financial moves to make as a pharmacy graduate

Key Financial Moves to Make as a Pharmacy Graduate

Tim, Tim and Tim discuss several key financial moves to make as a pharmacy graduate.

Summary

Tim, Tim and Tim are live for another episode of the YFP podcast. On this episode, they discuss several moves every pharmacy graduate should make as they are transitioning into new practitioner life (based off the blog post: https://yourfinancialpharmacist.com/20-financial-moves-every-pharmacy-graduate-should-make/ ).

Two important first moves pharmacy graduates should make is having an emergency fund and eliminating credit card debt. Tim Baker explains that you should eliminate credit card debt as it’s the most predatory with high interest rates and doesn’t allow you to build wealth on your own. Creating an emergency fund gives you a cash reserve so that you don’t get into more credit card debt. He suggests having a 3 to 6 month emergency fund.

Long-term disability insurance is an important move to make because you never know what is going to happen. Disability insurance provides you with income in the event of an illness or an accident causing you to not be able to work.

Determining a student loan strategy is always a decision that new graduates are faced with. However, the answer depends on many factors including how you feel about the loans, what type of loans you have and whether you are going to work for a qualifying employer (PSLF), among others. Tim Baker reminds listeners to be intentional and to find a professional that understands loans to help guide your decision making.

Another important move to make is to begin investing in your company’s 401k, 403b or TSP retirement fund by at least contributing to the match. As mentioned many times before, an employer match provides essentially free money that you are unable to go back in time to get. Tim Church also shares that lowering your AGI by contributing to a retirement fund could lower your student loan payments, thus allowing you to simultaneously build wealth.

Considering a side hustle is important during this time as so much is changing in the job market. Many pharmacists are experiencing pay cuts as full-time hours are changing from 40 hours to 30 hours/week. A side hustle utilizes your skills to bring in other income, whether it is through pharmacy work or another passion you have.

Lastly, the Tims discuss the importance of avoiding lifestyle creep.

Mentioned on the Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode, Episode 099 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. One episode away from Episode 100. We’re going to talk about financial moves we think every pharmacy graduate and every new practitioner and even others should be making when it comes to their own financial plan. Now, we’re going to talk about a handful of things that come from a great blog post that Tim Church wrote, “20 Financial Moves that Every Pharmacy Graduate Should Make,” and that entire list of 20 and that blog post is available over at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/20. Again, that’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/20. So when I pulled up this blog post, Tim Church, there’s a lot here. I mean, how long did this one take you to write?

Tim Church: That one took awhile because you guys had some input on that as well and we kind of went back and forth and tried to hit all the key moves that we wanted people to know about.

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And you know, as I think about back to graduating from pharmacy school — I’m sure you feel the same way — this would have been a list of, wow, I wish I would have known these things at graduation, right? So that’s the goal. I think a lot of lessons that we’ve learned along the way, lessons we’ve heard from the community, wanting to help out graduates and new practitioners as they’re making this critical, important transition into new practitioner life. So Tim Baker, the first two that I want to talk about are what you referred to in Episode 026 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, which are around emergency fund and eliminating credit card debt, which you call “baby stepping” into your financial plan.

Tim Baker: That’s right.

Tim Ulbrich: So talk me through why those are so important in terms of getting started with a financial plan.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think those are really the two things that I look at when I look at someone’s financial situation is what do we have in cash reserves and what’s the consumer debt look like? You know, typically from a consumer debt perspective, the debt’s going to be the most predatory. You know, paying high interest credit card for balances that you’re carrying, you’re never really going to transition to the ability to build wealth on your own. We talk about the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest. You’ve got to make that work for yourself, not for a credit card company. So that’s probably, you know, from the get-go, what’s that picture look like? And almost everything else stops — almost — maybe everything. I’m thinking of like an employer match, but almost everything else stops if that’s a thing because it’s just, like I said, it can be tough to get out of. The second, basically once we get out of that predicament, the second thing is having some cash reserves a la an emergency fund so we don’t get back into the credit card debt. There’s a stat out there that says 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency. That’s super scary. So for that percentage of Americans, what is their emergency fund? It’s the Mastercard. It’s the Visa. It’s the American Express. And then we kind of just repeat the cycle. You know, I have clients that they have a ton of credit card debt, and then they consolidate down into a personal debt, they wipe the slate, and then they clear it eventually, and then they do it again. And hopefully, now that they’re working with me, we’re going to break that cycle. So the emergency fund really allows you to do three things. First, it gives you peace of mind. Knowing that you have cash money in the bank allows you to sleep better at night. The second thing it does is it really allows you to avoid that predatory credit card debt. You know, like we said, most people will reach for the Mastercard, the Visa, to get out of those emergency situations. And then finally what it does is it allows you to get your money working in the investment world and keep it working without having to basically withdraw that in the event an emergency happens.

