YFP 376: From Student Debt to Financial Freedom: How Brandon Paid Off $160k

Brandon Gerleman, PharmD shares the strategy for how he paid off $160k of debt.

This episode is brought to you by APhA.

Episode Summary

Brandon Gerleman, a 2017 pharmacy graduate from the University of Iowa, shares his journey of paying off $160k of debt through not one, not two, but five refinances along the way. Brandon discusses his repayment strategy, why he decided for a more aggressive loan payoff, and what’s next for him and his family. He emphasizes the importance of living within your means, being aware of finances, and the impact of interest rates on repayment strategies. Brandon and his wife are now looking toward the future and he shares what other financial goals they are preparing for.

About Today’s Guest

Brandon Gerleman, PharmD is a 2017 graduate of the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. He currently works as a Senior Product Manager on the Pharmacy Product Team at Outcomes, where he manages products to help pharmacists practice at the top of their training and provides tools to help drive pharmacy campaigns and increase efficiencies. After graduating in 2017 with $161,000 in student loan debt, he paid it off in May 2024. Brandon and his wife, Mariah, have 2 children and live in a rural community in Iowa. He enjoys spending time with his family, golfing, and watching Iowa Hawkeye football.

Key Points from the Episode

• Brandon’s Passion for Personal Finance 1:36
• Career Journey and Student Loan Debt 6:08
• Refinancing Strategy and Financial Discipline 9:29
• Balancing Financial Goals and Family Life 19:48
• Future Financial Plans and Legacy 28:59

Episode Highlights

“Within that entire last seven years, though, I’ll say that we lived within our means, but we weren’t crunching pennies. We’re not in some fancy house. We’re within our means here. We still go on vacations with the kids. We still do fun things with the kids.” – Brandon Gerleman [20:59]

“For me and my wife, it was just like, how can we tackle the student debt and take that off our shoulders to then enable us to do more things? And it’s all about the family, and it was like trying to prepare for the future that way.” – Brandon Gerleman [21:38]

“At the end of the day, the math is the math, and we weren’t so aggressive, where we couldn’t do things. And we weren’t so passive, where the dollars kept loading on. So I think it was finding that right balance.” – Brandon Gerleman [22:34]

“We want to be able to live in the moment and celebrate and do things with our kids. I love the word intentional. Be very intentional about what we’re doing. We can still splurge on a Starbucks every now and then, right? You can still do things while living within your means and being intentional about how we’re how we’re approaching our student loan debt payoff.” – Brandon Gerleman [24:50]

“We’re always learning, I feel like the more aware we are around what’s happening. That’s why I was listening to all these Your Financial Pharmacist Podcasts back in pharmacy school, on fourth year rotations, and ever since, it’s just being aware. It’s always learning. It’s asking questions and trying to put ourselves in the best position for success.” -Brandon Gerleman [30:25]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• Brandon Gerleman on LinkedIn
• APhA Membership Discount with coupon code YFP
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Planning
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• YFP on Instagram
• YFP Facebook Group
• Your Financial Pharmacist
• YFP Disclaimer
• YFP Newsletter

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich  00:00

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 welcome Brandon Gerleman onto the show, a 2017 pharmacy graduate from the University of Iowa and longtime listener of the YFP Podcast, to share his journey paying off $160,000 of debt through not one, not two, but five refinances along the way. We discuss his repayment strategy, why he decided for a more aggressive loan payoff, and what’s next for him and his family. Today’s episode of the YFP Podcast is brought to you by The American Pharmacists Association. APHA has partnered with YFP to deliver personalized financial education benefits for APHA members. Throughout the year, APHA will be hosting a number of exclusive webinars covering topics like student loan debt payoff strategies, home buying, investing, insurance needs and much more. Join APHA now to gain premier access to these educational resources and to receive discounts on YFP products and services. You can join APHA at a 25% discount by visiting pharmacist.com/join and using the coupon code YFP. Again, that’s coupon code YFP at pharmacist.com/join. All right, let’s jump into my debt free interview with Brandon Gerleman. 

Tim Ulbrich  01:26

Brandon, welcome to the show.

Brandon Gerleman  01:28

Hey. What’s going on?

