We answer questions for every stage of doctor in this episode. For those starting out we talk about scholarships vs contracts to pay for your medical school before we dive into the extended student loan holiday, single income doctors with large families, and whether or not you should insure that engagement ring. For those on the other end of the spectrum we talk about over funding your 529s, where to invest that extra money, and what time of year is best to retire.

 

Scholarships vs Contracts for Paying for Medical School

I want to do a book correction. This year we sent out hundreds of thousands of the White Coat Investor's Guide for Students. There was a bit of an issue in the book. Actually, a relatively minor issue, but if it matters to you, it matters to you. So, I want to issue a correction on that.

In the section about the National Health Service Corps, the book said “Your commitment is two years of service for each year of scholarship received.” That's not true. It's year for year, just like the HPSP scholarship. You do have a minimum of two years. So, if you only take out one year of commitment, you'll owe two years. But if you take out four years, then your commitment is actually four years. We'll get it fixed in future books. But for those of you who have a copy of the current Guide for Students, note that error.

Let's talk for just a minute about those contracts. Scholarships are really the wrong word for these. These are contracts, and I include the military Health Professions Scholarship Program, the National Health Service Corps program, and an MD-PhD. Each of these sounds like a scholarship, but a scholarship is when someone just writes you a check for school.

These are contracts. For example, the Health Professions Scholarship Program, HPSP. This is the military program. Basically, they give you a living stipend. It’s just over $2,000 a month while you're in school. They pay for all your books, fees, and tuition.

The theory is that you can come out of medical school without debt. That sounds great. Except you have a debt. You have a time debt. You owe the military four years of active duty. Not to mention you also have to go through the military match, which has its own peculiarities with it.

So, how does the military work? Well, it generally pays you less than what you would make as a civilian doc. They give you the money upfront, but it's really not additional money. So, if you want to be a military doc anyway, it makes sense to take out the HPSP scholarship. In fact, if you want to spend your whole career in the military, you're probably better off going to the military medical school, financially speaking anyway.

But if you don't actually want to be a military doc, you're not coming out ahead financially by doing this, unless you are in a very low-paid specialty, going to a very expensive school, or you really don't manage money very well.

The truth is if most of us will live like a resident, we can pay off our student loans in less than four years, and have actually a shorter commitment than the military. When you're living like a resident, no one is going to deploy you to the other side of the planet, either.

It’s kind of a similar thing with the National Health Service Corps. If you want to work in primary care and in an underserved community, whether that's the inner city or whether that's rural, then this is a great route to go. You might as well get the money. It'll help you pay for your schooling and you're going there anyway.

But if you don't actually want to do that sort of service, this is not a good idea. Don't sign up for it. Chances are, you can just live like a resident and be done in less time than you would owe to the National Health Service Corps.

Same thing with an MD-PhD. You're going to spend a number of years in school, not making $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, whatever you were going to make as an attending physician, because you're spending that time on your PhD. That money could easily be used to pay off your loans again if you live like a resident, when you come out of school. So, if you want to get a PhD, you might as well do an MD-PhD program. But if you don't want to do a PhD, this is not a good way to pay for medical school.

Recommended Reading:

Should I Apply for HPSP to Pay for Medical School?

 

What Is Happening with Inflation?

I want to talk briefly about inflation. If you look at the numbers in January year over year, inflation was about 1.4%. In February, it went to 1.68%. Then in March 2.62%, April, 4.16%. May 4.99%. In June 5.39%. Then recently in July, when they reported the numbers, it was 5.37%.

I hope this means it's peaked because inflation up over 5% is really not good for our economy. It's not good for your savings, where you are making 0.6% in your savings account. All you're making on your bonds is 1% or 2%. You're actually losing money there, after inflation.

But hopefully, the Fed is right. They've been saying, “Hey, this is just transitory. The rate is going to come back down.” Hopefully, it will, maybe it's already peaked. But keep an eye on that as the months go on.

Recommended Reading:

What You Need to Know About Inflation

 

Extension of 0% Student Loan Interest

The student loan holiday was extended through January 31st. They're describing this as a final extension, but nothing is final until it actually happens. In total, this is going to be over 22 months of 0% interest on those federal student loans with no payments due. This has been a massive stimulus check for those of you who have large amounts of federal student loans.

If you have been an attending in the last couple of years going for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, if your payments are $2,000 or $3,000 a month, you basically just got handed a check for $40,000 to $60,000. That's what the student loan holiday means to you.

Even if you are paying back your student loans, and they've been at 0% for a couple of years, let's say you have 6% loans, $200,000 of them. Now that's $12,000 a year in interest that you haven't had added to your loans and you haven't had to pay. So that's a $24,000 stimulus for you.

I hope you've been able to enjoy that. Eventually, all good things must end. Be prepared for that. If you're planning on paying off your loans, you probably need to be thinking about getting those refinanced come the end of January. Look, especially, at SoFi and CommonBond; they're trying to do special deals to entice you to refinance before that time.

Common Bond is giving you six months, 0% when you refinance. So, to refinance in November, December, January, you might even be able to extend that 0% period for a period of time. Be aware there is lots of fine print associated with those programs so make sure you read it all.

Recommended Reading:

Student Loan Refinancing Guide

 

Single Income Doctors with Large Families

A reader asked us to do a special episode for single-income doctors with large families. I was a single-income doc for a long time until Katie started working for the White Coat Investor a few years ago. We are a large family with four kids.

Can you make it as a single-income doc with a large family? Absolutely. I came out of residency in 2006. Yes, I didn't have student loans, but I was also only making $120,000. That's all the military was paying me. When I got out of residency, Katie was pregnant with our second one. A couple of years later, we had our third one. We were living in a little townhome, trying to live like a resident for a few more years to build some wealth. I was driving a beater. Katie had a nicer car.

The average American household is making about $60,000. Even if you're on a single income, single physician income, you'll probably make at least $150,000, probably more like $200,000, maybe $300,000. That's five times the median American household income.

