Overcoming Student Loans & PT School Debt With Tess Waresmith

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the shift show, where mynumber one goal is to bring you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change
gymnast lives.
My name is Dave Tilley.
I'm telling you on the podcastwe have a little bit of a left
turn here from the normalgymnastics content and then
we're going to actually diveinto a bit of content around
money and student loan debt andinvesting.
And the reason I had thispodcast put together is every

(00:40):
three to four months we get anew patch of students that come
through Champion for theirdoctoral rotations, but then
also we have student interns.
We have lots of people that arekind of mentoring underneath us
, inside of our crew, andobviously we teach them about,
you know, career, life, studentloans, all that kind of stuff.
But weirdly enough, almostalways there is some sort of
conversation related to studentloan debt and investing and

(01:02):
getting a job and managing moneyand kind of getting ready for
life.
Most of the people that we workwith are kind of right at the
tail end of their graduatedegree and so they've gone
through a lot of school, theyhave a lot of student loan debt
and they have a lot on theirplate and they're a bit worried,
along with, just you know,learning how to be a clinician
or kind of exist in the careerworld.
They're often always askingquestions related to this kind
of stuff, and so one of mypatients actually Tess is a

(01:23):
financial educator and shestarted coming in last year for
her rehab.
And all of the students that Iwork with or have started asking
Tess questions about like, whatdo I do with my student loans
and how should I do this?
Should I pay my credit card off?
Should I buy this?
Should I?
You know what about a house?
I want to get married, blah,blah, blah.
And so, like you know, tess washelping a lot of these people
anyways and it just kind ofbrought up this idea for me that
you know it's probably reallyimportant to have someone to

(01:45):
come on the podcast and justhelp people with this very kind
of taboo subject about money andinvesting and student loan debt
.
And you know someone who had aridiculous amount of student
loan debt and had to grindreally hard to kind of get my
head above water.
I appreciate Tess and theeducation that she's putting out
, and so Tess is great.
The way she describes stuff isvery helpful and I think she
gives us a very kind of step bystep approach.

(02:05):
So this is really the episodefor anyone honestly in
healthcare or who just is a newgrad who wants to understand,
you know, managing student loandebt.
What are these kind of interestrates they talk about and
should I pay them off first?
Should I start with the, youknow, investing?
Should I do something with my401k if I'm at a new job and
they're giving me these optionsto work with?
Lots of really good, good kindof conversations around these

(02:26):
basics and, I think, honestly, alot of people I shared this
episode with early and they saidit was one of those helpful
episodes that we've put out.
So I'm all about just trying tohelp people and, you know, get
them good information, and thisis a great situation of
something where maybe not aboutgymnastics particularly, or
about very specific you know,dorky physical therapy things,
but things.
But I think, unfortunately,we'll give a lot of people a lot
of help and so, yeah, if youguys enjoyed this episode, just
go ahead and tag us on InstagramTess is a wealth with Tess and

(02:48):
then, obviously, shift.
We have our account.
Tag us, let us know what youthink.
I'd love to hear your feedbackon if it's helpful and if you
like this kind of content.
I'm happy to do a little bitmore of it, but hopefully this
all is a great episode for youwith Tess.
Okay, hello, how are you?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I'm excellent.
I'm pumped to be talking to you.
I miss you.
Now that my experience is allbetter.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I was actually going to open the joke like, yeah, I
never met Tess before, no ideawho she is, you know, just a
random finance person I found.
But yeah, we have a historytogether.
But yeah, I'll just jump rightinto it.
Man, I mean this at being, yeah, you're expert at being a

(03:33):
patient, that champion andfollowing a rehab protocol
perfectly well, um, but yeah, Imean the short story for people
listening is that you know, tesswas a patient of mine and we
treated her, but within 30minutes of us talking like small
talk, we're like, oh, what doyou do?
It's like, oh, like I work in,like you know, education for
finance and like investing.
I was like, oh, no way, I havean online business.
And we just talked way morebusiness and more like the
backend work than actual PT andstuff like that.

(03:55):
And then the conversation turnedinto students.
This is're always like, oh,what do you do?
And you tell them and they'relike, oh my God, I have so much
debt.
Like, what should I do?
Like Maddie the other day waslike, oh my God, me, me.
And then I started realizingthat, like, every student group
that comes in has the same exactthing Like they're trying to

(04:22):
work hard and get a job andthey're like I have no idea how
I'm going to overcome $150,000or $200,000 or $250,000 in debt
and I feel like maybe I haven'tdone a good job or we haven't
done a good job as a careerprofession of helping people do
that.
I learned it from Mike becauseMike's really good with finance,
but yeah, that's the backgroundto this.
So can you give people the twominute elevator pitch on like

(04:44):
who you are, what you do is likethat's different than the
normal podcast guest, and thenwe'll dig into questions.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Absolutely so.
I am a financial educator, aspeaker and an investor, and, at
this point, I've dedicatedpretty much my whole life to
helping the average person thatdidn't have a financial
education just like me learn howto manage and grow their money
using super simple financialstrategies and simple investing
strategies.
And about 12 years ago, Istarted investing in the stock

(05:12):
market and real estate, and Iwas lucky enough to do that
early on.
My first job out of college wasactually as an aerial acrobat
and high diver on a cruise ship,so, weirdly enough, that was
part of my financial journey,because I was able to save a lot
of money.
And then I proceeded to makeall the mistakes, all the
investing mistakes.
I lost tens of thousands ofdollars of mistakes, and what I

(05:35):
realized is that the traditionalmodel of finance just doesn't
serve most people.
Most financial advisors areworking with very wealthy people
, and so I wanted to share whatI had learned, do things
differently and give people theopportunity to take control of
their money by providingdigestible, jargon-free
education.
So, as a financial educator, Idon't give any specific

(05:58):
financial advice.
My goal is to teach people asmuch as possible and empower
them to be able to manage theirmoney and make smart decisions,
and that can include finding theright professionals when you
need them.
It can also include vetting theright professionals, too,
because not all financialprofessionals are created equal.
So that's what I do now and now.
I work with organizations, Ispeak with corporate

(06:20):
organizations, I run groupcoaching programs and I have
online courses as well.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, and so I think you're agreat resource.
And I think that you're a greatresource and, as you were
saying before the podcast, I'mthe best person to ask dumb
questions too, because I still,like I'm somewhere between.
I learned a lot in the last twoto three years, but also, like,
for the first seven to eightyears of my career, I was in the
camp of like money is like it'ssuch a large number.
I had 200,000 in debt.

(06:45):
It was such a big number that Iessentially just like closed my
eyes and looked the other wayand just like worked really hard
.
I was like I don't know how I'mgoing to pay it down, but if I
just like work in the clinic andI coach gymnastics and then I
just start like you know acompany on the side, I can make
some extra money.
I, oh, I can just pay this downfast.

(07:06):
I quickly realized that, likeGod damn it.
As soon as I pay off this, Ihave to get a house, I have to
eventually get married and I'mgoing to have like all this
other shit to pay for.
And I was like this is eternal,this, this isn't like a uh,
eternal boulder uphill.

(07:26):
There is a possible thing toget out of.
So, yeah, I'm probably theperfect uh avatar for someone
who's on the other side, Like Ionce looked up at 200,000.
I just heard in the clinicpeople are throwing out numbers
of like quarter million, 250,someone in their wife.
They're both in their 300 plus,and so I heard a really sad
story on Ramit Sethi's podcastthat two physical therapists
were considering not having kidsbecause they were so scared of

(07:46):
the financial burden that itwould take, and so, yeah, I feel
like it's a taboo subject thatall people in healthcare
particularly that's probably thepeople who will listen to this
like nurses I know you talk tonurses, but PTs, ATs, people
just want to work in healthcareand do a good service and help
people and they get smacked withmassive amounts of debt.
So I know you work with a lotof entrepreneurs, but also
people who are kind of in thisscary situation.

(08:08):
What do you see, or what arethe things they're telling you?
Are they similar to mine?
Are they different?
Are there different problemsthat they have that I don't see.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I think you nailed it.
I do end up working with a lotof students in my group programs
or some of the one-on-onecoaching and educating that I do
.
A lot of them are PTs or PAs,and the first thing I would say
is that everyone is feeling verystressed because it's such a
large number, and so I can justempathize that.
It's a tough situation, likeeven if your degree is going to

(08:37):
help you have a good salary andjob security and do meaningful
work, which is amazing.
Having debt of that size isvery overwhelming
psychologically and emotionally.
And it's not like you get thisdebt and, at the same time,
somebody is like also, here'sthe plan of how you manage this
when you're done.
No one helps you with that.

(08:57):
You kind of like, sign thispaperwork, get these loans and
there's no conversation aroundhow to actually manage that
money and, at the end of the day, paying off debt.
Learning how to invest, learninghow to manage your money it's a
skill, and so I think, when youhave a volume that big, what
I'm always trying to tell mystudents is you're incredibly
talented and smart.
Right, if you've chosen thiscareer, you are obviously

(09:21):
intelligent and money is just askill, but it feels like
something much bigger than that,because there's so much emotion
and psychology tied up in it,and the way you were brought up
can impact your relationshipwith money or tendency to bury
your head in the sand If youhave a huge amount of debt.
So I guess I would say thething that I tell my students
first is to be nice to yourself,like if you're having trouble

(09:41):
paying this off, stop givingyourself so much crap about it,
because it's not.
You're not like born learnedhow learning how to do this and
how to manage your money.
So while you do have to giveyourself grace, then you have to
come up with a plan and andtake action steps to actually
start to pay that down and tomake smart financial decisions.
And that's where education cancome in and really help with

(10:02):
that.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Right, right, and I think I maybe had the same thing
.
But a lot of what I hear ispolar opposites.
Either Someone does like what Idid and they were like you know
I'm going to not think about itand just ignore it and tuck my
head in the sand and hope it allgoes away.
And then they have people onthe other side of the spectrum
who you know I don't want to gointo specific educators
elsewhere but they say, like youcan never buy, anything, like
like no, no Starbucks, no coffee, no going out.

