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. You how's it going, man. Great. How are you, Daniel? I'm good. Thanks for chatting with me today. I told you I was going to be running a couple minutes late today and, um, the reason I'm mentioning it now, roundabout way, there's construction in the background. So in case you guys hear that apologize, hopefully it doesn't come into the audio, but I was, uh, my son who's my two and a half year old son, very into excavators. And we have like a fantastic, as you can get excavators show, like right out my window, uh, the road is, is being repaired. So that's been the excitement at the office this morning. So I had to, he was very, it was very difficult to pull him away from the excavator show. Basically,
Speaker 2 00:01:11 That's funny because my two and a half year old son pretty much say so that the top of our street, the house was putting in a pool, like from the beginning of last year. And it really just kind of finished up like recently and his grandma and my mother-in-law's the one who watches him during the day. And pretty much every day they would walk up the street and watch the construction going on. That was like the best thing for him.
Speaker 1 00:01:35 It's like a home run. That's like better than any show you can go to. I mean, for that age group, they love it.
Speaker 2 00:01:40 Yeah. Everything is pretty much tractors and trucks. Right?
Speaker 1 00:01:44 Yep. It's a fun time. Awesome. Well, I guess you, this is your first time coming on this, so we'll start out with kind of a quick intro. So Hugh recently joined our firm as one of our financial planners and he's been, um, you know, helping rocket out there. What we were going to talk about today, you actually is also married to a physician in practice. And so we were excited to talk about your experience and kind of going through that and the journey of, you know, being the spouse of someone that's, uh, you know, gone through the training and going into practice and that sort of thing. So, so first of all, I would, I would love Hugh, if you could kind of give us a quick background on, on your story and high level, what that journey has been like for you guys.
Speaker 2 00:02:33 Yeah. So we met when I was a junior in undergrad, she was going into her senior year and she was pre-med. She went to med school, um, at Ohio U. And so we did distance for a year there. So that was like a three and a half hour drive there. And then back that I'm very fond of and could probably make that drive without the GPS, um, still to this day. And then yes. Did family medicine residency at St. Margaret's UPMC, and now she is in practice as a primary care physician.
Speaker 1 00:03:09 Yeah. And so you guys, w did she know for sure, I guess she was pre-med, but was she set a hundred percent on the path of being a physician when you guys met?
Speaker 2 00:03:18 I mean, pretty much since she was very young, it seemed like doctor was kind of like the, the dream profession for her. Um, it was kinda like one of those things where her grandpa wouldn't let anybody like listen to his heart whenever he was, um, in older age, or I think he had diabetes too. And when really like, let anybody mess with them, but, um, he would let his granddaughter, um, Carrie, you know, listen to him and check him out. So it was kind of like, this was sort of always the path for her.
Speaker 1 00:03:53 Yeah. It seems like a lot of, um, positions. I know they had, it was, I don't know if I would say a calling, but maybe even that is a good word for it. It seems like a lot of physicians are not in it for the money or, you know, the pay. It's more of just like a passion for the profession, which I think is a huge deal. I mean, that's, that's a big deal to be in a profession. You have a passion for it, right?
Speaker 2 00:04:19 Yeah. I think especially primary care too, for her, at least from my perspective, just that continuity of care and really getting to know the patients, seeing them regularly. I think that was, she's just perfect for that. And that's one of the things that attracted me to her. She's very compassionate and she really, really cares a lot about her patients.
Speaker 1 00:04:39 Yeah. And so who is a financial planner? So it's, I think that will be especially fun to talk through this from the perspective of a spouse of a physician and also a financial planner is kind of getting into a little bit of what it's like from that perspective as well. But maybe we could start like start out with the medical school days. When, when did you guys get married? What, what phase of, of that trend?
Speaker 2 00:05:04 We got married right in between medical school and residency.
Speaker 1 00:05:09 Okay. That seems like a common phase when people get married.
Speaker 2 00:05:14 Yeah. Because it's kind of like, when else are you going to do? Yeah. It's tough to fit in. Um, but yeah, we got, we got married right in that sort of like one or two month break in between med school and residency. Yeah. 20 15, 20 15.
Speaker 1 00:05:30 Gotcha. Well, in medical school, do you feel like there were any big challenges or just in general, maybe? What was it like? Uh, from the standpoint of, as a spouse and as she was working through medical school, where were you at in your life? And, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:05:46 So we met in Pittsburgh at Duquesne university. And so I was a senior there while she was in med school. And, um, yeah, so we were about three and a half hours apart. We talked a decent amount on Skype throughout the week. Most weekends I would drive there and you know, it really wasn't like we would, like, I would drive there and we would just spend all day, Saturday and Sunday, like hanging out or doing fun stuff. I mean, she still had to study quite a bit. So I think a lot of it was just, just kind of being there, having someone else there when you're living by yourself and pretty, it feels like pretty much all you do is go to class and study. I think just having someone else there is helpful. And then just kind of helping out with little things around the apartment, like cooking or cleaning. Not that, not that I'm, you know, I'm like, uh, I made all the meals or anything like that. I can, I can get down on the, on the stove. Um, I'm pretty decent cook. Um, but cooking is one of the things Carrie really enjoys too. So she kind of got me into it, but yeah, I think just having someone be there was really helpful to her.
Speaker 1 00:07:01 Were there any, um, financial challenges that started to crop up or like stressors or was it kind of like a non-issue at that point? Um, what was, what was it like just in general financial in that phase
Speaker 2 00:07:14 For first year of med school? I mean, we were pretty much, much both on the parent's payroll at that point, but then when I graduated, I moved to Columbus, which was on the Southern end of Columbus. So I was about 45 minutes away from where she was at school in Athens, Ohio, not a lot in Athens, Ohio. So I moved a little bit north that's when I started working, wasn't making a ton of money, but still had a little bit of help from parents there. But as far as financially, it was pretty much just scraping by.
