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White Coat Investor Podcast
WCI #402: Mega Backdoor Roth, Student Loans, and Expert Witness Work
01:06:25
Today we start out answering a few of your Mega Backdoor Roth questions. Then we move to answering a handful of questions about student loans including if we think the Trump administration is going to get rid of PSLF. We also have friend of WCI, Dr....
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- [00:00]
Dr. Jim Dahle
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.
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Dr. Gretchen Green
This is White Coat Investor podcast number 402. Today's episode is brought to you by SoFi. Helping medical professionals like US bank borrow and invest to achieve financial wellness. SoFi offers up to 4.6% APY on their savings accounts as well as an investment platform, financial planning and student loan refinancing featuring an exclusive rate discount for medical professionals and $100 a month payments for residents. Check out all that Sofi offers at www.whitecoatinvestor.com sofi. The loans are originated by Sofi Bank NA NMLS 696891 Advisory Services by Sofi Wealth LLC. The brokerage product is offered by Sofi Securities LLC, Membra Finra, SIPC Investing comes with risk, including risk of loss. Additional terms and conditions may apply. Well, welcome back to the podcast. I know you just listened to a podcast last week, but I haven't recorded a podcast in like a month. We kind of frontloaded them before the holidays and then we took some time off. And the truth is, what I've really spent my time doing over the last month is mostly physical therapy. As you'll recall if you listen to this podcast, I fell off a mountain in August and smashed up my wrist pretty badly. That required surgery a couple of weeks later, and then I spent the next 10 weeks in a splint for a month after that. I was out of the splint but told basically to use the hand but not push the hand and certainly not to have any goals for the hand. Then a month after that, about mid December, I was cleared to do physical therapy. And so now I'm doing physical therapy exercises at home three times a day, seeing the physical therapist twice a month or twice a week, and at the same time trying to get back into shape, going running and lifting weights and so on and so forth. And so my life has really revolved around that over the last month and for the coming weeks. And the interesting thing about doing physical therapy is just how slow the progress is, right? You're making little tiny bits of progress over long periods of time. I do 21 workouts over the course of a week and then go back and see the physical therapist and he measures the range of motion I've added to my wrist and I've added 4 degrees. 4 degrees additional range of motion after 21 different sessions of physical therapy between home and at the PT clinic. And it's slow. But you know what? That's the way a lot of life is as well, right? Investing is like this. You put little bits of money in every month for. For years and years and years. And then it finally gets to be a sum of money that allows you to reach your goals. So don't get discouraged if you feel like you're just shoving money down a rat hole every month for years and not seeing a lot of progress. Yes, sometimes it feels like nine steps forward and eight steps back, but you're making progress and you'll be surprised over the long term what you can accomplish in your life. Let's talk for just a few minutes about the business of making money online as a blogger, podcaster, influencer, whatever you want to call it. We maybe just me decided long ago that the best way to accomplish our mission here at WCI was as a for profit company. There's other structures out there that can accomplish great things, such as volunteer organizations or nonprofits or whatever, but we thought a for profit business would be best for several reasons. The first one is the profit kept me interested even when it sucked. Right? This might look like a lot of fun all the time, but at times it's work and it helps. You know, the reason they call it work is because somebody has to pay you to do it. And it does keep me interested. You know, part of the reason I started this as a business and it had ads on it from day one. It was a business from day one was because I wanted to make passive income. Well, it turned out the income wasn't so passive, but eventually there was some income and that helped me stay interested even in the times when it just felt like a lot of work. The second reason that a for profit business is best is that it gives us the cash to hire employees. There are now 18 of us working here. When you count part time employees, full time employees, contractors, people that own and run associated businesses, et cetera, that allows a lot more to be done. 18 people can accomplish a whole lot more than one person can. And without making money, there wasn't the ability to do that. Right. It's one thing to volunteer your time. Good luck volunteering the time of others for whatever mission you feel particularly passionately about. So that's another reason why a for profit company has worked well for wci. The third reason is because it allows us to do cool things that require profit. Things like our Champions program. We're trying to pass out a Copy of the White Coat Investors Guide for students to every first year, medical, dental and really other professional student in the country. Every year we get to about 70% of the MED students. Not as many of the other professions. That requires money. It costs money to print those books, to ship those books out and pass them out. We have a scholarship program, right? We give out 10 scholarships. I think it was almost $6,000 a piece to 10 students this year, 10 professional students. We also have our financial Educator award, right? And not only does running these programs cost money, but you have to actually fund the prize, right? The scholarship or the award or whatever the books and profit allows us to do that. It also allows us to take risks, like putting on a conference. The business of a conference is a really weird one. A lot of you don't realize this, but we plan conferences out two and three years now. And when we go to plan a conference, we literally sign our name to sell 1400 room nights, right? If you guys don't come to the conference and buy them, I'm buying them 1400 room nights. You know, when you add that in and a big, huge food and beverage minimum, it might be a million dollars. I'm signing my name to it to put on a WC icon. And that's just the way that conference business works. And without knowing that we're making profit in the company, it's a little hard to take financial risks like that. So that's why we've decided to be a for profit company. The problem is that anytime you make money, there's going to be conflicts of interest, right? An online business like this, a podcast, a blog, whatever really makes money in four ways. The first one is it sells ads, right? You heard an ad at the top of this podcast, right? People pay us money to play that ad. We sell other people's products. This is sometimes called affiliate marketing. Whether it's somebody else's course or insurance policy or mortgage or whatever, you sell your own products. Things like our conference, the books, our online courses, those sort of things. You sell your time and services. Whether that's me consulting or speaking or writing or whatever, you know, other businesses, maybe someone's selling their financial advisory services or whatever, I don't know. But those are the four ways you make money. And the conflict's pretty obvious with the last two, right? When you're selling your own products or selling your time and services, everyone kind of understands that with the first two, the conflict is actually the same. It's just a question of who's taking the risk. If It's a flat fee advertising. You know, they give me a lump sum of money and we do an ad at the beginning of the podcast. They're taking the risk. They don't know how much business they're going to get from that ad. But I'm not taking any risk. They give me the money, I read the ad. That's it. You know, they either make money or they don't. I have no idea. But if it's an affiliate relationship, we only get paid if they actually sell something, right? But the truth is, while those might feel like different things, the conflict is the same. If that product doesn't get sold, eventually we don't get paid because people are going to stop buying ads in the former and we just