(10:23):
Like do like burn it to theground until you pay off all
your debt for at least five to10 years and just blackout and
like.
I went through a lot of thosepodcasts and education and I was
like that sounds awful, thatsounds like I'm going to get
depressed.
That sounds like for 10 years Ihave to deal with mental health
and depression.
Not spending money, not goingout, not buying anything, just
to get ahead on my loan, just tothen pick up a house mortgage

(10:44):
or something like that.
So you know, I personally foundthat, like you know, ramit
Sethi's work and others was likea nice medium, which is, like
you know, spend money on thingsthat you care about but also
save ruthlessly on things youdon't.
And we'll get into theconversation of like saving and
investing is one thing, but ifyou're spending money on dumb
shit, that by the skin of theirteeth and not really enjoying

(11:05):
your life, is that what you see?
Are there other people kind oflike problems with how they cope
with it?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
There is a lot of living in the extremes.
It's easier to do that right, tomake a decision, to be like
okay, I'm just going to, youknow, join the fire movement,
which is financial independence,retire early, and that's often
associated with people wantingto save every single penny, pay
off debt as fast as possible,live a super Spartan, minimalist

(11:32):
life, and a lot of those peopledo end up pretty miserable,
right?
And then some of that advice isreally dangerous, because not
only is it a miserable way tolive, but it's also really hard
to sustain.
And just like, it's just like acrash diet, right, if you swear
off everything sugary formonths and then you, you never
eat.
All of a sudden you don't eatcarbs, and then you like sit

(11:53):
down and you're blackout eatinglike a loaf of bread.
Like it's the same with money,right?
So none of that's ever happenedto me.
Um, so I think, so I.
So I do think that there are alot of extremes.
What I love to talk to mystudents and clients about is
the idea of three to five reallyintentional years, and how that

(12:15):
can change everything.
And so there is something to besaid for making some I don't
want to call them extreme, butmaybe impactful choices, like,
for example, if you're in aposition where you have a ton of
debt and a decent salary butyou've got a long way to go and
you want to make progress onthat, taking some more drastic
measures to really move theneedle, like, for example,

(12:36):
moving to a place that's alittle bit more affordable,
getting a roommate trading inyour new car for a used car,
like those are the things thatare going to move the needle,
not buying lattes it's a lot oflattes to try to keep up with
big moves like that.
So that's what I try to tell mystudents.
So, to answer your question,yes, I definitely see those two
extremes and that's wherecreating an intentional spending

(12:58):
plan where you're really clearon what your goals are, what you
like to spend money on, andbeing really intentional at
sticking to that to make surethat you stay on track with
really what you want.
So that's where we start thiswhole conversation.
Before I even get into thestrategies of like debt payoff
and how to invest, the firstconversation is what do you care

(13:19):
about and what do you want todo Like what's important to you?
And if paying off debt isimportant to you, then let's
make sure we prioritize that.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, no, I love that and there's so much good stuff
to unpack here.
So one is the first thing Ithink, similar to other goals we
have, like in PT or whatever is, I think always tying things to
your own personal goals of whatyou will get when you make
those sacrifices is important.
For some people it's a greatmarriage.
For some people it's like theautonomy to be able to have
flexible work hours right, theycan work four days instead of

(13:47):
five or something like that.
So I think the person on theother side of this podcast is
don't just think about like well, I need to save it all and pay
off my loan just because, likereally think down, like what do
I care about?
Is it like a vacation?
Is it helping my dog have tomake those hard choices?
Or like make those sacrifices.
It's a little bit more resonantand a couple of things I think

(14:07):
are really important here.
So I can just give the exampleof that.
When I started out from PTschool, I remember not knowing
anything about loans or how muchI took out, and I realized that
I took out 10 grand twice for10 to 11% loans.
So I took heinous loans out.
That's a ridiculous percentage,but in the moment I was like,
yeah, I just need to pay for myapartment and my books and I'm
going to buy this loan whateverelse.
And this was in 2008 with agreat financial crisis, so

(14:27):
that's why it was so bad, but Ididn't realize at the time.
But then when I got out, I wasum coach.
I was doing my hourly stuff atthe clinic and it was just
breaking me.
Even so, my salary wasessentially paying all my living
from coaching gymnastics and Iwas like, okay, well, if I just
essentially auto draw out moneyfrom every checking account into
this like extra on top forSally Mae at the time it was 300

(14:50):
bucks extra that I had fromcoaching per month.
That's like, okay, I can liveon my PT salary and I can take
my coaching money and I can putthat towards just a little bit
extra.
And honestly, $300 a month ontop of I was already paying a
thousand for my um my debt,paying a thousand for my um, my
debt $1,300 a month, like ripdown some of my high interest
rates, and I feel like it wasn'ta huge.
Like, oh, my God, this is sooverwhelming.
It was just like I never seethis money, like it never hits

(15:11):
my checking account because itgets auto drawn out right away
and the other things.
I think a lot of students or PTpeople have skill sets, whether
you're PT, pa, nursing, like.
I know some people who work perdiem one day per month or one
day per week and they go to ahospital and drop in for per
diem and they make double ortriple their hourly rate because
they're covering for somebodyelse or they do educational work
.
They do some some screeningconsulting work, they do soft

(15:33):
tissue work.
They do so much other stuff.
There's so many things in healthcare that you can do extra
hours for or have extra ways tomake money.
What I highly recommend peopledon't do is look for volume
incentives Like that's.
The biggest problem in physicaltherapy or healthcare is if
you're incentivized to see morepeople or work longer hours per
day, you just burn out and youcan't do it.
So I personally would say workyour normal hours and find a gig

(15:54):
on the side strength andconditioning or whatever and use
that money to try to pay downwhatever the high interest rate
is.
I'm not the educator here, sothat's just what I did, but is
that like useful?
Am I an idiot for saying that,or what's the deal?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
with that.
No, I love that idea and, quitefrankly, that's the unique
advantage that your audience andlisteners have is that they do
have that opportunity to pick upextra shifts.
And you know, like the sidehustle, right, like that's a
very popular thing to talk aboutbecause, at the end of the day,
in order to pay off your debtand plan for the future, you
have to be making enough moneyto cover your expenses and have

(16:27):
a difference.
Right, there's no magic way todo that unless you're making
enough money.
So income is really important.
And again, three to five yearsmaybe it's not something you do
forever, maybe it's just oneyear, but a couple intentional
years of saying you know what Iwant to have more financial
flexibility and freedom in thefuture to travel or do a

(16:50):
different kind of work orwhatever it is, and that's
really important to me.
So for this year, I'm going topick up an extra shift on the
weekends and use that money topay off your debt.
That's a luxury that a lot ofpeople don't have.
It's harder, it's harder forpeople to find a decent paying
side hustle.
A side hustle is, like, prettyeasy to find, but one that pays
pretty well, that's more rare.
So I think that's an incredibleidea for for people in the

(17:15):
healthcare space, if that'ssomething you can do.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yep, and kind of on the more practical justice from
my end before we.
I want to pick your brain.
More is like.
I think I had two extremes oflike.
I was willing to live in a verysmall apartment I still live in
the same apartment from 10years ago when I got this job.
So I moved here and I wasfortunate that this place was
just getting like moved outreally quick.
My dad was a landlord so hehelped haggle some like.
You know terminology andunderstand.
But I essentially got thisapartment for really cheap,

(17:41):
right.
And then I'm able to kind of beokay.
I was like should I buy a condo?
Should I move out?
But it would have tripled myrent, right, because stuff is so
crazy where I live.
So I was like okay, I'll justlive in this.
And it honestly came down tomore being like I don't really

(18:02):
care how big my house is, Idon't care ton of money that I
could put elsewhere.
But on the other side, I wasvery okay with like putting
money aside to do things that Ienjoy, like every weekend.
I like like back, especiallywhen I was like first starting
out.
I was like I like want to go toa coffee shop and read and like
grab food and go to go out toeat with my friends and my
dinner grab a couple month and Ifeel like, because I had that

(18:23):
pressure valve release, like Ididn't feel guilty about
spending money on that kind ofstuff.
It allowed me to be much more Iguess rigid is the word or kind
of tighten up the hatches a bitmore and other stuff.
Like I don't need to buy newclothes.
Like I buy running shoes hereand there but like do I need to
buy like watches and jewelry andclothes?
Like not really Do I don't haveto impress anybody like that.
So I just want to hopefullygive people practical advice.

(18:44):
Like on one side you have tokind of strangle yourself a
little bit, like you got to.
Like tighten up a little bitlike four nights out, if you
really need to go out fournights out and watch football
and chicken wings and beer everyweekend, twice a week or three
times a week.
But then there are some thingsthat I think people should.
Yeah, I just don't know why.

(19:05):
I felt like I needed to saythat.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
but no, I mean that's .
That's a perfect example ofkind of what I was saying.
Like, the choice you made wasthe choice to, as your salary
increased, to not change yourcost of living, which is the
biggest expense we have, and sothat's what.
What happens to a lot of peopleis, if you're not tracking how
much money you're actuallymaking and you're not really

(19:26):
tracking your debt, you could bestarting to see a serious
increase in your salary.
But if you change yourlifestyle, every time you
increase your salary because nowyou're making more, so you
think, oh, now I should moveinto the nice house, or now I
can afford to move into thedream condo or whatever it is
when you do that, you're notcreating any additional space

(19:47):
for you to have the flexibility.
And what was so cool about whatyou decided to do is and it's
actually how I reached financialindependence too I stayed
living in places that weren'tthe nicest, but I also loved the
flexibility to be able totravel and, like you said, go
out with my friends, and I knewI could do that and still save a
ton of money because my housingexpenses were reasonable and

(20:08):
that was okay for me, because Iknew later in life at some point
, sure, then I'll be able to.
If I, if that's important to meand that's something I value,
then maybe I'll move into thedream home or whatever, although
we could argue of whetherthat's really a thing or not.
So I think, I think that thatis a perfect example of how you
have to think about it, like youcan buy anything but you can't
buy everything, and so yourchoice was quality time with

(20:31):
people and you know, a safeplace to live.
And that's it, and that that wasthe trade-off, that that worked
for you.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, exactly.
So it's kind of that's myexample, but let's maybe shift
it to somebody you're workingwith or someone who comes to you
and says let's just put them inthe shoes of like any new grad
coming out of a healthcare jobis probably going to have if
they took on loans probablybetween 800 to $1,200 per month
in student loans.
They have to work, uh, worryabout Um, and so, like what are
some of the things that you areeither educating on or talking
about?
Not financial advice, of course, but something that is like

(21:00):
what are you going to do whensomeone's like listen, tess, I
got a job and it's starting intwo months.
My loans kick back in.
I don't know where I'm going tofind $1,200 to make this work,
and that's just the bare minimumto not get more buried in
interest and debt.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
So the first thing you have to do is understand how
money comes in and out of yourlife, and this is where people
say like, oh, I'm bad at moneyor I'm not good at money.
This exercise is an honest lookat your life and addition and
subtraction right.
So this is taking a couplemonths of your credit card
statement or your bank statement, wherever you make the majority

(21:33):
of your purchases, and doing areally honest evaluation of how
much you're spending in thelargest categories so housing,
dining, your car, et cetera.
And if you've never done that,usually just looking at it, you
can find some ways to improve.
It's like awareness iseverything.
If you are aware of where yourmoney is coming and going,