Speaker 1 00:07:47 Yeah. Kind of like maintaining the college lifestyle a little bit. Give or take. Yeah. Yeah. And that I D I haven't gone through this myself obviously, but in, in medical school, I think when you're in school, you kind of still have that student mindset too, which is, um, and when you're busy, it's, you know, part of being busy as you typically don't have time to spend money. I mean, most for a lot of people, so it's just kind of a study and, you know, go to bed
Speaker 2 00:08:13 Pretty much. That was pretty much it. Maybe the occasional go out to eat or something like that. Um, I remember going on a nice kayaking trip once, but I mean, that was, that was pretty much it, not a lot of, um, elaborate vacations or anything going on at that time, unless it was with one of our parents.
Speaker 1 00:08:31 Right. Right. Which is nice now I'm, I'm sure that's, um, not, uh, not everybody has that, uh, at a convenience or a blessing, but what about in training? So transitioning into training, uh, she, she did family medicine, so she had it's three years. Correct. So that, I don't know. W w D do you guys describe it as like a, more of a real-world job or like, how did it, is it a stool still kind of like school, I'm curious how she would describe it or how you would describe it as a position? Is it like more like school or kind of in between, or what's that like?
Speaker 2 00:09:08 Yeah, I mean, I think at that point, it definitely felt like a real job to her, especially the program. She was in St. Margaret's at the time it was ranked one of the top 10 family medicine residencies in the country. And that hospital was pretty much run by residents. So I'm not sure if this is exactly true if it was year one or year two, but like you're running the codes in the hospital. It's not like your typical, like you're seeing patients in the office. Um, there was a lot of hospital work going on, um, a lot of high stress and high pressure situations. So I think it definitely felt like a real world job and more so than, you know, like you're still in school.
Speaker 1 00:09:51 So what sort of challenges started to crop up or what were the biggest stressors or hurdles that, that, that, uh, started to happen as she started to get into, uh, training?
Speaker 2 00:10:04 Yeah, it was just, time was very scarce, lots of just a lot of hours, um, working weekends to not just days. And then switching schedules, you could go from a day shift to a night shift spending the whole night in the hospital. I mean, it's 24 hour shifts even. Yeah. I th I think the main challenge from a relationship standpoint was there just wasn't a lot of time where we were together. I mean, she has had to work a lot in, I guess it was probably less of a challenge for me, because I've always been someone who like, liked to have a little bit of alone time or else I'll kind of go nuts. So I think it was, it was a little bit less of a challenge from the time standpoint for me, but I would say that was the biggest thing. And then, you know, find finances.
Speaker 2 00:10:53 It's not like you're making a whole lot of money as a resident and you don't have any time. So one of the things that we did that might seem kind of counterintuitive when you're not making a lot of money was, you know, we were paying for a cleaning service, like every two weeks. I think two people would come for like two hours and just kind of help with clean up the house. Because really when we did have time together, we didn't want to spend a cleaning and wanted to spend it together. So really like financially, even at that point, there wasn't a whole lot of surplus. We were kind of just getting by with a little bit of savings.
Speaker 1 00:11:31 Yeah. I think that's one of the huge benefits that may not, uh, I mean, not everybody has this flexibility, but I think in, in training, one of the big benefits is you're in this position of about to earn a lot more money. Your earning potential is going way up as you progress. And so there's a lot of like future earning potential that's going to happen, but the time is limited. So, but, you know, maybe you can focus on buying time with the little margin you have, and maybe even instead of like, saving for like retirement or something like that, like I could see the, I can make a really good case for like, so basically you were buying time, you were paying for some help to kind of handle some of the foundational things that you need to do, you know, buying time back.
Speaker 2 00:12:19 Yeah. That's pretty much what we were doing. I mean, we had, we were saving money, but no, it wasn't like we were trying to be as frugal as possible and save as much money as possible. There were certain things like that that we felt like had a really big bang for your buck. There, anything time-related really lots of takeout food to which we were living in a great spot, um, in squirrel hill in Pittsburgh, which is kind of like a cultural melting pot. So lots of great takeout options around too. So maybe the story we told ourselves was, Hey, we're going to save some time and some clean up here with getting takeout. But I think we really just kind of liked all the different ethnic food options.
Speaker 1 00:13:01 Well, I mean, you know, that does save time too. You don't have to do dishes and all that.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 Yeah. We didn't have a dishwasher either, which was, oh
Speaker 1 00:13:10 Yeah. What other challenges on your end, where there, where there big challenges for you as the spouse and through that training period? What, what, what sort of things came up on your end?
Speaker 2 00:13:21 I think there was a little bit of like, man, like, what am I like? She's working so hard and so much, um, it felt like there was a little bit of like, am I doing enough around here? Like a little bit of guilt? Like, should I be doing more? That was something that was definitely creeping into my mind.
Speaker 1 00:13:37 What do you mean? Like I'm working more or,
Speaker 2 00:13:41 Yeah, I guess like working more like, is there something I could be doing on the side? Or like, there was some guilt around like we're paying for a cleaning service, but she might be working 80 hours a week, but I'm not. So like, should I be, should we really be doing this or should I be like trying to match the amount of hours that she's putting in for everything? So there was definitely some of that that was creeping into my mind during that residency period. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:05 But that's interesting. Let's say, um, I would have not thought of that as a, but I could totally see that being something that would cause some stress. So that's something that can happen at any phase in life. It's kind of a more of a, when you have pretty substantially different things going on than your spouse. I think it happens with stay-at-home spouses or, you know, my wife always talks about having some stress or, uh, around her staying at home and not earning a paycheck or that's kind of in that camp, I think, of, of, uh, stressors. How did you work through it? Were you able to kind of have conversations or what, what, what helped you in that guilt?
