By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI FounderEvery Monday morning, I get a deluge of your questions in my email inbox from the weekend. The questions are often really good and it seems a waste only to use them to educate a single person. So from time to time, I anonymize them and turn the questions and answers into a blog post.
Contacting Authors
“I’m a long time follower and have been mentoring students and residents for many years now—in financial issues as well as in[my specialty]. Interestingly, as the years have gone by, I’m blessed that the doctors continue to call me for both financial advice/mentoring as well as specific urologic questions.
I recently was asked by a former student, who I continue to work with in terms of her financial journey, if I would give a formal talk [to another specialty]. Although I am comfortable in my own field, this will be a step outside of my comfort zone.
Just FYI, I am [beyond Medicare age], and I love the practice that I have been able to carve out over the past 15 years, mostly because I have been able to “say no” and cut out many of the pain points. The money is inconsequential at this point, and I am so fortunate to be able to ‘pay it forward' and continue to practice and teach.
I am hoping to purchase myself and give away several books when I speak at the meeting. I am certainly going to recommend that they personally buy your original text, and I will be using /modifying some of the slides that you graciously have provided to the community—and I will be referencing you and your work repeatedly.
That being said, and with all respect to you and your work that started so many of us on this path, I would like to give the attendees copies of JL Collins’ Simple Path to Wealth and Mike Piper’s Taxes Made Simple.
I was hoping to contact them just to see if they might be able to give me a quantity discount. I don’t know how many people we will have yet. If we have less than 50, I will try to provide both books, but if we get more than 50 I may have to limit it to just Simple Path to Wealth.
Sorry to ramble on, but your work has enabled me to help so many others, and you should be very proud of that. Do you have contact info for JL Collins and Mike Piper that you are able to provide?”
Congratulations on your success, and it's wonderful that you are doing this to pay it forward. While it seems stressful to speak to a group of docs, you'll probably be shocked at how little they know about personal finance and investing.
We give away a lot of copies of Simple Path to Wealth to newlyweds (along with a check we tell them they cannot cash until they've both read it) so we're certainly not offended you're giving it away. We recommend Mike's books all the time, too. I've CCed both of them for your convenience. Not sure if they do discounted bulk book orders like we do, but if not, their books are relatively inexpensive anyway.
More information here:
Best Financial Books for Doctors
Thoughts on Specific Financial Advisors
“I have been listening to your podcasts for several years and generally managing my finances but recently spent one year working with [a specific financial advisor] on a fixed fee basis to review my investments, insurances, asset protection, estate planning, tax strategies, etc. It was through one year and was very helptul to have gone through the exercise and had eight or nine one-hour meetings.
They would like me to now use them to be my [long-term advisor]. They use an AUM model starting at 1% and then dropping as the portfolio increases. I looked online for reviews but could not find any. They basically work only with physicians so I thought you may have heard things—either positive or negative—and wanted your thoughts.”
Glad you had a great experience. [This specific financial advisor] is not on our list of sponsoring financial advisors. I'm not sure they've ever applied to be on it. Since it is a lot of work to determine if we're going to allow a firm to be on the list, we don't generally go through this process for firms who aren't interested in being on it, so I'm not going to go through our whole process just to answer your question.
We require three things to be on our list:
- To pay us (they're buying an ad)
- To give good advice (sounds like you feel you're getting this)
- To charge a fair price
Frankly, 1% is only a fair price if you're not yet a millionaire. At that point, you need to start negotiating much lower fees since you can find people willing to do your financial planning AND asset management for $7,500-$15,000 as discussed in this blog post. And 1% for $2 million = $20,000 a year.
I suspect if we did go through the process with [this particular firm], that is where the problem would be. I'd encourage you to look at the firms on the list. Note that some of them do charge AUM fees just like [this specific firm], which need to be negotiated down once you're a millionaire. If you don't want to do that, don't go with an AUM-charging advisor.
If you're interested in potentially becoming a DIY investor and saving all those advisory fees, we recommend you take our Fire Your Financial Advisor online course. It will be cheaper than any advisor; will teach you how to hire advisors well if needed; and for many people, will help them to write their own financial plan without using an advisor at all.