There is still plenty of money there with which to build wealth. You have a few things hanging over your head. Chances are, if you went through training with a bunch of kids, you probably have more debt than the average doctor. You need a plan to take care of that. It is a little bit harder to live like a resident when you have a bunch of mouths to feed, as well, so maybe you have to give yourself a little more of a raise when you come out of residency than you otherwise would, but you still have to hold the line. You have to save up a down payment for your dream home. You have to pay off those student loans within two to five years. You have to start maxing out those retirement accounts and catching up to your college roommates.

The way you do that is holding the line on your spending and doing what you can to get your income up. Now, a lot of times that means buying a partnership. Maybe for a dentist, it means buying a practice. Maybe it means working a lot of hours. Live like a resident doesn't just reflect your spending. It also reflects your hours. The harder you work in the beginning, the easier things get by mid-career.

You also have fewer retirement accounts available. You can still do a spousal backdoor Roth IRA, of course, but you don't have two 401(k)s. You're certainly not going to get a spouse's 401(k) or 403(b) or 457 or defined benefit plan. But chances are at this point you're probably only maxing out retirement accounts anyway. It's pretty hard to get a lot of savings above and beyond that while you're still taking care of student loans.

Those are your big focuses. Keep your family first. But at the same time, you have to keep a lid on the spending or you'll get in trouble. By mid-career, you'll be like a lot of doctors I know at the same stage of career as me working 16 night shifts a month because they spend a whole lot. Now, the kids are having a pretty nice life right now but there are consequences to living your life like that. So, when the kids are young, they don't know the difference, and you might as well save some money.

 

Can You Save Too Much for College?

“Since physicians are high income earners, I don't often hear people discuss the implications of saving too much for college. How do you know if you're over saving in your 529? If you meet your child's college savings goals before, say, age 16, should you convert all of your equities to cash, to avoid risk in the market? And should you stop funding it, even if your state provides a tax benefit?”

It is great to put money in a 529. It's great to save money for college and education, but don't prioritize it over your retirement. It's easiest to help people from a position of strength. So, make sure retirement is first and, if you have extra, then you can start saving for college.

But in general, how do you know if you're saving too much? You don't because you don't know what that kid's going to spend. Good luck with that decision of how much to actually put in there. Without knowing that, it's impossible to know if you should stop putting money in, if you should scale back, how aggressively you're investing it, etc.

But here's the deal. There is a relief valve for an overfunded 529. Presumably, you're going to care about your grandkids just as much as you care about your kids. Chances are, if there's money left over after your kid is done with college, you're going to leave that in the 529. When they have kids, you're just going to change the beneficiary. There are probably multiple kids so it's going to be divided in half or in threes or fours. It is going to be just fine, even with the additional compound interest to be able to cover their education.

What you probably don't want to do is pull the money out and use it for something else. The penalty on that, and the fact that gains are now taxed as ordinary income rates rather than capital gains rates, does not make that a great way to save for retirement or any other goals other than education.

So, when you put money in a 529, think of it as a commitment to family education that you are making. It may not be used by the next generation, but it's eventually going to be used by someone down the line for education.

If you're the type that wants to have the exact amount, you want to pay for all their schooling, and you're really worried that the stock market is going to crash as they get to be 16, 17, 18, then you might want to dial back how aggressively you're investing it.

But I'm really aggressive in my 529s because if there is a market downturn right as they start school, what's the big deal? I have plenty of cash flow. I can just pay for that year or the first two years out of cash flow then use the 529 for later years. I feel like I might as well take advantage of that tax-free growth. That's really the benefit of the 529.

Recommended Reading:

529 Plans – A Fantastic Tax Break for the Rich

 

Where to Invest Extra Money

“My question is regarding where to invest ‘extra' money. I have a sufficient emergency fund. I'm saving sufficiently for my retirement with the generous employer match. I max out my 403(b). I have a backdoor Roth IRA for myself and my wife and an HSA intended to use during retirement. My wife also has a 403(b) that is partially funded. I have no desire to retire early. I'm putting up to the tax deduction limit into a 529. I have a 30-year mortgage, which I'm putting extra principal into to pay off in 20. I have no student loan, car, or any other debt. After recently paying for my cars, I have extra money that has not been allocated as part of my investment plan. I'd like to save for something in the future, such as a home renovation, lavish vacation, or even to invest in a real estate syndicate or something like that. None of these have true timelines, but rather when I get the money, I'll spend it on something. Sticking it in a savings account doesn’t make sense, and I prefer to have a chance to grow till I have enough for whatever I want to spend it on at that time. Do you have suggestions for how to invest this money? Would you tell me to stop being stupid and put more in retirement accounts and 529s?”

This is where we're all trying to get to. We have extra money coming in that we don't actually need to meet any of our financial goals. So, there's lots of things you can do with that. In your case, you still have a mortgage. You can pay off the mortgage, if nothing else it will give you 2% or 3%  guaranteed return, and it will improve your cash flow down the line. Now, even if you are sure you want to work for 20-60 years, that may change. You may really appreciate having that cashflow freed up down the line. I’d give pretty serious thought to throwing some of that extra money at the mortgage.

If you have retirement account space available to you and you're saving more and you don't have a finite goal for this money yet, that's a great place to put it. There are tax benefits, asset protection benefits, and estate planning benefits. Retirement accounts are great places to save extra money.

Likewise, you ought to look at your education-saving goals. Are you meeting them? If you are, then you don't need to put more money in a 529, but if you have extra money, maybe you can meet those goals even earlier than you were otherwise planning to.

Then, of course, it's always okay to spend some money. Do you want to go spend some money on a fancy vacation or you want to buy a Tesla? You can go and do that. If you're not sure, you just think down the line, maybe at some point you might want something like that. I'd still encourage you to just invest it according to your long-term plan. You can always liquidate that investment. There's going to be a tax penalty, obviously, if you have it in your retirement account, but you can always liquidate the investment, pay any taxes due and spend it later.