Speaker 2 00:14:47 I think we kind of just, I don't know. I don't, I don't really know. I don't really have a great answer for that, I guess. Um, we kind of just decided to use the cleaning service anyway. I think it just, maybe each of us has our own level of like output that we're capable of doing and kind of keeping sane. So I think we kind of just decided to use the cleaning service and it was, it was going to be worth it
Speaker 1 00:15:12 For me. It's like conversation is the way with my spouse because sometimes the temptation is just to hold in that kind of thing and be like, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna like put it away, deep down somewhere and just work through it or pretend like it's not a thing. But for me, it's like if I can talk to my wife about those sorts of issues, usually they're like very understanding and reassuring. My wife is always when I'm bring that kind of stuff up and it makes me feel better about, and a lot of times just kind of completely dissolves those sorts of issues. But I think the time constraint makes it difficult even to have conversations sometimes. Oh yeah, for sure. Did you guys talk money a lot during training, particularly
Speaker 2 00:15:55 We did. We definitely started talking about it more later in training. I mean, in the beginning it was kind of like, okay, let's make sure we've got a plan for the student loans. Let's make sure like we're putting away something like 10% or whatever for retirement, some arbitrary percentage. That sounds good. Right. Just so we're putting something away. Um, and then also saving for a down payment on a home was a big thing. So we kind of split our savings that way, like probably half towards down payment of a home half towards retirement, just to get something in there and working. But yet we kind of knew we would always be around this area. So we thought pretty, we were pretty confident in, we would want to buy a home whenever she was finished with residency and start growing the family. So that transition like third year of residency to first year out, that was when we were, we knew like there was going to be a big change in transition there. So probably the year before that was when we really started to get serious about what that's going to look.
Speaker 1 00:17:05 So for me, uh, I think, uh, part of our, my conversations with, with my wife, when I get home, I know it is for me having, bringing up stuff to her is that I kind of air a lot of my work stress with my wife when I come home and, uh, you know, tell her about what what's going good or what's not going good. I'm curious from your perspective for Carrie, what sort of stressors was she having during that training phase? What, what seemed like the challenges she was facing from your perspective?
Speaker 2 00:17:33 Yeah, especially that, that hospital portion of her residency. I mean, you can, you can have a lot of different outcomes where you know, that are, are not so good. Um, and you felt you kind of have this in the back of your mind. Like, could I have done more? Is there something differently I could have done to save this person? And even, you know, especially when you're, you're working at children's hospital too, like when you're rotating through there, you can see some things that really stick with you and really weigh on you emotionally and you kind of always have that in the back of your mind. Like, is there something I could have done differently? And that's where I think like the, the comradery among other residents and, um, those friendships and relationships are super important because they're educated enough and they have that outside view that they can say based on the information you had, like there was no way you could have thought anything differently or you could have done anything differently. And, um, just kind of be able to like, provide that perspective. So I think those relationships are super important because I know that was tough for her.
Speaker 1 00:18:43 Yeah. And I think just being able to have a vulnerable conversation with someone, um, like, uh, I feel like it might be hard to say something along the lines of, or even admit it to someone else that you potentially could have done more to save someone's life. I feel like that could be easily something that you just don't even talk about, which is not always, typically not the healthy route, but, um, it sounds like Carrie had a good kind of group of people. She would, you know, co-residents particularly that she would be totally open to talking about those sorts of things. And that's what builds camaraderie, like you mentioned, is that, you know, trusting or vulnerable sharing things, you might not always share with other people.
Speaker 2 00:19:26 Yeah. And no, there are some of them that, you know, she still talks to like at least every week, you know, to this day and she's three years out of residency. So like, I'm really grateful for them because they fill that gap that like I can fill in in some ways, because like they understand more than I do. So like she could open up to me about stuff, but like they can take the conversation to like a deeper level than I'm doing.
Speaker 1 00:19:51 Yeah. I guess the good thing about that is you can kind of just listen, which in a lot of cases is one of the best things to do as a spouse were I to have the tendency to present solutions,
Speaker 2 00:20:05 I started to laugh. Cause I knew you were going to say that. And so there was something going on. I don't know if it was last night or two days ago. And I caught myself about to provide a solution, which was, I'm sure not a solution. And she was like, well, or no, I said, I'm sure you don't want me to provide a solution. So I'm just going to listen. And she was like, thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1 00:20:27 Uh, that's very, very, very good of you. I'm impressed with your maturity. I don't always have that. Uh, this one, well, Harry
Speaker 2 00:20:36 Will tell you, I always don't, don't always have
Speaker 1 00:20:38 That either. So, but I think in, in training, I, I, I feel like there's a slippery slope with the stress of, um, especially personalities where they maybe need a little more time or their spouse, if there's a time crunch, sometimes that doesn't, uh, can cause stress in a relationship and it starts to compound everything else and make it difficult to even have these sorts of conversations and more likely to offer solutions and, you know, get into arguments about stuff. That's typically just done little stuff.
Speaker 2 00:21:11 Yeah. One good example of that is, you know, like she, so she works a lot. She might have come home late in residency and um, you know, she, not that it's a bad thing, but she's definitely a person who like, like once like more time together, like as a couple, like that's a big thing for her. And I am also like, I can get very set in my routines. So like she might have, she might be on a block where she was working till like 10:00 PM or something and she comes home late and, and she wants to like stay up and watch a movie or something just to
Speaker 1 00:21:47 Be like,
Speaker 2 00:21:49 Yeah. And where I'm like, listen, I go to the gym at six in the morning before work. This is when I do it because after work I'm too tired. And then it's like, okay, so you're choosing the gym,
Speaker 1 00:22:01 I see where your priorities are.
