MtoM #218: CRNA Becomes a Retirement Account Millionaire and Finance 101: Tax Strategy

Summary

White Coat Investor Podcast: Milestones to Millionaire #218 Episode Title: CRNA Becomes a Retirement Account Millionaire and Finance 101: Tax Strategy
Host: Dr. Jim Dahle
Release Date: April 14, 2025

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Celebrating Financial Success: Marissa’s Journey to a Retirement Account Millionaire

In episode #218 of the White Coat Investor Podcast, Dr. Jim Dahle welcomes Marissa, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), to celebrate her impressive financial milestone: accumulating over $1 million in retirement accounts alongside her husband. This milestone exemplifies the podcast’s mission to educate high-income professionals in the medical field about personal finance and wealth building.

From Early Career to Financial Milestone

Marissa shares her professional background and financial journey. With over 18 years out of school, she has established herself as a CRNA in the Midwest. Her husband transitioned from an 18-year career as a high school teacher to a role as a Learning Management Systems Administrator in a large farming co-op international.

Financial Growth:

• Early Career Incomes: Marissa’s first full-time CRNA position earned her $90,000 annually, while her husband’s salary as a public school teacher was around $45,000.
• Recent Earnings: In the last year, their combined income reached $415,000, with Marissa earning $307,000 and her husband $108,000.

Strategic Saving and Investment Practices

Marissa and her husband have diligently prioritized saving and investing, enabling them to achieve their millionaire status in retirement accounts.

Key Strategies:

• High Savings Rate: They contribute approximately $116,000 annually to their retirement accounts, reflecting a 25-27% savings rate of their combined income.
• Retirement Account Utilization: Marissa implemented a mega backdoor Roth strategy two years prior, while her husband participates in retirement accounts through his business. They consistently perform regular backdoor Roth contributions each year.
• Debt Management: With no remaining student loans and a mortgage at 3.1% interest, they maintain manageable debt levels, allowing for accelerated investment growth.

Quote:
Marissa emphasizes the importance of focused savings:
"We have an emergency fund, and we save up in there for big vacations, for home improvement projects. But I also have $40,000 in venture capital that my brother has as an upstart, so we haven't seen anything from that yet. I told my brother specifically, it's okay if we never see anything from that. I didn't want it to hurt our relationship."
[06:06]

Frugal Living and Smart Financial Choices

Marissa attributes much of her financial success to frugal living and strategic life decisions.

Frugality in Action:

• Growing up in a generationally frugal family instilled habits that extended into her adult life.
• They utilize discounts and deals, such as using Groupon for activities like escape rooms.
• Negotiation and Career Moves: Encouraging her husband to switch careers led to better pay and job satisfaction, contributing significantly to their financial growth.

Quote:
Reflecting on her financial discipline:
"Growing up in a family that's generationally frugal helps no matter what. Just living frugally has helped."
[07:10]

Leveraging Technology: The Power of Budgeting Apps

A crucial element of their financial strategy is the use of budgeting technology.

Budgeting Tools:

• Copilot App: Marissa credits Copilot as the budgeting app that effectively manages their finances, allowing them to see their financial goals and spending clearly.
• Transition from Other Apps: After using Mint and other budgeting tools, they found Copilot to seamlessly align with their financial management needs.

Quote:
Marissa shares her experience with budgeting apps:
"I have a budgeting app that I follow, and actually it kind of frees me to spend because I am so frugal. So I can see that I'm meeting all of my giving goals that's of utmost importance for our family and all of our savings goals, and then being able to spend the rest."
[08:05]

Advice for Aspiring Millionaires in the Medical Field

Drawing from her experience, Marissa offers valuable advice to medical professionals aiming for financial success.

Key Recommendations:

1. Know Your Worth:
   "You are worth more. You can negotiate more at work."
   [10:57]
2. Advocate for Yourself:
   Encourage career moves that offer better pay and job satisfaction.
3. Smart Spending:
   Spend intentionally on what matters and avoid unnecessary expenses.
4. Financial Literacy:
   Learn the basics of investing and actively manage your finances.
5. Open Communication:
   Maintain transparency with your spouse about financial matters.

