← White Coat Investor Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
This is the White Coat Investor podcast, Milestones to Millionaire. Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.
- [00:14]
B
This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 266. One of the most underrated financial moves in medicine is working locum tenens. It pays significantly more on average, and you can work locums full time or on the side of your full time. When you work with Comp Health, the number one staffing agency, they cover your housing and travel costs, which, on top of higher pay, really adds up. Locums also gives you more control of your career, allowing you to go where you want, when you want, with a schedule that works for you. It's the perfect way to get ahead financially while getting focused on what you love, whether it's locum tenants or a regular permanent position. Visit whitecoatinvestor.com comphealth and and build your career your way with the power of Comp Health. All right, welcome back to the Milestones Podcast. It's great to have you here. I have a lot of fun doing this podcast. I love talking to white coat investors. I do a lot of it at WC Icon every year, you know, at the end of March. I think it's gonna go like 10 days after you hear this podcast. But I also get to do it throughout the year when I'm doing speaking gigs or when we're recording these milestones episodes. And I really love it. It keeps me grounded, helps me remember what we're doing, keeps me focused on our mission here, which we' becoming more and more focused on every year. So I appreciate you guys being willing to participate in this, listen to the podcast and participate in the podcast. I think it's really helpful and really inspires a lot of people to be financially successful so they can focus on what really matters in their lives. Okay, a brief bit of business before we move on to today's interview. Today is the last day for 20% off courses. Okay. We're having this sale for podcast listeners. Podcast 20 is the code if you're interested in buying a White Coat investor course. Right? Whether it's our no Hype real estate investing, whether it's one of the versions of Fire Financial Advisor, whether it is continuing financial education, whatever the course, you can get 20% off by using that code. One other thing to be aware of, especially as we get to this time period where people are starting to think about the future after match day, is we have a promotion going with student loan advice. So anyone who schedules a meeting with student loan advice, they schedule it between today, the day. This drops 16 March and 23 March. You don't have to do the consult this week. You just have to schedule it this week. You're going to get fire your financial advisor resident version after the meeting. Okay. So that's got, you know, that's like a $300 value. And, you know, match day's the 20th. That's when Med students are all finding out where they've been accepted to residency. And after that, it's really a common time to start thinking about stuff like your student loans, what to do with them. So let a professional guide you through the best options to manage those loans. Our experienced staff have consulted with more than 2,300 borrowers on over $720 million in student loan debt. So potentially save hundreds to thousands of dollars with your custom student loan plan, realizing that our average client saves $160,000 on their student loans. Go to W today and book that consult. And as long as you book it this week and follow through and actually get the consult, we're going to give you a copy of our resident version of our flagship fire your financial advisor online course. Absolutely. For free. All right, let's get our subject, our interviewee, on the line here. And you're really going to like this one, I think. My guest today on the Milestones Millionaire podcast is Shabelli. Shabelli, welcome to the podcast.
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A
Thank you so much for having me. I'm a big fan of the podcast and I love listening to the episodes, so I'm happy to be a part of your podcast today.
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B
Well, this would be a particularly fun one for you to listen to, but let's introduce you to the audience. Tell us what you do for a living, how far you are out of school, you know, what part of the country you're in, etc.
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A
So. So I'm a certified anesthesiologist assistant. I've been working as a locum tenens contractor. So I've been bouncing around across the U.S. working in Missouri, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, and currently in Michigan.
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B
All over the place.
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A
Yes. Okay.
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B
There's a few people out there listening to this that don't know what an anesthesiologist assistant is. Can you explain the difference between a CRNA and an aa?