Tim Ulbrich  01:29

Super excited to have you on. It’s been a while since we’ve done a debt free story and celebration. So I’m certainly looking forward to that. And you and I connected back in 2023 although, as we discussed before the interview, we had some connections before that we weren’t necessarily aware of. And at the time, I saw a post that you shared on LinkedIn of a pharmacy personal finance talk that you were giving to Iowa pharmacy students. So let’s start there. Where does your passion for personal finance come from?

Brandon Gerleman  01:59

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Definitely comes from being aware, and that, you know, just being aware of your situation, and it kind of spurs from  my parents really having that instilled, instilled that at a young age, and just being aware, you know, living within your means, having the ability to kind of see everything that that has come in and coming out, and yet again, just just that awareness issue and a little bit of that pharmacist, hey, I need to control a little bit of something here.

Tim Ulbrich  02:31

I love that. And you shared with me, you know, 2017, year you graduated, you were on APPE rotations, and you ran across the YFP podcast, which helped, in part, light a spark that you certainly took and ran with, and you’ve done the hard work, but I love that you’re now giving that back as well as you’re sharing with other students, and as you and I both know this is such a topic of interest and need among pharmacists at large, but certainly students and new practitioners. So thank you for your commitment to this topic, and as you continue to share the good news with students and others as well. Before we get into the weeds on your student loans and your Debt Free Journey, how you paid them off, why you paid them off, tell us about your career path, what led you into the profession, and what’s the work that you’ve been doing since graduating 2017. 

Brandon Gerleman  03:18

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Graduated in 2017. Prior to even getting into pharmacy school. I live here in a small town of 5,000 folks here in South Central Iowa, and really that independent community pharmacist and seeing the impact on what they did to the community. That sounds super cliche. You probably hear that a lot. I’m sure pharmacists talk about that a bunch. But the pharmacist at the independent community pharmacy uptown, like they were the, know it all for anything. It was, you know, drug related, it was, you know, any ailment related. It was, when’s the next bus come in? I mean, it was any question, you know, community events like they were just that go to resource. And I just, I just admired that and thought, gosh, I just, I like talking to people, love science. I think this could be a really good fit. Started working there as a pharmacist, you know, technician, tech and training prior when I was an undergrad and just ran, ran from there and never looked back. So graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 2017 and immediately ran back home, right. Came back to my hometown and was overseeing a lot of the clinical operations within the small pharmacy chain that we had here. And that was a really nice, fulfilling, you know, giving back to the community. Being involved in the community; was there for about two and a half years, and really had the mindset of wanting to impact more than just 5,000 in my community. So made the transition over to Outcomes MTM, where I could really help impact millions upon millions of patients. Patients, and help them with outcomes for about five years now, so been there ever since, worn a number of different hats within outcomes, been on the clinical team, been on the payer product team, and most recently, I’m on the pharmacy product team. So I’ve got a little bit of a non traditional pathway, A, B, current position, so I’m a senior product manager, and I oversee all the clinical pharmacy products for Outcomes, and so that that that involves or brings in anything from looking at our collaborative practice agreements and being on the clinical lens to review those, to writing pharmacy sponsored opportunities on the outcomes platform, to also writing clinical workflows that enable the pharmacist to, you know, to practice at the top of their license and submit as a medical bill. So really, anything clinical in the pharmacy, in pharmacy land from outcomes I oversee, and I absolutely love it. I sit with software engineers every single day, and they’re a tremendous group of folks and provide that clinical lens on a lot of what we’re doing. And it’s a very fulfilling position, a need position, and the ability to not only impact patients, but to increase efficiencies and provide more tools for pharmacists to impact even more patients and truly get that fulfilling, that point of patient care, that great, we’re in a state we can do test and treat. But what does that mean? Where do I start? What do I do? You know, how can I decrease my my risk of, you know, DIR fees, you know, how can I practice, you know, practice at the top of my license. So it’s a fun, fun position that I’m at. And been there, been been there, five years, five years now. 

Tim Ulbrich  06:48

Outcomes holds a special place for me, and I didn’t share this with you in advance, and I’m dating myself a little bit. And our listeners may not know this about my career path, but I graduated back in 2008 and I spent a year residency in community practice, and then my first job out of community practice was a shared academic role with the university up in Northeast Ohio. And then I was practice component was with a local community regional chain. Giant Eagle is the name of the chain, and we were implementing medication management services across the region. That was my job to go to various stores and help them think about the clinical workflows and how to embed this into patient care models. And it was a really exciting time, right? This wasn’t too long after the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act, and this was for us in Ohio, there was a huge Medicaid contract that landed, and through outcomes was really the ability that we had to do many of these services at the time, so just really fun memories and and really being able to help expand practice at the time. So feels like it’s coming full circle as you’re talking here and sharing your career journey as well. 