Speaker 2 00:22:05 So that was one like struggle that we, we definitely had there for awhile. Just me kind of being a little bit hardheaded about it, but yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:13 Any other challenges you can think of that, that came home for Kerry that kind of worked their way into conversations with her along that phase?
Speaker 2 00:22:22 Not really. I mean, I think we kind of just knew that this was going to be a, a tough stretch for her specifically and, you know, it was one of those things that it's going to be worth. And when we get to the other side and it's just kind of like, just, just me trying to do my part in helping, you know, wherever I can to help her it make it a little bit easier for,
Speaker 1 00:22:46 At what point did you all have your child? Was it during, towards the end of training or
Speaker 2 00:22:51 I found out she was pregnant, like with a month left in residence residency or something like that. So
Speaker 1 00:22:58 That's actually really good timing.
Speaker 2 00:23:01 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:23:03 I can't imagine having children because children are great and we love our children. They have like a magical way of like bringing up or amplifying potential problems in relationships in my experience. So if, if it's a, I could see it being especially challenging in training with
Speaker 2 00:23:24 Yeah. I mean, one of, one of Carrie's best friends had a child with, um, her husband who was also in residency at the same time. I think he was a year ahead though. But yeah, I know that was, that was definitely a challenge time-wise for them. I remember at least once like picking their daughter up from daycare and like, we just went back to their, and like watched her, their daughter together. Me and Carrie were like, well, I guess it's kind of like, um, test drive. Yeah, pretty much. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:23:54 That was interesting. But there is a, it's hard to compare it to your own children. It's once you have them, you're like, man,
Speaker 2 00:24:00 Especially, I feel like the first one, now we only have one, so I can't speak from experience, but I know you can, but I know the first time around is kind of like trying to do everything perfect.
Speaker 1 00:24:13 Oh, total helicopter parents. I mean, that's how we were. It's like, you it's completely different with the market for my experience. And the more children you have, you start to become like the reverse and you don't, you don't like boil. I've seen, I saw something and I'm talking about pacifiers. It's like in the first kid, when they dropped their pacifier, you grab it and you put it in boiling water and boil it and de sanitize it. And then the second child, you put it under the sink and wash it off. And then the third child, you just pop it right back in their mouth. Some that is, or maybe you brush off like a pair. So that's been my experience with three children. It's funny how that works. Yeah. How did finances start to play out in training? Was that, did that become a bigger topic? It sounds like towards the later stages of training. And I would imagine that would be the case as you start to kind of prep for that big transition. Right. And like, how was that for you guys, as you, as Carrie started to get towards the end of training?
Speaker 2 00:25:13 Yeah. At the time the main focus, I guess, financially, other than just kind of getting something away from retirement and having a plan for the student loans, you know, thinking about where she was going to work, was her employer going to be a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofits? So we can kind of know what route to go with the student loans, as far as his public service loan forgiveness, an option. That was a big one. But I think a lot of, as far as like where we were putting money and trying to figure out what the future was going to look like was around that first home purchase. And I know I was, I was super focused on making sure we didn't become house poor because we, one thing that we really like to splurge on is vacations. So we definitely wanted to make sure that's something we were going to be able to do. So building that in and, you know, we also looked at that as like a burnout prevention type of thing, too,
Speaker 1 00:26:18 Avoiding being house poor or, you know, buying too much else
Speaker 2 00:26:23 So that we could, we could definitely go on the vacations and recharge. So like when we were, when we were looking seriously at, at buying homes and like, what is our price range? You know, I had a nice little spreadsheet where I was trying to put in, you know, all of our future costs. And I was thinking about, okay, like what if she can't hit her RVU goals? I mean, this was on like a new practice, literally a new building that she was going into kind of unpredictable as far as how many patients she's going to get first year. So we were thinking about, okay, what if she can hit those RVU goals? And they reduce her base salary, we're going to have a baby. So daycare, right. That's going to be nuts. What if we have two kids in daycare at the same time, we want to be able to go on these Georgia. Um, we want to be able to go on vacations. We want to build in some slack for the things that we just can't think of right now. So that was like on the front burner,
Speaker 1 00:27:24 It was all happening before she accepted the position or the things you were thinking of.
Speaker 2 00:27:30 I remember if this was a four after she accepted the position probably before.
Speaker 1 00:27:36 Yeah. That sounds like a good financial planner.
Speaker 2 00:27:40 It might've been a little bit overkill at thinking about like, okay, what if we had twins, but, um, I just did not want to get in that situation where that's a bad look. If, if you have to, if you're like, uh, you have to downsize your home whenever your husband's a CFP. So
Speaker 1 00:27:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You probably ought to make sure that's how I believe too. I think you need to practice what you preach and your, one of the really we're setting an example for people. Um, I've heard people take this perspective of like, you need to drive. Uh, they always talk about cars. It's like, you need to drive a brand new Mercedes or whatever, just so you convey this aspect of professionalism and success. My perspective is more like I talk a lot about like being frugal with cars and how inefficient of a vehicle, uh, wealth building vehicle they are. So I ought to probably drive a whole crappy car to convey, but whatever you're, I'm preaching, you should, I think practice. And it sounds like y'all have done a good job. You have done a good job of, uh, drawing, uh, some of those lines there, but I think what's important that you said, I think the biggest thing as financial planners, we kind of have, this are the benefit of thinking about this every day, but like you did, the big thing you did was you thought about it in plenty of advanced time. A lot of times life is busy. So that's an easy thing to kind of put on the back burners. A lot of people, I think maybe even wait until like when they're finished training, um, I know that from our experience working with, with families, it seems like you were thinking about this sort of stuff. Well, before, you know, maybe even years before, right?