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A
Yes. So my training or my schooling was a bit more pre med focused. I wanted to apply to medical school, and I took a gap year and learned about a different pathway to becoming an anesthesia provider given my training or my background with a chemistry degree. And so I was working As a scribe, I was doing all sorts of healthcare experiences, but I was not a nurse. And so I could not go through the CRNA pathway. But there was a pathway for me to go through somewhat directly out of undergrad, and that is the AA pathway. So I took all sorts of prereqs with a pre med background, and I applied, I interviewed, and I was accepted. My training was a little bit over two. First it was a didactics portion, and then for the last year it was a pure clinical portion and I also had to take a board certification. There's also slight legislative differences and there's also differences in the practices that we can do. I always work with an anesthesiologist under their supervision or direction, and a CRNA can work under an anesthesiologist or independently. So those are some of the differences.
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B
So in a lot of ways, the difference between an AA and a CRNA is kind of the difference between a PA and an np. Fair enough.
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A
Yes.
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B
Yes. All right. Well, you have hit some awesome milestones. You know, a lot of people might not realize this. There's often delay in between the time people apply to come on the program and when we actually get them on the program. So when you applied, you just hit half a million dollars in net worth. So that's pretty awesome. Congratulations on that. But tell us what your net worth is now.
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A
Right now it is $850,000, not including my emergency fund and some other just like emergency funds that I keep on this side.
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B
So what's that made up of?
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Basically just investing in the S&P 500 through my taxable brokerage, through my solo 401, and also through my IRAs.
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B
Okay, now you're working all over the place. Is that cause you're doing Locums, Is that your main job is you're doing Locums all over the place?
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A
Yes. So I did work as a W2 employee for about two years in Florida and also in Missouri. And I just got into Locums. There are a couple benefits. Because I am a 1099 contractor, I can pay myself through my business, my LLC, and that helps offset some costs and also helps with taxes.
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B
Yeah, pretty cool. So where did you go when you went to open up a Solo 401?
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A
I went to Vanguard and Fidelity, but I basically automate my 401k through, I think, a Vanguard branch.
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B
All right, well, let's talk a little bit about your financial life. I mean, give us a sense. What are you earning going around working all these different places? I'm imagining it's a pretty good income for an aa.
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A
Yeah. So a lot of people confuse my profession with anesthesia tax. And when we think about the income, there's a, I would say, significant difference. I would say that I've earned around $300,000 on average over the last four and a half years or so that I've been practicing as an aa.
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B
I mean, are you maintaining a home somewhere or are you just living off, you know, what, what the Locums company provides and wherever you're going?
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A
So I have done Airbnbs leases, but right now a lot of my stuff is in storage, but also a lot of my family is in New York. So to a degree, New York is still my home base. But I do. I'm currently keeping a lot of my stuff in storage and I'm just doing Airbnb right now. So I'm kind of a nomad.
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B
But there's no home equity involved in this net worth calculation right now?
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A
No.
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B
And tell us your thoughts about that. You know, some people are like, oh, I have to own a home. And other people like, I'm going to be a no man forever. What are your thoughts? Is this a temporary phase in life? Do you expect you're going to settle down, buy a home home at some point, or are you loving this aspect of your career?
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A
So it can be challenging for sure to kind of pick up and have leases and Airbnbs and things of that nature. But at the same time, I felt like for the past few years, I've been figuring out where I want to live. One thing to know about the AA profession is that there is a limitation in state legislation. So we don't practice in private practice in every state. We can practice through the Veteran affairs. But that was something that I wanted to think about. I really wanted in different environments, different states, before I figured out where I wanted to live long term. So now that I've done that, I've gotten to live and work in the Southeast a good bit. And then recently I was working in the Southwest, and I've loved the Southwest. So if I could, I think the Southwest is where I would like to settle. That's what I see for myself. Things could change, but it's been good to move around and kind of experience different environments and see where I would like to live. So, yeah, long story short, I think I will settle in the Southwest to a degree. I won't. I don't know if I will buy a home yet. It's hard for me to commit to
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B
something so, yeah, well, I don't blame you for that. I love the Southwest. I've lived for five years in Arizona and now I don't know how many years in Utah. A lot of years in Utah as well. There's a lot of benefits to being in the Southwest, for sure. Okay, well, if we think back, you've been making $300,000 ish each of the last four plus years. I mean, we're talking about, you know, 1.2 million. Somewhere between that and 1.5 million, and you've still got $800,000 of it left.