(21:53):
you're likely going to find morespace to be able to start to
afford those payments.
So that is the very first thing.
So once you've done that andyou've looked at your spending,
then you can go back to what wewere talking about.
Before is like understandingwhich of this spending aligns
with my goals and values and isimportant to me, and which of
this is less important and notworth my time, so I can make

(22:14):
sure that I'm paying down thisdebt and not ending up holding
on to this for a really longtime.
And so that's the balance.
It is awareness of how moneycomes in and out of your life,
creating a plan and evaluatingthat plan over time.
And the most important thing andyou actually already brought
this up, because you are, infact, very good with money, by
the way, you could teach thisclass too is automating this

(22:37):
right.
So once you figure out whereyour money needs to go, you can
automate a certain amount to payoff your student loans.
You can also automate aspending allotment for yourself.
So you're saying, okay, likebased on how much I'm making, I
can spend $500 a month on thingsI enjoy that are not expenses,
and then you know exactly howmuch you have and you can choose

(22:59):
however you want to spend that500.
But if you go past that 500,that's going to impact your
ability to pay down your debt.
So I like to this is the otherword, for this is budget, and
this is something that you've.
You've mentioned him a fewtimes, ramit Sethi, and I agree
on.
He was an amazing financecreator and he has a great book.
If you haven't read it, I willteach you to be rich.
It's like a fantastic beginnerbeginner finance book, but I

(23:24):
love that he says this and I'veadopted this as well is he talks
about an intentional spendingplan and focusing on how you
spend your money, versuscreating a budget.
The word budget feels kind ofrestrictive and not fun.
What we're talking about is allthe money you have.
How are you going to spend itin a way that's going to give
you a fulfilling life?
Part of that's going to bepaying down the debt, but part
of that's also going to beenjoying whatever's important to

(23:46):
you.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, I love that too , and I think I don't know
whether it was from from readinghim or others, but I just have
reframed this like money.
Conversation to me is like this, like boogeyman.
To like that money is a tool tobuild a life that you love,
like to frame that in a positivemindset of like, if I work hard
and I'm able to somehow wranglethis and put in the effort to
learn about this and think aboutthis, that I can build a life
that I enjoy and that I love.

(24:07):
And that's that's different foranybody.
For me personally, it's liketime, autonomy, like the fact
that I have a very fluidschedule and if I need to go
help my mom for a day, I canthat's a huge shout out to
champion and like Mike and Lennybut a lot and break my leg, I
can afford two months withoutwork because I have money saved
up or I've paid off a lot.
That, for me, is what is themost like sense of like, why I

(24:30):
want to learn so much about it,because I want that flexibility,
that autonomy and that kind oflike peace of mind.
For other people, it's likethey want to have the wedding of
their dreams.
They want to be able to.
You know Ramit talks about this.
He's, like you know, seefashionable clothing and I spend
a thousand dollars in a jacketand it makes me feel good.
So, like everybody has context,specific stuff.
Um, I think also too it's it'slike the automation thing, I
think for the healthcare peopleon our side like we didn't get

(24:51):
taught about money unless it waslike in a running a business or
running a clinic.
So I think a lot of people inhealthcare just want to work and
just want to help people andjust want to enjoy their life
and they don't want to thinkabout all the buttons to push
and the charts to watch.
And so for me it was like, okay, if I just automate this and I
do my budget plan and I knowthat every month, you know I'm
going to have the money in mychecking account to pay off all
these things and do it, I canjust focus on learning more and

(25:12):
like getting better at my craftand building a business and
teaching more and like thatactually for me, is what made
way more money is like that Ihad the mind share to focus on
learning and being a betterclinician, which I think paid
off in the long run more thanlike.
Do I know what index fund thatI'm going to have to find?
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, 100%.
I actually open most of mycorporate presentations or I
just did a money mindsetpresentation for Mass General
and one of the things that Ialways start with is, when we
think about money, the firstthing we think about is what
money can buy, and that's likecars, houses, vacations,
whatever when, at the end of theday, even if you do love your

(25:49):
job and you're doing it to befulfilled, the reason why we
want to pay attention to moneyis so that, exactly what you
said that we have theflexibility to take care of
ourselves when not if, somethinghappens.
So we have the security andsafety of being able to manage
difficult situations which aregoing to come, and then we have
the flexibility and optionalityto potentially change careers,

(26:10):
walk away from a toxic job.
These are the things that moneybuys, that we don't talk about
enough and why it's such animportant tool.
And so when people pay lessattention to it because they're
like I don't really care aboutmoney, my question back to them
is okay, but money actually buyssecurity, safety, optionality,
flexibility, freedom,independence and time.
All of those things can bebought with money, and every

(26:33):
human shares a need for allthose things.
We all want to spend more timewith our family.
We all want to be able to walkaway from a toxic situation or a
toxic workplace, which isunfortunately very common these
days.
So those are the things thatmoney can buy.
So even if you're notinterested in money or you don't
feel like you have a need forluxury items or whatever it is,
that's the kind of stuff thatmoney can buy you, and the

(26:56):
sooner you start payingattention to it, the easier it
is to get to those places whereyou can really exercise those
options.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, that's super great advice and so let's kind
of just run with that, which isokay.
Someone has sat down and maybehad a cup of coffee and like got
through their anxiety of like,okay, this is how much I make,
this is how much I spend.
And let's say, for example,they find $300 from you know one
one less night out per week andthey find this extra shift.
They pick up here on theweekend and they have $300 to
put in extra per month, butthey're looking uphill at, say,

(27:22):
250 or $200,000 in debt.
What do they do with that?
Do they just like put it intoanything and hope it works out?
They oftentimes, I think, withme.
I just opened Sally man.
I was like that's a lot of zerosand I was like I don't really
know what to do with all thosethings and I just like I was
like, ah, that one, I guess,like I didn't know about
interest or compounding, orcompounding negatively in this

(27:42):
situation, but we'll talk aboutpositive.
But like, so say, someone doesthe harder work of finding an
extra $300, like what's the bestapproach to that?
Is it just like go for it, oris there a certain way to
approach it?

Speaker 2 (27:50):
There's definitely a method here.
So the first thing that everyhuman should have is an
emergency fund of three to sixmonths of expenses.
So if you are in that situationand you don't have a couple
months of money in case you loseyour job or something happens
or you rupture your Achilles orwhatever and you can't work like
if something happens to you,then you have an emergency fund

(28:16):
to take care of yourself.
So that is the first thing.
So, even if you are dripping indebt, you need to have that
fund, because the other thingthat this fund does that people
don't realize is when you'realready in debt, when you're
already living really close topaycheck to paycheck, if
something happens and you don'thave money for it, you're going
to end up putting it on a creditcard and then you're digging
yourself a deeper hole.
So, even if you have debt andeven if you have credit card

(28:37):
debt, the first thing you needto do is start to build an
emergency fund so that you cancover those kinds of expenses
and that way you can at leaststay even.
Once you've done that, thenit's a matter of what kind of
debt you have and the interestrate of the debt you have.
So, mathematically, the bestoption for you to allocate an
extra $300 to is going to bewhatever debt has the highest

(29:00):
interest rate.
So especially if you have ratesover like seven eight-ish
percent, that's stuff that youdefinitely want to focus on
first.
If it's lower than that, thenthere's potentially an argument
to start thinking aboutinvesting some of that money and
paying off more of your debt.
And the reason for that isbecause the average return of

(29:21):
the stock market over time isroughly 7% if you subtract for
inflation.
So if you have super lowinterest debt, there could be an
argument to make to use a smallportion of that to start
investing and then continue topay off your debt.
So the interest rate really,really matters.
You should know those.
If you don't know those and youfeel triggered right now, don't
feel bad.
Most people don't.

(29:42):
So usually when I get on a callwith my students, they tell me
all about how much debt theyhave, but they have no idea what
the rate is.
So the rate is super important.
Mathematically, the best optionis to pay down the highest rate
first.
Some financial professionalswill say you know, if you have
like a smaller balance on oneloan, to pay that down first and
that helps you psychologically.

(30:03):
You know, gain momentum to paythat down first and that helps
you psychologically, you know,gain momentum.
But I would say if you'rereally just trying to pay stuff
off and save yourself oninterest payments.
Like go for the highest ratefirst, start there and tackle
that one as fast as you can.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah, and I was.
I was trying to do some quickmath here because I think the
example that is perfect for meis that I remember what I had.
I had like a $7,000 loan atlike 11%, right.
But then I also had like a$20,000 loan at like 4% or like
5%, and I remember being like,well, 20 is more than seven, I
should pay the 21 down first.
But if you look at the math Idon't know the math in my head,
but like it's like 20 somethingmonths to pay off $300 to seven.

(30:38):
But that interest of 11% isgoing to annihilate you, right,
because every time you have moreit's like a rolling snowball
versus.
You know, leave the bigger oneat 5% and pay off the 7% one
first, and then you know, workyour way down the ladder.
So it sounds like and correct meif I'm wrong so first you start
with whatever your fixed incomeis right, so say it's you know,
your rent, your food, yourwhatever.
You multiply that by three andsix and that's the upper and

(31:00):
lower bound of maybe what youshould try to save first, right.
And then from there you look atthe ones that are like the
definitely double digit interestrates first, and then maybe
like the eight, nine, 10, 11, 12is where like, all right, those
ones should probably take myfocus and honestly, for some
people that is going to take ayear to maybe three years to
like get that emergency savingsfund and then also pay off the
bigger ones there.

(31:20):
You could just set it andforget it for you know what two
years and just work really hardand just think about like okay,
every time I get a little extramoney, let me just chop down a
little more.
That probably alone would savepeople a shit ton in compounding
interest down the road.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
No, Thousands and thousands of dollars, and I and
I will add just to thisconversation because a lot of
people do have credit card debt.
If you have, you know, theaverage person I think right now
is somewhere between $4,000 and$8,000 of credit card debt, in
addition to student loans thatyou want to pay off even before
you pay off your student loans,because the interest on that is
likely 17% to mid-25% and thatwill annihilate you.

(31:57):
So that is stuff, to use yourwords.
So that is definitely thehighest interest rate.
I think to your point.
You see the student loan debtthat's at 200,000 and you have
to pay six or 7% interest on it.
That sucks for sure, but $5,000at 25% is going to cost you so
much in interest so fast.
So make sure you pay attentionto those rates.