Speaker 2 00:29:25 Yeah. I would maybe maybe two years before, like the actual early. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you're, so when there's not a lot of surplus, right, and you want to save up money for like a down payment, we did go with a physician mortgage. So that's
Speaker 1 00:29:41 Like a 0% down for those are not familiar. We have a podcast on physician mortgages and that sort of thing, but it's typically a low down payment. It was that for, you know, 5% or less down payment, was that what yours was you?
Speaker 2 00:29:54 It was 0%. And the trade-off is, it's an adjustable rate. So you could do I think 5, 7, 10, 15 years where, you know, you could basically decide on how much of a runway do you have this rate locked in for? And then, you know, the, the longer you lock it in, there's like a eighth of a percent increase in the interest rate. But I think looking back now, now we refinanced during the pandemic to like a conventional, just put enough down at 20% equity and like, looking back, I feel like we were so lucky because we got in at, in 2018, we put nothing down. Housing market was normal then, and now there are homes on our street. You know, that one that just went up for sale around here recently, that is like, same, pretty similar to our house, but like a 50% increase in what we bought ours for.
Speaker 1 00:30:54 Yeah. That's, that's all over the place. So little takeaway there, if you ha, if you've purchased a house in the past, you know, 2008 teen timeframe, or even maybe 2019 or before, and you haven't refinanced yet, you definitely should look at that because what's happened is equity has gone up and rates have gone down, which is like a collectively a huge benefit and makes refinancing look like a home run, especially for a physician then.
Speaker 2 00:31:22 Yeah. So I didn't really know, like is 0% possibility at the time when we started saving for that down payment, but there's of course closing costs. So when there's not a lot of surplus per month, you got to do it pretty far in advance to get any sizeable amount saved up.
Speaker 1 00:31:38 Yeah. How was Carrie involved in these sorts of discussions about like how soon was she, uh, are you guys having, how soon were you guys having conversations about like that transition the finances around the transition before the, before it happened?
Speaker 2 00:31:55 Exactly how far in advanced, but we're super open with like big picture money conversations. I think one of the value we have in spouses is definitely like decision fatigue is definitely real with physicians. So if there are some decisions that you can kind of, like, there are the inconsequential decisions, like what are we having for dinner tonight? Like just make some of those decisions and take that off their plate. And then if you have some other area where it's like, maybe it is a high stakes decision, but you can kind of take it and run with it and just leave them informed. I think that's super helpful. So like in this area, this was something that I could, you know, we could have the big picture conversation, cause it's not just a house I'm living in like something she's living in. And I also want to make sure that she didn't feel like a financial weights on her. Like whenever we, we do have whenever she is like in practice. So like, we want to make sure that we're on the same page there, but as far as like operationally, like with the finances, that was something I could just kind of take and run with it.
Speaker 1 00:33:02 Yeah. That, that makes sense. So you all hit, but you had added the big, big picture discussions about what's most important. Like, you know, it sounds like you guys are enjoyed traveling and you want to have margin and building some protections against potential for burnout and, and having a family I know is important, but y'all had the biggies, like the big conversations. It's like, it's kind of like marriage counseling, like marriage counseling, uh, is, uh, a lot of times when you're there, you're like, I don't need to do marriage counseling, but really marriage counseling is excellent. At least when I did it, because they, if, if for me, we had, had already had these conversations, but it's a kind of a last check to be like, have you talked about these huge issues that will eventually come up that a lot of times are deal breakers, uh, for a marriage and let's make sure we're having those conversations about the biggies ahead of time.
Speaker 1 00:33:58 Uh, cause what happens is when you start transitioning into practice, that's like a kind of a, I don't know, emotional high, you know, I stress sometimes situation. And I think that's when, if you don't have a plan already in place, it's probably a time where you're prone to, uh, slipping up a little or making a quick decision. That's not in line with your values and et cetera. So I'm curious about your experience. Do you feel like there were any, I have a feeling y'all did a really good job with it because of what you've said so far, but do you feel like there were any mistakes or things you would do differently going back or looking back
Speaker 2 00:34:37 As far as from like residency or even like early transition? I don't know if there's anything I'm sure there will be something that I'll think of later, but there's nothing that sticks out in my mind. That was like a huge mistake financially, at least. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:34:53 There you have it. The benefits of being married to a financial planner, we need carry on here. She I'm sure she'll have a different take.
Speaker 2 00:35:00 Yeah, well she, yeah, maybe she, you know, give her a lot of credits. You'd like, definitely like between the two of us, actually, she is probably the more frugal one, you know, maybe, maybe it's just kind of like experiences with money growing up, which is something we ask our clients about. And um, so her experience has kind of led her to be a little bit more frugal. Whereas me growing up, it was kind of like, uh, there, I was never told no to whatever, like Jordan shoes I was picking out.
Speaker 1 00:35:31 Oh yes I was.
Speaker 2 00:35:35 Yeah. So like that definitely played a little bit into it.
Speaker 1 00:35:39 Have you and Carrie talked about that, like your experiences around money as you know, through your childhood? Oh
Speaker 2 00:35:44 Yeah. We've definitely talked
Speaker 1 00:35:45 About that because that is not common by the way. I mean we're financial planners, so we talk about it every day, but I think, I don't know. I would be curious to hear from the, those of you listening, I, my guess is most people have not had discussions with their spouse around like their relationship with money and how their childhood affects how they view money. I would think that's a pretty rare topic for people.
