YFP 051: 8 Things to Do or Avoid to Evade Financial Purgatory After Graduation


 

On Episode 51 of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast, YFP Team Member Tim Baker, CFP talks the 8 things to do or avoid to evade financial purgatory after graduating from pharmacy school.

  1. Behavioral Financial – Be On Your Best Behavior
  2. Goal Setting – Know Where You Want to Go
  3. I’m Bringing Budgets Back
  4. Have A Plan For Your Debt – Enroll In Our Student Loan Course
  5. Emergency Fund (Get It Started)
  6. Major Purchases – Treat Yo’self (Just Not With A House Or A Car)
  7. Investment – Getting Started At Least With Your Employer Match
  8. Insurance – Beware, But Be Covered

Mentioned On The Show

Episode Transcript

Tim Baker: What’s up, everybody? Welcome to Episode 051 of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Tim Baker here, flying solo, I think for the first time. I guess when you hit Episode 050, I guess we’ve made, so we’ve only sent one Tim to the mic. But all kidding aside, I am happy to be here to host today, and I really want to speak to the recent graduates out there because of I think how important this particular time is in life and in your financial life and in general. So it got me thinking, Tim Ulbrich and I were out at the University of Southern California, speaking to the, basically the entire rising P1s and P3s and the recent graduating class who was hard at work studying for their boards and took some time to listen to Tim Ulbrich and I speak about personal finance. And I’ve got to give USC a shoutout, a well deserved shoutout, to Dr. Park, Carolina and Rocio, I think it was, our stay there and our interaction — Tim Ulbrich and I were excited to come speak, and I think we left even more fired up after our engagement with the students. Super impressive group across the board, and it really got me thinking, especially after talking to the recent graduating class about how important this time is for them. And it really sets the pace. And you know, my work with pharmacists across the country, oftentimes I speak with pharmacists who are five, six, seven years out or more, and they feel like they have nothing to show for it. And I mean, think about even Tim Ulbrich and Tim Church, kind of both admit to, you know, what happened to them after graduation. They were basically kind of sputtering a bit and not really sure how to approach the loans and, you know, not much in the way of making a dent in the debt, maybe a little saved. And I think what often happens is that the pharmacy salary or the promise of that six-figure salary lures you into thinking that everything will be OK because really, you know, as a student, you’re not really making anything. And the promise of making $120,000 soon, you know, once you pass your boards that is, it’ll figure itself out. And that tends not to be the case in a lot of ways. So hopefully, you know, if you are a recent grad, if you’re transitioning to a six-figure income or maybe to a residency program, or if you are a new practitioner and you feel like you’ve been sputtering and this really hits a chord that it’ll prompt you to change course and to right the ship in a sense and get your financial plan in order and really get that moving.

So one of the things that, you know, we discuss often is that, you know, pharmacists on average will make $9 million over the course of your career. $6 million will actually flow through your bank account. So think about that. That’s a lot of money, and I often say to pharmacists, ‘So what are we going to do about it?’ You know, and obviously if you’re transitioning to a residency program, and that might be a little bit of a delayed bird, and that’s OK. And you’re not going to have as much flexibility here as maybe a counterpart that is going, that is foregoing the residency. But I think it’s still important to kind of be mindful of the income that’s going to be coming in.

So back in Episode 035, I had Dr. Sarah Fallaw, who owns Data Points. And basically, that’s a tool that I use that manages a client’s behavior. And it’s based on the research that her father did, Dr. Thomas Stanley, who wrote “The Millionaire Next Door,” and essentially what he studied was that there are really six major factors of the millionaire next door is the people that have achieved a net worth of $1 million or more. You know, there are behavioral factors that come into play that really play a part into achieving that type of wealth. In the episode, we talk about those factors — basically, frugality, confidence, responsibility, focus, planning and monitoring and social indifferent. And these are all factors that play a part and that can be measured versus your peer group. A lot of what I do, you know, is not necessarily — or the value that I provide clients is not really in the order of, ‘Hey, Tim, where should I invest this money? What mutual fund or ETF should I pick? Or what insurance policy should I have?’ And those things are important, but they’re very technical. I think the overarching part of this whole financial planning piece is the behavior, is how we behave. So the message to a recent graduate is be on your best behavior. School is out, you are fixing to make a sizeable income, and not to go nuts. And I use nuts facetiously, but you know, the tendency as humans is that if there is an abundant resource, we’ll spend it. And that could be true as that paycheck flows through your account, you feel that, man, I have a lot of money, what can I buy? What can I purchase? And in the age of social media where everyone’s getting a new car and a big house and taking these trips — and those things are important, and those things, some of those things are important. Those things should be baked into your financial plan. You know, the social indifference part of it is that you’re not going to get caught up in the FOMO or the YOLO of things. And to be honest, I would say that you should, you just graduated, you should treat yourself. You should be able to splurge some and celebrate those wins. But do it in a way that is purposeful, that is maybe not long lasting. So don’t go out and buy, you know, a $50,000 car that you might not be able to afford because that one’s tough to get out from under, and now you’re stuck with that car payment. But I think the behavior is such a big part of this.