More information here:
How to Find a Good Financial Advisor at a Fair Price
Are Financial Advisors Worth It? Should I Use a Financial Advisor or Do It Myself?
What About Vanguard Personal Advisory Services (PAS)?
“Good morning and thanks for such a great resource that you have created. I was looking at your financial advisor list (thanks) and was hoping you could comment on how they compare with Vanguard wealth advisor services, as you know charges of what other advisers may provide. I figure a lot of physicians have Vanguard accounts and have immediate access to that and wonder what your thoughts are in the comparison list with [the advisors on the WCI list].”
Vanguard has not applied to be on our list, but I'm very familiar with the service. Basically, for 0.35% a year, it'll make sure you're not doing anything bonkers with your IRA and taxable account held at Vanguard. That's it. While the price is right, the amount of service offered isn't nearly as much as you'll get with pretty much everybody on our list. If you're content to have asset management for your IRA and taxable account only, then I guess Vanguard might be right for you. But I don't think that's what most white coat investors are looking for when they're looking for a financial advisor. Check them out, though, if you want and let me know how it goes.
What you're NOT getting (that you will get from the folks on our list) is:
- Physician-specific financial planning
- Comprehensive asset management (including your employer accounts that aren't at Vanguard)
Obviously, you can do a lot worse than Vanguard (and pay a whole lot more,) but in this case, most WCIers using Vanguard are probably being penny wise and pound foolish. Let me know if your experience is any different, but if you need an advisor, you probably need more service than what Vanguard is offering.
Mortgage Modifications
“Thanks for your tireless efforts over the years to increase financial literacy among physicians, I've benefitted tremendously from you over the years.
If possible, I would appreciate if you would do a post or a podcast segment on mortgage loan modification for the purposes of lowering mortgage interest rate as opposed to refinancing. It appears one can save quite a bit of the costs of refinancing to achieve the goal of reducing mortgage APR, in light of the interest rate cuts that seem to be on the horizon.
Some of the info I've found online is focused on homeowners seeking to modify loans due to financial hardship or foreclosure risk, which isn't applicable to me or perhaps other physicians who bought homes in the past couple of years at higher APR and are interested in lowering our mortgage APR while avoiding some of the costs inherent in refinancing.”
I haven't written an article on mortgage modifications, but if I did, it would probably look a lot like this. Note that mortgage modification is different from recasting a mortgage, which I have podcasted about.
You're right that most people looking for these are in trouble. It sounds like you just want a lower interest rate without having to pay a bunch of refinancing fees. The approach I would take is simply to see what's out there for refinancing, and then, before pulling the trigger, check with your lender to see if they'll modify your loan enough to make it worthwhile NOT refinancing with someone else. If so, great! If not, then refinance.
Marrying a Doc
“I am a White Coat Boyfriend (soon to be a White Coat Fiancé, but shhhh don’t tell her). My girlfriend is an MS1 and I have a job in IT. I have been listening to the podcast since the beginning of our senior year in undergrad—about a year ago now—and I think it’s just the cat’s meow. I have a few questions but I want to give you a rundown on our situation first.
- I’m proposing in a few weeks and we’ll get married just before the start of her second year.
- I make right around $100,000 before taxes.
- My company has great retirement benefits. Essentially, I can contribute up to 6%, and as long as I contribute at least 1%, the company will contribute 12%-18% into either a traditional 401(k) or a Roth 401(k).
- My girlfriend is planning on taking out about $30,000 in loans this year and next, but I know that number goes up in years 3 and 4.
- She has money in a taxable brokerage account from a family member that is somewhere in the $40,000-$50,000 range. It was put away intended for grad school. Why they didn’t put it in a 529 is a mystery to me.
Given these facts, I have a few questions.
- Is it unwise of me to contribute the minimum to my retirement because of the generous company contributions? I currently plan on maxing out my HSA and contributing the minimum 1% to the 401(k). The idea there is that I’ll save some money to support her through training and then her attending salary will pick up the slack.
- Should she use that $40,000-$50,000 to pay for some of med school or should she take out loans and continue investing that money? I know recently in a podcast you mentioned you have changed your mind on the topic.
