Asset Protection, 529s, and the SAVE Plan

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high-income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is White Coat Investor podcast number 374.

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All right. Let's get into your questions here.

HELPING ELDERLY PARENT WHO WAS A VICTIM OF FRAUD

Kyle:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. My elderly mother was a victim of fraud. She was coerced into transferring a large amount of money from her traditional IRA to her checking account. The total was about $340,000 split into three separate transactions within a single week. They were $200,000, $80,000, and $60,000. She sent half, or about $170,000, to the perpetrators, and that money is now gone. The remaining $170,000 is still in her checking account.

Her traditional IRA has $120,000 remaining, and she also has $100,000 in a Roth IRA. She has no other liquid assets. My understanding is that she has 60 days to repay the withdrawal from her traditional IRA without having to pay taxes.

My question is, can she withdraw the $100,000 from her Roth IRA and then add that to the $170,000 in her checking account to repay a total of $270,000 to her traditional IRA in order to minimize the tax burden? Or would the repayment be capped at $200,000 per largest single withdrawal amount because of the limit of doing one transaction per year? Her typical taxable income is around $45,000 per year. I'm just trying to minimize the huge tax bill from this fraud. Thank you very much for all you do. I appreciate your time.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Oh, Kyle, I'm so sorry. That is so terrible. It's one thing when I see a multimillionaire doctor be the victim of a few thousand dollars of fraud. It's totally different when it's half your nest egg. It breaks your heart to hear that story. It's just awful.

As a general rule, this is for you and for everybody else, if you've got a time-sensitive question, the Speak Pipe is maybe not the place for it. I hope you found the answer to this long before you heard this podcast. By the time you leave something on the Speak Pipe and by the time we run it, we're probably looking at five weeks. When you got 60 days to perform a rollover after you asked the question, that's probably not going to make it.

Just keep that in mind. If you have a question you want answered sooner, email me, [email protected] and we'll try to help. I'm not going to promise I'm going to answer you the same day. Sometimes it's a week later if I'm on a trip or something, but most of the time, it's within a day or two. That's better than five or six weeks later on the Speak Pipe.

You have 60 days. Anytime you pull money out, you can essentially do a rollover. You've got 60 days to do a rollover once a year. The fact that this all came out in three different payments, would that count as multiple rollovers or could that all be considered one? If they were close together, maybe it could be considered one. Certainly, the date starts with the time the first money came out. If you're trying to put all the money back in there, it's going to start at the first withdrawal that was made. You have 60 days from that date.

You mentioned mom's elderly, so there's no 10% penalties on pulling anything out. You could pull the money out of the Roth IRA today and it wouldn't cost you anything in taxes. You could subsequently put that back into the traditional IRA and avoid the tax bill on those withdrawals.

There's got to be something else here to help you. I think there's a deduction if you have stuff stolen from you, isn't there, on your taxes? It seems like everything that was stolen, yes, that's taxable income, but there should be an offsetting deduction. Now, she'd obviously have to itemize to get that, but I'm pretty sure that having something stolen from you is deductible.

Let's look at Schedule A. Let me pull up Schedule A here and look at that. It's got your medical and dental expenses. You have taxes you paid, interest you paid, gifts to charity. Here it is, casualty and theft losses. Line 15 on Schedule A. That's from a federally declared disaster, though. Oh, is that the only ones that you can deduct?

Let's go to the instructions here. I'm pretty sure you used to be able to deduct these. Maybe you can't anymore. Let's go to the Schedule A instructions and see if you can deduct this anymore. 2023 instructions for Schedule A comes from irs.gov. Let's go down to losses. You used to be able to deduct if you had stuff stolen out of your garage.

Let's see what it says now. It says attach Form 4684 to figure the amount of your loss. Only enter the amount from Form 4684, Line 18. Let's go to 4684. This talks about description of property, report casualties and thefts of property not used in a trade or business or for income producing purposes. Section B is business and income producing property. I think you can still put this on 4684 as a theft. Then it can go to Schedule A.

She may not have wanted to itemize, but it sounds like she can itemize this year. That'll offset some of this. Maybe that'll make it so you don't want to put all the money back in the traditional IRA. Maybe you don't want to raid the Roth IRA if you can offset some of this with the deduction. I think I'd look very, very carefully into that before I cashed out a Roth IRA. That seems like a little bit of an extreme solution to that particular tax bill. I think you have a deduction there that you may not be aware of that you ought to look very carefully into and check that out.

In general, fraud is one of these things that's embarrassing to admit. People don't want to admit they've been victims of fraud, which is interesting. Nobody's afraid to admit that they were a victim of breaking and entering. Nobody's afraid to admit they were the victim of Grand Theft Auto. Somehow, we feel like it's our fault that we were defrauded. It makes us look stupid for falling for the trick.

These tricks are incredibly complex. This has been going on for years and years and years and years and years. They can be incredibly complex. I watched a Robert Redford movie. It was an old Robert Redford movie not long ago. I can't remember what it was called. It was a very complex fraud and it was based on real life. A lot of these are impressively complex deals that people are getting suckered into.

Don't beat yourself up if you're a victim of fraud. Obviously, maybe you don't want to publicize it because it makes you seem dumb and that affects your business prospects, but don't sit on this stuff and be hurt by it, because you are the victim. You are a victim of fraud. People did this to you. It's not a mistake you made. You're a victim.

Many of us have been victims of fraud. I had a syndication that I lost a great deal of principal on. It's almost surely not coming back. It's not done yet, but it was a fraudulent operator. There was no amount of due diligence that would have cued me into this and helped me avoid that. It was just fraud. It was just crime. That's the way most fraud is. So, do what you can to mitigate the loss. Try to get your money back. Report to the appropriate authorities, but recognize that this stuff is really, really complex.

I was really bummed, I was reading in the local newspaper, the SEC is closing down the Salt Lake City branch. Apparently, they had some attorneys that retired or left or went somewhere else. There was a big to-do over a crypto case here that maybe they were overreaching on. Now, they just closed the office, which I think is a very bad idea given the history of fraud in Utah.