But what usually happens, since money is fungible, you simply take earnings from later and you stop investing at that point and use that to pay for your home renovation. Or you use that to pay for your luxury vacation or your Tesla.

I would encourage you to actually make finite plans. Say, I want to do a home renovation that's going to cost me $250,000 two years from now. Set that up, figure out how much you need to be putting toward it every month. Maybe that eats up your entire “extra” that you have carved out of your budget at this point.

But if you just think you might want to do a home renovation at some point then I wouldn't even bother starting to save for it until you're sure that's something you want to do.

It's a good place to be, but it's a dilemma a lot of us struggle with. How much do we give? How much do we spend? How much do we save toward retirement? How much do we save toward college? How much do we put toward debt?

There's no right answer to any of this. It all comes down to your financial priorities, your written financial plan, and what you want to do with your life and your money.

 

Should You Insure Jewelry?

“I was wondering about your thoughts about ensuring jewelry. I hear you always say that you don't believe in insurance when you can self-insure. Well, my wife's wedding engagement ring is about $22,000 in value. I pay $258 per year to ensure it. She barely wears it out of the house anyway. If it got lost, I would be annoyed, but definitely not incapable of replacing it. Would you pay $258 per year to wear it more comfortably?”

$258 a year is not going to break you. This isn't going to affect your finances one way or the other. The academically right answer is if you can afford to replace something, you shouldn't insure it. You should self-insure it.

But I confess, we have a policy on my wife's ring, which is worth dramatically less than that particular ring, because we were broke when we bought it. I think we pay something like $5 a month to insure it. I just never turned it off, I suppose, which is why we still have that policy.

If it makes her more comfortable to wear it out and about, I would just pay for the insurance. Otherwise, realize it's just one of those risks in life if she loses it.

 

When Is the Best Time of Year to Retire?

“My husband is a urologist and would like to retire next year, but we are wondering if it makes a difference whether you retire halfway through the year, the end of the year, in March?”

I think you're better off retiring partway through the year, rather than at the very beginning of the year. Just like that year you came out of residency where you had half a resident income and half an attending income, you end up with half an attending income. There is a lot of tax planning that can be done in a year that you have less income. You can still max out retirement accounts, but all of a sudden now there is room for Roth conversions. I think it makes a lot of sense to retire at some point during the year.

Now in the medical world, your partners or your employer will really appreciate it if you don't retire until July or August, because that tends to be the time that doctors change jobs. That's the time people are coming out of residency and fellowship and they're available to come to work and replace you.

I know my partnership really appreciates it when people retire in July and August. But the truth is you only get so many summers in your life. It makes sense if you like to do a lot of stuff in the summer like I do, to maybe retire before summer hits. Maybe April or so.

I think those are probably the two main times I would think about retiring. It would be April-ish and August-ish. But I think those are both probably smarter times to retire than January 1st. But you know what? If you have enough money and you're sick of working and ready to get out the door, January 1st works. That is perfectly fine as well. But I would try to work at least part of a year.

 

A lot of physicians have questions about locum tenens, and locumstory.com is the place for them to get real, unbiased answers to those questions, basic questions like, “What is locum tenens?” to more complex questions about pay ranges, taxes, various specialties, and how locum tenens works. And then there’s the big question: Is it right for you? Go to locumstory.com and get the answers.

 

Expert Witness Course

We had Dr. Gretchen Green on the podcast to discuss her expert witness course. There are really two draws for doctors to this work. The first is that it is a great way to supplement your income. It's very time and financially efficient. So, in three hours a week using a standard hourly billing rate of around $600 to $900 an hour, you can make six figures at a side gig in one year.

She feels the other reason why people stay with this type of side gig is that it's intellectually fascinating. Every case is a new opportunity to learn and it has improved her practice because you need to be an expert to support your opinions with literature, you stay on top of medical literature.

The pandemic has really leveraged people's time more efficiently as they've been able to use more remote tools like video conferencing for depositions, and now possibly even for trials.

Her intent for this course is to help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls that you might encounter. If you learned it by trial and error, you'll find a lot quicker success and a lot greater confidence, knowing a roadmap from a “how-to” course like this, rather than some of the negative feelings that you get from finding your own pitfalls along the way.

It is eight weeks; each week has a recorded module and live Q&A with opportunities in Facebook groups for interaction and collaboration with other experts and physicians. By the time you get to the end of it, you'll know how to start getting your first case, how to enhance your marketing to grow your practice, and how to think strategically ahead about really being an owner of this as your own business.

The cost is $3000. It goes live on August 30th. Sign up for the Expert Witness Start Up School.

 

Milestones to Millionaire Episode

#28 – EM Doc Pays Off $180K in 3 Years

Sponsored by Set for Life Insurance

Jon wanted to crush that debt so they could move on to other financial goals. Continue living like a resident—you are already used to it. Hardest thing is avoiding temptation. It is simple but not easy. Stay off the hedonic treadmill and you can crush your debt too!

 

Quote of the Day

The quote of the day comes from Thomas Edison who said,

“We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.”

 

WCICon 2022

WCICon 22 registration is going to open Tuesday, September 14th at 7:00 PM mountain time. This is going to be an awesome conference in Phoenix, February 9th through 12th, 2022. This thing is probably going to sell out quickly. So, if you want to come, set a reminder in your phone, Tuesday, September 14th, 7:00 PM mountain to sign up.

 

Scholarship Deadline

The scholarship deadline is August 31st at Midnight MST. Only professional students enrolled full-time in a professional school located in the United States for the 2021/2022 year and in good academic standing are eligible. Yes, we check that you're not only enrolled but that you're in good academic standing. They have to be brick and mortar schools, no online schools.

We have over $76,000 in cash and prizes raised to giveaway. You can still volunteer to be a judge if you like. Just send an email to [email protected] with the words “Volunteer judge” in the subject line. You have to be a working or retired professional. You can't be a student or a resident.