Brandon Gerleman  07:55

Yeah, definitely it’s that next, that next chapter, right? And now we’re just, we’re beyond just traditional MTM, and now we’re trying to help pharmacists just do more on that same platform.

Tim Ulbrich  08:05

So let’s get into the student loans. Give us the juicy details. How much debt did you have when you graduated in 2017 and what was the average interest rate on your debt at the time?

Brandon Gerleman  08:17

Yeah, did some math here, and kind of added things up. And I still have, when I first graduated, just kind of memory of seeing the number in my head there. But just shy $161,000 in student loan debt from both undergrad and grad and pharmacy school. So I’ve got twoundergrad degrees. I went the four and four route, and they averaged across all of them about 6.75% so remember, just graduated and be like, Oh, that’s a kind of a tough pill to swallow. 

Tim Ulbrich  08:51

Yeah. And as you and I were talking about before we hit record, you know, the the interest rate matters a lot, and we’ll talk about how that played into your repayment journey. Unfortunately, we’re seeing those rates – I graduated again, 2008 6.8% a lot of my loans were fixed. You mentioned in the six, sevens. We’re actually seeing now rates on those unsubsidized graduate loans, you know, north of 8% so those are tough interest rates. We talk a lot about the number right, 161, 170, 180, 190. And actually the the average debt load is, we just got the latest data from the class of 2024, hovering around that hovering around that $170k mark still. So it has flattened off over the last several years. But we don’t give enough attention to the interest rate, and I think that’s going to come to life as we talk about your repayment strategy, because for you, as I understand it, it was refinancing your loans, not once, not twice, but five times, ultimately, getting your rate down to 2.24% now, before our listeners, you know, are just like, what in the world, those interest rates don’t exist today, right? So talk us through that decision to refinance. What was it primarily or only based? Based on that 2.24% because there are some considerations, right? When people take their loans from the federal system to a private lender, which is what you’re doing through a process of refinance, there are some things that you might be giving up. Oh, and by the way, when something like a global pandemic happens and there’s a freeze on interest and no payments are required, right, that was something we never could have seen coming as a potential negative impact and consequence of refinancing. So tell us about that decision to refinance and how you ultimately got to the point that that was the best plan for you.

Brandon Gerleman  10:33

Yeah, yeah. Definitely didn’t have global pandemic and halt on student loan payments in my in my Uno cards there. But yeah, for me, it was the aspect of I knew I was never going to, I shouldn’t say never, never say that you never know where the career is going to take you. But highly unlikely for me to go to a another career that kept me in that student loan forgiveness within the federal sector there. So knowing that it just came down to math, and at the end of the day, it wasn’t a jump from 6.75% directly to 2.24% it was refinancing. And I would just always got in the habit of, every three months checking, and I actually always go on on Your Financial Pharmacist and go over to see what deals were going on, right? You know what was the bonus for refinancing? What were the rates at playing around? And never, you know, never hurt your credit score by checking. And you don’t know what you don’t know. And so I would just continue to chip chip, chip away, and eventually got that down to that 2.24% with that auto pay, you know, the rate reduction there by a quarter percent. But it just came down to math. And at the end of the day, what we’re doing is, is math here. And I hate to pay in interest, oh my gosh, just to think that I’m like, giving, like, somebody giving money, and I’m paying them back, and the interest payments are, you know, what’s killing you. I just wanted to that was just a fire in the belly. Wanted to reduce that as much as possible.