don't get paid in an affiliate relationship. So we do the best that we can to promote the good guys in the financial services industry and run the bad guys out of business. We vet people the best we can. The community continues to vet them. We remove advertisers if we get lots of complaints. But due diligence is still your responsibility and it's part of being financially literate. You know, the due diligence, the vetting or whatever that we do is easier in some product lines than it is in others. You know, financial advisors aren't too bad. We can go to their adv2, we can go to their websites and evaluate whether they seem to be giving good advice on whether they're doing it at a fair price. Insurance and student loan refinancing and contract review is relatively easy because it's so transactional. Something like student loan advice, where we really control the company is super easy because we can really say this is how we're going to do business. But longer term things like real estate investments are so hard that as our real estate newsletter folks know because I tell them about every month, it's really much more of an introduction to a potential investment than a recommendation. We've certainly had advertisers over the years where principal has been lost by investors and we've removed advertisers from every product line. If we get multiple complaints, it doesn't matter what the product line is. So we do the best we can. But just because somebody publishes a guest post here, is a guest on a podcast, or speaks at wcicon or is an advertiser, doesn't mean that we somehow endorse much lesser responsible for every past and future business decision they've ever made or will make. There are definitely limits to what a media company can do. And you got to keep that in mind. As you hear ads, we're a for profit company. These people are paying us. Right? That's how we fund what we do here. So keep that in mind. Just realize that there's not some guarantee because you met somebody at WC Icon in the audience or because, you know, you heard about them first on our podcast or saw them on our website, or, you know, heaven forbid in the Facebook group or the subreddit or something, that there's a guarantee that somehow you can always be treated well by them or never lose money with them or whatever. You still gotta do due diligence. And learning how to do it is part of being financially literate. All right. Okay. I think that's an important message to have toward the beginning of the year. So hopefully that's pretty obvious to most of you out there. And none of that's new information. If it is, I'm glad you now know it. All right. Speaking of things that we do to make money, we put on a conference every year. We call it wcicon or the Physician, Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference. I think it's awesome. I think it's the closest thing to burnout prevention, burnout insurance that you can buy. And we're running a special deal right now. From now through January 27th, we're giving you $200 off in person if you use code. Save 200 or $100 off the virtual conference if you use code. Virtual 100. Right. Think about the start of a new year, right? The start of the new year. It's a perfect time to recommit to your financial life and your new CME dollars that you have can make it happen. You can connect with hundreds of docs doing the same at the Physician, Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference this year. It's in San Antonio February 26 through March 1. It's available both in person and virtually. And you can use it to gain the tools you need to build a healthier, wealthier future. But if you need an extra nudge, you get the $200 off your in person registration or $100 off your virtual registration until the 27th of January. The reason why it's the 27th is that's when the hotel block closes. Now, you don't have to stay in the conference hotel, but it's a much better experience if you can stay in the conference hotel. And that's when the conference hotel block closes and they start selling whatever rooms we didn't sell to their other guests. So don't wait to register, book your room as soon as you do. We think this is the very best use of your CME money, and we think you'll want to stay on site. The Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort just outside of San Antonio. It's not far from the airport. It's not far from the riverwalk. There's a spa, water park, golf club. There's even a flow rider where we can attempt to surf and bodyboard. Please don't take any videos of me attempting to do it. No promises that I'm going to be awesome. I still don't have best range of motion in my wrist, but I'll get on the Surfrider. We'll check it out. But the presentations there are going to be top notch. But the real fun happens after we wrap up the academics at 4pm the conference is as much about recharging as it is about improving your financial life. Again, you go to wcievents.com to register and book. The code is save200 for in person, virtual, 100 for the virtual version of the conference. A lot of people, it's almost like the virtual versions, like the entry drug or the starter drug, whatever you call it. You know, people come virtually and the next year they're there in person because they realize just how much you miss from not coming in person. But I tell you what, the virtual's way better than not coming at all. I promise you. And you're going to have a good time. I'd love to meet you in person. Hope to see you there. All right, let's start talking about some of your questions. That's what we're planning to do for almost all of this podcast. We do have a guest coming on. We're going to have a short interview with a guest, but let's talk about your questions. Okay? This one comes in by email. And it is that time of year, isn't it? It's January. And you know what January means in this community? It means people have backdoor Roth questions. I got a whole bunch of backdoor Roth questions in December this year. Please don't do your backdoor Roth, Ira. In December. It's okay to do it in December, but what ends up happening is people go to Fidelity or whatever to do their backdoor Roth. They make their contribution step, and then they realize Fidelity is going to hold their money for 16 days until they do their conversion. And 16 days is the new year. And they're like, oh, now I'm going to run into a pro rata issue, so don't do that. Don't wait till the end of the year to do this. This is not a task for the last week of the year. You can do everything that you can do in the last week of the year in the first week of the next year. And it's much better paperwork wise to do it that way. It'll be less hassle for you, I promise. Wait till January, do your backdoor Roths, whether you're doing it for this year, as you should be, or whether you're doing it for last year, which you can still do up until tax day of the following year. All right, so our first question today is about backdoor Roths. This one says on a recent podcast, you shared how completing the backdoor Roth at Vanguard takes a while, since banks want to make sure there's no fraud while transferring money from bank account to Vanguard. I recall it took me about a week in 2024 to complete the backdoor Roth IRA, and I had to check Vanguard every day. I was able to complete it by January 3rd. This year. It's good. Transfer cash from my bank account to my brokerage money market account at Vanguard. The end of December, I transferred 7,000 in my traditional IRA on January 1, which is a holiday. Once the market closed on January 2, I could see 7,000 in my money market fund, my traditional IRA. This morning, I converted to Roth IRA, invested the 7,000 within my Roth IRA. Since the funds were with Vanguard at the end of December, the process was much easier and avoided the hassle of checking Vanguard every day. I thought I'd share that with you and your listeners if you want to share in your podcast. Okay, a couple of lessons to learn here. First of all, it's not a huge deal if you got to wait a couple of weeks to do the conversion step, right? So if your money's sitting at Fidelity or whatever because they're making you sit on it for two or three weeks, that's okay. It's not the end of the world. Yes, it'll make a few more bucks in interest, but you just convert those two. The fastest I've heard is that E Trade, if you happen to be at E Trade, you can do it just about instantaneously. I think you can do it the same day, both the contribution and the conversion at Schwab. At Vanguard, I've never figured out a way to do it faster than