Speaker 2 00:36:10 Yeah. I would be curious
Speaker 1 00:36:11 Too, but you are a financial planner, so I'd be curious if, if, if, if those of you listening have a different thoughts, please reach out and let me know. But anyway, so you're transitioning into practice. Um, and so as when was that? Was that, uh, what year was
Speaker 2 00:36:26 That? That would've been July of 2018.
Speaker 1 00:36:29 Okay. So July of 2018. So about three years ago. And you're about to have your first child, you're buying house moot a lot of transition happening all at once, but it sounds like you had a good kind of game plan locked up to where it was just a matter of executing, right?
Speaker 2 00:36:48 Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1 00:36:50 Yeah. That's a good CFT right there. So then as you transitioned into practice, as Carrie starts her new job, how did things change? Um, what, from your perspective, what sort of changes did you observe in her and in your life?
Speaker 2 00:37:06 As far as I think moving into this new house, like we have some friends who have purchased bigger homes and kind of like the quote unquote Dr. House. We feel like we, like, we purchased the Dr. House, but it's not necessarily the Dr. Price tag. I mean, so we live in a rural area, so I'm sure that helps a lot. So it's not like, it's not like, oh, we're, we're so much smarter than everybody else or anything like that. I think we kind of lucked out with just kind of where we're living, but we both feel like more live in the life pretty much now, as far as like lifestyle, um, you know, we have a great house, we have a pool, which is definitely like I knew a pool would be expensive to maintain. I didn't know, quite, it'd be this expensive.
Speaker 1 00:37:58 That's huge important takeaway right now for those that don't have a pool that are considering, it's one of those things that you always are going to underestimate the cost of maintaining like a boat or, you know?
Speaker 2 00:38:12 Yeah. I mean, luckily we built in a ton of slack and the budget anyway, and the pool was kind of like our thing where it's kinda like, yeah, on paper, this might be a little dumb, but we don't care. This is just worth it to us. And a lot of that is so there's a natural gas line hooked up to it. So,
Speaker 1 00:38:30 Oh, that's this, I was going to say like he used in Pennsylvania. So like, uh, not, I don't know, but if it's heated, that's game-changer
Speaker 2 00:38:39 Because now we actually use it quite a bit. So yeah. Pools are definitely expensive, but that's a, that's a big part of like our, our lifestyle in the summer where we try to be pretty active, so like swimming and it's been great for our, our kid. He loves it. So we call it, we chalk it up to like family time. And really what it does is since we kind of live we're about an hour from my in-laws about an hour and a half from my mom and like maybe 40 minutes from a lot of our friends. So like, it kind of gives a reason for everybody to come together too and have people over. So in that respect, it's kinda been worth it to us. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:39:18 Yeah. It sounds like you're doing a good job kind of living out those values. I know, I'm sure there's none of us are perfect, but I'm sure that there's there's challenges along the way, but with the biggies, it sounds like you are, you guys are well in line with what's most important. You built in the margin. I think that's such a critical thing too, is building in margin, especially for analytical. I'm kind of an analytical person. And I think a lot of physicians are analytical. The temptation is for an analytical person to like account for everything. And the problem with that when you're planning ahead is it's impossible to account for everything. So it almost like it's like shooting yourself in the foot when you account for everything, because what happens is you plan out this future and you account for every dollar, you know, with the house and everything else you do, but then it all, it's all more expensive than you planned. And you're like, oh no, my budget is blown. And it's in that just kind of amps up the stress.
Speaker 2 00:40:20 Yeah. You can't really, uh, plan monthly for a new roof.
Speaker 1 00:40:25 No. And they are so expensive and houses need written new roofs every what? 15 to 20 years. I mean, that's just going to happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:40:33 Actually my father-in-law does roofing estimates, um, as sort of like his retirement thing just to kind of get out of the house. So, uh, maybe he can, he can give some pointers on how to get insurance to cover it or something like that. But I don't think we can really rely on that.
Speaker 1 00:40:49 That's a nice little park. Well, what about from Carrie's work perspective? Have there been, so you talked about some of the stressors that came home, um, you know, and the challenges in that position that she was having. Um, are there, are there new challenges in the role she's in now that kind of come home and in conversations that you guys have? Or what does that look like?
Speaker 2 00:41:12 Yeah, so the challenge is she's working less hours than residency, but she's still working a lot. And when you're a parent now on top of it, that's a game changer. So like, I think for her, I don't want to really want to speak for, but I think it kind of feels like she is constantly battling for her time with the big hospital system, you know, like there's, there's constant push to do more with less, and it doesn't matter if you did 10 or you did 15, we want five more, you know, like it's, it doesn't matter. That's just the name of the game. And so like, I think the problem is, you know, when you're looking at numbers on a spreadsheet, like, you know, for some of these administrators, it's kind of like, you can't really see what's going on behind the curtain and like how much time is actually required to spend with, with these patients.
Speaker 2 00:42:12 I mean the patient population that she works with is a very sick patient population. Lots of challenges in that community low-income community used to be like a steel town in the eighties. A lot of that industry has gone away. So that brings about a lot of challenges that I'm sure some other primary care physicians can imagine. So you, you know, you find yourself, you may have a patient who lost someone close in their family to an overdose or something else that was really terrible and you can't fit that into a 15 minute patient appointment slot. So, yeah. And so it's, it's just, it's a challenge as far as like, I know it's super important for her to spend the necessary time with the patients and do the best job as she can for them. And then, you know, there's, but then there's the corporate medicine competing priority of how fast can you shuffle people in and out? So that's kind of like the, uh, the battle that I think is that's the main battle that she's kind of fighting right now, figuring out, you know, how can she still do her job and as best she can and kind of meet all of these, meet all of these, uh, I guess, boxes to check.