Tim Ulbrich  12:05

Yeah, you know, I gave a presentation just a couple weeks ago to a group of student pharmacists, and I walked them through how interest accumulates, right? Because when we’re talking about unsubsidized loans, which you know for most pharmacy students, that’s going to be all of your federal student loans. When it comes to your pharmacy education, there’s the principal, which is the original amount that you’re borrowing, and then there’s the interest which accrues while you’re in school. I often say, Well, when I’m presenting, hey, not to scare you, but while we’re sitting here, the interest is accruing, right? That’s just a matter of fact. And then when you get an active repayment, that separate pot of interest gets added to your principal, and that grows interest. What I say is baby interest, which is referred to as capitalization. So the result of that, why that matters, is that most borrowers, myself, included my own journeys, you vastly underestimate how much you’re actually going to pay off when it’s all said and done, because you’re looking at as a pharmacy student saying, okay, you know, I’m borrowing 15, $20,000 a semester. I’ve got so many semesters, that’s the number, right? And what we’re leaving out there is the interest that accumulates in school, and then the interest that accumulates all the while in the repayment period as well. So such an important lesson, whether we’re talking about student loans, credit card debt, mortgage, car loans, anytime you’re borrowing, right? Interest is the cost of borrowing anytime a bank is lending someone money that that’s a risk they’re taking, and obviously you’re going to pay for that in the form of interest. We have to understand how that interest accumulates and how we feel as well, which is an important one that you mentioned in terms of your hate of that interest. I also want to highlight Brandon,  you said something important, which I don’t want to overlook for our listeners that are thinking about their own situation. You said, Hey, I first determined that something like Public Service Loan Forgiveness wasn’t going to be my pathway. Once I made that decision, it really came down to a math, the math. And I want to highlight that, because that’s how I think about it, in terms of a decision tree, right? If there is a pathway to be considered, and it makes sense. And there’s some pros, cons, things that we gotta factor in before you ultimately make that decision. Let’s have that discussion first, if that is not a possibility, then we’re looking at, how do we maximize our repayment options and strategies? And for some people, that might be a refinance. Now, Brandon, I know our listeners are listening to say, is anybody refinancing anymore, right? Given where interest rates are at, and the answer is, actually there are, it’s certainly not anywhere to the point of what you did when you got this all the way down to the low twos. We saw that right before the pandemic. A lot of people, flurry of activity into refinancing below threes. You know, that has largely gone away for the most part, but there are many people out there who have existing private loans that may be at eight, 9, 10, 11, 12, plus percent, which is crazy to say out loud, that certainly should be considering whether or not they can move that private loan and get a better deal on that. So I just want to kind of pause for a moment and make sure we address that. So when you look at the math, clearly, you know, 6.7% down  2.24%. That looks good. What did that actually mean in terms of how much time that took off the repayment period? 

Brandon Gerleman  15:11

Oh, I should have written this down! Every single time I would use the some of the calculators that that are on the Your Financial Pharmacist website and and every time I would, you know, crunch it. If I’m here, here’s where I’m at, bringing it down, here’s where I’m at. I have to dig in there. But I know it was of the 10s of 1000s of dollars, and then as far as a time, I think that’s where, that’s where I compounded and snowballed things. So like my wife and I were incredibly comfortable paying when I first graduated this, you know, unsightly amount that was more than our house payment and and thinking, Okay, well, if we’re comfortable paying that, we’re going to refinance from, you know, from A to B, and that reduced my interest rate. Well, I’m going to continue to pay that because out of sight, out of mind, but I’m going to add that extra because my payment went down. My monthly payment went down. I’m going to add that extra as principal only. And so by the time you did that five times you’re you’re knocking it down. It is dollars that you’re not even used to seeing because you haven’t seen it yet that are just snowballing toward that principle. And then every time I would refinance, I’d play around with the calculators as well. Can I, you know, decrease the duration, you know, of my student loan as well? And the last one that we did in 2021 that got me to that 2.24 I also cut it from at that point would have been seven years down to five years. And so that also helped me, you know, really snowball. And then I’ll say that anytime we had a, you know, a tax return, or any, you know, any type of dollars that we felt, hey, let’s, let’s start throwing, throwing additional dollars that way. We throw it as a lump sum, and we’d, we chase it, you know, chase a traditional payment with a principal only. Payments would only go toward that principal, and that was, you know, the combination of refinancing, reducing that, the length of that loan, continuing to pay what we were used to paying, and have it go to our principal, and then the lump sums, kind of, you know, along the way doesn’t have to be much. Can be 500 bucks. This one month can be, you know, $1,000 you know, this other month can just be adding on. Hey, let’s, you know, just add on a little bit. Add 20 bucks a month toward principal. Those small things added up where all of a sudden you became much more manageable. And every time I was very aware, I’ve said that a couple times, I’m very aware, I would always be checking, you know, you know, what’s the balance? Now, you wouldn’t check every single day. That would just drive about, you know, a person crazy. But you know, as you’re checking, then you’re noticing that your payments going more towards principal and less toward interest and and then you can start breathing a little bit, right? And then there, you know, there’s that light at the end of the tunnel and that snowball. And just continue to snowball and snowball and snowball.