- I had an idea regarding traditional vs. Roth 401(k). I know it should make more sense to contribute to the Roth because I’m not in my peak earnings years. But we currently live in a state income tax state and we both want to move to Texas at some point. She’s going to try to match there for residency, and if not, we’ll move there eventually—my family lives there. Therefore, should I contribute pre-tax dollars now and then do a rollover once I live in Texas, where there is no income tax? I would do this in the years when we would still file MFS due to her FAFSA and SAVE benefits of doing so.
P.S. I have bought the Fire Your Financial Advisor Student course and I’m currently in the process of convincing her to take it with me! Thanks for the 20% off.”
Thanks for buying the course. While most of our content is free, those things that we charge for (courses, the WCICON conference, books) really help support our work around here to a much greater extent than a few ads. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage. I'm sure she'll say yes given how smart and successful you are.
- If you can, I would max out your 401(k). Certainly getting the match is wonderful, but I've never had a 401(k) match and I've maxed mine out every year (in 2024, the max is $23,000, and in 2025, it'll be $23,500). It's a plenty great deal even without the match. It's not clear to me where the money is going that is not going in the 401(k). Maybe you need to spend it, but it sounds like it's going toward her schooling if it doesn't go in the 401(k). You're right that I've changed my mind on this topic in the last few years. The federal student loan program has become so generous that I think maintaining optionality for PSLF (along with other, lesser benefits) has great value and is worth paying some additional dollars and fees to maintain. Plus, you're not married yet. Paying tens of thousands of dollars toward her educational costs or student loans may be fine after you get married but not before.
- No. I really hate giving this advice, but I think it is the right advice. Maintain the optionality.
- Roth vs. traditional is complicated. The good news is that the harder the decision, the less it probably matters. You're weighing the state income tax arbitrage against the likelihood of being in higher tax brackets later. I'm not sure a calculation can even be made at this point that would be anywhere near accurate. Since you're only making $100,000, if you do end up married to a doctor, it's hard for me to imagine that you won't eventually regret doing anything but Roth right now even with the higher state taxes.
Your comment about MFS/FAFSA/SAVE seems a little misinformed. First, SAVE is probably going away for good, and it shouldn't be relevant to any decisions you make. It's in the court system now, but it isn't looking good. Second, the FAFSA is all about taking out loans. When WCIers do MFS, they usually do so years later to reduce IDR payments (primarily to maximize PSLF). Yet you're talking above about keeping her student loan burden low. These two things are contradictory approaches to student loan management. When it comes time to start talking about MFS vs. MFJ (likely four years from now), I'd recommend setting up a consultation with StudentLoanAdvice.com. At any rate, if you get married next year as planned, I cannot imagine that MFS is going to be the right way to file your taxes while she's in school.
More information here:
Financial Conversations to Set Your Marriage Up for Success
From Fourth Year to the Real World: An $80,000 Wedding Causes a Downward Spiral
A Book on Medicare
“Thanks for all of your wonderful work. I know Mike Piper has written a great book on Social Security but was wondering if you had a recommendation for a book on getting the most out of Medicare. This would be helpful to recommend to my patients and help me understand it better from the patient side to provide them better counsel. I am a primary care family medicine physician.”
I don't have one, sorry. A quick Google search found this one. though. Why not try it?
Gap-Year Finances
“I am a recent graduate and am in the middle of my gap year working as an academic tutor before going to medical school beginning in July 2025. I read your White Coat books and I am a huge fan of them. I was wondering if you had any life/financial advice of what to do in your gap year.
Currently, I am working as an academic tutor for the SAT/ACT about 25-30 hours a week and should pull in an expected pre-tax salary of about $55,000-$62,000 (my hours are inconsistent because it's based on the school year). I live with friends rent free. Right now, I've been saving 80% of my income and putting it into a high yield savings account with Marcus to save up and pay for my first year of medical school (about $4,000 at the moment). I have built up an emergency fund of about $1,500, and I put $100 into a Roth IRA just to open my account there. The rest of the 20% I give to myself.
Additionally, I have about $12,000 stashed into individual stocks with money from high school and I don't really look at it. I really believe in just letting it sit and not touching it for a long time, but I plan on moving this money over into a low-[cost] index mutual fund this week after hearing about your reasoning in the book.