Tim Church: So Tim, where do you recommend your clients keep their emergency fund? And how much do you recommend that they have?

Tim Baker: That’s a great question. So you know, typically what we say is you want to have 3-6 months of non-discretionary monthly expenses, which is just a really a fancy word to say expenses that are going to go out the door regardless if you work or not. So those are going to be things like your rent or your mortgage, groceries, utility bills, your loan payments. So if you’re a single income earner, and you have $5,000 of those expenses after you add them all up, then you’d take $5,000 times 6 months, and it’s a $30,000 emergency fund. If you’re a dual income earner, you typically are allowed or should, recommended to have closer to 3 months. So it would be in that situation, $15,000. And the idea is that, you know, a dual income earner, you’re not putting your proverbial income eggs in one basket. Typically, both spouses or both partners are not going to lose their job at the same time. So that’s basically how you calculate it. Now, where to put it is a great question as well. So you want, typically you want something that is liquid that you can get to it at a known price, which is cash is best. Maybe not too easy to get to, something that bears some interest, but that’s not typically the point of the account. So when I started advising clients on emergency fund, I looked at a lot of different routes, a lot of different banks, actually. Ally, Synchrony Bank, Capital One, to name a few. I really like Ally; that’s what I use. I typically recommend that. It’s just easy to use, easy interface, app is clean, website is clean and easy to use. And it gets 2.2%, which I like. So that’s typically the high-yield savings account that we’ll look at for the emergency fund.

Tim Ulbrich: So as we think about the graduate coming out today, May 2019, they’re facing $150,000-200,000 of student loan debt, overwhelmed, likely, with that and what it means, lots of other competing priorities. And now they’re hearing 3-6 months worth of expenses and all of a sudden, they might look at their budget and figure out this is $10,000-30,000, and they say, “Thanks, Tim, Tim and Tim, but here’s the reality of what I’m working with.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: So the question is, where do I even get started with this? And what’s the baby step I can take to begin this process?

Tim Baker: I think you want to phase, you have like a phase plan. So as an example, if I’m looking at $10,000 worth of credit card debt, which I see all the time for a P4 or resident, I really don’t have anything cash at all, I sit down with a client and say, “OK, let’s build a baseline emergency fund.” So maybe it’s $2,500. Maybe it’s $5,000. Maybe it’s $10,000 of, in that case, a $25,000 or $30,000 emergency fund. So I think building a baseline emergency fund, a target that we can get to that once we achieve, then we can kind of look at the credit card debt and be gazelle-like, if you want to say, laser-focused, and really plow through the credit card debt. Now, and the reason that we do that is because, you know, obviously in an ideal world, we’d like to snap our fingers and all of a sudden, we have cash reserves for credit card debt. But the reality is is that that’s not going to happen overnight. So typically, my recommendation is to take bite-sized pieces, get to a baseline emergency fund that you feel comfortable with, and once we achieve that, then go to Phase 2, which is turn off the emergency fund contribution, apply that completely to the credit cards, hustle, side hustle, listen to Tim Church in that regard, and really start making moves towards that. And then once that phase is over, let’s get back into the emergency fund and get that going.

Tim Ulbrich: So we talked about several important things around emergency fund, 3-6 months of expenses, we talked about you want it liquid, you want it when you need it for an emergency, get it out of your checking account so that you can hold some of that temptation of pulling from it from your day-to-day expenses. One of the things we didn’t mention is just the power of actually naming it an emergency fund.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: So I think we often talk with pharmacists — which I’m sure you see this with clients — where they say, “Hey, I’ve got this lump savings account,” and in their mind, they have five or six things they’re saving for. But really, the power of calling it an emergency fund, which is really true with any other goal.

