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This is the White Coat Investor Podcast Milestones to Millionaire Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.
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This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 255 Pa Becomes a Millionaire. Our sponsor for this episode is Goodman Capital, a premier real estate credit investment firm specializing in senior secured low loan to value lending on class A properties in prime markets across the greater New York metro area. Founded on a family legacy Dating back to 1987, Goodman has closed more than $850 million plus across 95 plus loans with a track record of 0 principal loss. The flagship private mortgage REIT Liquid Credit Strategy Fund 1 delivered a steady 9% net dividend yield since inception at a very conservative sub 50% LTV. Invest in tax efficient high yield risk adjusted debt investment strategies with goodman capital@whitecoatinvestor.com Goodman I feel like I got to decipher that ad for a few of you out there. Let's spend just a second talking about that, right? Goodman does debt investing, right? So you're not owning the property, you're lending money to the people that own the property. But it's senior secure. What does that mean? That means you're in first lien position, meaning if something goes bad, you have the right to foreclose on the property. You're at the head of the line, you're at the, at the top of the capital stack, right? And then it's a low loan to value, meaning they don't lend 90% of the value of the property, they lend dramatically less than that. And then of course, class A properties are the nice ones, the ones that just got built in the last five or ten years. So that's, that's the type of investing they do at Goodman. If you're interested in that sort of an investment, you know it's not going to give you 18, 25% returns like maybe some of the people doing value add equity real estate strategies are trying to aim for. You know, it's debt investing. So 7, 8, 9, 10, 11%, that's what you're going to earn on these things. But to be fair, that's what you get out of the stock market. So a little bit different way to invest. Get stock market like returns in some ways with less risk than the stock market has something to be said for that. So check that out if you want whitecodeinvestor.com Goodman if you like learning about these sorts of private real estate opportunities, you should be signed up for our newsletter. It's whitecoininvestor.com reoptunities and some of the emails you get if you sign up for that are basically these people telling you about their opportunities. Like, there will be an email every month written by the Goodman folks as well as our other sponsors. But we also put some purely educational ones in there that we write and give you a chance to learn more about investing in real estate. Not only private passive opportunities, but also direct real estate investing, as well as occasionally public opportunities, like investing in the Vanguard REIT index fund. Okay, we got a great interview today. I hope you enjoy it. A lot of times people ask, well, you're always getting these people to make $800,000 a year. Of course they're rich. Well, we got a PA we're interviewing that has also become a millionaire despite living in high cost of living areas. So hopefully many of you will find that inspiring. If you don't, or even if you do stick around afterward. We're going to talk for a few minutes because this thing drops on December 29th and it's that time of year again where we got to talk a little bit about the backdoor Roth IRA process. And I know Megan can't believe we're talking about this again on the podcast, but we got to, because maybe you'll head off some of the hundreds of questions will be sent about the backdoor Roth IRA over the course of the next four to six weeks. So stick around afterward and we'll make sure you understand exactly how the backdoor Roth IRA works. Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is David. David, welcome to the podcast.
C
Hi, Dr. Dali.
B
Good morning.
C
Thank you.
B
Introduce yourself to the podcast here. Tell people what you do, how far you are out of school, what part of the country you're in, et cetera.
C
Yeah, So I graduated from the Wake Forest Physician assistant program in 2020. I did a few years in family medicine in the last two years in outpatient adult gi And I'm on a little rock in the middle of the Pacific.
B
Little rock in the middle of the Pacific. Awesome. Okay, let's talk about your milestone. What did you accomplish? What should we celebrate with you today?
C
Okay, well, I am officially a millionaire.
B
A millionaire. A million dollars. That's pretty cool. So as a kid, what did the word millionaire mean to you?
C
It brought visions of the character from.
B
Monopoly with the black top hat.
C
With the top hat? Yeah, the cane and the mustache.
B
I got bad news for you. When Monopoly came out, like a hundred years ago, a million dollars then was worth, like 10 million now. So. So I don't want to burst Your bubble. You can probably afford the top hat, though, if you want it.
C
All right.
B
Pretty cool, though, still, right? I mean, a million dollars, it's always going to mean something in our culture. Even 20 years from now, when a million is the equivalent of 200,000 or whatever due to inflation, it's still going to mean something. And so it's pretty cool to be a millionaire. And exciting. All right, well, tell us the story. Tell us the story of your financial journey from the time you started school until now.
C
I started school late. I didn't take my first college class until I was 31, so it's my second career. Did an undergrad at UNC Pembroke in biology and then worked as a paramedic also. Then went to PA school at Wake Forest and just powered through that. I was fortunate enough. My zoology professor got me hooked up with a national scholarship for undergrad. So they paid for everything there, including a modest stipend, and then with a National Health Service corps when I went to Wake Forest again. Yeah, they paid for everything, thankfully, including a living stipend, too. So.
