redefine retirement

YFP 347: Redefining Retirement with David Zgarrick, Ph.D. (YFP Classic)

Posted on by YFP Media

Dr. David Zgarrick, retired professor, redefines retirement after 30+ years in academia and shares insights on embracing a fulfilling post-pharmacy life.

Episode Summary

This week on the YFP Podcast, we revisit a classic. On episode #291, YFP Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, welcomed Dr. David Zgarrick, a Professor Emeritus of Northeastern University, to the show to discuss redefining retirement. Some highlights from the episode include Dr. Zgarrick sharing his views on his next phase in life, after 30+ years in academia, as a preferment phase of his career. He shares how and why he started planning for his financial future early on in his life and career and hands down advice for new pharmacy graduates facing competing financial priorities. Throughout the discussion, listeners will hear Dr. Zgarrick speak on standout moments from his pharmacy career, the impact his financial choices have had on that journey, and ultimately his decision to enter this preferment stage of his career. He shares excitement for retirement and this next phase of his life, what he means by a preferment phase, and how retirement can be an opportunity to experience a rich, fulfilling life outside of pharmacy without the guilt of competing responsibilities. Listen for helpful advice Dr. Zgarrick took from his financial advisor regarding his first year of retirement and how factoring in a cross-country move played a role in his retirement and financial plan.

About Today’s Guest

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

Key Points from the Episode

Why David views the next phase of life after 30+ years in academia, not as a retirement, but rather, as a preferment phase of his career.
How and why he started planning financially early in his career to put himself in a position of having choice.
Advice he has for new grads that are facing the financial headwind of many competing priorities including student loans, saving for the future, and buying a home.

Episode Highlights

“I think when one thinks about getting to this stage in a career, I mean, there’s been so much that’s been rewarding and interesting about the work that I do. But like anyone, none of our career paths or jobs are perfect. They all come with sometimes things that we would just assume not be doing. Or the longer we’ve been doing something, we get to know ourselves pretty well.” – David Zgarrick, Ph.D.

“Money is a means to an end. It is not an end in and of itself. The same as our career. We have to think of our career path as a means to an end. Not the end in and itself.” – David Zgarrick, Ph.D.

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

“We have money and we manage our money because we want to be able to live a life that’s meaningful to us. And however that is, I’m not here to judge how one spends their money or what one does with their money. So long as you’ve got the money to be able to do it, that’s our choices. It’s your choices to be able to do that how you wish.” – David Zgarrick, Ph.D.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

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

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

Now, before we jump into the show, I recognize that many listeners may not be aware of what the team at YFP planning does and working one-on-one with more than 280 households in 40-plus states. YFP planning offers fee-only high-touch financial planning that is customized to the pharmacy professional. If you’re interested in learning more about how working one-on-one with a certified financial planner may help you achieve your financial goals, you can book a free discovery call at yfpplanning.com.

Whether or not YFP planning’s financial planning services are a good fit for you, know that we appreciate your support of this podcast and our mission to help pharmacists achieve financial freedom.

Okay, let’s jump on my interview with professor emeritus Dr. Dave Zgarrick.

[INTERVIEW]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[00:43:45] TU: Absolutely.

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

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

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

[OUTRO]

[00:44:01] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

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

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

[END]

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YFP 079: Is It Time to Redefine Retirement?

Posted on by yfpadmin

Is It Time to Redefine Retirement?

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

About Today’s Guest

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

Mentioned on the Show

Script Financial
Young Professional’s Guide to a Year Off
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term Travel by Rolf Potts
How to Travel the World: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter by Matt Kepnes
Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money – That The Poor and the Middle Class Do Not by Robert T. Kiyosaki
YFP 032: Find Your Why (Part 1) – 3 Life Planning Questions w/ Tim & Jess Ulbrich
YFP 033: Find Your Why (Part 2) – The Path to Success w/ Tim & Jess Ulbrich
Year Off Blog: The 7 Financial Steps to a Year Off
Year Off Blog: Calculate Your Year Off Age

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

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

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

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

Tim Ulbrich: It might have been 2, right?

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

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

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

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome.

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I remember that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tim Ulbrich: Absolutely.

Nick Ornelia: You will have a great time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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