We've got this long, long, decades-long history of being the fraud capital of the world out here. It goes back to the era when they were literally selling uranium company stocks on street corners in Salt Lake City. I'm not thrilled to have the SEC going away out of Salt Lake City. Apparently, the Denver office is going to help cover Utah, but I think we merit our own division of the SEC here.

I'm not excited to see them pulling out, but there's a lot of fraud out there. That division was always very busy. I'm sure that Denver's not going to be able to ramp up and cover the need out here for anti-fraud protection.

All right, let's talk about another kind of protection. Let's talk about asset protection. This question comes from Matthew.

ASSET PROTECTION IN MULTIPLE STATES

Matthew:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. I just finished reading your excellent WCI guide to asset protection, and I have some additional questions. I'm two years out of residency working as an independent contractor, splitting time 50-50 in Kansas and Missouri.

My first question is, what happens if a malpractice suit arises in one state versus the other? Do the laws follow whichever state the malpractice suit originates? If I own a home in Kansas, would it be subject to creditors from a suit originating in Missouri unless titled by entirety, or does the unlimited Kansas home setting statute protect it regardless? On the flip side, would a brokerage account titled by entirety in Missouri be safe from a suit originating in Kansas, which doesn't have titling by entirety protections?

My second question is in regards to neither state having decent non-ERISA protections, as most of my wife's and my retirement savings are in a solo 401(k) and Roth IRAs. While the cap on non-economic damages in both states and my two malpractice policy means I'm not particularly worried about an above policy judgment, it still makes me a little uncomfortable that our retirement accounts aren't fully protected.

Can all these accounts go into a domestic asset protection trust, and would the situation make you more likely to suggest that? Thanks for all that you do, I really appreciate it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, great questions on asset protection. I love it. We're getting into the weeds here. Your first question is such a doctor question. Doctors think this is the way asset protection works, that there's this category, “Oh, that's protected, and this isn't protected.”

And the truth is, it's whatever works out in court. Some things are pretty clear, and we know pretty much how they're going to work. Other things are not so clear. So if you went into court with assets in Missouri in a lawsuit in Kansas or vice versa, the prosecution is going to argue for the state laws that are most favorable to them, and the defense is going to argue for the state laws that are most favorable to them. And it's going to come down to the judge, jury, or whatever, and that's what's going to happen.

I think you ought to be prepared for the worst case scenario, whichever state laws are less favorable to you could be the ones that end up getting used. And you hope for the best, which is that the better laws are the ones that are used in the case. But I don't think there is a definitive answer in this. And I'm positive if you talk to an asset protection attorney, they'll give you a similar answer, because they're always waffling on stuff like this, because nobody knows.

There's some case law, but it basically comes down to the battle of the attorneys. So good luck sorting that out. That said, do what you can. You probably get some protection for your non-ERISA investments that you wouldn't get in a taxable account. So probably still worthwhile using them. But in your situation, if you had the chance to roll money out of a non-ERISA account into an ERISA account, say you're getting access to an employee job with a 403(b) or something, maybe you roll your solo 401(k) in there and get that additional protection. That sort of a step would be worth taking in your state.

It would make me a little bit nervous, too. Utah has got great retirement account protections, but we don't have much of a homestead protection. So our house is in an asset protection trust. Utah has a nice asset protection trust. The house is in there. I don't know that you can put a retirement account in a trust, though. I don't think that's an option.

I wonder if a beneficiary of the retirement account were to trust if that might help, but I don't think it's a given because you own it. I think it's possible you can still end up losing that in the above policy limits judgment kind of situation where you had to declare bankruptcy.

But remember when we're talking about asset protection, we're talking about what do you keep if you declare bankruptcy. You get this $10 million judgment. It's not reduced on appeal. You literally owe it and you go, “I can't pay it. I'm going to declare bankruptcy.” And they get whatever is not protected and you get to keep what is protected.

Those are very rare situations. This does not happen very often at all in medical malpractice. So I'd still sleep well at night. I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about this, but I would do those things that can be helpful. I don't think you can just stick your retirement accounts in a trust, though. Because sticking something in a trust, remember what it is, it's that the trust owns it. And the trust can't own your retirement account. Especially while you're alive. So I don't think that's really an option.

Good thought, though. Maybe you want to consider other states as well if this is a big concern for you. But it doesn't sound like it's any more of a concern for you than it is for any other doctor. So, I hope that's helpful to you.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Our quote of the day today comes from Gary Player, who said, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” There's a lot of truth to that. We can create a lot of our own luck these days.

Okay, another asset protection question. This one I think has to do with the kids driving your cars.

ASSET PROTECTION AND KIDS DRIVING YOUR CARS

Shereen:
Hi, Jim. This is Shereen from Florida. In your book, A Physician's Guide to Asset Protection, you talk about reducing liability by removing my name off the title of the car that my kids use. I've got four kids ages 21, 19, 19, and 15. Two of the kids, the 21-year-old and the 19-year-old share a car at college. The other 19-year-old is also in college at a different school, doesn't have a car on campus, but does use the car when home from school on break. My 15-year-old is just starting to drive, and we may purchase a used car for her when she turns 16.

We already pay a ton for car insurance, especially since one of the twins was in a minor accident a couple of years ago. I can't imagine paying separate policies for them if we take our names off of the title. I'm assuming they would all need coverage because they all drive at some point during the year. In this situation, what would you do, if anything, regarding reducing my personal liability? I know you have four kids, too, maybe a little younger than mine. What are you planning to do? Thanks.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Okay, great question. I love this one. Okay, first of all, if they're away at college, and college is a long distance away, you may not need to have them on your insurance if they're not driving a car out there, and they only drive yours when they come home.