So aside from being on your best behavior, think about your goals. And it sounds trivial, and it sounds really not that important, but when I interviewed Tim Ulbrich and Jessica Ulbrich back in Episode 032 and 033 where we talked about find your why, these are often questions that we don’t ask ourselves or we don’t talk about with our spouse or our partner. And we should. And sometimes it’s just life gets busy, and we really don’t take the time to say, where am I going? Why did I go to school and get this degree? And why am I taking this job to earn this money? Like what’s the point? And I often say to clients, you know, because the way that I work with clients and the way that I price my services is based on the client’s income and net worth. And you know, because I think that is the best way to measure basically financial health and progress. And I think it has the least amount of conflicts of interest with regard to giving sound advice. But it’s flawed in a sense that if we work together for 30 years, and I help that client their nest egg number of $5 million or $6 million or whatever the heck it is and they can comfortably retire, but they’re miserable because they haven’t done things that they wanted to do throughout life like hike Machu Picchu or do that European trip or maybe have a family or buy this house or whatever it is, what’s the point? You know, what’s the point of that? And I think it’s a constant exercise in taking care of the present self and looking to the horizon and making sure that we’re taking care of the 30-year or 40-year-older self as well. And I often think that like if you don’t feel that push and pull, you’re probably not doing it right. And I think that’s the same with budgeting, the evil b-word. If you’re not feeling kind of the push and pull — and I think if you’re doing effective budgeting, you’re creating a sense of scarcity because you’re doing the things, you know, the proverbial things like paying yourself first, which is easier in theory, harder in practice.

So in terms of your goal, we subscribe to the what, when and why method. So that basically means that we have statements that basically look like this: “I will x by y so that z.” So what, when and why. So an example of that would be “I will save $5,000 by December 31, 2018 so I can protect my financial plan from an emergency.” That’s a pretty good one. And that actually might not be a bad one — obviously, this is not advice — but that might not be a bad one to look at. But I think another part of this — and we talk about this often is like, you know, think about your goals. But how do you feel about them? Like when you think about — obviously, the elephant in the room is student debt. And you might have heard us talk about student debt once or twice on this podcast. How do you feel about the debt? How do you feel about being able to retire at age 50 or 60? Or how do you feel about the prospect of hustling over the next few years to get through the debt? Or the prospect of investing and watching your, basically your nest egg grow? I think often that we try to — and I say we, maybe it’s my profession or whatever — but we try to out-math you and say, well, time value money and blah blah blah. And that stuff is important, but like if I have clients that are like, I can’t sleep or I’m anxious because these student loans are just gnawing at me, well, let’s do something about it. Let’s be proactive. And you know, the math might say one thing. But that doesn’t mean that that has to be our path. So really think about how you feel and you know, challenge yourself. What are 3-5 financial goals you can write down today and realistically achieve in the next five years? And what I often do with clients, and I think we did on the episodes with the Ulbrichs was transport yourself to that time in the future. So if you’re 26, and you’re thinking five years, uh, I don’t know. I don’t know what I would do in five years, think about it as if you’re 31. And then look back as a 31-year-old and think about that half a decade that just went by, and ask yourself, what does success look like? And I think if you can kind of start with the end in mind and look back, it makes it a little easier to do. I think.