(32:18):
It's super important.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, I really love that and I think I don't know.
This is like grandpa wisdomthat my grandpa literally gave
my mom to me.
It's just like not livingoutside your means, right Like
there's a fine line between likethings that are making you
happy and things that you'rejust like I'll just put in the
credit card.
You know like it's so easy whenyou swipe it real quick when
you're out with your buddies andyou've had one or nine whiskeys
, like toss out my credit cardand I'll pay it later.

(32:41):
You look at the bill and you'relike wait a minute.
I think, like not living outsideyour means but also enjoying
yourself is important.
But yeah too, I just thinkmaybe I got lucky that, like my
dad grew up, my dad jumpedbetween a bunch of different
jobs.
We moved like seven times whenI was a kid so there were times
when my dad had, like normalpeople, money, you know, like
enough money to help support,like you know.
Just, you know, this week we'rea little thin, so we'll just

(33:02):
stay home and play board games.
You know, I was like okay,that's like, that's all it was.
It wasn't weird, it wasn'tawkward.
We never talked about it.
Weird If he told my mom, likeyou know, I just don't have the
extra money to pay for thisthing for school.

(33:27):
It was a very open, honestconversation with a bunch of
extra stuff.
So I just think, trying to notdemonize money and not make it
this like gut wrenching, anxietyprovoking thing, but like, to
your point, a skill right, likehealthcare providers are great
at like.
If I learned this thing and Iunderstand it and I know what it
means, I can then kind of workat it.
But you know, if you don'tunderstand it, you don't have
time to learn it.
It's terrifying, it's reallyterrifying.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Absolutely, and you shouldn't feel bad about not
learning it.
Also, that's super important.
Like I host workshops andpresentations all the time and
every single time I do it,somebody says and this will be a
group of highly intelligentpeople or healthcare
professionals, which is more andmore common of people I'm
working with and they'll saysomething like oh, this is a
super stupid question.
And they ask the question and Iam 99% sure that 80% of the

(34:08):
people in the room probably havethat same question.
But because we're not talkingabout money all the time, it
feels like you're the only onethat's in $200,000 of debt and
you're the only one that doesn'tunderstand how your 401k works
or whatever it is right.
So you're not alone.
We don't get this educationanywhere unless your parents
taught you.
You haven't learned this.
So I love the idea of normallynormalizing conversations around

(34:32):
money, normalizing debt in thehealthcare industry.
That's just the thing.
That's the way it's been, andso we need to normalize having
the conversation so we can solvethe problem.
And then the last thing I wouldsay that I think is really,
really critical is to make surethat you are being nice to
yourself when you have theseconversations, when you start to

(34:55):
realize maybe some of themistakes you made.
Just try to be nice to yourself, because most people have made
those mistakes.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
Totally.
Yeah, no, I'm on that list tooas well.
I've done some dumb shit withmy money.
Okay, cool, so just kind ofpractically so.
Emergency fund three to sixmonths, and then I would say
2A's, maybe like the highestpercent credit card.
Chop that down first and dothat, and then after that the
highest percent loan, and thenyou kind of actually dovetailed
us well here.
But the other thing that I thinkautomatically happens when
people get their first job isthey get enrolled in a Vanguard

(35:22):
or Fidelity 401k and they justsign the paper and they're like
yeah, that right, I'll do thething with the retirement.
So me, I worked at my first jobfor two years and then, when I
moved to champion, I had to rollover my IRA into a champion's
new one and I only had like$2,000 in there, like maybe a
thousand dollars, after workingtwo years and making decent
money.
And I looked into it why Iwasn't doing any matching.
I wasn't doing anything.
I was just like, yeah, I justlike do that minimum thing and I

(35:43):
paid it.
And so next step is like okay,so say you have, like those
things are not only done, butjust they're set Like something
is going towards those, and sayyou have an extra little bit.
That's like okay, I want toeither feel better, that I'm
doing something with my money tomake it grow over time, or what
do I look at next?
I'm guessing it's somethingwith IRAs and 401ks, but I mean,
this is where you couldprobably teach better than I

(36:04):
could.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yes.
So the one caveat I'll make tothe list that we started here is
that, even before, I would say,your emergency fund or paying
off credit card debt, if youhave a match, if you work for an
employer that has a 401k andthey match a certain percentage
of your money, so if youcontribute 3% of your salary,

(36:25):
they match that at 3%.
That is free money.
That's part of yourcompensation.
Think about it this way If youwere making $100,000 and you
have a 3% match, that means thatif you really contribute, that
your employer is going to matchup to 3% of your salary.
So this is an additional $3,000.
So by not taking the match,you're basically saying,
actually, I'd like to make$3,000 less this year.

(36:48):
That's really what you'resaying when you reject the match
.
So it's really really importantto take the match regardless,
because otherwise you'regenuinely like leaving part of
your compensation on the table,and am I wrong?

Speaker 1 (36:59):
This is where the murky waters for me.
Isn't there some sort of way toget a tax deduction on, like if
you max that out, do youcontribute more?
Am I wrong here, or is theresomething I should call my
accountant?
Probably?

Speaker 2 (37:09):
No, you're not wrong.
So the amazing thing aboutretirement accounts like 401ks
or 403bs are pretty common inthe healthcare industry.
Those are employer sponsoredaccounts and when you contribute
to them you can save taxes inone of two ways.
The most common way is thatwhen you contribute, you
actually get to deduct how muchyou contributed from the amount

(37:31):
you owe not owe the IRS, but theamount the IRS will tax you on.
So if you made $100,000 and youcontributed $10,000 to your
401k, you can deduct that fromyour gross income.
And the government will say oh,I see, you made $100,000, but
you contributed $10,000 to your401k, so we're only going to tax
you on that $90,000, but youcontributed $10,000 to your 401k
, so we're only going to tax youon that $90,000.

(37:52):
We're going to deduct that$10,000.
So contributing to anemployer-sponsored plan not only
can very often give you a matchbut also helps you save on
taxes and helps you grow yourmoney for retirement.
So it's really like awin-win-win and something that
you don't want to sleep on.
Like we can do a whole episodeon retirement accounts.

(38:13):
I won't go like too granularhere, but understanding the
basics of whatever your employersponsored plan is so, so
important, and I see people allthe time not understand the
value of contributing to theseaccounts and that also, by the
way, is not your fault.
The education around this isnot great, which is why I do
what I do and I go intocompanies and I talk to their

(38:33):
employees about their employersponsored plans.
Like HR is not.
They're not financeprofessionals, right.
And they're the onesadministering the account.
It's not their fault that theydon't.
They don't have a financialeducation either, so it's just
kind of a kind of a messysituation, because these 401ks
are relatively new tool.
They replaced pensions andthere wasn't the education to go

(38:56):
along with them.
So it's really important youdon't sleep on this.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, that makes sense, right?
This is probably the first timethat someone runs into a
financial turn of 401k andthey're looking at their
paperwork.
They have no idea what it means.
But this leaning in a littlebit is because, to your point,
what you're saying is not onlyare you getting free money from
a match, but you're also gettinga tax deduction from
contribution.
That's a ton of money at the endof the year that you can maybe
not have to pay to then put moreinto your, your uh payoffs,

(39:25):
right For high interest rates.
So and I reason this isimportant is because starting
something early and automatingit right, there's like this
compounding interest becauseyou're going to retire in what?
50 years or 40 years orwhatever, something about having
anything forward in the market.
Compounding interest, the sameway it works against you with a
high loan interest rate, willwork with you when you're
investing in the stock market,because these things are often
index funds or things like that.
And you said it grows 12% overthe year.

(39:47):
So if you just do anything $50a week or $100 a week and you
can spare that that math outover 30 years of compounding
interest.
Can you maybe just touch uponwhy people should even think
about the thought process forretirement.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, this is super important, especially the
earlier you can get to thisplace of investing, even if
you're only investing a couplehundred bucks a month, or even
50 bucks a month just to getstarted.
Compound interest is the mostpowerful mathematical equation
that exists.
But it's hard to evencomprehend how powerful it is

(40:22):
because when you look atcompound interest, it's
something we probably learned inninth grade and skipped over
and never looked at again.
The way that you make moneywhen you're investing in your
401k is that you're, first ofall, your money's invested in
the stock market.
So that's the first thing youneed to realize is like, your
401k or 403b is an investingaccount.
It's an opportunity for you tomake money through investing.
So if you have one of theseaccounts, you want to start

(40:44):
thinking about yourself as aninvestor.
But what's also super importantis how compound interest works
and the length of time that yourmoney is invested.
So we could do a couple ofdifferent examples here.
But if you start investing asmall amount, let's say you
invested like $200 a month whenyou got out of college, when you

(41:05):
were 22.
And you invested that for like40 years and you never increased
how much you invested.
You just invested like 40 bucksa month, with the average
return of the stock market anddoing some like rough math here,
you'd have like over 600,000 inretirement just by putting like
200 bucks away.
Yeah Right, when you start at22,.
If you wait and do that, youknow in your forties, so you're

(41:28):
42 and you're like, oh, I'mgoing to start putting some
money away you end up with anadditional $100,000.
That's a half a million dollardifference, right?
So the compound interest istough because when you first
start contributing to investingaccounts, it doesn't feel like
your money is growing that much.
But once you get to like 10, 20,30 years out, your money starts
to compound on itself and themoney that you earned 20, 30

(41:49):
years out your money starts tocompound on itself and that the
money that you earned.
So let's say like really simplecompound interest example,
let's say one year youcontribute a thousand dollars to
your account and you got like a10% return.
Now you have $1,100 in thataccount.
If you get the same return on$1,100, you're going to continue
to get more and more money andthat's basically like the
snowball effect.
So we could do the math and Iactually have a compound

(42:13):
interest calculator and one ofmy free mini courses, because I
believe that every human shouldjust spend like five minutes
playing with a compound interestcalculator because it will
completely change the way youthink about investing and make
you realize that that extra like50 bucks a week into your
retirement account istranslating to potentially
hundreds of thousands of dollarsin retirement.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Super important.
Nice, that's great.
Okay, so I think I have thelist now.
I'm just kind of we're runningout.
So one is audit your lifestyleright For in and out cashflow,
and then we have on that.
You know not, don't live in ahole and don't spend money.
But don't live in a hole anddon't spend money, but don't
blow your money right on thingsthat are maybe not that
important to impress otherpeople or things like that.
Maybe try to pick up some extrashifts or find some hours that

(42:55):
you can do some extra work toget a little extra side hustle
in Cause if you save 200 andgain 300, you're at a net of 500
bonus per month that you can dosomething with.
Right, and then I would evenadd here too, is that like
investing in education andincreasing your skillset as a
healthcare provider is a hugepositive ROI to become more
valuable.
Right, and I'll just be verytransparent I spent a dumb

(43:18):
amount of money on con edcourses my first two years out
of school for reasons we go into, but I highly think that the
amount of time that I investedinto my own education is what
ultimately got me a great jobworking at champion and working
with really high level athletesthat I love and I enjoy my job,
so I work harder at it and Ikind of have that positive
flywheel.
But I felt like at the clinic Ididn't have enough education.