My question really is just is there anything else I should be trying to do differently that you recommend? I'm unsure at this point whether to take some of the 80% I save up for med school with each paycheck and throw it into some stocks or into a Roth IRA? Also saving up for school is not the end all of things; my family is well off and I believe that I would probably get some help, but I am trying to limit how much I seek help from them.
The application process is solid as well. I have received four interviews already and I applied very broadly (31 schools). Any advice or help would be much appreciated; your books have inspired me to become more of a financial-minded person and I am in disbelief of how much I did not know prior to reading.”
Glad you enjoyed the book and congrats on becoming financially literate so early in life.
It's not clear to me why you're taking a gap year. I generally recommend against them unless you're having some awesome experience otherwise not available or you didn't get in the first time you applied. It doesn't sound like either of these applies to you, but I guess it's too late now so that's water under the bridge.
It seems foolish to me to save in a taxable account when you haven't yet maxed out a Roth IRA. You're saving something like $50,000 a year. Surely you can put $7,000 of it in a Roth IRA, no?
In addition, I don't think I'd be putting it all into cash these days. It's great to pay a lot of cash for medical school, but given the current generosity of the federal student loan program, I think it's probably wiser to just take out federal loans and leave your money (and that of your family) invested. This maintains optionality so you can go for PSLF if that makes sense down the road. If it doesn't make sense, you can always take the invested money and pay off the loans with it. The only cost for this option is some loan fees and interest, and that can be at least partially offset by investment earnings. Yes, there is risk there, but I think it's worth running. I hate giving this advice (borrow money you don't need to borrow), but I do think it is the right advice. There is a behavioral aspect, of course. You cannot just spend the money and come out ahead. You have to actually invest it.
I agree with your plan to move from individual stocks to index funds. Also, when you wrote me this email, the Marcus high-yield savings account had a 4.3% interest. It's now at about 3.9%. Note that you can earn 4.55% in a Vanguard Money Market Fund right now, a good bit better than your high-yield savings account. Sounds like you're doing the application thing right, but take a look at this article just to be sure.
What do you think? Did I get all the answers right? What would you add?
Jim – Your comment about not understanding why this person would take a gap year is simply off the mark and out of touch with modern med school reality. My daughter is a premed right now – the prerequisites to applying to med school are much greater than when you and I applied to medical school – research, clinical, and volunteering requirements are enormous and make studying for the MCAT and applying to schools (while completing a premed curriculum) a near impossible task during 4 years of college. That’s why approximately 80% of premed applicants take a gap year before med school. So you can “recommend” not to take it as you did to the reader above, but the reality is that most undergrads these days do take a gap year and for good reason.
I just looked up med school prerequisites for the school I attended in the early 2000s. The required courses are exactly the same. Are you sure everything you listed is a requirement or is it just what the rest of the herd is doing so there’s pressure to fall in line and do the same?
GK – your question is fair. I work at a major medical school on the East Coast and sit on its admission committee. Most medical schools do not explicitly say that these things (research, clinical hours, volunteer work, etc.) are “must-haves.” But they virtually all say that these experiences play an important part in their evaluation of admission, and I can tell you that not having a reasonable amount of time doing these activities is a major red flag. So in truth, herd mentality yes, but it’s not a secret among applicants and schools that these things are extremely important to be competitive for admission.
That’s hardly new though. It was no secret (it was very specifically on the application for the University of Utah and others when I was applying) in 1998. We all knew you had to do research, service, leadership, and medical experience. You’ve had to check those boxes for at least the last 30 years if you want to go to med school. Now I guess I had two gap years as a missionary which was a lot of service and leadership I suppose, but I did enough research/service/leadership/medical during the 4 years of college to get into med school without that experience. Gap years have become more and more common since then. People doing MPHs and master’s degrees and all kinds of other stuff. A lot of times that’s because they didn’t figure out they were pre-med until late in the process so they just needed more time. But those of us who were premeds as freshman and got started in Calculus, Inorganic Chemistry, and Biology as freshman and Organic and Physics as sophomores, we studied for and took the MCAT as juniors, and got into med school, doing all that other stuff on the side and during the summers (and while playing college sports or whatever else were doing at the time.) It’s not supposed to be easy, but the types of folks that succeed in medicine tend to be able to handle all that at once. Being a premed was hard, but it was easier than being an MS3 or heaven forbid a PGY1.
