Podcast

YFP 229: How This Pharmacy Professor’s Debt Free Journey Ignited His Passion to Teach Others

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How This Pharmacy Professor’s Debt Free Journey Ignited His Passion to Teach Others

On this episode, sponsored by GoodRx, Bhavik Shah talks about his debt-free journey, his early missteps, and how he used his experience to further the financial literacy education of other pharmacists.

About Today’s Guest

Bhavik Shah earned his doctorate of pharmacy from Rutgers University and completed post-graduate training in pharmacy practice and infectious diseases at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. He is an associate professor at the Jefferson College of Pharmacy and co-director of the Pharmacology thread in the JeffMD curriculum at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. He is an active member of ASHP and ACCP. Within ASHP, he has served as vice-chair and chair of the Year-Round Educational Steering Committee for 2019-2021, where he was able to promote including personal finance education through podcasts with the New Practitioners Forum and Clinical Leadership section advisory groups.

Bhavik is passionate about teaching personal finance to students and colleagues. He has created a personal finance elective at JCP.

Episode Summary

Today, we host pharmacist and educator Bhavik Shah for a candid conversation about his journey of becoming debt-free and the financial missteps he took early in his journey that you can avoid. Fresh out of pharmacy school, Bhavik knew he wanted to pay off his student debt, but he did not have a plan. Bhavik shares the story of how he paid off a hefty student loan of over $80,000 in just six years and shares his advice to develop a plan for student loan debt payment along with a plan for making the most of your income. Bhavik also shares why he believes it is critical to take advantage of Roth payments and how he was motivated by the idea of being his own financial steward. Listeners will learn why Bhavik believes it is essential to get a grasp on the basics of financial literacy before hiring a professional (tax, insurance, or otherwise), and what drove him to create his course on financial literacy, including the reality that student debt creates a barrier to entry for many pharmacists to pursue post-graduate education. He believes that this problem could be solved by including a financial literacy piece in the PharmD program. Listeners will be introduced to several great resources that have enriched Bhavik’s financial understanding and more!

Key Points From This Episode

An introduction to today’s guest, Bhavik Shah.
Bhavik’s academic background and why he chose a career in pharmacy and teaching.
The money scripts Bhavik was raised with and how they impacted his mindset.
How he graduated with $80,000 of student debt and paid it off in just six years.
Why he considers it a mistake not to have taken advantage of Roth contributions to get tax-free growth.
What Bhavik means by emphasizing being your own steward, and what motivated this.
How he learned the importance of understanding the basics before hiring a professional.
Financial education and literacy and why it is important.
What motivated Bhavik to create his course on financial literacy.
Bhavik’s thoughts on whether a personal finance piece should be included in the PharmD program.
Resources he has found helpful, including the White Coat Investor and the Money Guy.
How student debt deters people from pursuing postgraduate education.
The role of financial education in preventing this barrier.

Highlights

“The core, the concepts of living below your means, saving, understanding the value of money, those experiences stuck with me. It made it a lot easier as an adult to approach my own finances with that mindset.” — Bhavik Shah [0:05:02]

“Another mistake I made was not taking advantage of Roth contributions, especially as a student or as a resident, being in that lower-income bracket and having not much time on your side to get that tax-free growth. That is something I wish I had done more of or at all.” — Bhavik Shah [0:14:02]

“There is a taboo centered around talking about money and so I realized people are making the same mistakes and so we need to learn from one another so that is really what drove me to create this course.” — Bhavik Shah [0:23:24]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.4] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrick here and thank you for listening to The YFP Podcast, where each week, we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week I had a chance to sit down with Bhavik Shah, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Jefferson College of Pharmacy. I had an opportunity to meet Bhavik a few weeks prior to recording and really appreciated his passion and his enthusiasm for personal finance. On this week’s show, we talk about Bhavik’s journey to becoming debt-free from student loans and why he felt like that was just the beginning of his overall financial journey. We also talk about some of his early missteps and how that helped shape his current mindset and approach.

We talk about why and how he has taken the experience from his own journey to further the education of other pharmacists through podcasts that he’s done with ASHP new practitioner’s forum, as well as by creating and offering a personal finance elective at Jefferson College of Pharmacy.

Before we hear from today’s sponsor, and then jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP Planning does in working one-on-one with more than 240 households in 40 plus states. YFP Planning offers fee only, high-touch financial planning that is customized for the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com.

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

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:01:44.7] TU: It’s American pharmacist month and to honor the occasion, GoodRx has created the Above and Beyond Pharmacy Awards. These awards recognize pharmacy professionals that go the extra mile, every single day to improve the health of their patients and communities and we need you, the pharmacy community, to nominate your incredible colleagues.

Pharmacists, technicians, residents, and interns that show true leadership, compassion, pride and dedication. Pharmacy professionals are on the frontlines, working every day to transform their communities. The time has come to show them some appreciation. Nominations are open now through November 19, 2021, and recipients will receive education credits and more.

Go to GoodRx.com/pharmacy-awards to nominate someone today. Now, again, that’s GoodRx.com/pharmacy-awards.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:36.5] TU: Bhavik, welcome to the show.

[0:02:37.5] BS: Thanks for having me, Tim.

[0:02:39.8] TU: Looking forward to this interview. You and I had a chance to connect a few weeks ago, and we’re going to get to where that connection came from and some of the work that you’re doing in personal finance education and your passion for this topic. I really left that conversation feeling inspired and empowered in my own journey, based on the intentionality, I really heard of how you have approached your financial position and I think that information is going to be really helpful for our community.

Let’s start with your background and work in pharmacy, what drew you to the profession, where did you go to school and then what type of work are you doing now?

[0:03:14.0] BS: Absolutely. I went to pharmacy school at Rutgers University, I did the zero to six program and what drew me to pharmacy is because I knew I wanted to do something in healthcare. And I was sort of deciding between medicine and pharmacy, and I had family pursuit pharmacy and you know, the more I learned about it, it seemed it fit my strengths and my personality. So that’s what drew me to Rutgers and I did my residency training at Thomas Jefferson University and pharmacy practice as well as in infectious disease and I’ve been a faculty member here since 2010.

I have a student of four, hospital medicine rotation, and teach in a number of courses as well as in the medical school too.

[0:04:02.7] TU: Very good, we’re going to come back later about some of the work that you’re doing at Jefferson around personal finance education but I first want to talk about your own journey and your own story. And Bhavik, one theme I’ve noticed on this show, through interviewing other pharmacists, that I have also seen in my own journey, is their relevance of the money scripts that we carry with us.

What I mean by that is the said and unsaid things from our upbringing that impact the way we view money today. Tell us about your money scripts and how they impacted your own journey when it comes to your financial plan?

[0:04:40.4] BS: That’s a great question. My relationship with money started with my parents. They immigrated from India with nothing and they sort of built a life here. They had the means to provide for my brother and I, but it was never to the point where it was abundant, where we could talk about investing or anything but the basics, the core, the concepts of living below your means, saving, understanding the value of money, those experiences stuck with me. It made it a lot easier as an adult to approach my own finances with that mindset.

I really am appreciative of that upbringing, even though I didn’t necessarily have the rarer thoughts and know all the finer things about investing or anything like that. I think that came later but that relationship with money, I think was really key in understanding what it brings and what it doesn’t bring.

[0:05:36.7] TU: I like Bhavik that you used the word relationship with money because I think that is something that is healthy for us to think about is, what is the relationship we have with money? Whether that’s a healthy or an unhealthy relationship, where might that come from? Where do the perceptions and values and beliefs that we have come from in money, and obviously knowing that that very well and likely, is connected to the behavior and how we’re approaching our financial plan today.

Bhavik, as you know today’s graduate is facing on average, about $170,000 in student loan debt. Now, that is much different than what our peers were facing back in 2008 when both you and I completed our PharmD training. Tell us about your debt position after graduating and through residency and not only the position that you’re in debt-wise but also tell me about your mindset at the time around paying off that debt.

[0:06:29.4] BS: When I graduated, my expenses for college were all financed by student loans. My parents, coming from a working-class background, they didn’t have the means to provide for us and that was fine so I knew that sort of going in.

I graduated with about $80,000 of debt back in 2008. I was fortunate enough to go to a state school, I was fortunate enough to be in a zero to six program so that definitely helped mitigate some of the amount of debt that I graduated with.

When I graduated, I didn’t know, you and I know repaying debt, especially student loans, there’s so many different options and terms and it’s very dizzying and I made mistakes along the way. And when I went to residency, I put my loans into forbearance, which looking back that was not the right thing because I was confusing the terms forbearance and deferment.

As I sort of started learning more about things, my relationship with my loans was I wanted to pay them off as quickly as possible so I was – I was a resident for two years, I was moonlighting, picking up extra shifts. And once I became a faculty member, I was working, you know, having them sort of being accustomed to working every other weekend as a resident, I carried that forward so I was picking up shifts at the hospital.

I was able to pay off my student loans in six years instead of a standard 10-year plan. A part of that way that we were able to do that, it was dad’s idea actually. He suggested that we payoff, at the time interest rates on student loans was more high, they’re still high. At the time, he had access to a home equity line of credit. That was very low, that was right after the economy crashed in ‘08.

He had access to cheaper money and so he said, “How about we take a home equity line of credit” we pay off the loans and then I paid my parents back. I looked into that and I didn’t know what a home equity line of credit was back then, I didn’t understand these things but my dad was looking out for me and I really appreciated that because he was able to get a 2% home equity line of credit at the time or two out of 3%.

I was sitting at six and a half percent so I was saving money, he said, “You know, why pay the interest to the government when you could just pay it, keep it within the house?” I was just paying him interest to – he didn’t make any money off of me but he did get a tax deduction out of it so I guess he came out ahead a little bit but it really set me up for success and so I really appreciated that offer. Obviously, they trusted me to pay them back.

[0:09:19.9] TU: Yeah, there’s got to be obviously, trust in that relationship. That strategy, if I heard you correctly was, you’ve got federal loans and I remember, Bhavik, I had fixed interest rate loans 6.8% is the number I remember in my mind in 2008. Some are a little bit lower but many of them were at about that rate and so obviously, home equity line of credit that your father is able to help with lower. You mentioned two to 3% so obviously that difference between six, six and a half two and three percent is significant intra savings, even when you’re talking about a relatively short period of time, which that being six years.

Did you, Bhavik – when I graduated in ‘08 and I think there’s a lot more information that’s out there today. I’m finding that I’m having conversations with graduates today that already have an understanding of unsubsidized versus subsidized and public service loan forgiveness, and refinancing and income-driven repayment. I didn’t know what any of that was.

Did you feel like, at the time, you had an understanding of the nuances and options, and would you agree that it seems like a lot of that information has come a long way here in the last decade since we graduated or I guess, a little more than a decade.

[0:10:28.3] BS: Yeah, absolutely. I think back at the time, I didn’t know anything. I just knew I had to pay it back, I know that the standard 10 year plan was a default and that was, it’s sort of the mindset that I went in. I didn’t know there were other options at the time. I think student public service loan forgiveness was new and so in looking back, I certainly didn’t qualify for it because I was a previous borrower predating 2007.

I won’t have qualified but I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew I had to pay this off and so that’s why I was just motivated to pay it off as quickly as possible. So I was paying extra principle payments to my dad, turns out but I was able to pay everything off in six years. That was like a huge sense of relief.

[0:11:18.2] TU: Yeah, that’s great. One of the things you shared with me when we talked a couple of weeks back is, this resonates with me as I think back to our own journey. Once the loans are paid off, you kind of wondered, “Well, now what?” right? Had you thought much about that post debt payment journey and tell us a little hit about that transition from making big, aggressive, large on monthly payments to no longer, they’re gone, right?

[0:11:43.8] BS: Yeah, actually and that’s where my sort of personal finance journey started was after paying off my student loans, I was like, “Now, what?” and so at the time, I was dating my now wife, girlfriend at the time, I just transitioned my monthly student loan payment and I was just saving cash because I knew, engagement ring, and I’m Indian and when we do weddings, it’s sort of a big affair.

I knew that I want to pay for that and I didn’t want my parents to go into any debt for that. I transitioned towards those expenses, saving for those expenses and so that sort of – once those were done, then it was like, “Okay, now what? Where do I go?” I started learning more about where else to save and invest our funds.

[0:12:34.6] TU: We graduated in 2008, I guess we could call ourselves kind of that maybe second part of the career, right? That mid-career, we’re no longer new practitioners, we’re beyond that or there’s perhaps some evolution of the financial plan, the debt’s paid off, other goals that you’re working on and towards.

And so my question here is, Bhavik, you now sit in this vantage point of, “Okay, I’ve been through this journey, I paid off the debt, I’m now in more of that wealth building, next phase of the financial plan.” What advice would you give to the students that are listening to the new practitioners who are listening or even think about your former self as they are on the front end of this journey, and perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of not only the debt but also other priorities of which you’re trying to work on?

[0:13:19.8] BS: Absolutely. I think for me, the challenge that I had was I didn’t have a plan. I had a general sort of vague approach to things but it wasn’t necessary purposeful. And so having a dedicated plan for your student loans is something that I would tell myself. I, looking back, I did what I wanted to do but then, was I optimizing every single dollar. I left money on the table because I wasn’t taking advantage of 403(b) matching at my employer.

I mean, I wasn’t spending the money, which is I guess good, I was still building net worth by putting it towards student loans, but finding ways to get the most utility out of your money was a real mistake I made. Another mistake I made was you know, not taking advantage of Roth contributions especially as a student or as a resident, being in that lower-income bracket, and having not much time on your side to get that tax-free growth. That is something I wish I had done more of or at all.

That’s what I tell students is just there’s a lot of information out there and so going back to your question earlier, which I realized I didn’t answer, because back then, there was not enough information out there, the new programs are really new. Now, there’s a lot of resources out there, just a matter of finding it. You have that, other websites have it blogged. Knowing that and I encourage my students, third year, fourth year, to start thinking about this and that way, in my elective, that when you graduate, you know what you’re going to do. Whether you’re going to pursue this line, what IDR is best for you or not, or if you’re going to refinance, which lenders you’re going to look into, that sort of thing so having a plan.

[0:15:02.7] TU: Absolutely, we talk about it all the time, right? The intentionality of the plan and even if that debt number doesn’t change tomorrow or next month or next year in a very significant way, the power of knowing you’ve evaluated your options and you have a plan, going forward that considers, not only student loans but also other parts of the financial plan, knowing that student loan debt is certainly going to be a big part of the puzzle for many folks that are out there.

When you and I talked several weeks ago, one thing that you said that really stood out to me was your desire to be your own steward, and how much of a motivation that was for you on your quest towards learning more about personal finance, and then applying the things that you’re learning in your own plan and on your journey. What did you mean by that in terms of the importance of being your own steward and what led to that motivation?

[0:15:52.9] BS: I think the biggest experience that I had was, after I had paid off my student loans, you know, we paid for the engagement ring and wedding, I mean those life events that are happening in your 20s and 30s you know, it was sort of like, “Now, what?” My wife and I, when we got married, we had an accountant.

I asked for advice and how to minimize taxes and what more we could do. They offered it and so that sort of got me into thinking, “Okay, they encouraged, a backdoor Roth.” That’s not what they called it at the time but it’s called a none – it was more confusing. I wish they called it backdoor Roth because I Googled it that way. Then, that got me sort of thinking. At the same time, when I graduated as a resident, I was approached by what I thought was a financial advisor but it was really an insurance agent.

He was recommending term insurance, term life insurance and disability insurance which I know I wanted to get, but they were pushing whole life insurance, which at the time for me didn’t make sense. And I pushed back but they have a really good sales pitch and it’s very tempting, but I did not go down that road. But he did end up selling me a term life insurance, which was not what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to communicate that because I didn’t know what specific terms to look for or ask for.

What I was sold was a term 80 policy by one of the big companies in the business. The premium increases as you get older, what I really wanted was a level premium where it’s just a fixed amount per month, doesn’t increase with the face value for a certain period of time. That’s what I wanted but I didn’t use that jargon.

Similarly, he also sold me a disability insurance and he was saying it was like an own-occupation et cetera. Similarly, it didn’t have – it was not a level premium so the premium was escalating and in your 20s and 30s, it looked pretty cheap and I didn’t really look at it how much of a cost in my 40s, 50s, 60s. The own-occupation ended up not being really own-occupation.

[0:18:08.2] TU: Yeah, it’s confusing, yup.

[0:18:09.9] BS: It was only for the first year or two of a claim and then it goes back to any occupation. Again, at the time, I didn’t know what to ask for or what to watch out for. Between that experience and going back to the accountant, I started looking more into the backdoor Roth, and doing it in one of the resources that I stumbled across was White Coat Investor. I learned about what that was and how doing it – and once I executed it and I – the next tax year, I went to my accountant. I said, “This is what I did, my wife and I. Can you help us file 8606?”

He did it correctly for me but he did it incorrectly for my wife. Now had I not known what to look for I wouldn’t have credit and so the basis would have been off of my wife. So that’s why I was saying, you know, I was trusting a professional and the accountant and this insurance agent, with a lot letters behind his name that seemed like he knew what he was talking about, but it was still not what I wanted or wasn’t in my best interest. So that really solidified for me and my wife that we have to sort of take the time to at least understand the basics.

That way if we engage with professionals then we know we are getting what we want to get and if it is appropriate for us.

[0:19:35.5] TU: I think what you just shared there, Bhavik, is a lot of things that are so valuable. Because I would advocate, as you just mentioned whether folks engage with professionals, you talk about accountants, you talk about insurance sales, you talk about financial planners and certainly as you’ve highlighted, not all professionals are created equal. There is some homework that folks have to do to understand the different professionals or credentials, how folks are getting paid, what standards are held under.

Does it makes sense or they act in their best interest or not, and we’ve talked about several of those things on the show but regardless if you are working with a professional or not, I think this concept of being your own steward is so important. One of the philosophies that we have at YFP planning is very much that folks feel that they have the education of the information whether that’s debt repayment, whether that’s investing, whether that’s insurance, whether that is tax as well as they feel empowered in that be in a shared decision that is being made between them and the professional in this case, who would be a financial planner.

Again, even if you are entrusting a professional, to your comment that you just made, really having that understanding, that baseline knowledge to make sure that you feel comfortable and confident in the advice that is given and that also you feel good that it affirms what you’ve been learning on your own. Or that you are able to then engage in that conversation, hopefully have some good and at times perhaps some hard questions and we’ve got more information.

There is a couple of things that you mentioned there, Bhavik, that I sense folks probably might want to dig into a little bit deeper. You mentioned both life, term life and long-term disability insurance. We talked about those on episode 44 and 45 of the show respectively, we’ll link that at the show notes and then back to our Roth IRA, probably one of the most common questions we get, I’ve got a blog post, why most pharmacists should consider it.

Episode 96 on the podcast talks a little bit about what is it, what’s the process, executing back to Roth, some of that, we’ll link to both of those in the show notes. A great example that I think you gave in terms of the importance of being your own steward. I want to shift gears and talk for a bit about financial education, financial literacy is I know that this was in part how we crossed paths and something that we both very much show and have a passion for.

This is evident, Bhavik, in the work that you’re doing and teaching personal finance elective at Jefferson, also within ASHP, you’ve been able to promote personal finance education through podcast with a new practitioner’s form and the clinical leadership section advisory groups. And so one of the questions I want to start with here is, as it relates to the course that you are teaching at Jefferson, tell us more about that course.

How did it get started? What type of support have you had? Some of the general concepts and information that you are trying to teach within that course, is that something that we certainly don’t see at all colleges but I suspect many listening whether it’s a student or alumni, perhaps a faculty member might have an interest in seeing this being offered or something similar through own institution?

[0:22:33.0] BS: The course was a – it sort of was a multi-year process of how I sort of got there. As I spent a couple of years teaching myself about personal finance and then becoming comfortable educating others or pointing to others the right resources, so I first started off with doing a faculty development program or a session on it, and then I start incorporating it with my API students.

I would do topical, topic clinical topic discussions but I would devote Mondays for personal finance topics and I made it optional because I didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. But you know, I was saving on this is Money Monday, we’re going to talk about anything that you want to talk about and so students took me up on that. That sort of showed me that there was a need for it, especially since we don’t really get taught in any and I didn’t have any sort of formal education on it.

There is a taboo centered around talking about money and so I realized people are making the same mistakes. And so we need to learn from one another, so that is really drove me to create this course. I looked at the literature to see what was done at pharmacy schools and there wasn’t a lot published. There were a few papers published, there is really one paper that’s published by Michelle Qui out of the University of Wisconsin.

[0:23:52.7] TU: Yeah, I think that was back in ‘13 or ‘14. It’s been a while too, right?

[0:23:57.0] BS: It’s been a while, yeah and so there wasn’t out there, and I looked at different colleges to see what they had on their websites, how many schools had it and so this was like an untapped – this was a need but it had an untapped potential. In creating this course, I really didn’t have too much direction of what was done. I just sort of created something about starting from the basics like banking, credit scores, debt, what does the interest mean and what does inflation mean.

Then we talked about like module on tax rates, and then we get into the weeds of the different retirement vehicles, student loans. And so you know, it is pretty comprehensive, estate planning and so it’s a one-credit course over 14 hours. Now, it is going to be a two-credit course because there was just so much volume there that the students wanted, and so I expanded it to two-credit hours and so the type of assignments that I give are, I hope, that was sort of practical.

There is a long internal assignment in the course where I want them to finish the course with their own financial plan and so we build that out throughout the course. Existing debt, so what is your repayment plan, what’s your plan for getting life insurance, disability insurance? What’s your plan for your student loans, saving for retirement? Every week we go through that, each of those topics.

For life insurance and disability insurance, I go through policy genius or whatever resource just getting an idea of this is a resource you could use to look at when you graduate and how much it might cost. We go through student loans and we go through the different tech leaders online, and the studenta.gov and we go through PSLF. And so then that way they can put it to paper of what they are thinking about now. And obviously they could change their plan when they graduate, but having that something to refer to it will I think hopefully give them a starting point.

Something that I know I certainly don’t have but having that sort of framework hopefully sets them up for success.

[0:26:08.8] TU: I love you started one credit, you’ve gotten to two credits. I suspect there is a lot of interest from the students as well and I felt that similar but we started with one-credit hour personal finance like in the northeast to have Murdoch University about six or seven years ago, one to two-credit hours and then at Ohio State, we built the three-credit hour online asynchronous course and you know there is a lot to cover.

I think that the students, certainly there is a desire for that information and just some really cool things that you can do obviously in early management systems and other things to customize that learning experience for the students. I love the work that you are doing at Jefferson at that, and I hope for other colleges that we’ll see more of that. Bhavik, I’m going to put you on the spot and I didn’t tell you I was going to ask you this question in advance.

I am honestly curious to hear your input on this and of course, noting that you might have a bias, you probably do have a bias because you are teaching a personal finance elective. I think we have an interesting opportunity in front of us with the ACPE accreditation standards that are set to come out the next version in 2025 I believe and there is currently a comment period through the end of 2021 for folks to give feedback on those standards.

I have often thought and again, biased of course that you know, personal finance education should be considered as a part of the PharmD required curriculum and I think for good reasons, there is perhaps some split opinion on this ranging from is something like personal finance really part of a PharmD large at a clinical pharmacy training program. And I think there is other professions we could point to, whether it’s veterinary medicine and their associations or even medicine in AAMC who have done some more work in this topic than perhaps we have done in pharmacy.

I sense there’s two camps or two thoughts out there of, like absolutely consider what’s going on with the debt loads and the trends like it is a part, or our obligation to make sure students have a baseline understanding of personal finance education. Then others that are perhaps of the mindset of like, great philosophically, great in theory, great idea. I buy into the importance of the topic but is this something that really should be a part of the required PharmD program. What are your thoughts on that?

[0:28:27.8] BS: I think that is a fascinating question and honest, you know, you mentioned the comment period. I already added my comment to that asking that this be considered being incorporated in the document. I didn’t direct them to make it required or elective but I think it should be considered and I think there is an opportunity for it now especially I think there is a well for it and I think it relates to the current standard for where they talk about personal and professional development.

I think there is definitely a fit into that, because a part of personal finance is you need to have that self-awareness that what your own goals are and what you want out of your own career and your own personal life. And money is a tool that helps you achieve that or not, depending on how you use money. And so that’s one of the things I have in my elective is a reflection paper and for students to sort of put down why are they doing what they’re doing with their financial plan.

They just start thinking about it. I think there is a goal for it and I think there is certainly a need for it, and I saw that in the APHA House of Delegates. There was a motion too for every school of pharmacy or college of pharmacy to have such a course either be offered, whether it be required or elective, but at least be offered and so I think the momentum is there. I can comment out on the medical students because I also have a role at the medical college at Jefferson.

[0:29:50.0] TU: Yeah.

[0:29:50.5] BS: Currently, there isn’t a course. There is some content that they are exposed to but it is not as structured or in a course format, so they, the students themselves, they did a curricular gap analysis last year and there’s a strong desire from the medical students to have this kind of content. And so I am hoping that with my hand in two pots, you know, I can sort of bridge that in and open it up the elective to both students. I think that would be great in professional opportunities.

[0:30:23.6] TU: Yeah and I think we have some examples, you know the course you are doing at Jefferson others that are teaching courses, I probably know of 10 or 12 colleges that have some really good momentum in this and similar to other areas. I think in professional education being one, where really pharmacy took a jump out of the gates even ahead of other professions, and you get started, and then it continues to evolve, right?

It continues to evolve over time and so I agree, I think there is momentum. I think the house of delegates you mentioned at APHA SP, the students really being behind this, and credit to what I’ve seen AVMA and AAMC do for their members in both veterinary medicine and medicine respectively in terms of resources they provide with their membership. I think we’ve got a real opportunity in pharmacy especially considering what we have seen in the trends in debt load as well as some of the other pressures that we have on our profession.

That I think the timing is right to be able to see some of these forward. Bhavik, in your journey, again as you are in kind of this next phase in your career, what resources have you found to be really helpful as you’ve navigated this topic of personal finance in the first 13 or 14 years of your career?

[0:31:35.0] BS: Yes, so there is a number of resources that I’ve sort of used and they all have a different role and what is good. But the ones that I sort of go through, and sort of subscribed to on a, I guess daily basis, so The White Coat Investor, I mentioned. He has a blog, a couple of really good books. His bootcamp, financial bootcamp book was really helpful because it sort of laid it out in a very algorithmic manner of like what you ought to do.

That helped me sort of make sure my disability insurance, life insurance was up to date and of adequate coverage. I like White Coat, after White Coat, I was looking at other resources that’s when I stumbled upon YFP and so that was really good. It was good to see there is something in the pharmacy space as well, and it was very helpful to see that it was the same message and so that sort of solidified what I was doing. I also like, I don’t know if you have ever heard of The Money Guy, it’s a YouTube channel.

[0:32:35.5] TU: No, I have not.

[0:32:36.5] BS: No? I really like them. It’s a podcast that’s done by, and they have a YouTube channel of two CPAs/CFPs. And the way they present content is very approachable, very digestible. It’s very beginner-friendly. The one thing that I like most that they have that’s for free is what they call the financial order of operations, and for me, that was something I wish I had ten years ago because I was just trying to think about paying off debt but I didn’t know what to do next with my next dollar.

The way they laid it out it optimizes every single dollar to meet your goals. And so from the tax standpoint, from a matching standpoint, paying off debt, all of those considerations. And so it’s very easy and approachable to do an action plan, so I found that to be helpful.

Another thing to consider about the need for personal finance education in pharmacy curriculum is that there is data out there that shows that students, their career choices after graduation are impacted by their perception and stress related to their student debt and not knowing how to handle it. There is data that shows that folks are less likely to pursue post-graduate training and enter the workforce directly because they want to pay off their loans.

I think the profession will be served best by having this so that students when they graduate, they know what to do and have a plan and that way, they’re making their career choices because that is what they want to do not because they feel like they have to and so I think that will probably help our graduates the most in our profession by incorporating it.

[0:35:05.5] TU: Bhavik, I appreciate the resources and the recommendations. We’re going to link to those in the show notes, you mentioned The White Coat Investor, The Money Guy, YFP, I appreciate the shout out and I suspect our community will find those resources helpful. Bhavik, thank you so much for taking time to come on the show, for reaching out and I really appreciate your willingness to share your story with the YFP community and also very much appreciate your passion for teaching personal finance to others, so thank you again.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:35:33.6] TU: It’s American Pharmacist Month and to honor the occasion, GoodRx created the Above and Beyond Pharmacy Awards. These awards recognize pharmacy professionals that go the extra mile every single day to improve the health of their patients and communities and we need you, the pharmacy community to nominate your incredible colleagues, pharmacists, technicians, residents and interns that show true leadership, compassion, pride and dedication.

Pharmacy professionals are on the frontlines working every day to transform their communities. The time has come to show them some appreciation. Nominations are open now through November 19th, 2021 and recipients will receive education credits and more. Go to goodrx.com/pharmacy-awards to nominate someone today. Again, that is goodrx.com/pharmacy-awards.

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:36:24.2] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information of the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

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

[END]

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YFP 228: Why This New Practitioner Decided to Start His Own Business

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Why This New Practitioner Decided to Start His Own Business

On this episode, sponsored by Thoughtful Wills, entrepreneur and pharmacist, Chris Cozzolino, talks about his journey building several businesses as a recent graduate.

About Today’s Guest

Chris Cozzolino is a recent pharmacy graduate (Class of 2020) from the University of Iowa and the Co-Founder of Uptown Creation, a B2B Business Development and Consulting Firm. Prior to pharmacy school, Chris founded an Amazon Dropshipping store, which he still has to this day. During his time in pharmacy school, he Co-Founded Uptown Creation. Uptown Creation began as an Instagram Growth and Consulting company but has evolved into a more full-service Business Development Firm. Chris has a passion for business and hopes to merge this with his love for the pharmacy community.

Episode Summary

Content creation for social media and personal branding has grown exponentially over the last couple of years but is still fairly new to the healthcare sector. Today on the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, host Tim Ulbrich speaks to pharmacist and co-founder of Uptown Creation, Chris Cozzolino, about his journey into the social selling space and how it aligns with his pharmacy education. Chris shares his non-traditional career arc, from making money using video games as a teenager to starting his own dropshipping business in college and now to running a hugely successful business development company focused on direct outreach campaigns. In this episode, Chris shares his passionate mindset about impactful contributions and innovatively using all the resources available to create something bigger than himself. Chris touches on strategies in the growth hacking space to build authentic relationships and a trustworthy reputation, as well as always keeping your endpoint in mind. Listeners will learn about the importance of knowing when to pivot your business, focusing on the end goal rather than attaching to a product or idea, plus you’ll hear some insightful perspectives about the benefits and challenges of diversifying across available platforms. Tune in today to hear all this and more!

Key Points From This Episode

Chris shares what drew him into the profession, and the freedom of remote working.
Reflecting on Chris’s non-traditional career path, and building something impactful.
How social media is a fascinating concept of reaching so many people at once.
How making money in a video game as a teenager galvanized his entrepreneurial spirit.
Discussing the big barriers to starting a business, like upfront capital and inventory holding times.
Optimization through combining drop shipping and retail arbitrage.
Chris outlines the challenges and opportunities of not working on your platform.
Having the best of both worlds by making the brand bigger than the platform.
Diversifying across platforms to build community and then converting that traffic.
How Uptown Creation was founded, and key pivots in their journey.
Learning the Instagram algorithm and their specific social media marketing tactics.
Chris shares about his pivot to LinkedIn and what the clients and services entail.
Building authentic relationships and a trustworthy reputation.
Why creating content is still really new for the healthcare sector.
Where Chris sees Uptown Creation heading in the next few years.
The concept of developing your craft, and always being able to be close to the ground.
Always keeping your endpoint in mind.

Highlights

“What I’m trying to create is being able to build something that’s bigger than myself.” — Chris Cozzolino [0:05:53]

“I don’t want to sell anything in a salesy way. I just want to make something that’s really good and then people can decide if they want it or don’t want it.” — Chris Cozzolino [0:22:57]

“That became the ethos of what we are today, is getting rid of bots and automation, putting a human in all the seats that a bot would be taking, and being able to have genuine interactions with people using the internet as a means to contact the right audience.” — Chris Cozzolino [0:25:11]

“I think a big thing that people do wrong in entrepreneurship is they fall too in love with the product or the service or that identity of what they’re doing, rather than the end impact that they’re trying to have.” — Chris Cozzolino [0:33:47]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

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

This week, I had a chance to sit down with entrepreneur and pharmacist, Chris Cozzolino to talk about his journey with several businesses that he’s been involved with as a recent 2020 graduate of the University of Iowa. Some of my favorite moments and takeaways from this interview include, hearing from Chris about his decision as a new practitioner to not pursue a traditional career path, but rather start his own business. Also talking about why he is prioritizing LinkedIn as the platform to generate authentic conversations that promote personal and professional success. We dig into the work that he is doing as the co-founder of Uptown Creation, a B2B business development and consulting firm. Really cool story, one of my favorite episodes of this year of a pharmacy entrepreneur who is using his PharmD in a non-traditional way.

Before we jump into the episode, I want to invite you to a free webinar that’s happening on November 10th at 8:30 PM Eastern. Dr. Jeff Keimer, our good friend and author of Fire RX: The Pharmacist’s Guide to Financial Independence will be joining me to talk about the FIRE movement aka Financial Independence, Retire Early. How pharmacists can overcome common barriers to achieving financial independence, how to calculate your retire and need and some investment considerations for those that are on the FIRE path. Plus, if you attend the webinar live, you will be entered for a chance to win a copy of Jeff Keimer’s book, Fire RX.

You can register by going to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/webinar. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/webinar.

All right. Let’s hear from today’s sponsor, Thoughtful Wills and I will jump into my interview with Chris. This week’s episode of Your Financial Pharmacist podcast is sponsored by Thoughtful Wills. Let’s take a minute to hear from co-founder, Notesong.

[00:01:57] N: Hi, there. I’m Notesong, one of the founders of Thoughtful Wills. Our law firm specializes in creating custom estate-planning documents that are understandable. We’ve leveraged technology to offer a lower price point than most law firms. Honestly, it’s refreshingly affordable. As our client, you’re in the driver seat. We’re here if and when you have any questions or just want our input. Our explanatory worksheet and online interview gathers your answers whenever and wherever is most convenient for you.

As a busy mom of three sweet kids and two fluffy sheepdogs, I totally get it. Life is crazy busy. Who has the time? We designed our firm around that too and we poured our hearts into making our estate-planning process less of a hustle. I invite you to visit thoughtfullwills.com/fyp to learn more. Give us a jingle or drop us a note. We’d love to chat with you.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:02:51] TU: Chris, welcome to the show.

[00:02:53] CC: Yeah, thanks for having me, Tim.

[00:02:54] TU: Really excited to have you on and feature your entrepreneurial story and how that’s connected in with your pharmacy journey. One thing I’ve mentioned on the show over the last several months is a goal, I have to feature more pharmacy entrepreneurial stories with the hopes that more folks will see the PharmD as a potential pathway, they can go many different directions. My thought is not that, folks hear Chris’s story and say, “I’m going to go do exactly that.” But rather it inspires and motivates folks to think differently about how they might leverage and utilize PharmD. Chris and I actually share a mutual friend, Ashley Klevens Hayes that connected the two of us. We had Ashley on this show, Episode 95 when we talked about how to level up your career.

Just a couple weeks ago, Chris and I did a LinkedIn live and I left that conversation, really feeling energized and motivated to take some of the expertise and information I learned from Chris to accelerate our own business at YFP, and to be able to serve and fulfill the mission that we have to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom. So excited to introduce Chris to the YFP community if you don’t already know him.

Chris, before we get into your entrepreneurial journey, share a bit about your background, where you went to pharmacy school. when you graduated, and what drew you into the profession.

[00:04:12] CC: Originally, I am from the southwest suburbs of Chicago. When I was looking at universities and everything, University of Iowa was close enough to be close to family, but far enough away to still get away, like you’re trying to do early in college. I was lucky that they have a great health care program going into it, I knew that I wanted to do something in healthcare. I grew up in a family, my dad was in the state police, my mom was a dietician, and my brother has cystic fibrosis and is doing really well with it. But I kind of saw medications my whole life. That was a big part of being interested in medicine.

Then going in early to college, really fallen in love with chemistry. I just really enjoyed those classes and also the – just the philosophical concept of being able to take a substance in medication that can then solve a problem, and providing control to otherwise uncontrollable situations. That’s kind of how I’ve always thought about medicine as it puts control back into people’s hands, which was a nice thought and I liked that component of everything.

Then the other big aspect of going to – I went to pharmacy school at University of Iowa. The big thing that drew me to pharmacy, outside of all those other things, was the ability to work remotely, and to be able to work in different places. A lot of times if you’re a physician or a dentist even, you kind of set up practice, and there’s a lot of opportunity to be entrepreneurial. But once you set up that practice, you’re building your book of business, and you’re kind of set there. Obviously, you can build it bigger, you can move yourself out of the role. But I liked the idea of being a pharmacist, there’s CVS, Walgreens pharmacies all across the country. So if I wanted to travel or live in different locales, it was very doable.

Then also, after that realization that I wanted the freedom to be able to move around, I also realized that there was a remote component with medication therapy management and those roles that were popping up. The concept of working remotely, before it was so common practice, was another thing that kind of drew me into the space.