Tim Ulbrich  17:58

Yeah, what I hear there is momentum and energy that is coming, which, which is really defined by that snowball approach. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that. But you know, often people will refinance to potentially save on a monthly payment, and then that frees up cash flow to do other things, no right or wrong there. That’s just an option that people choose. Others kind of take the approach you did, which is, hey, we’re going to refinance, get a lower rate, but since we’re used to this monthly payment, even though we only have to now pay 1100 bucks a month, but we’re used to paying 1500 or whatever the number is, let’s keep paying 1500 we’re going to make these principal only payments, and by doing that, we’re going to jump down the amortization table, right? And for those of you that haven’t geeked out on an amortization table, it’s important to understand these things. Again, it’s not just student loans, it’s house payments, car payments, any other type of debt. To really understand what percentage of your payment is going toward principal, what percentage of your payment is going towards interest, and after you make that payment, what’s the balance due? Oh, and by the way, if we make an extra payment, what does that mean, right, in terms of where we’re at, and so depending on your goals, what you’re trying to achieve, interest rates, all these factors are going to determine how aggressive you may or may not be in that debt repayment to that point. And you mentioned Brandon that you know, when you first started, you were paying this unsightly amount. I remember that feeling very well, and that for you, it’s Hey, I hate interest these need to be gone as quick as possible, as what I’m gathering from you, and that’s a decision point that people have to decide, right? We talked about the first branch of the decision tree, which was, Hey, are you going to pursue loan forgiveness or not? If not, then it’s a mathematical decision. Now, once you go to the next decision point, it is, how quickly do I want these gone? And what does that mean for our monthly cash flow and potentially being able to do X, Y or Z. That could be a myriad of things, right? It could be that, hey, we’re looking to save up for a home. We’re looking to buy a second investment property. We want to invest in more in our retirement. We want to have experiences. We got kids on the way. There’s a million other goals that could be coming. But ultimately, you decided that, sure. Or more cash flow would be nice, but we want these gone, you know, tomorrow. And so how did you and your wife get to that decision, that despite the rate arguably being pretty darn low when you get to that point, 2.24  and even before that pretty low, that even though those rates were coming down, you really wanted to go that aggressive repayment. What was the philosophy behind that for you guys?

Brandon Gerleman  20:20

Yeah, yeah. Great, great question. I would say it wasn’t hard to not even going to use the word convince. My wife is already on the same page. So just more of demonstrating, showing the math, and saying, you know, by doing this, you know, semi aggressive plan, instead of being done in 2027 we can be done in 2024 so that freed up, you know, three years of more than our house payment worth of student loans that then will allow us to do more things. And so I’ve got two young kids under the age of four. And, you know, now all of sudden we can, we can go out and we can maybe do something. And, you know, go on a vacation here, and within that entire last seven years, though, I’ll say that we lived within our means, but we weren’t crunching pennies. We’re not in some fancy, fancy house. We’re within our means here. We still go on vacations with the kids. We still do fun things with the kids. Went and saw Caitlin Clark play in Minnesota last week, right? So, yeah, you know, so we’re, it’s from, for me and my wife, it was just like, how can we tackle the student debt and take that and just, you know, a big relief off our shoulders to then enable us to do more things? And it’s all about the family, and it was like trying to prep for the for the future that way. Also say that the snowball doesn’t doesn’t just stop with with my student loans. We We’ve now taken what we’re used to paying for my student loans, and we’re snowballing into other things, a truck payment. My wife student loans are almost done, you know, yeah, so, like, by the end of 2024 you know, really being able to breathe. And then you know that that allows you, and I’m sure I’m leading on to the next question. You know that that allows a person to do a little bit more. And now I can start putting dollars for a 529, plan for, you know, for the kids. And I can start, you know, and add a little bit more in the 401K, which can then reduce my, you know, my taxable income. So there’s other things that that that we can consider while, you know, we have a, you know, freed up a little bit of monthly cash, you know, when it comes to looking at the cash in and out, but it’s really having that supportive spouse who, at the end of the day, the math is the math, and we weren’t so aggressive, where we couldn’t do things, we weren’t. So, you know, passive, where the, you know, the dollars kept, kept loading on. So I think it was finding that that right balance,