in two days. So I did it the same way as this writer. I did the contribution on January 2nd. I did the conversion on January 3rd, and that seemed to work out pretty good. In other years, when I didn't move it from my sweep account, my brokerage account at Vanguard, I moved it from my bank. They did hold it for three or four days before they let me do the conversion step. Kind of the same way Fidelity is doing it these days. So if you really want to be fast about it, have the money already there for a week or two before you do the contribution and the conversion step. But it's not the end of the world if you don't. Just don't try to wrap it up at the last week of the year and you're going to end up having to email me. And I'll have to reassure you that life's going to go on, but you might get prorated this year. Okay, hope that's helpful. For those of you who still haven't done your backdoor Roth ira, if you were able to whip it off in a day or two, congratulations. If it took you three weeks, I'm sorry, you can shorten the process by having the money already at the place where your IRAs are before the year starts. Okay. The next email I wanted to cover was about the Mega Backdoor Roth ira. And I also want to talk a little bit about knowing what kind of an investor you are. This one says, I heard you speak on a recent podcast about hiring a validator versus a financial advisor. I'm looking for a validator to validate that I can indeed do a Mega Backdoor Roth without incurring a pro Roth. I've read the IRS guidance, but still don't see where it spells this technique of the Mega Backdoor Roth. Precisely. Can you assist? I don't see validators on your site. Okay, a couple of things I need to cover here. First is the term validator doesn't refer to an advisor. It refers to a type of investor. Investors basically fall into one of three categories. The first is a do it yourselfer. Second is a validator, and the third is a delegator. Okay, do it yourselfer is somebody who does everything themselves. They don't use a financial advisor at all. They look at the price and they're like, no way am I paying somebody a few thousand a year for something I can do myself. You know, this is the type of person, like me the other day I backed my truck out of my garage and knocked the mirror on the wall because I didn't have them pulled in when I backed out and my mirror was broken. So what did I do? Well, I go to YouTube, right? And I look up. What do people do? When they have this problem, and it turns out there's a video that shows you how to disassemble this entire mirror and fix this problem and then reassemble the mirror. So I watched these videos, I looked at these websites, and I spent four hours of my day, one weekend, putting this mirror back together. Now, why would I spend four hours on a stupid mirror? Well, it turns out a mirror on a Ford super Duty is about two grand to replace. So I thought, well, a little bit of time and see if I can fix this was probably worthwhile. Well, that's the way do it yourselfers think. It's the same in finances as it is with auto repair. If you're willing to read books, if you're willing to spend time on forums asking questions, you can be a do it yourselfer. It's a perfectly reasonable way to manage your money. You can be your own financial planner. You can be your own investment manager. However, I suspect that it's probably only about 20% of the physicians out there that are really do it yourselfers. A much bigger chunk is this group that we call validators. And what's a validator? Well, this is somebody who doesn't want to pay the full price for a full service. Financial advisor. They don't want to pay five to $15,000 a year. In fact, they don't want to talk to a financial advisor multiple times a year. They just want to check in with them every now and then. Every year or two, they want to say, hey, I'm thinking about this. They want to ask them a couple of questions. They want to ask, hey, am I still on track? And that's it. That's a validator. And the financial services industry kind of stinks at serving these people. We have a few people on our recommended list that really specialize in serving validators, and we can get you connected with them. If you can't figure out who they are from looking at the list and shoot me an email and I'll tell you exactly who they are. But that's what they specialize in, is teaching people how to be do it yourselfers. People that just want to check in a couple of times over the next five years. People who just have a couple of questions. Those are validators. And the estimate of what percentage those people might be, it could be as much as 50%. Could be as much as 50% of investors are really validators. And it's a serious disconnect because there aren't that many financial advisors that serve these folks. And the reason why is it's really hard to serve them because it's very transactional, right? People come in, ask a few questions, and they're gone. You don't see them again for three more years. And so you're constantly marketing to try to get more of them. And so it's a really hard business model to serve. But, you know, as we can find people that are doing that, we try to promote them for sure. Then the last category is delegators. These are the people like, I do not enjoy this stuff. No way am I taking my mirror apart and working on it on the kitchen table for four hours on a weekend. That's crazy. I'm going to just get a new mirror and put it on. Those are delegators, right? It's the same way with their finances. And the financial services industry is really good at serving delegators. The problem is it's only about 30% of investors. So the most important thing when you're trying to decide on what you're going to use for financial advisor or whether you're going to do this yourself is to figure out what you are, right? Figure out, are you a DIYer? Are you a validator? Are you a delegator? Figure out which one you are. And then if you find you're a validator, look for an advisor that serves validators. If you find you're a delegator, find an advisor that serves delegators. And a lot of people who think they're validators are actually delegators, by the way. They're just being cheap, right? Well, guess what? If you're really a delegator, get an advisor that serves validators is not helping you, right? You're just going to end up not doing it. They're going to give you a list of things to do and you're going to come back 15 months later not having done any of them. You are not a validator. I'm sorry, You're a delegator. So make sure you're not making that mistake and then find the person that's going to help you to be most successful. Hope that's helpful because it sounds like maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been the last time I talked about these terms on the podcast. The question being asked here though, is about the mega backdoor Roth, right? Without incurring a pro rata. Well, this is actually a really easy question to answer. This person didn't need a financial advisor at all because I answered the question in 30 seconds by email. There's no Pro rata calculation involved in the make a backdoor Roth IRA process. Only the backdoor Roth IRA process. Right. Backdoor Roth IRA is done with an IRA. Right. Individual Retirement Arrangement. A Mega Backdoor Roth IRA, despite the name, is done with a 401K or a 403B. Okay. The Pro rata calculation occurs when you still have money in a traditional ira, simple IRA or SEP ira. The same year you do a conversion to a Roth ira, then that conversion gets prorated. That doesn't happen at all. When you do a Roth conversion in a 401 or 403 that isn't prorated at all. You can review Form 8606 for details on that. We've got posts on the mega backdoor Roth ira, of course. Hopefully most of you at some point have seen our backdoor Roth IRA tutorial. It's one of the most popular blog posts on the website. You can search those terms in our search bar@whitecoatinvestor.com and find those posts. But keep that in mind. No pro rata with the mega backdoor Roth IRA because it's a 401k thing. There is a pro rata with the backdoor Roth IRA process because it's an IRA thing. Hope that's helpful. Okay, let's change subjects. Enough about backdoor Roths. Let's talk about this student loan question we got off the speak pipe here. Hey, Jim, I'll ask the question I think we're all wondering but might be too afraid to ask. Do we think the Donald Trump presidency will eliminate public service loan forgiveness? Thank you. All right. Just the question we've all been waiting for. Let's talk politics. My crystal ball's