[00:06:28] TU: Chris, you mentioned some things that I would think of as more traditional that drew you into the profession, in terms of some of the science chemistry, obviously the ability, the impact on patient care. But you’re taking a very non-traditional career path. I don’t know if I love that term, because I’m hoping we’ll get to a point where, you know, we recognize to my comment earlier that the PharmD is really just the beginning of one’s career path and their opportunities.

But when folks hear me say non-traditional, they know what I mean. So you’re relatively young in your career, you haven’t taken that traditional clinical pharmacy job where you’re utilizing your PharmD as much on a direct patient care. We’re going to talk about the work that you’ve done in various entrepreneurial efforts, whether it be the dropshipping business, other summer accelerator programs, the work that you’re doing uptown creation. But nonetheless, it’s been in a different direction.

My question here for you is, like what’s the why behind that as you reflect back on this first part of your career, like, why not a traditional career path? Why do you think you’ve gone in this other direction?

[00:07:30] CC: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think the biggest thing for me is, I’ve always enjoyed creating things and being able to play around. There’s a lot of opportunity to do that within healthcare and within pharmacy. Even though the projects that I’m working on right now, I have an inkling that it will come back to healthcare and come back to pharmacy in one way or another, where I’m able to tie entrepreneurship, growing companies, and doing that within a healthcare model. But the other thing that has always been kind of an ethos of what I’m trying to create is being able to build something that’s bigger than myself. If I’m trying to have as large of an impact on the world, as I want to have, knowing that, I’m going to have to take a lot of things out of my hands, and be able to build a machine or a processor system that is able to put other people into seats that can extend that reach.

That’s kind of one of the concepts of why social media, the internet, and being able to reach a lot of people at once has always been a fascinating concept to me. Because the impact that you’re able to have, as an everyday human is pretty robust with everything that we kind of have at our fingertips.

[00:08:50] TU: A really unique opportunity, right, in the time that we live in. Your desire for contribution, Chris really stands out to me. I just finished reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which is just an awesome, awesome book. He’s got a follow-up called Turning Pro. One of my favorite passages from that book, as he says, “Creative work is not a selfish act, or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being. Don’t cheat us of your contribution, give us what you’ve got.”

I sense that desire in the conversations you and I have had, and we’re going to talk about how that’s threaded throughout your journey. But I often wonder, and obviously, I’m looking at it through the lens of the financial plan, sometimes being a barrier to folks being able to achieve some of the potential that they have, and the ideas that they want to contribute. We’re passionate about that part of it.

But I often wonder as a profession, what could we fully contribute, if everyone’s giving everything they’ve got, and they have that mindset and we remove some of the barriers. I think sharing your story and others is hopefully a source of motivation and inspiration for folks that consider that question.

Chris, your entrepreneurial journey, we’re going to talk in a little bit about the business that is today, in terms of what you’re doing with Uptown Creation. But you know, I think with most entrepreneurs, they can point back to a younger version of themselves, where maybe it wasn’t a formalized LLC or business structure, and you didn’t have a team and employees, but you’re hustling in some entrepreneurial way. Take us back to when you can remember that entrepreneurial journey beginning for you.

[00:10:24] CC: Yeah. I think the start was really, when I was like 12 or 13 and playing World of Warcraft, a video game, and seeing digital currencies that people wanted, and digital assets that people wanted, which is a whole another conversation that has started up again with NFTs and everything. But being able to sell like gold in World of Warcraft was the first way that I made money before even having a job. And then I started to referee as a soccer referee and then had a variety of jobs from there.

But really, that first playground that I had was being in a video game and kind of trying to learn supply and demand, but actually make money as a 13-year-old by selling a thousand gold coins through PayPal to random people on the internet was that original bug, I guess, where I was able to scratch that itch of fulfilling something.

Then, outside of that, I didn’t really do a whole lot other than having minimum wage jobs throughout my high school career and then early college. Then I always thought there was something that I was missing with, seeing stores buy something cheaper, and then sell it for more expensive and make money on that. It just seemed like such a simple concept that there had to be something that I was missing to – otherwise, everybody would be doing that.

It kind of coincided with Amazon Seller marketplace rising a lot and eCommerce rising a lot more. This was back when I was a junior in college. Probably 2015 was – yeah, a junior at Iowa. Yeah. I did my undergrad in biochemistry at Iowa.

When I was a junior, I was working as a pharmacy technician, I was working in a cystic fibrosis research lab. I was just looking for other ways to supplement income and the term dropshipping came up. And that’s something that I just became fascinated with because it was a way that you could sell physical products and not hold an inventory. That’s usually the biggest barrier I found with buying something cheaper, selling it for higher, is you have to put that upfront cost and to get that thing for cheaper, and then sit on that inventory to then be able to sell it. But drop shipping took away like that variability.

So the initial business that really got me involved in the entrepreneurship community at University of Iowa, which I’m lucky that they have such a good program and had so many connections, and ways to foster an environment. I know not every school has that. But that was the original business model.

To break it down even more simplistically, I was following somebody on Instagram, who was talking about finding products on eBay, and then selling those products on amazon.com and never having to purchase the product until it was already sold. Somebody would buy it from you on Amazon, you would get their shipping information, their name, and then you could take that information and go back to eBay, and put that into the shipment address, and then put your credit card information in and it would just ship the product directly to that Amazon customer and you collect the profit in between.

That was the first low barrier to entry that I had to be able to experiment again, and the risk was pretty low. I was able to do it with a credit line of like $1,000, because I was a college student with nothing but debt, and nobody wants to give you money or credit card, so I was able to do that with limited startup costs. That was a big factor of that being kind of the first step into, but I learned a lot about customer service, about human nature, and about expectations that people have when they’re purchasing something.

[00:14:10] TU: Yeah, and I love that as an example. As you mentioned, you know, some of the big barriers to starting a business can be upfront capital, can be inventory holding times, right? Especially when talking about product-oriented businesses. Being able to learn some of those lessons, which I would argue you probably already see a direct connection to the benefit that’s been and furthermore will into the future. But to be able to learn those lessons without having to go through that pain of going further into debt and so forth, extremely important to you. Did you continue that through pharmacy school then?

[00:14:42] CC: Yes, I continued that through pharmacy school and I continue that to this day, and it’s evolved a little bit more from an Amazon to eBay dropshipping model, so we have other suppliers. But the big versions of selling are selling products on Amazon and sourcing those from walmart.com and then vice versa. Selling things on walmart.com as a Walmart seller and sourcing those from amazon.com.

So really, the terminology for it, if people want to look it up, is a combination between dropshipping and retail arbitrage is really what it is. Retail arbitrage usually is done by people going into Walmart, finding a sale, checking it on other websites online. If they’re able to make money, then they’ll go check out at Walmart and then ship that product out. This is kind of the way to do it at scale without having to physically go into a store but just doing it online.

[00:15:34] TU: Chris, my naive – and I’m following the methodology, and I suspect we have many that are listening, maybe interested in a side hustle that are going to go down this rabbit hole, which is cool. My naive understanding of this type of opportunity brings up a question. I often think of businesses that might be built on the back of something else versus businesses that you have full control over.

We’re going to talk in a moment about what you do at Uptown Creation and in that environment. Chris and co-founder and partners can make decisions tomorrow, today and do what you want in terms of the business in the direction. When I think about a business model or a side hustle, whatever you want to call it, with something that we’ve been discussing that might be built on the back of like an eBay, or a Walmart, or an Amazon. What challenges does that present, as well as perhaps opportunities, how do you as an individual that is trying to grow something strategically, whether you look at that as a business or not? How do you plan for some of those unknowns that are out of your control when it’s not on your own platform?

[00:16:36] CC: Yeah. I think that is a great thing to bring up, and that that is one of the – I wouldn’t say risks, but one of the pitfalls is that, Amazon can stop people from selling at any point on their platform, and then you’re reliant on that as your sole business. You’re kind of at the mercy of whatever platform you’re using. By the benefit that you get is, you get all the attention that Amazon has and all the web traffic that Amazon has. That’s the benefit of using another platform that isn’t your own, but then you’re at the mercy of that platform at the end of the day.

That kind of goes into the whole social media part of things. Anybody who has tried to build a brand or build something on social media, probably understands that they’re at the mercy of that platform, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

To be able to mitigate your risk, I think first, being able to identify like that is a risk that needs to be overcome. I know with, let’s say, Instagram influencers, for example. If Instagram was to go away, so many of those influencers would be wiped off the face of the planet and nobody would know who they were. So being able to make the brand bigger than the platform is kind of the best of both worlds, in my opinion, whether it’s selling physical products, building your personal brand, or anything else where you’re leveraging something on the internet.

It’s a matter of being able to use that platform, that traffic, because it’s convenient and it drives a lot of traffic and attention. But then being able to do something with that, that you’re able to take people someplace else.

For example, if I wanted to make my Amazon business bigger than just my place on Amazon, I would include packing slips, for example, that would direct people to my personal website where they could check out the other products. Maybe there’s a little bit of a discount if they go there. But then now I’m taking the traffic from Amazon and directing it someplace that I have a little bit more control over.

[00:18:38] TU: And you see so many companies doing this, right, that are trying to get to that direct-to-consumer relationship and I think for the reasons that you’ve mentioned. That was a lesson, Chris, I learned early on in YFP. I think I might have picked up on that from some of Pat Flynn’s work with Smart Passive Income. The concept of being at the mercy of an algorithm, and that could change and has changed in different platforms. How do you diversify across platforms and then how do you utilize them not as the end game, but as a source to further promote, and build that relationship with the community, the audience that you have, and then convert that traffic?

Like for us, a big part of that is getting folks over to our platform, and thinking about a way we can then engage with them via email or other types of educational offerings that we want to do. But you know, if I’ve fully built the YFP community on the back of Facebook, or Instagram, or whatever, and something changed drastically tomorrow and I wanted to promote a webinar. All of a sudden, I don’t have an audience to promote to, right? I think there’s a lot of wisdom in what you said.

You started the dropshipping business while you’re in college, found some success in it. I’ve continued to grow it, but that didn’t stop you from starting another business. Talk to us about Uptown Creation, what it is, and what’s the story behind why you launched the business, and ultimately the problem that you’re trying to solve?

[00:20:01] CC: Yeah, that’s a great question. Uptown Creation was founded in early 2016, and with my current business partner, who also went to the University of Iowa, his name is Conor Paulsen, and we both had companies beforehand. He made a men’s leather good company, where it was very personalized leather good products that he was creating; bags, duffel bags, everything like that, belts. But you were able to have – his customer was able to have a part in the creation of it from meeting the leatherworker that’s going to be creating stuff, having things very, very customized. He was in a business where the customer relationship and their customer experience was really at the center of it, and that’s why they were able to do what they did because they provided a great customer experience.

Where what my business was, was more trying to scale things and do things at as large of a level as possible. Then kind of use the attention that was from another platform and drive it to myself. We became friends through the entrepreneurship communities at the University of Iowa, so the Founders Club was a club where you can kind of had to have a business, and then there were different tiers of it based on the income you were generating from your business. That allowed you to do pitch competitions, startup accelerators and everything.

Uptown Creation started in a startup accelerator at the University of Iowa. Conor, my business partner came to me and asked if I wanted to do this thing for the summer. We had some other people that were in it just for the summer. It started off as a YouTube company, essentially, which is nothing what it is today, but the goal of it originally was to be an educational company, and create YouTube videos to kind of teach people the things that college didn’t teach you. They went through that startup accelerator over the summer. I had already done one in the past, so I can be directly involved and compensated that way. But I kind of had a backburner role in it, and that was as I was entering pharmacy school in 2016.

At the end of that summer, Conor and I looked at each other and the other people that were involved, it turned out that we were the only ones that wanted to continue doing anything with the business. Now, it was Conor and myself, and we had to figure out kind of what to do.

That was the first big pivot is, we knew that we wanted to create some sort of education that we were able to provide other people, the format we weren’t married to. But we knew that YouTube was a way to make money from ads. But we knew that we also both had a background in selling physical products. This was at the same time that Instagram was initially talking about something called shopping on Instagram. This was back in 2016, they started to talk about it. It didn’t get launched until earlier this year, which is funny, but that drove us to learn Instagram.

One of the problems going back to Amazon, that Amazon selling brings up is that Amazon takes a 15% cut of everything that you’re selling. We were naturally looking for other ways to sell physical goods then and have a little bit less of a cut be taken. We saw Instagram as the potential for that if we were early on enough. We spent the next couple of months growing some Instagram accounts.

And long story short, we realized that we were really good at growing communities on Instagram and growing Instagram accounts that people started to come to us and want to pay us for that. When you are making no money as a business, and you have people that want to pay you for something that you’re doing, you usually take that opportunity, so you can keep the business going.

So that was kind of the next big pivot. Maybe we’re not going to sell our own educational resources or our own physical products on Instagram. Maybe we’re just going to help people do Instagram better than what they’re doing currently and then let them get more attention for whatever they’re working on whatever products they’re working on.

That kind of put me down the rabbit hole of learning the Instagram algorithm really, really well. Learning social media marketing tactics specific to Instagram, better than most people I can think of, and doing that through online forums, and the underground communities that exist in the growth hacking space. I was in pharmacy school, and also simultaneously doing that. I like to learn things, so that was a good hobby to have outside. But then we started bringing clients and people started to want to pay us for these Instagram services. Unfortunate that – so this is I guess a good touchpoint to have.

Another reason why my business partner and I decided to go into business together was, we complemented each other very well. He is very front-end sales, talking to people, networking, probably the best networker I’ve ever met in my life. And I was very – I don’t want to sell anything in a salesy way. I just want to make something that’s really, really good and then people can decide if they want it or don’t want it. I’ve always been more of the service fulfillment and service creation component of the business. Whereas, I had a partner early on that did the things that I didn’t want to do. I think that’s imperative because that set us up for success.

[00:25:28] TU: I think you’ve done that really well, Chris. Like when I look at – if folks haven’t looked – we’ll link in the show notes to some of the educational content that you’ve done on LinkedIn, which we’ll talk about here in a moment on YouTube. I think you have very much that persona of a desire to provide good value and good education. From there, I suspect the business development opportunities come to be so that complementary approach between you and your partner, I can see why that was so important and the value that you bring to the team.

Pivot is a word you mentioned a couple of times. You mentioned the beginnings with YouTube, the pivot to Instagram. And now I understand much of the work that you’re doing focuses on LinkedIn. Talk to us about that pivot to LinkedIn, and some of the services that you offer now and the types of clients that you serve.

[00:26:16] CC: Definitely. As a commonality that – about all the businesses that I’ve started have been kind of built on the backbone of something that already has a lot of attention, whether it’s Amazon selling, whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s LinkedIn, business development. It’s always been being able to drive attention from something else. As I mentioned, you’re also at the mercy of that platform. We were using a lot of bots and automation on Instagram, found out Instagram doesn’t really like that too much. They do their best to keep that stuff off of the platform.

We realized that if we wanted to scale the business, we needed to not have those variables, because it was easy to have 50 clients, 100 clients. But if we wanted to ever grow bigger than that, we wouldn’t be able to wake up one day and Instagram changes their algorithm and now we have to rethink our whole process and deal with customer service of 100 people.

That led us down, “Okay. What if we just played within what the social media platforms want us to do anyways? That’s creating real conversations, having a very human component to things.” That became the ethos of what we are today, is getting rid of bots and automation, putting a human in all the seats that a bot would be taking, and being able to have genuine interactions with people using the internet as a means to contact the right audience. As Uptown Creation sits today, it’s a business development company really focused on direct outreach campaigns.

What that looks like in practice is, targeting people on LinkedIn, and then starting conversations in their inbox, but not the spammy messages that everybody receives. More of a message, you know, I think given that example. If I was going to reach out to you, Tim, I would go to the YFP website, I would look at a podcast, I would try to find an episode where I’m able to bring up a guest name, listen to the first 10 minutes. And now, when I message you, I’m going to bring those things up. That’s how I’m going to inevitably start that conversation and hopefully get you to respond. Because while you have 20 other messages that are clearly spammed out to everybody, this is the message that you know is sent to you directly.

[00:28:26] TU: That’s how genuine conversations, and rich relationships, and meaningful long-term relationships start, right? Is having a true vested interest in someone else and identifying where that collaboration can happen. I love that approach and as I mentioned, we’ll link in the show notes. You did a great series on YouTube going step by step through the LinkedIn process, and what you guys have done with clients in terms of looking at that as a business development opportunity.

When I look at Chris, your LinkedIn presence, and again, we’re talking here from the mindset of, it’s not just about the number of followers and how many people do message, but authentic relationships. And the fact that you’ve been able to build those authentic relationships also build a large profile, a large following of what you do, I think over 20,000 something, folks that are following the work that you’ve done. Talk to us about the positive impact that has had on you professionally, personally, as well as for the business and what you’re doing at Uptown Creation?

[00:29:24] CC: Yeah. So personal branding has been kind of a buzzword that I’m sure everybody’s heard. That was a big component of the work I was doing on Instagram, a big component of what people talk to you about as you’re going through pharmacy school. The way that I like to talk about personal branding is really, it being your reputation, and nothing more, nothing less than that. But personal branding, kind of being the online word for it.

But in the real world, you have a reputation, people think of you or hear your name, and they think certain thoughts or remember certain things that they’ve seen. Really, since I’ve done so much consulting work with clients of trying to get them to create content, trying to get them to spread their message, use the free traffic that the internet provides. I realized I needed to also do that myself and be a practitioner of that, which was uncomfortable for me at first, because that’s not my natural way of being.

I think a lot of people think that, “Oh! If somebody is creating content or creating videos, like they’re seeking attention, they’re more outgoing than I am. They’re –”, all these other preconceived notions that people may have. When in reality, it’s really just being an effective communicator, and also building your reputation online.

With the community that builds up through my own LinkedIn outreach and content creation, there’s been a lot of great relationships that I’ve made. I mean, this is one of them, because I don’t think I would have ever met you, Tim, if I didn’t have those other interactions with other pharmacists that say, “You really need to talk to this guy.”

Just from a sheer meeting people in the industry component, I don’t think that that can be understated, how much that has helped. I mean, even with jobs that I’ve been offered in pharmacy, specifically, and just the conversations I’ve been able to have with people greatly exceeded my expectations. The cool thing about it, especially in health care, and pharmacy is that, in the entrepreneurship communities and business, this is nothing new. Everybody’s been creating content for a decade or more since YouTube came out as a platform. It’s still really new for healthcare. There’s not a lot of people that are known for things online, or have a brand. I think, ZDoggMD is probably one of the biggest brands that exists that a lot of healthcare people know. It can set you up for speaking engagements, for having those side hustles, those side gigs, but also creating something that you’re known for that then you can progress your career with.

[00:32:01] TU: I would add too, Chris. I think the benefits professionally to many folks, I think may seem fairly obvious in terms of opportunities, and the network, and the relationships that come from that or in your case, what that means for the business. I also just get a ton of fulfillment, and joy in really connecting with other pharmacists, learning about what people are working on, what problems they’re trying to solve, opportunities that have frustration challenges.

That’s one of the things I love most about the work I do at YFP, is I get to have conversations like this, or talk with prospective clients and pharmacists all across the country in all different phases of their career. The point I’m making is, don’t underestimate folks listening of, yeah, I mean, it’s going to have professional benefits for sure. But also, just some of that personal satisfaction and joy that can have from developing those meaningful relationships.

Chris, I know at the time of recording, you’re doing some strategic planning for the business right now. I’m curious, as you think about the evolution of the business thus far, you’ve talked about a couple of pivots that you’ve made, you put your hand on the crystal ball, like what does Uptown Creation look like in three or five years? Where do you guys see yourself going?

[00:33:09] CC: Yeah, that’s a great question. I want to make it like explicitly clear that Uptown Creation started as making YouTube videos on the Internet, went to Instagram, and is now at a completely different spot with direct outreach marketing. I think that’s a good learning lesson for a lot of people in that, especially pharmacists that are looking to do anything outside of pharmacy, or even just start a side hustle. It’s good to get out of your own way sometimes, and just start and know that it’s going to evolve into something else and that’s okay, as long as whatever that end mission or that end goal is being accomplished.

I think a big thing that people do wrong in entrepreneurship is they fall too in love with the product or the service or that identity of what they’re doing, rather than the end impact that they’re trying to have. If you know that the journey to getting to that end can change and it’s okay. I think that makes it a lot more freeing, that it doesn’t have to be what you’re doing right now, but you have to start to be able to get to that endpoint.

Going back to your question of kind of what the outlook for Uptown Creation is. We are very clear now kind of what we’re good at what we do, and that is direct outreach marketing. Meaning, you can use paid ads, Facebook ads, and other paid forms of traffic online to bring people in and that’s what’s called a one-to-many approach. You’re showing an ad to thousands of people. Well, we are the experts at, and growing our services in, is the one-to-one approach, and being able to have very specific targeted conversations.

So as the mediums change that are effective right now, LinkedIn, email marketing, even cold calling, and cold texting are still really effective ways if your targeting is right, but that’s going to change over the next five to 10 years, which is okay. LinkedIn might not be the best platform to do outreach on and that’s not where people are hanging out online. That’s when we’ll make more pivots, but really being on the bleeding edge of direct outreach, marketing, conversational marketing. Social selling is the term, that’s another buzzword, is where we’re headed over the next five years.

[00:35:24] TU: I love that. It’s so in line with what you just shared, which is great advice for folks that are growing something or thinking about something is, keeping that goal and vision you have in mind, understanding the methodology of getting there might change, likely will change, just given how quick things are evolving today.

[00:35:42] CC: The one thing that I want to plug as well, because I think that this is like interesting insight for people. The reason why marketing and direct outreach is interesting to me as – I’m 27 right now. I plan to have other businesses. I want to do things in healthcare. But if I’m able to build this engine of direct outreach, bringing in traffic, starting conversations, this is something that I can apply to future businesses that I create regardless of the industry. Building this engine early on in my career, that can then be applied to other companies in the future.

[00:36:17] TU: Great stuff. Chris, I want to talk about the concept of developing your craft. I’m a follower of the Uptown newsletter. This morning came out and you said the following, “What I love most about Uptown Creation is that what we do just makes sense. It makes sense that reaching out to someone on the Internet is an extremely personalized way, it would elicit a response. This is what sets the framework for us as an organization. As the marketplace continues to evolve, we will evolve faster because we are practitioners of our craft, and practitioners always win.” What does it look like to be a practitioner of your craft? What do you mean by that?

[00:36:55] CC: Yeah, and that’s a little Gary Vaynerchuk insight there. It was somebody that I follow and admire. But really, being the person that’s doing the thing that you’re selling, or the thing that you want to be known for can’t be overstated. That’s why there’s so many pharmacists out there that are experts in oncology, experts in nutrition, experts in all these different fields that are practitioners every single day, and have things that are worth sharing to people that aren’t doing that every single day, even if you don’t really see that yourself.

If you’re doing something every single day, you are an expert, whether you like it or not in that thing, and you know, more than 99.9% of the population that’s not in that thing. Really making sure that you always have your finger on the pulse so to speak, and by doing whatever you’re known for, or whatever you’re in business for, you can never be blindsided.

I think a lot of business owners start to grow as a company, and you have to put other people into a lot of the seats that you were doing before. But always being able to be close to the ground and be doing things yourself that are directly related can’t be overstated, because that’s the way that you stay up to date.

[00:38:17] TU: Great stuff, Chris. Really enjoyed the conversation. Appreciate you taking time to come on and share your story. Look forward to having you back on the show in the future as you further develop some other projects that are coming. What’s the best way that folks can connect with you and reach out to you if they have a question or want to learn more about the work that you’re doing?

[00:38:35] CC: Yeah, connecting with me on LinkedIn is probably the best. So Chris Cozzolino. Then my email address if anybody wants to email me is [email protected] and checking out uptowncreation.com is probably the next best way to learn more about what we’re doing.

[00:38:52] TU: Awesome. We will link those in the show notes so folks can reach out to Chris. Chris, thanks again for your time.

[00:38:58] CC: Yeah, I’m excited for future conversations.

[OUTRO]

[00:38:59] TU: Today’s episode of Your Financial Pharmacist podcast was sponsored by our friends at Thoughtful Wills. If you haven’t created your estate plan yet, we urge you to reach out to Notesong and Nathan. They draft custom estate-planning documents like wills, trust, healthcare directives and durable powers of attorney that fit your situation and reflect your wishes. This is key. These are custom legal documents created and reviewed by actual attorneys.

Thoughtful Wills created two cut-to-the-case packages designed for pharmacists who are ready to get their estate planning in order. You’ll really appreciate their dedication to approachable lawyering and they charge about half of what most law firms charge for the same documents. These documents are such a gift to your loved ones. If you haven’t created them yet, please just get it done. Reach out to Notesong and Nathan by going to thoughtfulwills.com/yfp. Go ahead and book a meeting with them. They’ll take such good care of you.

As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it’s not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive, newsletters, blog post and podcast is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacist, unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates publish. Such information may contain forward-looking statements which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

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

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YFP 227: Why Tim Baker, CFP® Bought a Depreciating Asset

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Why Tim Baker, CFP® Bought a Depreciating Asset

On this episode, sponsored by GoodRx, Tim Baker talks about his recent decision to buy a depreciating asset, how his journey becoming a Registered Life Planner® (RLP®) impacted his decision, and how he coaches clients considering big financial purchases.

Summary

Your Financial Pharmacist co-owner & YFP Planning Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, talks about his recent decision to buy a depreciating asset. He explains why he would purchase an asset that he knows will go down in value and how it became part of his financial plan.

Tim shares what the depreciating asset purchase is and how he and his wife arrived at their decision. After learning a bit about life planning and its incorporation with the financial plan, Tim realized that one of his goals was to make lifelong memories with his family. Tim and his wife decided that purchasing a motorhome was part of their life plan, allowing them to take adventures across the country, creating those lifelong memories, as Tim did with his own family growing up.

He explains how his journey to becoming a Registered Life Planner® (RLP®) surfaced this experience-based purchase and how the financial plan can and should support the life plan. Tim further details his coaching philosophy when working with clients weighing whether or not to make a large purchase. He considers the entire picture, not just the ones and zeros, creating a plan that benefits the client financially, balancing financial wealth with the client’s idea of a wealthy life. Investing in yourself in ways that align with what a wealthy life means to you ultimately makes for a healthy financial plan by taking care of the whole person.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, welcome back to the show.

Tim Baker: Yeah, good to be back, Tim. Thanks for having me on.

Tim Ulbrich: Before we jump into your story of purchasing a depreciating asset, you and I were talking this past week about how grateful we are for the journey that has been this podcast over the past several years. We started Episode 01 back in July 2017, didn’t know exactly where we were going to go, how long we were going to do it, but are grateful to be here today, over 225 episodes in, three different shows on the channel each week, recently surpassing an important milestone: 750,000 downloads of the show, so pretty awesome, right, to reflect on that journey?

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s incredible, really. You know, we talk with a lot of prospective clients that we work with one-on-one with YFP Planning. You know, when you get those comments of like, ‘I’ve been listening to you for so long,’ and you kind of build a relationship with your listeners and you know, after the red drains from my face experience in that, it’s also very something that I’m proud of and I think we should be. And it’s been a good forum to really showcase, you know, like what we believe and our approach to money, and I think this is — and wealth building — and I think this particular episode is another step in that. And you know, it’s just been a great forum for us I think to take something that maybe is a little bit — can be a little bit dry and boring for people and get them excited about it. And I think the podcast has been one of the most monumental things that we’ve done. And that was really kind of the first big thing that we’ve done together, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: And I think it’s been just a great launchpad for our partnership.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And one of the great joys we have is, you know, we get periodic emails from those that are listening to say, “Hey, Tim, I was listening to this podcast and I did this or it inspired me to take some action or to work toward this goal,” and you know, those mean so much to us. I think the goal with this podcast is to hopefully inspire, to motivate, to educate, and we believe this topic is a lifelong journey. It’s something that we’ve practiced in our own lives and I’m hopeful that folks find it as a source of inspiration. So all this to say thank you, thank you to the community for listening, for staying with us, for sharing the good news with others as well, and we appreciate those that have been listening to the podcast and many who have even contributed with being a guest on the show. Alright, Tim, it’s confession time. So I’m putting you on the hot seat in front of the 35,000 or so folks that listen to the show each month to really, you know, ask you why as a financial planner did you decide to make a purchase of a depreciating asset. And so let’s just start with the purchase. What was it? When did you make it? And give us a little bit of the why behind that.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so my wife and I, we purchased a Class C Thor motorhome over the summer. It’s about 30-31 feet. It sleeps 10, so it has a bunkhouse, you know, bunker with a cab, kitchen, bathroom, you know, the whole — dinette — the whole 9. And yeah, we purchased it over the summer from a guy here in Ohio. And it was a long time coming — well, I wouldn’t say a long time coming. It was and it wasn’t. But that was the purchase that we made, and for someone who is very much thinking about finances and things like this and growing wealth, this was not necessarily a move that helps in that department. You know, lots of storage costs and repairs and it’s a 20 — I think it’s a 2014 with about 40,000 miles on it, storage, insurance, the tax that we paid on all that stuff adds up. But probably one of the better decisions I think I’ve made, even in — it’s early, so check in with me later — but I think just great in terms of what I think this can do for our family and the experiences that we can have. And that’s really the crux of why we decided to kind of pull the trigger on this.

Tim Ulbrich: So it’s been over a month, right, now, maybe even two?

Tim Baker: Yeah. I think we bought it in August.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Tim Baker: So we’re recording here in October. I think August is when we purchased it. Yeah. So — and back up, like this was something — and I give my parents a lot of credit growing up. When I was preteen, my parents bought — we first had a travel trailer growing up, so like we had one of those old conversion minivans and a travel trailer. And we took a trip when the three of us were I think preteens. I have an older brother and a younger sister. And we did four weeks, and I grew up in south Jersey, kind of outside of Philadelphia. And we did a four-week trip to as far west as the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Alamo, Yellowstone. And for me, that was transformational. And I think that’s one of the words that I would use for this episode is really that. And you know, it kind of really changed my perspective, oh wow, when you drive west, there’s just — just the topography and there’s just so much to see and people are just different and they speak different. And it really broadened my — I don’t know if I would say worldview, but at least my domestic view of the United States and really kind of lit a fire for me to want to travel and see other things. You know, we did other trips outside of that and my parents would take it up to West Point for football weekends, and it was always like a great reprieve, like being able to go inside and like kind of hang — like chill and not always be buttoned up in uniform and things like that. So I kind of just equated that to freedom. And for awhile, you know, I was like, man, I would love to do this with — I was first thinking like when I retire, so like when I’m in my 60s, 70s, and you know, get a big old rig and drive around. But I just started thinking more and more, and as I went through my experience with life planning, really kind of changed my perception or at least my timeline, so to speak.

Tim Ulbrich: So Tim, I want to talk for a moment, you know, we talk on this show before we — I know the planning team does as well. Anytime you’re making a significant purchase or any purchase, for that matter, it means you’re not doing something else with that money, right? So the economic term here being opportunity cost. So you know, as you’re looking at making this large purchase, I know I’ve heard you talk about real estate as a goal, obviously something that you and I are both bullish on and see a growing interest in our community and in large part why we’ve got the podcast that David Bright and Nate Hedrick are doing a bang-up job leading each and every Saturday. So whether you look at say, hey, could this money go to real estate? Could this money go into long-term investing or a brokerage account? You know, could this money go into the 529 account? I think this concept of opportunity cost is — we often talk about it in terms of the dollars and making a decision, but I think there’s also an opportunity cost to not making decisions as we make the connections of how our life plan is supported by the financial plan. So just to nerd out here for a moment, if you were to put $40,000 or let’s say $50,000 and save that for 40 years at 8%, you know, that’s $1 million. So there’s the $50,000 purchase, and then there’s that hidden cost of what that could be if that money were to grow over 40 years. So just talk us through that process as you evaluated this purchase. I suspect others might be thinking the same as they’re weighing big purchases. Like, how did you both consider the opportunity cost and then eventually get to the point where you overcame just the mathematical aspects of it to determine that this was the right decision for you, for the family, and the goals that you guys have?

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s a great question. And you know, I think for all the way up until almost like go time, you know, it was real estate investment. You know, we — my Ally account that this money was being, like where this money was, was called “Real Estate Investment Account.” It might still be called that. I don’t know if I ever changed it to like “Motor Home Account.” I mean, it’s fairly empty now. We paid cash for this, and I didn’t want to put a note on it, so I wanted to kind of keep in the budget that we were — that we had. But you know, I think it comes down to like windows, right? So I’m really bullish on real estate, and we have one property that we completely gutted and redid our home in Baltimore and are renting that out now since we’ve now moved out to Columbus, Ohio. And that’s been great. And I wanted, I definitely want to do more of this. But when I say “windows,” it’s kind of windows of time. And that’s what life planning is really about. And you know, specifically about the length of your life, but in this case, when we sat down and we were looking at our plan, I asked my wife Shea, I was like, “Is this really what you want to do?” And she’s like, “Yeah, of course it is. This has been — this is the plan.” And we kind of had this role reversal because I’m more of the — and I see this a lot in couples. I’m more of the person that is thinking like long-term and making sure that we’re doing what we need to do to have a wealthy life in the future. And my wife is typically like, hey, we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing — we’re living our life today.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: But in this case, it was kind of a little bit of a role reversal. And I asked like, you know, I asked the question, is this really what you want to do? And she’s like, well yeah, that’s the plan. But then once I said kind of a combination of these words, she’s like, you’re right. So I basically — what I said to her was, Olivia, our oldest — we have Olivia who turns 7 this Halloween, so in about a week or so. She’ll tell everyone about it. She turns 7 this year. And we have Liam, who turned 2 this year. What I was examining, like I was kind of thinking about this as like, we only really have with her, I don’t know, six, seven years maybe until, you know, we’re no longer cool, like she doesn’t want to hang out with us. You know, you get to the teen years —

Tim Ulbrich: And we’re running out of time.

Tim Baker: Yeah, we’re running out of time.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Tim Baker: And you know, I thought about that even with like the trip that I took that, you know, my brother two years older than me, he was kind of right on that preteen. And we had a good time, but I don’t know — like a summer or two after that, I don’t know if that trip would have worked. So when I put that in context in that kind of emotional tug that that gives you and specifically my wife, she’s like, where do we buy a motorhome? Like where do we do this? And that was really it. You know, that was really what brought us is that, you know, I view this purchase as an investment. You know, so many people view this as an expense. And if you do that, it doesn’t really work. And believe me, there are lots of expenses that are tied to this. But if you view this as an investment, you know, a memory-maker investment, that’s where it works. And I’ve had conversations, you know, we kind of bought the motorhome with my sister and her family in mind. They have twins that are a little bit older than Olivia and our boys are about 10 days apart, so they’re like best bros. So we kind of bought it with them in mind, hoping to share this with their family as well. But they’ve actually been thinking about buying their own and kind of doing big trips and like taking a year of that and all this kind of stuff. And for them, it’s hard to get — like they’re doing it down to the penny in terms of expenses. I’m just thinking — like it’s just tough, that’s a tough sell. It is a tough sell. And I get it. Like as a financial planner, it’s good to do that. But for me, this was really about letting go a little bit. And again, I know in the back of my mind that we’re going to be OK for the future and we’re doing a lot of things in that regard and we have a fully-funded emergency fund and all of those things. But to me, like the emotion, which is what drives our choices of I want my kids to experience similar things that I was fortunate enough to experience as I was growing up, and I think we only have a window of time — and not to say that when she’s a teen and things like that, but when you’re camping, like to me, it’s close quarters. Like you’ve really got to love your kids and your family and I think it gets harder as you get to be a little bit older. But that was the impetus, really. And a lot of that really is rooted in my own life planning journey of how we got to even make this transaction.

Tim Ulbrich: Such a good, reminder, Tim, about, you know, if we only look at the numbers — and here, you’re talking about one thing. I would argue that applies to other things as well where if you’re looking at this only as an expense, we would never make these life planning decisions.