When we checked on this, I think it was 40 miles. It might have been 100 miles, that they had to be away. If it was more than that distance, we didn't have to keep them on the insurance. If it was less than that distance, we did have to keep them on the insurance. Maybe it was 100 miles because our kid's college, or our kid, we only have one in college, is 40 miles away, and we had to keep her on the insurance while she was there. She's now in another state for a year and a half, and so we took her off the insurance. She's not on our insurance currently, which obviously helps save a few bucks. Look into that for the kid that's not driving a car at college.

The other two that are sharing a car, you're basically weighing two things. One is maybe you can get cheaper insurance by having them on your insurance versus additional asset protection by getting them off your insurance. Remember, you're reading my book on asset protection, so I'm going to tell you how to get the most asset protection. That doesn't mean it's the best deal for you. You might be better off keeping them on your insurance, but at least price it out both ways. If it's exactly the same price or not much different, sure, get their own policy. Even if you're paying for it with a gift you give them, then that might still be worth doing.

Whether the titling is more important than the insurance is a good question. It's probably best to change both, but maybe you can argue in court in this sort of a situation that it's not your car, even if it's on your policy. I don't know how well that would work. You'd have to ask an attorney how well that argument would work, but it might be an option. Probably better if it's their own policy and their car and your name's not on it as far as asset protection purposes go.

Now, what do I do? I've got a big fat liability policy on our cars with a big fat umbrella policy sitting on top of them. If people aren't happy with the amount of money they get from my umbrella policy, they're incredibly greedy. I would have to hit a really nice car with a very expensive person inside it to hit policy limits on my umbrella policy. Most people driving around just aren't worth that much money.

The economic value of their life is not as high as my umbrella policy, and that's what matters, unfortunately. Everyone wants to think they're worth millions, but the truth is they really may not be when they actually add it up. You basically look at your earning potential. If you had somebody that's 65 and retired, they're not worth as much as a 40-year-old CEO making $2 million a year.

All right, good luck with that. You got to make a decision of it might cost you more for insurance and you get a little extra asset protection, or you just decide to have a little less asset protection and save some money on insurance. Your call.

As far as the 15-year-old, when kids are on permit, they don't cost anything. Your insurance doesn't go up to have a kid on a permit. When they turn 16 and get a license, it sure goes up in a hurry, though. Obviously, the best thing for your expenses and for your asset protection is to not let them drive until they're 18.

I think that's a bad idea. It's really a trend these days. Lots of kids don't want to get their licenses. I remember when I turned 16, I was very antsy to get my license. It represented significant freedom in my life, and all of my kids have felt the same way. It's a little bit surprising to me to see that there's kids out there that don't want to do that, but it's apparently true. I don't know if it's anxiety, they don't want to drive, or the people are just less social now. They all just hang out online and on social media or what it is, but it's been a real change in society in the last couple of decades.

All right, let's take a new question. Enough asset protection, let's talk about 529s.

529 PLANS AND STATE TAX DEDUCTIONS

Mike:
Hi Jim, this is Mike from Ohio. I had a question about 529 plans. I live in Ohio, and Ohio offers a tax deduction of up to $4,000 per year per beneficiary. I do contribute to 529s for both of my children and have maxed out those contributions at $17,000 per year, times five years at once for myself and my wife.

My question is, can I contribute $4,000 to a 529 for myself or my wife, take the state tax deduction, and then later change the beneficiary on the account to one of my children? Does this cause an issue with the gift tax exclusion limit?

Similarly, could I initially contribute to an account for an aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc., and then again change the beneficiary down the road? I don't plan on doing the latter, but from my understanding, it seems like all of these would be allowed, although it seems like it should not be. Thanks in advance for your advice here.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Stop! Seriously, how much money do you need in a 529? Stop! Why are people trying to do these schemes? College is not that expensive. I say this as somebody with four overfunded 529s, and I did not put the maximum amount in there every year for years and years and years. We basically stopped contributing to our 529s. I think we put the max in for, I don't know, four or five years after our oldest started talking about medical school, and we felt like we had to keep the other ones equal. There's way too much money in there. None of them are going to spend it because they're going to a pretty cheap school.

If you're sure your kids are all going to a super expensive school, maybe you have to put the max in there for years and years and years to get there, but let's just run the numbers. I think it's $18,000 a year you can put in there. Your spouse can go open a 529 too and put $18,000 in there for them. $36,000 is what you're putting in there a year.

They have 18 years, so let's do a future value calculation here. Let's use 8%. Let's say 18 years, you're putting $36,000 a year in there, and that works out to be $1.3 million. What school are you sending these kids to that you have to do more than this? You started working out these schemes to put some in your own 529 and change the beneficiary or grandparents or uncles or whatever.

Stop doing all this crap. I get it. You're trying to get a little tiny deduction on $4,000. What are Ohio tax rates anyway? They're not that bad, are they? Let's see. Ohio tax brackets, they go from 0% to 3.99%. Is that it? 4% tax, that's what you pay in Ohio? If you get a deduction on $4,000. $4,000 times 4%, that's $160 deduction you're getting, or that's what you're getting off your taxes. I don't know. I don't know that I'd go opening a bunch of accounts to get $160 a year. I guess you could.

You need to read the Ohio rules though on this. I'm pretty sure in Utah that once you're 19 or once the student, the beneficiary of the 529 is 19, it might be 20, I can't deduct the contribution into that account anymore. At 18, I'm pretty sure I can. At 19, I don't think I can.

At that point, doing uncle, doing grandpa, doing you, you're not getting the tax deduction anyway. This scheme of yours, I don't think is going to work if the Ohio rules are like the Utah rules. Keep that in mind. You have to know the Ohio rules if you're messing with the Ohio tax code and the Ohio 529 system. You can change beneficiaries. That would help you get around things.

The gift tax rules, let's talk about gift tax for a minute. For the most part, most doctors are never going to pay gift taxes. They can change the rules, but most docs are just not rich enough to have to pay any sort of gift tax ever. Because remember what a gift tax is. You're just using some of your estate tax exemption early.