So think about your goals. And really, the next step — and man, I’m going to say it. I’m going to beat the horse dead once again. But it’s the budget. It’s all about that budget. And you know, I think for people that have big, hairy, audacious goals or that — and one of them might be to get through the student debt as fast as possible. One might be to basically be in a position where they can retire comfortably early. It really could be anything. But really take the time — and you know, if you are a pharmacist that recently graduated, hopefully — you know, when we were talking to USC, a lot of their students, they were about ready to go to their residency, and obviously they knew what they were going to make or they had jobs from whether it was community pharmacy lined up, and they had offer letters. So you more or less get a sense of what you are potentially taking home every month. So determine that take-home pay. You know, do some calculations of what will come out because of taxes and different, you know, whether it’s health insurance or all that type of stuff. And then really next is determine what your essential expenses are. So in my world, we call these nondiscretionary monthly expenses. So these are things that are going to come out regardless of if you have a job or not. So things like your student debt payment. That could be argued because if you do have financial hardship, a lot of times, both with your federal loans and even if you were to do a private refi, a lot of those situations, you can get some reprieve. But I probably would calculate it as such. The essential expenses are going to be things like your mortgage or your rent, groceries, utilities, cell phone bill. We can’t live without our cell phone, right? So take a tabulation or make a list of all those expenses and add them up. And then really the next thing is to take and determine your discretionary expenses, so that could be entertainment like Netflix, Hulu, going to the movies, things that if it were to hit the fan, you probably could cut. And then from there, you can essentially determine what is left over, which is your disposable income. And by the way, part of what the essential expense probably should be is savings. So savings is actually categorized as an expense because you are foregoing immediate consumption. So what I often do with clients, and I do it with their client portal, we’ll do a retroactive budget. It’s one of the first meetings we go through. If we determine that, hey, we have $10,000 flowing through our account, and we can see it because of all the transactions and then we can see all the stuff that’s basically flowing out of their account, the exercise is basically to show if we have $10,000 flowing into our account, we essentially should have $10,000 flowing out. And that’s what’s called a 0-based budget. So every dollar has a job. And part of that $10,000 flowing out is hopefully savings. So if we determine after we go line-by-line through every part of their budget that, hey, the expenses actually add up to $9,000, then that tells me that we have $1,000 either to maybe put towards their loans, maybe if they have credit card debt, that would probably be the first thing we do. Maybe it’s to plus up their emergency fund or just savings in general. So we talk about sinking funds, and that’s kind of for those non-monthly expenses that pop up like home maintenance or car maintenance or things like that that aren’t necessarily an emergency, but they happen. So that’s essentially what that looks like. And I think, you know, and we talk about this in our student loan course. In module 1, Tim Ulbrich goes through this. I think having that disposable income number, knowing your number is so powerful because it really can dictate, you know, exactly where to go and how to fund your financial plan. I really encourage to do this, and you can use a napkin, you can use Excel, you can use something like Mint or YNAB or envelopes, that’s what Tim Ulbrich used when he paid off his debt. So I think if you have that number, you can very purposely apply what that disposable income is towards your goals.

And secondarily, you know, in talking, you might be a resident out there, and believe me, in the student loan course, we ran what a typical resident makes, and honestly, there’s not much left over. So I think when we looked at that — now, you’ll get a reprieve if you do look at an income-driven plan, obviously. And that’s one of the things to be aware of too. So if you’re a resident, there’s not a whole lot to work with, so I think the name of the game in that is really to kind of hold on and not incur additional credit card debt and really come out when you transition to that six-figure income ready to go. But the next part — and I’ll speak to residents on this part too — is really have a plan for your debt.

