off debt is a really big deal, once you do pay it off, you know, you’re still waking up and going to work and trying to find meaning in your life. And so that meaning was found solely in consumption and keeping up with the Joneses, then achieving that threshold is not going to be fulfilling.

Tim Ulbrich: Before we continue with the rest of today’s episode, here’s a quick message from our sponsor.

Sponsor: Hey guys, Tim Church here. You know, the younger, better looking Tim? Student loans are a big problem for pharmacists with graduates facing interest rates above 6%, it can be hard to get traction and make progress. If you’re not pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and you don’t need income-based repayments, refinancing can be a great move and could help you save big. Refinancing twice over the course of my loans helped me save thousands in interest and gave me a lot of momentum. So check out our refinance page at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/refinance where you can calculate your savings and check your rate with one of our partner companies that are offering exclusive cash bonuses to the YFP community of up to $500. That’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/refinance to find out your savings today.

Tim Ulbrich: Now back to today’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think it’s — I mean, as you guys are now on the back end of that — and I couldn’t agree more on the focus of consumption, and actually it’s — Jill, I think you used the term “minimalism,” and we’re actually right now in a small group studying the discipline of simplicity. And I think same kind of idea there. And there’s so much power, I think, and value in that, but there’s also, you know, I think a balance point where you can enjoy some of that. And are there specific things, Jill, that you guys are now looking at and saying, OK, we’ve done this, we’re maybe toning down the two jobs each or we’re now shifting this towards retirement or giving or vacations? Or are you still in that period where it’s like, oo, it’s hard to tone this down, we’re so used to this mentality of grinding it out and paying off the loans?

Jill Paslier: So we’re no longer working two jobs each. We’re just doing the one. That was easy enough. As far as actually spending money, we still do not spend a lot of money. It’s funny because before, when we had the debt, we would say, OK, what are we going to do when we have an extra $6,000-8,000 a month? You know, what are we going to do with this money? Because that’s how much we were putting towards our debt sometimes. And you know, I kind of joke at this, but Sylvain said he wanted some fancy muffins, like from the nice grocery store. Like it’s just simple things, you know? And like, we’re not looking to buy extravagant, expensive things. So I think we’re finding some excitement in those little expenses, maybe eating out a little more, you know, we still travel a lot, and we do have an international travel to Europe usually at least once a year to visit with Sylvain’s family, so that’s where some of our money goes. Our other main goals now, we fully funded an emergency fund, so we have a good six months of emergency fund buffer in case anything happens. And then we’re really focusing right now on saving for retirement. So I told you we kind of postponed that a little bit while we were paying off the debt, and of course I wasn’t saving while I was a student, so we feel a little bit behind. So actually for the last year, we’ve been putting about 25-50% of our gross income into retirement because we weren’t using that money anyways. So it’s easy enough to just shift it from the debt now to retirement, and then we can actually see the money growing in our account, which is actually pretty nice. We thought about having more of that money funneled towards like a down payment on a home, but we don’t necessarily want to buy a house right now. So we figured the best place to put it is retirement, some of those tax-favored accounts, just let it grow there. And then when we’re ready, we can save up a down payment I think pretty quick once we re-funnel the income a little bit.
Tim Ulbrich: And just to clarify, I think what I heard you say earlier is that when you were in the beginnings of employment, that first year while they did not offer a match, you temporarily suspended any savings toward retirement. But then when the match was offered, you took that match, but nothing beyond the match. And now, you guys are obviously going at it aggressively. Is that correct?

Jill Paslier: Yep, exactly.

Tim Ulbrich: OK. So Sylvain, tell me, probably one of the most common questions we get through the podcast and the blog and the Facebook group is, should I be paying off my debt? Should I be investing? Should I be doing home buying? Should I be doing all of them? And obviously, you guys strategically made a decision that, we’re going all in on our loans with the exception of that retirement match. And obviously you’re also carved out and said, we’re going to wait on the home buying piece. So for the two of you, what was it philosophically that you guys said, you know what, we’re going to get rid of this debt. Was it your beliefs around debt? Was it the amount of it? The weight of it? The interest rates around it? I mean, what was the decision point for you guys to really attack that portion solely.