What's the estate tax? It's like $13 million a person right now, I think, so $26 million for a married couple and it's portable. One spouse can use the other spouse's. It's scheduled to be cut in half, but even cut in half, still indexed to inflation, $13 million now, $14 million by the time you die is $25 million or $30 million. Really? Is this an issue for you? You better have something really successful on the side or you basically don't spend any of your money and you have a very high physician income for many years if you're planning to get to an estate tax problem.

All the gift tax ends up being, if you do have a gift tax issue, is just filing a return. You're not actually paying any tax. You just have to file the gift tax return. But the basic rules of the gift tax are $18,000 a year you can do without having to file a gift tax return. If you give more than $18,000 a year to anybody, you got to file a gift tax return and use up some of that estate tax exemption.

We've had to do that return once in our life when we set up our trust. Otherwise, all our gifts have been under that amount every year. You put $18,000 into a 529 that you own, $18,000 to a 529 that your spouse owns, anything above and beyond that, you give the kids other than paying for stuff like living expenses and their education directly, you have to file a gift tax return.

Later down the road, if you were changing beneficiaries, you usually would have to file a gift tax return for that, as well, if the total amount puts you over the limit. But it's usually not that hard to work around that. You got to really want to give them a lot of money to not be able to work around that and have to get into the specifics of these rules.

Now, your general comment about 529 rules and laws being really weird, I totally agree with. I don't think Congress and even the IRS thought this through very well when they passed all these laws about 529s and ABLE accounts. I don't think they really thought through how that's going to interact with gift tax laws. And so, it doesn't always make sense. I absolutely agree with you.

For example, it counts as a contribution when you put it into a 529 that you own, that the kid's the beneficiary. You own it. You can take the money out of the 529 and buy a sailboat with it. And yet it already counts as a completed gift. That doesn't make any sense, but that's the way the rules are. So you just got to work with the rules that they have.

I hope that's helpful to you. I'm sorry if I rained on your parade a little too hard, but I think people get a little crazy about 529s. These people trying to open them before they even have a social security number for the kid, it's overkill. You're going to be able to save up enough for college. And even if you can't, you can cash flow a huge part of it. It's not the end of the world if you don't make a maximum contribution to multiple 529s every year for 18 years. You're going to be able to pay for your kid's college. It'll be all right.

Let's go on to our next question. Another 529 question. This one from Brad.

529 PLANS AND DOCUMENTING WITHDRAWALS

Brad:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. I had a question regarding 529 plans and withdrawals and how to document those on federal and state tax returns. I have a daughter starting college this fall, and I'm unable to find online how to properly document those withdrawals on tax returns.

Ideally, I would like to be able to take a withdrawal a few days before I pay those bills, so I have that money I can use towards that. I was just wondering how I document that on the federal and state tax returns to stay in compliance with the IRS. I'm an Illinois resident, if that matters, but I was just wondering if you could please review how to do that properly. Thank you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Great question, and a lot of good questions today. What a great episode we're putting together here. Let me tell you what I do. I am now withdrawing starting this year, I think I'm withdrawing from nine 529s. You'll recall I started them for all my nieces and nephews, and we've got nine kids in college. One of them just graduated, actually. We've been our nieces and nephews. This is exciting, but this is why I have 34, 35, 529s, because I got one for all these kids.

Here's what I do. They all have a Venmo account, and they say, Uncle Jim, I need $1,750 for this fee or for rent or whatever. I say, okay, and I Venmo them $1,750. Then I log in to my529.org, and I make a withdrawal to my bank account. It's a partial withdrawal, and it's for higher education. That's all the 529 asks me, and it goes to my bank account. Then we reconcile our Venmo account and our bank account and whatever. Money moves between the two, no problem.

Now, they go and pay for their fee, they pay their rent, whatever, and they send me the receipt. They email me the receipt, and I save it on my computer in my folder for 529 receipts for 2024. That's it. That's the whole process.

At the end of the year, my 529 sends me some tax forms, and I hand those to my tax preparer. I don’t think they do much with them. This isn't really a taxable event. These are legitimate withdrawals, so they're not income to me. They don't really show up on my taxes.

And so, I get a form from them for my contributions. I get a deduction for contributions, and I get a form from them showing withdrawals, and if I ever got audited, the IRS could say, okay, show me the receipts for these withdrawals, and I have the receipts, and that's it.

Now, I've talked to an expert about paying for college, and her recommendation was actually that you have the 529 send the money to the school or to whoever the payment is going to whenever possible. That looks cleaner and is less likely to get audited, but you know what? It's a huge pain.

You know what's not a pain? Venmo. Venmo is not a pain. Put it in my account, not a pain, and I think it's worth the risk of an audit.

I'm confident I would pass an audit on this point. They're all legitimate expenses. I have all the receipts. It's a very clean paper trail, and I don't think it's a problem. They're not going to audit me on this. This is small potatoes when it comes to my tax return, and if they want to do an audit, they're going to audit something else. But that's what I do, so I hope that's helpful.

We could go through the forms that the 529 send you. We could talk about how that actually gets entered into tax software, but I'll be honest. I've never done it. I haven't been doing my own taxes for the last two or three years. I just hand it to the tax guy, and they take care of it. Since it's not taxable, I don't think it even really shows up on the return.

The deductions do for my contributions. Absolutely, they show up. I can show you where they show up on my Utah return, but that's not going to help you in Illinois. I'm sure they show up somewhere similarly on the Illinois return. Actually, I think I may be filing Illinois returns, so I might be able to tell you where that sort of thing would show up on an Illinois return, but I'm not making contributions to an Illinois 529, so I'm not going to get that deduction anyway.

I hope that's helpful to you. It doesn't have to be that complicated. It's really not that big a deal. You just want to make sure you're spending on legitimate things. In general, that's computers, that's room and board, or if they're living on their own, rent and food, up to the amount the school authorizes. It's tuition, it's fees.