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A
I know that's kind of crazy when I think about it, which is pretty
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B
cool considering, you know, a big chunk of that. You're single, I assume, right?
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A
I'm in a relationship and I've been in a relationship, but I'm not married.
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B
But paying taxes as a single person on taxes?
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Yes.
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B
So, you know, 25, 30% of this has been going to taxes. Right. I mean, you've got almost everything you earned left. So tell us how you managed to do that.
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So a big part of it was I budgeted from before I left school. I had a plan for paying off my loans, and I lived with roommates for a little over two years after school. Even though I was earning this high income, I could support myself. I lived with a roommate, and I also was living with my boyfriend, my partner, for a good bit. So that significantly brought down my costs. And then I feel like I didn't have too many hobbies, besides some social media creation, which is pretty low cost in terms of a hobby. So that I think those two things combined has helped me a lot with saving and investing and earning. And I feel like I was also kind of aggressive with investing from the beginning. I put basically my emergency fund at one point into the stock market, and then I rebuilt it. And so, yeah, I was pretty aggressive with my investing, I would say as well.
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B
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay. So how did you get interested? I mean, people who are not interested in personal finance and investing, who don't have goals, who don't have a good why don't tend to do what you did? When did you become interested in finances? When did you become financially literate? How'd you do it, et cetera?
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A
Well, I grew up low income. My parents, however, did their best to raise us and they actually would give us an allowance, and I think this is kind of the start of my personal finance journey. They would give us an allowance, and I feel like I started to save that and I would be Able to buy something for myself, you know, when I was younger by saving my allowance. So that was my first taste of what it's like to save and, you know, delayed gratification. Growing up, low income, I also wanted to be able to provide for myself and, you know, just have enough to be comfortable. So when I graduated undergrad, I just started getting into personal finance, seeing videos on YouTube. And so that's why I also like sharing my story, because I feel like I learned through YouTube about personal finance. Finance, particularly a channel called Millennial Money has shown me a lot of personal finance stories. And especially during COVID people were reacting to other people's personal finance stories. And so I just had a fascination for how people have been managing their incomes. And I would just listen to that on my free time.
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B
Tell us about the student loan plan. What did you do with your student loans?
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A
I paid them off pretty soon as well. Actually. I was paying off my student loans during the COVID pause, which was perfect. I got myself down to $100,000 in student loans and then I just kept going at it, like maybe $8,000 at a time. I would just try to throw as much as I can at my student loans. And thankfully there was a pause on the interest. So that I feel like was a momentum to save up and pay off my student loans immediately.
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B
Pretty cool. Okay, well, at some point in the next year or so, you're going to become a millionaire. How's that going to feel?
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A
I hope so. I'm actually going part time this year, so my investing, I totally slow down a little bit. It might slow down a little bit, but I can see it happening soon. So it's really, really exciting. And so I feel like with that looming, like that milestone looming, I feel it's given me the belief that I can start going part time and just trying this work life balance, you know, to balance things out a little bit more. So I'm really excited and I don't know, I'm just, I can't. I don't want to get too excited before it happens, but I do feel really happy about it.
- [13:56]
B
Yeah, that's exciting. You have kind of front loaded the financial tasks in your life, right? You wiped out your student loans very quickly. You've built up a substantial nest egg for being just a few years out of school. I mean, you have more money four years out than I certainly had four years out of residency. I often call this period of time for physicians. I call it, you live like a resident period where you kind of front load Stuff you're kind of toward the end of that now you're even talking about going part time. What advice do you have to somebody? How glad were you that you front loaded these financial tasks in your life?