Apply for the WCI Scholarship!

 

Full Transcription

Intro:
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. Here's your host, Dr. Jim Dahle.

Dr. Jim Dahle:

This is White Coat Investor podcast number 225 – Large families with single income, insuring jewelry, best time of year to retire and over saving in the 529.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Welcome back to the podcast. We're recording this one on August 13th. It's going to run on August 26th. It's been actually a couple of weeks since we recorded a podcast. I spent part of that in Oregon, at a cabin that belongs to my wife's uncle, as well as a trip up with my wife and some friends to climb Mount Moran in the Tetons.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It's been a great summer. It's interesting to try to balance having two jobs with trying to live a FIRE lifestyle. It becomes very different I think than a lot of people's lives are. But just like before we were trying to do that balance is always a challenge, always a challenge.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And we had an interesting discussion with a friend while we're up in Jackson. The truth is there's always somebody richer than you. And so, we had this great discussion with this friend about NetJets, which is basically a service where you have a private jet and you give them six hours’ notice, they'll come and pick you up and take you basically anywhere in North America.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And it costs, of course, thousands of dollars an hour, but it's great because they fly in, you don't have to go through TSA and the terminal. And you're basically met by private car and you don't have to deal with anybody else being on your flight. It's very COVID safe. And there's no layovers with the airport at all.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, it was really interesting to get a glimpse into how some people actually live their lives. But it was a good reminder to me that there's always somebody richer than you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Story time, brought to you by locumstory.com. Today we'll be reading docs in shocks. Some docs are overworked. As work works, overworked workers worry. Some docs are over stopped. Stopped as pandemic tick-tocks, keep docs off clocks. If docs are in shock as a pandemic clock, tick-tocks, then locums is the token to unburned the burnt out broken.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Enough ticks have tocked. The time is now, and locums is how. Locum tenens tend to trend as a godsend demand, to burnt out ends. For more locum tenens information, locumstory.com is your final destination.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, got to love that. Let's talk about some of the things going on here at the White Coat Investor. We have our scholarship program. It's about to wrap up. So those of you who volunteered as judges, your work's about to begin. But for those who are submitting to get the cash for the WCI scholarship, you have until August 31st at midnight mountain time to get your submission in.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Only professional students enrolled full-time in a professional school located in the United States for the 2021/2022 year and in good academic standing are eligible. Yes, we check that you're not only enrolled, but that you're in good academic standing. They have to be brick and mortar schools, no online schools.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
We've got over $76,000 in cash and prizes raised, and we're going to give it all away. You can still donate to the scholarship if you like. You can still volunteer to be a judge if you like. Just send an email to [email protected] with the words “Volunteered judge” in the subject line. You have to be a working or retired professional. You can't be a student or a resident and be a judge at whitecoatinvestor.com/scholarship.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You can donate money to the scholarship. 100% of the money we raise goes to students. If you would like to apply for the scholarship it's whitecoatinvestor.com/scholarshipapplication.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, in case you don't know, WCI con 22 registration is going to open Tuesday, September 14th at 7:00 PM mountain time. This is going to be an awesome conference. It's in Phoenix. This year is in Phoenix, February 9th, through 12th, 2022. And we've got some great speakers lined up, some great keynotes and awesome breakouts.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
We've got great events. It's going to be a big wellness focus with events after classes. I think there's going to be a pickleball tournament and some golf stuff and some awesome stuff going on with this great resort in Northeastern Phoenix, just north of Scottsdale. But I'm really looking forward to it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But the truth is this thing is probably going to sell out quickly. So, if you want to come, set a reminder in your phone, Tuesday, September 14th, 7:00 PM mountain to get on there and sign up. The last time we did this, a third of the conference was sold out in 7 minutes and the whole thing was sold out in 23 hours. Maybe it'll be faster this time. Maybe it'll be slower. Maybe you won't even sell out. Who knows? But I suspect it probably will, and pretty quickly.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now we'll have a virtual option as well. But that’s not quite the same thing. So, if you want to come to the live version, make sure you get on there right at 7:00 PM on September 14th and get signed up.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, we're going to talk a little bit later with Gretchen Green on this podcast. She's the one who runs our partner course on becoming an expert witness. So, if you have interest in that, be sure to stick around to the very end of the podcast, we're going to talk with her for a little bit.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But she's having a sale on her course. It's going for just a few more days. It's going to go through August 30th and then the course goes live on August 30th. So that's a $3,000 course, but if you want to get into this kind of side gig, this new thing you can do with your expertise that you already have, and probably earn a higher hourly rate than what you're doing practicing medicine, this may be very worthwhile course for you and well worth the money you spend on it. But we'll be talking with her a little bit later in the episode.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I wanted to do a book correction. This year we sent out hundreds of thousands of the White Coat Investors Guide for Students. And there was a bit of an issue in the book. Actually, a relatively minor issue, but if it matters to you, it matters to you. So, I want to issue a correction on that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
In the section about the National Health Service Corps, the book said “Your commitment is two years of service for each year of scholarship received”. That's not true. It's year for year, just like the HPSP scholarship. And you do have a minimum of two years. So, if you only take out one year of commitment, you'll owe two years. But if you take out four years, you’ll get paid four years on that scholarship. Then your commitment is actually on the four years.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, let's get that correction out there so people know. It's always been writing the blog post, I knew that this is the way it was, but for whatever reason, I screwed it up in the book. So, we'll get it fixed in future books. But for those of you who have a copy of the current guide for students, note that error that’s in it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Let's talk for just a minute about those contracts. Scholarships are really the wrong word for these. These are contracts and I include the military health professions scholarship program. I include the national health service corps program. I also include an MD-PhD. Each of these sounds like a scholarship, but a scholarship is when somebody just writes you a check, kind of like the White Coat Investor scholarship. “Here's some money, enjoy school. Thanks for what you do” – That's what a scholarship is.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
These are contracts. For example, the Health Professions Scholarship Program, HPSP. This is the military program. Basically, they give you a living stipend. It’s just over $2,000 a month while you're in school. They pay for all your books and fees and tuition.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, the theory is that you can come out of medical school without debt. Well, that sounds great. Except you have a debt. You have a time debt. You owe the military four years of active duty. Not to mention you do also have to go through the military match, which has its own peculiarities with it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, how does the military work? Well, it generally pays you less than what you would make as a civilian doc. So, they give you the money up front, but it's really not additional money. So, if you want to be a military doc anyway, it makes sense to take out the HPSP scholarship. In fact, if you want to spend your whole career in the military, you're probably better off going to the military medical school, financially speaking anyway.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But if you don't actually want to be a military doc, you're not coming out ahead financially by doing this, unless you are in a very low-paid specialty, going to a very expensive school, or you really don't manage money very well.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But the truth is if most of us will live like a resident, we can pay off our student loans in less than four years, and have actually a shorter commitment than the military. And when you're living like a resident, nobody's going to deploy you to the other side of the planet either.