Speaker 1 00:43:34 Yeah, it's, it's the type of person that, I mean, the right type of person, like the physician I would want to go see as someone that does have a passion for it and genuinely interested in, um, and feels strongly about providing the best possible care for the patient, but those types of personalities, I'm sure it causes even more stress, uh, because I mean, they're in direct conflict at the end of the day. Like you can't do, it's very difficult at a minimum to do, to balance that we talked with dark Ryan and Katie brown last, last episode, did you, you said you listened to that right here.
Speaker 2 00:44:14 I did listen to it. I shared it with Carrie and, and it's, it's pretty much when I heard Kate, what Katie and Ryan were talking about. It's kind of like, yep. I hear a lot of this around the dinner table, various.
Speaker 1 00:44:27 Yeah. And it doesn't. So they took a, I don't know, I guess, a more aggressive approach, but they definitely took a, they took a, it was speedy. Like they addressed the problem fast. They felt that pressure and their approach was to change careers, not totally, but kind of change the flavor, have their own practice. And they started at a concierge practice, uh, in that works has worked ex exceptionally well for them. And they no longer have those sorts of stressors. Those stressors are really challenging because a lot of it's out of your control too. And so it's almost, I don't know, it's probably more difficult to solve that, but there's a bunch of different ways to kind of work through that challenge. Um, especially if you have good administrators or good people around you, that kind of think the same way.
Speaker 2 00:45:21 Yeah. I know it's, it's challenging for her because she loves like this community. Like she really loves her patients and she knows that she's making a big difference there. So like, she doesn't want to like go leave to a job where maybe it's a little bit more cushy. It's just kind of balancing those competing priorities. That it's tough because I know she just, she, she knows she can make a difference and she loves, she feels like, I think she feels like she can get through to these people. A lot of these are people who maybe haven't taken their health so seriously. And haven't been to a doctor in a long time, you know, she's kind of able to convince them to take care of themselves in a lot of them. It's kinda like she sees one family member as a new patient. And then all of a sudden the whole family comes over. I mean, that's kinda like, that's kinda how it is. I mean, there's not a ton of doctors in the area, like as far as specialists either. So I know that that's kind of a challenge as far as referring out, but I know like she's a rock star at like what she does and it's kind of like one family member meets her and then the whole family comes over because she's that good?
Speaker 1 00:46:34 That is always a good, good. They can tell
Speaker 2 00:46:36 That she cares a lot.
Speaker 1 00:46:38 Yeah. That's huge. That's a huge compliment or work too. I could see that being awesome. But then there's also, you know, it's just a lot of people, there's a lot of people that need a lot of help.
Speaker 2 00:46:49 Right, right. I mean, there's only so many new patients that she can take on.
Speaker 1 00:46:54 Yeah. We, we had a podcast a while back, uh, Jeff and I talked about Mo money Mo problems that, uh, con you know, no two notorious VIG, of course, are you too young for that?
Speaker 2 00:47:09 That was
Speaker 1 00:47:10 Like five years old.
Speaker 2 00:47:12 A little bit before my era,
Speaker 1 00:47:14 But yeah. Well, we talked about, you know, some people have this idea that, uh, the, as income goes up, there's more challenges. And as wealth goes up, there's more challenges and other people believe that, you know, provides benefits. It's mostly benefits, but how has your experience been positive in as your financial position has improved? Do you feel, or do you feel there's new challenges you didn't expect, uh, as you know, your financial position improved?
Speaker 2 00:47:47 You know, we haven't, I would say there was a lifestyle change when we moved into this house from the standpoint of like rent versus like what we're paying in a mortgage now where I probably actually eating out less because we don't live in an area where there's a ton of options around
Speaker 1 00:48:04 It's like McDonald's or Arby's.
Speaker 2 00:48:06 Yeah. So it's kind of like the house and the pool, which I guess you could lump into the house, or like our major lifestyle increases aside from that. Maybe we're like a little bit more apt to like, stay at the nicer resort when we go somewhere on vacation. Um, but we're not staying at the Ritz Carlton either. So like, there's a little bit of that has changed, but one of our, our main priorities, when we, when we, um, when Carrie went through this transition was building up enough money on the sidelines. I won't use the name of what we call this.
Speaker 1 00:48:44 I know going, but
Speaker 2 00:48:46 There's this fund where if she's just had enough with her current job situation, she could leave at any point that she wanted to. So like that flexibility is built in there. And I think that peace of mind has been huge for her more than any car could be or any like specific vacation or house. I mean, it's that way she's working on her own terms and like, yeah, there are challenges. And like a lot of times she comes home and, you know, it was a tough day. Like those are always going to be there, but you know, the important part is she can choose to go to this job. She's not forced into it. She doesn't feel like, oh, I have to work this amount of days per week to like, keep the lights on because we chose a lifestyle. It's, it's, it's definitely like builds in some flexibility for her there.
Speaker 1 00:49:39 Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about this fund. I, I know we've talked a little bit about it, but I have a feeling, some people might be thinking of financial independence or that sort of thing, but maybe you could explain a little bit more about what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 00:49:55 Yeah. So, you know, this is where, like being a financial planner where maybe the right answer on the spreadsheet is to invest more aggressively. I think given her experience, growing up with money and just also, just from my standpoint, just wanting her to like, be more comfortable in like her career situation. It's really, it's just, we have more cash sitting in an online savings account, you know, quote unquote high yield, not really high yield anymore, very low. I wouldn't call it half a percent high yield, but sitting in an online savings account where money is going into from every paycheck. I mean, really, we could kind of turn it off at this point, but yeah, it's just money sitting there in a bank account. We can access at any point. Should she choose to not go back to this job for another day and take some time to find the right opportunity?