Quote:
Marissa emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy and financial education:
"Learn the basics of investing. It's not that hard. It actually can be a lot of fun... Just dig in and dig deep, do some research, and pretty soon you'll have $1.3 million in your retirement accounts."
[11:45]

Deep Dive into Tax Strategy: Maximizing Savings Legally

Post-interview, Dr. Dahle shifts focus to discuss tax strategy, offering listeners insights into effective tax planning.

Core Principles:

• Optimize Filing Status:
  Utilizing married filing jointly can offer tax advantages.
• Child Tax Credits:
  Families can benefit from credits available for dependents.
• Retirement Contributions:
  Contributing to tax-deferred accounts and Roth IRAs helps reduce taxable income and grow wealth tax-free.
• Business Expenses:
  Legitimate business expenses can be deducted, allowing pre-tax spending on certain items.

Cautionary Advice:

• Avoid Dubious Strategies:
  Strategies that appear unconventional or "out there" may invite audits and legal troubles.
• Long-Term Viability:
  Be wary of new tax deductions that lack robust support and could be disallowed later.
• Audit Lottery:
  Relying on not being audited is risky; prioritize legitimate and well-established tax strategies.

Quote:
Dr. Dahle warns against speculative tax strategies:
"If you're not sure about something, give it two or three years before you start using it... It isn't that it's a legitimate strategy. It's just other people that have been using it haven't been audited yet."
[16:30]

Recommended Tax Strategies:

1. Charitable Giving:
   Increases deductions and supports philanthropic goals.
2. Retirement Savings:
   Contributions to retirement accounts reduce taxable income.
3. Business Deductions:
   Legitimate expenses related to running a business can lower tax liability.
4. Depreciation for Real Estate Investments:
   Utilize property depreciation to offset income.
5. Roth Accounts:
   Earnings grow tax-free, offering long-term tax benefits.

Final Takeaways:

• Legitimate Tax Savings:
  Focus on established methods like retirement contributions and charitable donations.
• Caution with New Strategies:
  Prioritize strategies with proven legitimacy to avoid potential IRS issues.
• Educational Investment:
  Understand and manage your taxes proactively rather than relying solely on financial advisors.

Conclusion

Marissa’s story is a testament to disciplined saving, strategic investing, and informed financial management. Through high savings rates, effective use of retirement accounts, and prudent financial choices, she and her husband have successfully built a substantial retirement fund. Additionally, Dr. Dahle’s insights into tax strategy provide listeners with practical advice to optimize their financial planning while avoiding risky maneuvers.

Quote:
Dr. Dahle encapsulates Marissa’s achievement:
"It just goes to show you that as your net worth gets higher, as your investable assets get higher, it's not just you doing the work anymore, it's also your money. And it starts growing faster and faster and faster and faster."
[13:45]

Listeners are encouraged to apply these principles to their financial journeys, leveraging the wisdom shared by Marissa and Dr. Dahle to achieve their own milestones toward financial freedom.

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Notable Quotes:

• "We have an emergency fund, and we save up in there for big vacations, for home improvement projects. But I also have $40,000 in venture capital that my brother has as an upstart, so we haven't seen anything from that yet. I told my brother specifically, it's okay if we never see anything from that. I didn't want it to hurt our relationship."
  [06:06]

• "Growing up in a family that's generationally frugal helps no matter what. Just living frugally has helped."
  [07:10]

• "You are worth more. You can negotiate more at work."
  [10:57]

• "Learn the basics of investing. It's not that hard. It actually can be a lot of fun... Just dig in and dig deep, do some research, and pretty soon you'll have $1.3 million in your retirement accounts."
  [11:45]

• "If you're not sure about something, give it two or three years before you start using it... It isn't that it's a legitimate strategy. It's just other people that have been using it haven't been audited yet."
  [16:30]

• "It just goes to show you that as your net worth gets higher, as your investable assets get higher, it's not just you doing the work anymore, it's also your money. And it starts growing faster and faster and faster and faster."
  [13:45]

---

This episode offers both inspiration through Marissa’s success story and practical guidance on optimizing financial strategies, making it a valuable resource for medical professionals striving for financial independence.