I applied to med school in 1991. I had zero research experience, zero clinical hours, and zero volunteer work. When we applied, no one even asked how many hours we had done for any of these things. I had college grades, the MCAT and my collegiate extracurricular activities – and somehow got into medical school. It’s a completely different world today. I guess I beat Jim’s 30 year rule.
It was very different just 7 years later I assure you.
I totally agree with WCI. I went to a very prestigious west coast public med school in 1983, and the expectation then (actually, for pretty much all of the west coast schools I applied) was research, volunteer work, hospital work. Of course grades and MCAT’s were the most important-and there was less grade inflation, and dare I say, MCAT inflation back then. So nothing new under the sun. I’m guessing the number of applicants has increased significantly-and although there are a ton of new DO schools, not many new med schools since 1983. And there in a nut is the problem.
It’s not about required courses. It’s about spending several hundred hours for additional research, volunteer and clinical experience. According to AAMC, the average MD matriculant has 1500 hours of research and 500 hours of volunteer experience. While I couldn’t find numbers for clinical hours, I believe it’s in the same ballpark.
The post-2015 MCAT also has more material than the previous version, so students spend more time studying for it.
Respectfully, I don’t think older doctors realize what the current standards have become.
I agree lots of students are taking gap years. I also agree a lot of them need it in order to be ready for med school. But better not to need it and take it if you can unless it provides an experience you really want.
I would ask the following question as it might help with this argument: does anyone know if taking the gap year to get these extra application enhancements actually increases the likelihood of admittance? When I was applying in 2002, the general advice was that admissions committees wanted to see if you could maintain a good GPA and land a good MCAT score while simultaneously taking a full load, working a part time job, volunteering, and getting leadership experience. My guess would be taking a gap year doesn’t help with that. Very curious to see if anyone has actual data. Might make for a good separate post.
I doubt there’s data on this topic. Maybe internally at a med school or two.
I think there’s enormous value in experiencing the world outside of the bubble of medicine. I think there’s a clear difference between the trainees I work with who have and haven’t done something else for a meaningful period of time. Those who have taken a detour have perspective, and often seem more clear about what they want professionally (and personally). I took a couple of years between undergrad and medical school for a broadening life experience and it was well worth while.
I would NOT recommend Vanguard advisors based on first hand experience. You get handed off the advisor you got sold to is not the one that handles your money. You get handed off to multiple people who never spoken to you. When asked what their qualifications are, they told me that they are “fiduciary” and thats it. You only get to meet with them 2x a year. I canceled their services after 6months when, after selling a bunch of funds in my portfolio at a loss of $15k. They bought expensive, poorly performing funds/EFTS instead. Furthermore, they had the audacity to bill be the fee early. Their fund Manager Quinn Koch was defensive and would offer no refund of the fee for such mishandling of my account. I’m not a financial expert, I work 200 hours a month in the hospital and am doing a better job with my Portfolio than their advisors.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I have had a good experience with Vanguard Advisors—there are different levels of advisors and individual planning at <500K, 500K-5 million in assets and my advisor is quite good at managing taxes, rebalancing while minimizing taxes, the Vanguard retirement plan seems very good—they emphasize initial use of taxable accounts to allow tax deferred retirement funds to accumulate, which is not in their interest since their 0.3% fee is only on my taxable fund, SEP and spouse IRA. Their savings account has a high yield. For a while, I used another investment house along with Vanguard, but Vanguard ETF ‘s returns were well ahead of the other investment company’s returns over 3 years along with much lower fees and I switched. The only “sacrifice” is that Vanguard doesn’t have munis for my state.
Regarding books on Medicare: AARP Medicare for Dummies by Patricia Barry was really helpful to me. I googled just now and there is a new 5th edition (copyright 2025) available on Amazon. Also, some Medicare brokers have good educational websites and YouTube videos: Boomer Benefits, Abt Insurance Agency, and Giardini Medicare are three I’ve found helpful.
Really enjoyed this style of post!