Speaker 0 00:00:02 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:08 What's up, everyone. Welcome to the finance for physicians podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Raimi. Join me as we dig into what it looks like for physicians to begin using their finances as a tool to live better lives. You can learn more about our
[email protected] let's. Jump into today's episode. What's up guys. Hope you're having a great day today. Today, I wanted to share a little experience that I had recently around my health and a little bit of a unexpected situation that popped up the goal in sharing. This is, I think there's a lot of, um, financial takeaways from this at least that I saw in, in my experience. I think you might benefit from some of these, these takeaways. What I tend to gravitate to on a normal basis is just thinking that, you know, I'm kind of invincible. I mean, maybe I don't say that, but you forget that your health and your life is actually, you know, somewhat unexpected and out of your control.
Speaker 1 00:01:09 And really at the end of the day, tomorrow's never guaranteed. You don't know what the future holds and today could be your last day. And I think in planning, it's helpful to think from both perspectives, from the perspective of, you know, you could live a very long life and you want to make it, uh, optimize it and live it ideally, or today could be your last day. And so you want to make sure you're also taking that potential situation into consideration. So if you're like me though, you know, sometimes it just takes a little bit of a wake up call or a reminder to help you remember that's a possibility. So what happened was I had kind of a, I'll give you the short story, but I had a recent, um, just kind of a random ISU pop-up it was super minor. I almost, um, you know, didn't even, I was 50 50 on going to see the doctor, I called the optometrist's office and they're like a first available appointments, like a month out.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 And so I'm like, wow, shoot. I'm not going to even bother with it. And they're like, Oh, well actually we had a recent cancellation that's for tomorrow. And I'm like, well, I guess if I'm going to get it checked out, I might as well get it checked out quickly. So I went in the next day and they do my high exam and they're like, well, actually, your vision's great. There's no issues. And I'm like, well, what about this weird thing that I have going on? It was basically kind of like a blurry sort of very mild blurry vision in the peripheral of my eye. And they're like, Oh, we didn't see that in the note, let's check it out. And they checked it out. They took a picture of my turns out. It was a called it optic disc edema. So my, you guys, a lot of you guys probably know what that is, had an inflammation in the nerve in my eye.
Speaker 1 00:02:55 And so I'm like when they said that I'm like, what the heck is that? I could tell that their tone changed a little bit too. They were kind of joking around a lot. And then they got real serious. I was like, Oh. And she basically said, you know, you can Google it and see all kinds of crazy stuff and where it could be nothing at all. And I'm like, Oh gosh. And so she recommended, I go see an ophthalmologist. And so I leave the office. Of course I start Googling it and you can, you know, it's all kind of, it could be all kinds of stuff, anything from, uh, you know, brain tumor to, uh, some all sorts of other crazy stuff. So I call some of my physician buddies around here and they're like, you need to go see an ophthalmologist neurologist specialist. And they were able to get me in pretty fast.
Speaker 1 00:03:44 So I went to go see the specialist the next day. Uh, they do tests confirm the same thing that the optometrists confirms their recommendation is that I get checked into the ER because it's potentially, uh, we got to figure out what's causing it. So I'm in the ER within 24 hours of going to see doctor optometrist, I'm now checking into VR and I got to get all these tests run to see what what's going on. So again, you know, MRI, CT, scan, spinal tap, all this blood testing, all this other crazy stuff, and to kind of rule out what's, you know, ideally rule out the bad stuff and just really see what's going on. And so through all this process, I think, especially at the point where the ophthalmologist I was meeting with, she got really serious and was like, this is potentially serious situation.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 We need to check you into the ER now. And it's going to be a few days as soon as she said that, that freaked me out a little bit or maybe a lot. And so that was the, basically the end of our appointment. And so I go from there to go get checked in to the ER and the time in between that I had some time to kind of sit and think, and I also happened to have my eyes dilated. So I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even use my phone or whatever. So I just sat there and was just thinking for a while. So I'll share some of the things that were kind of going through my mind, but a lot of them, I think, are the critical things, ideally that you're thinking about with your planning, maybe not, ideally you're thinking about it before this type of thing were to happen and you've kind of gotten it taken care of so that if it were to happen, and this does turn out bad, you know, you got your ducks in a row.