Tim Baker: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: Or these decisions that spark the life, right? I mean, I get the numbers. If instead of buying a motorhome, whether that’s $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, whatever — let’s call it $50,000, if instead of buying the motorhome, you saved $50,000 and you put it into a long-term savings account and it grows for 40 years and you have $1 million. In one, we’re looking at $50,000 of a purchase that’s going to go down in value and has other expenses. And in the other, we’re looking at an investment that’s appreciating and is going to be worth $1 million or more. Like but what we’re really trying to highlight through this journey and through the discussion around the planning process and the importance of bringing out these goals and visions that you have for your plan and for the family and for you individually is that it can’t just be about the numbers and the expense. And Tim, you’ve mentioned a couple times now life planning. Tell us more about what is life planning and how did your journey in going through not only your own life planning but ultimately being registered as a life planner and being able to use that skill set for clients of YFP Planning and training the rest of the team? Like what is that life planning process? And how did going through that journey ultimately lead you down this decision here?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I found out about life planning kind of George Kinder, who’s kind of the founding father of life planning, and his three questions. And it’s something that once I went through the three questions myself years ago, I immediately incorporated that into kind of our goal setting. We call it Script Your Plan at YFP Planning. And we’re — that’s what we’re doing is we’re kind of saying, OK, now that we know kind of where we’re at, we’ve gone through a get organized, where is all the — what do the finances look like, let’s talk about where we want to go. So we do the three questions with clients now, but I think for me, what I — it was powerful to go through that myself when I was answering those questions, and I found out that there’s a registered life planning designation, RLP, that I just finished this year. And really, it’s been a couple years in the process that I have been going through that. What life planning is, to back up, they say it’s kind of financial planning done right. It’s really about putting first things first. You know, we often live our lives by like a paradigm that is not ours. It’s been kind of something that’s been dictated to us over the course of our lives, you know, get good grades, get a good job, earn a lot of money, that type of thing. But for a lot of us, we kind of get stuck on that, stuck in that, and we can sometimes fall into this state of not really examining our lives and not really saying like, is this really what I want? Is this what I’m doing right now, is this what a wealthy life is? And again, it’s not just about the 1s and 0s, it’s about what are you passionate about? What enriches your life? So years ago, I went out to Arizona and I did the first step, which was the seven stages of money maturity, which kind of focuses on listening, believe it or not. So as planners, we need to shut up. And so much of us, we see like student loans, OK, this is what you do, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And there’s a plan. But it’s really about focusing on your client and being there with them, being present with them, and not trying to overpower or not listen. And it’s about communication, kind of the client-planner attitudes, the biases and behaviors that we grow up with, so understanding that. You know, one being money is the root of all evil. Like where does that come from? Or you know, don’t trust — like some of those things were built into me I think. You know, my mom came from a very — her upbringing was tough. And I think some of those were kind of implanted on me. And you go, I have to understand that. And we see a lot of clients with that type of thing. So that was eye-opening. And really the next stage, which I think was truly transformational, was a five-day in-person training called The Evoke Life Planning Training. And this is where you actually go through the different stages of life planning. So I was life planned myself. And I life planned my partner Dan, so shout out to Dan. And I think this for me was very transformational. I kind of went into that training not knowing what to really expect but came out saying like, I am burnt out. My schedule is not mine. You know, kind of what I’m doing right now is not healthy. And from there, you know, I changed a lot of things. But the big thing that I took away from that was my vision meeting, which is the second — you know, it’s all about uncovering your kind of most exciting, meaningful, and fulfilling aspirations. And when Dan went through that with me and lit my torch, it was about really the motorhome and doing that with my family. And I still remember that meeting like it was yesterday. And you know, you go through that and you know, you create so much energy that that’s all I think about. Like that’s all I thought about for a while. And it took me longer than I thought to get it done, but you know, you could run through walls. And then finally, the life plan that you go through like a mentorship, which is like a six-month thing where you go through case studies and one-on-one guidance and group conferences and things like that. So that finished this year. And to me, the challenge that I have now is how do I best inculcate and integrate, I should say, the life planning methodologies into what we’re doing with clients. Right now, we do portions of it, and I tested out kind of the full Evoke method on clients and trying to figure out how to best balance getting to the core of what a client is passionate about but also making sure that we’re soothing the pain that are student loans, investments, tax questions, insurance, home buying, all that stuff. So that’s my challenge going forward. But I think to me, it’s where you really create and have meaningful relationships, meaningful conversations. And that’s what the RLP is about. And I think without me going through it personally, I don’t think that we would be at this step. And like I said, to go back to the whole if you invest this money, what would it be in 30 years? $1 million. I’m like, that’s great. But I would suspect that if you asked a 30-year-older version of myself, I would trade that $1 million for I think the experiences that we’re going to have with this investment, the RV, and with my family. And that’s I think what this is really about.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that’s what a good coach does, right, what you just mentioned there is ask that question or ask the right set of questions that get somebody thinking about what might 30-year-into-the-future self think of this looking back? And you know, I think there’s some good accountability in that process. I think as you’ve gone through the RLP and just briefly scratched the surface here, I think that has really enriched the planning process and obviously you seeing the value of that being able to bring that effort to clients of YFP Planning, so I’m grateful for that. Tim, I’m looking at your credentials now on LinkedIn. You’re starting to look like a pharmacist with all these letters after your name.

Tim Baker: Alphabet soup. Yeah, I know. I’m working on a few others.

Tim Ulbrich: I was going to say, you’ve got one coming down the pipe, right, the RICP is coming. So.

Tim Baker: Yeah, if I can study, if I can get studying for it, yeah. I mean — and again, I think, you know, one of the things that one of our core values at YPF is optimize you and you know, I’ve been in organizations where it’s stagnant because hey, we’ve figured everything out and we’ve seen everything. And I think that’s just poison to an organization. So you know, I’m not necessarily one for designations just to get them, but I look at it in terms of what can this provide to our practice? How can this further benefit the clients that we serve? And you know, I think that is important. And you know, having that. And it’s funny. I always kind of go back to this story. When I graduated from West Point, I’m like, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m done with school. I never have to pick up a book or do anything.’ And you know, really that changed more when I became an entrepreneur and now I’m a — I read all the time and listen to podcasts and I’m always trying to figure out ways to do things. And I think, you know, that’s the message really even to our clients is keep evolving and keep sharpening the salt, so to speak. You know, I think that it just, it leads to more of an enriched life but also I think it just can continually improve your skill set. And again, like the RLP, the Registered Life Planning, there are advisors, financial advisors, that have taken this training and have stopped being financial advisors. Like all they do is the front end life planning and then they hand it off to advisors. And I actually thought of like even doing that internally is you know, having just life planners that are doing this front-end work that it’s a form of planning, it’s a form of coaching, and then hand it off to our CFPs to kind of, you know, put a lot of that into practice. So it’s an option that I’ve been playing around with. And I think the cool thing about this is you don’t have to have all of the other financial designations to do this, but to me, it’s how do we further enrich ourselves, enrich the lives of our clients?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and you mentioned Kinder and the three questions. We’re going to link to those in the show notes for those that want to dig a little bit deeper. And for those that are hearing this in real time saying, “Hey, I’m really interested in having a financial plan that also considers some of what we’re talking about here around the life plan,” we would love to have an opportunity to talk with you to see if the services offered at YFP Planning are a good fit for you and the financial goals that you have. We do a free discovery call, you can learn more, schedule that at YFPPlanning.com. Tim, talk me through the process not only that you use but in coaching clients of YFPP that are making a big financial purchase, right? It could be a home, whether that’s a first home, an investment property, a vacation home, could be a car, could be a motorhome. What questions are you prodding to help them reflect upon that purchase that hopefully leads to a situation where there’s a purchase that has confidence behind it and not one that leads to buyer’s remorse?

Tim Baker: I think that you know, this is a process, right? So it’s not — you can’t look at it in a silo. I probably wouldn’t have made this type of purchase without a good, solid foundation. So like you know, cash emergency fund, a good savings plan beyond that, I think doing well in the investments, stable job, all those things. But beyond that, you know, like what we often ask clients is if we get into the Delorean, the imaginary Delorean, and we go ahead five years, like what does success look like? You know? If we look back at those five years. And I like to kind of equate age with that because I’m turning 40 next year, Tim, so like in 30 years, I’ll be 70, which is kind of like where my parents are. My dad’s a little bit older than that. So like trying to put myself in their shoes and like what do I want to accomplish because the further away it gets, the harder it is for us to kind of like feel that time. So I think framing it — and just for a lot of us, it’s actually just sitting down and actually asking some of these questions of ourselves. Like I said, I always tell the story when I was — my first job out of the Army was Sears/Kmart. So I would drive to work in the dark at 5 in the morning, and I would drive home in the dark at probably 6 at night or 7 at night or something like that. And those drives I would never remember. Like I would get in my car, and I was on autopilot. And so many of us, like that’s our life is like we’re not really thinking. It’s kind of an automatic thing, so like even asking ourselves these questions, so I think it’s — that’s part of it. It’s just going through that process and examining is this what we want to do? And if it’s not, what the heck are we doing about it? So like one of the things I say to prospective clients, you know, we might go through the wealth-building stage of the financial plan and we’ll do a nest egg calculation that says, ‘Hey, Tim, you need $5 million to retire.’ And that’s typically where they look at us like we have 5 million heads, right, because it’s a big number that’s in the future that doesn’t really mean anything to me. So you know, we go through the process of kind of discounting that back to a number that says, OK, if you’re putting this into your TSP or this into your IRA or this into your 401k a month, you’re on track or you’re off track, right? So we can kind of break that down into more of a digestible number to see if we’re trending to that goal given, you know, a handful of assumptions. But the point of this story is if we do work together for the next 30 years, and you don’t have $5 million, you have $7 million, $8 million, $10 million, whatever that is, that’s great. Like those numbers are bigger than $5 million. But if you’re miserable because you look back at that list of all the things that you wanted to do over 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, whatever that is, and you haven’t done anything and you’re miserable because of it or you’re disappointed, the question I would ask you is what’s the freaking point?

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Tim Baker: Why get this education, why earn this money, why pay down this debt, why invest, whatever, if we’re not going to intentionally direct it to the things that matter to you most? And I don’t think that I’m going to be on my death bed and I’m going to say, “I wish I would not have bought that RV.” I just don’t think that in my heart of hearts because of just — I just think about the reaction that my daughter and my nieces had, just when we pulled that up. And even the two camping trips that I had, I think I snapped a few pictures and texted them to you, Tim, even in our first camping trips, it’s going to be an adventure. And to extrapolate that out, like that’s our lives. Our lives are adventures. But we have to be willing to take it, you know, and seize it. And I think that’s what life planning really tries to get to the surface is what is that adventure? And taking that road and not necessarily adapt to a paradigm that’s not yours.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and you talked about this, I think there’s some really practical things, right, making sure do I have a good foundation in place? We talked about that on Episode 212, you know, what does it look like to have a good, strong financial foundation in place. You know, looking at the value that this purchase is going to add, what are the alternatives, right? We talked a little bit about opportunity cost. You know, waiting a little bit before making that purchase and feeling that peace and the thought that went behind making the decision. But you know, as you highlighted, I think the example of fast forward looking back and really asking some good questions to reflect on that, so, so important. So and you mentioned that — if I heard you correctly — it’s the Thor, right? Which is great. I just see like Tim Baker behind the wheel of the Thor and think of the Thor films, which is fantastic.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Where has it gone so far? Where is the Thor going in the future?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so we’ve just done basically weekend trips in Ohio. We’ve just done camping sites that are within a few hours’ drive. So we went up to Cedar Villa one — that was our most recent one. I think next year it’s really looking at some of the national parks. And it’s a lot — it actually is different than growing up. Like you have to book these pretty well in advance, so if we want to go to Yosemite or things like that. And you know, I kind of look at this as like, you know, some summers of adventure is really to get the kids, especially when Olivia is not in school, and go out and do it, you know? And you know, a lot of it is, you know, just being outside of your comfort zone. I don’t think I’ve ever driven something this big, but it’s fun. And you know, it can be a little stressful, and that can be true for whatever your life plan is is that it can be outside of your comfort zone. But it’s one of those things that, again, I’m tooling down the road and I look back and the two boys are in their car seat just gabbing on and the girls are doing their thing. And it’s brought me a lot of fulfillment already, and I think one of the things Shea and I have a long drive here this afternoon heading back to Maryland for a wedding. That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about too is what is the slate of trips? And start scheduling them. And I’m really excited for that. So it’s a journey. And I’m excited, I’m excited for what’s in front of us and again, to me, I look at this as a window of time with our kids. But just to extrapolate that out further, like we have a window of time, which is our life. And again, to kind of bring it back to life planning, it’s really important that we’re taking full advantage of that and not necessarily leaving anything on the table.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, one of the things we’re blessed with here in Ohio, Tim, shout out to the Buckeye State, is just some awesome state parks. So you know, trips locally and I know you’ve got a sabbatical coming up here. So one of the benefits we offer for the team at YFP is when you get to the five-year mark, we’ve got a month off and some funds to take a trip with the idea that we’re supporting the things that are central to the life plan. So pressure’s on, Tim, to be planning that, that sabbatical when it comes to the motorhome. Great stuff, Tim. Appreciate your willingness to share the story. And again, for those that are hearing this and interested in taking that next step with the financial plan, especially considering some of the dreams and goals that you have for you individually or for you and your family, love the opportunity to talk about the services at YFP Planning. You can learn more and schedule a free discovery call at YFPPlanning.com.

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YFP 226: How and Why this Entrepreneur Left a Successful Pharmacy Career to Start a Business

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How and Why this Entrepreneur Left a Successful Pharmacy Career to Start a Business

On this episode, sponsored by Thoughtful Wills, Tim Ulbrich sits down with pharmacy entrepreneur, Dr. Christine Manukyan to discuss her why for leaving her career in hospital pharmacy administration, her passion for building a business around functional medicine, growing pains she has experienced in her first year of business, and setting a bold goal of growing her business to $1M in revenue per year by age 42.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Christine Manukyan is the founder of the Functional Medicine Business Academy™, best-selling author, STORRIE™ podcast host, and an international speaker. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, she spent 13 years in corporate America. In the midst of a global pandemic, she made the wild decision to leave her reputable job as a Clinical Pharmacist to start her virtual practice. She is now disrupting the way clinicians are able to make an impact by coaching and mentoring them through the foundational steps of holistic practices and entrepreneurship. Dr. Christine created the world’s first Functional Medicine Certification Program which is a business incubator for clinicians to launch and scale their Functional Medicine Practice as they become Certified Functional Medicine Specialist™. Her mission is to pave the way for other burned-out medical professionals struggling to balance family, career, and their health to take control of their freedom and create their Functional Medicine Legacy.

Summary

This week, Tim Ulbrich takes some time to sit down with fellow pharmacy entrepreneur and all-around rockstar Dr. Christine Manukyan. Christine is the founder of Functional Medicine Business Academy™, best-selling author, STORRIE™ podcast host, and an international speaker.

Christine talks about her reasoning and motivation for leaving her successful career in hospital pharmacy administration. She shares her passion for building a business around functional medicine and how it aligns with her personal and progressional goals. As we know, when a business experiences rapid growth, there can be growing pains. Christine details some of her challenges during her first year of business and how coaching and professional guidance helped her overcome those difficulties.

There are no signs of her slowing down either! Christine talks about setting a bold goal of growing her business to $1 million in revenue per year by age 45 and why she recently decided to go bigger, moving that goal up by three years to the age of 42.

For Christine, mindset is critical for success! She encourages pharmacists and entrepreneurs alike to visualize what success and an ideal life look like and act upon that visualization by becoming all of the things you set your mind to become.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Christine, welcome to the show.

Christine Manukyan: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited. Thank you.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. I’ve been looking forward to this interview. We crossed paths after I heard the tail end of your session at the Pharmfluencer Summit that was hosted by Dr. Kimber Booth, and I heard a little bit of your story and said, “Hey, I need to learn more, and we have to share more with our YFP community.” And our listeners know that I have a passion for featuring various pharmacy entrepreneurs with the hopes of highlighting the many different paths that one may take with a PharmD. You know, I believe that the PharmD is a ticket, it’s a starting point, it’s certainly not the end. And I think your story, Christine, highlights just that. We also share a Buckeye connection, and we’ll get to that here in a moment, but before we jump into the entrepreneurial journey, dig into the business, the work that you’re doing now, Christine, give our listeners some background on your pharmacy journey, how you got into the path of pharmacy, where you went to school, some of your post-graduate training, and the work that you did prior to the business.

Christine Manukyan: Absolutely. Well again, thank you for having me on your podcast. This has been such a fun connection, as you were sharing like with the Buckeye connection too. Years later, who knew we are doing a podcast exchange here. This is called coming full circle, right? Well, thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my story. Well, Tim, my story kind of goes back a little bit behind my life, what happened before coming to here in the United States because I was actually brought up in Armenia, and I came to the United States when I was 16 years old. And back home, we go to school for 10 years. So after 10th grade, and you graduate school at age 16, you are actually prepping for college. So for me to graduate, my last year of school to step into like I was going to go to medical school because I wanted to do something with medicine. And coming to the States, realizing that hmm, I’ve got two more years to figure out exactly what I want to do and really kind of gave me the opportunity to understand what I really want as somebody who just came to the States, is not speaking the language, just reinventing herself as a teenager. And what I realized at that time was medicine was not a good fit for me. And I wanted to be a mom, I wanted to be a full-time mom. I was still wanting to do something with medical field and healthcare, but I decided not to go into medicine. I wanted to be a plastic surgeon back home. And here, I’m like, no, that’s not a lifestyle I would be going into. So I literally just started doing what everyone else does, just asking people what they love about their job in the healthcare space and just kind of to narrow down my choices. And I was stuck between optometrist and pharmacist. And I realized I’m a talker. I like to talk to people. And those few minute conversation in the optometry space was not going to give me a whole lot of that connection, so I decided to go into pharmacy space. And started my undergrad — and so back then, we didn’t really have to have bachelor’s to get into pharmacy schools. And I remember, you know, applying to pharmacy schools. And I was actually put on hold on a wait list here in California at USC and also at Western, which is here in Pomona. And literally, deciding to — like maybe this is not my time. And they’re not calling me, it’s already end of July, schools are already starting. And my family decided to move to Florida, a better life and housing prices at that time. And my brother being in real estate, we decided to actually move across from California to Florida. And I remember like over the weekend, making that decision to move my entire family. On Monday morning, I get a phone call from here, from Western, saying, “Congratulations. You’ve been accepted to pharmacy school.”

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, gees.

Christine: Manukyan: And this is like what? I literally yesterday moved across from California to Florida. And I’m going to apply to become a resident here in Florida so I can go to school here. But you know, everything happens for a reason. And so the experiences that I gained becoming a graduate from the (inaudible) gave me a whole new opportunities of taking this profession to a whole new level because I was surrounded by people who did not have my background. And the reason I’m sharing this because here in California, there’s a lot of Armenians. And people know each other’s cultures, and a lot of us don’t have that voice to educate the rest of us what we do and what we’re passionate about because there’s just so many of us, right? This is not the first time they’re going to hear your story. But being in Florida and being actually class president too, it gave me the opportunity to share my story of who I am and the struggles I went through because I was the only person in my class, in the whole school, to come from where I came from. And the reason I’m sharing this is because there was a lot of learning and unlearning that happened during that process, and I had to let go of the mindset of like, everybody knows who I am to a mindset of like, nobody knows who I am and really using your voice and your experience to become that hope and inspiration for other people who may be similar like you are, but you’ve never met them before. And long story short, I had a great experience in Florida, and so I decided to continue my education in hospital setting working in undergrad and pharmacy school and retail pharmacies. I decided this is not the career path for me. I decided to run away from retail pharmacy, and I committed to a two-year residency at Ohio State at the health system pharmacy administration. And it was such an incredible experience being in Midwest, which was my first time, and experiencing that cultural shock. I’m like, whoa, this is whole new world that I stepped into. And literally being there for two years and learning so much. And I just remember like graduating, saying like, “I have so many opportunities to go anywhere I want and do so many different things,” but I really have to find something that was aligned with my passion and my soul, which was not only leadership but also making an impact that hasn’t been tapped into in the past. And I was looking for creative positions. I was looking for — the titles didn’t really matter to me. It was more about what I will get to do in the position that I’m hired to do, you know? And that questioning kind of brought me back to California again at that time. And I was hired as a regulatory compliance officer at Cedar Sinai, which was a brand new position that was created literally during my interview, I’m not kidding. It was created literally during my interview because they saw the passion that I have like creating new projects, and I was given this opportunity to do that. So — and that’s how my journey came from becoming, you know, here an immigrant starting to learn the language going to pharmacy school and residencies and landing to my one and only job that I had for 12 years at Cedar Sinai in different leadership roles, working as a clinical pharmacist and also different roles in the hospital before I left.

Tim Ulbrich: Such a cool story. And we’re going to talk about that journey out and why you made that shift, but you know, just to reflect for a moment, you mentioned being waitlisted at a couple pharmacy programs to then entering, of course I have a bias being connected to that program as well, but then entering into one of the top health system administration programs, highly selective programs, and then a job being created for you during your interview. So talk about making things happen, right? I mean, just an awesome example of that. So 2009 to 2020-ish or so, you’re in that position at Cedar Sinai, very stable career. You know, I think it’s a position many would look at in the profession and say, “Hey, I want a job like that. I want to do what Christine is doing.” You certainly invested a lot of time and money to be in a position like that, but as you noted in an article that was recently published on Yahoo — and we’ll link to that in the show notes — you noted in August, on August 13, 2019, you said, “I wrote a letter to myself manifesting how I will retire at 40. I had no plan how it will happen. I had no clue what would I do if and when I retire from corporate. I just had a huge why.” So what was that why, Christine? Why make that transition out and ultimately become what you’ve mentioned before of really being a corporate dropout?

Christine Manukyan: Oh my gosh, thank you, Tim. You’re bringing me back incredible moments of creating and manifesting. But when I wrote that letter, Tim, I was stuck. And I know a lot of us go through school, we land in this fancy jobs, our dream job, it’s happening, we’re making the income that we want, but I just knew deep inside I was not happy. You know, from outside, I had everything figured out. I was making the money, I was healthy at that time, and it was just — I was broke inside. And I just did not feel like — like why did I work so hard? Like is this it? Is this what I signed up for? I was just really like finding ways to get out of where I was stuck in. And I just didn’t know what it was going to look like or what it was going to be, as you’re mentioning. But my why was I was just so tired of choosing between family and career. Having two kids and back-to-back, and my husband also being in a hospital setting in the pharmacy administration, like we literally spent less than an hour or two at home together as a family. And I keep asking myself, why are we making all this money? Like for who? For whose dreams we are creating and building? And when I say I was broke inside, I was like, I was not happy. I would come home, I remember, and I would be so tired and so stressed out and you know, just physically exhausting as well as driving two hours every single day, sitting in my car. So I would come home and the kids like, of course they’re excited to see us, but I was not a happy person, you know? Because I was bringing that frustration, that stress from work, to home. And here I am, looking at myself saying like, I’m not a good parent. Like I’m providing the physical stuff, you know, we have a house, we’re so blessed to have a car and all these things that a lot of people would love to have, but I was not the parent who was fully present. I was not the parent who had the energy to like hey, let’s go out for a bike ride like at 7 p.m., you know, before it gets too dark, right? I was just not there, and my why was like, I need to become a full-time mom. I need to become a mom who is present and is no longer choosing between family and career. And I want to create a lifestyle that I get to choose how I spend my day, I get to choose who I spend the day with. And yes, I did not have anything figured out, but I just manifested and I wrote that letter to myself on Aug. 13, and just saying like, it will happen. It will happen. And I’ve been manifesting to kind of having an exit strategy for my 40th birthday, which was like literally a year later, and just focusing on who I want to become. And this kind of ties into like one of my favorite quotes, and I write about this quote in my book as well too. It’s by Paul Coelho. And it says, “Maybe the journey is not so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” And I remember reading that quote, and I said, you know what, I’ve been working so hard to become this person, to have this title, to have this impact in this pharma space. But I’m like, I’m not happy. My passion is in holistic health, which is like a couple — technically opposite of what I’m even doing as my job — and just really giving myself permission to say, it is OK to unbecome who I was thinking I was going to become so I can actually step into this space and create this identity, this new identity of who I am supposed to be becoming in the first place. So that was my why, like literally figuring it out, how I’m going to have an exit strategy, creating my own legacy, creating my own lifestyle so I can live my day the way I want to and I no longer have to come home and bring the frustration and stress to my house, to my kids. They didn’t deserve to have a mom like that. They did not deserve to be, you know, having somebody in the house who was like always like impatient and you know, not really having this deep down conversations, like taking the time and really enjoying parenthood because time was going by fast. And I did not realize how my son was going to be — my oldest was going to be 10 years old. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I’ve been a part-time parent for a decade. Like what the heck? What the heck? This is enough.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think in the experience I’ve had just getting to know you and I’ve read this in the Yahoo article as well, you talked about the importance of manifesting and visualizing the next big goal. What I love about what you did on Aug. 13, 2019, is you didn’t have the path figured out, right? But you knew there was a strong why. And you know, we talk about that often on the show about how the why becomes the compass of where you’re going. And that why and I’m guessing that step of writing that letter and the visualization that came from that really probably helped inspire so much that would come over the next year. So one year later, Aug. 13, 2020, you turned in your two-week notice. So tell us about what the plan was. You had a whole year to kind of reflect on, OK, I know the why of where I’m going but how I’m going to get there, you know, somewhat TBD. You turn in that two-week notice a year later, what is the path and the work that you’re going to be doing? And tell us more specifically about some of the passion behind holistic medicine and functional medicine.

Christine Manukyan: Oh my gosh, yes. So you know, when you put your ideas and your energy out to the universe, the right people will show up. And I remember as soon as I wrote that letter and started manifesting that, the first thing I did, Tim, I don’t think I’ve shared this a lot of places, but I changed all my passwords and everything around me to say that I retired at my 40th birthday. Like I was claiming that.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, that’s cool.

Christine Manukyan: I retired at 40. I am retired. I am 40 and free. Like anything that was around the mindset of like my 40th birthday, which you know, was like a year later, like I am free. Like I’m finally free. And I’m creating this lifestyle. And as more I was saying that, typing those passwords every single day, and the right people came into my life. And that’s when like a complete stranger became my first business coach that I ended up hiring January of 2020 to learn all about functional medicine entrepreneurship in general. How do I take my knowledge that I’ve already created all these years into getting monetized for what I want to do? And this is where my passion is aligned. And around the same time too, January of 2020, I committed to becoming the biggest fan of Tony Robbins and really invested in his coaching, in his training with one of his mentor — one of his coaches, Chris Akutchez, KK, and really being in this mindset of like, I am going to create something that has never been created in the past because I’m going to stick through this process, I’m going to focus on my why, and the how will come. It was just the process. It was a process. And I remember, you know, getting ready to go to Tony Robbins’ event in March, and the event was canceled. And I was so looking forward for that event because I needed that breakthrough. I needed to be walking on the fire and just having the guts to like just go all in. And of course with the pandemic, everything got canceled, and I was like, maybe this is not my time. And again, we kind of hold back again because you’re looking forward for an event for this breakthrough and it’s being taken away from you. But I love Tony Robbins and what he’s done, and he’s such a visionary. And what he ended up doing was he actually created his event virtually, which he’s never done before. And between March and July, he created this online space. He built his own platform to deliver Zoom to 25,000 people. And I was one of those 25,000 people for the first time ever be on his virtual event, “Unleash the Power Within,” which was end of July of 2020. And coming out of that event, I did not walk on fire, but I did break a wood. I became a wood breaker and like really breaking through the fear of failure because, again, I was mentally stepping into the space of like, I’m going to retire. I’m going to get out. My birthday is coming up. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. And physically breaking that wood and really passing through that fear of like what can go wrong and focusing on what can go right and really coming out of that event, I said, “This is it. I’m going to be looking at my calendar. Sometime in July or August to pick a date that I’m going to tell my boss when my last day is going to be.” And as I’m like literally like, I swear to God, like literally staring in my calendar, right, and I’m like, which day will make more sense? Do I give a three- week notice? Do I give a four-week notice? Do I give a two-week notice? Because I’ve been there for so long, and I don’t want to just like leave people hanging. And I was highly trained. People didn’t have the job that I had. And I had to train people to come into this role. And as I’m like literally staring at my schedule, staring at my boss’ schedule, and literally at the same time, I get a pop-up message saying like, “You’re scheduled for your annual performance review on Aug. 13 of 2020.”

Tim Ulbrich: Oh my goodness.

Christina Manukyan: Tim, I saw that come through my inbox and I like literally like froze. And I was like, oh my gosh, what? Here it is, universe deliver — like helped me to make that choice of not overthinking what’s the right way to do it. And I was like, this is it. This is the date. And I keep asking myself, why is this date so familiar? Like what happened? And found my notebook and I saw the letter that I wrote. I was like, oh my gosh, it has to be on this date. And I remember just sitting going into the review — of course I didn’t say anything, and we start having conversations. And like a few minutes into the conversation, I said, “This is not going to be a performance review meeting as we thought. This is actually my two-week notice to turn in,” and because this is the legacy that I’m creating, this is where my heart and passion is aligned. And again, my why was like, I want to be home with my kids. I want to be home as a parent who is still making an impact and the income that she loves and deserves, but I’m also a full-time mom. I’m also present. And it was one of the hardest decisions to do. It was one of the scariest decisions to make. But I just knew that I knew that I knew I will figure it out. I will figure it out. And I said, “This is the time. This is the time for me to create. This is the time for me to step into this new identity that I always talk about,” reinventing yourself and aligning your passion to your purpose and bringing greatness to the world. So that was my story of how I turned in my two-week notice during my performance review. And that became my exit strategy because I had a plan, but again, I did not have everything figured out. I couldn’t wait any longer, and I’m going to say this too because there’s so many people who are probably listening to this and saying like, “Well, that was easy, like you just left your job.” So I wonder if she really made enough income on the side doing her side gig. And the answer is no, Tim. I did not have everything figured out because it was really hard to create this legacy on a full-time basis if I was still working full-time, miserable, in a job that I had. I could not physically and mentally create the legacy that I could have created if I did not have the job. You know? So no, I did not match my income. When I left, I left my job making less than $1,000 on the side. But I just knew I can make things happen because now I’m like 100% in, I’m all in, and my energy is flowing in the direction of creating and nothing can stop me. I am unstoppable. That’s my thing.

Tim Ulbrich: I think it’s a great reminder, Christine, too — I was actually listening to something this morning reminding me of Tim Ferriss’ work when he talks about really leaning into the fear, right? So you’re talking about giving a two-week notice and what does that mean, you know, in terms of not only next steps for the business, but you know, as you mentioned, it’s not like you had everything fully fleshed out, what does this mean for the family. But you know, folks might be listening that whether it’s a jump to another job, whether it’s making a decision to go part-time, whether it’s another fear that they may have, is that the thoughts that we have around that fear can quickly seem as if they’re reality. And we need to just sometimes lean into that a little bit. And I encourage like as you’re weighing a big decision like this and you feel like that fear is taking over, like literally think of the worst case scenario and start writing it down. Right? Because I think once we start to make it a little bit more objective and get it out of our head a little bit, I think we can start to at least begin to wrap our arms around it and process it and not be paralyzed by that fear. So it’s just such a great example of that. So tell us more about the work that you’re doing right now. We’re going to link to the website, of course, DrChristineManukyan.com, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Tell us more about the work that you’re doing with the business, the why behind that work, the problems that you’re trying to solve, and ultimately the products and services that do that.

Christina Manukyan: Absolutely. So I am a huge believer in giving people opportunities and choices. OK? And going into pharmacy space, like we were not really being given choices. It was just like, this is the protocol, this is how you treat stuff, and this is what we do, right? There’s no like, let’s try this, let’s try that. No. We were just given a recipe, we just go with that. Right? And when I was going through my own health transformation too, I realized like I was craving having choices in life. I wanted to have other options so I can weigh in and make that decision of like, how do I want to lead and treat my health? Right? And so that choice was given to me, which was functional medicine, which was holistic health, and really understanding like, let’s dig in deeper and get to the root cause of what’s making you sick. Again, part of my health transformation was at age 35, I was told by my primary care physician I was going to have a heart attack and I was going to die by my 40th birthday in the next five years because I was morbidly obese, I had extremely cholesterol, I was extremely burnt out. The stress was killing me. And I was told I need to take a pill. I was given a prescription for Lipitor, saying, “Go take this pill, try to lose some weight,” some weight — nothing about nutrition, right — and if you don’t do all these things, you are going to die. You are going to die. And this was not something that I wanted to receive. And I said, “Lord, there has to be a better way. There has to be something else that I can do that is going to save my life.” Not change my life but save my life. And that was holistic health and functional medicine. And when I incorporated that and started doing the cleanses, started bringing adaptogen into my life and really feeling like a new person and as a result, I lost over 100 pounds. As a result, I became a bodybuilding fitness athlete. And as a result, I ran the LA Marathon March 8 of 2020.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

Christine Manukyan: I mean, this was how I was stepping into my 40th birthday of being like healthy and fit and physically and mentally and emotionally and I was not broke anymore. You know what I mean? And when I saw this is a missing tool that a lot of us clinicians feel like there is a huge maybe stigma associated to like why would you recommend an herb versus a proven medication that has all these studies to that? Right? And I became the voice for other clinicians who are literally struggling themselves too to take care of their own health because burnout is legit. It’s happening to all of us. And they want to get healthy, but again, they just don’t know what else is out there. They may have heard about holistic health and functional medicine, but they have themselves not tried it because their mind has not been opened to learning what else is out there because we have not been given this education training. We can’t blame anybody else other than our education. Like that’s happening right now. And creating that space to train other clinicians, No. 1, taking care of your own health, utilizing functional medicine, but also as a result, as you’re working on your own health transformation, I’m going to show you how you can turn this into a business model that you can get paid for the same services that you’re applying for yourself for other people because there is always somebody out there that is praying for someone just like you with your own zone of genius to come into their life to save their life. So it becomes this process of like take care of your own health first, understand functional medicine is a tool for you, become your own transformation story, so now you can become a mentor for someone else. And that’s how the academy, the Functional Medicine Business Academy was born. It’s more than business coaching. It’s also reinventing yourself, who you are as a human being. And all of my clients and our clinicians and we are not only creating business models but we’re also transforming our own health because if we’re not healthy, we cannot serve everyone else, especially nowadays when there’s just so many moving parts and so much stress associated with life in general, so much uncertainty. And what we’re trying to create is like focusing on our own health. You’re not being selfish. You’re learning as you’re going, and you’re also creating your own functional medicine legacy so you can one day have an exit strategy if you choose to do that. And that’s how the academy has been growing and constantly adding new things into that. Collectively, we are all going to be writing a book that’s going to be published very soon, “Unleash the Story Within,” scheduled to be released on Nov. 9. And these are all clinicians who are telling their own transformation journeys, how they went from traditional medicine to functional medicine, and what their own health transformation with functional medicine and holistic health looks like. I’m a storyteller, so it’s all about getting your voice out there because there’s always somebody out there that is literally praying for someone just like you to come into their life to save their life. And really creating this tribe and starting the functional medicine revolution and giving our profession an upgrade, I’m going to say. Maybe not the right word to use, but really telling the world like, we are clinicians. Yes, we are pharmacists, we didn’t learn this in school, but we have tools to become certified functional medicine specialists through my program and really use our knowledge and experiences but not become a specialist in functional medicine space. So upgrading your PharmD to a specialist of functional medicine because this is an opportunity that was not given to us from any ways and now I’m becoming the voice for our profession to say, “You can do this too.” And the Board of Pharmacy will not show you how to do that because it’s not written there yet.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Christine Manukyan: Yet. It will one day. Yes. It’s all about starting the revolution and really giving us that platform to practice what we’ve already learned but also blend in and integrate functional medicine into our practice so we can give people options and give them choices, you know?

Tim Ulbrich: And we will link to the website, again, DrChristineManukyan.com, you can learn more about the academy, the Functional Medicine Business Academy, as well as an upcoming free master class on Oct. 25-29. And we’ll talk more about that here at the end. Christine, you know, I was thinking recently that I have lots of conversations with folks where they may have an idea and I think some of those ideas stay just as that, as an idea, a small percentage of those end up with some action of those that people take action, sometimes folks see results and then a lower percentage of those you actually see results where folks can replicate that, scale that, grow that to where they’ve got an actual thriving business. So as you reflect back on your journey from ‘I have an idea,’ and you mentioned leaving your position where you hadn’t yet fully fleshed that idea out to where you are today now and the business really growing and scaling. Was there a specific moment in that journey where you realized that this idea that you had was really an idea that had legs and one that could be sustainable as a business?

Christina Manukyan: Ooo. This is such a huge question, Tim. I’m going to say yes. And this all also is connected with who I am as an individual when I make decisions. And those of you who have not done human design, I would highly recommend all of you to do that because it also dictates how you make decisions and how you see yourself in this world. And I make my decisions, Tim, based on my gut. And that’s how I am the visionary who executes it, even though if I’m 80% sure, I will execute it to the finish. And that’s how I was humanly designed to make decisions. This is not for everyone because a lot of people don’t make decisions with their gut. They are actually thinking it, right? I have to feel it. So we’re all designed differently, and if you’re listening to me and you’re like, wow, I would never do that because that’s fine. Find the way that you can actually execute it based on your own human design. So do that thing, and there’s a website you can actually go and it’s completely free, will tell you who you are. But for me, it was knowing like I don’t have another choice. Because I can continue doing this, I can continue living my life, or I can take this other path of creating something that has never been done before. And this may be part of my process of coming to the United States and being an immigrant. I was not given a lot of choices when I was here as an immigrant. And I had to figure things out. I had to learn things that I have never seen or heard in the past. I gave myself permission to not be scared because your body cannot tell if you’re scared or excited. It’s the same neurotransmitter that you’re experiencing that. So instead of saying like, “I’m afraid to make this decision and execute,” I’m going to say, “I’m excited about the opportunities that are to come.” So really put that into excitement versus fear. But most people are stuck in the fear and not executing. And again, I wanted to have — I’m one of those people who likes to try new things and not being afraid of failure because that is just not an example of how you can learn and grow but also want to become a voice for my kids, Tim, because being an immigrant coming here, I watched my mom work like three jobs to provide for us. And I said, “This was hard.” And her sacrificing her own health to provide for our family is actually causing her have three autoimmune diseases, like here like 20 years later. You know? And I don’t want anybody to sacrifice their health because they’re trying to create the wealth that they need. I want everyone to have choices, and I want my kids to grow up saying like, “Mommy and Daddy made this decision,” and we are creating generational wealth. We’re not just taking care of ourselves now. I’m creating a generational wealth so my kids are growing up and they’re saying, “Mommy made this decision, you know, like when she was 40. And she created this legacy because now I get to do this.” So and it all starts with, again, going back to the simple things of understanding your why and why you want to do that, and everything else will fall into place. And just follow what makes you happy. And go back to asking yourself, what do you desire? Like I was desiring to be a full-time mom first. I wanted to be — I was desiring to be a somebody who was happy not for the world to see but I was happy inside. And I was not broke anymore. And I was living a fulfilled life, not for social media to see the highlights, but I was really, really like living that happy lifestyle that I know I can inspire someone else saying like, “You know what? Enough is enough. This is my time to rewrite my story,” and they can connect and make that transformation journey themselves and really step into the new identity that they should deserve and they’re part of it. So.