(43:38):
So I was like, okay, educationis one thing I don't mind
spending money on and myemployers helped me out, they
helped me pay for some of thatstuff.
So I think spending less onstupid stuff and then increasing
your hours of output for truemoney in is good.
But also don't be afraid to youknow, value yourself as a
higher skill set and be a morevaluable clinician or whatever,
and then fight for yourself toget you know more, more money
per hour.

(43:59):
So I think it's reallyimportant.
But then, after that, right the401k match very important to
start early because ofcompounded interest, and then
emergency fund and then highpercentage credit card loans and
then high percentage loansthemselves.
It sounds like those fivethings for I would say that's at
least the first five years youknow, for the person who's a new
grad, who's just coming out.
If you just sat down andfigured that out, I think you'd
be leaps and bounds ahead ofother people or yourself if you

(44:21):
didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yes, yes, 100%.
Again, even if I think a lot ofpeople put off the investing
because they have so much instudent loans.
But if you have low intereststudent loans and when I say low
interest I mean like anything6% or less you definitely should
start investing, even if it'ssmall amounts of money, because,

(44:43):
again, the average return ofthe stock market is actually 10%
.
I like to be extra conservative.
So if we subtract for inflation, it's like 7-ish percent, a
little bit more than that.
So that's an opportunity foryou to make money.
If you have debt that's higherthan that.
I think the best example ofthis is like if you have like
high interest debt and you'reinvesting, it's kind of like
you're running up a really fastescalator, right, like you're

(45:04):
making an escalator escalator.
Yeah, yeah, you're right,you're right.
That sounded so weird in myhead.
You don't run up an elevator.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
You run up an escalator, okay Okay.
So I don't know why thatsounded like a foreign word.
You should run in place in anelevator, which is a different
metaphor, but that is adifferent.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
That does not sound good at all.
So if you run in place in anelevator, you're not paying
enough towards your credit carddebt, or something.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
I don't know.
I think running in a place inan elevator is buying a lot of
dumb shit.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yes, totally, on a high interest credit card.
Yeah, on a 20% interest creditcard while you don't match your
401k?
Yes, exactly yes, you don'twant to do that.
But once you have gotten rid ofyour high interest debt, you
definitely want to startinvesting, and it can be okay to
pay closer to the minimums toyour student loans if the
interest is really low.
So that's one thing I seepeople do is they wait to start
investing until they're in their40s or 50s because they think

(45:59):
they have to be totally debtfree.
And that's just not true.
And it's not something you wantto do because you want to take
advantage of that compoundinterest that we were talking
about.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Okay, and I think probably the last little
dovetail here is to say, likeyou're, you're crushing all
these things as a new grad anddoing all the right things and
you you finally have likeactually some head above water
where you have money to do, andthis will dovetail into like
actual investing, maybe stuff.
So I think the right answer isthat you find just like an index
fund and you dump the $50 extraNow you have from working your
per diem shifts.
After all those other thingsare taken care of.

(46:27):
It's the same compoundinginterest.
Because the thing I didn'trealize is that 401k is an index
fund, oftentimes throughVanguard or whatever, and you
just have another side.
Is it an IRA, like a simple IRA?
Is it like the actual indexfunds?
Like, if somebody wants toinvest a little bit now they're
five years out, they've choppeddown a huge amount of this and
they want to actually make alittle bit of money, what do
they do now?

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Yeah, so we can back up a little bit and talk about
the investing ecosystem.
So when you go to invest, thefirst thing you do if you're not
investing through an employersponsored account is to find a
brokerage, which is just a placeyou can buy and sell
investments.
And then what gets peopletripped up all the time is that

(47:06):
there's two things you reallyneed to make decisions on.
The first thing is what type ofaccount you want to use.
So if you are working with anemployer and you have a 401k or
403b, the account's alreadychosen for you.
They've chosen this accountthat's going to help you save on
taxes, which is great.
And so inside that account, ifyou have no idea what you're

(47:26):
invested in, you're invested infunds which are groups of stocks
, usually inside your 401k or403b.
So 401k and 403b IRAs all theseacronyms they're all containers
for your investments.
They're not investmentsthemselves.
So when you say I invest in a401k, technically that's not

(47:47):
true.
You contribute to a 401k andthen the money is invested in
something in that 401k.
And if you don't know what it'sinvested in, then they've
probably chosen a defaultinvestment for you, which is
something you definitely want tolearn about, but we'll get to
that.
So that's the first thing tounderstand is 401ks, roth IRAs,
all of these accounts.
These are just accounts thathelp you save on taxes.

(48:08):
So the first thing you want todo when you're starting to focus
on investing if your goal is toinvest for retirement,
investing in accounts that helpyou save on taxes is a great way
to invest, because you'resaving money and you're growing
your money for retirement, andif you don't need to use that
money anytime in the near future, then it's okay to have it
locked in a retirement accountfor many years.

(48:30):
So the first thing you want todo is take advantage of whatever
you already have, which is your401k, potentially a 403b,
something like that and then youcan look into other types of
accounts that help you save ontaxes, like a Roth IRA or a SEP
IRA if you're self-employed.
One really important thing and Ialready said this, but I'm
going to double tap on itbecause I've seen this happen a

(48:50):
lot is that these types ofaccounts, again, they're not
investments, they're justcontainers.
So a mistake I see all the timeis people will open an IRA and
contribute to it for years andthink that they're investing,
but your IRA, again, it's just acontainer that helps you save
on taxes.
It's not investment.
So inside those accounts, youneed to choose some investments.

(49:12):
And then this is where I loseeveryone, dave, and everyone
starts panicking.
They're like, oh my God, I haveto choose investments.
This sounds awful, and here'sthe great news is that there are
so many ways to invest thatrequire you to make little to no
decisions.
There are what I like to callthe variety pack of investing.
You can invest in funds thathold a bunch of different stocks

(49:34):
and a bunch of different bonds,and all you have to do is pick
roughly the date you thinkyou're going to retire and this
is called a target date fund ora lifecycle fund and you can
invest in that.
And that's an example ofsomething that's super, super
simple, that doesn't require youto like pay attention to the
stock market and time the market.
You just invest in the varietypack of investing.

(49:56):
So that's really important tounderstand is like if you're
like, oh, I want to invest, butI'm really nervous about
choosing investments, there arethose packaged and prepackaged
investments for you, basically,and then, in addition to that,
there are also now incredibleservices that, for a super low
fee, you put in some informationabout yourself when you're

(50:17):
going to retire and they'llchoose investments for you.
So don't let investing as awhole, like the idea of picking
stocks or picking investments,hold you back from this at all,
because something I hostworkshops on this all the time
and something I tell my studentswhen they get nervous about
this is the average return ofthe stock market over time is

(50:37):
10%.
So you can invest in an averageportfolio that just holds
basically all the stocks in thestock market and get the average
of the stock market.
And that doesn't require timingthe market.
It doesn't require a lot ofmoney you can start with like 10
bucks if that's all you haveand it doesn't require you to
pick anything specific.
So just to like myth bust oninvesting, you don't have to be

(51:02):
a genius to invest.
You don't need an economics PhD.
This is a good metaphor.
This is better than theescalator one.
So I think when people think ofinvesting, they think about
like if you're thinking about inthe context of a car, you have
to be a mechanic and you have tounderstand how the engine works
and the I can't even like thinkof depth carburetor.
Thank you Like other pistons, Idon't know what else is in the

(51:22):
car.
So, like that, you have to belike a mechanic to invest.
You just have to learn thebasics.
You have to be able to drivethe car like get in the car,
have your license, follow theroad signs.
That's the level ofunderstanding you have to have
to start investing in thesesuper simple things that I'm
talking about.
So don't let that stop you.
But that's the order really is.
When you start to get to aplace where you have some extra

(51:44):
money, it's taking advantage ofthose accounts that help you
save on taxes first, and thenfinding super simple ways to
invest and then, if you want toget fancy later and do other
stuff, that's cool.
But don't wait to learn all thethings before you start invest.
It's not worth it.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah, I think it's all super helpful and I don't
know, maybe I'm just like theposter child of this, because
for eight years I literally didnone of this.
For eight years I run the map.
Maybe it was blissful ignorance, Maybe I just didn't have Mike
yelling at me yet loud enough.
But I was like, if I likethere's no amount of investing,
I think I can do, or specialthings I can learn to outpay
these 10, 11, 9% debts.
So for eight years I literallyjust, you know, worked a bit

(52:22):
more, tried to pay a bit more,tried to increase my, my value
as a clinician.
And then when I got my job atChampion, you know, I was like
hustling like crazy to try tomake things work, building like
a business in the background oreveryone.
No one has to build a business,but just different things you
can do.
You can teach on the side, LikeI know one of our clinicians
teaches an anatomy lab like oneday per week and that helps them
out too as well.
So I think like that's the bigthing I did for eight years was

(52:42):
just like chop it down in a hugedent in it.
And then when the pandemic came,of course everything kind of
changed and Mike Reynolds, likethree years ago, was like listen
, you need to learn everythingyou possibly can about investing
, because the stock market wasimploding at the time.
He's like you need to just stopand just take the same approach
to your physical therapyknowledge that you have done and
just like, inhale podcasts andbooks.

(53:02):
And that's just what I did forlike maybe like six months.
I was like all the books, allthe podcasts, whatever I can
possibly find, Because at thatpoint I had gone from 200 to I
don't remember what it was, butthe math just didn't make sense
to keep paying off the lowinterest rates when I could be
potentially investing in thestock market or doing things
with 401ks that would give me ahuge return, right.
And so at that point I pivotedand I was like Okay, I have some

(53:23):
breathing room, I've done somestuff and now I can think about,
you know, maybe maxing out morehere or getting an IRA or stuff
like that.
So for someone on the otherside of it, like it took me
eight years before I actuallystarted doing more than the
basic 401k and like a little bitof index funds.
I literally just did that foreight years.
It was not fancy until I foundlike I got to a point where I
could learn a bit more.
Maybe I just had to get to aplace where I felt better about

(53:43):
it.
But yeah, for like five toseven years you could just do
that as a new grad and just knowyou're doing something positive
for yourself in the future.
And then, when you get to be 30years old or 35, and you have a
new situation, you can approachit more.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's the thing is I want to
give everyone a permission slipto.
You have to learn the basics.
You have to learn the basics ofinvesting in super simple index
funds.
If you don't know what an indexfund is, google it after this
episode.
But basically, it's a fund, aninvestment that holds a bunch of
different stocks.
That's a super simple way todescribe it, and it's super low

(54:18):
on fees.
It's a super simple way toinvest.
That's the easiest way to startinvesting, and some people will
do that forever and they'llnever invest in anything else.
Some people will never choosetheir own investments and
they'll go with the roboadvisors that will choose the
investments for them, and that'salso okay.
Those people, as long asthey're contributing
consistently, they're going todo better than the majority of

(54:39):
everyone else.
That's not doing anything.
So doing something when itcomes to investing in the stock
market, well, I would say doingsomething like investing in an
index fund or a robo-advisor isso much better than paralysis,
analysis and waiting until youlearn all the things.
You could read one or two booksand start to do some of this
stuff and implement them.