B
Okay, so you had an NHSC commitment, though, I assume? Yes.
C
And going into Covid, that was quite, quite the situation.
B
So where'd you go? Where'd you go? To work?
C
Yeah, I planned to stay in North Carolina to continue taking care of my mom, but I ended up months down the road when they raised the bar from whatever the score was, 15 to 19, and that really limited the options. So it was going to be a federal prison.
B
You almost had to go to prison to pay for school. That's an ideal, I suppose. Although I've met a few docs that love their prison practice. They just think it. Cats meow. They think it's awesome.
C
Okay. Yeah. As a medic, I didn't particularly enjoy going to the prison to pick up patients or going to the jail, but so I said, you know, maybe that's not for me. So, thankfully, I was able to find a job in Tampa at an underserved area there.
B
So what do you end up. How many years did you owe for paying for your PAs?
C
Only two.
B
Two years. Okay, so two years for two years seems like a fair deal. I got four years for four years out of the military, so it's about the same deal. Very cool. So you didn't have financial debt. You had a time debt. So tell us about how you've managed your finances over the last so many years until you became a millionaire.
C
I've always been pretty conservative financially. I owe a lot out to my mom. She immigrated from Thailand in 1969. So she was always, always a saver and, you know, making sure she had money to send back home to the family. So I just kind of adopted that and have just lived that way. I still have the same Toyota truck that I bought brand new in 2005. So. Yeah, I don't know. I get more joy out of experiences and giving things to other people than to buy stuff for myself.
B
Well, when you decide to get rid of that Toyota, you might want to bring it to Utah because I swear every other car on the road is a 2000, 2005 Toyota. Those things are like, they're, they're incredibly in demand here. People want four runners and that sort of thing. The older the style, the better. So think about that when you get ready to sell that thing anyway. Okay, well, give us a sense of what your, what your net worth looks like. How much of it's home equity, how much of it's retirement accounts, investments, how much debt do you have? Tell us about all that.
C
So I'm, I'm renting right now. The real estate in Hawaii is, is pretty insane when I moved back about 18 months ago, so I'm renting right now. I've got about 500k in a traditional IRA that I started when I was 18 years old. I've got a 50,000 in my retirement Roth IRA here at work, and then another 50 in my prior job from Tampa, and 170 in my high yield savings account.
B
Okay, so you add it all up and it adds up pretty good chunk of change. Yeah.
C
And then 350ish, whatever the market's doing. And I have a brokerage account that's got about 350 in it.
B
I was going to say I'm not sure that all added up to a million until you add it on the brokerage account.
C
I was trying to pull it from memory. I can't get my spreadsheet to come up here.
B
It's all investments. What about debt? You got any debt in your life? Zero. Didn't have any school debt. You don't have a mortgage because you don't have a place. So very cool. So it's basically all assets.
C
Yeah, I've been debt free since I sold my house in Hawaii, 2012.
B
All right, well, clearly your upbringing had an influence on this. Your mother had an influence. But why has this been important to you? Why is building wealth important to you? Why has this been a focus in your life? Give us a sense of what your motivation was.
C
Because, you know, growing up My mom had five kids, and, you know, she was working at the hospital, but in, you know, environmental services, so not. Not making much in the way of wages, especially as a single mom. I remember as a kid being in the grocery store, and we went to check out, and my mom didn't have enough money, and we had to give the food back to the cashier. And as a kid, I didn't really understand that, but it didn't feel good. And I could see my mom. The look on her face was not good either. And so I said, I never want to be in that position.
B
Yeah. Yeah. That can be a sobering experience. And I have not only had to count up what we had when buying groceries before, but I stood behind someone in line that had to put two or three things back because they didn't quite have enough to cover it. And sometimes that's an opportunity to buy something for somebody that could really use it. But it is something that can be very motivating. I understand. I donated plasma as a college student and bought groceries with the money. That's what I bought with the money, was groceries. I'd always kind of run out of money about March or April in the school year before I went back and worked all summer to save up money for the next school year. So I get it. I get it for sure how motivating that is to have financial security for the rest of our lives and. Okay, so give us a sense. What. What have you earned as a PA throughout your career?
C
The first job I really got got taken advantage of, I think, because it was. They knew that I was under the gun for the National Health Service Corps commitment. It was Covid. So. So jobs were limited. So, yeah, the first job, I'm kind of embarrassed to say was $83,000 starting out, but I just had to look. Reflect back on my $150,000 of forgiveness plus interest. And I said, you know what? Okay, that's a pretty good deal all in all.
B
So when you add it all together, it makes sense. It's kind of. Kind of like how the military paid me less, too. Right. I mean, it's a contract. It's not like a scholarship. It's not free money, for sure. It's a contract. And they get their money out of you eventually.
C
Oh, yeah. 26 patients a day. They got every penny back out of me.