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It’s kind of a similar thing with the National Health Service Corps. If you want to work in primary care and in an underserved community, whether that's the inner city or whether that's rural, then this is a great route to go. You might as well get the money. It'll help you pay for your schooling and you're going there anyway. So, you might as well get it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But if you don't actually want to do that sort of service, this is not a good idea. Don't sign up for it. Chances are, you can just live like a resident and be done in less time than you would owe to the National Health Service Corps.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Same thing with an MD-PhD. You're going to spend a number of years in school, not making $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, whatever you were going to make as an attending physician, because you're spending that time on your PhD. And that money could easily be used to pay off your loans again if you live like a resident, when you come out of school.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, if you want to get a PhD, you might as well do an MD-PhD program. But if you don't want to do a PhD, this is not a good way to pay for medical school. I hope that's helpful.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. A couple of other things I wanted to talk about. I want to talk briefly about inflation. Inflation has been a little bit interesting this year in that it kind of specked up. If you look at the numbers in January year over year inflation was about 1.4%. In February, it went to 1.68%. Then in March 2.62%, April, 4.16%. May 4.99%. In June 5.39%. And then recently in July, when they reported the numbers, it was 5.37%.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I hope this means it's peaked because inflation up over 5% is really not good for our economy. It's not good for your savings. What you're making in your savings account is 0.6%. And all you're making on your bonds is 1% or 2%. You're actually losing money there, after inflation.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But hopefully, the FED is right. They've been saying, “Hey, this is just transitory. The rate is going to come back down”. And hopefully, it will, maybe it's already peaked. But keep an eye on that as the months go on.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
The student loan holiday was extended. It's now extended, not just through September 31st, but now through January 31st. I was kind of surprised. I felt like the economy had kind of recovered enough that they didn't need to keep doing this. But it sounds like they're going to do it at least one more time. They're describing this as a final extension, but I guess maybe nothing's final until it actually happens.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But in total, this is going to be over 22 months of student loan holiday, 0% interest on those federal student loans, no payments due. And this has been a massive stimi check for those of you who have large amounts of federal student loans.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
If you've been attending in the last couple of years going for public service loan forgiveness, if your payments are $2,000 or $3,000 a month, you basically just got handed a check for $40,000 to $60,000. That's what the student on holiday means to you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Even if you are paying back your student loans, and they've been at 0% for a couple of years, let's say you have 6% loans, $200,000 of them. Now that's $12,000 a year in interest that you haven't had added to your loans and you haven't had to pay. So that's a $24,000 stimulus there for you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
That's better than most businesses got in PPP stimulus money and certainly better than most individuals got with their $1,200. So, this has been a pretty massive stimulus. I hope you've been able to enjoy that. I guess it's going to come to an end though, eventually as all good things must.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Be prepared for that. If you're planning on paying off your loans, you probably need to be thinking about getting those refinanced come the end of January. Look, especially at SoFi and Common Bond, they're trying to do special deals to entice you to refinance before that time.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Common Bond is giving you six months, 0% when you refinance. So, to refinance in November, December, January, you might even be able to extend that 0% period for a period of time there. Be aware there's lots of fine print associated with those programs to make sure you read them all. We've tried to keep it up to date on our whitecoatinvestor.com/student-loan-refinancing page. So, take a look there and get the details for those programs.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, let's talk for a minute about a request I had come in by email. This was “Any chance you all could feature a special episode for single income docs with large families i.e., four to five plus kids early in their careers. Thanks”.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, that's me, right? I was a single income doc for a long time until Katie started working for the White Coat Investor a few years ago. And I guess we're a large family. It doesn't feel like a large family here in Utah, but we have four kids. And so, for a long time, we were in an early career. And so, I feel like I could talk about this from personal experience. It doesn't seem very unusual at all to me.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I guess there's lots of dual income families. There's lots of two doc families out there. There's obviously lots of families with fewer kids than we have, but this seems like regular life to me.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, can you make it as a single income doc with a large family? Absolutely. I mean, look at me, right? I came out of residency in 2006. Yes, I didn't have student loans, but I was also only making $120,000. That's all the military was paying me $120,000 a year. There's a little bit of a tax advantage. But at $120,000 a year, there's only so much tax you'd be paying anyway.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And we had one kid. When I got out of residency, Katie was pregnant with our second one. And a couple of years later, we had our third one. So, there we were living in a little town home, trying to live like a resident for a few more years to build some wealth and pumping out the kids. I was driving a beater, a true beater. Katie had a nicer car, she was driving. And then about three years out, we bought a Sequoia that I'm actually still driving.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But what advice can I give you in this situation? Well, here's the deal. The average American household is making about $60,000. Even if you're on a single income, single physician income, you'll probably make at least $150,000, probably more like $200,000, maybe $300,000. That's five times the average American household income, the median American household income.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, there's still plenty of money there with which to build wealth. Now you've got a few things hanging over your head. Chances are, if you went through training with a bunch of kids, you probably got more debt than the average bear. And so, you need a plan to take care of that. And it's a little bit harder to live like a resident when you have a bunch of mouths to feed as well.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, maybe you have to give yourself a little more of a raise when you come out of residency than you otherwise would, but you've still got to hold the line. You still got to take care of business. You got to save up a down payment for your dream home. You got to pay off those student loans within two to five years. You got to start maxing out those retirement accounts and catching up to your college roommates.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And the way you do that is holding the line on your spending and doing what you can to get your income up. Now, a lot of times that means buying a partnership. Maybe for a dentist, it means buying a practice. Maybe it means working a lot of hours. Live like a resident doesn't just reflect your spending. It also reflects your hours. And the harder you work in the beginning the easier things get by mid-career.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You also have fewer retirement accounts available. You can still do a spousal backdoor Roth IRA, of course, but you don't have two 401(k)s. You're certainly not going to get a spouse's 401(k) or 403(b) or 457 or defined benefit plan or whatever. But chances are at this point you're probably only maxing out retirement accounts anyway. It's pretty hard to get a lot of savings above and beyond that while you're still taking care of student loans.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Those are your big focuses. Keep your family first. But at the same time, you've got to keep a lid on the spending or you'll get in trouble. And by mid-career, you'll be like a lot of docs I know. I know a doc with seven kids who is at the same stage of career as me working 16 night shifts a month. And why? Because they spend a whole lot more money than we do. And that's the life they've chosen, but he's going to be working a full career and probably not having nearly as nice of retirement.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, the kids are having a pretty nice life right now. but there are consequences to living your life like that. So, when the kids are young, they don't know the difference and you might as well save some money. I hope that's helpful.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, let's take a question off the Speak Pipe. This one from Diana. Let's take a listen.