One thing it is not, however, is transportation. I've had some of the kids ask me to send them money for transportation expenses. No bueno. That is not a 529 expense. So, keep that in mind. Almost everything else they need for school is, though.

All right, WCI scholarship season. The WCI scholarship is out there again. You got to be a professional student to apply. You can apply at whitecodeinvestor.com/scholarship. Last year, I think we had 1,000 applicants. What is it? It's a cash award. We send you a check. We give you a White Coat Investor course as well if you win.

There's 10 winners. There's two categories. One category is like inspiring story category. That's where most of the applications come in. The other one's like a financial story. Tell us a financial story from being in med school, maybe a trick you learned or how you're paying for things or keeping your debt down or whatever.

The other one tends to be people who come from an incredibly hard financial background and are incredible people that started orphanages or whatever. Those tend to be the people that win in that category.

You can apply. We encourage people to apply. You have to be a full-time professional student in good standing. Most of our winners over the years have been medical students with an occasional dental student that's won, but other professionals can't apply.

One thing we do need with this, though, because now we're getting not just like 600 applications like we used to. We're getting like 1,000 applications a year. We need help judging. We don't decide who gets the money. None of the WCI staff are judges. You guys are the judges. The White Coat Investor community is the judges. So, we need judges.

Last year, we had so many applicants. I think it ended up being like 20 of these 1,000-word essays that the judges had to read. We'd like to get that down closer to 10 so it's not as much of a burden on the volunteer judges. Please, please, please, even if you've never judged this before, we'd like you to be a judge. You can't be a student or a resident, but if you're a professional or a retiree of any kind, you can be one of the judges and expect to read 10 to 20 of these 1,000-word essays. They're pretty inspiring. I think you'll really enjoy it.

Apply to be a judge by emailing [email protected]. Put “Volunteer Judge” in the title. We'll get you in there. You'll need a little bit of free time in September to be a judge, but please, please, please volunteer. We can't do this program without you. It would be overwhelming for our staff, number one, but number two, we just want to be as unbiased as possible as far as who the winners of the contest are.

I think we're at $60,000 or $70,000 this year we're going to give away. You divide that by 10, that's $6,000 or $7,000 a piece. That's a big deal to a medical student. It's a big deal to get a check for that. It really does make a difference in their lives. We continue to support that and appreciate our sponsors who help us to keep this program going year after year. I don't know what year we're in, seven or eight, I think we've been doing this. We hope to keep it going, but we do need your help to do so.

Those who want to apply, whitecodeinvestor.com/scholarship, you have until the end of August. There's no benefit to applying early, but maybe don't wait till the last minute. Those who want to judge, email [email protected] with the words “Volunteer Judge” in the title. Thank you so much for being willing to do that.

Okay. The next question comes from Nicholas. Let's take a listen.

SAVE PLAN AND NO INTEREST ACCRUAL

Nicholas:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. This is Nick from Idaho. I have a question in regards to the SAVE plan that replaced REPAYE. As far as I understand, as long as the monthly payment calculated on this plan is made every month, no interest accrues on the total student loan balance.

My previous student loan plan was to enroll in REPAYE during residency and refinance privately after residency for a lower interest rate. However, as far as I understand, the SAVE plan seems to have essentially a 0% interest rate for those who are like me and are interested in paying off loans within just a few years of graduating residency. Am I missing something or is this the best student loan hack available?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I didn't hear you say anything wrong, so I don't think you're missing anything. I don't know if I should rant on this again. I feel like I've talked about this before, but the federal student loan program has become incredibly generous for doctors. When you combine the SAVE plan with PSLF and a few other things like the fact that basically people aren't taking out private loans in med school anymore, and it takes a year or two to certify your new income when your income goes up, you put these four factors together and it's super generous.

I'm not even sure it's good public policy to have it be this generous to doctors, but I'm glad you guys are all benefiting from it. Obviously, play by the rules of the game you're given and take advantage where you can.

But yeah, this is the way SAVE works. So let's say you got $200,000 in student loans. They are at 6%, so that's $1,000 in interest a month. Let's say your payment is $200. So you'd pay $200 and $800 in interest would be waived. That's the way SAVE works. REPAYE was basically $400 would be added on to your loan and $400 would be waived. Well, now under SAVE, all $800 is waived. So your loans no longer grow in residency.

You do have to make payments though. And those payments are going toward interest. So it's not 0% interest. It's a heavily subsidized interest rate, even more so than under REPAYE, but it's not 0% interest. You're paying some interest during residency with your payments. Just the only guarantee is that they don't grow because no interest is getting added to the loan.

You can't stay in REPAYE though. Everybody in REPAYE is being converted to SAVE. It's not like REPAYE is even a thing anymore. It doesn't really exist. It's being all converted to SAVE.

Now after residency, you're going to pay off your loans. You're not planning on going for PSLF. So basically you wait until you have to recertify your income. And that's not going to be the day you walk out of residency. It might be the next spring. It might be two years later. It just depends. This is a moving target. The rules keep changing. Sometimes they don't come to you for quite a while and you're still making payments based on your resident income.

In your first couple of years of residency, if you file a tax return as a fourth year medical student showing zero income, your first year or two of residency, you're basically making $0 payments. And then your payments go up a little bit more as you go through residency. And then when you come out for a year or two, you're still making payments based on that resident or fellow income. And if you can get your student loans paid off in a year, 18 months, two years after coming out, it might not make sense to refinance. Your subsidized interest rate is not zero. Like I said, that subsidized interest rate may be better than what you can refinance to.

On the other hand, if you think it's going to be three, four, five, six years, whatever, to pay off your student loans, you're probably going to need to refinance. And when do you refinance? You refinance about that time that they basically take into account your attending income. Because at that point, you're no longer getting a subsidized interest rate.

What interest rate are you paying? Well, these days, medical students are taking out loans. I think this next year, it's going to be 8.05% and 9.05%. Now, those of you who are out in training right now, you don't have loans that high, you don't have federal loans that high anyway, for the most part. Yours are 6 or 7% probably, but that's how high they are.