Speaker 1 00:05:31 So in my situation, the tests all came back and at least so far, I've gotten the MRI back to CT scan. A lot of the blood tests, all that was normal, there was no issue. We're still waiting on the spinal tap results. And hopefully that's all normal as well. You know, I guess I was the situation where it was just a random cause or whatnot. So all the bad things, it was potentially going to be turns out it wasn't any of those things. So all good. So far, I'm super thankful. But I think in that, that slice of time before I had gotten the testing and right before I was about to check in the yard was just pretty scary time and also kind of an important reminder for tomorrow's never guaranteed. So first of all, I, I just want to say a lot of you guys are physicians.
Speaker 1 00:06:21 I really, it helps me remind helps. Remind me what you guys do. And I, I have a huge appreciation for that. Everyone I interacted with was awesome. They just all seem to have a very high interest in taking care of the patient and making sure they're doing the right thing. So the main things I wanted to share with you guys were those thoughts that came up in that small moment of time, when really I was like, who knows what's happened, what's happening, I'm thinking. And you know, there's a chance I could have some sort of crazy brain tumor and, uh, you know, I could have, um, not much longer to live. So that was kind of my worst case. That was going through my mind at that one point in time. And so the first thought that popped into my mind was, is my family going to be okay financially if I'm not around.
Speaker 1 00:07:18 And I think that's, that's natural. The other thought that came up was have I been a good steward of my money? Am I doing the right things? Have I led a meaningful life? I also thought about values and have I taught my children the critical things that I want to pass along. And then I thought a little bit about my business. That is a big part of my life. And I, I thought about it. Is it going to be okay if I'm not around as well? So those were the core four things that popped into my mind is, is the family going to be okay? Have I done a good job with the resources I've I've been given? And have I instilled the values in my children and my family and is the business going to be okay? So the first one is the family going to be okay if I'm not around.
Speaker 1 00:08:10 Okay. So I have gone through this exercise a lot of times before. So the nice thing in my situation is that I was very confident. I still thought through it again in the moment, but in just a quick thought, I was reassured that, uh, you know, everything is going to be okay. And so I'll just kind of walk through what everything might look like. So you can kind of see what, what that list should look like ideally in your situation. So the first thing so covered financially in my situation, I want to make sure something, if I'm not around that in a worst case scenario, my family is in the, in the same shape financially. Even if I'm not around them, they're not receiving any income from my work. I want to, ideally my family's in the same shape in a worst case scenario. So ideally they're at, at, at worst, in the same position as they would have been had I been around, you know, all, err on the side of having, if I'm going to err on the side of having some cushion here, it's going to be on the side of having them slightly better off.
Speaker 1 00:09:23 And so how do you provide for that? Because if I pass away, my income stops. So if you're young, your income is driving this ship. So what you look at is your current wealth plus life insurance benefits. So maybe you're early in your career and you don't have a lot of wealth or you have debts. So you've got to lean more on life insurance or maybe your later career and you can lean more on your existing wealth, but it's typically going to be until you're financially independent, it's going to be a combination of the two of those things. And really all you're doing is making sure that the two of those combined are adequate to replace that a stream of income or the portion of it that's necessary to maintain the same financial position for your family. So like I said, I've gone through this exercise.
Speaker 1 00:10:15 I go through it every couple of years with our finances. And so I know we're in great shape there. So I didn't have to worry about that. The second thing that I thought about what w uh, I thought about was, you know, logistics, how does everything get sorted out? Okay. So like there's a legal side of it. If something happens to me, the will is what kind of, it's like the instruction manual for how to settle all the stuff that you got to settle legally. Now that in my situation, I have a wills, uh, I already have a will in place and I'm comfortable with it. Also given that it was just me, I was less concerned because my wife would still be around. Um, I would say a much more concerning scenario is if you both pass away, cause then you have to have guardians named and that kind of someone has to take your children if you do have those, um, if you have children.
Speaker 1 00:11:11 And so that's typically a little more of a stressful situation. So I was not thinking along the along those lines, I was thinking more along the lines of is my wife going to be okay? Is she going to be a handle, be able to handle all this? And I know I was not, I don't have too much of a concern there it's fairly straightforward. She knows where the wills are. She knows who the attorney is. There's trust. There's a trust as well. It's, it's fairly straightforward. A little thing that's kind of related to that. It crossed my mind for a minute is beneficiary designations. I mentioned this in the last podcast, I think with Justin Harvey, your beneficiary designations, don't, they're separate from your wills and trusts in estate planning. They go, whatever beneficiary designation says, that's, what's going to happen. So, uh, in that sort of moment where you're like, Oh no, I, I may not have much longer to live.