Tim Ulbrich: Christine, I am. I am. You said that if you’re inspired in any way — and I’m taking, again, this from the Yahoo article — if you’re inspired in any way, write a vision-casting letter to yourself and use the “I am” statement when you’re describing your life a year from now. And you say, “I challenge you to have this everywhere. I had it on my screensaver. I had it as my passwords that I was typing every day. I mean, it was everywhere. I was saying it until it became real.” Tell us more about that “I am” statement.

Christine Manukyan: There’s something about this like psychology and that again, I didn’t learn about this, but again, hiring a lot of mentors and business coaches and mindset coaching like and understanding your mind is capable of doing so much, and I decided to claim I am corporate dropout. Also I am Wonderwoman. And those of you who haven’t seen my Wonderwoman transformation as a fitness athlete on stage and really owning like having that mindset that goes with the image that I’m creating. Like who am I? Right? And Wonderwoman was actually my nickname in my fraternity, Phi Delta Chi, and I was like, who is Wonderwoman? I’ve never heard of her name, right? And when I was given that name back in pharmacy school, I literally had to Google like Wonderwoman because again, I have never seen her or heard of her, right? And I was like, this is somebody I want to be. And I think just even having that name that was given to me back then, like I was — I am Wonderwoman in my fraternity Phi Delta Chi. And what that allowed me to do is to become like a Ro Chi. It allowed me to become the class president and FSHP president and Phi Lambda Sigma president, right? Because I was stepping into this like who I am. My name might be Christine Manukyan, but I am Wonderwoman. I am unstoppable. And really claiming that and more excited — I’m not going to say scared — more excited you are when you’re saying those words and you’re owning it, psychologically and physically, you are going to become. OK? You’re going to become. And I have been, the last couple of months, I have been claiming of really having a million-dollar business in my business by age 45. But I’m actually, after attending this event the last couple of days, I am going to challenge it and change it to by 42nd birthday, so by next year, because I’m really pushing myself to the next statement of like who I am and also honoring the transformation that I’m going through myself. It’s not just like saying it, like “I am Wonderwoman.” Well, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to feel things and how do you show up? How do you talk? How do you dress? Who are you surrounded with? How do you spend your time? How do you spend your money? What relationships do you have? Right? Like who is that person that you’re stepping into? And when it actually happens, you’re like, ‘Of course it was going to happen.’ It’s like you’ve already done the rehearsal. You’ve already created that space. And you know, I talk a lot about this during my master class too, Tim — and thanks for mentioning that — understanding like the ideal life you want to create for yourself and why you want to create that. It sounds so simple, it sounds so cliche, but I want you all to actually physically experience like what would it mean if you say like, ‘I want to let’s say retire in xyz years,’ or ‘I want to actually wake up one day and not have migraine headaches anymore,’ right? Whatever it is that you’re desiring, whatever your ideal life looks like, I want you all to actually experience that right now. It’s like running a drill. It’s like running a drill, right? Like you practice it now so when the day comes when it’s the right time to show up in your life, you are able to receive that information, you are able to see the transformation that the universe will deliver to you because you’re focusing your energy and your mind in that direction.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, no, that’s great stuff. And I want to share, you know, as we feature more pharmacy entrepreneurs on this show, you know, I think that for folks that have an idea in mind and they hear someone who is taking some calculated risks, has taken that step, has had some success in that, they can get excited, right, about that and start to hopefully visualize and dream that if that’s something that they’re passionate about as well. But it’s also important that we talk about the growing pains, we talk about what we do when we feel overwhelmed or unfocused. You know, it’s not always rainbow and butterflies. You and I know this from firsthand. And so when we share these stories and we talk about some of the positive outcomes of these dreams and visions that we’re also talking about the reality of what it means to be running a business. So Christine, as you reflect on what has been a very short period of time and the success you’ve had thus far, as you’ve gone from idea to validation of that idea and now the business really growing, you mentioned $1 million business goal that you have by your 42nd birthday, I suspect there has been some growing pains as you’ve had some success, right? I know you and I talked a little bit about things like corporation structures, right, and tax situations, and other things that can feel overwhelming at times as a solopreneur. So tell me about some of the growing pains that you’ve experienced thus far.

Christine Manukyan: Oh my gosh, yes, Tim, we were talking a lot about that. And again, sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Christine Manukyan: And for me, I have made a lot of bad decisions hiring people. OK? And this is huge because we always say, you know, when you have business growing, you need to hire help. Well, that’s great. But who do I hire? How do I know they’re the right fit? How much do I pay them? Are they a contractor or are they — just so many things. And I have made really bad decisions the last few months because I was desperately looking for someone that my unicorn, and I was like, OK, I will train them. I’ll give them this opportunity, but they were not the right fit for my company. They were not seeing the vision that I want to go. Like I’m creating, I’m revolutionizing how our system and how people are going to learn about holistic and functional medicine and creating legacies. Like there’s nothing has been done the way — the scale that I’m going. And the people I was bringing on board, they didn’t see the long vision. And they were just focusing on the tasks that I was giving them at this moment, so I’ve spent a lot of money, close to like $20,000, let’s just put it out there. It’s a lot of money because I just didn’t know, and I was go-go-go mode. I was like really working off of my masculine energy and just go-go-get things done and not slowing down and saying like, let me reflect who I want to bring into my company. Anybody wants to take a job right now. Like right? And they want to work with you, but did I really give myself permission to really ask like who I want to work with? I know they want to work with me, but do I really want to work with them?

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Christine Manukyan: But it was coming from the mindset of desperation because I was like, I’m growing so fast. I need help. And I was like literally hiring people left and right. Like literally had no structure in place, I had no SOPs in place.

Tim Ulbrich: And you have an administrative management background, right?

Christine Manukyan: Yes. But again, that was structured for Corporate America, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s different. Yeah.

Christine Manukyan: It was structured for Corporate America. I cannot go get an MBA to have an online practice running. An MBA is not teaching you what to do. It’s not. And the minute I started asking myself like, why is it that I’m bringing more help but I’m even more stressed out right now? Here I am working like 12-hour days. I went from like 8 to 10 12 now. And what is going on? And I asked this to my business coach, Kelly Roach and her program “Unstoppable Entrepreneur,” and she was like, “Christine, have you put systems in place when you’re onboarding? What does your onboarding process look like?” I’m like, “Kelly, I don’t have an onboarding process. What do you mean? You don’t just hop on on Zoom and tell them what to do and where to look for information when they need your help?” They’re like, no. I’m like, oh my gosh. So I’ve spent a lot of time, which is, again, my most valuable asset that we have, bringing people on board who are not a right fit for my company. But I was doing what people told me to do, go hire some help. So I did. I went and hired some help versus asking, education — like smarter questions like what does the process look like? Explain it. Because I’ve never hired someone before. So understand that just because somebody’s telling you to go do something, like stop and say like, can you explain what that looks like? Can you tell me what would be a better fit for me and for my company? Ask those questions, and it’s OK to ask questions. You may sound like, oh my gosh, that’s such a dumb question to ask, but let me tell you, those dumb questions you feel like there’s — No. 1, there’s no dumb questions to ask. Those questions can not only save you time but money and education because you’re learning. And running a business, especially if you’re scaling and you’re creating something that hasn’t been done before, like there’s not a lot of people to like go study for you to create. You just have to go with it and put it in place and pivot when needed. And I know a lot of people say like, ‘I have the best product I’m bringing to market. And this is it. It’s going to be a game-changer.’ Well, honey, I’m sorry to tell you that, but you might have to learn how to pivot and how to make changes.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Christine Manukyan: If you feel like your ego is getting into your way to really create the product, the services that everyone needs and loves and become your biggest fans, like you have to grow and you have to pivot when it’s the right time. But a lot of people say, ‘No, I can’t do that. Like I already spent so much time and money on this.’ Well, if it’s not working, please change. It is working, keep going.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think that’s a great example — and I have one in our business where, you know, and I think ego can be such a barrier. But we had a service that we launched that we thought was going to be a home run, and the key as I reflected on that is, you know, that was very much framed by what we thought was going to be needed by our audience and by the community not necessarily by exactly what that group was telling us what they needed. And once we could get over the ego, we’re able to move forward and cut those losses. But it’s easy to hang onto those losses, say, ‘Hey, I spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of money developing this,’ but at the end of the day, you’ve got to pivot. I think that’s a good lesson. Last question I have for you, Christine, you mentioned in this time where you’ve hired folks and sometimes that hasn’t necessarily been the right fit, probably you spent more time than it would have been without having some of those people on board, I suspect times, you’ve felt maybe overwhelmed or unfocused. What do you do in those moments? You know, as an entrepreneur, you find yourself in a period of time where it’s stressful, you’re overwhelmed, you feel like you’re unfocused, perhaps a little bit separated from the core mission of what you want to be doing in terms of spending your time and working on, what do you practically do in those moments where you’re feeling that?

Christine Manukyan: First, take a deep breath and remind myself that I am fortunate to have this type of stress in my life because sometimes, we forget this was a choice and this is an opportunity for me to overcome those barriers and recreate what I want to do, right? So first, celebrating that this was a choice. I am alive. And I get to stress about things like this, OK? But just kind of going back to like really go back to the basics. OK? And I’m such a huge like a checklist person. If you see my to-do list, you probably would have a heart attack. But it’s long. It’s very like detailed, right? But that’s also psychologically, it’s overwhelming. And what I learned was I need to break it down to like literally like maximum three decisions I have to make today. What’s the next right thing for me to do today? Maximum three things to get me closer to the next place. It may be going down the checklist, maybe re-evaluating my checklist, maybe learning how to delegate some of this to-do list to other people on my team and elevating them and training them. OK? But really asking yourself like, going back to the basics and really asking myself like what are the top three choices, decisions I need to make today, to get me a step closer? What’s the next right thing for me to do? The next one. And then like one at a time. One at a time. And that’s it. Versus getting overwhelmed with a large to-do list and it’s just too much and just you will — like you will have those days when you’re going to ask yourself like, what the heck did I get myself into? And I want you all to celebrate that feeling because again, you’re feeling stuck, but I want you to celebrate that feeling because you’re going through a transformation. And instead of getting stuck in that like oh my gosh, like what the heck did I just get myself into, just saying like, ‘Who can I call to help me just to talk?’ and maybe the one decision you need to make that day is for you to get rest, for you to have the time out, for you to create time on your schedule to create content, to create lifestyle, whatever you want to do. Like give yourself permission to block off time on your calendar to create. And you have to create that time in your schedule because we all have the same 24 hours, OK? You don’t have to do anything. Everything you do in life is based on your choices you make and decisions you make. So you don’t have to do anything. So create that time for you to like slow down and really ask yourself, what is it the maximum three decisions I need to make today that’s going to make me closer, get closer? And that decision, one of them can be like, you know what? Today, I’m taking a day off. I am just not even going to do anything because physically, my body needs to rest. And that’s OK. And that’s perfectly fine.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. This has been fantastic, Christine. I really appreciate you joining and sharing your story with the YFP community. We’ve only scratched the surface. We didn’t talk about the book that you’ve co-authored along with 17 other female entrepreneurs and business owners, “Pivot with Purpose.” We’re going to link to that in the show notes. I hope folks will check that out. And as I mentioned earlier, Christine has an upcoming free master class Oct. 25-29. You can learn more at DrChristineManukyan.com. We’re going to link to that in the show notes. And this master class is really meant to help folks learn how to blend the years of education, the professional experience you have, folks that are passionate about holistic health and ultimately how to create your own functional medicine practice. And it’s going to be on Zoom Oct. 25-29. Five days learning how to identify your why, handpicking your dream clients, taking the center stage as personal branding, looking at your definition of wealth and success, and then finally redefining your scope and practice. And so much of, Christine, what I’ve heard in this interview is a lot about mindset and really thinking about how your personal mindset is going to have a positive impact on the future growth and hopefully realizing what’s possible within yourself. So Christine, thank you so much for joining us and looking forward to watching what you do in your business over the coming year.

Christine Manukyan: Thank you so much for having me, and I’m so grateful for your time as well too because you added so much value in my community a couple weeks ago, and I’m just so grateful for our relationship, our friendship and collaboration. It is definitely making this world a better place when you have amazing partners next to you. And we all share so much and I just cannot wait to see what’s next and yes, we can always, always connect with me and share your biggest takeaways because like you said, Tim, life is all about making connections and really getting to knowing people who are going to change your life. And this conversation that we had can probably change someone’s life. And I want to hear from you.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. Thanks again, DrChristineManukyan.com, you can also connect with her on LinkedIn and as always, we thank you for joining for this week’s episode and look forward to having you again back here next week. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 225: How to Navigate Open Enrollment and Employer Benefits

Posted on by yfpadmin

How to Navigate Open Enrollment and Employer Benefits

On this episode, sponsored by GoodRx, Tim Baker, YFP Co-founder and YFP Planning Director of Financial Planning, joins Tim Ulbrich to talk about open enrollment and evaluating employer benefits. Tim and Tim dig into:

Considerations for choosing a health insurance plan
How to determine whether or not your employer-provided life and disability insurance is sufficient (one of the most common questions we get)
Understanding the differences between an FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and HSA
What to be looking for when putting money into your employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Summary

This week on the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, Tim Ulbrich sits down with YFP co-owner and Director of Financial Planning, Tim Baker, to discuss open enrollment and the process of evaluating employer benefits. As you go into making your benefit selections for 2022, Tim and Tim share some considerations for choosing a health insurance plan and how to determine whether or not your employer-provided life and disability insurance are sufficient. Tim and Tim provide a general overview into understanding the differences between an FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and HSA and what to be looking for when putting money into your employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Whether you are reviewing your benefits for the first time or are a seasoned professional with open enrollment, there are many factors to consider. Pharmacists may not think to consult with their financial planners when it comes to open enrollment or the process of evaluating employer benefits, but these decisions affect the financial plan. When choosing a plan for the coming year, pharmacists should consider future life events or changes impacting money spent on medical expenses such as a child being born, marriage or divorce, coverage for a significant other, or a child aging out of medical coverage. The open enrollment period is a time to review history in medical spending, how much is spent out of pocket, and how to optimize benefits and cost savings based on those findings.

Tim Baker touches on life insurance and disability insurance, how to calculate your total need, transferability issues to consider when deciding whether or not to purchase a policy outside of your employer policy, and tax considerations.

Tim Ulbrich closes out by breaking down the differences between an FSA, DCFSA, and HSA. He also touches on retirement savings accounts in conjunction with open enrollment and the opportunity to re-evaluate investing and savings goals and how each fits in with the financial plan.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, glad to have you back on the show.

Tim Baker: Yeah, good to be here, Tim. Looking forward to getting into open enrollment discussion. ‘Tis the season. So yeah, I’m ready for it.

Tim Ulbrich: ‘Tis the season indeed. Fall is in the air officially here in Ohio, which does mean it’s almost time for open enrollment and ensuring that we’re taking the time to understand and maximize employer benefits. And I think whether someone is reviewing their benefits for the first time, whether that’s accepting a new position, going through another round of open enrollment, a lot to consider here, including insurance, retirement accounts and HSAs, FSAs, to name a few. So Tim, our team at YFP Planning includes employer benefits as a part of the planning process, perhaps an area that folks don’t necessarily associate working with their financial planner on. So how does this part, employer benefits, factor into the financial plan? And why is it so important that we’re looking at it in the planning process?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think this is another area, Tim, where like when we say, “comprehensive,” we mean comprehensive. And it’s just like kind of the same conversation with things like home purchase. Most financial advisors are not going to kind of walk you through kind of the A-Z of buying a home because most of the time, a financial advisor is working with people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, right? And the reason for that is because those are the people that have assets, and that’s how they charge their fee. We have many, many, many clients that are in their 20s and 30s. And things like home purchase is really important and is often a big step in their financial journey and their financial plan. So we kind of take the time to go through that based on, I know you’ve said it, I’ve said it, we’ve messed those transactions up in the past, and we just don’t want to see our clients do the same thing. So open enrollment is kind of the same thing. A lot of financial advisors don’t really talk about this stuff because if you’re working with people in their 50s, 60s, like they’ve done it dozens of times, right? So they’ve gone through this. And a lot of our clients haven’t. You know, it’s not something that is kind of what we understand. And so to define open enrollment, open enrollment is the period of time where you can purchase or apply for health insurance for the upcoming year without a qualifying event. And usually a qualifying event is something like a marriage or a divorce or a birth of a child. So it’s typically very centered on the health insurance plan because that’s the big piece of the benefits. But then what the employer does is kind of have you opt out of other benefits that they might offer, which might be life insurance, disability, I’ve even seen things like pet insurance and things like that. You know, some things that are not insurance-related could be like a legal benefit. So that’s what this is is open enrollment. And it’s important because your employer benefits are a major component of your compensation package. And you know, this is kind of the conversation that goes back to things like salary negotiation is I’ve seen clients, they’ll say, “Hey, I’m making $110,000,” and they get an offer for $120,000 but they take a major step back with regard to their total compensation because of the benefits that are associated with that. I think it’s really important to understand what the employer benefits are and how to assess that. So that’s really what’s at stake here is really understanding that piece. And we know this, Tim, because when we plan to hire someone, we know that it’s not just about the salary pay. We apply a multiple on top of that because we know that the benefits that we’re going to provide for the employee are going to be above and beyond that. So that total cost or what I would say is an investment in that person is really beyond the salary. So this is what is really that bell to that. We’re trying to assess an an employee to say, OK, how can I best optimize this part of my compensation. And I would say that there is a lot, you know, a lot of people that don’t necessarily fully optimize this part of their financial plan or give it the attention that it needs because it sneaks up on us or bad information or what have you. So that’s really kind of the overall picture here of what it is and why it’s important.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and Tim, I think when you say sneaks up on us, bad information, it’s important I think for folks, basic stuff before we jump into individual benefits, you know, know your dates, obviously what’s the time span. You know, a lot of employers, depending on how they organize this, will do informational sessions, open Q&As, one-on-ones, group, and some of that might be automated, depending on the system and the platform they’re using. But making sure, understanding the dates, you know, simple things, how much time do you have if you’re going to be on vacation, things like that, making sure you can coordinate with HR. And then also, you know, just taking a look at your pay stub and your benefits. What do you currently have? And really taking a pulse on — and I think just a chance to go back and what’s gross pay, what’s net pay, what’s coming out in benefits, and taking this time that comes around every year as a chance to revisit some of these things that we want to be looking at often. And then of course, just thinking about upcoming changes, right, that might be happening. You know, I think of things like children that might be beneficiaries on the healthcare side, aging out if you think about 26 or folks that might be expecting or perhaps getting married, things that might have an impact on their benefits, considering those things as you’re in the benefits selection. And then of course just refreshing and updating the evaluation of who are the beneficiaries that are listed on certain policies. Tim, I want to start with health insurance. You know, I think it’s the one that typically carries the biggest price tag as we think about it relative to the other insurance and typically carries more options than things like dental and vision and life and disability, which I think for many employers it’s more of a one-way type of option. So the big question here is how do I determine which one to get? And of course, all plans are created differently but when folks are looking at these and you’re evaluating the deductibles and maximum out-of-pockets and premiums and copays and coinsurance, unfortunately, it’s a system that even though our audience is comfortable with all of those numbers because they live in it in the job that they’ve done or have been trained in it previously, there’s just a lot to consider. And if you look at plans, let’s consider a three-tiered plan where you’ve got like a bronze, silver, gold option, you know, you’re looking at OK, less out of pocket, more out of pocket, better coverage, but perhaps I could have lower out of pocket and I could use that money elsewhere. Like general framework, how do you begin to help clients think through this decision and not just look at it in a silo but also consider it in the context of the rest of the plan?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I think it’s — you know, everyone can say it with me — it depends, right? So you know, I think a lot of it depends on past history or — you know, you mentioned a few things like what’s kind of on the horizon? Is it getting married or having kids? And some of those will allow you to kind of elect insurance outside of the open enrollment period. But those are typically qualifying events. But you know, an example is when we had Liam, when Shea was pregnant with Liam, we opted out of the bronze package, you know, the HSA plan to more of a gold package because we knew that the doctor bills and the hospital bills were going to be there. Our thought process was, you know, although in most cases we’re not going to the doctor a lot, you know, during a normal year, well, electing to a higher deductible plan, which means less coming out of our paycheck but then when we do go to the doctor, there’s going to be potentially more coming out of our pocket. So we did that to get in front of it a little bit. And you know, that’s really important from a planning perspective and kind of mitigating as much of the costs — and we probably saved ourselves if we did the math $1,000 by doing that. So that’s an important part of the plan. Now, sometimes things are going to come up and you’re just not going to — you know, it’s kind of like that emergency fund. You’re just not going to know for the future. But I would say is it’s a little bit of an exercise in looking at your past history, so looking at how often you’re going to the doctor and how often you’re reaching into your pocket to pay for things like copays and things like that. But then also projecting it forward, so that’s kind of where the conversation starts is that, you know, if you’re a younger, healthy professional and you’re not really going to the doctor, then you probably should really consider kind of a bronze, high-deductible, HDHP plan and couple that with the HSA, which we’ve said is a great forum to stash dollars. If you’re looking at regular doctor visits because of a chronic issue or something like that, that’s not going to be for you, regardless of your age. You just know that you’re going to be in and out of the doctor’s office. So I think it’s really looking at, again, kind of the budget and seeing what money has been spent on healthcare costs in the past and then what you think, project those going forward. And like I said, like this is not — it’s important, but these are taking it like snapshots one year at a time. So you can — like after Liam was born and the medical expenses were gone, then we went back to the high-deductible plan with the HSA. So I think it’s really important to kind of take stock of kind of your history, your medical history, your spending on healthcare, to form the baseline of your decision in that realm. The other comment I would make, Tim, is not all 401k’s are created equal. And as many of us know, not all health plans are created equal. So some are really, really great, and some are really, really terrible. And sometimes, that has to do with the size of the organization, sometimes the economies to scale, the bigger that you are, the less that each participant pays, whether that’s the 401k or the health insurance plan. So you kind of have to work with the sandbox, you know, that you’re playing in, so to speak, and something that can be very much out of your control.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think, Tim, your example of Liam is a great reminder of not putting open enrollment on auto pilot.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think that’s what we’re trying to stress here is like, using this as a chance to re-evaluate each year, you know, what happened last year? What worked last year may or may not be what makes sense for this year for a variety of reasons. And I think this is certainly a place where we want to be evaluating what does the cash position look like? What does the reserves look like? And how do we feel about that? Especially if we’re going to be opting into a high-deductible health plan, you know, thinking worst case scenario — hopefully never happens — looking at those out-of-pocket maxes and really asking yourself, how comfortable are we with that happening? How does that make us feel? And could we weather that storm if it were to come?

Tim Baker: Yeah, and you know, and we’ve had some tough conversations with clients that are deep in credit card debt and they really need as much of their income to kind of like right the ship and get going, so sometimes it means sacrificing or being uncomfortable here. You know, one of the things I look at is like if we look at all the debts that are out there, medical debt is not necessarily a bad debt in terms of like they reformed a lot of things with it hurting your credit because it’s kind of been a nightmare, you’re typically not gouged with higher interest rates and things like that. So typically more forgiven. I would even say push back on a lot of medical debt because it’s wrong. I think Tim, you had a story about that when one of your sons was born. So there’s a little bit more give I would say than some of these other ones that goes like right to collections and you’re in a lot of trouble. So it’s kind of — this is all about like mitigating the risk and trying to understand where can we give a little bit so we’re OK.

Tim Ulbrich: I want to shift gears, Tim, to life and disability. Probably one of the most common questions that we get is, do I need to purchase additional life and disability insurance beyond what my employer covers? And of course the answer is it depends on a large part of the individual’s situation and what they have going on and what they’re trying to do with those policies and so forth. But you know, general thoughts and discussion on how one goes about making this decision in terms of understanding what coverage is there from an employer standpoint, determining what total coverage may be needed, and some of the gap and differences between an employer plan and if they purchased a policy out on the open market.

Tim Baker: I think if we look at most pharmacists out there, you know, professionals that are making a six-figure salary, I think there’s going to come a time when there probably is a need to purchase policies outside of what the employer provides. Now, the problem with the financial services industry is that a lot of “financial advisors” are trying to push those policies on a young professional when they probably don’t need them. That’s when you’re a pharmacist that has maybe six figures of debt that’s going to be forgiven if you die or are disabled with no dependents and really, you know, not much on your balance sheet. So there’s kind of like this gap of do I really need this? Or can I just make do with what my employer provides? I’ll say this about the employer-provided policies: Outside of health insurance, which is a health plan, I would say that things like life and disability insurance are not plans. They’re really perks. So they’re meant to supplement or meant to provide some type of benefit that will help the employee but also it’s a way to kind of retain you and things like that. So I really view these as perks and not necessarily plans. I would say, to your point, Tim, I think it’s really looking at the individual and say OK, does it make sense to buy a policy outside of that? Most employers will provide some type of life insurance benefit, whether it’s something like $50,000 or one or two times income, which you can then elect to either increase your coverage or not. I think the downside of that is, you know, if you’re working for an employer as a 30-year-old and you have all of your eggs in that basket and you’re saying, “Hey, I have $1 million” or a lot of times, they’re capped. Most times, pharmacists need a lot more than what their employer can provide. So that’s one of the drawbacks. But if you’re working with that company for 40 years and then you leave to go to another organization, which maybe that isn’t provided or it’s a lot less of a benefit, you have a gap, then you’re going out in the market 10 years older where you’re paying a lot more for that particular policy. So that’s one of the things that — sometimes they’re portable, meaning that you can take them with you, and sometimes they’re not. So for both the life and disability, you know, it’s really looking at your own situation. Just like open enrollment itself, this is one of the things that often overlooked, just insurance. And I know we’ve probably done a podcast in the past about what’s proper life and disability and things like that.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: For the disability, the coverage is typically going to be a percentage of your income. And again, it could be capped, and some employers will offer both long-term and short-term disability. You know, both are great. But you know, oftentimes, because of one reason or another, there’s going to be a gap in the coverage either because of taxes or just that a pharmacist, what they make and what most professionals will say that you need to kind of cover down and typically, that can be anywhere from 50-80% of what your income is, that there is a need to go out onto the open market and buy individual policies. But from an open enrollment perspective, I think if you don’t have those policies, it’s really important to understand, you know, what is there for you? And what can at least tide you over until you get those policies in place? And again, it’s one of those things where it’s like, it’s not important to you until it’s important to you. And it’s really hard to kind of, to show that to clients unless they’ve experienced that pain themselves or a close family member.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: But it’s going to be a really important piece of protecting the overall financial plan, which is — this is really what this is all about is, you know, insurance is really protecting the financial plan from a catastrophic event and ensuring that you can continue to build wealth and survive into the future.

Tim Ulbrich: Episode 044, Tim, How to Determine Life Insurance Needs, 045, How to Determine Disability Insurance Needs, two that we’ll link to in the show notes. We’ve got more information on the website as well, YourFinancialPharmacist.com. Tim, I think one of the common mistakes I see made here just relating to that discussion on gap in coverage is not digging into the policies to really understand, you know, life insurance is maybe the most obvious example where if you have a policy — if you have a need for life insurance and you have a term policy that’s offered for $50,000 or $100,000 or one times salary or two times salary, typically, those have a cap on them. For many folks, there’s going to be a gap and a shortage. And I think this is where, you know, sitting down one-on-one with someone to really calculate the total need, think about the transferability issues that you mentioned and what does it mean if you pick up employment, tax considerations, and really getting into the weeds of some of the nuances of the policies and things like own occupation, we’ve talked about that before and its importance. And again, thinking about how this fits in with the rest of the plan. And just a shoutout here to our fee-only financial planning team at YFP Planning, this is really where I think the value of fee-only comes in in that really sitting down with someone to determine what is their true need in their best interests. Not too much coverage that there’s dollars being spent that could be put elsewhere in the financial plan, but making sure we’re also not exposing the plan to unnecessary risk.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I mean, you know, this — what we’re talking about here are products. Like insurance is a product. So any time that you talk about dispensing a device, “Hey, Tim, you need life insurance,” and you say, “OK, great. Like where do I get it?” Like we can sell you this product. There’s going to be a conflict of interest. So having someone that is a fee-only fiduciary that is not further enriched by the advice that they’re giving, you know, strips away a lot of that, well, am I being advised in my best interests or in the advisor’s best interests, the one that’s advising me. So that’s I think the beauty of fee-only.

Tim Ulbrich: One example I just want to give here, I just pulled up, Tim, our long-term disability coverage that we added recently for the YFP team.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: And you know, if you look at it on kind of the main benefits platform, it says, “60% monthly income up to $6,000.” But this is an example where digging deeper is so valuable. You know, you get into things like what is the definition of earnings? So our policy, it’s base wage. So how you’re compensated could have an impact here.

Tim Baker: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: What’s the elimination period or the timeframe from when the disability happens to when the benefit starts to pay out? Here, it’s 90 days. But if it’s shorter than that, perhaps longer than that, what’s the game plan to fund. Does it have own occupation coverage? We’ve talked about the importance of that before. What’s the maximum benefit? Our policy goes up to age 65. And then things like coverage restrictions, other incentives. So really, just a reminder of this time period and using this point here to really dig into this information and read the policies.

Tim Baker: Yeah, you know, and again, going back to those episodes you mentioned there, that’s where we kind of talk about the nitty-gritty, but I think the beautiful thing about this is like when we’re reviewing this and we kind of look at the — kind of go through the open enrollment optimization stuff is like as a planner, I’m looking at your balance sheet. So I’m like, alright, does it make sense to bolster — you know, because a lot of these, you can opt in. So like our policy doesn’t do this, but a lot of policies, they’ll say, “The employer pays for a 60% benefit of your earnings.” But then you can opt in to get that up to 80%. So you pay an additional — you pay out of pocket out of your paycheck for that additional 20%. If I’m looking at your balance sheet, Tim, and I’m saying, “Man, you have plenty of cash,” I would say, “Let’s not opt into that.” Or we might say, “Let’s do it,” because we know because the employer is going to pay for it, that that benefit’s going to be taxed.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: If the employer pays for the benefit, it’s going to be taxed. That’s the gap. You know, so the idea is looking at your situation and overlaying what’s out there. I think the open enrollment, what I say is we want to look at the things that you’re paying for and say, does it make sense for you to be paying for it? I see a lot of AD&D insurance, and I kind of look at this as like — and again, this is not advice — but I kind of look at those as like when you buy something at Best Buy and they ask you about the warranty. You know, most of the time, you say no because it’s just not worth the money. Some of these things in open enrollment, it’s the same thing. It’s like AD&D, for those to pay out is very rare. So even if it’s $2 per pay period, I’m like, I just don’t think it’s worth it. So we’re trying to make sure that you’re not paying for things that don’t necessarily provide you much benefit, much utility. But then you are paying for things that do. And you know, kind of finding that Venn diagram of sorts to make sure that, again, we’re fully optimized with regard to this part of your compensation package.

Tim Ulbrich: AD&D, for folks that are wondering, Accidental Death & Dismemberment insurance.

Tim Baker: Oh yeah. Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker dropping some financial lingo here.

Tim Baker: Sorry about that. Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Tim, next I want to talk about FSAs, dependent care FSAs, especially since we’ve had some changes that have happened there as well as HSAs. And we’ve talked probably among these to the greatest extent, we’ve talked about HSAs because of the value of what that can provide as well as these other options. And we’ve talked about it on the podcast, we’ve got some blog posts, Episode 165, The Power of a Health Savings Account, also have an article on the blog, which we’ll link to, about really more of the strategic investing side of an HSA if you’re able to do that. So Tim, high level overview, FSA, dependent care FSA, HSA, and some of the differences and considerations for these accounts.

Tim Baker: The very crude way that I remember the difference between FSA and HSA is FSAs are really use-or-lose. So when you fund these with pre-tax dollars, if you don’t use those monies for the purposes of healthcare for an FSA for healthcare or dependent care for a dependent care FSA, you lose it. So it’s F-udge. Like I don’t get — you don’t get to use that money. Whereas the HSA, this is — can potentially be an accrual account, meaning that year over year, you can stack Benjamins and hopefully one day becomes that kind of stealth IRA that we talk about that has that triple tax benefit. So like I said, we’ve talked about the HSA ad nauseum. It has to be paired with a high-deductible health plan. You know, you can put the money in. It has a triple tax benefit, which means it goes in pre-tax, it grows tax-free so you can invest it like an IRA, and then you can distribute it in the near term for approved medical costs or when you reach a certain age, you can use it basically for whatever. So that’s the beauty of the HSA. But you know, again, it only works or you only have access to it when it’s paired with a high-deductible health plan. The FSA for healthcare is similar, but very different. So you’re allowed to use — you’re allowed to fund it with pre-tax dollars, meaning if you make $100,000 and you put $1,000 in there, you’re taxed on as if $99,000. So I think the limits for FSA for 2021, I think it’s like $2,750.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right. Yep.

Tim Baker: Yeah. So the idea is that what you’re trying to do here — it’s a little bit of a game of chicken. So what you’re trying to do is really, again, see into the future and say, “OK, what do I know is a baseline that I’m going to use on my out-of-pocket healthcare expenses?” And if you know for sure that you’re going to spending $2,000 on that, then you should fund it with $2,000. And typically, there is a little bit of give at the end of the year where you can either carry some over or you have some time into the New Year to use it on.

Tim Ulbrich: Two months or —

Tim Baker: Yeah. And every plan is going to be different in its design. So you might be loading up on kind of some of the over-the-counter stuff. I’ve had a client buy a bunch of stuff for like contacts and things like that. So it’s going to be really important to kind of — again, this goes back to the spending plan, the budget, to understand what have you been spending in the past? Is that going to be indicative of what you will spend in the future? And then fund that with at least that baseline amount so you don’t lose it. The same thing can be said for the dependent care FSA. So this is a pre-tax account that you can fund that is used for care for your child who is age 13, for before- and after-school care, babysitting, nanny expenses, daycare, nursery school, preschool, summer day camp, and then also care for a spouse or a relative who is physically or mentally unable to care for themselves and lives in your home. So this money — this has actually been amended under the American Rescue Plan Act. So I think for single and married filing jointly couples, the pre-tax contribution limit went from where you could $5,000 a year, now it’s I think $10,500.

Tim Ulbrich: Significant jump. Yep.

Tim Baker: Yeah, very significant. So the higher limits apply to the plan year beginning Dec. 31, 2020 and before Jan. 1, 2022. So it is a temporary thing, but it allows you to park some dollars that you would otherwise — so if you’re in a 25% tax bracket, it’s as if you’re saving 25%, kind of thinking about it that way. So that’s what really — and for the FSAs, unlike the HSA, the FSA is — it has to be provided by the employer. I think we had a question on the Ask a YFP CFP about the HSA. And you don’t have to necessarily go through your employer. Sometimes, the employer doesn’t offer it. So you can go out and set up your own HSA. The FSA has to be provided by the employer for you to have access to it. So that’s really important. Again, these are all going to be — when you elect it, it’s going to take money out of your paycheck and basically fund these accounts for the appropriate purpose.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and this to me is where when we’ve talked with Paul Eikenberg, our director of tax, and working with our clients, one of the things he talks about here is these being untapped areas of potential.

Tim Baker: Totally.

Tim Ulbrich: And so I think there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit in the financial plan. And I think really evaluating these and perhaps the dollars of any one don’t jump out as being super significant, but I think as we start to add these up with other strategies, there certainly is value. And Tim, you had mentioned we did tackle a question recently on Ask a YFP CFP 084. The question was about fees on an HSA account, but we did talk about the opportunity to access an HSA account independent of the employer. So we’ve talked about health insurance, we’ve talked about life and disability, we’ve talked about FSAs and HSAs and dependent care FSAs. I want to wrap up our discussion by retirement saving options. And I think, again, this is an opportunity to take a step back, look at the overall progress on the investing part of the plan, overall goals, perhaps gap between the goals and where you’re currently at, and then to evaluate where does investing fit in with the rest of the financial plan. And so when we think about, Tim, employer-sponsored retirement accounts, two main buckets we have, which are those that are Roth contributions and those that are traditional. So define for us the difference between those two for folks that are — maybe have some outstanding questions about those or unsure as well as the limits of what we’re able to do in 2021.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so — and I’ll preface this by saying that most of — you know, open enrollment is a good time to check in on your retirement savings options. You’re not necessarily bound to that because you can go in —

Tim Ulbrich: Correct.