Tim Baker: Yeah, I mean, it’s so true because the psychology says that you’re less likely to steal from your emergency fund if you call it an emergency fund if it’s not for an emergency. It’s just like we talk about with a travel fund, it’s great to have a travel fund, but if you can actually call it where you’re planning to go next, you know, Disneyworld, Iceland, wherever that is, you’re less likely to steal from Minnie and Mickey Mouse because it’s named “Disneyworld” if I want to go buy something that I’m not necessarily, that that fund is not necessarily for. So I think it’s important to do that. You know, we kind of do the mental accounting. I see a lot of clients that have cash in an account, and it will be $20,000, and I’ll say, “What’s that for?” And they’re like, “Well, I think it’s an emergency fund. I don’t know.” So my thing is clearly delineate what it’s for. And if there’s a travel fund mixed in with the emergency fund, break it out, you know, separate those funds.

Tim Ulbrich: So first two moves that we’re talking about here are eliminating credit card debt, coming up with a plan, and establishing an emergency fund. Again, we’re pulling from the “20 Financial Moves that Every Pharmacy Graduate Should Make” over at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/20. Next one, Tim Church, is get long-term disability insurance. So you know, I think this one is tough. Nobody likes to think about a situation where hey, for whatever reason, I’m no longer able to work as a pharmacist because of a car accident, chronic illness, whatever. And certainly, this isn’t as exciting as paying down debt or building wealth, right? Nobody likes to send in insurance premiums. So why should pharmacists, even young pharmacists and graduates, be thinking about having disability income protection in place?

Tim Church: I was one of those people for awhile that felt that, you know, nothing was going to happen to me. I’m young, I’m healthy.

Tim Baker: Invincible.

Tim Church: Not much is going to happen. But the reality is when I learned a couple pharmacists that I knew that I was working with, they were unable to work, at least temporarily, because of autoimmune diseases, accidents that they had in their cars. I mean, the reality is stuff happens. When you look back, how much time, energy, focus, money, did you put in to become a pharmacist and be able to practice, be able to make an income? So when you look at that, all that was put in to get there, I mean, don’t you think it’s a good idea to protect that? And that is really where long-term disability comes into play. And long-term disability insurance, it’s really income insurance. And what it does is it provides you with money in the event that you’re not able to work because of illness or accident.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I think a lot of people, they forget that one part is most disabilities occur because of an illness, not because of an accident. And you know, like I always tell pharmacists is like, you’re not going to like it. You’re not going to like paying premiums for a disability policy because quite frankly, they can be expensive.

Tim Church: Yeah, a lot of times, even more expensive than life insurance that you’re trying to —

Tim Baker: Yeah. But the fact is that you’re more likely to be disabled than to have a premature death. You’re more likely to have way more expenses when you’re disabled versus a premature death because alive, you probably have medical issues that you have to deal with, so this is doubly important because it’s one of those things where you always think it’s going to happen to somebody else. And the fact of the matter is, you’re right at the precipice of your career and really, your earning potential, and you want to protect that. Becoming a PharmD is — I don’t know firsthand — but I understand it’s very difficult. And you spend a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where you’re at. So you want to protect that ability to earn.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I think one of the questions that often comes up is well, my employer provides it. So I don’t really need to worry about it or need to get that. And you know, that may be the case, and I think there are some situations where you may have enough coverage and you may be protected, but I think a couple things that you want to consider is that even if you do have something through your own employer, the couple things you want to consider is No. 1, is it portable? Because the days of working for the same employer for your whole entire life, that may not necessarily be the case now. So if you move and change jobs, you know, is your new employer No. 1 going to offer it? But what if your health status changes and you need to get coverage on your own? So a lot can change. And the second thing is just because your employer provides it, it may not be exactly what you need. So one of the things when I was working part-time for a hospital, I was checking out what was offered based on my fellow employees who were working there, and what we found was that they only offered own occupation coverage for two years. So own occupation is one of those riders or add-ons, sometimes baked into the policy, that you really want to be aware of. But essentially, what that is is if you can’t work as a pharmacist, you’re going to get a percentage of your pay every month as a benefit. Whereas other policies and other coverage, they’re having any occupation, which means if you can do any kind of meaningful work, you’re not going to get that monthly benefit. So that sometimes is a little bit even more expensive as well but something you want to keep in mind.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and unfortunately, navigating the selection of a disability insurance policy isn’t always super easy, just the way these products are sold and the options, the riders you mentioned, the time periods, the elimination periods, and so we’ve got some great resources that we would point you to. Episode 045, we talked about how to determine your disability insurance needs. And then also, if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com, at the top, you’ll see an option that is “Protect Your Income.” We’ve got some great information about life and disability, which connects you with our partner for both of these, which is PolicyGenius. And I just recently went through this process of purchasing additional disability insurance as well as life insurance, very easy, very transparent, a great process to follow. So make sure to check out those resources if this is something that you need. Alright, Tim Baker, we’re going to take on the, probably the No. 1 question we get from new graduates is, what the heck should I do with my student loans? I’ve got $200,000 of student loan debt, I’ve got all these options available to me. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly confusing, forgiveness and non-forgiveness, federal and private. You know, as you talk with clients and specifically those that are just coming out of pharmacy school, where do you start in terms of this question of determining a student loan payoff strategy?