(55:00):
You don't need to be an expertto be very successful.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah, that's great.
And so I think, before we gointo maybe the end of this,
which is more, not high level,but just like you've gotten
farther in your career and youhave more options I think
something I want to make sure Itouch on that I hear that's not
my situation is young new gradswho happen to have you know
they're engaged, they're,they're going to be engaged in
the next three to four years.
They're getting a job orwhatever, so that you know they
have a wedding to plan for, theyhave a honeymoon, they're maybe

(55:24):
going to have kids.
You know, when they're in theirupper 30s, like their early 30s
, they want to have their firstkid or second kid.
I don't live in a house, I'm notmarried, I don't have kids, so
I don't empathize with them atall.
Obviously it's a little bitdifferent.
But what would be the situationfor somebody who's that so?
Say they're like 27 or 28.
And they've done some of of awedding or a honeymoon, like?
I think there's two parts here.
One is how do you have thatconversation with a significant

(55:53):
other who maybe is that'sterrifying to them or like
nobody wants to talk about itand it's just an awkward, you
know, elephant in the room andthen practically maybe like what
are the things to approach that?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Yeah.
So I mean, even before theconversation with the couple,
doing some real deep reflectionon why you want those things.
Maybe not so much the kids, butlike the house.
And the kids is totally fine,have the kids, that's great.
But like the house, for example, and the big wedding and the
big honeymoon and all this stuff.

(56:24):
This is super expensive thingsand a lot of us feel pressure
from society to get a house Likeit's a sign of success, to buy
a house that you know that's amarker that you've made it.
Having a big, big wedding isimportant because our aunt Sue
really wants to be there for usor whatever it is at the wedding

(56:46):
and Sue just wants to gethammered at the open bar, and so
what I say, all this is not tojudge, because if you want a big
white wedding and that's beenyour dream since you were young
that's fine, but I do think youreally have to be clear that
those are all things that youreally, really want and that you

(57:06):
want and need them in arelatively short amount of time,
because there are a lot ofpeople very happily renting, and
when you rent you don't have todeal with roofs, you don't have
to deal with upkeep, you don'thave to deal with a lot of stuff
that's very expensive when youown a house, and so or maybe you
get married and you push offthe dream honeymoon later, when

(57:30):
your kids are older or something.
So I think that there's.
The first thing that I want tojust say is there is so much
pressure from especially socialmedia to do the things, the
American dream with the houseand the kids and the fence and
the dog, and the wedding and thehoneymoon and all the stuff,
and it is really expensive andit is hard, it's very hard to do

(57:50):
all of those things withoutgoing into debt based on just
the price of things right now,on the average salary.
So I think you want to getcreative and this goes back to
what we've already talked abouta little bit is your values and
what's most important to you andthen so now that I've gotten my
soapbox out of the way on onchoosing what matters to you and
not listening to other people,not caring what other people

(58:12):
think this that's a reallyimportant money skill actually
is not caring and by the way,like when you see, when you see
people on Instagram with, liketheir dream massive wedding at
the fanciest hotel or like theirbeautiful new kitchen, a lot of
those people are in debt.
We look at those people and wethink, like they have made it.
A lot of them are in debt.

(58:33):
So try to remember that whenyou see stuff on social.
So that's the first thing.
Now I'm off my soapbox.
The second thing is that whenyou have these conversations, if
you are in a partnership, samething getting really clear on
goals.
Talking about money can be verytricky and, depending on how you
both grew up, you could havevery, very different
relationships with money.
So really important to askquestions of your partner Like

(58:58):
what was it like growing up?
And like if your partner isspending a lot of money, before
you get mad at them becausethey're spending a lot of money.
One like find out a little bitmore about why they're spending
the money.
Maybe they grew up really poorand now they have money and
they're so grateful for that andthey want to enjoy it.
Right, that would help give yousome empathy and context into
what they're doing.

(59:18):
So one I think understandingeach other's money stories and
money narratives is number one,and that will help frame every
conversation in a moreproductive way.
And then, following that isaligning on your goals what's
important to you and what'simportant individually, and how
are you going to map that out?
And and that will help so muchso many couples don't talk about

(59:42):
money even until not until likeafter they're married, and so
some other advice that youdidn't ask before is like have
the money conversations as soonas possible, and if you can't
have those conversations earlyin a relationship and you know
financial independence andfinancial security is important
to you, that's a bit of a redflag, right.
Like that's something you needto understand, like most

(01:00:02):
relationships, and I think thesecond most popular reason
relationships end is because ofmoney.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yeah, it's infidelity and money.
I actually just looked this up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Oh, you did.
Yeah, it's number two, right,yeah, so money Outside of
infidelity or issues with money.
Yeah, so those are the first twothings.
So then, once you've done allof that and you've heeded my
advice and you remember thatyour friend's brand new kitchen
might've been put on a Visa card, once you've done all that,
then you can decide what'simportant to you and start

(01:00:32):
automatically saving for that.
So if you guys have deciding,have decided like we're gonna
have the kids and we're gonnaput off the house until later,
but we really want to have thislike dope ass party for our stew
with the open bar, then a partof your paycheck goes into
something where you can holdmoney in the relative short term
.
That's not at risk.

(01:00:53):
So I wouldn't necessarilyinvest that money, but something
like a high yield savingsaccount, which is just basically
a better savings account thathelps you get a higher interest
rate.
So pro tip if you don't have ahigh yield savings account, that
is a piece of your homeworkafter this episode.
It takes like 15 minutes toopen one and you get a better
rate on the money that you holdin there for doing nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
So not to jump in, but when I made the change from,
say, like paying off loans tothat the amount of money I had
in my emergency fund, I put itin a new high yield savings
account which was trying to becompetitive with the fed, and so
it was a 5%.
So the amount of money I madeper month in my savings account
was paying for my loans.
That's how I was like I wasmaking the same amount that my
interest rates were.
So I could be like, okay, now Ican just, at least nothing's

(01:01:36):
happening, it's paying off theinterest rates for these next
two years and I can focus oninvesting.
But yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
No, that's great.
Yeah, high yield savingsaccount that has a higher rate
and a lot of the banks that havethese are still federally
insured, so you know they'rebacked by the US government.
They're FDIC insured.
That's what you want to lookfor.
But those accounts give you ahigher rate of return and the

(01:02:02):
rate of return fluctuates.
But even if it drops to 3%,that's much better than the
0.01% you're getting in whateverregular bank account that
you're in.
So any kind of saving, like youremergency fund is a great thing
to hold in a high yield savingsaccount.
Short term savings, whetherit's for like honeymoon planning
or down payment for a house,high yield savings accounts are

(01:02:23):
great for that Basically anyexpense that you want to start
saving for in the next, I'd saylike three or so years high
yield savings accounts Greatoption.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yeah, this is good, and I think the same
conversation around when you'rea new grad and you have those
first two years, right, if youreally want to chop down your
debt and not be buried by it,you're going to have to make
sacrifices elsewhere.
You're doing the same thingwith another human who has the
shared goal that you write Likewhen you have this conversation.
The goal obviously is to findwhat you align on and be like
okay, well, we're both committedto.
I mean again, no judgment onanything.

(01:02:54):
Maybe it's like the crazywedding with aunt Sue and it's
the dream honeymoon to go toItaly or whatever, like.
For some people, that's justthat they want this baller house
, house.
For some people, they want towork three days and go part-time
because they want to raise akid, like.
I know some friends of mine thatthe same exact conversation was
like okay, we're not going togo ball or wedding, we're not
going to go crazy honeymoon,we're not going to do anything
too lavish with that, but thatwill allow me to work part-time

(01:03:15):
three days per week, per diem,and stay home with the kids,
cause I want to raise the kids,I want to be a mom.
So that's equally as okay asthe other one.
But again the conversation.
So if you're going to go forthe wedding honeymoon, right,
that means that you're going to,you know, be very aggressive in
terms of not spending money outright on Uber Eats three times
a week.
You're not going to be at thebar on Friday.

(01:03:35):
You're not going to be buying asecond dog because you think
he's cute on Instagram right,you're not going to be taking
Saturdays off.
You might each be and basicaddition, subtraction If we're
going to go 50K weddinghoneymoon, it's got to come from
somewhere, right, definitelynot going on a credit card
that's going to be stuck thereforever.
So anything is okay.
I think that's the key here,that anything is okay.

(01:03:56):
If you're at this point whereyou've gone through all these
things you've recommended andyou have these big rock goals
that you want, it's totally fine.
Agree, that's what you careabout and that's what matters to
you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yeah, absolutely, and I will say that you know there
is some with with partners.
It's a little easier when it'sby yourself, cause if you're
like I want the Beamer andthat's important, you know you
can save for that with.
Your partner might not valuethat as much.
And that's why thoseconversations are so important

(01:04:26):
earlier.
Cause if you're five years insaving for a wedding and your
girl goes out and gets like ag-wagon, I don't want to make I
don't know why I made it a girlexample.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
It could be a girl or guy by the way, the
anti-narrative of like the malestereotype, you know yeah, yeah,
exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
I guess that's why.
Um, yeah, if you're, if yourguy goes out and buys a five
thousand dollar purse, like, orwhatever you know, whatever it
is you, those are theconversations you need to have
early on, because that's thekind of stuff.
And then that's the kind ofstuff also that leads to
financial infidelity, which is awhole nother can of worms.
So make sure you talk aboutmoney, talk about it all the

(01:05:01):
time.
Having a monthly money date issuper valuable, like once a
month, get takeout, sit downwith the person you care about
and just go over your expenses,see where you're at, talk about
what's coming up for the month.
Just doing that alone couldchange your life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Right, this is good.
This list is killer, by the way.
But just to recap people, right, we're going to audit our
lifestyle, make more money, pickup shifts, increase your skills
.
401k match is two.
Emergency fund is three.
High percent credit card isfour.
High percent loans is five.
If you have extra money afterthat, auto index funds, right
then we're going.
Six seven is the hold on.
I did this.