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A
I mean, I'm shocked at how fast wealth can accumulate when you front load it. And there's still so much more time that I feel like my wealth can accumulate. But just seeing it, you can't see the big picture while you're in it. So honestly, just take it one step at a time. I think that's something to keep in mind. Make your goal like $5,000 towards your debt or towards your investing. Just keep little goals. And I think that makes it more enjoyable. If you say, hey, I can get myself down from $100,000 in student loans to $90,000 now let me get to $80,000. So just make it a stepwise process and soon enough when you look back, you'll be shocked at how far you have gone in five years or four years or whatever the time is. That's basically the way I approached it. And it's worth it. The way I feel today after so much delayed gratification and sacrifice, I can't even believe that I feel so light in the way I'm living that I can have so many more options for myself. So it's worth it. And now I can slow down and I can upgrade my lifestyle a little bit and I feel comfortable to do that because I know I've taken care of so much already.
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B
All right, what do you think was your biggest financial mistake? You made any mistakes along the way? I mean, you're clearly hitting the ball out of the park here, but you must have slipped up at some point with something, right?
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A
Let me think.
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B
It's actually pretty awesome that it's that hard for you to think of a financial mistake. I mean, that basically demonstrates just how powerful being prepared is when you are already financially literate. When you hit that high income, it's super powerful.
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A
It is. I mean, I can't say that I've been perfect. I think I've just been feeling so grateful for where I am that I haven't thought back to the way I messed up.
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B
And it's probably better not to dwell on the mistakes anyway.
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A
Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, there was a point where I didn't negotiate for a larger sign on bonus as an aa. I was just so excited to get. I saw how much the salary was going to be. I saw what the sign in bonus. It wasn't too, too much relative to some other sign in bonuses. But I was. I just signed the paperwork within an hour and sent it back. And then later on, I talked to some of my CA work colleagues and they told me that they had another, you know, double that sign on bonus. And I realized if I had been a little more patient, I could have gotten a little bit more out of it. I'm still very fortunate overall. So I can't say that it was that negative, but I feel like that was something that I learned to negotiate early on.
- [17:16]
B
Great tip. All right. There's somebody out there like you were a few years ago. You know, they're sitting in a school, they're a pa, they're an np, they're a crna, they're a physician in residency, and they want to be as successful as you have been the last four or five years. What's the most important piece of advice you can give them?
- [17:35]
A
I would say to budget. Budgeting and organizing is key. I think looking back on it, I feel like I was always trying to budget for one or two steps ahead of where it was. So when I was in a school, I was thinking about my budget for a school, and then my. My payoff plan for when I graduated. And so then when I was paying off my student loans, I'm also thinking about how to invest and kind of pushing things a little bit further and just trying to keep in mind that foresight is so powerful and there's still mistakes. You know, I think day to day, sometimes I have a loss. Like, if I think about it, I've had miscommunications with emails, and so there have been times where maybe I didn't get a shift assigned to me that day because there's a miscommunication. And these small things can happen. But when you're prepared for the larger picture, I think it'll all come together. You'll have some losses along the way, but keep in mind your larger goal. I think it'll all work out in the end.
- [18:32]
B
Yeah. Well, Chevelli, you are crushing it. You should be very proud of what you've accomplished. And thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast and inspire others to do the same.
- [18:42]
A
Thank you. I'm so happy that you share your podcast and that there's so many people that are willing to share their personal finance journeys. That's how I've learned, and I hope someone can learn from me as well. So thank you for having me.
- [18:53]
B
That's a great tip. And for those of you who want to come on and share your journey. Go to whitecoatinvestor.commilestones and we'll sign you up. Come on the podcast and inspire somebody else to do what you've accomplished.
- [19:06]
A
Okay.