Tim Baker: — really at any time and say, “Hey, I was putting in 5%. I talked to a YFP planner, and they said I should put in 8%. That’ll put me on track to get my $5 million nest egg, so that’s what I want to do.” I can really do that at any time. Or I can say, “I want less Roth and more traditional,” or whatever the case is. So it’s just a good opportunity, it’s a good checkpoint to say, OK, where am I at and should I make any tweaks? So — and one of the things that they often do here is they allow you to put in an escalator. So you know — and you can do this any time too, but it’s a good thing to do in open enrollment so every year, you can increase that by 1% or 2% or whatever that looks like. So to answer your question, Tim, the Roth v. traditional, so most employers will offer a 401k or a 403b or if you work for the government, a TSP. So when you elect your retirement options here, a lot of them will now — you’ll have a traditional — so think of two buckets. You’ll have a traditional 401k and a Roth 401k.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: And they’re all under the same plan, but they segregate the monies because for a traditional, these are pre-tax dollars. So that example I gave you is if you put in $1,000 into your 401k and you make $100,00 — your traditional 401k — and you make $100,000, you’re taxed as if you made $99,000. For a Roth, it’s after-tax. So same example, if you put $1,000 into your Roth 401k and you make $100,000, you are taxed as if you made $100,000 because you’re not getting that pre-tax deduction. So for these dollars, the money is either taxed going in or coming out. So for a traditional, you’re not taxed going in, but then it grows tax-free inside of that account, and then you’re taxed when it is distributed, hopefully in retirement. For the Roth 401k, you’re taxed going in, so you don’t get that deduction, but then it grows tax-free and when it comes out, it’s not taxed because it’s already been taxed going in. So a lot of people will say Roth, Roth, Roth. And again, it’s going to depend on your plan. It’s going to depend on what you’re trying to achieve. And a lot of people get this wrong as well. So this is another good check on it to make sure that you’re putting the dollars in the right spot. Your match that your employer provides, if there is a match, is always going to go into a traditional account.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Tim Baker: So if there is a match, you’re going to have — some people get it twisted like, I’m 100% in my Roth 401k, but I see money in my traditional, like what gives? And I’m like, well, this is the money that your employer is matching. It’s going to go there, you know, regardless. So it’s really important, you know — so to kind of give you some numbers with 2021, to max out a 401k, a 403b, it’s $19,500. So you can put that in regardless of how much money you make. So that’s really going to be the limit for the 401k. IRAs are a completely different animal. They’re $6,000, this completely separate accounting mechanism. And that’s going to be dependent on your income whether you can put it in directly into a Roth or a traditional IRA and if you get the deduction. And I know we’ve had podcasts on that as well. But the point of this, Tim, is that the open enrollment exercise is a great opportunity to kind of just do a once-over for your retirement savings options and just make sure that one, you’re in the proper allocation but then it’s also in the Roth v. traditional, and then just making sure that you don’t get stuck in that hey, my employer matches 3%, so for 10 years, I’ve just been putting in 3%. You don’t want to do that because more often than not, it’s not going to be enough for you to retire comfortably. So this is another way to kind of check those things and push the envelope a little bit.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I point folks back to Episode 074, when we talked about evaluating your 401k plan, also more recently, Episode 208, when we talked about why minimizing fees on your investments is so important. Certainly relevant here as we talk about employer-sponsored retirement plans where we can see a lot of variabilities in those investment options and in the fees. As we’ve said a couple times now throughout the show, open enrollment is such a great time to take a step back and evaluate the financial plan. And for folks that are going through this process and think, you know, I really see the value in working with someone one-on-one to look at the financial plan holistically, to determine how to prioritize the goals, make some of these decisions around open enrollment, could be debt repayment, investing, tax evaluation, and so forth. We’d love to have a chance to talk with you about the YFP Planning comprehensive financial planning services that we conduct on a one-on-one basis. And you can learn more about those services as well as schedule a free discovery call by going to YFPPlanning.com. As always, thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a great rest of your week and look forward to having you join us again next week.

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YFP 224: How & Why One Canadian Pharmacist Paid Off $100K of Debt

Posted on by yfpadmin

How & Why One Canadian Pharmacist Paid Off $100K of Debt

On this episode, sponsored by Thoughtful Wills, Sachin Duggal discusses his career journey, how and why he aggressively paid off $100k in debt, and trends in pharmacy education and practice in Canada.

About Today’s Guest

Sachin Duggal is a clinical pharmacist and consultant practicing within the Toronto, Ontario area in Canada. Sachin’s current areas of practice are community-based with a focus in complex geriatric care, diabetes education, and hypertension management where he works with family physicians to optimize treatment plans. He also works as an Academic Detailer, engaging with physicians on the latest evidence in different disease states.

Sachin obtained his Doctor of Pharmacy and Honours Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Waterloo and has gone on to work in a variety of practice settings including hospital, community, and family health teams across the province of Ontario in Canada.

As a recent graduate, Sachin has taken a keen interest in personal finance, building wealth, and optimizing student loan repayment using various financial incentives and products within Canada.

Summary

This week, Tim Ulbrich welcomes Sachin Duggal, a pharmacist from Canada who works as an Academic Detailer, to the show. Sachin discusses his career journey, how and why he aggressively paid off $100k in debt, and what trends in pharmacy education and practice in Canada are similar and different to those in the United States.

Financial freedom was a driving force in Sachin’s debt-free journey. He felt the pressure of student debt and didn’t like the feeling of debt looming over him. By contributing up to 70% of his income to education loan repayment, Sachin is now debt-free with maxed-out retirement investments. Now he is looking forward to his future, investing in real estate, and enjoying the feeling of making his money work for him.

Sachin shares his observations on the differences in the education system and trends in the current state of pharmacy in Canada compared to the United States. While many Canadian pharmacists take on a slightly lower student debt, there are additional educational benefits. Professional students may be eligible for a line of credit, as in Sachin’s case, which can be used to drive down student debt with some intentional financial moves. Sachin’s observations on trends include a downward trajectory on pharmacist salaries in urban areas, similar to that of the United States, based on the supply and demand of pharmacists. He shares that in more rural areas, the salaries may be more competitive. He notes, pharmacists in the United States may be less willing to work multiple part-time positions versus a single full-time opportunity due to the necessity of medical benefits. Universal health care in Canada permits relatively low-risk opportunities to piece together part-time jobs when full-time positions aren’t available.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Sachin, welcome to the show.

Sachin Duggal: Thanks for having me, Tim.

Tim Ulbrich: Well I really appreciate you reaching out to me via LinkedIn several months ago to provide some of the viewpoint of a pharmacist that’s working in Canada, a topic we haven’t talked about on the show, which is exciting. And during a follow-up call that you and I had, I really enjoyed learning more about some of the similarities and differences of the profession that we both love in pharmacy and some of those differences in Canada versus here in the States. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to share that information with the YFP community alongside your journey to becoming a debt-free new practitioner. So Sachin, let’s start with your background and work in pharmacy. What drew you to the profession? Where did you go to school? And what type of work are you doing now?

Sachin Duggal: Sure. So you know, initially what drew me to the profession was I was in high school, didn’t really — I knew I wanted to do a career kind of in healthcare — didn’t know exactly which avenue I wanted to go down. And being a relatively healthy kid, I kind of had a little bit of a health scare kind of in my senior year of high school. I had appendicitis, had kind of the first time I was exposed to the medical system to kind of that degree. And then you know, I was thinking in my head, ‘I’m missing all this school, I’ve got to apply to college’ — in Canada, it’s universities, but I guess the U.S. equivalent would be colleges. I’m like, ‘I’ve got to apply to all these universities, I’m missing all this school, I’ve got to kind of recover.’ And being able to interact with different healthcare professionals in that environment, for whatever reason, the pharmacist was kind of the one that I was most drawn to. And I think part of it was just that empathetic listening, just taking the time to kind of understand my concerns, kind of where I was. And then I dug a little bit deeper after I got home into the pharmacy as a profession and how much schooling it would require. And it just seemed like the fit that would work best for me.

Tim Ulbrich: And so that led you to the University of Waterloo. So tell us about when you graduated, when you got licensed, some of the early work that you did in long-term care and then the work that you’re doing now as an academic detailer.

Sachin Duggal: Sure. Sure. So yep, so it led me to the University of Waterloo. In Canada, there’s about 10 pharmacy schools. The University of Waterloo is one of two in the province I’m in, so Ontario is the province. It’s kind of the first co-op pharmacy school in Canada. So what that means is they have designated placements or placements to apply to within kind of the program in between kind of periods of studying. At the pharmacy school I went to, it’s a four-year program. It initially starts as kind of 12 months of pure school, so you don’t really get summers in those four years. It’s 12 months of school and then it’s basically four-month increments of school and then a placement or a job placement. What’s really cool is that job placements are — all the potential jobs are on a portal and they’re in completely different environments.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s cool.

Sachin Duggal: Hospital jobs, government jobs, you’ve got community jobs, outpatient jobs, right? And you apply to them and you interview for them. So it is a little bit competitive with your classmates or cohort, but really great experience and there’s always more jobs than I guess students, so you’re definitely going to be able to find something or find a role that hopefully is right for you. Kind of fast forwarding a little bit, you know, finished school, there’s a little bit of — the way we get licensed in Canada, we do the PBC, so it’s a little bit different than the U.S. But there is a bit of a lag time between when we graduate versus when they offer that exam. It’s about — you have like a four-month lull there. You graduate in August, you don’t write the exams until November. And in this four months, you have the opportunity to travel, work, take a break, whatever you’d like to do. For me, knowing that I was kind of looking all this debt, I was like, hey, I really want to kind of get a head start on this a little bit, so I ended up starting right away and just working, working in the pharmacy, getting that exposure, and it also provides you a little bit of practice for those boards, getting exposed to different medications, counseling, all that kind of stuff.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Sachin Duggal: You know, fast forward, get licensed — you don’t find out you get licensed until around Christmastime, so it’s kind of like the worst Christmas of your life or it could be a great Christmas present. So for me, it ended up working out great. It ended up being a great Christmas present and then in January, I ended up taking a job in long-term care. It was about an hour and a half from where I live. I live in a suburb outside of Toronto with about a million people. It’s interesting, so one of the biggest challenges at least I’ve found in kind of the Canadian marketplace is especially for new grads is it’s almost like getting your first job again when you’re 16 in the sense of everybody wants experience, but how do I get experience, like pharmacist experience, if no one’s going to give me a job? Right? So one of the compromises I made was hey, look, time is kind of the essence in the sense of paying off this debt, and I really want to kind of move on it. And one of those sacrifices I made was location. So I was willing to sacrifice location if the right opportunity kind of arose and I didn’t have to necessarily stay at home and stay within kind of the environment I’m comfortable in. So I moved about an hour and a half outside of kind of where I lived, a city of about 300,000 people, working that long-term care environment. I was kind of in charge of about 14 different nursing homes. I was working in clinical operations, which means I was kind of on the bench or kind of in the pharmacy. It was a closed-door pharmacy, so patients can’t walk in and out. We really just focused on servicing these kind of retirement homes and nursing homes. And I was kind of the pointman or kind of in charge of all the new clinical orders that would come through on a daily basis, probably had anywhere from 200-250 new clinical orders. And the way long-term care is set up is really interesting because you don’t learn a lot about it in school is the pharmacists there completely focus on clinical verifications. And what that means is you look at lab values, you look at the drugs being prescribed, and you look at what patients are on, their histories, and is this medication appropriate or not? And if it’s not, you kind of go through the process of getting things changed or making recommendations that may be a little bit more appropriate. You have a large team. So I had a team of about four licensed technicians that would do a lot of the refill requests and the repeat prescriptions and then a whole kind of army of assistants doing all of the order entering, so I didn’t have to handle the start-to-finish that you may typically see in kind of a retail environment. You know, I did that for about a year and we were getting close to kind of paying off all that kind of student debt and some of the things that I employed while I was kind of out in this community was, I mean, one of the big things was it’s a kind of a student city, so there was a big university there, I guess the U.S. equivalent would be like a college, out there. And I lived in student housing, paying about $500 a month to kind of live there really cheap. And then I also cooked large — basically I didn’t eat out very often at all. So I cooked a lot of meals myself, almost like I’m back in school even though I’m not, right? So I was living that kind of student life of just trying to save every dollar and trying to put as much of that paycheck towards the debt. And I threw about — on a biweekly basis — about 65-70% of that check towards that debt repayment.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Sachin Duggal: So huge — basically, my car was fully paid off, didn’t have any debt from that perspective. I had basically apart from student loans, really didn’t have any other kind of debts to worry about. And I saved about 10%, you know, used about 65-70% on that debt repayment, about 20% was on living expenses like food, gas, rent. And then I took a little bit of a risk in not building that emergency fund necessarily right away, but I did try to pocket away about 5% every check or so towards that emergency fund. And you know, I really didn’t have, like I said, very many kind of expenses.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Sachin Duggal: No mortgage, right? No car payment. So my expenses were really low from that perspective anyways. That was kind of my time. I was there for about a year in that environment and then I was getting really close to paying off this debt and I was thinking, what are kind of the next steps and where do I kind of want to go from here, right? So I ended up taking a pharmacy manager position kind of closer to home, about 10 minutes away from where I was originally from.

Tim Ulbrich: Nice.

Sachin Duggal: Was able to negotiate a really great salary there as well. And then it was a Monday-Friday kind of 9-5 opportunity in a specialty clinic. And then everything was looking great, we had the balls kind of all kind of rolling, and then COVID hit, which kind of stalled that whole operation as a new pharmacy and a new pharmacy practice. When COVID kind of hit and everything just kind of locked down and shut down and you know, a lot of the physicians were working from home and had cross appointments in hospitals and everything was kind of sporadic. We lost a lot of that patient flow within the clinic, and it made it really challenging to keep kind of the pharmacy practice financially viable at the time. So in that instance, myself and kind of the team — it just kind of made sense to just kind of leave that opportunity on the back burner and it may be something we’ll revisit in the future. So now I was kind of stuck in a little bit of a limbo. And you know, I had opportunities. The fortunate thing about going to the university that I went to is those co-op experiences and being able to build that network and having kind of a couple of mentors and a couple of people that can really help guide me in the profession, especially — I’d only been about a year and a half out, right? So I had an opportunity from that point to really take a step back, take a little bit of a break, especially with COVID and seeing how impactful or how dangerous the virus was, right? At that time, we didn’t know a lot. This would have been about April 2020. Took some time and before I kind of jumped into my kind of next role — and that next role was taking a manager position in Toronto at a — basically, it was a pretty underserved community in kind of the northern end of Toronto. Again, another opportunity to be really resourceful and help these patients get access to care and to medications that may be challenging for them to get access to just with kind of some of the experienced I had and just knowing how the healthcare system works within the province. At that time, I saw an opportunity — this was where kind of the academic detailing piece comes in. I saw an opportunity that was posted in one of our — it’s like a Facebook group for our school and for any kind of job opportunities that have come up. And I had a previous preceptor that had done this role. So I reached out to them just to ask them about the role and I was like, this is really cool. I mean, I can’t believe you can kind of make a living basically looking at literature, looking at evidence, providing some of those resources to busy clinicians, so I can kind of explain what an academic detailer is briefly. But basically what we do is it’s a knowledge translation service, typically. So what we’ll do is we’ll pick a disease state. Maybe it’s a disease state that there’s been a lot of kind of evolution or changes, right? So for instance, diabetes.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Sachin Duggal: In the last 5-10 years, there’s been a lot of changes in diabetes and medications that are used to treat the condition. So it’s an opportunity for us to look at the evidence or look at the literature, see which medication if there’s new ones, see where they fit within the whole kind of treatment algorithms, right, from a cost-benefit perspective as well as from a harms and benefits perspective. And then once we kind of as a team with myself and a team of five other pharmacists that kind of come together as well as some other people on the team that kind of gather some of the literature and some of these studies. And we sit there and we sift through the literature and we kind of think about some key points or key highlights physicians will care about, right? Say they’re strapped for time and they really want to know, OK, I’ve got five minutes, tell me what I need to know about this change. We distill those down from mountains and mountains of literature and then we have an opportunity to kind of go out in the field and talk to physicians. And the beauty about it is our academic detailing program is not industry-funded, so there’s no industry bias. It’s funded by the government, so the Ministry of Health. Our healthcare system is a public healthcare system for the most part. The government kind of funds this program knowing that there’s a lot of literature that states from when medications or algorithms change, for them to actually be able to maintain the practice can take anywhere from 10-20 years.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Sachin Duggal: So there’s a big lag between fundamental changes or new breakthrough literature and actually seeing them implemented in practice for patients. That’s kind of the gap we try to fill. And the specific work we do is with family physicians, and we try to tailor every conversation to that specific practice, to their specific patient population, and work with them to see what we can do to help lubricate some of that transition and see what we can do to help them basically practice kind of the best available evidence we have in some of these different disease states.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, what a great use of, you know, a pharmacist skill set, expertise, and education. And I think the role that folks in the U.S. here will connect that to — also very different because you mentioned a publicly-funded healthcare system — would be an MSL position that is industry-funded. I do know a couple of pharmacists that work for the Veterans Affairs, VA, here in the U.S. that do something very similar. One of the things I love about your role, which is similar to what I’ve seen in the VA as well is a component of both practice and academic detailing. So you’re keeping your hand in practice while also providing the expertise in terms of evidence-based cost-effective prescribing. Sachin, at the risk of overgeneralizing an entire country of pharmacists, I suspect our audience is curious, as I was, to hear about some of the similarities and differences with pharmacy education and pharmacy practice in Canada compared to the U.S. And so let’s just start with debt loads. You know, a typical debt load here in the United States for a pharmacy graduate after 6-8+ of education, about $170,000 for the Class of 2021. So generally speaking, what were you seeing among your peers and graduates today when it comes to debt load?

Sachin Duggal: So from a debt load perspective, I believe in Canada, it is a little bit less than the U.S. or could be quite substantially less, depending on the school you go to. So typically on average, you’re probably graduating with anywhere in the ballpark of $100,000-140,000 of debt. Now, it just depends on the city you live in and the school you go to.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Sachin Duggal: So for instance, you live in Toronto and you’re going to pharmacy school in Toronto, cost of living is typically higher there versus where I went to in Waterloo or in the Waterloo and Kitchener kind of area, which is about an hour outside of Toronto. So it kind of depends on the school you go to, but I would say that would be kind of the range as far as the debt load you’re graduating with. Now, there are some opportunities in trying to help manage some of that debt load and there’s resources available to professional students within Canada. So one of them is the provincial loans. So in Ontario, there’s something called OSAP, which is a provincial loan kind of service. It’s also a federal loan service. So they kind of just mash it all together. A portion of it’s federal, portion of it’s provincial.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s interesting. Yeah.

Sachin Duggal: Yeah, so they don’t have separate applications for a federal one and a provincial one. They kind of just lump it all together. Now, that service is great and basically, you know, it’s an application process through the program you’re in, the school you’re in. Based on the program and the school, you go get basically that — and of course your own financial situation with your family and the money you make — they’ll basically spit out a number and be like, every term — a term here is about four months — so every four months, this is the money we’re going to spit out at you or we’ll give you. It could be like $5,000. It could be like $8,000. It could be more. It just depends on your situation. It is a loan, though. So it is money you have to pay back eventually. The beauty of applying to OSAP is even if you don’t need it out here, I would encourage you to apply as kind of being a student just because I think even if you don’t need money, there’s opportunities that open up where you’re able to get grants from the government as well for continuing your postsecondary education. Again, some of these grants, they range in value. It could be $500, it could be $1,000, could be more. It also opens up the opportunity at your own university to apply to bursaries. So bursaries are opportunities to just get, again, free money from your university to help pay for your education. But one of the qualifications typically to apply for those are you’re in need of some sort of financial assistance or you have some sort of OSAP application in progress or in student loans, basically.

Tim Ulbrich: And then in terms of repayment, you know, here — you and I talked a little bit about this — we unfortunately have a very complicated, overly nuanced federal loan repayment system, which includes about nine federal repayment options, we’ve got forgiveness, we have non-forgiveness, there’s of course private options, there’s income-driven repayment plans, there’s fixed plans. So you know, I think while that provides borrowers with a lot of options, as we’ve talked about many times on this show, sometimes that complexity prevents folks from really analyzing those options and determining which of those paths may be best for their personal situation. So when it comes to repayment of those loans, you mentioned both the more federal type and the provincial type, what does that look like? Is it a simplified repayment option in Canada? Or what does that repayment path look like?

Sachin Duggal: From my understanding, it’s a pretty simplified process. So if you’re going down the kind of, the student loan perspective, OK, so you graduate. Let’s just say you have $100,000 of debt. Now a portion of the debt is going to be a — and you can see it all broken down in your, like on the OSAP website in your portal. But you’ll see like, let’s just say $35,000 is federal and the other $65,000 is coming from a provincial student loan. Their interest rates are different. So I would just say the interest rate is anywhere from 5-7%, depending on if it’s a federal portion or the provincial portion. So when it comes to interest, when you’re looking at kind of the student loan that you’ve taken out, once you graduate, the school kind of notifies the student loan office that, hey, they graduated, you can kind of start that kind of clock. And basically, interest starts accruing from the moment that you graduate. However, you don’t need to make any payments on your loan, your student loan, for six months. It’s called like a six-month grace period. It gives you some time to get your kind of feet under you, find a job, figure out your situation and how you’re going to begin to I guess start repaying these student loans.

Tim Ulbrich: And when it comes to the profession, the market, you know, as it stands in Canada, you know, it’s well known here in the U.S. that again, generalizing for the sake of the conversation, but there’s some downward pressure on pharmacists’ salaries. We have supply of pharmacists and new graduates that’s been going up, so that has led to — again, very much depends on the field — but it’s led to an overall flattening, in some cases a reduction and pressure down, on salaries. And so we’ve got this debt load going up, and we’ve got this salary component that’s flat and in some cases decreasing, which obviously presents a financial challenge. So when it comes to the practice of pharmacy in Canada, what types of trends are you seeing that do or don’t align with what we’re seeing here in the U.S.?

Sachin Duggal: Yeah, so a couple trends that I’m seeing, but I think the U.S. and Canada are very similar situations when it comes to kind of pharmacy and the profession currently. One of the main things is currently, in some of the more urban areas, you know, salaries have been driven down pretty substantially from where they were kind of in the mid-2000s. Part of that is just, again, like you mentioned, that supply-demand piece. There’s just a lot of pharmacists out in urban areas, and the demand — the demand is there, but it’s just not quite where you’d want it to be in order to get those salaries a little bit higher. When you venture a little bit outside of kind of some of those urban areas and go to some of the smaller cities and even towns, I mean, the salaries are still very competitive and even in some cases, depending on just where — how far out you’re willing to go — you can really get, you can really have some good leverage in negotiating a good salary. Other trends I’ve kind of seen or something else I’ve kind of noticed — and part of that kind of lends to pharmacists who are willing to be a little bit more flexible and see if they think this lifestyle is right for them is there’s a lot of part-time opportunities. And there’s a lot of opportunities to blend multiple part-time opportunities to get that full-time equivalent. And I think that avenue, although it may not necessarily come with benefits and some of the other things that you may want from a stable kind of career, if salary is kind of a main kind of point for you and you’re like, hey, I’m relatively young, healthy, we have a public healthcare system, if I get sick, I’m taken care of, right, I don’t really need — you know, maybe I go to the dentist a couple times a year just for a cleaning, like everything’s pretty good, right, like I don’t need some of these other benefits, then maybe pursuing an opportunity or multiple part-time opportunities to get that full-time equivalent may lend well to negotiating a good kind of compensation package.

Tim Ulbrich: I think that’s a really interesting thought. And I will say, we do see I think some graduates that are taking that approach, partly out of need — maybe there’s not an offer for full-time — partly out interest, you know, two different opportunities that they want to explore past a little bit further. The challenge we have here, of course, is that healthcare benefit, right, and other benefits. So unfortunately, healthcare and purchasing that independent of an employer is definitely a pressure point. But I think we do see new graduates that are taking that approach, and certainly that can be viable. Sachin, when it comes to your own debt-free journey and some of the work that you’re doing now to really accelerate your financial plan, you mentioned that a typical graduate in Canada might have somewhere between $100,000-140,000. You know, you mentioned earlier that you went down this path of very aggressive debt repayment, you know, upwards of 65-70% of your salary that you’re putting toward your student loans, decreasing your expenses. So what was your debt position, No. 1? And No. 2 is what was really behind that goal of aggressive debt repayment? You know, why did you really want to press that forward, perhaps at the expense of other goals that you had in mind financially?

Sachin Duggal: For me, I think the No. 1 motivator was you’re in school — so I was in I guess from the start of university into graduation from pharmacy school, about a six-year process for me. And you know, the whole time, you’re just getting more and more in debt, right, trying to just live within your means comfortably and know that you kind of have some of that I guess that loan money in case you need it for emergencies and of course paying for your tuition and everything like that. But part of the journey for me was I didn’t like that feeling. I just didn’t like the feeling of being in mountains and mountains of debt that can’t be leveraged, right? Like student debt is not really, you know, it’s not a mortgage on a house, right? It’s not an asset, right? So it’s just kind of this debt that kind of just looms over you, kind of just sitting in the background like, ‘Hey, don’t forget about me. You’ve got to pay me back one day.’ And I just really didn’t like that feeling. And the idea — once I graduated, I went from making very little money in some of those co-op positions to now being able to make a pharmacist’s salary and kind of seeing those paychecks flow in, it really got me thinking, OK, this is a lot more money than I’ve kind of ever seen in my life up to this point. Like I need to make sure I set myself up so that I don’t ever have to feel like I’m in a position where I need this paycheck or anything like that. So that idea of freedom and working towards that was the kind Goal No. 1 for me in my life, right? So I looked at that debt and I went, OK, this is not serving me in any way, right? How can I aggressively pay this off? And one of the big strategies I used once I kind of fundamentally made that decision and one thing I recommend to some of my friends when they’re at a fork in the road, right, and they’re kind of like — for me, it was do I pay this debt off very aggressively or do I pay it off a comfortably kind of over x amount of years and save up for other things? And for me, I just kind of sat in a coffee shop and kind of, you know, I was like, OK, I’ve got a little piece of paper, I’ve got one side of this fork and I’ve got the other side of the fork, and I literally went through the pros and cons of each, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Sachin Duggal: And for me, it just stuck out that freedom piece on being debt-free, really having very little expenses, being able to kind of do whatever I wanted — if I wanted to go on a little bit of a vacation, right, I could. I didn’t have to worry about that paycheck-to-paycheck situation. And that really just stuck out to me. And at that moment, I was kind of committed to paying it off. And from that moment, I kind of looked at all the resources available to me and one of the big resources was leveraging my professional student line of credit. So I haven’t mentioned kind of here yet, but in Canada when you’re in professional school — or specifically at least I can speak for Ontario — when you’re in a professional program like dentistry, medicine, pharmacy are kind of the main examples, banks are willing to kind of offer you a line of credit that’s given to you in increments based on your successful completion of studies like —

Tim Ulbrich: Interesting.

Sachin Duggal: Basically, they’ll give you $30,000 per year. Once you’ve proven that you’ve completed Year 1, you haven’t failed, you haven’t flunked out, they’ll unlock the next $30,000. Once you complete Year 2, just shows proof you’re moving onto Year 3. The proof is really simple. It’s just kind of your schedule that you’re in third-year classes. And they’ll unlock another $30,000. So pharmacy school specifically, the major banks, they may have their own kind of rates on what they offer, but the one that I went with offered about $120,000 over the four years, unlocked in $30,000 increments with an interest rate of prime. So for us in Canada, the prime interest rate time I think was — it was around 2.2% or 2.25%.

Tim Ulbrich: Nice.

Sachin Duggal: Much lower than student loans.

Tim Ulbrich: Student loans, yep.

Sachin Duggal: Yeah, so an opportunity right there that I saw was OK, look, student loans, I’m not getting any more student loans. It’s just going to sit there. It’s going to have a much, much higher interest rate. You know, once I graduated, I really started dipping in that line of credit and just thought, let me just pay off these student loans with my line of credit. Much lower interest rate, right, in paying off the line of credit with the bank as well as you get to build your credit score as well. You’ve got a big loan here, you’re paying it back. With the student loans, you may not necessarily be able to build I guess as good will with the bank and kind of show, hey, I can pay off a large amount of debt in a reasonable amount of time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. That’s really interesting. I’m not aware, Sachin, of anything we have like that here in the U.S. Maybe I’ll stand corrected if a borrower lets me know something or perhaps there’s a unique situation here or there, but makes sense, right? I mean, most of our federal loans, you know, rough numbers, looking about 6%, many for pharmacy school outside of this time with the CARES Act and the pandemic and the administrative forbearance is unsubsidized. So makes a whole lot of sense in that strategy. Is that a widely-known strategy? Or is that something that you were able to crack the code on, you know, in terms of when you had that day at the coffee shop and not as many folks know about that?

Sachin Duggal: I would say like a handful of people in the school definitely know about it, at least when I was going through pharmacy school. So this would have been 2015, around that time. I think the program, at least from what I’ve seen in recent years, has been a lot more aggressive with different banks in the sense that everyone’s trying to I guess capture the professional students and providing that kind of service or kind of that option, right? At the time, there was really only one or two banks that understood the pharmacist, the potential salary, right, the safety of that kind of — giving up that kind of money to a professional student, right? I think now, there’s a little bit more of an acceptance with some of the other banks after some of the success of those that kind of pioneered or started it.

Tim Ulbrich: It makes sense, you know. Here, the banks are very much, for good reason, interested in health professionals but long-term relationships, right? Purchasing a home, eventually you might have a business, a line of credit, perhaps you do investments, you know, which wouldn’t necessarily be our choice, but that’s an option of where folks may go to do other things related to the financial plan as well, so they’re very much looking at that from a long-term relationship with an individual who has a good — in theory, a good financial trajectory that’s ahead of them. Sachin, were there specific resources, books, podcasts, blogs, you know, things that were really helpful and motivating to you in your own personal journey?

Sachin Duggal: For sure. So one, of course, was the YFP podcast. I discovered it close to when I graduated. I think it was around probably January of — like around when I got fully licensed. And I was staring at these biweekly paychecks like oh my goodness. Like I need to save this or invest this or pay off — I need to figure out what I’m doing with this stuff instead of having it just sit in my bank account, right, and not working for me. So YFP podcast was huge at the time. And you know, it’s still a great resource and I still listen to it and see what kind of episodes and I love the evolution and the trajectory you guys have taken. Some of the books that were really impactful for me, No. 1 — and it’s a common book I think that you’ve talked about was “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” by Ramit Sethi. That’s a huge book in the sense of there’s one thing that always sticks out to me, and I’m going to butcher kind of the quote, but he basically says, you know, cut back frivolously on the things you don’t care about and spend kind of extravagantly on the things you do care about, right, or you do want. For instance —

Tim Ulbrich: The money dials. Yep. I love that.

Sachin Duggal: Yeah, yeah. So it’s, for instance, like I’ve got the same laptop I’ve had — the personal laptop that I’ve had since 2012. Don’t really care about upgrading it, right? It’s been a decade, but it still works fine. But if I want to go out and eat and have a good dinner, I don’t want to feel guilty about that. I think setting those money dials and setting that up for yourself and being comfortable with that is huge. Another really good book was just “The Psychology of Money.” It’s by Morgan — I think it’s Morgan Housel.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep. Right.

Sachin Duggal: It’s basically a book about just our relationship with money, and this goes back to what I was talking about with — you know, as a student without very much money going to a pharmacist, right, with some money and how that relationship should evolve and should mature and should change and as you get older and get some responsibilities as well in your life. I thought that book was really great. And the last one for my Canadian listeners I have to mention is a really interesting book. It’s specifically on Canadian finances. It’s called “Beat the Bank.” Yeah, it’s called “Beat the Bank” by Larry Gates.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Sachin Duggal: It’s a great book on — so he’s a — basically, our equivalent of Wall Street is kind of Bay Street in Toronto. Let’s just call it Wall Street, right, for all intents and purposes. But basically, he was a big hotshot banker for one of the big banks out in Toronto. And he just saw how some of the bank would leverage the average Canadian and he saw an opportunity there to kind of write a book about some of the things Canadians should kind of look at and be cognizant of when you’re kind of working on that financial freedom journey or saving and investing. And he kind of breaks it down to a really easily digestible book on the different avenues of investing and what row advisors are and all those fundamentals. So I think it’s a really great fundamental book if you’re just getting started with investing.

Tim Ulbrich: Appreciate the recommendations. We’ll link to all three of those in the show notes, “The Psychology of Money,” “I Will Teach You to Be Rich,” and then “Beat the Bank.” I’m going to have to bring myself up to speed one, because I’m really curious, two, one of my boys wants to move to Canada. So I feel like I’ve got some homework to do to be able to help him in the future. Great stuff. You know, one of the last questions I wanted to ask you is we don’t talk enough, I don’t think, you know, as we do stories like yours where we share a debt-free journey, we don’t talk enough about that life after debt-free. And one of the things I felt in my own journey is that, you know, I had always the debt being paid off as somewhat of a finish line in my mind. But it very much is just a starting point. And you know, once you get to that position, then it’s like, alright, what’s next? What are the goals? What are the plans? So as you went through this very aggressive debt repayment, putting away 65-70% of your salary towards the debt, here you are, obviously in a good financial position with a strong foundation going forward, if you look ahead over the next 3-5 years, what’s happening? What’s the priority? What’s the goals now that you’ve got this debt behind you?

Sachin Duggal: It kind of goes back to that little fork in the road, right? I’ve been really trying to has out kind of the next steps and where I want to go. And one of the big pieces is owning a piece of real estate. It’s just been really challenging with where the market’s at right now and kind of seeing how that evolves and where that goes. But for me right now, it’s kind of staying the course and continuing to invest. So a lot of my money now goes into investments. You know, I’ve maxed out kind of our equivalent of kind of that Roth IRA and 401k as well. So our equivalents are kind of maxed out. It’s really just kind of seeing where the opportunities are. I think especially with the pandemic, it’s almost like — I’ve kind of never seen such a bounceback in the economics so quickly after I guess something that would be considered kind of a recession, right? When you look at kind of where the stock market was initially when the pandemic hit and where it is now, it’s crazy. It’s only been a year and a half. So I think right now, it’s just investing, looking for an opportunity to invest in real estate that makes sense. And then kind of going from there, I think the most important thing is just not letting your money or that paycheck kind of sit in your bank account and kind of die or lose to inflation. Have that money working for you in some sort of avenue.

Tim Ulbrich: And that’s what I love about the intentionality of what you shared. And I’ve heard among others as well is, you know, if we think about the debt-free journey for some just being the starting point, you’ve got years and repetitions of behaviors now, right? So you’re obviously not forever going to be living on the low expenses that you did. But you’ve done that hard work, you’ve got the mindset. And now it’s about OK, how do I be more opportunistic in terms of growing wealth, taking those next steps with investing in real estate and other goals that you’re going to have in the future. Greatly appreciate, Sachin, you coming on the show. Loved this conversation, learning more about what some of our pharmacy colleagues in Canada are facing and some of the opportunities. And I’m hopeful that not only your peers in Canada will find this helpful but also the YFP community and pharmacists that are practicing here in the U.S. So again, thank you for your time and for coming on the show.

Sachin Duggal: Thanks for having me, Tim. I really appreciate being on and looking forward to more great episodes.

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YFP 223: How First-Time Home Buyers Navigated the Current Housing Market

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How First-Time Home Buyers Navigated the Current Housing Market

On this episode, sponsored by APhA, Jacob and Michaela Soppe discuss their home buying journey in the current real estate market.

About Today’s Guests

Jacob and Michaela are graduates of Ohio Northern University who moved to eastern Ohio in 2018 so that Jacob could pursue his dream of starting a pharmacy with Southeast Healthcare. Since then, he has successfully grown his pharmacy and offers clinical services including diabetes and hepatitis C clinics. Michaela works at East Ohio Regional Hospital where she collaborates with doctors and patients in the inpatient, outpatient, and long-term care settings. In their spare time, they love to stay active and travel the world. They recently bought their first home and are excited to continue to serve God and their patients in their community.

Summary

In this episode, Tim Ulbrich turns the microphone over to Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPh and co-host of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, as he interviews two pharmacists, Michaela and Jacob Soppe, about their home buying journey. Michaela and Jacob share their experience working with YFP’s Real Estate Concierge, their home search, how they determined their home buying budget, and the realities of buying a home in the current real estate market.

Jacob and Michaela weren’t necessarily looking for a home after pharmacy school and focused their energy and funds on paying down student loans and investing. When they were ready to start the home buying process, they didn’t know what to do or how to start, so they contacted Nate Hedrick and started working with the Real Estate Concierge Service. Nate paired the couple with a real estate agent in their area who worked with them diligently until they found a home that met their budget requirements and exceeded their expectations on must-have items like room for a family and plentiful parking.

The couple shares their experience receiving regular emails with listings and changes to the housing market, a day with nine house viewings, their experience with their home inspection, and how their experience at closing differs from what many folks will see in the current market.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Nate Hedrick: Hey, Michaela, Jacob, welcome to the show.

Jacob Soppe: Thanks for having us.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, thank you for having us.

Nate Hedrick: Absolutely. Excited to chat today. We are talking all things real estate. I’m taking over the Tim and Tim show here on the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast so we can talk a little bit more about real estate today. So again, appreciate you guys joining us.

Michaela Soppe: Absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: So we are here to talk a little bit about navigating the current housing market, right? So you guys are first-time home buyers, just closed about two months ago on your first house, and what we thought we would do is kind of sit down and talk a little bit about that, talk about what it’s like to buy a house in the current market, what it’s like to be a first-time home buyer, how you guys navigated that, and just kind of get that information in front of people. So before we dive too deeply into the real estate side of things, maybe give us a little bit of background on your pharmacy journey so far and kind of what you guys are up to.