(01:05:36):
Six seven is the high yieldsavings.
Account for big rocks byyourself or with your partner.
Right, we're doing pretty good.
This is a pretty solid run atit.
You know, I think ira is inthere somewhere too, like maybe
that was what I missed like a rIRA.
But okay, cool, I think we haveall that pretty good.
So is there anything else?
Because I think that's thefirst 10 years of most people's
career is going to be like 20 to30, right, is they're going to

(01:05:57):
try to chop down all thesethings, maybe to 35?
And then it kind of shifts intoa different person who's trying
to maintain or make a lot ofmoney in the back half of their
career.
So is there any other partingadvice to maybe this like 35, 30
and under crew that's probablyshitting their pants at their
loans.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
I would say, just like super general advice is, as
you start to go on this moneyjourney, two things.
One is starting to understandbasic economic cycles, because
as you start to focus on yourmoney, you're going to hear all
this news Like, if you startcontributing to your 401k or an

(01:06:36):
IRA, you will hear, inevitablywithin the next month, all this
news that's like stock marketcrash, global financial market
meltdown, and you're going tohear this stuff all the time and
it can sound really scary.
You're going to hear stuffabout inflation all the time,
and understanding really whatthat means for you is really
important.
People freak out aboutinflation, but they don't

(01:06:57):
actually know how it's impactingtheir money.
People will freak out aboutinflation but they don't
actually know how it's impactingtheir money.
People will freak out about thestock market, like my friend's
mom.
She was investing in her IRA and401k and back in August of 2024
, the stock market had like aweird week.
It like dropped by 4% and Iactually went on Fox 5 News and
they like invited me as aninvesting expert to come talk

(01:07:19):
about like the crashing stockmarket and it was very dramatic
and all the headlines were likebig red letters and I calmly
explained, look like the stockmarket fluctuates, but over time
we know the stock market goesup and the newscaster even
commented on the fact that I wascalm and by the end of the week
the stock market had recoveredand was a percent higher than it

(01:07:40):
was before.
That doesn't mean it's alwaysgoing to be great Like we're
going to go through recessions,like the stock market is going
to crash.
That stuff is going to happen.
So, understanding that ifyou're focusing on your money
for the longterm, those thingsare going to happen and that's
okay and you want to stay thecourse.
And that's why education is soimportant, because it helps you
make smart decisions for you andyour goals and make sure that

(01:08:02):
you don't react to market news.
So you don't have to be anexpert, you don't have to be an
economist, but this is the stuffI teach in like free investing
workshops or read like one bookabout personal finance.
You'll learn some of this stuffand it'll totally change your
perspective.
So that's the first thing Iwould say is just like a basic
understanding of that kind ofthing and then really just

(01:08:24):
focusing on controlling what youcan control, and then the last
thing that I'll double tap on isjust really thinking of money
as a tool and how important itis for safety, security,
independence, all those thingsthat we mentioned and that
what's at stake if you take itseriously and realize that you
are completely capable ofcontrolling your money and no

(01:08:45):
one will care about your moneymore than you do.
So before you go as a cautionarytale, as somebody that did this
, before you go give all yourmoney to a financial advisor
that's your friend's, mom'sfinancial advisor or whatever
you really want to understandthe basics, because not all
financial professionals are madeequal.
You can learn a lot of thebasics on your own and do really

(01:09:06):
really well.
So before you go out and justhire someone to manage your
stuff for you, if you are in aplace to start investing, you
really got to learn the basicsbecause you can get pretty
screwed pretty easily and that'swhy I love doing education is
because I help people not getscrewed all the time.
So no one cares about yourmoney more than you.
I'll end on that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Yeah, and I think that you know the same way that
somebody would take a maybe twoweeks to learn about the basics
of their interest rates and allthese 401k match things, like
that same kind of grunt workthat has to happen in the front
end.
You just kind of repeat thatcycle, uh, 10 years later or
seven years later or whatever,when you're in a different spot
where it's not about justkeeping your head above water
and paying off your loans, it'sabout actually growing money for
yourself over time or kind ofgrowing towards bigger goals.

(01:09:44):
And that's exactly what I wentthrough is three years ago.
I was in a position where I hadpaid enough down in the first
eight years that I was like okay, I think you know one pushed
over the hill by the COVIDsituation and the stock market
itself and Mike, but I was likeokay.
Well, now I think that if Iunderstand how you know
liquidity cycles work, or thefed what is the fed?
What is this?
Like you know boogeyman thatmakes things go up and down and

(01:10:04):
makes inflation happen, likewhat is inflation?
I just needed to get like thebasics of those terminologies
down and understand what washappening with interest rates
and what was happening with youknow, uh, uh, the fed and stuff
like that.
And it wasn't like I needed aeconomics degree.
I just need to know that like,okay, I got it.
Like when this, when they dothis, it's because of this
inflation issue and it makes itso people can't borrow a lot of
money, so it makes things likethe economy slows down, people

(01:10:26):
can't go on lavish trips.
Like I started to just get thebasics of these things and I
think that's where most peoplein their 30, 35, 40 will be is.
You know, they hear thesethings on like you know doom and
gloom on the stock market, butthey don't know what that means
to them.
They don't know.
Like, okay, like, do I investmore now and do I not?
Do I wait?
Like, do I like sit on myphones?
And it's hilarious?
You mentioned that my mom I lovemy mom.
She's never gonna listen to usin her entire life, right?

(01:10:53):
My mom is 70.
Right, so my mom's in adifferent financial spot than me
.
She has a lot of money fromtalk a bit more and she would
ask me questions, which was aterrible idea because I just
knew just not to be dangerous.
But then now she thinks thatI'm like a finance person, so
every time the stock marketmoves up and down, she goes.
She's like how's the marketdoing?
How's the NASDAQ?
You know what's going on withthe Fed did interest rates.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
I'm like Mom what programs.
All the time, and even afterpeople have learned about it,
they'll come back to me and sayoh well, my friend said I should
invest in this because thestock market is high, or low or
whatever, and it's really easyto get influenced by other
people, and what I always say is, like look at the end of the
day, no one knows what's goingto happen.
Like the amount of people thatsaid in January 2023, we were

(01:11:46):
going into recession, like bankof America, wells Fargo, the St
Louis federal reserve all thesemassive financial institutions
with incredible financialbrainpower all predicted a
recession and the stock marketwent up like 25% that year.
They were so wrong.
So like that's not becausethey're not smart, it's just
because it's incredibly hard topredict what's going to happen

(01:12:07):
in the world every year.
And so if they can't get itright, your friend Kyle doesn't
know what it is either.
So that's the first.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Chad.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Maybe it's Chad I don't know, but your friend Chad
Kyle, they don't know what'sgoing on.
So that's the first thing.
And the second thing is I'm aninvesting professional and
educator.
I've been investing in thestock market, in real estate, I
invest in venture capital, Iinvest in all kinds of stuff.
The amount of times that Ichange what I'm doing because of
the news is so infrequent.

(01:12:40):
Yeah that I change what I'mdoing because of the news is so
infrequent so infrequent almostnever.
Unless, it's a super small partof my portfolio that's
speculative, which means juststuff I'm having fun with that.
I'm not trying to worry aboutwhat that return is going to be,
but for the majority of myretirement stuff, I don't pay
any attention to the news interms of how I do decision

(01:13:02):
making right, because I'minvesting for the long term, for
retirement, for flexibility andall that.
So that's really important isto make sure that you learn
enough to not get swayed.
Negative news sells so well, soyou're always going to hear
negativity.
Like even with the election.
People are freaking out aboutthe stock market in an election
year.
The stock market actually doespretty well in election years.

(01:13:23):
Usually it's up at like 9%, buteveryone's panicking because
the news is making it a thingand it's not a thing.
So, yeah, that basic educationis really valuable and most of
the time focusing on your stuff,like just not tuning out the
noise, that's going to help youget the furthest.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Yeah, I think the reality is that, for anyone
who's listening to this isinterested, is that what
typically happens and thishappened to me and I think other
people as well is that you justdo these basics right and then
all of a sudden, you hear aboutNvidia going up a bajillion
percent and somebody making ashit ton of money, right.
Or somebody else like ShortsGameStop, right, because of like
boring kitty, right, they makea ton of money.
Or like, yeah, I think this isthe perfect timing not to date
this.
But it's like all we hear aboutcurrently, with politics like

(01:14:03):
the fed and like inflation andtrump's tariffs and like the
recession coming and like allthis stuff.
And you hear all this and youthink, oh, my god, I have to do
something right now, like thisis the moment.
But I think that people Ididn't realize this until I read
more it's like it's all drivenby like ai keywords and
professional traders withalgorithms that like this, then
this, then this.
It's not somebody down there,like waiting and like, okay, now
, okay, it's not how it workswith these people and like the

(01:14:25):
vast majority of these traders,are these people who are getting
completely cooked becausethey're reacting to the
emotional news.
They are, you know, either notsmart or they're doing it with,
like you said, money that is notreally unfortunate or,
fortunately for them, is notlike this, like what they need
to survive.
So, and fortunately for them,is not like this, like what they
need to survive.
So us mere plebs who havenormal jobs and don't want to
stare at like lines all day, youknow we just want to invest

(01:14:46):
stuff and kind of forget aboutit.
And I think for the vastmajority of people it's cool to
understand what your money'sdoing with the election or with
interest rates, or like the Fedand like all that kind of stuff.
But, like, if you're genuinelyinterested in it like I was
genuinely interested in learningabout this it's cool to learn
more beyond the basics.
But if not, live your liferight, the point of doing this
is like setting up an auto saleyou can enjoy your time with
your kids, enjoy your job, go ona fricking hike.
Like, go do things you like.