So the first one I would definitely look at is the credit card debt. And I’m finding more and more new practitioners, when I speak to them, have said that they’re leaving school or they’re taking on credit card debt during school. And that’s one thing that even before we get serious with the student loans, the credit card debt gots to go. Secondarily, having a plan for your student debt, obviously is super important. Properly inventorying your loans, whether your federal loans or private loans, and then really selecting the appropriate strategy and repayment plan. So the two broad strokes in terms of strategy are the forgiveness option and the non-forgiveness option. And you know, basically the forgiveness option can be broken down by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which obviously can be very controversial. But you can also be forgiven — a lot of people don’t know this — outside of that program. And they’re a little bit different of programs, but if you are a resident and you think that you’re working for the nonprofit or a government entity, starting the clock on that PSLF, that 10-year program, should happen for jump street, should happen immediately. And that’s one of the things that we discuss in the student loan course is how to really optimize that if you are in that situation. We have a lesson just for that. But if you’re in a non-forgiveness strategy, so you look at the forgiveness strategy and you say, thanks government, thanks, but no thanks, I think I’m going to do it on my own. And really this is probably more of a proactive. The problem with the forgiveness programs is they are more of a reactive. You’re kind of hoping and crossing your fingers that the programs will be around. And I think that they will be around in terms of at least being grandfathered in, that’s Tim Baker’s opinion based on some of the things that I’ve seen come out recently. And we probably can do a whole different episode on that. So if you listen to the podcast, and you’re part of our Facebook group, if that’s something that you want us to talk about, the PSLF program, the state of that, I can kind of give some thoughts and we can probably do an episode just around that. But if you’re in a forgiveness strategy, it’s more reactive, and you’re hoping, OK, government. Please follow through on the things that you said that you do. And if you’re in the non-forgiveness strategy, it’s more, OK, taking the bull by the horns, being more proactive and not necessarily be where you’re paying off $8,000-10,000 per month like we’ve seen some of our debt-free pharmacists do, but there’s a spectrum that you can fit in depending on what your disposable income number is and whether that is staying in the standard repayment plan or looking at one of our partners that does the private refinancing. There’s a lot of different ways to kind of, to look at it, and you know, you just want to make sure that you have a purpose. So I often see a lot of pharmacists, they say, ‘You know, when I got through pharmacy school, you know, I knew I couldn’t make the standard repayment plan, so I decided to go into IBR or ICR,’ and that’s one of the income-driven plans that’s out there and maybe not necessarily one of the best ones. But there’s really no intent behind it. And you know, I think oftentimes, what I see is people that are, borrowers that are kind of in between. And I think what we espouse in our course is that you need to really be either pursuing a forgiveness option or pursuing a non-forgiveness option and really fly one of those two flags. If you’re kind of in the middle, you’re in no mans land or no persons land, to be politically correct. So if you are a new graduate, and you’re hearing me talk about loans, and you’re looking for some clarity, like I mentioned, the student loan course for pharmacists is out, and it’s ready for you to sign up, so visit courses.yourfinancialpharmacist.com to enroll. And really, it’s a three-module course, each module taught by a different Tim. So Module 1, we start you off with getting organized, so doing a proper inventory of your loans, walking you through loan basics, the total cost of loans, budgeting. I teach Module 2, which is determine your payoff strategies. I walk you through exactly the two main strategies and where you potentially fit. I throw in some case studies, and also, there’s one lesson that is targeted just for residents. And then finally, Tim Church wraps it up with Module 3, which is optimizing your payoff strategy. So the course is chocked full of goodies and resources and really, when you are done taking the course, you should walk away with clarity and confidence about how to tackle your loans. So again, go to courses.yourfinancialpharmacist.com to enroll.

The next thing to really discuss is having an emergency fund. So the textbooks say — the emergency fund is basically liquid assets, we’re talking cash money, that is set aside for those unexpected, I can’t believe that actually happened and I need to spend money, events. And what the textbook says is that you need to have 3-6 months of those nondiscretionary or essential expenses. So if you’ve done your budget, thank you very much for doing your budget, but you should know that number. So as an example, if your loan payment is $1,500, and your rent is $1,000, and you are single, what that means is that you should have six months, — because if you’re single, you should have six months. If you are a dual income household, you should have three months, and there’s shades of gray in between. But if you were single and your rent and your loan payment combined are $2,500, multiple that by 6. Congrats, you need $15,000 to cover that. And that’s not even — that’s just covering that — that’s not even the groceries, the utilities, all those things. But you can see how much potentially you need for an emergency fund. So I guess what I want to say here and what I often say to clients is this is what the textbook says. But if you are looking at aggressively paying off loans or depending on where you’re at on the spectrum, you don’t have to basically build Rome in a day. Work towards $5,000. $5,000 will probably cover 75% of emergencies out there, maybe. Work towards $10,000. $10,000 will probably cover 90% of emergencies, maybe. So I think — so this is kind of what I have when I build plans out is have conversations, ask good questions of the clients, of my clients. And then basically say, OK, let’s phase this in. So Phase 1, by the time we get to this level of emergency fund, then we’ll work more aggressively toward this other goal and the next level. So don’t get discouraged, but having a properly funded emergency fund is super important to this whole thing, this whole financial picture.