cloudy as usual. I don't know everything, but here's the deal with public service loan forgiveness that I think is really important to remember. I think a lot of people last fall were freaked out a little bit, right? They saw the Biden administration put out this new program, right. This save program, which looked awesome for doctors. Right. You know, whether it's good for the taxpayer or not, it's a totally different argument. But it's awesome for indebted doctors. Right? It's just a really more generous form of these income driven repayment programs. Well, that was not passed by Congress. That was just something the administration did and it got challenged in court. And while it's not completely done in court at the time of this recording, it looks like it's almost surely gone. And people worry, well, is that same thing going to happen to public Service loan forgiveness. Well, you got to understand the difference, right? Public Service Loan Forgiveness, I think it was passed in like 2007, started taking effect, obviously after 10 years of payments. The first time would have been 2017. It was the first time somebody could have received Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And almost no one knew about the program back in 2007. So no one was making qualifying payments and so on and so forth. But that was not an executive directive or fiat or whatever they call them. It just comes out of the executive branch. It is not just the President that passed that. It was an act of Congress that put Public Service Loan Forgiveness in place. Okay, so can the Trump presidency, the Trump administration, by itself, eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness? No, it cannot. It cannot. It takes an act of Congress to do that. What does that mean? That means it has to pass the House. That means it has to pass the Senate, probably with a filibuster proof majority. So not just half the senators have to vote for it. 60% of them do. And that's just the way our political system works. And then the President's got to sign off on it. Right. I feel like I got to take you guys all back to third grade and do Schoolhouse Rock again. Right? The bill that goes to Capitol Hill. Right. And all that. That's what has to happen for Public Service Loan Forgiveness to go away. Now, I'm not saying that can't happen. It could. Right now, the Republicans control the House. Well, I guess not. Right now, as you listen to this, I think the inauguration is like a week after you'll listen to this. But basically, very soon, the Republicans will control the House, they will control the Senate, and they will control the White House. And as a general rule, Republicans aren't big fans of student loan forgiveness. They're not big fans of the Department of Education, they're not big fans of government being in the student loan business at all. So does that increase the risk of Public service going, loan forgiveness going away? Yes, it does. Especially because they control all three of those things. And so it's possible they could pass a law that gets rid of Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Now, keep in mind, getting things through the Senate is not as easy as getting things through the House. And they barely have a majority in the House to start with. It's only like two people or something majority. So they got to keep everybody on board in getting rid of Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And then they've got to somehow deal with this filibuster issue in the Senate. And there's some ways they've gotten around it in the past, but typically not for a law like this. So the likelihood of finding 8, 7, 8 Democrats to vote on getting rid of public service loan forgiveness completely seems awfully low to me. The odds aren't zero. It could happen, but it seems awfully lonely. Okay, so let's say this happens, this becomes a big priority sometime this fall of just getting rid of public service loan forgiveness. The House passes it, somehow it gets through the Senate. President Trump signs off on it. What's going to happen? Is it just going to go away this year? Almost surely not. Almost surely not, Right. That sort of change is not popular at all with taxpayers. So what would typically happen is those in the program are going to be grandfathered in. Those who already have loans where on the promissory note it talks about public service loan forgiveness are going to be grandfathered in. Those in residency, those in med school, even those that just have undergraduate debt are likely already grandfathered in. And public service loan forgiveness is still going to be there for them. So even if this gets passed this year, this program's probably still around for four years of undergrad, a couple of gap years, four years of med school, five years of residency, two years of fellowship, and somebody might need another four, five, six years of payments after that. This thing's around for another 15 or 20 years. In that period of time, maybe it gets reinstated by a different administration and a different Congress. Right? So I think the likelihood of this going away is pretty darn low. And for those who are already counting on it to not get it in some form, that risk is awfully low. Right. You're just so much more likely to be grandfathered in. Now, if you're worried about this, what do you do? You save up a public service loan forgiveness side fund. This is what Everybody was doing 10 years ago, right? They heard about public service loan forgiveness in 2015, they're like, holy crap, look at this. I could get $400,000 in student loans just wiped away. I wonder if this is really going to happen. I bet it changes. I bet nothing happens. They worried about it. So what did I tell them to do? I said, save up a PSLF side fund. Instead of making those extra payments to your federal loan servicer, make the minimum payment and make the extra payment into your brokerage account. Invest it along the way so it's growing. And then if something happens, either in your personal life, you change jobs, you're no longer at a job that qualifies for pslf, or the program changes, whatever, right? Then you can take the money out of that brokerage account, pay whatever taxes are due and send it to the lender and wipe out your student loans. That's a PSLF side fund. So do I think it's going away? I do not. If you are more worried about it than I am, I would recommend a PSLF side fund. What I would not do is if this was otherwise your plan, you're already in a PSLF qualifying job or you fully expect to get one. I would not bail at this point just because Donald Trump was elected president, just because the Republicans control Congress. I think that's a terribly shortsighted move. Give it a little bit of time, a little bit of patience. Things like this become much more obvious of what you should do in a year or two. And PSLF is a 10 to 18 year program. Right. So there's no rush. Take your time, make your decisions deliberately and thoughtfully and make sure you're doing the right thing for you. Okay? Our quote of the day comes from Jim Kwik said knowledge is power. You hear it all the time. But knowledge is not power, it's only potential power. It only becomes power when we apply it and use it. Somebody who reads a book and doesn't apply it, they're at no advantage over someone who's illiterate. None of it works unless you work. We have to do our part. If no one is half the battle, action is the second half of the battle. I think that's some great advice. Appreciate that quote, Jim. Okay, we're going to take another question on pslf.
- [30:56]
Dan
Hi, my name is Dan and I have a question about student loans and the PSLF plan. I currently have approximately $150,000 in federal student loan debt for medical school at about a 6 to 7% interest rate. I'm currently in my fifth year of training out of a total of six years. And I've been doing traditional 401k contributions these last four and a half years mainly because I think it made more sense and the tax saving, especially with lower payments made a lot more sense. But now it's looking like with the current save forbearance I'm not going to get credit for this final year of training and I'm starting to even look at jobs now and I might end up joining a group doing a partner track. So I probably won't even be at a 501. So basically a lot is uncertain right now and I was wondering does it make more sense now to do a Roth contribution? And for future reference, I'm going to be a diagnostic radiologist and will be making, you know, a fair amount of money. Thanks for all you do and appreciate it.