Sylvain Paslier: Yeah, absolutely. So basically, we discovered another resource, which I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention on the podcast, but Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, which was instrumental for us to get started and have a methodology to basically start that journey. And so that was the, again, the game plan to start budgeting and then attacking the debt in the specific order. So that was the methodology that we used.

Jill Paslier: And I’ll share — I can add something to that. So kind of our mentality around the debt, we were paying — our minimum was about $1,100 a month. And $1,000 was going towards interest, and $100 was going towards the principal. So as soon as I really saw those numbers, I got so angry, and I said, those banks are taking all of our money, $1,000 every single month. And we just got really kind of fed up with like shelling out that $1,000, and we’re like, we’re going to be in debt, they’re going to get so much money that we have to pay in interest. And I think we just got really motivated and fired up and started to hate the debt. So I think that really helped with our kind of motivation. Like every single month, if we could pay an extra $1,000 or more towards the principal, we knew that was going to be saved from making an interest payment later.

Tim Ulbrich: And Jill, I recall when you and I met, I think I remember you saying something about you were originally on the pathway of 8- or 10-year payoff, and obviously that happened a lot faster. So was that moment where you kind of said, wow, yes, we could make this $1,100 payment, but we’re going to go much more above that? I mean, was that sort of the catalyst, the defining moment that allowed you to start accelerating that payoff?

Jill Paslier: Kind of. I would say budgeting was even more useful in that because we were already kind of fired up. And I remember we were paying $1,100, and I was like, what if we could pay an extra $1,000 per month? Oh my gosh, we’re paying $2,000, this is so great, we’re doing such a good job. And we laid it out, and we’re like, oh, we’re going to be done paying this in eight years. That will be so good. And once we really got ahold of our budget and seeing where the money was going and like actually choosing where it went and getting our incomes up and our expenses down, we saw that we had a lot more than just $2,000 a month to put towards the loans. So I think once we really got control of that, you know, we were able to put up to $6,000 and sometimes $8,000 a month towards the student loans.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So since you brought up budgeting, let’s talk budgeting for a minute because I think — and the listeners know I’m a firm believer of that being the catalyst for a financial plan, and obviously for two people working together, a budget can often be the most difficult thing. So Sylvain, let’s talk for a minute about budgeting in the Paslier household. So what does this practically look like for you guys? I mean, is this something month-by-month, you’re sitting down? Is one of you taking the lead? If you could give listeners kind of a behind-the-scenes look of how you two go through the budgeting process and how you come to consensus and maybe even the tools, if any, that you use for budgeting.

Sylvain Paslier: Yeah, absolutely. So first, it was helpful to understand some guidelines around what percentage of your income should go towards rent, towards food, towards clothing, entertainment, etc. So we found some of these resources online, and then we tracked our expenses and realized that they weren’t aligned with these “best practices” of budgeting. And so we slowly — you know, it took a few months, but we slowly realigned our budget with what our goals were in order to have extra in our budget to allocate to debt or whichever other maybe short-term goal was happening. Practically speaking, Jill is very good at, she’s very analytical, she’s good at mathematics, and she loves spending time in Excel. And so she’s taking the lead on kind of drafting that monthly budget, and then we review it together. And so that’s kind of what that looks like. Typically, I mean, ideally, we should do that before the first day of the month. You know, sometimes we’re a few days late, sometimes we’re a few days early. The big idea is that we’re trying to be intentional towards the beginning of the month to set it in month for the rest of the month.

Tim Ulbrich: And I’m guessing Jill is a FPU, Financial Peace Univeristy, fan and my understanding — I think that you’re teaching a course as well. I’m assuming that you guys are using more of a zero-based budgeting process. Is that fair?

Jill Paslier: Yep, that’s what we do.

Sylvain Paslier: Correct.
Tim Ulbrich: OK. And do you keep it all in Excel? Or do you then translate it into a tool like Mint or Everydollar or something like that?