Tim Ulbrich  22:49

I suspect that balance was really important for the two of you to get on the same page. And it’s something I see often. It was true in our own journey as well, that, I think, where people run into some issues, especially if you have two different money belief systems. And I’m not suggesting that was the case here, but when that is the case, you know, when one person’s like, hey, we want to go all in and I want these gone tomorrow, and we’re not going to do anything. Like, obviously, there’s going to be friction there, right? And I think we often have this perception of, hey, I would love to be debt free, like Brandon’s debt free, but I’m not willing to sacrifice everything. And what I hear you saying is like, Hey, we’ve lived within our means. We’ve done hard work. I’m not going to minimize that. We’ve been intentional, but we haven’t been, you know, to the point where we’re not also enjoying things and living this rich life that we so often talk about on the show. And what I often see, and I’m confident I will see here as well, is that when someone is as intentional as you have been, and you and your wife have been for for as long as you’ve been, then when you go to the next decision point, when your wife’s loans are done, and you’re like, hey, we were putting x per month between our loans. Now what? That’s the question. Now, what? Right this money isn’t going to go off into the ether and you’re going to be like, what happened? We used to pay loans, and now we don’t know where that money went. Like, you’re going to be intentional about, hey, it’s the 529 account. Maybe it’s putting a little bit more towards investing for retirement. Maybe it’s being intentional if we’re going to take another vacation a year or, you know, do whatever it means for you guys to be living the rich life. So I love that, and I think we don’t talk often enough about that that there are benefits that come long term from how we approach our decision making and how we live today, that even when the debt’s gone, you’re gonna see the fruit of that well beyond that. 

Brandon Gerleman  24:35

Definitely. And you know, I’ve seen other folks that have been on your podcast that have paid off way more in a shorter amount of time. And I think that is phenomenal. It’s kind of driving your own, you know, your own why? And for me, it was in my wife. It was like we want to be able to live in the moment and celebrate and do things with our kids. And as you know, before we had kids as a couple, but also be and I love the word intentional. Be very intentional about what we’re doing. You know, we can still splurge on a Starbucks every now and then, right? You know, you can still do things while living within your means and being intentional about how we’re how we’re approaching our student loan debt payoff. 

Tim Ulbrich  25:15

As you and your wife look towards that finish line of her loans coming in the not so distant future, and obviously, as aggressive as you’ve been there, there’s going to be some cash flow available, which is exciting. And you’ve, in part, answered this. You mentioned the kids college savings of 529, accounts. I’ve heard kind of the family experience aspect of it as well. What else? What else is? Is a priority for you guys as you look towards, say, the next decade or so? 

Brandon Gerleman  25:42

Man, hard to look past the next decade. When you’ve got two kids running around, doing everything every single week, there’s something new! I would say, you know, free enough to be able to start investing more, right? So because, I’m because we were so intentional about paying down debt, we weren’t as heavy on on investing. And so I would say, you know, investing personally, as well as investing in my children’s future with, you know, 529 plans. I’m that’s probably my biggest thing is, like paying it forward. I will say, here’s the nice little asterisk that I’ll throw with my 161,000 in student loan debt, my folks took care of my undergrad. So that includes, you know, around just shy or about $35,000 out of that $160k my mom and dad were very intentional to pay off for my twin sister and I, to allow us to then kind of pay it forward. So I’m really looking forward to being able to pay it, forward to my to my children. So I’d say, you know, between 529 some investing, some decreasing my taxable income, as well as saving for retirement. And then I, I think the biggest thing is, like taking a breath and just saying, Hey, we did it. Let’s just kind of, you know, relax, enjoy it for a little bit and and really enjoy the family and start doing more things and really getting those, those family experiences involved. We’re not anytime we’re doing presents for kids or anything we’re not big on, like a product or an item, like, for all those that are parents out there, Tim, yourself, included, like, man, like you, for you, the kid forgets about it maybe in two weeks, or plays with the box instead, right? Or and so those are replaceable, the the memories and the experiences are what we’re really trying to pass on, I think that’ll allow us to do a little bit more, you know, travel, and just be even more involved with our kids.