Jacob Soppe: I graduated in 2018, and I immediately got a job on rotations. I met with one of my preceptors and they wanted to open a pharmacy, and they wanted me to open it for them, and that’s something I’m interested in, and so I opened it. That was three years ago. And we’re continuing to grow, and I’m very happy with it. We’re a clinic pharmacy, but we also do long-term care, we also do diabetes clinics, and we’re just starting up Hepatitis C clinics.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great.

Michaela Soppe: So I graduated in 2019. We both graduated from Ohio Northern. And we actually got married while I was on rotations, so he’d basically said, “Hey, how do you feel about moving an hour and a half away from Columbus?” I’m like, “OK, that’s great. But I have rotations in Columbus.” So I started working with Rite Aid after I graduated as a pharmacist and kind of floated all over the place because we didn’t really know where we’d be living for sure. And then worked with them for a couple years and at the end of that, in January, I got a job working at a local hospital. So I do mostly inpatient, but I also have a mix of some outpatient stuff and long-term care in there with that as well. So I’m kind of running all over the place. But I love it.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great.

Michaela Soppe: And we finally made it out closer to where Jacob works. So.

Nate Hedrick: That’s nice, especially when, you know, you’ve already got long days at the hospital or at the pharmacy, you don’t want to add an extra long commute to that. So that’s great.

Michaela Soppe: Exactly.

Nate Hedrick: And when you guys graduated from pharmacy school, I know it was different years, but when you graduated, was buying a house kind of always in that mix? Was it always part of the “next step?” Or was this something that came along later?

Jacob Soppe: We knew we wanted to buy a house eventually, but there was student loans in the way that kept me up at night.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Jacob Soppe: And I was like, I can’t buy a house until I pay off these, we pay off these loans. And so after about two years, we paid off the loans and that’s when we started looking for a home.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, it was definitely student loans first and then, you know, it all worked out around the same time where my job brought us instead of an hour and a half away for Jacob, it’s now five minutes away. And at that point, we were like, OK, like we’re ready to find a house because we’re going to be out here for a while.

Nate Hedrick: Wow, yeah. So I know I’ve talked to others who have that feeling of like, man, I cannot buy until these are gone. And so you guys took that and said, yeah, let’s make sure that’s the case. Let’s go all in on the loans and then once that’s done, then we’ll go ahead and buy a house. Do you feel like that was crippling at all? Was it just like, this is what we have to do to get it done?

Jacob Soppe: It was definitely the second one there. We just felt like we had to do it and felt like it was the right way to go for us.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, it was kind of like, let’s still act like we’re college kids for a couple years, you know, not buy a bunch of brand new stuff. Like most of our stuff came from our families or stuff I had from college. And so until the loans were gone, we didn’t really spend much money on anything else. Like we’d go traveling, but other than that, it was just loans completely. Like our entire paychecks went to it, basically.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, avoiding that lifestyle creep can be a really great way to get ahead and make sure that those loans could be knocked out first. So that’s awesome. Were there any other factors that were holding you guys back? I mean, was the market something that scared you? Or talk to me a little about that too. Was it just the student loans and once those were gone, you were ready to move?

Jacob Soppe: The other thing that was holding us back was, like I said earlier, I was driving an hour and a half one way to work each day, so a total of three hours when we started and Michaela was still in school. We wanted to see where she was going to end up working and then when she ended up moving closer to my work, it worked out because it was like just after we paid off our loans. So we didn’t end up looking for a house at our old employer where I was still driving 45 minutes, and I really liked the idea of living like right next to work and the gym and church — and we’ll get into that later.

Michaela Soppe: I guess something I should say is that we moved four times in three years.

Jacob Soppe: Yeah.

Michaela Soppe: And progressively each time, every time my position changed, basically, going from rotation student to floater at Rite Aid to actually having a store at Rite Aid to getting the job at the hospital. Basically every single time, we moved closer and closer to where Jacob was working. And now, it definitely just where are we going to be settled was kind of like a factor that was holding us back slightly too because like my goal was always to get a job closer to where Jacob was working but just we didn’t know when that would happen. And it ended up being at a really convenient time for us.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. And that actually, that’s a good segue because one of the things I want to talk about today is choosing the location and some of the steps that go into that kind of getting ready phase of buying a home. And that’s actually Step No. 1 of six steps that we’re going to talk about today. So we put together a video series — and actually, there’s a guide out there, we can link to that in the show notes. But if you head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, we have the “Six Steps to Home Buying.” And what I’d like to do is actually walk through each one of those steps and kind of get your take and your experience as first-time home buyers and see what information we can share with our audience. There’s a lot of people that are probably in your shoes or who are about to be in those shoes here pretty soon where they’re graduating, they’ve got a lot of student loan debt, or they’re ready to buy a home, and now it’s time to figure out, OK, what does that actually look like? And more importantly, how do I do that in this kind of market? Because it is quite the seller’s market. It’s very competitive out there. And so trying to get a home today is more difficult than it’s been before. So we’ll start with the first step, which is making sure you’re ready. A lot of this step includes things like choosing a location, determining what is important to you guys, and also setting a budget and not letting the bank set the budget necessarily, not just going out and asking for the biggest loan we can get but setting our own budget. And so when you guys sat down and said, “OK, we need to figure out if we’re ready,” what did that look like? Was it a formal process for you or was this like, I don’t know, I’ve been on Zillow, let’s go take a look. You know, what was that like for you guys?

Michaele Soppe: There was definitely a lot of Zillow involved. So before we made our final move here closer to work, the apartment we were at, we were initially looking for houses there because it seemed like a good, you know, central location at the time when I was with Rite Aid still. So I think Jacob was on Zillow every single day, just you know, browsing houses for probably half a year or so at least and then continuing once we did move a little bit closer into another apartment, like OK, now we’re getting serious. What are we looking at? It wasn’t like a formal, let’s sit down and talk about this. It was just something we talked about almost every day probably for months just casually like, OK, you know, what do we want out of this? And everything kind of grew from there.

Nate Hedrick: And did you sit down and figure out, again, like not a formalized but at least like a budget for what you wanted to spend? And how did you go about doing that?

Jacob Soppe: One thing that we talked about even before we got married, we decided together that we both definitely wanted to live way below our means, less than 50% of our income, just because that’s what made us feel safe. Just in case one of us lost our jobs.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Jacob Soppe: It’s getting harder to find a job, especially with the growing concern of the pharmacist job market. Then also we want to have a family. We’re big givers as well. And so it just takes a lot of that stress off having a big cushion to make all those fit potentially with Michaela either decreasing work hours or going to 0 in the pharmacy in the future.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Jacob Soppe: But as far as budget goes, we decided that we wanted to really find a house for $200,000 or less. And I know like especially in Columbus, Ohio, where we’re from, that is very difficult to do in a nice place for a nice home.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Jacob Soppe: But the nice thing about where we moved is that the rural Ohio is much lower cost of living, and we were able to meet that goal of finding a home in that budget.

Michaela Soppe: Yes.

Jacob Soppe: Actually, way under budget.

Michaela Soppe: When we started looking at homes, there were a lot of homes we found that we liked that were more like $250,000-300,000. So like I’d say our upper limit kind of became $300,000 with the understanding of we’d much rather not spend $300,000 on the house. So we actually did find a couple that we liked, which we didn’t get a chance to put an offer in on. I mean, the market out here isn’t quite as crazy as it is in Columbus, but stuff still sells fairly quickly. So it ended up being a good thing because our realtor could kind of point us towards the house that we’re in now, which was like half of that but way big enough for both of us and even for a growing family. And yeah, so that — like we had that budget in mind the whole time. And it did shift a little bit as we were looking, but then it all ended up going back to what we were originally thinking.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I love that. And I think there’s two things that I think are really, really important. One is intentionality, right? You guys stepped back and said like, ‘This is important to us to live slightly below the typical means,’ right? Or ‘We can live at 50% of our income. And here’s why we’re doing that,’ right? The intention behind that is that if we want to cut back on hours, we lose a job, we’re not stressing about this home purchase. And I love that. I think that’s super important. The other thing that you said that I think is interesting because I advise my clients of this all the time is that it’s super easy to fall in love up to whatever amount, right? If I start looking at $500,000 homes, I’m going to love $500,000 homes. The trick is not to exceed that budget if it’s reasonable for your market. And so you guys took a step back and said, “Yeah, you know what? It’s possible to find a nice place under this $200,000 in our market.” And again, I know the West Coasters out there are probably like screaming at their radios right now. But the idea is that, you know, you guys took a look at your market and said, “This is feasible, and so I’m not going to push it beyond my means because I’ve set this budget, and this is realistic for where I’m looking. I think that’s a really great way to set yourselves up for success. So I admire that a lot. The other thing you mentioned is that you leveraged your realtor, and that actually leads us to Step No. 2 or point No. 2 here, which is assembling a team. And this is actually where you and I got connected back in May of this past year. And you know, you guys came to us, the Real Estate Concierge service, which is a service that we offer to pretty much anyone that if you want to get connected with a real estate agent, we will actually help you do that. And so again, if you head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com and head over to “Buy a Home,” you can check out the Real Estate Concierge service there, a free way to get connected with an awesome local agent. And again, that’s actually how Jacob and Michaela and I got connected. We got you connected with Sean, and I guess tell us a little bit about that process and what it was like to work with an agent.

Jacob Soppe: Yeah, I want to thank you guys, thank you again for finding Sean, our realtor.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Jacob Soppe: We had no clue on like what realtor, who should we go to, and we heard about your service through YFP, and so we reached out to you, you found us a great realtor. Sean has over 10 years of experience as a realtor, he’s also a broker. And he was amazing, mainly because one, he was super responsive, two, he found us homes, including the one we ended up buying, that we would like. And we didn’t think we would like this home, so we didn’t put it on our list of liked homes and must-see homes. But he’s like, “I think you guys will like it anyway. Let’s go.” And we looked at like, I don’t know how many homes.

Michaela Soppe: Well, the one day, I think it was a Saturday, we did nine homes on that Saturday. And he had it all set up like perfectly. And then honestly, the whole process only took a week or two for us. He was just on top of it. And you know, ultimately, we looked at 14 or 15, and this was one of the last ones. And we basically knew going into it like, this is something that we’re definitely open to buying because it was a great price, like great location, can’t really get any better. And I’m just really glad that Sean figured out what we liked so easily and you know, pointed us to this house because it wasn’t really on our radar initially.

Jacob Soppe: And one other thing I want to give him praise for too is every house we went to, he pointed out anything that he thought was a potential problem. And so like he was super honest, he wasn’t in a rush to sell us a home.

Michaela Soppe: Yes.

Jacob Soppe: And so I really trusted him and I think that you’ve really found a great realtor.

Nate Hedrick: Good, I’m so glad. That’s awesome. And that’s exactly what we want to hear, right? I mean, the agents you work with, it has to be somebody you can trust. And it’s so funny, that’s exactly what I try to do for my clients is point out the scary, right? My job is to walk around and look for things that you don’t recognize as bad while you just figure out if you’re going to like the house. That’s awesome that Sean was able to do that for you guys. Were there other members of the team along the way that were important as well? I know obviously the real estate agent is big, but were there other players that jumped in here as well that you found a lot of value in?

Jacob Soppe: Not really.

Michaela Soppe: Honestly, it all happened very fast.

Jacob Soppe: We weren’t even really seriously looking for a home.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, this was just to get our feet wet.

Jacob Soppe: We were actually in the middle of a lease.

Nate Hedrick: Ok.

Jacob Soppe: We were just like looking at homes, we’re like, ‘Oh, well, it takes about a month or two to start closing on a home, so maybe we should just start looking at homes for a couple months and then –’

Michaela Soppe: See what’s out there.

Jacob Soppe: See what’s out there. And so we started looking at homes and we found one that we really liked, and we’re like, ‘We kind of want to put in an offer. But I still have like six months left on my lease.’ And so I was just like, you know what? Let me call up the landlord tomorrow and see if they’d be OK if we put an offer on a home and moved out early. And we talked to them and we ended up having an agreement, and we were able to leave early. And so we’re like, ‘Oh, great.’ Well, the home that we really liked, apparently some other people really liked it too. So it was already gone by the next day. But that really opened the door for us to seriously look.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, and I guess that’s something else I’d say is don’t be afraid to break your lease because we lived in three apartments before buying this house, and we broke our lease every time, which obviously —

Jacob Soppe: But it was with the —

Michaela Soppe: With their permission. Like obviously, it’s not ideal. But like, I mean, definitely talk it through with them and see what you can do if you’re ready to buy a house. That shouldn’t be something holding you back because usually, they will work with you and figure out a deal that way.

Nate Hedrick: It’s a great tip, and it’s something that I’ve done with tenants of mine. You know, if I can fill that vacancy quickly, it doesn’t bother me who’s in that house as long as they’re a great tenant. So that makes a lot of sense. That’s a good tip. That also leads me to you talked about putting in an offer and looking for a house, but what about the paying for it, right? So there’s dollars there, so talk to me a little bit about financing and did you guys have an idea of how you wanted to finance the home ahead of time? Or what did that look like?

Jacob Soppe: I mean, I’m really adverse to debt. I really don’t like debt. And Michaela really let me spearhead this. And so we went in — I don’t know, I was like, “You know what, I want to do” — how much down was it? I don’t remember anymore.

Nate Hedrick: 15% down?

Jacob Soppe: Not 15%, 20%.

Michaela Soppe: He would have rather paid cash, but reasonably, he wanted to do 20% down.

Jacob Soppe: Yeah, 20% down at 15-year fixed mortgage. But I kept, you know, I listen to YFP, I listen to a lot of other podcasts as well. And I looked at the offer that IBERIABANK has that you guys work with. And I felt like I really couldn’t pass up taking advantage of the low interest rates going on right now. And I was thinking to myself, ‘Well, if I’m going to pay it off early, I can still do that.’ We didn’t necessarily need to do a lower amount, but we ended up doing 5% down on a 30-year fixed. And we do a lot of investing as well, so we are putting every single dollar that we’re not spending on a mortgage into investments.

Nate Hedrick: I love that.

Michaela Soppe: So like when you have a 3% mortgage with IBERIABANK, we’re like, well, we can make more investing that money, you know, in the meantime than we would if we just kind of threw it at the house.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah.

Michaela Soppe: So that kind of changed his mind over a month or two.

Nate Hedrick: I definitely get that debt aversion, but it also makes a lot of sense if you break down the numbers, does it preserve your capital in a way that allows you to do other things, like you said, travel more, invest better, pay down student debt if you hadn’t already done that? Those are the things that that flexibility can allow. So I love that you guys took a look at that and even though you went in with one notion, you evaluated your options and made kind of the best financial move for you guys. That’s huge. And for those that want to learn more about that, definitely head over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, and again, head over to the Financing section of the “Buy a Home” section, and you can find out more information about IBERIABANK and some of the pharmacist loan options that are out there. Great way to get a low down payment loan without having to get hit with PMI or things like that. So definitely a good option. So then Step No. 4 would be the search, so actually looking for the property itself. And we’ve alluded to this a little bit, but talk to us about that process. What were things that you guys were looking for? Or what were things that you learned after seeing a couple of houses or on that nine-house day, what were things that you learned along that process?

Michaela Soppe: We learned that house hunting is tiring on that nine-house day.

Nate Hedrick: I imagine.

Michaela Soppe: It was a lot of Zillow, a lot of probably other online websites too for houses. And honestly, Jacob looked at most of that because I got a little overwhelmed with all the options.

Nate Hedrick: Sure.

Michaela Soppe: But something we really wanted, which actually kind of excluded this house initially was we wanted a two-car garage was one of our main things because we’ve kind of done it all. We’ve done garage, no garage, all of that. So this house we ended up buying only has a one-car garage, but it has tons of parking, like a carport. You can have everyone over, and they don’t need to park in the street.

Nate Hedrick: Nice.

Michaela Soppe: So that’s kind of why we initially didn’t look at this house. And Sean was like, ‘Well, let’s go look at it.’ So we started out with Zillow. Once we got hooked up with Sean, he created basically an account for us on — was it MLS? On MLS, and basically every day, he would push emails to us of like, here’s any changes in the housing near you, like new houses, price drops, houses going under contract, coming back on the market, being sold. That was super helpful. You know, he’d send it to us after work each day so that he wasn’t interrupting our day and we could look at it, like them, communicate with him what we wanted to see, what we weren’t interested in, stuff like that. And then from there, he would call Jacob up and be like, “Hey, I have a list of these houses. Let’s go see them tomorrow if you’re free or whatever the next day you were free was.” And I mean, really, he just kind of led the way and was like, here’s houses you liked, here’s houses I think you would like, and kind of all over our price range too. We saw stuff under our budget, over our — not over our budget, but on the higher end of our budget — and kind of just pieced together from there what we really wanted and what was important to us.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and sometimes just getting out there and seeing it in person can make all the difference. You know, you might think there’s one thing that’s super important or not realize something that is important to you until you get out and see a house that has that particular feature and recognize that. So that’s great. And I also love the tip about the auto-emails. That’s something I recommend for a lot of my clients is get that auto-email so that you are getting daily alerts. It helps us really learn that market so that you can move quickly. If you’re just looking at everything on Friday afternoon and then scrambling to try to react to the properties that have come up in the week, it’s going to be tricky. But if you can get that daily, just take 20 or 30 minutes out of your day to really learn that market, see what properties are coming available, you’ll have a lot more chance at the good properties, and you’ll know what the right price point is because you’re starting to learn that market and see what’s becoming available. So great tips. And then once you actually found the property, again, I know we’ve talked a little bit about this, but talk to me about that negotiation process because Step No. 5 is all about putting that deal together. And so I know negotiations are hard in the current market, there’s not a lot of wiggle room, but what did that look like? What was the putting together the offer process look like?

Michaela Soppe: So Sean was really great with this too because the house that we really liked, ended up buying that we’re living in now, we actually were able to get for asking price.

Nate Hedrick: Nice.

Michaela Soppe: So out here in Eastern rural Ohio, it’s a little different than Columbus, obviously. We knew when we were here he was in contact with the seller’s realtor, and she told him like, “Hey, there’s another offer on the table today. Do they want it or not?” So basically, we were sitting in his house at 8 p.m. like kind of putting together our offer. We knew that this is a house that we would really like, that it could be the house that we’re buying, you know? And we’re like, ‘Well, let’s offer them asking price.’ They’d already dropped the price $5,000 I think. This particular house was on the market for —

Jacob Soppe: Over 30 days.

Michaela Soppe: It was. Some houses go within a week out here, some of them are on the market for months, depending on the houses. You know, there’s not that many people in rural Ohio. But you know, so completely different from the big cities. So basically, we did asking price but we also really wanted this house, so we added an escalation clause just in case, which went I think like $8,000 over maybe.

Nate Hedrick: And could you enlighten our audience about what an escalation clause actually means?

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, so basically if you have an escalation clause on your offer, it means that you’re willing to go up so much more money if the other person bid higher than your or offered higher than you on the house. So like if you’re offering $200,000, the other person offered $205,000, but if you have an escalation clause going up to $210,000, they could take your $210,000 — or I guess $206,000 at that point. You know, something slightly higher than what the other person offered if your clause goes above that.

Nate Hedrick: Yep, that’s spot on. And it’s a great way to protect you from pitting you against yourself, right? Because then you can put in $200,000 and you pay $200,000 if that’s the final price. But if there are other offers, you can still protect yourself by getting higher than — just slightly higher than those next offers. So thank you.
Michaela Soppe: So hopefully it keeps you out of a bidding war.

Nate Hedrick: Exactly.

Michaela Soppe: So yeah, I mean, putting the offer in, I think the deadline was given to us by the seller’s realtor was like 9 p.m. or something. And he faxed over all the papers by 8:55 p.m. and called like, “They’re on their way,” you know?

Nate Hedrick: Nice.

Michaela Soppe: Basically, we knew an hour after that they were —

Jacob Soppe: They verbally accepted our offer.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, they verbally accepted an hour after that.

Nate Hedrick: Great. Yeah.

Michaela Soppe: It was a very fast process, I feel like, and probably a little less stressful than it is in the big cities for us. But at least putting the offer down was really simple.

Nate Hedrick: Still, yeah, it sounded like crunch time decisions, though, and faxing it then at 0 hours.

Michaela Soppe: It happened really fast.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. And did you have inspection contingencies on the home as well? I know some people are out there waiving inspection contingencies. What did that look like?

Michaela Soppe: We did have an inspection. I guess something I should mention is we also offered to cover closing costs. I know that’s a big deal-maker or -breaker anymore. But we did have an inspection, and Jacob can talk more about that process.

Jacob Soppe: OK. So

Michaela Soppe: I set it up.

Jacob Soppe: Yeah, so I scheduled an inspection with one of the six recommended inspectors that our realtor gave us contact info for. And so I did some price shopping with them and got to know the guys who did it. And I picked one,s scheduled a time before our closing date, and they came in and they agreed to meet them at the house while they did the inspection and kind of showed me what they were looking at. And then they gave me a full report, photos, and descriptions of the inspection about two days later. So it’s like 80 pages. And we got to look through them, and they highlighted the things that they thought were a big concern and that what we should look at before closing. So what that led to is that we talked — we showed our realtor that report too, and most of the things we’re like, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it. We’ll just fix those problems.’ And our realtor was like, ‘No, no, no, no. The sellers are going to fix those for you. And so we’re going to use this contingency and try to barter for to see what we can get them to fix before we close.’ And we went back and forth probably like four times with the sellers.

Michaela Soppe: That sounds about right.

Jacob Soppe: And our realtor ended up saving us like $5,000 in repairs.

Michaela Soppe: And just like little — some of the stuff was bigger, but some was just little stuff that we’re literally like, it’s fine, you know. And some of the bigger stuff the sellers were like, ‘Well, we’ll split it 50/50 with you guys,’ and Jacob and I are like, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ Sean was like, ‘No. You’re not paying for it.’

Nate Hedrick: I love it.

Michaela Soppe: He’s like, ‘You guys offered asking price. They’re going to pay for it.’ And we’re like, ‘OK, sure, we’ll see what happens.’ And like Jacob said, I mean, they basically agreed to everything except tightening a railing outside. Like literally $5,000 worth of stuff, they got done for us before we closed. Can’t thank Sean enough for that.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great.

Michaela Soppe: Because we had no idea. We’re like, ‘Oh, this is fine. They’re never going to agree to that.’ But they did.

Nate Hedrick: And that’s exactly why you have a good real estate agent to lean on, right? Because again, without that experience, without that know-how, you would have lost out. So that’s a big, important point. The other thing I think is great there is that you guys went into it with this idea of I’m going to offer full asking, and so because of that, like there’s a renegotiation process that may occur. And so there’s two — I think a lot of people assume as soon as you put that offer in, that’s it, you’re done, that’s what you’re buying the house for. But the reality is you get to go back to them, and there’s renegotiations that can occur if you have the right contingencies in place. And again, lean on your agent for that. But that’s a really important factor to making sure you’re getting a good deal. So that’s awesome. Well, that leads to our last step, which is Step No. 6, all about closing. So you’ve gone through, found a house, put the offer in, renegotiated on the fixes and everything, and now you’re ready to actually sign the paperwork. So talk to us a little bit about the closing process. Anything that surprised you or things that you learned during that?

Michaela Soppe: I’d say it was pretty straightforward for us. I mean, basically with all of the negotiations that happened ahead of time, we knew exactly what we were getting, exactly what to expect. We did come walk through the house before we closed, I think the morning that we closed.

Jacob Soppe: The same morning that we closed.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, just to make sure everything was done, everything was what they said they would do. From there, everything was good. You know, Sean was there at closing with us for the first part. And then once you actually get into the more financial stuff with the bank, your realtor leaves and says, “See you later.” So I guess that was kind of surprising. I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, so he’s not here.’ But it makes sense too just that he would come for a little bit of it.

Nate Hedrick: I remember my first — when I bought my first house, I thought that like my agent was going to be there waiting with the keys as soon as I signed and he was going to drop them in my hand, but then there’s a whole — like title had to actually transfer, and there was the — like you’re working with the bank first and finishing the deal. Was that your experience as well?

Michaela Soppe: So we got the keys at closing.

Nate Hedrick: Nice. That’s pretty rare these days. That’s awesome.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, we didn’t have to wait until after for it in our case, at least. So I mean, that was kind of what I expected and I guess what I assumed was the norm. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if it does take awhile.

Nate Hedrick: No, that’s good. And again, that is — it’s more rare these days. And again, some states even require you to have different levels of closing with a lawyer present and things like that. So it’s nice when you can actually do it all in one fell swoop like that. That’s excellent.

Michaela Soppe: And we had kind of asked Sean like, do we need an attorney to be there with us? Are we good? He’s like, ‘Well, unless you have any questions about the stuff that’s already been fixed or gone over,’ like everything he basically had already gone over everything with us and there wasn’t any surprises.

Jacob Soppe: And there’s a lawyer at the title company.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and depending on your state, that may vary, right? Some states will actually require that you have a lawyer present or that they’re actually the one doing the closing with you. But again, in Ohio where we are, that’s not the case. So good to lean on your agent there for the local guidelines. Well, great. Well Jacob and Michaela, I really appreciate you guys sharing your story. I think, again, it’s a tricky time to be a first-time home buyer, but you guys are proof that it can be quite easily done. And again, YFP is here to help you guys if there’s something to make the process easier. We’re along for that same ride. Any final thoughts or other tips you can share with our listeners?

Jacob Soppe: Well, I can share one thing that we did not include in our search talk, but we were actually looking at a home that we could potentially rent out in the future.

Michaela Soppe: Oh, yes.

Jacob Soppe: Once we outgrow it. It might be awhile before we outgrow it because there’s plenty of space here, but we were looking for a home that we potentially could rent out or even hack out. And we found this home, and the offer we put in fits the 1% Rule that a lot of landlords like to follow when they’re looking for a good home but also I wanted to make sure we bought a home that we could increase the value on. And there’s a lot of opportunity to do that in this home. But we also found that this was — in the neighborhood of like 20 homes, this was like the second lowest valued home in the neighborhood. So we feel like we can really use that to help increase the value of this home if we end up selling it.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, and part of the plan with this home too — and we’ll be here for awhile — but eventually, it’s something that we could easily rent out in the future because it’s a great size for a rental home, and it’s actually really close to the highway. Like you can see the highway, you can’t necessarily hear it all the time. But it’s in its own little neighborhood but in a really good location for people just passing through. So that was something that was always in the back of our mind that we knew we kind of wanted, our realtor knew we wanted it, you knew we were looking for it. So that was something that just kind of like fit together well with the home we ended up getting as well.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, that’s awesome. I think that, you know, your shameless plug for our other show, the YFP Real Estate Investing podcast with David Bright and I as cohosts, if you haven’t checked that out, definitely do so. And maybe we’ll have Jacob and Michaela on that show once they turn this property over and start renting it out. I love it. Well again, guys, really appreciate you guys being with us today and sharing your story. Where can people reach out if they want to get in touch with you?

Jacob Soppe: They can reach me at my email, [email protected]. Soppe is spelled S-o-p-p-e.

Nate Hedrick: Perfect. Well, I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. And again, thank you guys so much for being here.

Michaela Soppe: Yeah, thank you, Nate.

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YFP 222: Why Estate Planning is Such an Important Part of the Financial Plan

Posted on by yfpadmin

Why Estate Planning is Such an Important Part of the Financial Plan

On this episode, sponsored by Thoughtful Wills, estate planning attorneys, Notesong Thomson and Nathan Kavlie, discuss estate planning and its importance in the financial plan.

About Today’s Guests

Notesong and Nathan, Co-Founders, Approachable Attorneys, Thoughtful Wills

Notesong and Nathan met in junior high in Jamestown, North Dakota – a friendship forged in orchestra concerts and speech meets – much laughter in hallways and early-90s nerdiness.

They both started law school in 2001, bonding over the exciting concepts they were learning, the intense 1L reading requirements, and Legally Blonde (released that summer).

Years later, Nathan asked Notesong to help create a law firm that would emulate the automation of LegalZoom but pair it with actual attorneys to create custom, lawyer-drafted Wills at an affordable price point. Thankfully, Notesong said yes!

This friendship is our firm’s foundation – and with each passing year, both grow stronger.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson, Co-Founder | Attorney, Thoughtful Wills

Caring for so many ill and injured children led Nurse Notesong to law school – she wanted to advocate for children from multiple avenues beyond the hospital bedside. After practicing as a pediatric emergency/trauma nurse for over 18 years, Notesong took a break from paid work to be a full time mom to her three sweet and spunky kids – one of her most challenging and rewarding roles. Along the way, she and her husband caved, and their family also welcomed two fluffy sheepdogs who are constantly at her side as she helps translate estate planning into terms and concepts that are understandable – echoing her signature nursing style when she explained painful procedures (such as IV starts) to her tearful and terrified patients as they clung to their parents.

Having dealt with the yuck of creating her own estate plan, Notesong ensures the Thoughtful Will experience respects and addresses the anxieties of parents and non-parents alike, helping make the process as pleasant as possible. She infuses TLC into every aspect of our brand of approachable lawyering. Attention to detail is crucial in both nursing and law – Notesong doesn’t miss a beat.

Nathan Jay Kavlie, Co-Founder | Attorney, Thoughtful Wills

In high school, Nathan knew his science fair presentation was ready when he could explain the enzyme pathways to his grandmother. That ability to translate concepts was rewarded when he won awards at the international science fair, three years in a row.

Many years later after repeated nagging by his Uncle David, Nathan turned his attention to wills and discovered this whole new area of law that desperately needed translation for normal people. He took a year to learn and study wills & trusts law – rewriting the standard “legalese” will into something elegant and understandable. The Thoughtful Will is one of his proudest accomplishments to date (it’s a three-way tie with his marriage and rehabilitating two rescued terriers).

Summary

This week, Tim Ulbrich taps into a topic not yet explored on the YFP Podcast, estate planning. Estate planning attorneys and co-founders of Thoughtful wills, Nathan Kavlie and Notesong Thompson, discuss what an estate plan is, who needs one, the value of a living trust, and why estate planning is an important part of the financial plan.

Thoughtful Wills solves the issue of unpleasant experiences with attorneys, delaying the start of estate planning. Nathan and Notesong have worked to make death planning and lawyering approachable for everyone.

Nathan explains that estate planning is not just about your estate, but everything you own, even non-physical items, when you die. Estate planning is death planning, using our system of laws to make decisions, spreading goodness even after your death. Anyone who has children, people who have pets, married couples, anyone with some assets, and people who have family members that they care about should consider estate planning as a set of directives in the event of your death. Notesong explains that because circumstances in life change, revisiting the estate plan annually is a good idea.

Nathan and Notesong give a general overview of the estate planning documents, including the will, the revocable living trust, other relevant documents of estate planning, and how they work together to protect your estate after your death. Nathan details what probate is and how it affects a person’s assets when they die without a will, versus with an estate plan. Notesong provides an overview of the healthcare directive and the durable power of attorney, which authorize someone to make decisions on your behalf if you are incapacitated.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Notesong and Nathan, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Notesong Thompson: Thanks for having us, Tim.

Nathan Kavlie: Thank you.

Tim Ulbrich: So before we dive into all things estate planning, a topic that we surprisingly haven’t covered in detail on this show before, I’d love for you both to introduce yourselves and give us an overview of the work that you do with Thoughtful Wills. So Notesong, why don’t you kick us off? And then I’ll have Nathan follow.

Notesong Thompson: Sure. Well, it’s nice to meet everybody on the podcast. I am based in Madison, Wisconsin, and I am mom of three young kids — young, spunky kids. We have two sheepdogs who are very needy and wife of a really busy corporate attorney. But yeah, I’m a lawyer and I previously practiced as an emergency trauma nurse for 20 years, so I bring a lot of different perspectives to estate planning.

Tim Ulbrich: And we’re going to tap into some of your healthcare background a little bit later when we get into some of the healthcare directive pieces of the estate planning process. So very good. Nathan, go for it.

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah, so my name is Nathan Kavlie. I live in Minneapolis. Notesong and I, actually, we met in high school in Jamestown, North Dakota, back in the early ‘90s. But I am a lawyer. I was not a nurse, but I did work in a video store for several years, which, you know, oddly, I think was really I think formative, as much as probably anything else in how I sort of approach the world and my work, which is just sort of — we’re all customer service agents I think in the past. And if you aren’t, thinking that way I think you really are kind of missing the boat because I feel like especially in this new world where with masks and distancing, I think if you’re not spending time thinking about how to be friendly and approachable, you are not being friendly and approachable. I think you’re just missing a chance to sort of make people feel welcome and taken care of. But yeah, I live in Minneapolis with my husband, our two rescue dogs, yeah. Life is good.

Tim Ulbrich: Great comment, Nathan, about the importance of customer service and a priority. I actually — you made me think of the book by the founder of Zappos, “Delivering Happiness,” and great story about just that perspective and how important it is no matter what industry that one is in. So before we get into the weeds of estate planning — we’re going to try to make it as lively and fun to really highlight the importance of estate planning as a part of the broader financial plan — but before we get into that, tell us a little bit more about Thoughtful Wills. What is Thoughtful Wills? What’s the problem that you’re trying to solve? And what is the offering that you have, Nathan?

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah, so I think the problem we’re trying to solve is most lawyers are not very friendly or approachable. They kind of suck to work with. And people know that, right? There’s a reason why people — I’m sure you guys at YFP have heard of how often do you ever get clients that come in and they say, “Well, we’ve got all of our estate planning documents ready.”

Tim Ulbrich: Rarely.

Nathan Kavlie: Rarely, because they know that it’s like, you know, you have to take time off from work and go meet with this lawyer who’s probably going to make you feel like an idiot and charge a lot of money. And that’s the experience that I kept running into over and over again amongst my friends. And so you know, it was sort of an epiphany, like why does it have to be that way? And it doesn’t. We can just work online with people all over the country. We can — instead of sitting down and having this meeting, which is long and frankly then becomes expensive because we’re lawyers, right? We sell our time. We don’t do bookshelves, we don’t sell electric cars. We sell our time. And so you know, we can use technology efficiently to sort of save time, reduce expenses, and hopefully then if we’re being really sort of thoughtful about all of this process, we can sort of create kind of an experience for you that is sort of shockingly friendly and approachable. And that’s really what we’ve sort of done is sort of looked at every piece of our process to sort of ask ourselves, like is this understandable to normal people? Does it feel welcoming? Is somebody going to read this and feel supported? And if it doesn’t, then we work on it and frankly, we keep working on it over and over again just because when are you ever like perfect, right? So we’re sort of on a quest to really make lawyering approachable is I think really the crux of what we do.

Tim Ulbrich: So making lawyering approachable is really a big part of what you guys do. And folks can go to ThoughtfulWills.com/YFP and learn more. And we’ll reference that link again later in the show. I was telling my wife about this interview last night, and the way I was describing it, based on our experiences with a young family, going through the estate planning process, we really delayed ourselves in that process probably longer than we should because No. 1, it wasn’t exciting. It’s pretty boring, right? In my mind, it was going to be somewhat painful. And I felt like the industry wasn’t very transparent. As I look at what you guys have built, you really have addressed all three of those. And excited about what that means for not only pharmacists but also other professionals that want to do this part of the financial plan and do it well. Notesong, tell me about your background as an emergency — if I heard correctly, emergency care nurse. What about that experience led you to want to go back to law school and then specifically do the work that you’re doing now with Thoughtful Wills?

Notesong Thompson: Well, it’s funny you say that because Nathan and I reconnected after several years. And ironically, we were actually in law school at the same time. Started in 2001 and then we graduated in — did we graduate in 2004?

Nathan Kavlie: Uh huh.

Notesong Thompson: And I practiced law for a little bit in the juvenile defense world. I did some public defender work, guardian at litem, and pediatric nursing really drove me to the law because I saw so many things at the bedside that really, really troubled me. It just — it had me just wondering going home at night thinking, why is it like this? Why is this child with this abuser? Why is this informed consent issue an issue at all? So I will admit, nursing is my favorite love. And Nathan had to do a little bit of convincing to get me to practice law again, right, Nathan? And largely it was because of what Nathan talked about before is the traditional legal process is in many ways really miserable. And I practiced at a big law firm, and like I said, I did some more public defender work. But ugh. It was just yucky. And I went through the — I went through the estate planning process at my husband’s fancy law firm, and I just want to be clear that there is a place for attorneys and fancy law firms and for big estate planning too. And I’ve got to tell you, the only thing I remember going through that process myself was how much it was filled with yuck. And it was so anxiety-provoking, emotionally challenging, and we were doing this with a friend who took care of us. But it just was yucky, all of it. And so when Nathan finally convinced me to join in, it was after he heard me on a show called “Moms Every Day,” and he recognized that moms make a lot of decisions and keep the ball rolling forward with things that keep getting back-burnered. And as a mom of three young kids, you know, I — and having worked in healthcare in the nursing, I was faced with life-and-death issues every day. And even with that, at the bedside during a code, working with pharmacists who are handing me syringes of epinephrine and just on the ready — I love pharmacists, by the way. Can I just say? They’re the calm in the storm. And no matter what chaos is going on, the pharmacists were there, they just showed up in their cape and quietly handed us the meds we needed. It was like a miracle. But you know, that’s the thing. It’s the best part that I’ve found about being an estate planning lawyer now with the nursing background is that I still get to give TLC to our clients. And I think they are a little bit shocked when I say, “We’re going to take really good care of you and your family.” So yeah, that’s where I’m tying in nursing into estate planning. And it’s been really wonderful.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great. And as I mentioned, estate planning isn’t a topic we’ve covered a lot in detail on this show before but certainly an important piece of life and one’s financial plan. And we’re not going to be able to get into all the nooks and crannies and aspects of estate planning, but I do think we’ll be able to lay a good foundation and hopefully get folks somewhat excited about learning more about this topic and some next steps that they can take in their own journey. So Nathan, as I was doing research on Thoughtful Wills and your background, one of your claims to fame that’s listed on the website is having a lifelong obsession with making the complex understandable. And so I want to tap into that a little bit here as we just start the conversation of what exactly is estate plan? What do we mean by an estate plan? Who might need one? Why is it important? And what are some of the various documents at a high level that make up the estate plan?