- [32:09]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Okay, good question. First of all, thanks for what you do. You've been on this road, this pathway for a long time. You're almost done. Congratulations on getting into med school and getting into a radiology residency and now being almost done with it and for being so deliberate about your finances that you're thinking about questions like this. This is a complicated situation. Student loan management these days has gotten so complicated. We literally founded a company to help answer these questions. It's called studentloanadvice.com and the principal there, Andrew, who many of you have met, many of you have had consultations with Andrew. I think he's literally the country's most knowledgeable authority on student loan management for physicians. I don't know anybody that knows more about managing student loans for docs than he does. It got to be so complicated. I couldn't keep up with it anymore, Right. And I drink and sleep this stuff all the time. I needed somebody that was basically doing it all the time to keep up with it because it's complicated. So if you need help, it's for most of you, it's worth a few hundred dollars to pay studentloana advice.com to meet with them for an hour and you get six months or whatever follow up email questions. And that's worth a few hundred dollars, especially if it's going to help you get something like public service loan free in this. I think their average client saves something like $190,000 or something. Obviously most of that is forgiveness via public service loan forgiveness. But some people get an absolute ton of money forgiven. It's not unusual for people to get 400, 600, $800,000 in student loans forgiven by managing these programs properly. So let's talk a little bit and if I don't answer your question, that's probably the answer is go hire studentloanadvice.com to analyze your situation and help you make this decision. A few things here for those of you who have no idea what Dan is talking about with this question. When you are in residency, what I told people for many years was residency's for Roth, right? This is a low income part of your life. You're in a relatively low tax bracket. That's when you want to be making Roth contributions, you know, after tax contributions into your retirement accounts. Because you're in a low tax bracket, you're almost surely going to be in a higher tax bracket, certainly during your peak earnings years and probably during your retirement than you are as a resident. So it makes sense to make Roth 401 contributions or Roth 403 or Roth 457 or Roth IRA contributions. However, there's an interesting aspect of student loan management that suggests that might not be the best path for everybody. And the reason is when you make tax deferred contributions into those retirement accounts in residency, whether it's a 401 or whether it's an IRA or whatever, it lowers your taxable income. And that is what determines a few things in student loans. The main one being your payment size. The lower your payments, right, the less you got to pay, the better your cash flow as a resident. And when is cash more useful in your life than as a resident? You know, a few hundred dollars more in residency is super handy, right? You know, that's not going to make as big of a difference when you're 15 years out of residency as it will as a resident. So it helps your cash flow. The other thing it does, though, is it leaves more money not paid to the lender, which means more can be forgiven via public service loan forgiveness. You can also, when things like the SAVE program or the repay program exist, and that's all kind of up in the air as I'm recording this, when they exist and you get a subsidy, you know, a subsidized interest rate essentially on those programs, you get more of that subsidy when you have a lower taxable income. So we're basically incentivizing people to make less money. But one way you can pretend you're making less money is by putting in a tax deferred retirement account. Basically shows that you're making less money. And so your payment is lower, your PSLF is higher. Any subsidy you might get through an income driven repayment program is higher. And so some people have decided, well, heck, this is how I'm going to manage my student loans. Try to make the smallest payments possible, get as much forgiven as possible. And a lot of times people even decide to file married filing separately, even though it complicates your life and often increases your tax bill. If it lowers your tax, if it lowers your student loan payments dramatically, increases the amount you get forgiven dramatically. That can be a good move as well. So that's the subject we're talking about. So Dan has been doing this. Essentially, he's been making tax deferred payments during residency, even though he'll probably be in a higher tax bracket later, in order to lower his student Loans. And now he's like, I don't even think I'm going for public service loan forgiveness. I think I'm going to join a partnership and just be in a for profit kind of group. And that's not going to qualify for public service loan forgiveness. Well, without public service loan forgiveness and now with pay on the chopping block or not pay, save on the chopping block and presumably repay as well in those subsidies, there's not a lot of benefit to doing this anymore. And he's going to end up paying more in taxes down the road because you use tax deferred accounts instead of Roth accounts. So if you're pretty sure that you're not going for public service loan forgiveness anymore, it's time to quit playing these games. Roth is for residents, you know, unless you're playing these student loan games to try to maximize your PSLF. Roth is for residents. Use a Roth IRA. Use your Roth 401, 403, 457B during your training during those low income years and you're likely to come out ahead. Those benefits are going to compound for decades. And, and they're not just tax benefits, right? It's also an estate planning benefit. It's also an asset protection benefit. Right. There's lots of benefits to using retirement accounts. And man, when you can get into a Roth without paying all that much in tax to do it, that can be a pretty sweet move. As far as not getting credit, I suspect when this whole save thing gets sorted out in the end that you're probably going to get credit for whatever got screwed up. Those of you who aren't making payments right now are probably going to get credit for those payments. When it comes to working toward your 120 payments for public service loan forgiveness. No guarantee, but that's what's happened in the past. Hope that's helpful. All right, another question. This one is not on public service loan forgiveness, but it is on loan forgiveness.
- [38:26]
Dan
Hi Dr. Darling, I'm a first year resident and I'm owing about $100,000 in student loans. And I just recently heard about the SLURP programs by the va. What do you think about these? Do you recommend them for interns who are trying to get debt forgiveness? Thank you for all you do in educating everyone in the medical profession and beyond trying to make smart decisions with their money.