B
Yeah, sounds about right. Okay, so after you got done with that commitment.
C
Yeah, after I got done with that. So more recently, you know, I'm around 150 to 180, depending on salary and bonus and I get per diem to go to the neighbor islands to see patients over there.
B
But even living in a very expensive place to live and you know, making less than lots of physicians make, you still been able to become a millionaire in really not that many years. Pretty awesome. Okay, so this is unique. We have somebody that's in Hawaii. What tips do you have for people who want to live in a high cost of living area despite maybe not earning, you know, a gazillion dollars a year?
C
I'm staying at a family's property, so that's helpful when you get the brother in law discount and yeah, and just to, you know, do your homework, do your recon, get out and see the area. You don't want to live in the slums, obviously, but you know, there are some other ways that you can do what, what do you like to call it? Geographic arbitrage. Even within a small state. And you can find different pockets where they're a little less popular and a little more affordable.
B
All right, Somewhere out there there's a PA or there's an NP or there's a pharmacist or a veterinarian or whatever and they want to be as successful as you've been. What advice do you have for them?
C
Start early and be consistent. Yeah, a lot of the money that I saved up was when I was waiting tables and then selling cars before I got into medicine. And being able to buy Amazon at $8 a share in my retirement account and Netflix at $10 a share 20 years ago. That's really what got me here consistently.
B
It's amazing. You put a little bit of money away, invest it in some reasonable way for a few years. What it turns into over decades. And the first stuff you save has the longest time to compound for sure. Okay, very cool. Well, what's next for you? What's your next financial goal that you're going to work on?
C
I just celebrated the one year anniversary of my first book that I published.
B
Pretty awesome. Should we give it a plug? What's it called?
C
It's a children's book. It's called Goodnight Alex.
B
Goodnight Alex. All right, everybody run out to Amazon or wherever, pick up Goodnight Alex. And now you're going to be a multimillionaire just from the sales from this podcast. Right Everyone, everyone will buy the children's book, I'm sure.
C
Yes, please do. Check it out. It's, it's, it's really great and I, I'm proud of it. And Rick and I are working on the the second one, we're about 50% through the the second book now, getting ready to launch it, so.
B
Very cool. Is this a passion project mostly or. Or is this a serious side gig?
C
Probably 80, 20, 80% passion. I don't know. The return on investment is going to take a long time. I, I made, I sold 200 copies, so I made about $200 in the last 12 months.
B
Okay. All right.
C
And it's cost me 10 times that.
B
Well, hopefully we make a little difference as white coat investors and it gets better from here. Very cool. Well, congratulations on your success. Thank you for being willing to come on the show and inspire others to do the same.
C
Yeah, thanks for your time, Dr. Dale.
B
Hope you enjoyed that podcast. Like I said at the beginning, you don't have to be a super high earner in order to do well financially, right? There's a huge spectrum of incomes among white coat investors, some of which have a five figure income, right? You might be a resident physician, you might be a PA working off an NHSC commitment, you might be a part time pediatrician. I don't know, you might have a seven figure income. Maybe you're crushing it as a back surgeon or something, right? So we've got people through a huge range of incomes, but you can all be financially successful by following the same principles. Make a lot of money, Carve a big chunk of it out to invest. Make sure your investments are working as hard as you are, make sure you're covered for bad things happening to you, right? Things like death and disability. And give it a little bit of time. And it's amazing what will happen, especially those first few investments you made back in the day. Okay, I promised we're going to talk just for a minute about the backdoor Roth IRA process. I know lots of you out there. Do your backdoor Roth IRA every year, no problem. You don't need to be told how to do it. Humor me for a second. We're going to talk about it. All right? The backdoor Roth IRA is just a method of contributing to a Roth IRA. Okay? Back before 2010, the year before I started this blog, basically the rules were high earners weren't allowed to contribute directly to a Roth ira. High earners with a plan at work were not allowed to deduct a contribution to a traditional ira, and higher earners were not allowed to do Roth conversions. But in 2010, all those rules changed. Not all those rules. Actually, only one of those rules changed the ability to do a Roth conversion. You still can't contribute directly to A Roth ira, you still can't deduct your traditional IRA contribution. But what you can do is a Roth conversion. And that change in rules made the backdoor Roth IRA process possible. So what is that process? That process is taking a contribution and putting it into a traditional IRA. Whatever the annual limit is that year. $7,000, $8,000, whatever it is, you put it in a traditional IRA. You're allowed to do that no matter what your income is, as long as you have at least that much money in earned income, or your spouse does. Then you move the money from the traditional IRA to a Roth ira. That's a Roth conversion. That's what became allowed for high earners in 2010, because you never got a deduction for the contribution to the traditional ira. There's no tax cost to doing the conversion. So the end result is exactly the same as just contributing directly to a Roth ira. But there is a catch. That catch is when you report that conversion step on