So if your loans are going to where your effective rate is 8%, yeah, refinance them. I think people refinance at 5%, 5.5%, 6% right now. It's not the 2% you used to be able to get. And so, of course, the volume of refinancing has gone way down. But if you're paying off your student loans, and your federal student loan rate is really high, yeah, refinance.

Refinance still makes sense for lots of people. Just remember, once you refinance, you're no longer in SAVE. You can't go back into SAVE if you go back to residency or anything. And of course, you're no longer eligible for PSLF. So refinancing is a big decision. But if you're going to pay off your student loans anyway, why not save 2% or 3% on them? It still makes sense.

We still have our partners for student loan refinancing here at whitecoatinvestor.com. It's under the Recommended tab. If you go to the website, we're still giving away cash. You're still getting Fire Your Financial Advisor for free if you sign up to refinance through our links. So, it's a way better deal than going directly to them.

But let's be honest, the volume is way lower. Because interest went up, number one, and SAVE became so generous. Not nearly as big a part of the business as it used to be a few years ago. But it still makes sense for lots of people to use. Yeah, your loans are not 0% just because they're not going up in residency. You're still paying some interest. So I hope that answers your question.

SPONSOR

Now, as I mentioned at the top of the podcast, SoFi is helping medical professionals like us bank, borrow and invest to achieve financial wellness. Whether you're a resident or close to retirement, SoFi offers medical professionals exclusive rates and services to help you get your money right. Visit their dedicated page to see all that SoFi has to offer at whitecoatinvestor.com/sofi.

Loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A. NMLS 696891. Advisory services by SoFi Wealth LLC. The brokerage product is offered by SoFi Securities LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investing comes with risk, including risk of loss. Additional terms and conditions may apply.

All right. Thanks for those of you leaving us a five-star review and telling your friends about the podcast. Recent one came in from Woof755. He said, “Essential financial podcast. Dr. Jim Dahle has been looking out for docs for well over a decade. He provides evidence-based and influence-free advice in order to help docs get their finances in line. Absolutely essential listen.” Five stars. Thanks for that great review. It really does help.

Don't forget, scholarship time. Apply. Please volunteer to be a judge. Don't forget that it's the new medical year. Watch out for those new interns, new residents, new students. Make sure they're getting the financial literacy they need.

Please pay this wonderful gift that we've all been giving to be financially literate. Please pay it forward. There's somebody out there that you might not feel like you know that much, but you know more than somebody that you're interacting with. I'm always appalled by the questions I get in real life from real intelligent doctors that don't know all that much about finance. You can help them. Please do. Please do. We appreciate it.

Okay. That's the end of another great podcast. Keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor podcast.

DISCLAIMER

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.

INTRODUCTION

This is the White Coat Investor podcast Milestones to Millionaire – Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 177 – Emergency Physician Becomes a Millionaire Five Years Out.

We got a great interview today. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Afterwards, stick around. I'm going to talk about an interaction I had with someone who calls herself a financial advisor. I'm going to explain what you really should be looking for when running into some people in the financial services industry.

INTERVIEW

Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Vitaliy. Welcome to the podcast.

Vitaliy:
Great to be here.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. Tell us what you do for a living, what part of the country you live in, how far you are out of training.

Vitaliy:
I am an emergency physician. I work at an academic emergency department. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am about five years post-fellowship. I did a fellowship. This is actually finishing my fifth year.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
The emergency medicine programs in Charlotte have a pretty darn good reputation. I applied to a couple of those when I was applying to residency two decades ago.

Vitaliy:
Funny thing is I applied to it too and I did not get an interview, but I ended up getting a job.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
They want you now as faculty. I got an interview at one and not the other and ended up not going to either one of them, but it was one of two places in the country that didn't interview me, I remember. I was like, “Wow, it must be really great. They didn't want me.”

Vitaliy:
Yeah, I was a little surprised too.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But congratulations anyway.

Vitaliy:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Let's talk about this milestone. You've accomplished something. Tell us what you've done.

Vitaliy:
Yeah, I've always had a goal to get to about a million dollars net worth when I was 40 years old and that was my goal. But the other day I just decided to go on to, I kind of keep things tracked on like Credit Karma and things like that. And all of a sudden I'm like, that net worth seems a lot higher. I basically got to a million dollars already. And I was actually more and superseded that. I was very surprised and texting my wife like, “Hey, how do you feel like being a millionaire?” She's like, “What are you talking about?”

Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's cool. So how old are you?

Vitaliy:
I am 36.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
36. Beat it by four years. Very nice. The original title for the White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide is Millionaire by 40. And it never got that title. That never made it through the writing process. But as you recall, if you've read that book, the first few chapters talk about our process of getting there and you beat us by a couple of years. So congratulations.

Vitaliy:
Yeah, I read your book when I was a med student, a fourth year med student. It just came out. Yeah, that inspired me start on that journey. It's actually one of the reasons I actually even got life insurance because I never, no one in my family, I know nobody that ever had life insurance. I myself am an immigrant. That kind of sphere of things never kind of came to us. And so it was interesting to kind of delve into all of that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, I have a pretty good idea what kind of money you make in emergency medicine, but I'm not sure all the listeners out there do. So, can you talk to us about your income over the last five years?

Vitaliy:
Yeah, at fellowship I was making around $100,000. And since then, I made around $280,000, just maybe up to $300,000, a little over $300,000, depending on if I picked up extra shifts or not. That's kind of been the income for the last five years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What was your net worth when you came out of training?

Vitaliy:
Probably at that point in time, minus maybe $45,000 or so.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Close to zero, but negative.

Vitaliy:
We started paying off my loans during residency. I didn't wait to pay off my loans till after training. Actually, we started it during training. My wife worked for a little bit during that time. And so we just decided we'll just start paying things off at that point in time. And that's kind of what we did. My parents were able to give me a small loan to kind of get rid of some of my higher interest loans. But we ended up paying them all back too.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
If I look at the numbers here, you've made maybe a million and a half dollars so far in your career. And you've still got a million dollars of it. You've got a million dollar net worth after making a million and a half. That's a pretty impressive ratio, don't you think?