The next thing that I want to mention that is attributed to a lot of the lifestyle creep that I see, not just with young pharmacists but also young professionals in general — so really what I’m talking about here are car purchases and home purchases. Now, Tim Ulbrich did an excellent job going through car buying in Episode 047, so if you haven’t listened to that, take a listen. So I won’t spend too much time on car buying. But you know, I would just say, and what I say often to young professionals and sometimes have to say this to myself is, you know, once you go in high-end Beamer, Lexus, Audi, it’s really hard to go back. So I’m not trying to dampen the spirit here, but you don’t have to have your dream car — and frankly, you don’t have to have your dream home — right off the bat, especially if you’re staring at $160,000, $250,000, whatever that is, that student debt picture. So because — and I know from experience working with some clients, they go out and they make that purchase, and those cars, they just depreciate so fast. So even if they want to get out of it, you know, they’re underwater, and now they’re stuck with an $800 car payment, and that’s no bueno. So really think long and hard before that happens. What “The Millionaire Next Door” says is that most people that achieve that $1 million net worth, they’re thinking that some other sucker, maybe — can we say sucker? — some other sucker is going to buy a car new, take that depreciation, and then the millionaire is going to come in three, four, five years later and buy that car when most of the depreciation has come off. So just a think to kind of marinate on.

You know, the other thing in terms of major purchases is the house purchase, the home purchase. And same thing with the car, you don’t have to buy your dream home right away. If you are faced with a massive amount of student debt, essentially, you’re broke. So to add another $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, that’s a lot of debt. So we’re a big believer in having as much money that you can bring to the table with regard to a home purchase. PMI, Private Mortgage Insurance, it doesn’t put any equity into your house. It just basically evaporates money from your balance sheet. You know, I think obviously, a very small percentage of people can come to the table — I think it’s like 10% come to the table with that 20% down payment. I would listen back to when we had Nate Hedrick on Episode 040 and 041 where we talk about home buying, that it’s important cash is king with this, it’s important to come to the table and really think about that. And I think if you can set the target of 20%, it really will force down your purchase price. So obviously, if you are looking at a $300,000 house — and I know those students out at USC are laughing at me right now — but if you’re looking at a purchase price of $300,00, that essentially means that you need to save $60,000. So maybe that $300,000 purchase becomes a $250,000 purchase. The point is is that what often happens is when you look at the decision to buy a house, I think sometimes we as a de facto because we’re told that the American dream is to purchase a home and build equity, that it’s almost like our birthright. And it really isn’t. It really isn’t. I think it’s something that should be done responsibly. And one of the tools that we talked about in our recent talk is that, you know, a $1,500 rent payment does not equal to a $1,500 mortgage payment because you need to factor in things like taxes and fees and closing costs and all that stuff, the maintenance of the home. And the New York Times has a great calculator that we’ll link in the show notes that basically looks at all those variables and basically tells you, you know, if we look at the purchase price, the interest rate, how long you plan to stay in the house, taxes, all that stuff, that there’s a break-even point that basically, the calculator will show it makes sense to buy or it makes sense to rent. So the word of caution here is not Debby Downer, but it’s just to think of that purchase not necessarily as an investment, because it’s really not. I think a home that you live in shouldn’t really be thought of as an investment. And again, once you sign those papers and you’re on the hook for a $2,000, $2,500, $3,000 mortgage payment, you really limit yourself in terms of flexibility with other parts of your financial plan.

So another thing to keep in mind is investment. So if your employer provides a match, absolutely should be matching that and getting the full match. Oftentimes though, what happens is I see people start a new job, they are delayed because they have to be at a job for a certain amount of time, maybe it’s six or 12 months, and then all of a sudden they’re like, well, I really like this paycheck, maybe I won’t put money into my 401k. And during that time when you’re not eligible for that 401k, you have that lifestyle creep. You buy the house or the car, and it doesn’t make sense for you. You’re basically, you’re capped out, and it’s hard for you to defer money into that 401k. So that’s something to be mindful during that period before you become eligible. And I would say, bank it in a savings account just like you were deferring it into a 401k.

The other thing to be mindful of is really what’s called 401k inertia. So if you’re employer matches 3%, you know, absolutely you should try to match 3% without question. What often happens is that it anchors the person to that 3%, whereas in reality what I tell clients, it’s kind of a race to 10%. You want to be — when we do those nest egg calculations, you need to be deferring some money away, stocking some money away for that 30-year-older self. So don’t get anchored down by that 401k match, whether it’s 3%, 5%, 6%, and just be mindful of that. And a lot of 401k’s now, you can basically build in like a percent increase every year, and I would totally tell you to do that. Just schedule it, 1, 2%, start that as soon as possible.