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah. Let’s emulate — I think let’s start with just the word, right? So we’re talking about estate plan, and estate — so this is the weird part. Estate planning is not just about your estate. Estate really just means like all of your stuff when you die. So when you die, all of your cars, your dirty laundry, your CDs, your art, it’s all — everything you own. And not just physical possessions but if you sort of owned patents or if you wrote some music, all of those pieces of property are your estate. And so we’re planning for that. But the problem is it’s like sanitation engineers, right? You know, like garbage truck people? And it’s like, they’re like, “Now we’re going to be sanitation engineers.” Really, what we do is death planning. But nobody likes to say that. And so they’re like, “Well, let’s call it estate planning.” But the thing is that it’s bigger and more important than just your stuff. Right? Because that’s the thing, it’s like, how many people as they’re lying in the hospital bed dying are thinking about like, ‘Wow, I wonder who’s going to get my couch?’ Right? ‘I wonder who’s going to take care of my silverware collection?’ No one cares about that. You care about your family. And your family is not part of your estate because you don’t own your children, right, as much as people might want to. So we’re planning for death. The problem — and this is why people don’t think about it and I think probably at some level why you haven’t done this as a podcast is because it’s morbid. We’re talking about when you die or we’re talking about when you’re in a coma and can’t communicate. Like these are not fun topics. But they’re important topics because you care about the people in your life. And this is the law’s mechanism for how to do that. Our system of laws, it’s kind of amazing. And I feel like — and that’s the thing I try to sort of impress upon people. It’s like, these documents are frankly like superhero documents because they allow you after you’re dead — I mean, you’re gone. But you are still making effect — you’re having effects in the world. You are actually still spreading goodness and care in the world because of these documents that you’ve created. And that’s kind of amazing I think. And you know, our legal system wouldn’t necessarily have to operate that way. There’s no reason why we would sort of say like, Jim died, and he left this fancy house. And we’re going to let Jim decide who gets the house, right? We could say, “Everybody gets a piece of the house,” right? We’ll sell it and put it into the tax coffers. Or Jim’s oldest son would get it. Right? But no, we give people a lot of control to affect these changes if they choose to. And that’s the thing, that’s what estate planning is. It’s you are making affirmative choices to sort of change the world in the ways that you can by using these documents. So the bad news is we’re talking about death, but the good news is we’re talking about this amazing set of documents that can really change the world for the better for the people that you love and your pets because I don’t have kids so I’m always thinking about my pets. So that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about death. And I think just put it out there. You know, we don’t introduce ourselves as death lawyers, but that is what we do. And it’s really important. And that’s the thing, it’s like why should people do this? Well, you know, I guess the thing is like you have people in your life that you love. Do you have young children that you care about? Do you? Right? If you have young children that you care about, probably you care about who would raise them if you and your partner were in an automobile accident or something and you both died unexpectedly, right? And I get why people don’t want to think about it. I mean, I think about one of — my oldest dog is almost 18, and the thought of her passing kind of makes me want to curl up in a ball. So I get why parents, it’s like, it’s a huge hurdle to actually say like, let’s affirmatively think through all of those gory scenarios. But the fact is, it’s like, if you want to really take care of your kids, you have to do this. Right? That’s just point blank. If you care about your kids, you should do this. So who should do this? Who should do an estate plan? People with kids, people with pets they care about, people who care about their family. You know, the thing is is that our system of laws also does have a set of default plans. Every state has a system of default plans. So if you don’t do your will, it’s not like all of your property just goes to the state. There’s sort of a mechanism in place for who should get things. And you know, for a lot of people, that system works great. If you both die in a car crash, it’s not like your children are just wandering the streets, begging for money. There is a system in place to sort of decide who should care for your children, right? So I mean, there are these default plans in place. So just to be clear, the “if you don’t do this,” it’s not catastrophic. But yet if you don’t decide who should take care of your kids, most often all of your relatives fight about it in the courts. You know? I don’t know. But there are default plans. The default plans are not the end of the world, but they are not your choices. And there’s chaos and trouble involved with it because there are lawyers and there are custody hearings and it’s all kinds of yuck. And the way that you opt out of the default plan is by creating these estate planning documents.

Tim Ulbrich: And I appreciate, Nathan, what you said about — and I’ve never heard this perspective before, and I like it a lot, which is that we have a system, which has given folks a lot of opportunity to make decisions that might otherwise be made for them. And so I think if we take that perspective and apply it to the estate plan, it’s not as morbid — still a morbid topic — but you know, now we’re in that conversation of, OK, I’ve got some decisions to make. I’ve got some autonomy. I’ve got some choice. And you know, you’re touching on that concept of probate, essentially that process where if folks don’t make these decisions, yeah, there is a net that’s in place but it might not be the desired state that one has, whether it be related to those that are loved ones and their family or even resources that they have. One follow-up question I have here, Nathan, because I think we probably have many folks listening that maybe this is very obvious that they need these documents or have to update them, maybe there’s young children or just children altogether involved, maybe there’s substantial or growing assets, and I think that tends to be fairly obvious. But often, I’ll get the question from folks that maybe someone who’s more of a recent graduate, perhaps doesn’t have a partner or significant other, there’s no kids involved. So is there a point when it’s a clear like, someone should have an estate plan in process? Or is there a period in time where some folks it might be not now, but we need to look at this in the future?

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah, I mean, if you’re single and don’t have any kids and you get along with your family, you’re probably good to go. I can’t be certain, right? I mean, to be absolutely certain, I’d need to do an analysis of your actual circumstances, but if you’re single and get along with your family, you’re probably fine. If you’re single and you don’t get along with your family, you should definitely create an estate plan. One of my best friends from law school is totally estranged from his mom and his sister, and it’s like, well, you need to do an estate plan then because otherwise they’ll get all of the stuff. And that’s not what he wants to have happen. So when you have children, you know, when you’re pregnant or when you’re thinking about kids — and actually, the thing is when you’re thinking about kids is when you should do this ideally. But anytime in that process is great. We get a lot of clients that sort of say like, our due date is x months away, should we do this now? Or should we wait until the baby is born? And the answer always is, do it now. Because when the baby gets here, you will not have any time. You won’t even have time to sleep. So do it now. Do it when you’re thinking about having kids. We can write the documents to basically sort of already account — a lot of what we do as estate planning is we sort of create documents that anticipate many different futures. Because we don’t know what the future will hold. But we know there are some things that might happen. You might have children. You might not have children. And so we can sort of draft the documents as an either-or situation. So when you’ve got kids, when you get married is a good time as well. Yeah. And if you have some assets, that’s always good. I mean, it’s one of those things, I think people think of it sort of like senior photos, right, where it’s like, it’s going to be expensive and you just do it once. And I think it’s a real disservice. I think it’s driven, of course, by awful lawyers that are really expensive and really unpleasant. But I think it’s sort of weird that we think that like you should only do this once because you will know exactly what your life is going to be like. And circumstances change.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that’s true, right, with the rest of the financial plan. You know, we always say when you’re looking at investing or retirement or insurance or whatever it may be, it’s an evolution. It’s a journey, right? And that was, Notesong, a question I have for you before we come back and talk with Nathan about the living trust and then some of the other documents. This concept of OK, it’s a lot of work to get it done but is it something I should be looking at annually or every five years or as life events change? And I’m looking at the site where you’ve got a two-step process, which is evaluating the plan and then wanting to avoid probate and you know, a couple different options where one is you’re creating your plan in that Phases 1 and 2 where you’re then updating that or having some ongoing support, so talk to us a little bit more about what you typically do or recommend with folks in terms of OK, yes, we do this upfront work, but then how often we should be evaluating this.

Notesong Thompson: Sure, absolutely. That’s actually a very common question that we get all the time. We’ve reorganized the way to think about this because the whole process is yucky and it’s overwhelming. So Nathan and I really strive to break it down into nuts and bolts. And so on the ThoughtfulWills.com/YFP page, we’ve created two boxes that talk about Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 is essentially creating your plan. This is where all of the drafting happens and we can customize it as much as our clients want. And then we also ensure that the document is signed correctly and questions can be asked without, you know, worry of the clock ticking because we also want to try to avoid that because that’s always a fear is how much am I going to get charged for this email exchange? Like we try to avoid that. And then Phase 2 is really equally important because if you get a revocable living trust, it’s important that you actually fund that trust. And there are certain mechanisms that have to — that are in place that need to happen in order to put stuff into that trust. And so that is all under the umbrella of Phase 2. And so as far as like reviewing your estate plan, for example, my husband and I drafted our estate plan — gosh, 14 years ago. And we haven’t had a lot of major life changes. A lot of our — we’re still close to the people we’ve named as legal guardians and backups, my sisters and my sister’s mom, and so luckily, if nobody’s developed a gambling habit where we need to change up who’s going to be the trustee or durable power of attorney. That being said, it’s always — we think it’s always a good idea to review your plan every year, just to make sure your wishes are still reflected. And then also, the revocable living trust, it takes a little bit more work, a little bit more follow-up with that every year. But making sure that you fund your trust, make sure that you are updating your non-probate assets too — and I’ll let Nathan go into that later — but you want to make sure that all of your beneficiaries are up-to-date. So it really drives me crazy when all these online will-making services have really now come onto the scene in light of the pandemic, and everybody facing life-and-death issues, they talk about like all these unlimited amendments and things like that. But what they are not talking about is all of the legal requirements that are required in order to make sure that they’re valid, they’re actually valid. So every time you change your plan or you do a formal amendment, if it’s required, you also have to make sure that it’s re-executed, meaning signed and notarized where necessary. And that’s all based on your state. Each state has really super specific nuances and that’s where we rely on our local counsel attorneys in each state to help us ensure that we’re following their state’s laws exactly to a T.

Tim Ulbrich: And Nathan, Notesong mentioned the revocable living trust, the importance that document can play and I heard you guys talk about this on another podcast as really a magical and powerful document that when utilized and funded correctly can sidestep the high cost and hassle of probate and how important that is for professionals, especially professionals who have a higher income potential. So talk to us more about what is the living trust and the importance and the value that that plays.

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah. So I want to sort of back up before I get to that if that’s OK.

Tim Ulbrich: Sure.

Nathan Kavlie: So I think we should first talk about the will, which is really sort of the foundational document to estate planning. I think most people know what a will is. It’s in TV, right? They all gather when somebody dies and reads the will and then people are all pissed off. But the will is the key, right? The will is sort of the foundational document where everybody sort of — where you create essentially your last testimony about what you want to have happen. And so that sort of superhero document that I talk about — I mean, the set of superhero documents. The will is the first one that people do. In like the 1960s, lawyers starting using what are called revocable living trusts. It was sort of a newer concept back then, but now it’s very subtle but it sort of was a little bit kind of cutting-edge back then, but now it is not cutting-edge because, you know, frankly, who wants to have — when you’re talking about your babies and protecting their assets, people don’t want to be experimental in the law. Right? You want settled law.

Tim Ulbrich: Not the place to be cutting-edge.

Nathan Kavlie: Yeah, exactly. So it was cutting-edge in the 1960s. It is not cutting-edge in the 2020s. Basically, so when you create a will or if you don’t have a will, basically, everything goes through probate. And I think it’s first important to say, what is probate? Because I think everybody sort of hears — if you listen to enough or really any sort of financial wellness sort of podcasts, everybody knows that probate is awful, but I don’t know that people necessarily know what probate is. And probate is our legal system’s sort of mechanism to wind up the affairs of people after they die. So it’s important to understand it’s a judicial process. And that’s why it’s expensive and a hassle because you have lawyers involved and you have a judge involved and then they have to send notice to the interested parties and there are hearings and it takes a long time. We probably all know somebody who is like, “Yeah, my grandfather’s estate took 15 years to probate.” That’s what it is. It’s — but it’s an important process because, you know, since we give the dead a lot of control over their assets, we need to make sure that we know what they really wanted. And if they didn’t make a will, then we need to make sure that the process, the sort of default plans, are followed correctly. And so that’s what probate does. So it’s an important thing, but it’s an expensive hassle. And especially — just somebody has to deal with it, right? You don’t just get to turn it over to the lawyers. Like somebody has to manage the process. And so there are ways that you can avoid probate. One of them is called non-probate assets. And I think people are becoming more and more familiar with these. These are things like life insurance and retirement accounts. Life insurance and retirement accounts, when you open them, you choose a beneficiary. So you say, you know, “When I die, this asset will go to my spouse or to my kids,” or something. And because the asset has a built-in beneficiary mechanism, it doesn’t go through the probate process because our system of laws honors life insurance’s own mechanism.

Tim Ulbrich: Makes sense.

Nathan Kavlie: Assets that are inside of a trust are non-probate. It’s like a $10 legal sentence, but it doesn’t really make sense without context. But the idea here is like your goal — because your house is not a non-probate asset. Your house is a probatable asset. So are your cars. Your cars are a probatable asset. So are your rights to music you wrote and your clothes and all of those things — some bank accounts — all of those things go through probate automatically. But if you move them into a trust, they can avoid probate. And so then the grand idea is well, let’s create a trust that will house these assets and then they can skip probate. Caveat: If you live in Connecticut, you don’t get to skip probate entirely. But this still is a very — it minimizes the hassle and the cost. So just a little caveat there. So the goal here, you create your own trust. Trusts are about as old as wills. They sort of hearken back to like the crusades in England. When the lord was taking up the holy cause and going out to the Middle East, you know, what happens to their assets? And so that’s where trusts came about. They were like, well, you can hold my assets, but you hold them for my benefit. You don’t own these lands. You’re just going to hold them for me because I’m going to be gone for like 12 years or something. So trusts — and trusts are used in many different contexts, not just in estate planning because like some charities are structured as trusts. But estate planning uses a lot of trusts. We can set up trusts for your children to protect their inheritance. We also use these living trusts. So it’s lots of different trusts, but this is the revocable living trust that we’re talking about here. And what it ends up doing is it becomes sort of a companion piece to a will so that together your will and your trust take care of all of your stuff together. But the will ends up becoming a much less important piece of this process. The will ends up acting like a backstop so that if you forget to move any of your assets into the trust, the will says, “Throw all these assets into your trust.” So if you forget to — or you know, if you sign all of your documents and you have like a Beetlejuice car accident on your way home and everybody dies, right, it’s like you won’t have had time to move your assets into the trust. So the will acts as a backstop. The will still is important because the will is still going to contain who should take care of your children, who should be the legal guardians, who should be the guardians of your pets. So the will is still an important document, but when we talk about like where your money should go, setting up trusts for your kids, or if you have somebody who has special needs, all of that goes into the revocable living trust. And we’ve described it as sort of a magic law box. Right? It’s like you create this account that you put your assets into, but it really only works if you put your assets in. Otherwise it’s just sort of really expensive paper. And so that’s when we talk about like Phase 1 versus Phase 2, Phase 1 is when we talk through how many kids do you have? Who should take care of your kids? Where should your stuff go? When we’re talking about Phase 1 and creating your plan, I don’t actually care about any of your assets, which is weird because a lot of people come and they’re like, “Well, I want to tell you all about my assets.” And it’s like, I don’t — it’s sort of jarring for them, their, essentially their death lawyer to be like, “We don’t actually care about your assets right now.” Right? And the reason I don’t care about them at this stage is because I don’t know what you’re going to own when you die.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep.

Nathan Kavlie: No one does, right? So right now, we’re creating a plan that really is just sort of broad strokes. And so we talk more in percentages, right? Like half goes to my spouse and half is divided amongst my kids.

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Nathan Kavlie: And whatever you own, you know, that’s the key because we just don’t know, right? So yeah, during Phase 1, I don’t care about your assets at all. At all. That’s where Phase 2 comes in because once we create your plan and we talk about who should take care of your kids and who should get your stuff, then it’s time to actually talk through your assets. Do you have some retirement accounts? Do you have an LLC? You know, maybe you have an investment property as well as your primary residence. Maybe you have a cabin in a different state. Maybe you have some expensive cars. All of those assets, then we start talking about the actual assets because we need to move them inside of your magic law box.

Tim Ulbrich: I mean this honestly, Nathan, I think that is the best explanation I’ve heard of the will and the revocable living trust in about a five or so minute period. So thank you. You’ve lived up to —

Nathan Kavlie: Well thank you.

Tim Ulbrich: — the obsession of making the complex understandable. It was really, really good, and I hope folks will hit rewind and listen to that as well because I think it can feel overwhelming, and that was very digestible. So thank you for that.

Nathan Kavlie: Thank you. Well, I appreciate it.

Tim Ulbrich: Notesong, pressure’s on now. So we talked about the will and the living trust. But that’s not it. We can’t stop there. There are other estate planning documents that we need to be thinking about. So talk us through some of those other documents and what they mean and why they’re important.

Notesong Thompson: Yes. Well, I mean, it’s the world we’re living in right now. Tim, you and I were talking about this before, but everybody is facing life and death right now with the pandemic in our face and its ever-evolving whatever it is. And so the phrase “accidents and illness happen without warning; there are no guarantees in life,” it just has so much more meaning today. And the healthcare directive and durable power of attorney are equally two magical estate planning documents that operate while you’re still alive. And the magic about them is that they both authorize somebody to act on your behalf if you’re not able to, if you’re incapacitated, if you’re in a coma. And we used to previously refer to these initially as coma documents because we tried to talk to people about them as incapacity documents and nobody got it. And they’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m fine. I’m young. I run every day. I do this. I’m so healthy. I’ll come back to you after when I’m older.’ And you know, we never want to pressure people, but at the same time, in that kind of blunt, very candid way, we just say, “OK. Quick question, do you drive a car?” You know? And it is, these are miserable topics. But we have to also consider that these things happen without warning. So both documents authorize someone to act on your behalf if you’re not able to. They authorize someone to act as a power of attorney. And so with the durable power of attorney document, they act as your durable power of attorney as it relates to finances and property. In your healthcare directive, you’re also a power of attorney, but it’s all related to your healthcare. They can make decisions for you. And the healthcare directive actually has two parts to it. The first part is power of attorney for healthcare. The second part is what a lot of people know as the living will. And that’s where you can get really specific as it relates to whether or not you want a feeding tube or assisted breathing, CPR, if you want altered CPR. I really have taken on the healthcare directive as my baby because I was my dad’s backup backup backup healthcare agent when he took his last breath. And as awful as it was, the saving grace there was that — you know, and he was a physician and he knew the importance of identifying exactly what he didn’t want — as awful as it was to be at the bedside, I was able to also give the poor resident who had to show up at 3:30 in the morning with a crying daughter at the bedside, I was able to tell her, “No compressions, just morphine, oxygen.” You know? And honestly, I think one of the greatest gifts that you can give your loved ones is that healthcare directive because otherwise, as Nathan mentioned before, estate planning is just rife with chaos and emotion. And in that moment, you don’t want somebody fighting over what your loved one wanted at the end of their life. So you can get really, really specific about that and also like organ donation as well. And so I think it’s a really powerful document that way. The durable power of attorney, you know, equally too. It seems like a no-brainer to have this in place, but the thing is you mentioned Zappos and wow, I mean, I know that — is it Tony Hsieh?

Tim Ulbrich: Tony Hsieh, yep.

Notesong Thompson: I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing — Tony Hsieh. I mean, the last I read, sadly, tragically, is that he died without an estate plan and that his dad and brother are in court, fighting to be able to take control of his finances, which are in the billions. And so not only is that a hassle, but they have to go through so many court proceedings, it’s expensive, and they’re trying to grieve the loss of their son and brother. So having this simple durable power of attorney in place lets your person of choosing and their backup, and you’re going to choose to have them as co-agents in case you want to have like a checks and balances. That could be a whole show in and of itself is choosing a durable power of attorney. That is equally important because you want to make sure that you’re choosing somebody who’s going to manage your finances while you’re not able to — or equally like if you’re out of the country and you want to move on a property that’s come available and you’ve been looking at it for 20 years, that person can also step in and act on your behalf in that capacity too. And that’s the durable part of it.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great. And we’ve scratched the surface on these documents but really important points. We’ve talked about the will, we’ve talked about the revocable living trust briefly, the healthcare directive, durable power of attorney, and as I mentioned at the beginning, the goal is not that folks hear this and say, “OK, I’ve got the textbook on estate planning,” but rather hopefully is stimulating some interest and a conversation among folks about where am I at in this process? What do I need? What do I not have? And what steps do I need to take? And I hope folks will check out ThoughtfulWills.com/YFP, where they can learn more about the work that you guys are doing as well as the services that you offer. I also suspect that we might have some folks listening that are saying, “You know what, I’ve done this or I’m going to do this, but perhaps Mom or Dad or Mom and Dad, it isn’t something they have done. And how do I initiate that conversation?” And it reminds me back to Episode 108 where I talked with Cameron Huddleston about how to effectively talk with Mom and Dad about their finances and this obviously being one of those very important conversations. So Nathan and Notesong, thank you so much for your time, for your expertise, for the collaboration. And looking forward to having you back on in the future so we can dig deeper on this topic.

Nathan Kavlie: Thanks. This was fun.

Notesong Thompson: Thank you, Tim.

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YFP 221: One Pharmacy Entrepreneur’s Journey to FIRE

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One Pharmacy Entrepreneur’s Journey to FIRE

On this episode, sponsored by Thoughtful Wills, Michelle Lamb discusses her journey towards achieving FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early).

About Today’s Guest

Michelle Lamb currently works in two very different areas of pharmacy and feels she has found the perfect balance of creativity, flexibility, and job satisfaction. She works in a 1099 contractor position as a Senior Care/Pharmacy Consultant providing pharmacy inspection services for long-term care facilities. She supplements this income with a part-time W2 position (25 hours per week) providing weekly inspection services for hospital drug rooms with a small group of surgical centers. Each job entails some driving but allows her to set her schedule. She has the tax advantages of a small business owner with her nursing home consulting but also receives a full benefits package with her part-time W2 position.

In addition, Michelle is the Founder of LTC Pharmacist Connection, a networking group of over 4000 current (and future) pharmacists in long-term care dispensing and consulting. She plans to release a review book this fall for pharmacists wanting to specialize in geriatrics or studying for their board certification in Geriatric Pharmacy. In addition, Michelle also provides resume reviews for pharmacists planning to enter the field of long-term care pharmacy and writes and helps with an occasional CE program or speaking engagement. She has also partnered with the local university and their student engineers to redesign a product currently used in the drug disposal process.

Michelle’s passions include listening to podcasts, particularly about personal finance. She is a member of the FIRE movement and plans to have the option to retire at 55 with a FIRE number of 1 million supplemented by a small pension from the teachers retirement system. She obtained a savings rate of almost 40% last year and is on track for 25% this year. Her ultimate goal is to reach FI the year her younger son graduates from high school. He has special needs (Down syndrome), and Michelle would like to celebrate his graduation by obtaining a “work is optional” status.

Summary

Michelle Lamb discusses her journey towards achieving FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early). She shares her motivation to pursue FIRE, how she is on the FIRE path despite graduating with student loan debt, and her timeline to achieve FIRE. Michelle also explains how her business, LTC Pharmacist Connection, intersects with her FIRE journey.

Many pharmacists with student loan debt hear about FIRE and the FIRE movement and think the goal is unreachable. Michelle is one pharmacist who has managed to tackle her student loan debt while committing to FIRE. After watching a video from Mr. Money Mustache about FIRE, Michelle was skeptical but inspired. Following the advice of her tax professional, she discovered that her financial independence was within reach – about ten years from now! Michelle has done this by intentionally contributing funds to her retirement accounts and investments annually while making strategic decisions regarding her student loans, making additional payments rather than simply paying the minimum.

After achieving FIRE, which includes paying off her home, Michelle plans on having time to take care of her family, as her timeline links up with the high school graduation of her son. Michelle’s plans include travel, a rental in Colorado with a lake view, and spending time enjoying live music.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Michelle, welcome to the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

Michelle Lamb: Hi, Tim. Thanks for having me.

Tim Ulbrich: Well, many of those that are listening know that this past spring, we launched our latest book, “FIRE Rx: The Pharmacist’s Guide to Financial Independence,” written by Dr. Jeff Keimer. And therefore, excited to feature you and other upcoming guests to share real-life pharmacist FIRE stories. And for folks that are listening that want to pick up a copy of that book, “FIRE Rx,” they can do so by visiting YourFinancialPharmacist.com/FIRE. Coupon code INVESTRX will be good for 10% off. Michelle, before we jump into your FIRE journey, share a little bit about your pharmacy background, where you went to school, when you graduated, and the work that you’ve been doing as a pharmacist since.

Michelle Lamb: Sure, Tim. I would be happy to. So before I went to pharmacy school, I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Minds in Golden, Colorado. My part-time job while I was in engineering school was at a small family pharmacy and really enjoyed that. And kind of at one point decided that I wanted to go to pharmacy school and maybe go back and buy that pharmacy someday. Things didn’t quite work out that way. When I went to pharmacy school, my eyes got quite opened to a lot of different areas, many niches and the clinical roles and so forth that are available. So started pharmacy school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the University of Oklahoma in 2004, graduated in 2008, and then completed a residency in community pharmacy, followed by about five years in academia with a focus on ambulatory care. After that, I did a small stint part-time as a hospital pharmacy manager in pediatric inpatient behavioral health. Did that for about a year, really enjoyed the hours and the flexibility. It was Monday-Friday from 10-2. Doesn’t get much better than that. My kids were young. But after a year, I decided that I wanted to work full-time and really try to make a dent in those student loans. At that point, that’s when my career really took a pretty big change. I found a job for long-term care consulting on a ListServ and looked into it, and it was really quite different than anything I had ever done. Primarily in the sense it was pure contract, a 1099 job. I was a little bit nervous about not having benefits and having to navigate health insurance and retirement all on my own, but when I looked at the compensation and the flexibility, I thought, you know, I’m going to give this a shot. So that’s sort of how I entered the world of long-term care consulting and did that for about five years. And then COVID hit. I imagine like you, my world really turned upside down, especially as an employee entering nursing homes. I went from going to about 20 facilities and driving 5,000 miles a month to overnight not driving at all.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Michelle Lamb: My work went completely remote in a matter of just a few hours. So of course that was last spring, and after a few months of working remote and being able to knock those chart reviews out from the comfort of my own home, I thought to myself, you know, I really think I can get a second job. And a little bit scary, but looking at student loans and some of my long-term goals, which included FIRE as I’m really excited to talk about, I picked up a second part-time job providing hospital inspections of their drug rooms. In Oklahoma, this is a niche area of pharmacy where hospitals able to open up a small drug room without a pharmacist but it does need to be inspected once a week by a pharmacist. And we help monitor their policies and procedures, training, and so forth. So now I’m balancing really that 1099 contract work with a W2 job with benefits and feel that really, that’s the sweet spot. It’s going pretty well.

Tim Ulbrich: And we’re going to come back to that and talk about why that combination of 1099 and W2 has allowed you to progress and advance your financial goals. It’s interesting, Michelle, I don’t think I knew this about you before, but we share a lot in common. While I don’t have a background of being a mechanical engineer, I too graduated in 2008, I did a community residency, I spent time in academia, spent some time in the pharmacy administration world, and we share an interest, of course, and a passion for personal finance. So pretty cool to see those connections. So thank you for sharing your background there. One of the things I want to get right out in the gates on when we talk about FIRE is FIRE, Financial Independence Retire Early, we’ve talked about it on the show before. We had Scott Rickins, author of “Playing with FIRE” on Episode 188, we’ve had a couple blog posts that we’ll link to in the show notes as well. But I think Michelle, when folks hear Financial Independence Retire Early, I think sometimes there’s an assumption of you’re trying to escape or get away from your work because perhaps folks may not enjoy what they’re doing. But as you’re sharing your career story, I can’t help but hear the energy and the enthusiasm that you have for the work that you do. So what is the motivation for you? What’s the why behind your FIRE pursuit?

Michelle Lamb: Gosh, that is a big question. And there’s probably several answers. I’d like to just — you know, you’ve commented on the FIRE movement, Financial Independence Retire Early. I would like to say I am a pharmacist that loves not just my job but I love both of my jobs. So I have no real intention for the retire early part. You know, I may cut back here and there, but I feel blessed to have found a part of pharmacy that I honestly think that I could do for many, many years. I’m completely happy with the work that I do, and it’s really, really satisfying. So for me, I’d like to really focus more on the FI part, which is the financial independence. There are so many reasons that I think that it’s important to just really be able to take some time away from work where in my mind, financial independence that you’ve saved enough money where you could live off some of the proceeds from your investments and not have to work for a few months or even years if you want. I got started late on this journey, so my FI path is probably about 10 years from now. On a personal note, that really corresponds with when my son graduates from high school. He does have special needs, and that puts an extra financial and really emotional burden on a family and finances. So my plan is to really have our house in order so that when he finishes high school that I’m not having to worry about what’s the next step in his journey because my financial journey may be just really, you know, watching out for him and taking care of our family.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important comment, Michelle, and I appreciate you sharing that, is I think the motivation for the FI or for that whole FIRE can be very different, is very different, you know, for everyone. And I think for folks that are listening and hear your story and get energized and excited — and we’re going to dig into that here in a few moments — is really taking some time to reflect on what’s the purpose? Right? What’s the vision for you? You know, sometimes I think we hear that concept of becoming financially free or becoming financially independent, retire early, and it’s exciting. But taking the time to dig a couple more levels deep and peel back the onion of what’s the purpose? What’s the vision? Why are we going to do this? Because I think that folks will really uncover and perhaps folks that are doing this together with someone else on their financial journey, those motivations might be different. I think being able to articulate that is really valuable as one is going throughout the plan. Michelle, you mentioned student loans in your introduction. And so I want to ask and start there in that I think sometimes, pharmacists, especially if they’re carrying around significant student loan debts, we’ve chronicled that to detail on this show, median debt load of a pharmacy graduate in 2021 is $170,000. That number has gone up significantly over the last decade since you and I graduated in 2008. But I think sometimes we hear student loans and we hear FIRE and we think, eh, do these two things really grow and go together? And so tell us about your situation and graduating with student loan debt, what that position looked like, and then how you’ve been able to navigate that student loan repayment while also having FIRE and that journey towards FIRE be possible.

Michelle Lamb: Yeah, that’s a great question, Tim. It really does seem to be a reality of becoming a pharmacist that so many times, student loans are part of that journey. And not just, you know, a few thousand. Often six figures of student loans, which I also had myself as well. I was fortunate that I went to an in-state school, but even despite that, I had well over $100,000 in student loans when I graduated. What was really interesting to me is for a few years, I didn’t really know how much I had, you know? They were in a few different places, and I was just sort of making the minimum payment. As a resident, I didn’t pay anything. I was told I could keep them in deferment, so I did. Just sort of made sense at the time. Then in academia, when I went over and finally had my first full-time job at the university, I would make the payments, but I wasn’t very strategic about the amount that I would pay or how much I would pay, what type of payment plan. You know, it was the first time I’d worked full-time before and I had the money to make the payment they told me to, so I did. You know? I think things really changed for me when I took that 1099 contract job. I realized that I was essentially financially — I had to kind of figure it out myself. I didn’t have an HR department to help me, you know, understand deductions or again, health insurance, you know, things like long-term disability and so forth. So I really sat down and thought, if I’m going to essentially work for myself as a contractor and own my own LLC, I really want to be sharp about how I’ll be able to do this. And so that’s when I really, really started to try to make a dent in those loans, making some extra payments as well. My job took me away from my family some, and so it was an extra layer of responsibility where I wanted to be very clear and intentional with my money. And so I started tracking all of my expenses and started really with Dave Ramsey, which I think is a good place for some people to start, listened to all his podcasts, but then just wanted to learn more, you know, kind of take it a step beyond that. So even despite still having some student loans, I started working very hard to avoid any new debt and pay the loans I have aggressively, avoid consumer debt, and become savvy about what is the interest rate on my loans v. what’s the interest rate on my mortgage v. how is the market returning? You know, do I want to play in crypto a little bit? I don’t know. ANd so I just think really that you can certainly do both. So I still have student loans, but I sort of use just extra or side hustle money to kind of throw that at that and I’m now on track to have them paid off by the end of next year.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. That’s great. And I think it’s a good reminder that often when you’re doing financial planning, you’re doing more than one thing at a time. And so you know, that could be home purchasing and student loans, here we’re talking about aggressive savings and student loans, but you know, certainly an opportunity for others that I suspect — many listeners are listening with a student loan position that is significant and might feel like a barrier to them achieving their long-term savings goals. In terms of your initial interest in FIRE, Michelle, was there a particular “Aha!” moment when you realized that you wanted to jump on the FIRE train? Was there a resource or a talk? Or where did that initial spark come from?

Michelle Lamb: Initial spark came from Mr. Money Mustache. And he has a very interesting and pretty entertaining TED Talk-style video of what exactly does it mean to be able to FIRE. And he often uses I believe it’s the number of tracking your expenses and saving 25x that amount. And the first time I saw that, I just thought to myself, there is no way. It’s absolutely impossible. In fact, the first couple years as a contractor, I didn’t put anything into retirement. You know? I just — no one had taught me how to set up a SEP IRA or how to save money on your own. And after a couple years, I think maybe my second year into it, my tax guy said, “You know, if you would put a little money into retirement, it could really reduce your tax burden.” And I think at that time, he had suggested $18,000. And the way that the timing with the tax worked, I actually was able to save that by the end of that fiscal year. When I realized that it could be done, started to do it, and then after a year or two just watched that compound and really get excited about index funds and just kind of learning about compound interest and watching it grow. So kind of then looking at that in combination with the money I was able to save working for someone else in a W2 position, combining all of that, starting to track it and graph it and project that out about 10-12 years, that’s when it started to get really fun. And now I just kind of throw as much money at it as I can.

Tim Ulbrich: Let’s dig into that a little bit further. I think often the FIRE movement, while there’s many flavors of the FIRE movement, folks may associate very aggressive savings with the idea, again, even though here we talked more about financial independence, less about the retire early, but to get to that point of financial independence, however you’re calculating it, that it may take very, very aggressive saving. So tell us about for you, you know, what is approximately the savings rate that you’re targeting to do? And how are you achieving this among other competing priorities, one of which we already talked about, you know, being student loan debt?

Michelle Lamb: Right. So with the unusual situation of working for myself last year and then most of 2020 being able to work remote and getting paid the same amount in my contract position but having no expenses, picking up that second job made all the difference in the world. In fact, I think I saved so much last year that my accountant said, “You know, you’ve got to be careful. Kind of worried you’re putting these to really maximize your deductions.” So I was able in 2020 to have almost a 50% savings rate.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Michelle Lamb: I completely recognize this will never happen again. It was just sort of a fluke of the times, again, working from home, no travel. You know, when COVID hit, I had refunds come in for trips and concerts and, you know, just subscriptions, gym subscriptions. Money kind of flowed back in and I was making more and had no expenses. So for 2020, I was able to achieve that really high savings rate. Not only that, I’m not scared of investing. I’m really in it for the long haul. So I think when you kind of saw that stock market going down, I look at my investments and I thought, March or April, I was putting extra in. So that really helped for my returns. It’s kind of fun now to look at that yearly return with index funds and kind of see a hit — I think almost a 40% return.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Michelle Lamb: Which that will never happen again. When COVID kind of settled down and the nursing homes opened back up, I had to cut back down on the consulting. And that’s when I picked up also the W2 work. I sort of think of it as a pendulum, you know, that kind of swings some to the left, some to the right, depending on what are the obligations at each role. It’s nice. They balance each other. Now, I would say that my consulting is probably, you know, 10 business days, 8-10 business days a month.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Michelle Lamb: And my W2 position is about 25 hours a week.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Michelle Lamb: So through that W2 role, I maximize my percentage savings rate. I kind of watch it and try to hit I think it’s $18,000 a year now in my 401k. And then I’ll also put in — anything extra from the consulting, I’ll put into my SEP IRA.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Michelle Lamb: So probably looking more 20-25% this year. But again, that just varies with contract obligations and how many hours I’m picking up.

Tim Ulbrich: And I appreciate the comment, you know, Michelle, about the flexibility. Pandemic aside, especially for folks that have young children or even for anyone regardless that things change from any given year, and I think that’s where some of the stress can come from sometimes. If you put a very stringent goal out there, whether it’s 40%, 50% savings rate, you know, things are going to happen. And maybe sometimes it’s higher than that, maybe sometimes it’s lower than that, but that really is the target that you’re trying to shoot for and will require some flexibility to make sure you’re in it for the long run. Michelle, whether that number is 20% or 25% or 30% or 50%, it’s significant, right? And I think that by having the diligence and by having the discipline to put away such a significant savings, that means you are intentionally choosing to not spend that money on other things that could be priorities and goals today. And so there’s a little bit of this delayed gratification to be able to achieve this financial independence. And one of the things we talk about often with our clients at YFP Planning is, you know, we’ve got to be developing a plan that yes, takes care of our future self, but also ensures we’re living a rich life today. And so how have you reconciled that where when you’re saving at a 40% or 50% savings rate, that means that there’s other things that you aren’t doing today. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Michelle Lamb: Yeah, so you know, some of the things that I’m not doing today that I wish I could, I’m probably like a lot of your listeners and a lot of the world that works from home, you know, I office out of my living room. And I’m barely with COVID retreating a little bit. I’m able to have friends over and share time with other people in my home and we’re walking around my desk and my bookcase and my printer. And so you know, kind of putting a big move like that on pause, that’s kind of part of our journey right now. But that’s not to say that you can’t have a high savings rate and just really work hard to save and have a great time too. So one thing I did last year — probably before it got real popular — is I bought a little motor home. It’s a 1978 GMC Midas. In fact, it’s so old, it has a CB radio.