Diana:
Hi, Dr. Dahle. Thank you for all that you do. I'm a pulmonary critical care doctor in Illinois, and I have a question about 529s. Since physicians are high-income earners, I don't often hear people discuss the implications of saving too much for college.

Diana:
How do you know if you're over saving in your 529? If you meet your child's college savings goals before, say age 16, should you convert all of your equities to cash, to avoid risk in the market? And should you stop funding it, even if your state provides a tax benefit?

Diana:
For example, in Illinois, for households that are married filing jointly, we receive a tax benefit for up to $20,000 of our 529 contributions. We'd love to hear your thoughts on these issues. Thanks again.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Great question Diana, and thanks for what you do. Critical care medicine is important and difficult. Lot of difficult situations in critical care. This one's easier to deal with than in critical care.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
529s. It's great to put money in there. It's great to save money for college and education, but don't prioritize it over your retirement. It's easiest to help people from a position of strength. So, make sure retirement is first and if you got extra, then you can start saving for college.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But in general, how do you know if you're saving too much? You don't because you don't know what that kid's going to spend. For example, I've got a kid right now that thinks she's probably going to go to either a state or a private school here in Utah. And the tuition is going to be $5,000 to $10,000. I got way too much in her 529 to pay for her undergraduate education. The whole thing, twice probably she could do with what's in the 529.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But she's also talking about going to medical school and there's not enough in that 529 to pay for her to go to four years of medical school. Even if she finds a really inexpensive medical school at this point. So, I don't know if I have too much or not enough because I really don't know what her career plans are going to be.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And so, good luck with that decision of how much to actually put in there. And of course, without knowing that it's impossible to know if you should stop putting money in if you should scale back, how aggressively you're investing it, et cetera.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But here's the deal. Here's what the escape valve is, the relief valve is for an overfunded 529. Presumably, you're going to care about your grandkids, just as much as you care about your kids. And so, chances are, if there's money left over after your kid is done with college, you're going to leave that in the 529. And when they have kids, you're just going to change the beneficiary.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And because there's probably multiple kids, it's going to be divided in half or in threes or fours. And so, it's going to be just fine, even with the additional compound interest to be able to cover their education. And I suppose the beneficiary could even be changed again.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But what you probably don't want to do is pull the money out and use it for something else. The penalty on that, and the fact that gains are now taxed as ordinary income rates rather than capital gains rates does not make that a great way to save for retirement or any other goals other than education.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, when you put money in a 529, think of it as this is a commitment to family education that I'm making. It may not be used by the next generation, but it's eventually going to be used by somebody down the line for education. And I hope that's helpful to you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
If you're the type that wants to have the exact amount and you want to pay for all their schooling and you're really worried that the stock market is going to crash as they get to be 16, 17, 18, then you might want to dial back how aggressively you're investing it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But I'm really aggressive in my 529s. And the reason why is, let's say there was a market downturn right as they started school. What's the big deal? I got plenty of cashflow. I can just pay for that year or the first two years at a cashflow then use 529 for later years. And so, I feel like I might as well take advantage of that tax-free growth. That's really the benefit of the 529. And I invested in 529 pretty darn aggressively.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, great question. Let's talk about investing extra money now. We've got a question from Josh on the Speak Pipe.

Josh:
Hello, Jim. Long-time listener, first-time caller. This is Josh and I'm a university-employed academic emergency physician from Georgia. And I'm in my late 30s. My question is regarding where to invest “extra” money.

Josh:
I have a sufficient emergency fund. I'm saving sufficiently for my retirement with the generous employer match. I maxed out my 403(b). I have a backdoor Roth IRA for myself and my wife and an HSA intended to use during retirement.

Josh:
My wife also has a 403(b) that is partially funded. I have no desire to retire early. I'm putting up to the tax deduction limit into a 529. I have a 30-year mortgage, which I'm putting extra principal into to pay off in 20. I have no student loan car or any other debt.

Josh:
After recently paying for my cars, I have extra money that has not been allocated as part of my investment plan. I'd like to save for something in the future, such as a home renovation, lavish vacation, or even to invest in a real estate syndicate or something like that.