So the last part I want to mention is insurance. So the message here is beware, but be covered. So the two that I want to really discuss here is life insurance and disability insurance. And we’ve talked about life insurance in Episode 044 and disability insurance in Episode 045, and you know, I think that these are a crucial part of the financial plan. And really, we talk a lot about accumulation and growth of your assets and of your net worth. This is really the protection of that. And I think that is equally important.

So a few points about life insurance. If you are a new graduate, and perhaps you’re single, you don’t have a family, you don’t own a house, you probably don’t need insurance or you probably don’t need that much insurance. Pharmacists are often targeted, particularly with life insurance, because of the incomes that pharmacists make. And on numerous occasions, when I work with pharmacists, sometimes I have to unwind some of the policies that are sold them. And what I mean by that is you know, at YFP, we believe that term — if you do buy insurance, term life insurance is the best way to go. It’s pure insurance, which basically means that there’s no savings or investment component. It covers you for a period of time. So it could be 20, 25 or 30 years. And if you don’t die during that time, which hopefully you don’t, basically at the end of that term, it expires. It’s essentially done its job. Whole life or what’s called permanent insurance or variable life or universal insurance, there’s different types of permanent insurance out there, essentially, it is part insurance and part savings or investment. And typically, these types of insurance policies are five, six, seven times more expensive than a term policy. And I think that they are often, you know, they’re better for the person or the salesperson that is selling it than it is for the person, the pharmacist in this case, that is buying it. Life insurance I think is crucial. And just to kind of give you a sense of what a policy costs, you know, general rule of thumb — and I think we talk about this in Episode 044 — is 10-12 times income is essentially probably what you need. Say you make $100,000, you need basically $1 million to $1.2 million. So a healthy 30-year-old, so just to kind of give you a sense, so think 30/30/30. So a healthy 30-year-old who purchases a term life insurance policy for 30 years, basically will pay between $30-35 for that policy. So you know, double that, between $60-70 will probably cover you. And the sooner that you get it, obviously, so maybe you don’t have kids, but you want coverage. The sooner you get it, every year that goes by, those premiums go up about 8-10%. So you know, obviously, life insurance is crucial.

Disability insurance probably even more so, especially for you new grads out there. As we mentioned, $9 million over the course of your career, that’s what you’re going to make. You spend lots of time, lots of blood, sweat and tears to get your PharmD, to get licensed, to get going. You’re going to want to protect that. Having a policy to cover you — and we talk about this in Episode 045, and I encourage you to listen if you haven’t listened to that — is important. And to kind of give you an idea, if you were to buy a long-term disability policy on your own to cover 60% of your income, which is kind of best practice, you’re going to spend probably about $120-150 per month to get coverage. Now, some of you are going to be covered by your employer. So we often say that you should get a supplemental insurance policy to basically cover the gap because most employers won’t cover a full 60%, so you should get a full policy that covers that gap with the ability, what’s called a rider, to buy up in case you were to go to a job that doesn’t have that full disability policy. And the same thing with life insurance. Some of you are going to have life insurance through your employer, and it might be one or two times income, and you really don’t even have to do anything to opt into that, it’s just automatic. But oftentimes, it’s going to be far below what you actually need to be fully covered. And it’s also good to have a portable life insurance policy that basically doesn’t matter where you’re working to have that coverage.

You know, we covered a lot of ground here. And you know, and again, you know, the timing here is crucial. What you’ll do here in the next one, two, three years will really set the tone for your financial life and the outlook going forward. So you know, be on your best behavior. Think about what your goals are. Have a budget in mind. Make sure you have some type of emergency fund in place. Have a plan for your debt, whether it’s the credit cards or the student loan debt. You know, be mindful of how much you’re spending on those major purchases. Cash is king. Get into the investment game, whether that’s just taking the match on your 401k to start, that’s good. And cover yourself, but beware. So you know, life insurance policies and disability policies are important.

So you know, the Tim Baker challenge, you know, what are you going to do? What is your plan? If you’ve listened to this episode, and you’ve written down 3-5 of your goals that you’re going to achieve in the next five years, tag me on our Facebook group, call me out and say, ‘Hey, Tim. This is the plan.’ And you don’t have to be a new grad or a pharmacist. I encourage you if you haven’t done this yourself, put it out there. I will respond, and we can have a conversation about that. But I’m so happy that you guys joined me this podcast. It was a blast doing it by myself and looking forward to next time.

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