your taxes, you do that on Tax Form 8606 for your federal return. And on that form, it asks you what was your balance in traditional SEP and simple IRAs at the end of last year, the year you did the conversion in. And if that balance is not zero, the conversion step gets prorated. And you don't want your conversion step to be prorated. So you do what you can to avoid that. You know, you take that money you have in a Simple or a sep, and you do a Roth conversion on that money, too. Or maybe you roll it into a 401, because 401s and 403s and 457bs, those don't go into that calculation. It's just traditional IRAs, including rollover IRAs, but not inherited IRAs or Roth IRAs. SEP IRAs, and simple IRAs, they're the only ones that count that you got to do something about to not get prorated on your backdoor Roth IRA process. And that's it. That's the whole thing. So on January 2nd every year, we put money into traditional IRAs. On January 3rd, or sometimes they make us wait a few more days, we put more money. We'd move that money into the Roth ira, and then you check back a couple of weeks later. Sometimes it earned five bucks or something. And you can do a second Roth conversion of that $5 so you don't leave that behind in the traditional IRA. Of course, you owe taxes on that $5 that are earned in the two days that sat in the traditional IRA. But that's not a big deal whether convert that or not. Yeah, you get prorated, but it's like a $5 worth of proration, so it's not a big deal. You'll clean it up next year anyway. Okay, so that's the backdoor Roth IRA process. You can do it for the prior year up until tax day, right? You can make a 2024 contribution in 2025. It makes your paperwork a little more complicated, so I recommend you do it during the calendar year. But you can do it. You just report the 2024 contribution on your 2024 8606, and then you'll report the conversion step on your 2025 8606. It's not that hard to figure out if you just go down the lines on the form. They're pretty easy and straightforward to work through. If it's tricky for you, go to our BackDoor Roth IRA tutorial page. If you search BackDoor Roth IRA at thewhitecoatinvestor.com, you'll find the tutorial page. It'll walk you through the process. We even put screenshots on it as often as we can and walk you through the process of how to do this. It's not complicated. You're way better off investing in a Roth IRA than you are in a taxable account. And you can't invest in a traditional IRA with tax deferred dollars because you make too much money. So this is a no brainer. Most White coat investors eventually figure out how to do this, and that's what they do with some of their retirement money every year. So they're maxing out their 401 at work. They're doing a backdoor Roth IRA for themselves and a spouse, and everything else they save for retirement goes into a taxable account. Hope that's helpful. If you got questions, first thing you ought to do is go to that tutorial page. Your question's probably been answered there. I promise. We've gotten every possible backdoor Roth IRA question that can possibly be asked at some point over the years. But if you still have a question, you can shoot us an email. I'll try to answer your question. Maybe better yet, post it on one of our forums, the White Coat Investor forum or the subreddit or the Facebook group. Somebody also give you the answer, and then next year you can give somebody else that answer. It's not that hard to do, but it's slightly more complicated than just contributing directly to a Roth ira. Our sponsor for today's episode was Goodman Capital, leading real estate investment firm focused on asset backed private lending in prime markets across the greater New York metro area. Since 1987 Goodman has built a cycle tested platform with more than 850 million plus in closed transactions and over 1000 investors served including physicians and medical professionals. Their institutional infrastructure, third party administrators, auditors and counsel ensures transparency and compliance while their focus on senior secured low LTV loans provide strong downside risk protection. Join Goodman Capital and access tax efficient passive monthly income with principal safety@whitecoatinvestor.com Goodman thanks for being a White Coat Investor. Thanks for being here. Keep your head up and your shoulders back. We'll see you next time and all next year on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. I'm sure there's at least 52 of you out there that have accomplished something awesome in the prior year. We're going to highlight it. We're going to use it to inspire others to do the same this year. Thanks for being with us.
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The White Coat Investor Podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.
Episode Title: PA Becomes a Millionaire and Finance 101: Backdoor Roth IRA Process
Date: December 29, 2025
Host: Dr. Jim Dahle
Guest: David (PA, recent millionaire)
This episode celebrates the financial success of David, a physician assistant (PA) who became a millionaire through disciplined saving and investing, despite not being a high-earner and living in high cost-of-living areas. The episode aims to demonstrate that financial milestones like achieving millionaire status are attainable for medical and allied professionals across various income levels by following solid personal finance principles. The second segment revisits the step-by-step process of executing a backdoor Roth IRA, a recurring topic vital for high-income earners in the audience.
[04:02–15:25]
[15:29–16:40]
[16:40–21:42]
What is a Backdoor Roth IRA?
History and Rule Changes:
Process Breakdown:
Key Warnings:
Pro Tips:
Why it’s worth doing:
This summary provides a detailed and engaging walkthrough of the episode for all who wish to leverage WCI principles for their own financial journey or learn core strategies like the backdoor Roth IRA.