(01:15:06):
As healthcare providers, weprobably don't want to deal with
this unless we're really,really interested in business.
I own a business, so I wantedto learn.
But everybody else like goenjoy your life, go do stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
Yeah, yeah, you don't need to spend.
I think when you know I hostthese beginner investing
workshops all the time andthey're all free and people come
to them with questions and somany of the questions are like
how much time will this take meand how much time do I have to
spend?
And they envision, you know,sitting at their computer like
staring at charts, and the bestinvestors are the people that

(01:15:38):
auto, contribute into theseaccounts, invest in super simple
stuff and like leave it aloneand don't look at it for five to
10 years.
There was even a fidelity studywhere, like, some of the best
performing accounts were peoplethat had died because their
accounts were just left thereand they weren't like messing
with them, they were justsitting in the stock market.
So, yeah, there there issomething to be said for less is

(01:16:02):
more.
I know it's counterintuitive,right, because it's high
achievers which many people inthe healthcare industry are
You're?
like the more I do, the more I'mgoing to get back, and that's
true when it comes to yourincome.
When it comes to investing inthe stock market, it's actually
one of the only true ways tobuild passive income and to do
it in a way that's super simple.
So there is definitely less ismore when it comes to investing

(01:16:24):
it, certainly in the beginningat least.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Yeah.
And again, I think theremainder of this last little
bit of podcast is maybe likefive to 10% of people who really
want to go the extra mile.
But like, if you've gotten tothis point, you've done all
these things over, whateveryears.
Like like a benefit is likehave fun.
And then, if you really want togo the extra mile, like get
better at your craft, learn more, like be a better job, think
about opening a PT clinic ordoing something you enjoy in
your career, cause that is againhow you're going to have a

(01:16:48):
better return.
More so than like pick, likewaiting for the next NVIDIA
right and staring at your screenall day long, is just like go
work on your craftsmanship, yourskillset, and increase your
revenue that way.
And I think that most people inthe healthcare industry would be
.
You know, between having moretime for hobbies, things they
enjoy, and then also justgetting better at their job or
learning new stuff, that'sprobably what they care about
the most.
So like that's really thelesson for most people is like
just like, it's okay to be.

(01:17:08):
Like okay, I did this thing andit's auto-invested.
Like no, I want to make a good,solid chunk of more money over
my lifetime and they've done allthe things.
Is there any more practicaladvice for what they do with the
next step?
They have $1,000 a month nowwhere they're really cooking and

(01:17:29):
they want to do something withit and not just let it bleed
away from inflation on theirchecking account.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Yeah.
So I think to your point and Ithink it was well said.
It depends on what you want todo.
If you're at the point whereyou're auto saving for the
things that you need, you don'thave much debt, or at least it's
under control and you know whenthat's going to be paid off,
and you're investing and you'redoing all that stuff, then it's
a matter of what you want to dowith that extra money.
Depends on what you want to dowith your life.

(01:17:55):
If you want to retire early,maybe you also invest that money
.
If you want to use that to makea lot more money, then maybe
that is creating a business orinvesting in yourself or
upskilling, you know, or gettinginto other types of investing,
like real estate or, you know,investing in other companies.
There's so many ways to makemoney creatively.

(01:18:17):
But this is the permission slipto do what you want with that.
You know if, if you want toretire faster than invest it, if
you want to retire faster inthe easiest way, like invest it
and add it more to yourretirement accounts or open up a
regular old investing accountwhich is just called a taxable
brokerage account.
It's not a retirement account,it's just a regular account.
You could open that and investmore of your money in that.

(01:18:39):
You can invest in real estate.
You could open that and investmore of your money in that.
You can invest in real estate.
You could start a business.
Those are all different kindsof things you do, but I also
want to give you the permissionslip that you don't have to do
the thing because you check thebox, One of the things that a
lot of my students.
They get really excited.
They're investing in the stockmarket, they're maxing out their
retirement accounts, they'recontributing to a taxable
brokerage account which is justa regular old investing account,

(01:19:01):
and then they're like okay, Ithink I need to invest in real
estate.
Now.
My question is do you want todo that?
Yeah, Cause if you don't cause,real estate is not passive.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
I am a perfect example of that.
I did not have I think thoughtabout it Cause like, oh, this is
the next best step, and I was,like I looked at what it was,
like I don't wanna be a freakinglandlord, I don't wanna like
deal with someone's tenancy andstuff like that, like I'd rather
just work on my business orlike grow more the other way,
totally.
Yeah, I want to do real estate.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Yeah, this is the permission slip to not
necessarily do that.
I mean, if you want to.
I invested in real estate.
It was fantastic for me and myinvestments did really well.
I also benefited from markettiming because I started after
the 2008 housing crash.
So I started investing in realestate in 2013, which was a
perfect time to invest, andthat's accidental.

(01:19:48):
I wasn't a genius, that's justthe way my cards were dealt.
So if you wanted to invest inreal estate now, you could.
It's possible to be successful,but it's not easy.
It takes work to find the rightproperty.
It takes work to manage itright property it takes work to
manage it, unless you're rentingit out.
So you might want to dosomething else, like start a
business or donate that money orwhatever it is.

(01:20:10):
So I do think the one thing Iwill say is that, depending on
how old you are at this timedoes and I should have opened
with this to answer thisquestion Depending on how old
you are when you get to thisplace, you might need to catch
up for retirement.
So, just because you'recontributing maybe like $1,000
to your retirement accountsevery month and you have another

(01:20:31):
thousand if you're in your likemid thirties or forties and
you're just starting.
You want to add as much as youcan earlier because again you'll
benefit from that compoundinterest.
So one thing that I actuallyhave a free mini course on this
called journey to financialindependence and in it you can
calculate your financialindependence number and that

(01:20:54):
number is the number that youneed to retire comfortably,
based on your projected expenses.
This sounds super hard to do.
It's actually really easy.
I'm not going to go into themath just because it's hard on
podcast, but it's not hard to do.
But you want to make sure thefirst thing before you get fancy
with your investing is makesure you're on track for a
comfortable retirement beforeyou take a hard left and buy a

(01:21:15):
laundromat or whatever yourdream business is.
I don't know why that would bea dream business.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
I like laundromats.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
It's a great boring business.
It can be very profitable.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Yeah, that's what I'm putting in the end right now.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Yes, I love her.
She's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Okay, cool, yeah.
So I think we've kind of runthrough it and I think I don't
know.
The only thing that I think istimely right now for me to
mention is like the electionmakes you seem like if one
person wins, we're gonna die.
You know like the world's gonnaend, america's gonna end, the
economy's gonna fall apart,we're all gonna lose our savings
, like it's gonna be fine.
You know like it's gonna workitself out like I don't know,

(01:21:50):
like the closer and closer weget the election, the more and
more I run away from it, likeyou know.
But yeah, so my parting advicewould be like the election years
themselves and the year afterit always seem to be the most
insane because of what you know.
Either you're pissed thatsomebody didn't win and you say
this person's going to ruin theyou know the economy, or the
other way, you say this personwon and you're so happy they're
going to make your economy lifelike a dream come true, but
neither is going to matter inthe long run.

(01:22:11):
So, yeah, that's my only otherthing I want to add in.
But to end, are there any otherthings that we missed or things
that you have on your mind orthings that are important?

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
No, I think I would just say you know, we we ran
through so many different thingsand this can feel so
overwhelming.
You don't have to create aspending plan, learn how to be a
debt payoff expert and startinvesting in like one day.
So I would say, pick, pick thething that, based on what we
talked about, that you want todo, and take it one step at a

(01:22:41):
time.
You don't have to do all thesethings at once.
So if you're listening and youdon't have an emergency fund, in
case you run over some nailsand you have to get new tires,
that's where you want to focusyour energy first and get a
month or two of savings andstart there and break it up into
little goals.
If you have high interest debtbut you have an emergency fund,
that's where you go next.
So I think, not getting toooverwhelmed with the amount of

(01:23:05):
things that you can do andreally focusing on, just like,
mastering the skill of creatinga spending plan and then you
know if you're, if you're goodwith that, focusing on your 401k
.
You don't have to learneverything about investing Like.
You can just start byunderstanding the account you
already have.
That's going to be reallyvaluable education opportunity

(01:23:25):
for you.
So that's the last thing I wouldsay is we talked about a lot
and for money is so overwhelmingand psychological and complex.
And then the last thing I wouldsay is get help.
Like there are so many great,there's so many great free and
paid resources out there.
Like I offer tons of freeeducation and people benefit

(01:23:45):
from that and take great moves.
Obviously I offer paideducation to you, but, like both
of those things are reallyvaluable.
There's so much goodinformation on YouTube.
Of course, trust and verify,like always.
Trust and verify, like don't.
If you see something once, thatdoes not mean that it's true.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
Just give your social security number and we'll send
you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
I actually literally just went on the news to talk
about some of the worstfinancial social media trends
that are bad for your finances,like just recently, and there's
a lot of garbage out there, soyou really want to be careful
with who you trust.
Like I tell people all the time, like even me, like if I say
something and you're like goresearch it, you should always
trust and verify anyone you hearonline.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Yeah, well, the good thing with healthcare is that
they're already got an ear tothe ground for all the dumb
social media things that we haveto deal with in healthcare
anyway, so they probably have agood ear to that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Yeah, jump on a bose ball with one leg, that'll help
your Achilles, anyways, okay,yeah.
And the other thing that comesto mind that I just like here
there's I think the importantthing to just remind people of
is that it's so context specificof what is the most maybe
triggering to you, like nothaving an emergency fund for one
person, having this huge amountof debt on a credit card, not
being able to pay for a wedding,so like maybe whatever the
biggest like mental lead dominois for you that's a big Tim

(01:24:57):
Ferriss thing is like what isthe one domino you can push over
?
First that makes you feel likeyou got to win and like, okay,
at least I'm doing something, atleast I paid off this $3,000,
10% loan versus this $20,000, 4%loan because I learned
something.
Let me just start withsomething and then you can kind
of get positive momentum thatway.
I think that's pretty good.

(01:25:18):
And yeah, like PT school, whichis like AT school, which is like
a lot of people have no problempaying $300 for a dry kneeling
course, but like $300 for afinancial education course or
like something related to thatis probably like foreign to them
, but like it's the same thing.
You're increasing your skillsetto improve your life down the
road.
That's the same reason youwould get a dry kneeling courses
to treat more people better.
The same way you'd get afinancial education courses to
help yourself, you know, takecare of your life better down

(01:25:38):
the road.
So I think the guardrails arein place for people to do that.
It's just a matter of likeknowing.
It's a valuable skillset.
Well said Well said and thatsaid where can people find a
free course they should takeright now?

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yes, so you can find me at wealthwithtestcom and
there's two free courses you cantake.
The first one,wealthwithtestcom slash 401k,
and that is a free mini coursethat'll teach you all about your
401k.
And then the other one iswealthwithtestcom slash FI, and
that's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
Yeah, if you go to that Instagram page, you might
see some sweet jumping exercisesas well.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
Yeah, if you wanna also watch my Achilles recovery
and learn about finance at thesame time.
That is at Wealth with Tess onInstagram.

Speaker 1 (01:26:22):
Between me and Tess, you can learn how to treat your
Achilles and also learn aboutyour 401k Perfect, cool.
This is great, tess.
I think this is actually asuper valuable episode that a
lot of people listen to, sothank you for your time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
Thank you.
You're crushing it in thefinance space.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
It was great to chat with you.

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