Tim Baker: Yeah, it can be a monster. You know, it can be a monster topic, a monster thing to kind of wrap your arms around. And you know, a lot of times, I’ll have a pharmacist that will talk to me, and they’ll say, “Hey, this is my situation. What should I do?” And I’m like, “It depends.” You know, it depends. And like I said, I always say that’s the worst answer ever, but it truly does. And there’s so many ways to kind of tackle the student debt. And part of it — the question I would ask first is like, how do you feel about the loans? And you know, it’s probably a question that you know the answer to, but you probably haven’t asked yourself. So you know, if you’re feeling like, meh, the loans are there and I’ll pay them off when I pay them off and it’s kind of like, I view it as like a mortgage debt that I’m just going to pay off over time, and I’m cool with that, versus I can’t sleep at night, it’s a weight on my chest, I get anxiety about this. And these are all like real-world answers that I’ve gotten to that question. That’s going to affect the ultimate strategy, the strategy that you ultimately pick in the end in terms of how to attack the loans. So I think having an inventory, an emotional inventory, of the loans is I think a good first step. But then transitioning to an actual, physical inventory. And I’ll tell you what, like I think back when I first started advising pharmacists on the student debt. And I’d say like, “What do you have?” And they’re like, “I don’t know.” You know? And there was no awareness or there was less awareness than I think that I see more pharmacists that kind of walk in my door — virtual door, I guess — but I think that having a physical inventory of what you have, who you owe, when that starts, is important as well. And then from there, I think you start selecting a strategy that fits your needs and kind of what you want to do, whether it’s a forgiveness strategy, a refinance, like be aggressive with it, which might coincide with refinance. There’s a lot of ways to kind of go about this. I think one of the things that I would be cautious about is really twofold. One, you want to be intentional. You don’t want to get out of school and meander and be like, oh, like I’ll figure it out later because later happens, and you’re still in the same amount of debt that you started with. The second thing is that if you’re working with a professional, if you have six figures worth of debt, and you’re working with a professional that doesn’t understand loans, find a professional that understands loans. There’s so many — so going on another rant — there’s so many young professionals that I talk with, and they say, “Yeah, I’m working with an advisor at Blah, Blah, Blah, and the advice is that the loans will figure themselves out.” And I want to like fall on the floor because literally weekly, we show pharmacists that the path that they’re on could potentially cost them six figures in difference. And I think it’s like, I’m incredulous. I’m incredulous.