Transcript

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to Millionaire.

[Marissa]

Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

This is Milestones to millionaire podcast number 218. CRNA becomes a retirement Account Millionaire. Full disclosure. What I'm about to say is a sponsored promotion for locumstory.com but the weird thing here is, is there's nothing they're trying to sell you. Locumstory.com is simply a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenants. It's not an agency. They simply exist to answer your questions about the how to's of Locums on their website, Podcasts, webinars, videos, and they even have a Locums one on one crash course. Learn about Locums and get insights from real life positions, PAs and [e-mail]. okay, we're in the middle of our Financial Educator Award, so nominate somebody. If there's someone that's been doing an exceptional job educating their colleagues and trainees, please nominate them. You can do [e-mail] educator as an added incentive, besides the opportunity to pay this person back because they might win the $1,000 prize as well as get some serious recognition, we're giving the nominator who writes the best submission a free WCI online course of their choice. This contest ends April 25th, so please nominate before then. Again, it's whitecoatinvestor.com you'll also notice there's free presentations of that same URL. Right. If you're looking for some slides to get you started putting together a presentation to help others become financially literate, you can get those at the same URL. Okay, we've got a great interview today. You're going to love it, but stick around. Afterward we're going to talk a little bit about tax strategy, if you will. Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Marissa. Marissa, welcome to the podcast.

[Marissa]

Thanks, Dr. Dolley. Thanks for having me.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Tell us what you do for a living, how far you are out of school, and what part of the country you're in.

[Marissa]

So, I'm a CRNA, a nurse anesthetist. I'm about 18 plus years out of school and I live in the Midwest.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. And you have accomplished something. Awesome. Tell us what we're celebrating with you today.

[Marissa]

My husband and I have a million dollars in our retirement accounts combined.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Awesome. A million dollars. You're millionaires. How does that feel?

[Marissa]

Great.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Did you ever think 18 years ago that you'd be a millionaire?

[Marissa]

No, not Really? I didn't think too much about it, honestly. I was just excited to be a CRNA and yeah, I figured it was great. I didn't think too much about this point in my life. 18 years ago.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Yeah. Very cool. What does your husband do for a living?

[Marissa]

He is a learning management systems administrator. So it's like how we have to do health streams at the hospital and we're assigned. He does that for a large farming co op international. He was a school high school teacher for 18 years and then just made the switch to corporate a couple years ago.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. Well give me a sense of what your incomes looked like for the last couple of decades. Maybe you know, the lowest it was and the highest it was or the average it was. Tell us what you guys have been making.

[Marissa]

So my husband's very first job, he made $18,000 a year as a private school teacher. So that's probably the lowest we've been. And I was an RN for a couple years here in the Midwest. He went back to school and then I went back to school. So we were on one income for a while. My first full time job out of anesthesia school, I made $90,000 a year. And he was teaching for a public school at the time so he was probably in the 45 range. So I'd say that was our lowest. And we've gone up and down since then. And this last year, let's see, total we were at 415. 415,000 combined. And that would be 307 for me and 108 for my husband.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. And have you been working full time since you came out of CRNA school?

[Marissa]

Nope, because we waited that whole time to have kids. I worked full time about 9 months after I graduated and then went to 3/4 time. Now I'm full time but I take a lot of call. So I'm not in the hospital 40 hours a week. I'm on call a third of my life. So I spend a decent amount of time at home. So part time hours, full time pay.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. Well, give us a sense of what your assets look like. You got a million dollars in retirement accounts, which is pretty cool. Are there still some student loans sitting out there? Do you have a house with a mortgage? Do you have investments outside of retirement accounts? Tell us a little bit more about your financial life and where you're at.