Josh:
None of these have true timelines, but rather when I get the money, I'll spend it on something. Sticking it in a savings account doesn’t make sense and I prefer to have a chance to grow till I have enough for whatever I want to spend it on at that time.

Josh:
Do you have suggestions for how to invest this money? Would you tell me to stop being stupid and put more in retirement accounts and have room for 529 or something else? Thanks for your time.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Congratulations, Josh, you win. This is where we're all trying to get to, right? We've got extra money coming in that we don't actually need to meet any of our financial goals. So, there's lots of things you can do with that. In your case, you still got a mortgage. You can pay off the mortgage if nothing else will give you 2% or 3% returns, guaranteed return, and it will improve your cash flow down the line.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, even if you are sure you want to work for 20 or 30 or 40 or 60 years or whatever, that may change. And you may really appreciate having that cashflow freed up down the line. I’d give pretty serious thought to throwing some of that extra money at the mortgage.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
You mentioned, it sounded like you hadn't maxed out your retirement accounts.
I guess I would encourage you to do that as well. If you have that much retirement account space available to you and you're saving more and you don't have a finite goal for this money yet, that's a great place to put it. There are tax benefits, there are asset protection benefits. There are estate planning benefits. Retirement accounts are great places to save extra money.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Likewise, you ought to look at your education saving goals. Are you meeting them? If you are, then you don't need to put more money in a 529, but if you have extra money, maybe you can meet those goals even earlier than you were otherwise planning to.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And then, of course, it's always okay to spend some money. Do you want to go spend some money on a fancy vacation or you want to buy a Tesla or whatever? You can go and do that. If you're not sure, you just think down the line, maybe at some point you might want something like that.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I'd still encourage you to just invest it according to your long-term plan. You can always liquidate that investment. There's going to be a tax penalty obviously if you have it in your retirement account, but you can always liquidate the investment, pay any taxes due and spend it later.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But what usually happens since money is fungible, you simply take earnings from later and you stop investing at that point and use that to pay for your home renovation. Or you use that to pay for your luxury vacation or your Tesla or whatever.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But I would encourage you to actually make finite plans. Say, I want to do a home renovation that's going to cost me $250,000 two years from now or whatever. And set that up, figure out how much you need to be putting toward it every month. And maybe that eats up your entire “extra” that you got carved out of your budget at this point.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But if you just think you might want to do a home renovation at some point then I wouldn't even bother starting to save for it until you're sure that's something you want to do.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I hope that's helpful. It's a good place to be, but it's a dilemma a lot of us struggle with. How much do we give? How much do we spend? How much do we save toward retirement? How much do we save toward college? How much do we put toward debt?

Dr. Jim Dahle:
There's no right answer to any of this. It all comes down to your financial priorities, your written financial plan and what you want to do with your life and your money. So, I hope that's helpful. Congratulations on your success and thanks for what you do.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Thanks to all of you for what you do. You're listening to this podcast, presumably because you have a high income. And high-income jobs generally are difficult jobs that you spend a long-time training for.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
It was interesting. I saw a tweet this week from somebody that said, “I didn't know residency was going to be this hard”. And I'm like, “Yep, it's this hard”. It's really hard to go through residency. And many of you have done it and you should be proud of what you've done.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But you deserve by virtue of having gone through something that the vast majority of people on the planet cannot do. You deserve to be earning a pretty decent income and you deserve to be financially secure. So, take those steps now with your high income to make sure that you do become financially secure.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. This one comes in via email, a question about insuring jewelry. “I was wondering about your thoughts about ensuring jewelry. I hear you always say that you don't believe in insurance when you can self-insure. Well, my wife's wedding engagement ring is about $22,000 in value. I pay $258 per year to ensure it. She barely wears it out of the house anyway. If it got lost, I would be annoyed, but definitely not incapable of replacing it. Would you pay $258 per year to wear it more comfortably?”

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Well, here's the deal. $258 a year is not going to break you, right? This isn't going to affect your finances one way or the other. The right answer, the academically right answer is if you can afford to replace something, you shouldn't insure it. You should self-insure it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But I confess, we have a policy on my wife's ring, which is worth dramatically less than that particular ring, because we were broke when we bought it. And I think we pay something like $5 a month to insure it. I just never turned it off, I suppose, which is why we still have that policy.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
But you mentioned some at the end that she wears it more comfortably knowing it's insured. And if it makes her more comfortable to wear it out and about, I just pay for the insurance. Otherwise, realize it's just one of those risks in life if she loses it.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
The quote of the day today comes from Thomas Edison who said, “We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation”.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Our next question is also up from the Speak Pipe about timing retirement in the calendar year. This is from Susie. Let's take a listen.