Tim Church: Yeah, I mean, I think you make a good point. And I’ll attest to that personally because I was one of those people that made a huge mistake, you know, not pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program cost me over $100,000. Now, you know, the benefit is that my loans are paid off now, and I can tell other people about it. But you make such a great point that — and I don’t think we can emphasize this enough — is you really have to lay out all of the options that are available to you. And you have to kind of complement those emotions behind the loans with also the math, right? You have to couple those two together to figure out, OK, what is the best plan going to be? And then I think even kind of taking it a step further is when you look at the average student loan debt that a pharmacist has, we’re talking $160,000, which could be a lot more if you go to a private school, is if you’re able to get forgiveness through the Public Service Loan program, then go for it. I mean, the math really makes sense there. And that could actually have a lot to do with the job that you choose or that you ultimately go from your first one.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think this really is the time that we have to emphasize further what Tim Baker just said is it’s about intentionality of choosing an option and a plan. You know, I spoke with a group of probably about 120 students last week, and when we get to this topic, I think what they want often is a slide that I know I wanted as a student, which is the “here’s the best option.” And the reality is when it comes down to these variables like how do you feel about it? What’s the rest of your personal situation? You know, do you work for a qualifying employer or not? You know, what are the interest rates? What’s the goals? What are you trying to achieve? Are you a nontraditional student? All of these factors go into choosing the one best repayment strategy for you as an individual. And that might be different than your classmates and others that are out there. And so I think what we’re really advocating here, especially to those that are coming up on graduation, you’re going to enter the grace period, which is really everything but gracious when we think about interest continuing to accrue during that time period. But using this time so that when that notice comes to you that says, “Hey, by the way, here’s your payment, Johnny,” that you’ve already come and decided upon a plan that is best for your situation. And I think that this concept of intentionality goes well beyond just student loans but empowering yourself and putting yourself in a position that I have done the work, I’ve done the research, and I know that this one option is best for me. And now, you’re on the trajectory to get those paid off or whatever the plan might be around forgiveness as well. I can also speak, Tim Church, as I think about the forgiveness and costing, I think you and I did the calculation the same weekend we were together, but also PSLF-eligible, and as I tell many people, for me, wandering into the standard 10-year repayment plan, keeping my loans at 6.8% was probably the worst thing I could have done. You know, refinancing certainly would have been a better option than what I did, Public Service Loan Forgiveness would have been as well. Alright, so finding a student loan repayment strategy, and credit here to Tim Church, I can’t even count how many resources we have on the website around student loans. We have multiple podcast episodes, we talked about PSLF, we talked about the recent news with PSLF. And if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/ultimate, Tim Church wrote the blog post of all blog posts on how do you evaluate the strategy of choosing the best loan repayment option. We’ve got a quick-start guide on student loans, we’ve got calculators.

Tim Baker: We’ve got a quiz.

Tim Ulbrich: Got a quiz. So head on over to the website, YourFinancialPharmacist.com, where you can get started today. Alright, next one we have here as we continue to work through financial moves that every pharmacy graduate should be making is begin the process of investing in your company’s 401k, 403b, or TSP. So Tim Baker, talk us through briefly, if we’re thinking of a new graduate coming out, they start to work for an employer, find out that they have this retirement option, maybe they have a match, maybe they don’t, they’re probably asking themselves the question of, what do I do with this? Where do I begin? And how do I evaluate the balance against debt, emergency fund, and all these other things?

Tim Baker: Yeah, and sometimes, you don’t have to do anything. You know, President Obama was in office when they really started to put forth an auto-enroll feature. So a lot of the psychology behind that was we’re more likely to participate in something if we don’t have to opt into it. It’s more, given the option to opt out, it really pushes participation rates up. So for a lot of retirement plans, you know, you start with a job, and eureka! You’re starting to contribute after maybe a certain period of time, and you’re beginning to see a balance into a 401k, a TSP, a 403b, which is a great thing. And sometimes, you don’t even have to pick the funds yourself. It’s just a target date fund. So what I would say to this is absolutely, if you have access to a 401k or any type of retirement plan, get with your HR department and try to learn as much as you can about them. Sometimes, you’re not going to need to do anything, but the big question that I would ask is, what is the match? And that should be something that you probably should be evaluating as you’re looking at employers. So what is the match? And 9.5 out of 10 times, you should be at least contributing to the match. I don’t care if every other part of your financial house is on fire, most of the time, it’s free money, we talk about it. You want to be contributing up to the match. Now, if you do have, if you’re in a lot of trouble with credit card debt, and it’s almost too much to get out of, that might be a situation where you don’t do that. But at least contribute until you get the match, and then in terms of looking at the funds, that’s less important. It’s time in the market, not necessarily time in the market or picking the individual funds. That’s kind of next-level stuff that I do with clients. But you know, you’re going to want something that’s low-cost in terms of expense. You know, it might be out of the scope of this particular episode, but I would definitely look for things like index funds and that type of thing to really buy the market rather than try to beat the market.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I think Dave Ramsey probably would fundamentally disagree with what we’re saying right now because —

Tim Ulbrich: Is he listening, do you think?