[Marissa]

So we don't have any school loans left. My husband never took any school loans. His parents paid for undergrad and then we paid for grad school. Together, I had about 35,000 is the most I ever had in school loans. And so we pay that off fairly quickly. After I graduated, the only thing we owe on right now is our home, and it's at like, a 3.1%.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

So no huge rush on that one, huh?

[Marissa]

Yeah, no major rush on that one. Most everything we have is in retirement accounts. So I started a mega backdoor Roth about two years ago, so this will be year three on that. And then my husband has retirement accounts through his business. We do a regular backdoor Roth every year. So we're putting. It's about $116,000 a year in retirement accounts. So honestly, that's kind of enough. We have an emergency fund, and we. And we kind of save up in there for big vacations, for home improvement projects. But I also have 40,000 in venture capital that my brother has as an upstart, so we haven't seen anything from that yet. And I told my brother specifically, it's okay if we never see anything from that. I didn't want it to hurt our relationship. Yeah, right.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

You should definitely be prepared for that outcome. And I'm glad to hear it's a relatively small percentage of your assets.

[Marissa]

We took your advice and did the 5% or less. So, yeah.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Yeah, for sure. You're taking a flyer on, and hopefully it pays off.

[Marissa]

Yeah, maybe. Maybe not.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. So, I mean, you're putting away $116,000 a year on an income of something around 415. I mean, that's a 25, 26, 27% savings rate. That's. That's pretty awesome. And truthfully, if you want to have a lot of money in your retirement accounts, the secret is put a lot of money in your retirement accounts. And you guys are obviously doing that, so that's pretty awesome. It doesn't take very long to have a million dollars in there when you put $116,000 a year, does it?

[Marissa]

Nope, not too bad. I actually, I think we're at 1.3 million on our retirement accounts and 1.5 as a net worth. I don't include our home in our net worth because to me, that's a consumption item. But.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. Very cool. So tell us how you did it. I mean, everyone's got a unique story for how they've become financially successful and started to accumulate wealth. So tell us your secret.

[Marissa]

So growing up in a family that's generationally frugal helps no matter what. So we went just. We're on vacation right now, and we went to an escape room the other night, and of course, I looked on Groupon to see if there was a better deal. So just living frugally has helped. Negotiating for a bigger shovel, as you put it, is important. Encouraging my husband to. He was unhappy teaching, but he didn't think he could get a different job. And just telling him that I would support him as needed. And he ended up getting a better job with better pay, with better benefits, and something that he loves. It was time for him to get away. So having a good income, of course, helps. We had a financial advisor that was a commission salesman masquerading as a financial advisor, and I always wanted to know exactly where my money was, and I felt like he wasn't doing a great job. I went to a chiefs meeting once, and actually, Dr. Dali, you were speaking. You were there. I never heard of you. Everyone seems so excited to meet you. I'm like, I don't even know who this guy is. We got your book as a welcome gift for this meeting, and I read through it, and I was hooked from then on. And I started seeing if there were podcasts or anything. And sure enough, you had a podcast. So that would be. Would have been March of 2020, like, two weeks before the shutdown. Yep. So since then, started maxing out retirements, doing backdoor Roth. Yeah. And then I. I have a budgeting app that I follow, and actually it kind of frees me to spend because I am so frugal. So I can see that I'm meeting all of my giving goals that's of utmost importance for our family and all of our savings goals, and then being able to spend the rest.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Very cool. So of the five money activities, Earning, saving, investing, spending, and giving, which one are you best at and which one are you worst at?