Tim Ulbrich: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Michelle Lamb: Which is super cool, I know. It’s really fun. So you know, I love to take that out to the lake on weekends. And so it could be instead of taking a trip across the country, we maybe go camping at the state park in our little motor home and get outside and enjoy nature. Also, you know, travel mostly in the summer. I love to go see concerts. I went to Colorado last year and fall hits, and now I’m going to be home for awhile.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s neat. And you mentioned a couple mechanisms for saving. I heard you say 401k, I heard you say SEP IRA. And again, that’s because of your split income with the W2 and the 1099 and obviously having your own business with that 1099 income opens up some other savings opportunities. But one of the well-known challenges with Financial Independence Retire Early, especially if folks are planning to start withdrawing that money before the age of 59.5 where we think of traditional accounts being accessible without a 10% penalty, is we’ve got to think a little bit differently about where we’re putting this money. So certainly this is not meant to be investment advice, so I don’t want folks to hear what your investing strategy or plan or where you’re putting in and hear that and say, “OK, that’s what I’m going to do,” right? That may or may not be appropriate, depending on their plan. But tell us a little bit about your strategy for where you’re saving, how you’re saving, I think I heard you talk a little bit more about a passive investing approach, probably an approach you’re keeping the fees low. Tell us a little bit more about the saving strategy.

Michelle Lamb: Yeah, so this is something that it’s taken me a couple years to really even wrap my mind around some of the vocabulary involved. And Tim, you mentioned that you have financial planner services. I would really recommend to anyone that’s looking at saving and investing, considering the FIRE movement, definitely get the help of a professional because there’s just — there’s so much to learn. As a 1099 contractor, again, I didn’t put anything away for the first couple years. And I really, really regret that. But once I got on board with that, I did establish an account with Vanguard. I’m a big fan of their index funds and BTSAX, which is basically just buying a little slice of the market. And I put that money in there and don’t plan to touch it for quite some time. I also am able to put money into my 401k with my part-time employer, and they’ve started matching that, which is fantastic. That’s through a Fidelity retirement target date fund, so it’s kind of fun to watch the performance of those two kind of bounce against each other. I have a small teacher’s retirement from the University of Oklahoma, which is wonderful. That I believe I could actually access a little bit earlier than 59.5. Of course, if you wait longer, you can get out a little bit more. But for me, that would be an option at age 55.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Michelle Lamb: If I choose to need a bucket of money to take out of before then. I also put just a little bit kind of what I’d call the playing-in-the-sandbox money, just a few percentage points of my investment, into ethereum. I don’t know. You know, if Mark Cuban says it’s a good thing, maybe it is. I don’t know. So but anything I put money into, even that play-in-the-sandbox money, I have no intentions to touch it until probably, again, when my kids finish high school, so 8 or 10 years. So I’m really in it for the long haul. You know, I think having a good emergency fund, the 3-6 months of expenses, helps kind of buffer that as well.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, that makes sense. And again, a variety of different options it sounds like. And you have some unique tax considerations as well I suspect as a 1099 employee as well as having W2 income. So I think this is an example, without going down the tax rabbithole, of where good tax planning can supplement good financial planning as well and making sure you’re considering that not only on the accrual phase but also on the withdrawal phase, whenever that would be at a later point in time. Michelle, some of the common objections to the FIRE movement, you know, we talked about one of them already, which I think you addressed nicely, which is hey, you can love your career — and I’m glad to hear that you do, and I think many of our listeners do — you can love your career and still pursue financial independence. I personally think that’s a goal we should all strive towards with the retire early being optional. Other objections are things like hey, if I don’t have my employer, what about things like health care? What about being able to purchase disability? You know, other types of considerations like that. What are we going to do with our time and money? So talk to us about how those objections really have any impact, if any impact, as you think about your FIRE journey over the next 10 or 20 years.

Michelle Lamb: One point I’d like to make is people have this wrong assumption that they should or just have to work until age 60, 65, 70, or higher. And you know, I think the first thing to do is just take a step back and challenge that assumption. You know, what do you honestly — what do you want to be doing in your 50s? And for me, I don’t want to be clocking in somewhere and standing on my feet for a 10-hour shift or I don’t want to be driving across the state in bad weather, dodging tornadoes here in Oklahoma to do my inspections. So I think that’s the first step is kind of to really challenge these expectations. And if you look at the numbers and play with some of the retirement calculators, which I’m sure you’ve got some ideas on, just putting a few percentage points more into your retirement early can make such a difference down the road. So you know, I think that’s a good place to start. There’s so much to be done outside of work for me. It’s travel and camping, being outside, being with my kids, that I want to be able to enjoy that when I’m still young. Now, could there be some problems? Sure. You know, the health insurance one is really tricky. But I think the FIRE movement is getting so strong. There’s lots of great resources to try to even battle that one. One tip I’ve heard — and honestly, I don’t know if this would work or not, but I’ve heard of some people taking a few college classes and trying to get student health insurance. Now, is it going to be the best plan on earth? Or how many hours do you have to take? I don’t know. I’m not in that boat now. But I know there’s some really creative ways to try to tackle that. You know? I think both you and I having taught at a university, even teaching a class at a community college, you know, something where it may be a significant drop in salary, but it could be something that the value of the benefits that come with it could be huge.

Tim Ulbrich: And I love what you said, Michelle, about just challenging the assumption of “traditional retirement age,” right? It’s one of the questions I like to ask pharmacists just to get them thinking. And I can tell sometimes it’s the first time someone’s asked the question is hey, have you thought about what retirement looks like for you, what it means for you? Like what does living a rich life mean to you? You know, if we fast forward 30 years and you look backwards, what needs to happen that you would say, ‘This has been a success’?” And I think sometimes we ask a question of when are you going to retire? And it’s 65, and then we get out our fancy calculators and model out savings rates and all of that. And that has a role or value. But these questions are really important about what matters most to you and what is the value of achieving financial independence? And I remember for me, Michelle, reading several years ago “Four-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss, and I think he talks about the concept of like what if we re-thought of retirement as more of like mini retirements kind of throughout our career and not necessarily in this phase where we work for 30 years then we just all of a sudden stop working. And that resonates with me because I love the work that I do, but I also like to have breaks and I like to have points in time where you can pursue interests, other hobbies, other opportunities. And so I think that integration of work and life will resonate for many folks as well. What is the plan to celebrate, Michelle? So when you reach this FIRE number, you get to that magic FI number, like have you thought about the celebration plan? What’s going to happen?

Michelle Lamb: Oh gosh, well, part of our FI journey involves having a paid-off house.

Tim Ulbrich: OK.

Michelle Lamb: And so we’re getting pretty close on our home now. And so I think part of that may involve travel as well. I’m a big fan of Colorado, so I have my eye on some senior apartments that are right downtown in Golden, Colorado, for age 55 and up, which is about 10 years for me from now. So you know, maybe renting a cool unit where I could walk along the creek and go see concerts at Red Rocks is pretty appealing to me. Oklahoma has a lot of lakes too though, so I think — you know, travel is different now where you can even do like Tim Ferriss says and take a few months off and work perhaps remotely in different places. But definitely there will be a lake view involved somewhere.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think the pandemic accelerated that, right? I think we’re going to see more creativity and employers being comfortable with some of those more nontraditional models that might be more in line with what folks are desiring today. Michelle, one of the things you mentioned earlier, I think if I heard you correctly, your anticipated FI date is somewhere at about the point where your children will be graduating from high school. And as I hear that, I can’t help but think that this really has been a family journey. And so tell me about as you’ve gone through this journey, obviously there’s decisions that the family is making, one of which I mentioned earlier, if you’re aggressively saving, that means there’s other things that you may not be doing or doing differently. And so how has this impacted the family, both in terms of whether that’s sacrifices or opportunities for the family to have and be on this experience together?

Michelle Lamb: Gosh, Tim, that’s such a great point. My husband is extremely supportive of our journey as well. You know, I’m one of these that I made him sit down and watch Mr. Money Mustache on YouTube, and I made him watch the documentary that came out on the FIRE movement. And he kind of might snooze a little bit, but he’s definitely on board. He owns his own small business as well. And so we definitely work as a team to make that work. Some sacrifices that we’ve made: I think living in a smaller home. We’ve chosen to kind of have our family in a home where maybe not more than one person can go in the kitchen at one time, but that’s not going to necessarily be the case forever. If we move, we’ll have a paid-off home first, probably rent it out for whatever would cover a new mortgage, also with a down payment, and then maybe kind of move on from there.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great. And I want to wrap up by asking you about part of how I got to know you and your journey is I followed some of the work that you’ve done with the long-term care pharmacist connection. So in addition to your W2 and your 1099 work, you also have started a community of long-term care pharmacists. Tell us a little bit more about that group, why you started that group, and really the goals you’re hoping to accomplish.

Michelle Lamb: Thanks, Tim. So for me, I entered long-term care about five years ago, and my role specifically is nursing home consultation where I go in, I’ll do chart reviews, check the med rooms, check the med carts, and help with med destruction. I absolutely love long-term care. I never thought when I was in pharmacy school that I would enjoy working with the geriatric patient population as much as I do, but I just really love it. I am a member of the Pharmacist Mom’s Group, so shout out to another really cool Facebook group, and my heart would just break when I would see good, hardworking pharmacists and moms just really struggle with some of the expectations that are involved these days in community pharmacy. And it’s probably, gosh, even more so these days with COVID boosters and just ever-increasing expectations. So I would comment every now and then, you know, “Hey, don’t forget about long-term care. I’m genuinely happy. I set my own schedule. I make as much money now as I ever have or did in any other setting.” So just really trying to spread the optimism of this niche that I never learned about in pharmacy school. And I started answering the same question over and over again of, what is long-term care? How do I get in it? And you know, just how do I meet people? So I created a Facebook group called LTC Pharmacist Connection, really just for that purpose where I’d say like, “Gosh, come over to the Facebook group. There’s lots of people with questions about how to make a career change, and let’s bounce ideas off of each other.” That was about three years ago, and I’ve tried to keep the Facebook group just really focused in on pharmacists and interns that want to go in that niche. I think because there’s just a lot of pressure in other types of pharmacy right now, there’s a really growing interest in that. At this point, we’ve got about 4,000 members.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.

Michelle Lamb: Yeah. And I just am so pleased to see the positivity in long-term care and just the growing opportunities that are really coming up. So it’s a — come check out the group, lots of good networking, some job postings, and I think it’s really helpful.

Tim Ulbrich: And that group is LTC Pharmacist Connection. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Michelle, for you and your journey, resources that have been really helpful in the FIRE journey as well as engaging with the rest of the community. So you mentioned one, Mr. Money Mustache and some of the resources that they’ve had. And I think probably many of our listeners are familiar with some of that work, which is really great readings that he’s been putting out for several years now. What other resources have been really helpful to you on your FIRE journey?

Michelle Lamb: So Tim, kudos to you and your podcast. I will say especially driving 5,000 or 6,000 a month in my car, podcasts have been a great resource to me. I started with Dave Ramsey, and as I learned about the FIRE movement, I found a few others that I really enjoy: Stacking Benjamins is fantastic, also Afford Anything has been a great source of information. Also reading, I would highly recommend a book called “The Simple Path to Wealth.” It really just spells out what do I do when I’ve got debt but I’ve got goals and I don’t know where to start and how do I invest? It really does break it down and is just a great place to start. Excel spreadsheets, you know, track your expenses, track your net worth, track your savings. And also, I really like some of the retirement calculators. You know, I kind of play with my budget and I think, OK, if I put $750 in this month, what would that look like 20 years from now? What if I bumped it to $1,000? What if I took a year off? So just playing with projections has been a big help.

Tim Ulbrich: Great recommendations. We’ll link to those in the show notes. You mentioned the Afford Anything podcast, Stacking Benjamins podcast, the book “Simple Path to Wealth.” I mentioned another resource earlier, “Playing with FIRE” by Scott Rickens, great book, great documentary as well. We had him on Episode 188. And then a shout out to Jeff Keimer, who wrote “The FIRE Rx: How to Retire Early as a Pharmacist Achieving Financial Independence.” And as a reminder, you can pick up a copy of that book at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/FIRE, and you can use the coupon code INVESTRX for 10% off. Michelle, beyond the LTC Pharmacist Connection Facebook group, if someone wants to connect with you, learn more about your story, ask you a question, where is the best place they can do that?

Michelle Lamb: I would have them come over and see me on LinkedIn. Michelle M. Lamb or just look for LTC Pharmacist, and you’ll find me.

Tim Ulbrich: Great. Thank you so much for your time coming on the show, for sharing your journey, and looking forward to following the rest of your FI journey here over the next several years. Thank you, Michelle.

Michelle Lamb: Thanks, Tim.

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YFP 220: Student Loan Forbearance Extension – Now What?

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Student Loan Forbearance Extension – Now What?

Kelly Reddy-Heffner talks about how those with student loans should be calculating their next moves considering the most recent extension of the administrative forbearance through January 2022.

About Today’s Guest

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

Summary

Tim Ulbrich welcomes YFP Planning Lead Planner Kelly Reddy-Heffner back to the show to discuss how those with student loans should be calculating their next moves considering the most recent extension of the administrative forbearance through January 2022. Kelly talks through how to maximize the time left to evaluate your loan repayment options and choose the best next steps for your situation.

Kelly walks through the recent history of administrative forbearance for student loans taking us through to the current and likely final extension set to end at the end of January 2022. During this time of administrative forbearance, recent pharmacy graduates may not have had to make any payments. Others may have allocated the funds elsewhere, new expenses may have arisen, or employment status could have changed. In response, Kelly shares some general advice on making the most of the remaining forbearance period.

The Student Loan Analysis is one way to help pharmacists feel confident with their financial decisions regarding their student loans and to map out realistic goals for repayment regardless of the type of plan. Kelly outlines how the Student Loan Analysis at YFP works, who should consider it, the information to have on hand for your appointment, and where to gather all of your loan details, whether your loans are in the federal or private sector.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Kelly, welcome back to the show.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Thank you, Tim. I am happy to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: It’s been awhile. We had you on last Episode 187, where we talked about how to maximize your student loan strategy while federal student loans payments are paused. And that was back in January 2021, and I think at the time we thought, hey, this whole student loan forbearance thing might be coming to an end soon. And here we are again, talking about this topic and what this pending end to the administrative forbearance means. And so Kelly, kick us off by just bringing the audience up to speed on the background of the administrative forbearance on student loans and the extensions that have recently been extended one last time is what we’ve been told.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Absolutely. Right. So nothing has changed and yet it feels like everything has changed at the same time. The perfect feeling. Right, we originally had that administrative forbearance at the start of COVID in March of 2020 by the Trump administration. It was extended once during that presidential administration. And then now, we’ve seen with the Biden administration that it was extended two more times. So we had that extension until September, and now we have what I believe is the final time where we have until January 31. So I do think we’re coming to the end of the forbearance extensions, in my opinion. So we’re going to enjoy a few more months of 0% interest, no loan payments due, and of course those loans not having any default issues. So a couple more months, but we’re coming to the end of it.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and Kelly, you and I were talking before we hit record, I think one of the challenges — and certainly there’s been some benefits during this time period. We know firsthand from many in the community that they’ve been able to through this administrative forbearance accelerate the achievement of other financial goals, and that certainly has been a positive but also coming up on the two-year mark, essentially, right? So March 2020, you know, we entered lockdown, the pandemic, we started the forbearance with the CARES Act. So this time period of two years, I think that presents an interesting challenge where perhaps folks have gotten used to having no student loan payment and perhaps other expenses that have come to be. And then I think about the classes of 2020 and 2021 specifically where student loan payments haven’t even been a thing, you know, for them because of their graduation during this time period. So I suspect, Kelly, that a lot of pharmacists, a lot of folks listening out there, perhaps clients that you’ve been working with, have been wondering, should I or should I not make payments on my student loans during the administrative forbearance? And certainly this is not meant to be and it’s not individual advice, but what are your thoughts on this? And how have you helped coach folks through making this decision?

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Well, I think you’re right that, you know, two years is a lot of time. So we changed our financial goals and priorities changed considerably, our employment may have changed in that timeframe as well. In general, I think I speak for our podcast listeners that they are proactive. They want to be taking action. They’re listening because they want strategies to put into place. So this has been a very interesting time period. We’re feeling like we’re not doing anything with the student loans. But there are a lot of things that we could be doing in the background, which I think can have a very positive impact on net worth and put our listeners in a great position for when repayment starts again that they’ve accomplished a couple other things. So we’ve been recommending if you are, you know, having any other debts, take care of those. Anything accumulating interest should be a top priority while this federal loan is not accumulating any interest. Building up an emergency fund — so again, we may not see net worth increase because the student loan debt is paid off. But we can see positive changes because those emergency funds are improving and giving people more options and more confidence in their finances. If you are in a PSLF program or a non-PSLF forgiveness program, then we’re not making payments at all on the federal side because there’s no benefit to doing that. But if you are only paying the loans, that is your strategy, you’ve either done the math yourself or spoken to a professional and you know that that is your plan, then that really could be on the agenda. Like if it’s comfortable to make those payments on the federal loans, then that could be an activity as well. But we do need to get back into the mindset of the payments are coming back. So we are asking clients and listeners to know at least a rough idea of what the payment amount is and to bring that back into your budget.

Tim Ulbrich: Great point, Kelly, there. I think it’s time to dust off, re-dust off the budget and really look at — run the calculators, use the tools that are available at studentloans.gov, you know, what is that estimated payment going to be as we get into February 2022? And how does that work or what changes need to be made to the budget to make that work, right? And now is the time to get the practice reps so that we’re not caught off guard in the New Year and we can make some adjustments or changes and have some time to warm up to that. And I think that’s a really important point and perhaps one that folks have been thinking about but dragging their feet on for good reason because of all the talk of the extension and I think I believe, you believe, that this is likely the end of that. And so let’s get ready for those payments to begin at the beginning of February 2022.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Agree. I mean, there was a statistic out there that 90% of the over 45 million borrowers were not making payments as of March of this past year. So that is the bulk of borrowers not making those payments. So it is time to figure out what that payment might look like. Like you said, recent graduates, 2020/2021, may have had an income tax return with part of a year in residency or the full year in a residency. So that payment amount could be very low. Once they’ve started full-time employment, income has increased, if they’re on an income-driven repayment plan, that’s what drives what that payment amount is, the income. So that will have potentially changed significantly.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, one of the things, Kelly, I often share with new graduates or even students that are beginning to think about student loan repayment is because of the complexity of the options that are out there, both federal and private — and we’re going to come back to that here in a little bit — this is not a decision that you want to wander into. Right? We want to be intentional with understanding those options, we want to be intentional with thinking about how this fits in with the rest of the financial plan. And here we are, we’ve got months to do that, right? So let’s take advantage of this time period, the end of 2021, and let’s really get ready so that we can hit that beginning of repayment when the pause ends and we can be confident with making that decision. And as we’ve talked about on the show before, you know, choosing between Option A v. Option B v. Option C, given the amount of student loan debt that many pharmacists have, that can be very significant in terms of the amount that’s going to come out of pocket because of the nuances with the different repayment plans. So intentionality really matters here. And let’s use this time that we’ve got left before this administrative forbearance ends to make sure that we’re ready in making that decision. Kelly, Step No. 1 — so I’m somebody listening and maybe I’m not loving the energy of this episode and the reality that hey, I’ve got to get back in the game. But I’m listening, I’m ready, and whether I’m a 2020/2021 grad or perhaps I was paying prior to the pandemic and it feels like forever ago and I’ve got to get back in the game, what is the first step that listeners can take to get ready for payments to start back up?

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Absolutely. Well, again, just knowing what we’re dealing with, like what are the loans? Taking that inventory, you know, understanding which ones are federal, which ones are private, they have very different attributes in terms of what types of options are available for repayment. So we want to know what are we working with? What do we have on the table? And again, I think figuring out some of the other lifestyle goals as well, we cannot ever undervalue like how people feel about the loans, what they really want to accomplish with other goals as well. So you can look at studentloans.gov, which will actually redirect to studentaid.gov, to get some calculators, some information. That also is the source of your NSLDS file for taking that inventory and then pulling your credit report, you can get your free annual credit report and seeing like, OK, what’s federal? What’s private? I think knowing how much you can afford is key too. So sometimes that payment amount is what the payment amount is but knowing what your budget is, what you can afford, will help determine like do you need to be in an income-driven repayment and putting a plan in place? Is refinancing a better option because you have resources available? So again, there are resources out there to assist with this. But it’s a lot of data, a lot of information, a lot of subtle nuances. Even we have to be like, hold on. What is the date of the loan? That sometimes will impact what repayment options are available, just literally the date the loan was taken out.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And so Step No. 1, you know, if you don’t have that up-to-date information is understanding all of the information about your federal and private loans. What’s the balance? You know, who is servicing those loans on the private side? You know, we should be able to quickly get information on the interest rate and the repayment terms on the federal side right now. That probably is showing as a 0% if those are qualifying under the administrative forbearance. But I love — Kelly, I talked with a couple actually just the other night who when I asked them about their student loans, you know, it was very precise. They had all the information. “I’ve got three federal loans, I’ve got one private loan.” And it was to the penny of the outstanding balance, what they had. And I loved the intentionality of hey, I don’t like the number. I don’t like that it’s $194,000. But I understand that in order to put a plan together and to be able to evaluate the options and to be able to know what we can afford inside the budget, I’ve got to understand what we’re working with first and make sure that we have all the details. Step No. 1 is that inventory. And we’re going to link in the show notes to the links that Kelly mentioned on the federal side and the private side. So the federal side, she mentioned studentloans.gov will redirect to studentaid.gov. And then on the private side, running the credit report at annualcreditreport.com. Kelly, after the inventory, you alluded to the second step, which I think is really important is what can the budget afford? And when I teach this topic of student loan repayment, that’s often something I try to walk folks through is, hey, let’s make sure we know what the budget looks like. And as we’ve said many, many times on this show, student loans, as big as they are for many pharmacists, student loans are one piece of the puzzle. So we’ve got to understand what else is going on, what other expenses are out there, what other goals are out there, so that we can determine what that budget can afford. And if we decide to do a more aggressive repayment path, what does that mean for achieving other goals? If we decide to do something like a forgiveness path or more extended path, what does that mean for achieving other goals and really looking across the financial plan? And so we’ve got a budget template for folks that want to get started or update that budget. If you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/budget, you can get a copy of that. And so Step. No. 1 is inventory, Step No. 2 is really looking at what the budget can afford, Step No. 3, Kelly, is probably the most confusing, the most difficult, but the most important part, which is understanding the options. And unfortunately, the hand we have been dealt as borrowers of student loans I would argue is more complex than it probably needs to be. Separate topic for a separate day. But talk to us about understanding repayment options, something you work often with our clients about, and just the magnitude of this decision.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Well, right. I mean, once you’re on studentaid.gov and you’re plugging in some data, I mean, you’re going to get a lot of information back about these repayment options, especially on the federal side. I mean, and they, again, range significantly. So even that date you took out the loan can have a significant impact on what options are available. So we have income-driven repayment options, which we have two that we usually recommend or work with in PAYE and RePAYE. Of course we have standard repayment as well, which is usually that 10-year term, which is a fixed payment amount, does not vary with income. We don’t lean towards extended or graduate options, just because they really perpetuate the length of time that it takes to repay the loan and often, you know, with pretty high interest paid in the process. So income-driven is usually the area where we’re operating in and also that standard repayment if we’re not refinancing. And again, just understanding like the date you took out the loan, you’re right that 0% is kind of the default on all of the data, which is hard. Like we were taking out loans when we were 18, 20. It’s not usually the ideal time for being detail-oriented about this type of information. So we can take a look at the dates the loans were taken out in the federal system and see what the interest rate was that year. But it’s a lot — it’s a lot of nuance for sure.

Tim Ulbrich: And then we’ve got, you know, on the federal side, you mentioned the variety of options. To make it a little bit more complicated, we’ve then got the private option. And we’re going to come back to talking about some common questions that we get around refinancing. I do — without going too far down the rabbit hole because we have talked about it extensively on the podcast, most recently on Episode 214, I interviewed a pharmacist who had $127,000 that was forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And so we’ve talked in detail about PSLF, non-PSLF, but I think it’s worth talking about again just briefly in the context as we look at the end of this administrative forbearance. So Kelly, quick dive, I don’t want folks to hear this and think, oh, I’ve got it with PSLF and non-PSLF, certainly more complicated than what we’re going to discuss briefly — but quick dive into PSLF, non-PSLF, what they are, and the main differences between the two of them.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Absolutely. And I mean, I think there are still questions. Like it has improved our level of information, but the PSLF rules are very specific. You do need to work for the right type of employer in a nonprofit setting, and you can check an EIN number now in some of the PSLF tools on studentloans.gov, which is helpful. You do need to be in the right kind of loan. So we still see that as a little bit of a problem at times. Like it does need to be in a direct type of loan. So if we see FELL loans, we see HPL loans, we see Perkins, those don’t automatically line up to qualify. And that’s where some of the confusion still exists. You do have to be in the right repayment plan. So in income-driven repayment, there are some nuances with standard repayment that require a little bit of conversation if you’re in standard. You have to make the right amount of payments. It’s 120. And you do need the documentation. So as FedLoan servicer changes to a new servicer, this is an area that we are focusing on and just reminding borrowers to make sure that they have their data documented. Go onto FedLoan, take a screengrab of where your cumulative payments are. Of course the best part is it’s a tax-free situation. In contrast, the non-PSLF forgiveness is a longer time period. So instead of being 10 years, it’s 20-25 years. 20 or 25 depends on some nuances with grad loans and the type of repayment plan that you’re in. And again, it doesn’t matter if you work for a nonprofit. You can have any employer to qualify for non-PSLF forgiveness. It really is based more on the amount of loans compared to income for that program. And then there is a tax consequence at the end. I think that tax consequence is one of the things that maybe will continue to be evaluated by the current presidential administration, like are we keeping that? Are we not keeping that? It would have an impact on people in that program. So yeah, there’s some pretty significant differences between those two programs.

Tim Ulbrich: Kelly, when I talk with folks about non-PSLF and the way I describe these is, you know, PSLF I think is a little bit better known by folks just because it’s gotten so much press and attention, although maybe not the best press. But it feels like folks are more aware and educated. I describe non-PSLF as the lesser-known forgiveness option in the federal system. And I think when I see folks’ reaction, there’s kind of this range of emotion from, ‘Oh my gosh, 20-25 years, like I’ve got a tax bill known as the tax bomb at the end of this, like who in the world would do this?’ Right? And then you start to talk a little bit about, OK, well, depending on the debt load, depending on some of the strategies around this, depending on if we think about saving for that tax bomb, maybe it’s not as overwhelming as it can seem. But certainly that’s a long period of time and, right, there’s some complexities here with the tax piece. So in your conversations with clients at YFP Planning, like does this have a role? How often does this come up? And are folks, you know, worried about some of those things that I just raised in terms of that tax piece as well as the timeline?

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Yes. I mean, that is a long time to be, you know, in a repayment strategy. So right, we do do an analysis to see like what do the numbers look like? Often, these decisions are very emotional. 20-25 years is a long time. So we try to refocus on the factual components like what does the actual repayment look like? Like how does the payment amount per month compare if you refinance or accelerate a repayment? What is the overall forgiven amount? Sometimes, that number is quite compelling. Like if you are seeing, you know, six-figure digits of what’s forgiven, then we really do have to see like is that a viable option, despite the fact that it can be a little overwhelming to think of a 20-year time span. So yeah, we do carefully look at really all that factual data and then try to talk through the emotions behind it and what it means in terms of other things that you might be able to achieve in that timeframe. Sometimes it does make it much easier to buy your first home, to pay off something else, to be able to meet your monthly budget. Sometimes accelerating repayment is not affordable.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a good reminder of — and many folks that I’ve talked with I can sense that sometimes, the overwhelming feeling, beyond just the number of the amount of debt they have, is that nagging feeling of like, I know there’s so many options out there, and I’m not sure I understand the differences between them and a desire to feel confident in that understanding and then making a decision that you know has evaluated other parts of the financial plan is ultimately best for their individual situation. And I want folks to not underestimate how important that feeling can be, especially with momentum and the rest of the financial plan, to confidently choose the repayment option that you know has been evaluated and is really best for your personal situation and to hopefully feel empowered and educated throughout that process as well. So Kelly, on the private side, refinancing is a topic that we talk about often on this show. It’s one of the most common questions that I get in terms of should I or should I not refinance? What should I look for in a lender? You know, what are some of the considerations in the refinance process? And I want to hit some of that because I think there’s probably many folks that are listening that maybe refinanced before the pandemic and have been excluded from this administrative forbearance or folks that have delayed refinancing and are wondering like, when might I pull that trigger? You know, thinking about what might or might not happen in interest rates. And so I suspect the conversation around refinancing is going to heat up as we saw the activity around refinancing really at historic levels before the pandemic hit back in January and February of 2020. So first of all, Kelly, what is refinancing? Give us the definition.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Absolutely. And it is — the two terms consolidation and refinance are very different. They’re used interchangeably, which is not quite right. So you know, as opposed to consolidation, which is taking federal loans for convenience or to be in a position to be in income-driven repayment or to qualify for forgiveness, consolidation is taking like a bunch of federal loans and putting them into like one or two subsidized or unsubsidized. So still federal, interest rate really is not impacted. It definitely doesn’t lower the rate. It may open up other opportunities for different federal programs. Refinance is either taking your federal loans and moving them into the private sector, which is a one-way transaction. Like once you’ve moved into private, that’s it. Or you have existing private loans and you refinance them into other private loans. So very different, very different what is happening there.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think folks are likely somewhat in this holding pattern, right? I think in terms of, as I alluded to just a couple minutes ago, like hey, I think refinancing is the play or perhaps they’ve evaluated that, but what do I do? We’ve got several months left of administrative forbearance, rates may or may not go up, there’s offers that are out there that might help minimize some of that concern. But like what might I be giving up as well? And I think that’s one of the other questions and considerations folks need to be thinking about is what is different? So it’s not identical from the federal side to the private side with refinancing. Important note here is that every private lender can be a little bit different. So you know, we’re generalizing as we’ve put them together. But what are some of those main differences or things that folks need to be looking for as they consider what might be different from what they have in the federal system versus what they’re pursuing in the private market?

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: In order to really evaluate a refinance, usually the primary objective to refinance is interest rate. So if you can get a better interest rate, that can be a compelling reason to refinance. But you’re absolutely right that there are tradeoffs to doing that. So you know, high level, I think there is a little of FOMO, like ‘Oh my gosh, interest rates are low. Are they going to go up in the next week?’ And then this becomes not a viable strategy. We have been monitoring interest rates throughout the summer, and they’ve been pretty steady. Like we’ve even seen them go down a little bit and kind of back up a bit, but pretty steady. We have seen some interesting programs or offers from private lenders where they kind of offer this 0% bridge. That was happening for a bit. In general, you know, the couple big things are with the federal loans, we have seen the protections in action. Like we know there is a very tangible like ah, that is what a federal protection means because of the CARES Act. In general, you know, will the loans be discharged? That’s a big question if something happens to someone. In the federal loan program, they are discharged for death and for disability as well. On the private side, it really depends on the lender. So that is something if we’re working with a client who’s considering a refinance, we are looking at the fine print to see what the discharge status would be. In terms of, you know, can I pay extra towards a refinanced loan or even a federal loan, the answer is usually yes in both cases where you can accelerate some repayment if that’s the appropriate strategy to take. But in general, we don’t have income-driven repayment on that refinance side. So if your income goes down, which you know, is something we hope doesn’t happen to our listeners but occasionally it does either by choice or not by choice, you know, is a job opportunity amazing and you’re willing to take a slight pay decrease? In the federal program, you can provide documentation that your income has gone down and have that income-driven repayment re-evaluated and lowered. That’s not a feature of a private loan system. So the payment is what it is.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think you articulated well there why it’s so important that folks are running the numbers, right? You mentioned the primary goal is to effectively lower the interest rate. And for many folks, that savings can be significant. If you’re talking about $150,000-$200,000+ of debt and you’re seeing a spread of 1-3%, whatever it might be, on interest rates depending on their personal situation, like that math adds up. So what I encourage folks is run the math but don’t stop there, right? Be thinking about these other things. You mentioned some tangible examples we have seen are the benefits of the federal program, the CARES Act being one. Just last week or it might have been the week before, the announcement from the Department of Education about over $5 billion being allocated to those that have a total or permanent disability in terms of loan forgiveness. So again, another tangible benefit and them improving the ease of that forgiveness process for those that have a total and permanent disability. So there are differences, and the savings may be there and often that may make sense, but just make sure you’re also considering some of these other factors as well. So we have I think outlined fairly well that navigating student loan repayment certainly on your own given the factors that we’ve discussed can feel overwhelming. I’ve been there, and I think aside from exit counseling that folks get, there really isn’t a whole lot of assistance in figuring out which repayment option is going to be best for your personal situation. And therefore, folks might get defaulted into the standard 10-year repayment plan or wonder, am I in the best repayment plan for my personal situation? And that is why we developed an offer a custom one-on-one student loan analysis. In this service, the goal is that we’re working one-on-one with you to lay out all your options so that you can confidently choose a repayment plan that hopefully will save you the most money and that ultimately aligns with other financial goals. And so in doing this, you’ll work with one of our YFP Planning Certified Financial Planners to inventory your loans, both federal and private, evaluate eligible repayment options, including the ones we’ve discussed here today, student loan forgiveness, income-driven repayment, private refinancing, and then ultimately try to determine what that best repayment strategy is for your situation. So Kelly, you are the lead for us on conducting these one-on-one student loan analyses. I know it’s something you also do frequently with clients of YFP Planning that are participating in our comprehensive planning services. So talk to us a little bit more about this service, the student loan analysis, and what folks can expect.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Well, especially now, as there are so many unknowns, we do struggle with like what is the next best step? And I think we do — I hope — help clients get some clarity. Like sometimes there are options and knowns beyond what we think are available. So I’d say one of the biggest objectives of doing the analysis is putting confidence in a next step. So this is the information we have available. So I think it is an ideal option for any borrower who wants to have a strategy in place so that they can make other good decisions about the rest of their financial plan. So it is an ideal opportunity to build some confidence and to say like, ‘OK, here are my various options.’ You know, we look at within the confines of the federal program what the options are in terms of income-driven repayment, which payment plan might be best, do a comparable with refinancing, look at non-PSLF forgiveness, and really put out the facts of these are the options that are available and help talk through what is best for that individual client and that household. It is not ideal for folks who have already refinanced everything into the private sector because already, the options are significantly more limited. You’re in the private sector, you could potentially refinance again for a lower rate — and I think that is a question we get a fair amount, like can I refinance again? It is different from a home mortgage refi. The process is a little bit different. It does have a credit component, though. You know, you are getting a hard credit check if you refinance. So that can have an impact, but you know, there’s not closing costs. It is a little different. So yeah, you know, if you can get a better rate, it’s certainly worth looking into. But for those clients, I feel like we best help people who still have some federal and are deciding like what is that next best step.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I agree, Kelly. I think for — you mentioned, you know, the service is not necessarily for everyone. So folks that have already refinanced and because there is less options at that point — you mentioned it is a one-way street earlier. But for many folks I suspect who are, ‘Hey, I’ve still got federal loans. I’m wondering about forgiveness, PSLF or non-PSLF,’ or those that do think PSLF is the path forward, do I have all my ducks in a row? What might be some of the strategies or things that I’m thinking about for optimizing that strategy? Or if I’m not pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness, does non-PSLF forgiveness make sense if I work for a non-qualifying employer? Or might I evaluate that refinancing? And how do I do some of that analysis and consider some of the things one might be giving up by making that move from the federal to the private. And so for folks listening, if you’re ready to get help in mapping out your plan, I think now is a great time as we, again, head into this home stretch on the last several months before that administrative forbearance ends, you can go over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/SLA, where you can get more information about the service, get a little bit more information about Kelly, what’s included in the service, what the service costs, and then you can book that right there as well and get on Kelly’s calendar. Again, that’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/SLA. Kelly, really appreciate your time and your expertise and the contribution that you made to the community on the show today.

Kelly Reddy-Heffner: Thank you. I’m excited for listeners to really feel like they can make that forward progress and have some confidence in a decision. So I know sometimes, especially during the last two years, we have that feeling of being in a little bit of a holding pattern. But use the time wisely. Prepared is a strategy. So never underestimate the opportunity of having those ducks in a row.

Tim Ulbrich: Great advice. And certainly last but not least, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while and you like what you’ve heard, please do us a favor. If you could leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show, that would help other pharmacy professionals find this show. And if you have a question that you would like us to answer or feature on an upcoming episode, you can reach out to us at [email protected]. Have a great rest of your day.

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