Tim Ulbrich  27:38

I love to hear that Brandon, and I’m intentionally asking the question, you know, to encourage our listeners to be thinking about this as well, and to encourage you and your wife to continue these conversations as well, because they’re so important, right? You’ve done incredible hard work with the student loan debt. You’re going to do great work with saving but, but there’s a bigger story here, right? And that’s what I’m asking about, because there will be a day. I call it the rocking chair exercise. There will be a day when I look back, when you look back and, you know, yeah, oh yeah. Remember, we paid off all that debt, yeah, we did that. You know, remember when we got to the point of financial independence because we saved for the future, and we don’t have our mortgage anymore, and our kids are taking care of, yeah, yeah, we did that. What do we remember, right? What’s the So, what? What’s the vision? What’s the engine behind all of this? And at the end of the day, money is a tool. Money has value because we all agree it has value, and as long as that’s true, it will have value, but it’s what we’re able to do with that money. And getting clear with that no right or wrong answer is really what this whole financial plan is about. So I hear a strong why of family experiences. You know, that’s something I often hear when I ask this question. You know, for other people, it might be a dream they have of starting a business, or it might be, you know, some type of giving aspect of time, reminding you’re having an option to work part time. Or it could be a myriad of things, and really getting clear on that, I think, for those that are listening, that are in the middle of the weeds of going through a journey like this. You know, it’s not a hey, I’ll think about that tomorrow. It’s, let’s think about this now, because that’s going to propel and give us some motivation while we’re in the midst of this journey. And we don’t want to wait till we get to the finish line, because this is something we constantly want to ignite the fire in the flame with. And for those that are doing this with a significant other, partner, spouse, so important, so important. We’re having these conversations because all the strategy is somewhat noise. If we aren’t clear on where are we going or why are we going there? And that really, I think, is where we see so much of the joy come and the opportunity. So I love what you shared there, Brandon, I’m so excited to see where you and your wife go into the future, and congratulations on the success that you’ve had so far. 

Brandon Gerleman  29:43

Very much appreciate that. And I will say one more thing, and that is, you know, nobody pretends to be an expert in this area, right? We’re always learning. And so even myself, as I’m going through this last year, learned about, you know, a. 529 you know, Secure Act. And then I was able to, you know, throw some dollars toward that,  a 529 plan over last year and this year, that even helped me from a tax benefit that I knew I was going to pay them off this year. So I might as well throw it in an account that I can kind of shelter a little bit through taxes. Had no clue about that. I was just kind of over a beer, discussing with with another colleague, and it’s like, Wait a minute. So I just just want to throw that out there that, you know, we’re always learning, I feel like the more aware we are around what’s happening. You know, that’s why I was listening to all these Your Financial Pharmacist Podcasts back in in pharmacy school, on fourth year rotations, and ever since, it’s, it’s just, it’s being aware. It’s always learning. It’s asking questions and just, you know, trying to, trying to put ourselves in the best position for success, for whatever that why is 

Tim Ulbrich  30:50

What I hear there is a curiosity, a desire to learn and grow. I love that example, right? Because there’s a state tax deduction that you’re talking about from a 529 to be able to pay off your loans, and that was opened up, you know, others might be using it to pay for kids private education, you know, K through 12. That’s a relatively new thing as well. And some people might hear that and be like, Well, what actually is the dollar savings, right? And sure, you know, we could look at that and say, you know, are we talking 1000s and 1000s of dollars? No we’re not, but it’s, it’s an important example, because it’s an indication of the curiosity you have, the desire to learn, to grow. And as I often say, there is no arrive at the financial plan, as long as we are hungry to learn and grow and be open to different ideas and strategies and figure out what’s best for our plan, right? There is an infinite number of possibilities for where we could go. So that is such a cool example of what comes from from compounded learning over time. So Brandon, thanks so much for taking time, time to come on the show again. Congratulations to you and your wife. Look forward to following your journey as well into the future. 

Brandon Gerleman  31:49

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. 

Tim Ulbrich  31:51

Before we wrap up today’s episode of The Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. I want to again thank our sponsor, the American Pharmacist Association. APHA, is every pharmacist ally advocating on your behalf for better working conditions, fair PBM practices and more opportunities for pharmacists to provide care. Make sure to join a bolder APHA to gain premier access to financial educational resources and to receive discounts on YFP products and services. You can join APHA at a 25% discount by visiting pharmacist.com/join and using the coupon code YFP. Again, that’s pharmacist.com/join using the coupon code YFP. 

Tim Ulbrich  32:33

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 analyzes expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist, unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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