Speaker 1 00:12:02 Those are the kinds of things that might pop in your head is, Oh, no, I have to change my beneficiary designation on that old insurance policy that I had so-and-so on it or whatever, like my mom on it, or my ex spouse or whatever. And so that crossed my mind for a minute. Ours is more simple. I've always had my wife on as first beneficiary. So it's, I didn't didn't have concern there, but that's definitely something that pops into your mind. There. Another big thing is having a financial organizer because if something happens to me, I handle most of the finances and my wife is going to be like, she's not going to even know all the accounts that we have and who the contact people are and who to call for life insurance and all this stuff, just because she's not doing, dealing with the day-to-day.
Speaker 1 00:12:47 And so I think it's hugely important if you're married to have whoever the spouse is that kind of quarterbacks, most of this stuff have like a financial organizer that just kind of lists all the accounts and rough estimate of balance and maybe the contact person. So for us, I have all the assets listed with a most recent balance, and then all the debts listed with the most recent balance and then the contact for each of those accounts. And then I have a listing of all the insurances and the insurance agent and the benefit amount. And it's really just a one it's a one-page printout. And I have the one-page printout with my will and trust it's in the basement, it's in our, uh, fire safety box or whatever. And my wife knows where it is so she can just go grab that and, and, uh, pull it out and it's going to list everything.
Speaker 1 00:13:43 Uh, and that'll save a ton of, uh, time and effort if something were to happen. Another big thing nowadays, everything you gotta log into, uh, electronically. Now she has, she would ultimately be able to access things because she's going to be the executor of my estate, if something were to happen to me. But, um, just from a ease of use, it's it's best. If she had just all my passwords and usernames for all the accounts I have, like, for example, I want her to be able to shut down certain things or just close them out or whatever something happens. So I think it's, this is where a password manager is huge, is having a password manager where you store all of your usernames and passwords for pretty much everything that you log into regularly. Last pass is the one I typically recommend. So with last pass, I have one master password that I use that allows me to open up the last path app.
Speaker 1 00:14:38 And then within last pass, it has all the usernames and passwords for every single account I ever logged into. So basically my wife knows where the master password is, if she needs to get to it, and it's going to have, she'll be able to get into every single possible account that I've ever created online quickly and easily. And then on top of that, just having an emergency reserve, like for the short term, because that was the, you know, the thing I thought about too is like, Oh, well, what if something were to happen? Like, what if this kind of, I did have a major health condition and it, you know, I had a short period of time where I was not working and maybe before I passed away or something, um, that's where emergency reserves can be helpful, like, uh, emergency savings. And then even disability insurance can help as well if it gets stressed out much longer than a few months.
Speaker 1 00:15:31 So those are, I think the core things, like kind of the core topics too, that you typically think about in the worst case scenario, if something were to unexpectedly pop up, we'll dig into more of these, like in a little bit more depth in future episodes, but for now we're just going to stick to big picture. The second big thing that I thought about I mentioned is being a good steward with the resources that I have or have been given for me. I just, um, I'm kind of, I kind of lean towards a saver type and I mean, most people would say that that is good, but I think the risk I have is that I can save potentially too much or be too greedy with my own interests and not be focused on other people's interests. And so ideally if I were to rank it and in that moment in time, like if I'm looking, if I'm on my last, on my death bed and I'm thinking, okay, what would I have ideally like to do with my finances in my mind?
Speaker 1 00:16:38 And everybody's different here, but in my mind, I would like to have given abundantly in generously. And I'd like to have taken care of people financially, like, you know, maybe paying them generously like employees or people that helped me out, like being very generous with compensation and benefits and helping people out. It helped me out. I would also like to save adequately of course, but adequately not, not like excessively and then living responsibly with whatever's left over after doing those things. That's kind of how my view of being, or my definition of being a good steward, what that looks like. I think I can, I definitely can stand to improve here in, uh, in, uh, in some of these areas and this helped to remind me of this it's it's, this is something you can, it's kind of always a work in progress. I also mentioned that I thought about the values I've instilled in my children.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 I'm going to keep this one pretty short and sweet. I think what, uh, our culture tends to teach is that if you're to rank kind of priorities in life for most people, self's number one, like it's all about me. And so I think the big thing I think about, especially in moments like that is what am I teaching my children? And what I want to teach is, is more of a, in soccer. We, we, our soccer program is called, I am third. And so I think that's such a great core philosophy or summary of what, how I would view, uh, what I would like to teach my children. So God is first others. Second, I am third, that's the approach or the idea. And that's easy to say very difficult to live out, especially because culture pushes the other direction. It's something though that I was reminded of.