[Marissa]

I would say giving. Honestly, I've always had a heart to give. I'm a Christian. I believe that it's commanded of me, and I joyfully do that. So it's pretty easy to give that money away. I would say until recently, spending was the hardest. But like I said, having this budgeting app that is like, it's okay. You can spend and you need to work to not get burnt out. I have a junior and a sophomore in high school. I also have a sixth grader. But my boys will be leaving so soon that I want to spend money on experiences with them. And so I'm working on the spending. It's going okay.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Yeah. Very cool. Which budgeting app are you using?

[Marissa]

It's called Copilot.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Copilot. Okay. And you love it. It works. Well, did you try any others? Did you try everydollar or you need a budget or any of those?

[Marissa]

I looked at all of them. I did mint for years, and then when that shut down, I was forced to go elsewhere where I even look. It's a joke in my family that every sentence I say starts with, I was listening to a podcast. I was listening to a podcast, and they were reviewing all of the budgeting apps, and this one on this particular podcast came out on top. So I made the switch. And, yeah, it just works really good. Everything works seamlessly, and so I didn't necessarily work at any others. It takes a while to get used to a new budgeting app, so. So I found one that works and didn't look too much elsewhere.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Yeah, very cool. Okay. There's somebody out there just like you. They're coming out of school. They've got, you know, maybe some student loans. Maybe they have a negative net worth. They want to be a millionaire. What advice do you have for them?

[Marissa]

I think maybe what I would have told myself is that you. You are worth more. You can negotiate more at work. I switched over to a 1099 a couple years ago. That was huge for me. So my number one advice would be to find something that you love. I love being a crna. I love the job, but I also think I should be paid at least average or what I'm worth. I've been doing this a long time. I have a lot of skills, and so know what you're worth and then advocate for that and then watch what you spend. Spend on things that are important to you and don't spend on the things that aren't. Also, learn, even if you get a good financial advisor, learn the basics of investing. It's not that hard. It actually can be a lot of fun. I think as a woman, we are part of the minority. I do all the finances in our home. My husband's fine with that, and we discuss it. So keep things open with your spouse. And if you enjoy this as a hobby, it's the best paid hobby that you can have. And, yeah, just dig in and dig deep, do some research, and pretty soon you'll have $1.3 million in your retirement accounts.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

Pretty awesome. Well, congratulations to you, Marissa. You've done a great job, and you should be congratulated on your financial success. And thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast and share your story and inspire others to do the same.

[Marissa]