Tim Baker: Maybe.

Tim Church: Because we’re basically saying that most people should be in the match, regardless of your student loan debt. I think one of the caveats is that if you look at the amount of student loans that the typical graduate’s going to have, it’s not going to be a quick fix in one year, two years. I mean, we’re talking this could be a decade-long, maybe a little bit longer or could be a little bit faster, depending on the track you’re on. But the big thing is you can’t go backwards in time and get the match and make up for those years that it was available to you. So I think that’s really big. And then the other point that I would make is depending on what student loan repayment strategy you go in, that if you’re in PSLF and you’re all-in or you’re even doing the non-PSLF forgiveness, you may actually be going way in on your 401k, your 403b, because by doing that, you can actually lower your adjusted gross income, which ultimately will lower your income-driven repayments that you have to make and so you can basically be simultaneously be building some incredible wealth while you’re paying off your student loans.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so that’s kind of like, the next step in terms of an inventory of your loans, selecting a strategy and optimizing that strategy. Really, that’s what we’re talking about here is getting the most out of the strategy and from the forgiveness perspective, the more that you can into those pre-tax buckets that lower your overall adjusted gross income, the better. You’re paying your future self, but then you’re AGI, which lowers your payment and maximizes your forgiveness.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think what we’ve often seen with new graduates, new practitioners, is that evaluating what your options are inside of your retirement plan, you know, we talk about on the podcast about fees and asset allocation and calculating your next egg, and all that can quickly become very overwhelming, but I think your point is such a good one to emphasize. Again, get it started, take the match, begin to build that time for compound interest to work, certainly make an investment to learn more about this. And I’d point here too, we spent a lot of time really detailing — I think it was chapters 12, 13 and 14 of “Seven Figure Pharmacist” — all about investing. We tried to write it in a very fundamental, basic way of understanding the strategy, but just beginning that education, whether it’s “Seven Figure,” the podcast or some other resource, making that commitment to long-term knowledge. And I think investing is one piece. But not letting that component of, hey, I don’t have all the knowledge, be a barrier to start in the first place. OK, the last one I want to talk about before we wrap up here, since we have the king of side hustles here, Tim Church, is for new graduates to be thinking about considering a side hustle. And Tim, you’ve done an awesome job with the podcast, the side hustle series. We’ll link in the show notes to an article, “14 Practical Ways to Make Extra Money as a Pharmacist in 2019.” But why should a pharmacy graduate today be thinking about a side hustle?

Tim Church: It’s a great question. And I think in 2019, a lot of things are changing with pharmacy, in terms of the job market. A lot of pharmacists are experiencing pay cuts because, you know, what’s considered full-time may be cut down to 30-some hours. And so I think that’s one of the things that is why people are getting more excited about this topic, but I think it’s really risky in no matter what job that you have, to really rely on one income source. And I’m not saying that every single person needs to go out and have eight jobs. But I think it’s important to look at other ways to diversify how you’re getting that income. We have a great blog post on there called “14 Practical Ways to Make Extra Money in 2019,” so if you go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com and you click on “Make More Money,” there’s some suggestions there. But a lot of them are pharmacist-related, so really taking the skills and the knowledge that you already have and kind of utilizing that to look for other ways to bring value and eventually bring income. But I think also, one of the things that I would have you consider is really looking at do you have other skills even outside of pharmacy that you can monetize?