Speaker 1 00:18:30 And there's a lot of application to that, and it definitely ties into your finances. And I think with my children at their age, they're at, it's a lot about leading by example. So it was a kind of a good reminder to myself that maybe, and it ties into being a good steward as well. Maybe I need to kind of revisit how I'm prioritizing things. The last thing that popped into my mind was the business. So I have, I have my financial planning business. You know, we have four, there's four of us working for the firm. Full-time at the moment we have a few part-time people helping my number one concern. Well, first of all, is our, our, uh, employees, but also our clients and making sure that they continue to be taken care of in thinking through this. I feel that, uh, the people that I have in my firm are competent and experienced enough to kind of take over where I was take over the responsibilities I had, if something were to happen, there's small areas that there would be some issues, but for the most part, I'm very confident that they would be able to kind of take over, uh, which is reassuring.
Speaker 1 00:19:40 There are some legal things that I probably need to get an order. The one yeah. Comes to mind is called a buy-sell agreement. And that is the formal legal document that says, if something happens to you, if you die or get disabled permanently, this is a legal document that guides how the business is handled. And so in my business, I know at least this is kind of the verbal commitment is that Jen who works with me, she's one of the other planners. She would purchase the business from my wife, because if something happens to me, it's going to get passed onto my wife in a buy sell agreement. The goal would be that Jen would purchase it immediately from my wife, and then she could just kind of keep the business sustaining. And so that's a missing piece right now is we need to iron out that buy, sell agreement and get it like in place and formalize.
Speaker 1 00:20:40 And so that was, that was another kind of a reminder of something I definitely need to improve upon. But aside from that, I feel very good about, I guess in my situation, I felt very good about the business and really all of these areas. I feel good. There's always room for improvement, but I could see where if you didn't have all those things in order, it could just totally ramp up the stress and anxiety that's already going to be present in that sort of situation. And in some cases I'm sh I could just see it just taking you down big time, if you're especially on the first area, if you're worried that your family's not going to be okay financially, if something happens. I mean, I think maybe the tendency would be to bury your head in the sand and just to pretend like it's not happening.
Speaker 1 00:21:31 Um, but I'm not sure. Uh, I just know it would be a stressful situation. So I think the takeaway for you is, is if you haven't done this in awhile, go through the exercise of thinking through, you know, what this might look like. If something were to happen to you, like how to, how to all these different areas, have you addressed them? Are they in order? Have you set up a will? Do you have adequate insurances? Is it organized? Can your spouse access them? Does your executor know where your documents are? Your legal documents? Do you feel like you're living out a life that's in line with your values? Do you feel like you're, you're being a good steward? You feel like you're handling money, living life, the way you would like to live. A lot of times just thinking through this can kind of help remind you that in some cases you just never know life, life is short.
Speaker 1 00:22:27 So go through the exercise of thinking through this, asking yourself the questions. What if something happens, how are my things organized? We do it with our clients and our planning firm every so often we kind of talk through what this looks like. And if you work with us in our planning firm, we keep these documents kind of internally like the personal financial organizers. But if you, if you want to updated copy of that and let us know, we can send that over, just so that you can, um, have that handy in your possession or, you know, let your spouse know to reach out to us either way, especially if you're not working with a planner or not working with advisors is definitely going to be a good idea to kind of talk, go through this exercise, talk through this with your spouse, make sure you have kind of your ducks in a row so that if something were to happen unexpectedly, you don't have to worry about at all.
Speaker 1 00:23:17 Cause that's about the worst possible time to have to worry about all this mess of stuff. Ideally focus on, you know, staying healthy, you're getting through it and that sort of thing. So fortunately it worked out favorably for me, but I did get a glimpse of, um, you know, that I did get a glimpse of, or a reminder of the fact that you never know what tomorrow holds at the end of the day. Nothing's really guaranteed. And you kind of have to remind yourself of that every so often. So I hope this has been helpful. Like I said, we'll dig into some of these areas a little bit more in future episodes, just kind of iron and out. You know how to work through these areas. Let us know if you have specific questions that come to mind and we'll see you next time as well.
Speaker 2 00:24:04 Thank you so much for joining us today. If you found this valuable, please give us a review on iTunes and share with a friend. Also check out our
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