- [19:06]
B
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It's awesome to talk to people and just see how excited they are and how bright they are. I love the part where I asked her about her mistakes and it took her a long time to think of one. That does not happen to me. I've made so many mistakes that I can think of them very readily. You know, I've got a list of a handful or so of mistakes. None of them were huge dollar amounts, but you know, they're the classic mistakes that physicians make in finances. You know, I bought a whole life insurance policy. I mistook a fee based advisor for a fee only advisor, right? I bought loaded mutual funds. I didn't negotiate well, whether it was jobs or whether it was contracts or whether it was to buy a house or whatever, right? I've made these mistakes. I almost bought a or almost even refinanced into a loan mortgage loan that I wouldn't have been able to prepay without a penalty. Luckily I caught that one at the last minute. So most of us have made significant mistakes. Mistakes she hasn't made very many at all. Maybe she should ask for a little larger signing bonus or got her contract reviewed and spent a few more hours sitting with it before signing it and sending it back. But that's pretty minor in the great scheme of things. So good on her and I hope you're having as much financial success as she is having. One way of paying for health care is to use an employer provided flexible spending account or FSA. This is different from a health savings account or HSA. The biggest difference is that HSAs roll over year to year so you can actually invest them for the long term. Whereas an FSA is a use it or lose it account. So don't put more in there than you know you're going to spend on health care that year. Yes, the tax break is great, but not if you lose the money. There are annual limits on them. It changes every year, so you need to look it up every year to see what the annual limits are and how much can go in there. But the real limit for you is how much you're likely essentially guaranteed to be spending on health care expenses that are eligible to use the FSA money for. Note that these limits are per employee, not per household. Both spouses could theoretically have one and be aware that if an hsa, an hdhp, high deductible health plan and health savings account cover you, you probably shouldn't be using an FSA. Now, there's some exceptions. Limited use FSAs that can only be used for like eye care for example, are still okay to use. And of course you can use dependent care, FSA and an hsa, but a typical FSA you cannot use. While you're also eligible to make contributions to an hsa, don't forget you got to actually reimburse yourself out of these accounts. You got to actually do the paperwork to make it work. If you just put the money in there and never take the money out, you end up losing it at the end of the year. What can you use a flexible spending account for? Well, you can use it for medical appointments, including annual physicals. You can use it for contact lenses and eyeglasses, dental treatment, prescription medications, deductibles and co payments, but not insurance premiums. Generally with an FSA you'll get a debit card that you can use to pay for your expenses. You can also just pay for them and then basically reimburse yourself. But you typically don't have to prove to anyone that your expenses were eligible unless you're audited. So you want to keep your medical receipts just in case. Because a flexible spending account is set up and administered by employers, they are the ones that set the rules on whether to offer an fsa. If you're a full time employee that gets health insurance from an employer, you're likely eligible to participate in an fsa. If you're not sure if your employer offers FSAS or check with your HR or benefits department. Is it worth it to fund your fsa? Yes, if you're going to spend the money on health care. This is a way to buy health care with pre tax dollars. That's a good deal for you. You just want to make sure you're not putting more in the account than you're going to spend on health care. While a little bit can be rolled over every year, for the most part, if you got a big amount of money in that fsa, you just lose it at the end of the year if you haven't spent it on health care. So pay attention when your employer offers you this benefit is often a benefit you want to use, at least in some. But be careful not to overfund it and realize that it is not the same as an hsa. It is not an investing account that you can keep for decades. It is a use it or lose IT account. Earlier we mentioned working locums with Comp Health, the number one staffing agency. But Comp Health isn't just a locums agency compels staffs regular permanent positions across the nation as well. They also offer telehealth, medical missions and more. That's what makes them unique. They can look at your situation and offer multiple solutions to build your career the way you want it and meet your financial goals. They know their stuff, especially when it comes time to negotiate contracts, which they're willing to do for you. So whatever career move you're looking for, visit whitecoatinvestor.com comphealth and use the power of Comp Health to build your career your way all right, we've come to the end of our podcast. Keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this. We're all here to help you. See you next time on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.
- [24:23]
A
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.