- [39:01]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Okay, great question. What is he referring to? He is referring to what is called the Specialty Education Loan Repayment Program. S E L, R P SL R P. I don't know how you're supposed to say that Slerp doesn't seem right, though. This is a program run by the va. Okay. There are only some specialties eligible for it. Psych, family practice, internal medicine, em, gastroenterology, urology, geriatrics, and then other specialties might be considered on an individual basis. Okay, but this thing provides financial assistance to physicians in the form of a loan payment to recent graduates of an accredited medical or osteopathic school currently enrolled or matched to a residency identified as a shortage by the VA. The loan payment repayment is $40,000 a year with a maximum of $160,000. In return, the recipient would agree to serve in a clinical practice at a VA facility for a period of 12 months for each $40,000 of loan repayment with a minimum of 24 months of obligated service. So if reached $40,000, it's a year. So this guy owes $100,000. It'd be, you know, basically you'd be taking on a three year commitment to wipe that out completely. Maybe you just want to do a two year commitment to wipe out 80 of it, and then you got to go work for the va. So that's cool. The funny thing about VA programs, whether that's the one. There's another one. When you're an attending, you're working for them. Is the VA also qualifies for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Right? It's a government employer, so yes, that can kind of speed things up. Or if you don't stay there the whole time until you qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, these things can help. But if you're willing to work for the va, just do pslf. You know, it's nice to have these other things, but they're really for people who don't want to stay there long enough to get pslf. And for a lot of docs, that's not very long at all. Right? Five year residency, two year fellowship, three more years as an Attending, you're done with pslf. Even if you do a three year family practice or emergency medicine residency, it's only seven years until it's all paid off. Right. And this thing you're talking about, you know, four years anyway to get 160,000 forgiven. Well, maybe you get $450,000 forgiven in seven years. Right? That's a better deal. So I'm not sure all these are better than Public Service Loan Forgiveness. I guess the PSLF goes away like we were talking about earlier in this podcast. This is an option for you, but I don't see These as like, awesome. If you're okay working at the VA for a couple of years or whatever, sure, sign up. But this is not like, this is not a scholarship, like hpsp, right? Health Profession Scholarship Program. This is how the military recruits a lot of their docs. This is not a scholarship program, despite the name. It is a contract program. It's like an MD, PhD. It's like an Indian Health Service contract. It's like a low income contract. I can't remember what the program's called right now. Someone will write in and tell me what it's called and I'll have to do a correction. But when you're in a low income area or you're in a really rural area, you can sign up with the program there and it's the same thing. They give you some of your income upfront and then they pay you less later. That's not necessarily the case that you'll be paid less in the military, you'll be paid less in the VA, or you'll be paid less as an MD, PhD going through that program. But it's usually the case. You're usually making less money. They just gave you more money up front. And so it's a contract program. It's not a scholarship, it's not a freebie. But if you want to go into the military, or you want to get a PhD, or you want to work on a reservation, or you want to work in an underserved community or rural area or whatever, or be a military doc or work at the va, then take advantage of the programs that are offered to those people. But is this the thing you should do if you don't want to be a VA doc? No, if you don't want to work at the va, you definitely should not sign up for the solar program and get your 40 grand. That's a very bad idea if you don't want to work at the va, because when you do this, you're going to have a contract to go work at the va. That said, if you're like, hey, VA sounds great, I think that'd be really cool to do for two or three or four years. Great. Sign up for the program. 40 grand a year you get as a resident to help pay off your student loans. And if you go there, then you pay off your time. And if you got more than that, well, stick around a little while. You'll get public service loan forgiveness. Hope that's helpful. Good question. All right, our next question comes in by email, says, thank you so much for all that you do. Well, I should stop for a minute and thank you for what you do, right? A lot of you are listening to this on the way home. Talked ship today. Somebody died. Maybe you made a mistake. Maybe an attending berated you. I have no idea. Maybe you're on your way into work and you're not feeling particularly valued. Well, if no one said thanks for what you do today, let me be the first. Okay, question goes on. WCI is such a great resource for physicians like myself. I'm glad it is. We've been working really hard to do that. You mentioned during your answer to a question on a recent episode that one exception to the general principle of using Roth contributions or Roth conversions during our low income earning years, such as during residency or fellowship, is if we are anticipating getting our loans forgiven with pslf. Can you elaborate on why and when that would make a difference? I wasn't aware that the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program might have a tax impact on us retroactively during our residency years, such that tax deferred would be superior to Roth during that time. Okay, talked about this a little bit earlier, but basically making tax deferred contributions lowers your taxable income, which lowers your discretionary income, which lowers your Save or other IDR payments, which increases how much is left after 10 years to be forgiven and might increase any possible subsidies through income driven repayment programs such as the likely now defunct SAVE program and the one prior to that, the repay program. As a general rule, when you're in a lower tax bracket like during residency, you want to make Roth contributions, but due to the way the federal student loan programs work, it might be worth paying more in tax later in order to maximize subsidies and Public Service loan forgiveness. Now. You know, it's just same similar reason for why people file taxes married filing separately. It costs you more in tax, but it helps on the student loan side, so you just have to run the numbers to see what's right for you. If you need help doing that again, book an appointment@studentloanadvice.com all right, let's bring on a guest Now. This is a guest that's been on the podcast before. We're going to talk a little bit about a possible side gig some of you might be interested in, which is serving as an expert witness either in court or just reviewing charts or whatever. But let's talk about this for a few minutes. I'm excited to have Dr. Gretchen Green back on the White Coat Investor Podcast with us. Welcome back to the podcast.
- [45:50]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Thanks so much for having me Again.
- [45:52]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Now, for those who aren't aware, Gretchen partners with us to provide an expert witness class to help teach doctors how to be expert witnesses and be successful with that as a if you're interested in more information about that, you can go to whitecoatinvestor.com expertwitness today we wanted to talk a little bit not only about that class and the masterclass that's going on with it tonight. By the way, if you're listening to this, the day this podcast drops January 16, 7pm Eastern today there is a masterclass where you can learn more about this. Sign up for that@WhiteCodeInvestor.com expert witness masterclass but I really wanted to talk a little bit about negotiation today because this is a problem not only for docs in their regular business, but also in their side gigs. What have you learned about negotiation as far as physicians and their hourly rates through your work as an expert witness?
- [46:53]
Dr. Jim Dahle
This is one of the areas that I think physicians have the hardest time knowing how to negotiate because it's hard to find market rates for expert witness work. This is one of these examples of how learning this through trial and error can really cost you a lot and time and money. But knowing that the market rates can be from 500 to $900 per hour for something you can do a few hours a week predominantly on your own time, opens up a world of opportunity financially in terms of really reorganizing how you want your life to go.
- [47:27]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Yeah, I think at $500 to $900 an hour, I think there's a lot of docs out there going, why am I not doing this full time? That's a little harder to do with expert witness work, though, I believe.
- [47:37]
Dr. Jim Dahle
True, you do need to be clinically active because that's part of your value is your skills, training and expertise. Seeing patients that can be, however, as little as about one day a week to meet most of the state requirements to serve as an expert. But it's definitely an opportunity that I would love to see becomes, as expected, a part of our roles as physicians as it is for jury duty for the public. Imagine if this just became something that was normal for us to do. Just as peer review process is having journals that are peer reviewed and having a jury of our own peers to ensure the quality of our work. This is just another facet of that and a great opportunity to, as an expert, grow in your knowledge to be a really good expert, but an even better doctor.
- [48:28]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Yeah. What's the highest you've ever heard of a doc Making to do some expert witness work. Have you ever heard somebody making two or three thousand dollars an hour to do this?
- [48:38]
Dr. Jim Dahle
The daily rate is where the hourly rate starts to get a little bit higher on average. So for me, I charge $10,000 a day for trial testimony. That's fairly uncommon. Only about one or three cases out of 100 ends up going to trial. But when you do the Math, that's over $1,000 an hour. But interestingly, when you talk with attorneys, as I do a lot, you find that experts are really valued when they charge more and do the highest quality work that goes with that value. But there is true value in someone who charges a higher price, up to about $1,000 an hour, but really delivers on that by showing up, doing great research to support opinions, being available, and having a great infrastructure and organization to your expert fitness business.