Vitaliy:
Yeah. Well, I've been very fortunate that the market has been good to us. That's been very good. We bought a house, which is where some of my equity comes from during COVID pandemic.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Clearly you've had some tailwinds but a lot of this came from brute force saving. This is just money you didn't spend that you could have spent. What do you think is your saving rate? What percentage of your gross income do you think has been going toward building wealth the last five years?

Vitaliy:
Probably around a quarter, 25 to maybe 30% or so.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
25 to 30% plus whatever debt payments you're making because you're paying off some debt as well.

Vitaliy:
Yeah.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool. So what's your net worth divided up into? How much is in home equity? How much in retirement accounts, other investments, real estate, whatever?

Vitaliy:
Yeah. We have about $500,000 into investments, both 401(k), Roths, and things like that. About $75,000 cash. And then we have now over $600,000 in home equity, which is, like I said, that surprised us a lot more recently, just because the housing values have tremendously gone up over here in Charlotte.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
How do you feel about having such a big percentage of your wealth being in your home?

Vitaliy:
I do realize it's not a permanent thing. I don't feel like I can just take out that money and just do whatever with it. But it gives me a sense of, “All right, at least I have something.” I have a home that's of value and of worth. Should something happen, if I decide to leave, I can still get something out of it. Even if it drops, drops. But at the same time, I don't expect it to go down to even before what I bought the house for. I feel very fortunate and grateful to be able to have what I have.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. And that ratio will probably change as you continue to save and invest as well. And it'll be a smaller percentage of your financial life later.

Vitaliy:
For sure.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You mentioned that nobody in your family had ever bought life insurance. Tell us about your upbringing and how that affected how you manage money.

Vitaliy:
Yeah. I was an immigrant. We moved to the country in literally two suitcases. My family was a three-year-old, a two-year-old and one-year-old. I was a one-year-old at the time. And so, we actually grew up in Massachusetts. My dad, all whatever training he did in the old country, it didn't count for nothing. He ended up working as a baker at a bagel shop and just helped put us through.

My parents were very, very much into making sure we all get our education and push us towards that. And so right now, for example, I have four siblings. I'm one of five. My older brother actually just graduated medical school. He's older than me and he just graduated medical school. And my older sister is a nurse. I'm a doctor. My younger brother used to be an engineer, but now he's an investor. And my younger sister's a nurse.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
A classic immigrant success story.

Vitaliy:
It really is. And my parents own their own business now. We've had a lot of blessings now. They've worked hard. There's no question. I still remember the one time I asked my parents for money, I kind of was talking about them. And at that point in time, they were cleaning houses. And there was a particular phrase my mom told me. It's like, “Do you think I like to clean toilets for a living? Do you think I like to do this?” But at the same time, now I see that work ethic. “Why.” It's like, “Hey, listen, you have to do what you have to do to provide for your family.” And they did. When things are hard, they work extra. But now, they're not retired yet. They're still running their business. But it's a very different type of business now than what they first started.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. You may not have inherited much financial literacy. You may not have inherited much money. But you inherited quite a work ethic.

Vitaliy:
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What were your other secrets to success?

Vitaliy:
Getting married early, I will say. I got married at 23 after my first year of medical school. My wife worked. She helped pay down that living expenses. And the only loans I really had to take out was to provide for medical school and to pay for that. I also went to an in-state school. Overall, I lowered my expenses. But at the same time, I will say that I was able to enjoy it.

I actually extended an extra year of medical school to study abroad. I did have to pay for that. But in the end, it was very well worth it. Because that actually was the best question I got to get into residency and to get into other places, because people were always fascinated “Well, how did you study abroad during medical school?” I think that was something that allowed me to do that.

And so in the end, I basically minimized my expenses. My wife is a very frugal person. She does not like to spend a lot of money to begin with. And I tend to be the spender. But even then, I won't spend on myself. I'll spend on others. I'll spend on my kids. I'll spend on my wife or something.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You can't just drop that little piece of information without more details. I don't know anybody that studied abroad during medical school. How did you study abroad during medical school?

Vitaliy:
My school had an exchange program with students that came from Germany to the US, except we never sent anybody back. And so I was like, “Well, I want to go.” And my wife and I actually started dating in Germany. She was studying abroad. I was backpacking through Europe after college. We knew each other from before, from back home. But that's where we started. And I just had a big desire to do it. And so that's how I kind of worked through the plan. I actually got a scholarship to go study there. In the end, we lived in a city in southwest Germany called Heidelberg. And it was an awesome time. We had just had a great time. Both learned the German language at the time, as well as did some medical rotation.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, sounds pretty cool.

Vitaliy:
Yeah, it was really fun. It was really fun. Did have to pay for it, though, in the sense of I had to pay a full medical school tuition because I needed to get credit, which felt rather odd because those medical students from Germany were paying a quarter of what I was paying.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, it's a little bit brutal. All right. Well, let's say there's somebody that's like you were a few years ago. They're coming out, they got a net worth of zero or maybe negative $100,000 or negative $200,000 and they want to be millionaires in five years. What advice do you have for them?

Vitaliy:
Save, of course. Spend on what you want, not on what everything is around you and glitzy and whatnot. What matters to you. Figure out what matters to you and then go ahead and spend the money on that. And so, I think that's what allows us to be able to do what we still wanted to do.

I ended up buying a house, ended up buying a car that I needed. But I still drive my medical school car to work now, the 2009 Honda Civic, and I still drive it. I don't need another car. I don't really care for it. I did upgrade my car just a year ago. And that was to a 2017 minivan. And that was because I have four kids now. I just couldn't fit them in the Civic.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Very cool.