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely. And I think one of the things that doesn’t get talked about enough with a side hustle is just an opportunity, you know, some of the things could be creative outlets, they could be things that you’re passionate about, and some certainly make more money than others. But you know, what is that worth? And what is that value of having that opportunity to create and to be innovative and to think of some entrepreneurial opportunities? So I would agree, and we won’t get on the career soapbox right now, we’ll save that for a later date. But I think that in 2019, I’m not sure — and at least as long as we’ve been in the profession, you know, for 10-15 years — I’m not sure there’s a better time to be taking some entrepreneurial risk than there is right now. You look at some salary compression, you look at a healthcare market that’s very complex, when you put any of those two together, that means it’s ripe for innovation and entrepreneurship. And so I think we’ve been in a period where pharmacists have been very comfortable in their salary, and I think that often diminishes the need to feel like they need to take some risk, but I think we’re seeing that changing. And while that may be a difficult period, I think there’s some excitement to be had there as well. So again, make sure to head on over to the website, YourFinancialPharmacist.com. As Tim mentioned, we’ve got a section on that about “Make More Money.” We’ve got the side hustle series on the podcast. And the last thing we would mention here is in avoiding lifestyle creep. And we talked about it in Episode 098 of the podcast, but I think it’s just fundamentally important for every graduate, new practitioner and I think in general to be thinking about it. What can you be doing to avoid lifestyle creep? And when we talk about retirement savings and contributions, at the end of the day, your expenses is really what drives much of that. So what can you be doing to live off less than you make and be balancing the things we talked about on that last episode of taking care of your future self but also enjoying some things today?

Tim Baker: Yeah, I think one of the things to highlight here is, you know, there’s probably a lot of people out there that are listening that are saying, “OK, Tim and Tim and Tim, you want me to have a huge emergency fund, and you want me to pay off my credit card debt, and you want me to buy disability insurance. There’s a long laundry list of things that you’re saying I need to do. How am I supposed to do that?” And you know, I think the thing that I enjoy about working with students and residents who are in that transition process is guess what? Like you’re a resident, you’re making $40,000, you’re probably going to be making quite a bit more in the coming months when you kind of transition away from residency. Or if you’re a P4, and you’re going to work for a community pharmacist or whatever that looks like, you’re going to be making more than you’re going to make as a student. So let’s imagine a world where you’re not making $110,000 or $120,000. You’re making $70,000. You’re making $80,000. And these goals and these things that we want to check off become a lot more workable, a lot more manageable. And that really requires some doing. It requires some — what we essentially are doing is stepping into the income. And we’re paying ourself first in the emergency fund, checking off the block with the disability. We’re building that into the budget because what often happens is that we go and we say, man, I’m going to get that large new apartment, I’m going to drive the Beamer, I’m going to do all those things. And then it’s like, oh, I need an emergency fund. Oh, I need to pay $120 a month for my disability policy? And it’s so much harder to go back. So if we can step into it — and this is like, remember when we were talking to USC this time last year, whatever it was, I was like imploring, I was like, this is for you P4s, you know, this is a perfect time to really put a plan together and be intentional and step into the income because it’s so much harder to go backward in that spending behavior.

Tim Church: Yeah, and I think it’s a great opportunity to basically let people know about your services and what you’re doing because I think one of the things that you do really well is you take all of these things and you help break it down for people in a way that’s easy to digest because I think it can be really overwhelming. I mean, I know when I was graduating and trying to figure this out, I didn’t figure it out at first. I made a ton of mistakes, and then it cost me, you know, doing that. So I think if you’re somebody who feels like just overwhelmed with all these different moves that we’re recommending that you make, I think you should definitely reach out to Tim Baker and book a call. See if you guys are a good fit. Not everybody is going to be a good fit, and not everybody needs that extra attention. But if you’re somebody who feels that way or just interested in learning more, I think it’s a great opportunity to do that. And if you want to book a free call, you can do that YFPPlanning.com.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So we’ve covered I think six or so of the 20 financial moves that you talk about in that blog post. Again, we’ll link to that in the show notes. It’s YourFinancialPharmacist.com/20. So if you’re a regular listener, maybe you’re not a graduating student, maybe you’re not a new practitioner or a year or two out, do us a favor, share this with somebody that maybe you have somebody, a student on rotation, maybe you know a student, an intern that you work with, but you know, one of the most common things we hear is hey, I wish I would have known these things sooner. And that’s exactly what this list of 20 is all about. So as always, we appreciate you, the YFP community. Thank you so much for taking time to listen. If you like what you heard on this week’s episode of the podcast, please head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts each and every week, leave us a review. We’d love to have a rating as well. And certainly we hope you will join us on next week’s episode, Episode 100 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast.

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