- [49:30]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Now, there's a lot of docs out there. Their hourly rate for clinical work is 100, 150, 200, $300 an hour. Is there ever a place to be charging those sorts of rates when doing expert witness work or are those all just way too low?
- [49:43]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Those would be too low for standard expert witness work for medical malpractice cases. An exception might be, however, if you're doing review for medical board cases, ones where a family lodges a complaint or it comes to the medical board's attention because of a judgment or a settlement. Those cases are often then reviewed and medical boards usually cap their hourly rate for review at around 200 or so dollars per hour for review. But that's again, it's a very focused kind of review. It's great experience certainly, and it's a way to give back to the profession by helping review those medical board cases. But those can be a little bit less. Also psychiatrists, pathologists, those who do criminal cases, sometimes the court systems for criminal cases may reimburse at the lower hundreds range. But for the great majority of medical malpractice cases, that $500 to $900 per hour case review rate, with it being lower end for generalists, internal medicine, pediatrics, higher end for surgical specialties, is really expected and valued.
- [50:53]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Yeah. All right. Well, lots of people get excited about being expert witnesses for financial reasons. I mean, this is a financial podcast. We're talking about the finances. But there are other benefits to doing this work. Can you talk about some of the other benefits that you've seen from doing this?
- [51:07]
Dr. Jim Dahle
For me, it really helped re energize my career after 10 years full time private practice partner and I was comfortable with a lot of things that I did. But doing expert witness work really helped me to hone my skills in critical thinking and it helped me become an asset to my group. When I then changed positions and took an employee position part time, I helped become a go to person that if someone wanted to know what do you do in this situation, they knew they could come to me because I'd really adopted a mindset towards my clinical work that I wanted to have read an article that supported or seen a case that helped me learn. I did over 100 medical malpractice cases in breast imaging alone. And so I've seen a lot of patterns that also helped me to anticipate potential issues in care and I think deliver higher level care from a place of information as well.
- [52:04]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Yeah, now lots of docs get interested about, you know, with side gigs and side income, additional income, whatever, and you can kind of divide these in half. There are side gigs that require you to learn a whole new set of knowledge and get a whole new set of skills outside of medicine. And there are side gigs that kind of piggyback on your medical knowledge. You know, clearly being a medical expert is one of those, you know, doing surveys, you know, for medical survey companies would be one of those. What do you feel is the advantage of doing something you already have a lot of the knowledge and skills required for?
- [52:43]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Exactly. You're already an expert. Being a board certified, preferably physician in clinical practice, having already passed the tests and acquired the skills, training and expertise to do this work, that makes you an expert. So this is easy to do from the medical standpoint where I find physicians benefit and I have had PAs, dentists and other clinicians also in the course as well. But I find where people really benefit is from knowing the structure. It's the how, the not the why. And so because I took so many courses, read every book that I could to help go from my place of knowing nothing about being an expert, except for when I was sued myself and saw how the roles of expert witnesses played out in my own medical malpractice case. My goal was to really help physicians and other clinicians avoid that trial and error, avoid getting stuck in some of the basics of business. And what's interesting is when you go back to that, that's been the core of how most solo and small group physicians have always operated. We've always had a strong business skill set operating our own practices. And so this is another opportunity for people to have some of those business savvy skills that are very easy to Learn in a very scaled fashion.
- [54:07]
Dr. Gretchen Green
You know, people, a lot of times, they think about this work and they worry, well, I don't want to help this screwed up system that's suing docs, right? I don't want to help these scummy lawyers to do this. I just want to work on the defense side. What do you think about somebody taking that approach? Is that doable? Is it wise to try to do work only on the defense side?
- [54:31]
Dr. Jim Dahle
You can certainly choose to filter cases like that. However, you'll be asked in deposition and trial, what is the proportion of your plaintiff versus defense cases? Even though I have now a 15,000 lawyer database and I have marketed my skills pretty extensively to help get that outreach to lots of attorneys across the country, Even at my Most, I had 80 to 90% plaintiff cases, 10 to 20% defense, because that's who called. So by removing the bias of selection, of choosing which side you're going to serve, so to speak, you help reduce that bias and approach it in an objective way. We would never tolerate it if people from, you know, jury of your peers went into the courtroom for their court mandated jury selection. And if they all went in there and said, I'm only going to try to get the guy off without being convicted, they would not be selected for a jury. So the same thing is true. Again, just normalizing this, that we play a very valuable role in education, in the legal system, just like we do at the bedside and with families. It's about translating the medicine and making it easier for people to understand. That's really an expert's role.
- [55:50]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Now, the course you put on, the expert witness course, is not the cheapest course out there. But given what expert witness work pays, most people will more than pay for this course with their first case, will they?
- [56:00]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Not exactly. The course pays for itself with your first case many times over again when you avoid those costly mistakes of undercharging and by having good business practices in place and having someone like me as a mentor to ask those questions, to really accelerate, to get that skill set built quickly in a good amount of time. January is a perfect time, I always think, to start building something new for the year. It's great for business purposes, it's great for motivation. The course is really designed to meet people where they are. And even if you already have an expert witness business, there are probably a lot of things where you just weren't taught how to use the structure or how to approach a medical malpractice case. So the nine recorded modules are available all at Once you can binge them Netflix style, you can watch them on your own time and you get lifetime access. We also do once a week for four weeks live.
- [56:59]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Q.
- [56:59]
Dr. Jim Dahle
And as those are also recorded, you can ask questions in advance, ask questions afterward. So it's really designed to accommodate everybody's schedule.
- [57:08]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Now if somebody's really going to work hard at this and really going to, you know, take this seriously, this is going to be a serious side gig for them. What can they really expect that first year after taking the course? As far as income potential, if you.
- [57:21]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Do three to four hours per week at $600 an hour, that's $100,000 side gig a year. It is not uncommon for some of my students who have been motivated to get jump started their business and to be making five, six figures in a year or two after taking the course. That's and some of their testimonials are available on the page for Expert Witness Startup School. That's been one of the benefits that I've really enjoyed the most is seeing how people have transformed their lives using these skills and using some extra income. They have stopped taking extra call on nights, evenings, weekends, trying to make ends meet a little bit more comfortably. They've worked smarter, not harder. They've taken one day off per week, gone events to their kids, schools, maybe done some other things for themselves in their own free time and really been able to just get a little more time at the margins to see if they want to change things in their life either personally or professionally.