Vitaliy:
Yeah. In the end, I think it's just spend what's important to you and save the rest and let the market do the work too. I just put it in, like what you said, put it in the low cost index funds. And that's what I've been doing. It went up, went down. Now it's in a good place. And I understand it may go down, but guess what? It'll go back up again. I feel comfortable with that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah. Some people might say, “Oh, you got lucky with the housing market. Oh, you got lucky with investments.” But you know what? You stick with them long term and eventually everybody gets lucky with them. Those good times do come eventually. Very cool. Very cool.

Well, congratulations to you. You have accomplished something impressive. There's lots of people out there that never become millionaires. There are lots of doctors out there that never become millionaires. The net worth statistics suggest that as many as 25% of doctors never become millionaires, even in their 60s, they're still not millionaires. So you've accomplished this very quickly in your career. And I congratulate you on that. Thank you for coming on the podcast to share your experience with others.

Vitaliy:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview. It's always great to see people being even more successful than I was. I'm excited to have inspired him to do that. It's pretty interesting. I went back through my mailbox. I've emailed him about five times over the years. He sent in a question. I responded to the question. After we finished recording, we reminisced through some of those exchanges. It's fun to see how the decisions he made have worked out for him over the course of his career. And it's really pretty impressive.

FINANCE 101: FINANCIAL ADVISORS

I mentioned at the beginning that we're going to talk about financial advisors today. And the problem with the term financial advisor is it doesn't actually mean anything. Just about anybody can call themselves a financial advisor. But you got to get into the details, figure out how they're being paid, how much they're being paid, what kind of advice they're giving before you say, “Well, this is somebody I want to trust for financial advice.”

I have interactions with financial advisors all the time. Some of the most fiery ones come as comments on the blog. In this case, this was a comment on the show notes for a podcast we ran not all that long ago. We ran it at the end of May. I got a comment on there from someone who considers herself a financial advisor. And she wasn't very happy with me. She said, maybe you should learn more about annuities before you spout off about them. No annuity pays a 10% commission. The average is a little over 5%. And it goes on and on and on and on. Tells me how I don't know anything about asset protection and tells me that I should learn more about the products I'm trashing before I put my foot in my mouth again.

I said, “Well, shoot, if you're dumb enough to leave your real name as a comment on my blog, I think I'm going to look up a little bit about you.” So I did. Somebody that's been in the financial services industry for about 20 years. First started at a company called Waddell & Reed. Now, if you've never heard of Waddell & Reed, count your blessings. Mutual fund expense ratios tend to approach 2%.

Then this advisor went to Raymond James. Not exactly the Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab type of place. Let's put it that way. And now at another firm. I looked up that firm's ADV2. They charge WRAP fees. And if your advisor charges a WRAP fee, you need a new advisor. This is a rip-off method. Pretty much should never be used. In fact, there was nine pages in their ADV2 about fees. How much do you need? I don't know. Half a page? Just enough to explain how your fees work. But they got so many fees, it takes them nine pages to explain them.

They charge an AUM fee of as much as 3%. They routinely start at 2.5%. They charge WRAP fees. They're charging commissions. They're selling crummy products. And they're charging 2.5% AUM fees. It's a rip-off. They're giving lousy advice and they're charging way too much for it. And then she comes to my blog and gives me a hard time because I said, apparently on the podcast, that annuities can pay commissions up to 10%.

Well, I looked it up again. They range anywhere from 1%, which is the very best immediate annuity type thing, to as much as 8%. I guess the correction was needed. They don't pay 10%. They pay up to 8%. But it's really not relevant.

But I thought this was a good example to talk about the kind of financial advisor you do not want. And these are fee-based advisors. They charge commissions. And they charge fees. And what happens is you can't tell which hat they have on at a given time. Are they wearing their salesperson hat? Are they wearing their advisor hat? You can't tell. It all sounds like it's coming from the same person.

And meanwhile, you end up with crummy insurance products. You end up with crummy investments. You end up paying way too much in fees. You grow your wealth way too slowly. And it's embarrassing.

I'd be embarrassed to be an advisor like this. I don't know how you look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day, knowing you're charging 2.5% AUM fees and putting people into loaded mutual funds with expense ratios of 1% or 2% and actually feel like you're doing people a favor. You're not.

I told this lady. I wasn't particularly kind in my replying comment. I said you're a sales agent masquerading as an advisor. I looked up your history and it's not pretty. And I went through the history that I mentioned to you. And I said, “Clearly, you are not the target audience for this blog. You are its subject. That's why I really don't care what you think about what I write. Quit selling people crap they don't need and certainly don't want once they understand how it works. And pretending it is some sort of unbiased financial advice. If I had my way, your firm would have zero clients. I hope you go out of business. ASAP.”

Anyway, if you have an advisor that is doing that sort of a thing, you need to get a new advisor. The people on our recommended advisor list, they didn't like it when we came out with an online course in 2018 titled Fire Your Financial Advisor. But they got over it because they realized I wasn't talking about advisors like them when I'm talking about firing your advisor. Yeah, some of you are hardcore do-it-yourselfers and you'll fire advisors, even like the good ones on our list. And that's fine. Perfectly fine.

When I'm talking about advisors that need to be fired, I'm talking about people like this lady. This person should have no clients. Charging 2.5% AUM fees and selling you crappy loaded mutual funds and crappy annuities and pretending they're helping you. They're not helping you. They're just ripping you off. So if you have an advisor like that, fire them.

If you need an advisor, get a good advisor. We got a whole list of them. If you don't need an advisor, learn how to do it yourself. Need a little help with that? Our Fire Your Financial Advisor course can help you. But these sorts of people need to be run out of business. They either need to change their business practices and become real financial advisors, or they need to be run out of business. And that's just the way the financial services industry is. And I make no apologies about that.

All right, that's the end of our podcast. If you want to be on the podcast, you can apply whitecoatinvestor.com/milestones. If you just like listening, that's fine too. We'll have another episode for you next week. Until then, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this. See you next time.

DISCLAIMER

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys, or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.