Speaker 1 00:50:59 Yep. That's a huge deal. And you know, maybe that's the difference of being able to like the Browns we were talking about to start your own concierge practice. Maybe that's kind of the, the, the comfort you need or the backstop you need to make a big decision. Like just a piece out on a practice. That's paying you a very good wage. Um, it doesn't have to be, I think the big thing is it's, we're not talking like you have to be financial independent, and you have to have millions in an investment account and be able to pay yourself or live on forever. It's more like having a larger than normal amount of cash that you're continually starting to build up. And that maybe you could use to start a business or take a year off. If you, worst case scenario had to, or take a lower paying job.
Speaker 1 00:51:44 That's the kind of thing that can be like life changing. Cause there's a lot of people that are in jobs they hate and it's just not worth it. I don't think to, I mean, you spend a ton of time in your work, you know, they talk about like mattresses and you spend like tons hours on a mattress. You might as well spend a lot of money. It's like, and you're, you're not even awake. I mean, like, this is a job you're working in. That's a huge deal to have to hate your job for, you know, 30 years or whatever. A lot of times it's just because financial, you need the income and having that option to be able to comfortably bail out or make a big shift is huge. I mean, that's just,
Speaker 2 00:52:23 Yeah. The other thing it gives her too is, you know, leverage that like contract time, right? I mean, like there's no reason that she should be afraid to ask for whatever she wants and needs. Like if she wants to go down to 60% or, you know, she needs another ma not that they will, might give it to her, but, um, you know, like there's no reason that she should be afraid to ask for whatever she wants. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:52:50 And I imagine like going in the conversation, if, you know, in your mind that you have this like backstop, you're going to be worrying less and more confidence will come across, which tends to improve your ability to get what you want done.
Speaker 2 00:53:05 That was like priority. Number one for us, pretty like pretty much whenever she started making significantly more.
Speaker 1 00:53:13 Yeah. That's a, that's a big deal and it doesn't have to, I mean, over time, that kind of thing can evolve. It's not like you're making a lifetime decision to put money in a savings account. Like you can kind of evolve it into things like, as life becomes a little more settled or you start to enjoy your job. I mean, then it's like kind of a, maybe you should put it somewhere else or pay off some debt or invested or whatever early in practice. There's a lot of uncertainty sometimes.
Speaker 2 00:53:41 Yeah. I mean, could it be in a taxable investment account? Sure. It really, it could, it would have made a lot more money sitting in the savings account, but I think again, like kind of going back to her experience with money, it's more important for it to just be there in a savings. And there's no like daily fluctuations or anything to worry about that it's, it's not gonna make or break our situation anyway. So like, we're probably at a point where we could, should just turn it off and kind of redirect that savings into some other form of investments, which we probably will do soon. But yeah, it just, it's not going to make or break our situation. And if it helps her feel better about it, I mean, who cares?
Speaker 1 00:54:28 Yeah, no, that's a big deal. So I think good financial planning being responsible with your money. It's not always about like the best rate of return. That's sometimes a misconception. I think it's more about being happy or, you know, reducing stress. That's got a that's priceless.
Speaker 2 00:54:46 Yeah. And one thing we did kind of dip into it when we refinanced our mortgage. Like, so I kind of in a way, like it reduced our monthly expenses by quite a bit, whenever we paid the mortgage down to get 20% equity in refinance at a lower rate, like much lower rate. So like that in a way kind of like reduce that monthly need. And then we kind of built it back up again.
Speaker 1 00:55:10 Um, and there's also something to be said just the idea, the idea of having margin monthly, because, you know, in order to build up something like that, you have to have some, you know, monthly chunk that's straight up, just extra that you're saving. And so that in itself is added flexibility because that's, you know, that much less you're dependent on your work. And, or in other words, you could take a lower paying job or shift down your workload and still be okay. And not, you know, not be in a position where you can't pay your bills.
Speaker 2 00:55:47 Yeah. I don't, I don't want her to feel like, like she has to kind of carry the weight like financially because we chose a different lifestyle. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:55:58 Well, as we wrap up any words of wisdom, if you're talking to your prior self, when Carrie was in training earlier on and, or just, you know, maybe the transition period, any, any words of wisdom come to mind as far as things you would say to your prior self, knowing that this was coming. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:56:18 I think I'm just kind of what I've learned from experience. And some of that I've kind of already talked about this. Just, just be supportive and listen, you don't always have to have a solution, just listen, try to help with like, making decisions that are inconsequential. Like just, you know, th they're making so many high stakes decisions already throughout the day. Like if they don't have to think about what you're eating for dinner or, you know, those kinds of things, you can just, just make those decisions and there'll be very thankful and that's about it.
Speaker 1 00:56:56 Yeah. So any of you guys listening, if you're a physician, you can make sure to share this with your spouse and make sure to listen to that last part. If you don't, if you don't hear anything,
Speaker 2 00:57:05 What do you mean? Like you don't always do that. She's right. I could be better. I definitely need to remind myself sometimes
Speaker 1 00:57:14 As I say, not as I do, right. Yeah. It's a work in progress and I think that's good advice for anyone it's it's um, especially though in that career phase, I think when it's, when you have limited time and limited brain power, really, I think is what it comes down to. It's just some point you're like 10 just fried you're like I gotta come out and I gotta go home and sit need nothing inside. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:57:43 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:57:44 Right. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on and I enjoyed talking through this and, um, it's always good to talk in general, but I appreciate you sharing a little bit of your story. Yeah. Happy
Speaker 2 00:57:54 To do it. Thanks
Speaker 1 00:57:56 As always. 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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