Jill Paslier: So we usually do actually more like a paper budget first, just so we can see the numbers and we can edit them together. And you know, the main categories are housing, food, transportation, I guess we don’t have — we usually don’t have a lot of healthcare or shopping categories. Now we have pocket money, which we didn’t really have when we were trying to get out of debt. Those are the main categories, and we put — basically, we write it out on paper and then we put it into Mint so that we can track our progress throughout the month. The categories pretty much line up, so we can see what our goals are and how close we are, you know, if we’re halfway through the month and we’ve spent half of our food budget, then we know we’re on track. You know, if we’ve spent more or less, we know how to adjust. So yeah, we use Mint. I think when we were paying off the debt, I probably looked at Mint like every other day. Like all the time because I wanted to see, is there any way we can spend less in a certain category or free up some money to pay off the debt so I think we’re a little bit more relaxed now but still on track to meet some of our longer term goals.

Tim Ulbrich: And when you say and use the term pocket money, are you referring to the concept of kind of discretionary spending money that each of you have that doesn’t necessarily have to have a specific money? So my wife and I call it blow money. Is that kind of the same idea?

Jill Paslier: Yep. Same thing. Sylvain and I get a little bit every month. Like we’re such savers at this point that we barely even spend it, really. So it just rolls over to the next month. That’s what we do.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So Jill, let me ask you a question. I mean, if you could kind of put yourself in the shoes of a 2018 graduate coming out, you know, what advice would you have for either current students or new graduates this year or coming out or recently came out? What are a couple things that you’d recommend to them and those that are listening that are coming out with a debt load that maybe looks very much like yours?

Jill Paslier: I think I would just want to encourage them that it’s possible to pay it off. I mean, it’s a huge amount of debt, you know, if you’re up there around $150,000 or $200,000. But we’ve been there, and other people have been there, and it is possible to pay it off. And I would just recommend, you know, learning how to do a budget, really see where your money’s going, kind of maximize your income if you can. You know, if you’re married, work together with your spouse. If you have a roommate, hopefully that helps a little bit on the housing cost so if you can bring any of your kind of living expenses down, you’ll have more money to pay towards the student loans and really pay those off faster.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great advice. And I find your story incredibly inspirational. I’m sure other listeners are going to as well. And you know, one thing to hit maybe as I’m just kind of thinking here of what we’ve talked about is Sylvain, you used terms I think earlier around — you said something like it felt numbing, and it felt overwhelming. And what I love about your story is I feel like your hustle, both of you working two jobs for two years, I can tell there was obviously a commitment to learn about this topic, whether it’s podcasts, books, Financial Peace University, whatever, and a commitment to do this together. And I think there’s so much wisdom there, and I appreciate you both taking the time to come on the show and share your story. So Jill and Sylvain, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, I appreciate it.

Jill Paslier: Yeah, thanks a lot. It was fun.
Sylvain Paslier: Thanks for having us, Tim.

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YFP 039: One Pharmacy Entrepreneurs Journey to Maximizing Income & Paying Off Student Loans


 

On Episode 39 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we interview Dr. Blair Thielemier, creator of BT Pharmacy Consulting, The Pharmapreneur Academy and the Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit. During this interview, Blair shares her personal and professional story including the financial hardships that inspired her various entrepreneurial ventures that have, in part, resulted in additional income to pay off her student loans and be on track to achieve her financial goals.

Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit

The 2018 Elevate Pharmacy Virtual Summit is presented by the NCPA Innovation Center and hosted by the founder of the Pharmapreneur Academy, Blair Thielemier. The Summit features 24 all-new interviews with pharmacists and experts discussing collaborative opportunities, team training, marketing, and profitable services in community pharmacies. The free 5 day event is March 2125th and there are 11.5 accredited CPE hours available for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Go to ElevatePharmacySummit.com to register for your free ticket!

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YFP 038: The Happy PharmD’s Journey to Becoming Debt Free


 

On Episode 38 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, we interview Alex Barker, a pharmacist, entrepreneur, author, and coach to share his story of becoming completely debt free. He is a clinical pharmacist with the VA and creator of thehappypharmd.com and the Happy PharmD Summit.

If you are a pharmacist who feels stuck in your current career, wants a change but don’t know where to start, the Happy PharmD Summit is the place for you to hear from more than 20 pharmacist speakers about non-traditional career opportunities.

You can learn more about the Happy PharmD Summit, coming up March 26th-29th, by visiting pharmacistsummit.com

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