- [58:24]
Dr. Gretchen Green
All right, let's give them all the details for doing Expert Witness School. The URL again is whitecoatinvestor.com ExpertWitness Enrollments open the 14th through the 27th of January. We're throwing in a little extra with this. If you sign up through the WCI links, we're going to throw in a free WCI course 799. This is our continuing financial education 23 course. That's about 50 hours of content we're going to throw in totally for free if you sign up for Expert Witness school. And you can even use your CME money to buy this, can you not?
- [59:01]
Dr. Jim Dahle
You can if that's something that your employer can work with you on. You can earn 12 CME hours with the core course.
- [59:11]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Yeah, and of course there's CME available with that CFE23 course we're going to give you as well, which may help you justify it to your your CME department. But even so, I mean you're talking about starting a new business here. An expert witness business. This is a tax deductible expense for that business. So I think at any rate, most people ought to be able to pay for this with pre tax dollars anyway, which does help. So this is a great course to take if you want to launch and build an expert witness business. Understand the process of case review and deposition, put your existing skills to work in a new way and increase your income on your own time. What have we not covered today? Gretchen? They need to know about the school.
- [59:50]
Dr. Jim Dahle
You only need to take one step to get started. And that's the great thing with the courses. It's broken down into bite sized pieces so you don't have to think. You're worrying about what comes after and all the next steps. You take one step at a time. I apply a lot of the principles that I've learned as now a certified life coach and again as an expert witness and now retired radiologist. I'm just a couple steps ahead of you and I love learning from my students who then leapfrog even further ahead and do unique things I've never thought of too. So it's a great community to join, not just a course.
- [60:27]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Again, that's whitecoatinvestor.com ExpertWitness if you're not ready to purchase, come to the masterclass. It's tonight. If you're listening to this, the day the podcast drops 7pm Eastern, you can sign up for that at whitecoatinvestor.com ExpertWitnessMasterClass it's titled how to jumpstart your expert witness business with one phone call and come tonight and you can figure out where that phone call needs to go. Gretchen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We appreciate all your time and hard work and helping white coat investors to reduce their burnout and increase their income. Thank you so much.
- [61:00]
Dr. Jim Dahle
Thanks for your support and thanks to your audience.
- [61:04]
Dr. Gretchen Green
Okay. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Hopefully that was helpful. We've covered a lot of material today. We've talked about backdoor Roths, we've talked about mega backdoor Roths. We have talked about, you know, the problems, issues with government student loan programs, whether those are save or repay or public service loan forgiveness. We've talked a lot about how to manage your student loans. I want to emphasize the importance of not getting stuck stuck in the details. The basics here are not complicated. Don't get lost in the details. Oh, I can't do a mega backdoor Roth ira, so I'm not going to do anything right or I can't figure out the student loan stuff. So I'm just going to go watch tv. The basics are not complicated. You're going to be a better doc. You're going to be a better professional. Whatever you do, if you're financially secure, okay, Sometimes people call that rich or wealthier or comfortable or whatever, whatever you want to call it. But I truly believe that doctors with their financial ducks in a row are better physicians. They're better parents, they're better partners. So how do you become wealthy? Well, there's really four steps. The first one is make a lot of money. Most of you have already figured out how to do that. If you're not making a lot of money now, you soon will be. The second one is don't spend a lot of money. Make those two numbers different. What you make and what you spend. The more different they are, the faster you become wealthy. Especially in the beginning, that savings rate is so important. Our first million dollars, 80% of it, was brute force saving. It was money we earned and did not spend. Everyone thinks they want to be a millionaire. That's not true. Everybody wants to spend a million dollars. Those are polar opposites. You become a millionaire by not spending a million dollars you could have spent. Okay, so make a lot of money. Don't spend a lot of money. Then take that difference, the money you didn't spend, and make it work as hard as you do by investing it in some reasonable way. That can be as simple as just a handful of index funds. Your investing plan really can be that simple. And finally, don't lose the money. Don't lose it to scams. Don't lose it to speculating on your investments. Don't lose it to bad investing behavior, buying high and selling low and that sort of a thing. Don't lose it to divorce. Right? Put that marriage first. The best asset protection out there is date night. Probably. Don't lose it to liability lawsuits. Buy malpractice insurance. Buy some umbrella insurance. Don't lose it to disability. Buy disability insurance. Don't let those you love lose it to your death. Buy term life insurance. Do the things you need to do to protect that money. Okay, four steps. Make a lot of money. Don't spend a lot of money. Invest it in some reasonable way. Don't lose the money. That's all the more complicated it is. You do that, put that together for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, and you'll be a multimillionaire. More money than you ever had, more money than your parents probably ever had, and you'll be able to do some awesome stuff. You'll have this great financial life that you can live. You can make a difference in the lives of your kids and those you care about. You can donate to charities and give them more support than they thought they'd ever get and really accomplish some great things in your life. So pay attention to your finances. It will make you better at what you do and it'll allow you to help change the world. So thank you for those of you out there doing that. I know a lot of you have been at this for as many years as I have, or even more. Thank you. Thank you. You can make a difference in the world and the lives of those you care about. As I mentioned at the top of the podcast, SoFi is helping medical professionals like U.S. bank, borrow and invest to achieve financial wellness. Whether you're a resident or close to retirement, SoFi offers medical professionals exclusive rates and services to help you get your money right. Visit their dedicated page to see all that SoFi has to offer at whitecoatinvestor.com SoFi one more time, that's whitecoatinvestor.com sofi loans originated by SoFi Bank NA NMLS 696891 advisory services by SoFi Wealth LLC. The brokerage product is offered by SoFi Securities LLC. Member Finra SIPC investing comes with risk, including risk of loss. Additional terms and conditions may apply. Don't forget about the WC icon. Sale goes through January 27th. That's also the day the room block closes. So those of you who don't have a room yet, please go get your room. Those who haven't signed up yet, you go to wcievents.com the code is save 200 for $200 off. In person the code is virtual 100 for $100 off the virtual version. Thanks. For those of you leaving us five star reviews and telling your friends about the podcast, a recent one comes in from RSMIT725 who said my financial literacy started here. I can't thank Dr. Dali and the WCI team enough. This podcast has transformed my financial literacy, has helped my wife and I prepare adequately for our future. I found this podcast in January and I've listened to every single episode since. Best Physician Financial Podcast out there. Hands down five stars. Thanks so much for that five star review. It really does help spread the word. That's the end of our podcast today. Keep your head up, your shoulders back. You've got this. We're here to help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor Podcast.
- [66:05]
Dr. Jim Dahle
The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.