Well, thank you, and thanks for all of your work that you've done in the medical community. It's made a huge impact on our finances. So thanks.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview. Kind of a classic story. Takes time, not necessarily the highest income right when you begin. Made some mistakes, maybe early on, became more financially literate as they went. Savings rate increased. Nothing special being done here. Just pouring into regular old investments inside retirement accounts. Giving it a few years and all of a sudden you're in the seven figures. I think she applied when she became a retirement account millionaire. By the time we got her on the show, the net worth was up to 1.3 million or whatever. It just goes to show you that as your net worth gets higher, as your investable assets get higher, it's not just you doing the work anymore, it's also your money. And it starts growing faster and faster and faster and faster, Especially given the returns in the markets in 2023 and 2024. You know, whatever percentage of money you had in US stocks went up 50% over the course of those two years. And that also helps to build wealth pretty quickly. All right, at the beginning of the hour, I talked a little bit or I mentioned I was going to talk about tax strategy a little bit. And for the most part, everybody thinks they pay too much in taxes. Most people are actually right. They are paying too much in taxes. But the main way you lower your taxes is by living your financial life differently. You get married and you get the married filing jointly brackets. You have kids and you may get some child tax credits for them. You save for retirement and you put money into tax deferred accounts and all of a sudden you don't have to pay taxes on that money or you get into Roth accounts. And then as it makes money over the years, you don't have to pay taxes on the earnings. Maybe you start a business and a lot of things that people think of as normal personal expenses become business expenses. Now, technically only the business portion is, you know, a true business deduction. But it's pretty awesome sometimes to spend pre tax dollars. For example, last year we took the white coat investor staff to Lake Powell on a houseboat and we had an awesome week. And guess what? It was all paid for with pre tax dollars. So that's always fun to be able to use pre tax dollars, right? If you invest in real estate, right, look into depreciation and how you can maximize it. That might involve using a short term rental loophole. It might involve, you know, you or your partner are getting real estate, professional status and Being able to use your depreciation to offset your earned income. But as you dive into this tax strategizing world, you will find that some of the strategies become more and more and more out there, right? They start getting weird. They start being things you're buying and then donating to charity and saying they're worth more than you paid for them a few weeks earlier. They become buying tax credits off tribes. And you start talking around with your friends and nobody else is doing this. And you go to the white coat investor forum or the Facebook group or the subreddit, and everyone's like, I don't know, that sounds a little bit fishy. And you start realizing that very few people are using this particular tax strategy. Well, those are the ones you should be a little bit more cautious about, right? It's a little bit like medicine, right? You never want to be the first person that changes their practice, nor do you ever want to be the last person that changes their practice. And tax strategy in a lot of ways is like that. If you're not sure about something, give it two or three years before you start using it, right? It's not the end of the world. Pay a little bit more money in taxes. You don't have to eke out every dollar of tax savings that you can possibly get. And most of these crazy things blow up in just a few years, right? It turns out that everyone goes, oh, no, that's not reasonable. Or the IRS comes out with a statement on it, or people start getting audited on it or whatever. And it turns out that a lot of these strategies are simply what I call the audit lottery. You're banking on not getting audited. It isn't that it's a legitimate strategy. It's just other people that have been using it haven't been audited yet. And maybe that's not the world's worst strategy, especially with the Trump administration cutting the numbers of people in the federal government, including the irs, right? The truth is, the very best investment that we could make as a federal government is actually hiring more auditors. There's lots of people out there that are just frankly cheating on their taxes. And if we'd audit them all, we would, you know, maybe the rest of us that are honestly paying our taxes could pay a significantly lower percentage of our taxes. So I'm not actually against there being a few more auditors out there. I mean, nobody likes to get audited, but come on, there's a lot of people that just are cheating on their taxes. But even if you're not just frankly cheating. You're just out here in this gray area, out in the weeds with some tax deduction that hasn't really been fully tested yet. You need to be careful. And you got to realize that if the financial advisor mentioning this thing is telling you to do your own due diligence, or you're seeing a tax strategist and you bounce it for a second opinion off another tax strategist and they're like, I don't think that one's legit. You know, you're out there, you're in this gray zone, and you ought to be pretty careful. And you shouldn't be surprised if you're using one of these newfangled tax deductions if it turns out is not really legitimate after a few years. So be careful out there. For the most part, the things that are going to save you money on taxes are giving more money to charity, saving more money for retirement, starting a business and claiming legitimate business expenses and otherwise taking care of deductions or taking advantage of deductions and credits that are available to you because of how your family is and how you live your financial life. If the only purpose of investment is tax savings, you've really got to wonder if that's something you ought to be investing in. All right, our sponsor for this episode is locumstory.com and what I'm about to say is a sponsored promotion for them. But the weird thing here is there's nothing locumstory.com is trying to sell you. It's a free, unbiased educational resource about Locum tenants. Not an agency. They simply exist to answer your questions about the how to's of Locums on their website, podcast, webinars, videos, and they even have a locums 101 crash course. Learn about Locums and get insights from real life physicians, PAs and [e-mail] thanks for being a podcast listener. It's wonderful to have you here. It's even more wonderful to get you on the podcast. So if you want to come on and celebrate a milestone, any milestone, we'll use it to inspire others to do the same. You can apply whitecoatinvestor.com milestone see you next time on the podcast. Till then, keep your head up and shoulders back. The hosts of the White Coat Investor.

[Marissa]

Are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors.

[Dr. Jim Dahle]

This podcast is for your entertainment and information only.

[Marissa]

It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.