Susie:
My husband is a urologist and would like to retire next year, but we are wondering if it makes a difference whether you retire halfway through the year, the end of the year, in March? We have never seen that question addressed.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Yeah, I think you're better off retiring partway through the year, rather than at the very beginning of the year. And the reason why is just like that year you came out of residency where you had half a resident income and half an attending income. You end up with half an attending income. And there's a lot of tax planning that can be done in a year that you have less income, right? You can still max out retirement accounts, but all of a sudden now there's room for Roth conversions and that sort of stuff. And so, I think it makes a lot of sense to retire at some point during the year.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now in the medical world, your partners and your employer, whoever, will really appreciate it if you don't retire until July or August, because that tends to be the time that doctors change jobs. That's the time people are coming out of residency and fellowship and they're available to come and work and replace you.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I know my partnership really appreciates it when people retire in July and August. But the truth is you only get so many summers in your life. And so, it makes a lot of sense if you like to do a lot of stuff in the summer like I do to maybe retire before summer hits. Maybe April or so.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
I think those are probably the two main times I would think about retiring. It would be April-ish and August-ish. But I think those are both probably smarter times to retire than January 1st. But you know what? If you've got enough money and you're sick of working and you're just ready to get out the door January 1st works, January 1st works. And that's perfectly fine as well. But I try to have at least part of a year of work there.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. I think it's time to get Gretchen Green on the phone here. Let's get her on and let's talk about being a medical expert witness and how you might add that to your multiple streams of income.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. Dr. Green, welcome back to the White Coat Investor podcast.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Thanks so much for having me back.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
For those who might've missed your previous interview, can you tell us briefly about yourself?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Absolutely. I'm a diagnostic radiologist. I've been in private practice in North Carolina since 2006. And I now teach a course to help teach physicians how to become expert witnesses.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
So, you're an expert.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
I am. And the great thing is so are all of our medical colleagues. That's one of the biggest blocks that people face is realizing that they already have the skills to do this work just as when a patient comes in the door, you either know what to do, or you're going to figure it out. It's the same exact situation with expert witness work.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
And why do you think doctors are attracted to doing expert witness work?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
There are two major draws. The first is that it's a great way to supplement your income. It's very time and financially efficient. So, in three hours a week using a standard hourly billing rate of around $600 to $900 an hour, you can make six figures at a side gig in one year. It's not difficult to do, again, using those skills.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
And the other better part of that I think is which is why people stay with the work is that it's so intellectually fascinating. Every case is a new opportunity to learn. I really enjoy working with attorneys. I learned something from every case and it helps me be a better doctor too.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
In what ways do you think has helped you improve your practice?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Because we need experts to support our opinions with literature. I stay on top of medical literature. I know differences in different areas in the countries or where it may not exist, or we have a lot of common practice and I stay on top of my learning. So, I'm always learning new things.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Now, we've gotten some great feedback about the course from White Coat Investors that took it last time. And obviously, if you can turn this into a six-figure side gig, the course both the time and the cost of the course is a great investment. But what has the course changed since the last time we mentioned it on the podcast here?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Yeah. The course has continued to evolve as we have now more tools at our disposal for collaboration remotely. It took a while for attorneys and for courts, I think to change some of their practices, but now so much has gone remote that a lot of the barriers that people worried about before “Would they have to travel, would they have to take extra time out of their schedule?”

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Those have been reduced further, and it's really leveraged people's time I think more efficiently as we've been able to use more of our remote tools like video conferencing for depositions, and now possibly even for trials. I've also found that using Zoom with attorneys has really enhanced my communications. I'm able to review PowerPoints of images in a way that literally the image says a thousand words and attorneys have really come to appreciate that a lot and see value for their understanding of cases.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
What should somebody taking the course expect? What happens when you take the course?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
My intent is for this course to help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls that are there that you might encounter. If you learned it by trial and error, you'll find a lot quicker success and a lot greater confidence, knowing a roadmap from a “how-to” course like this, rather than some of the negative feelings that you get from finding your own pitfalls along the way.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
We take eight weeks, each week has a recorded module and live Q&A opportunities also in Facebook groups for interaction and collaboration, with other experts and physicians. And by the time you get to the end of it, you'll know how to start getting your first case, how to enhance your marketing to grow your practice and how to think strategically ahead about really being an owner of this as your own business.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
I think as now we see statistics of 70% of physicians are employed, not practice owners. There's never been a better time to have something in your life like this that gives you flexibility and the ability to have ownership of what you do. And we touch on all of those things, including that mindset of building something new, using, again, those skills you already have.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Have you had any students that have kind of transitioned to expert witnessing as the main gig and they're now practicing less?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
We've definitely had students who have transitioned and have reduced their clinical time, who have supplemented their hours doing expert witness work. People have made amazing progress so fast. Remember, this course has only been around for a year now, but I've got one student who's actually going to trial next month in a case.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Cool. So, if you're interested in taking this expert witness course, you can sign up for that at whitecoatinvestor.com/expertwitness. Anything else they should know about it before we let you go?

Dr. Gretchen Green:
I would just emphasize that there has never been a better time to put your skills to work in a way like this. You just apply that same principle, that when a patient walks in the door, you have the knowledge and expertise to know what to do.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
With uncertainty comes opportunity. Now with the Delta variant I think a lot of us are struggling with that feeling of uncertainty, not only with our jobs, but with our lives in general. This is just one way that you can recoup the cost of the course with one case that you get. It's very low risk. And it's just a great opportunity for people to take this measure of control and really take pride in what they do and enjoy the work.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Awesome. Well, thank you for coming back on the White Coat Investor podcast, and thanks for developing this great course.

Dr. Gretchen Green:
Thanks so much for having me back.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right. It was great to talk to Gretchen. If you are interested in that course, you can go to whitecoatinvestor.com/expert witness and sign up to that. It’s not the cheapest course. It's $3000. It goes live on August 30th, but it may be worth thousands of thousands of dollars to you going forward if you're really interested in being an expert witness.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Remember, sign up for WCI con 22, September 14th. That's on Tuesday at 7:00 PM Mountain is when that will open up. And don't forget those of you who want to apply to get, or to judge the White Coat Investor scholarship. That's at whitecoatinvestor.com/scholarshipapplication, or send an email with “Volunteer judge” in the subject line to [email protected]

Dr. Jim Dahle:
All right, for doctors, the story has changed. Visit locumstory.com for unbiased information about locum tenens and see if it should be your next chapter. And remember locum tenens tend to trend as a God sends demand to burnt out ends.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Thanks to those of you who have left us a five-star review and told your friends about the podcast. Our most recent one is from ‘Hombre down the way’, who said, “The best financial podcast. This podcast does an excellent job of helping people like me avoid stupid mistakes. I had previously thought I knew a lot but I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Every podcast has at least 1 thing that helps me improve my finances. Thank you for sharing your knowledge”.

Dr. Jim Dahle:
Keep your head up, your shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor podcast.

Disclaimer:
My dad, your host, Dr. Dahle, is a practicing emergency physician, blogger, author, and podcaster. He’s not a licensed accountant, attorney or financial advisor. So, this podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered official personalized financial advice.