Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: You're listening to the Doc Lounge Podcast. This is a place for candid conversations with the healthcare industry's top physicians, executives and thought leaders.
This podcast is made possible by Pacific Companies, your trusted advisor in physician recruitment.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Hi everyone, I'm Stacy Doyle, Senior Director of Marketing at Pacific Companies. And welcome back to another episode of the Doc Lounge podcast and our Ask the Expert series. Today we're diving into financial strategies tailored for busy professionals with our expert guest, Eric Roberge, CEO and Financial advisor, and Kayleigh Roberge, COO and Creative Director of Beyond. You'd hammock. This husband and wife team specializes in helping high income earners like physicians and apps build wealth with clarity and purpose. Eric brings nearly 20 years of financial planning experience, while Kaylee offers a decade of expertise and crafting strategies that help clients align their financial goals with their life lifestyle priorities. Together, they understand the challenges of balancing a demanding career, family responsibilities and financial security. They also co host the Beyond Finances podcast where they share practical advice on growing wealth and creating financial freedom. So I want to go ahead and welcome Eric and Kaylee to the Doc Lounge Podcast.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Thanks Stacey. Excited to be here, Sam, thanks for having us.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: We're excited to have you both and share a lot of great insights and knowledge with our audience. And like we said earlier, these are high performing and high income earners within the healthcare space. So wanted to kind of kick off things obviously when you're thinking about physicians, the way to become a physician is obviously by completing lots of medical school and training. And this often, you know, results in a significant amount of student loan debt early in, you know, physician or app's career. So I wanted to get you guys advice on how, you know, how they should approach financial planning when they're, you know, coming out of the gate with sometimes this large amount of debt.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say the first thing I hear often from physicians is that we're behind.
We're starting our career late because of all the education we had to pay off our medical debt and now we can start saving for a future. But we feel like we are way behind. And the truth of the matter is there is no black and white answer for being behind or being ahead or anything in between.
I started my company when I was 33 years old. I didn't really start saving too much money until I was 35.
So it doesn't matter where you start, it just matters that you do start. It matters that you say, we have this whole life going forward, hopefully with a lot more income now and we can create the life we Want to live.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Love that. That's great advice to really kind of taking it in a very, it's business like approach of, you know, okay, now that you know I have this certain amount of debt, what am I going to do to kind of get that down as I'm now bringing in, you know, a steady and hopefully a high amount of income.
So tell us a little bit. I wanted to get you guys take on, you know, kind of what are some of the top financial tips that you give when, when people are starting to think kind of that maybe that next step would be if they're starting a family and they're having this, you know, their career. What are some strategies you guys recommend?
[00:03:46] Speaker D: The first thing is to kind of just get organized, get everything out on the table, which can be really overwhelming because of potentially that high level of debt. But then also you have this high level of income. That's a lot of cash flow power. And that in and of itself on paper sounds great. But it can also be overwhelming because suddenly you have all this money coming in. It's hard to track where every single dollar goes, whereas in the past there wasn't as much. So it was just easier to manage. So just making sure that you understand how much you have, what's coming in, what's going out, almost like an audit of what accounts that you have. Getting everything out and organized, that's step one in creating a structure and a system. So that's a big part of the strategy is creating that system.
And then once you have that in place, then you can start looking at specific tactics that you might want to use depending on what your employment looks like, um, whether you have, you know, 1099 income or W2 income or both, how to manage that. Once you understand what you have, you can start selecting the specific tactics that are going to make sense for your situation. And as far as financial family planning goes, I think a lot of people get tripped up in thinking like, okay, I have to, you know, build up to this big event, which is there are some initial or one time costs that you have to think about. But really the biggest thing when growing your family, it's a cash flow issue. Kids are expensive, your life just gets more expensive. So you need to be thinking more in terms of how am I going to plan for this in an ongoing manner. What does child care look like?
You know, that's not something that's a one and done. That's something you're always going to have that conversation and be trying to figure out and puzzle and piece together. So thinking of it more as a process rather than a one time event is also a good way to go. Eric, I don't know if you have anything to add on to that with specific, you know, examples of the strategies that you could implement.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly happy to get into any strategies here, but like the structure itself, if you don't have a structure within which you can make good financial decisions, you're going to be just making decisions on a whim. One question comes up, do I do this? Do I do that? You pick one. Another question comes up, do I do this? Do I do that? You pick one. There's nothing that actually aligns everything and pulls it together. So a structure that allows you to assess your situation, to really create your goals, align your family behind those goals, and then move forward. Achieving those goals is the starting point. If you don't have that, it's going to be feeling like you're going through the woods with a machete, just kind of chopping your way, hoping for the best.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Love that advice. So tell me, it sounds like there's definitely advantage to working with a financial advisor, you know, like yourself. So what, what are those initial conversations like that you have with a new client and kind of building that structure?
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Let's, I mean, it starts with your financial foundation, like kind of what I was saying before. We need to understand where you are today because if we don't understand that, there's no way we can help you get to the place you're going. You know, I've just heard this, I don't know if it was on your podcast or somewhere else recently about if, if someone is in Florida versus Maine, right? There's going to be a different way to get to California. So if we don't know where you start from, we cannot help you. No matter how much education and experience we have, we cannot help you get there because we don't know where you are. So your financial foundation is your balance sheet. It's your assets, your, your bank accounts, your investment accounts, your retirement accounts, your house, your debts, your, your student loans, your credit cards, your mortgages, whatever you have on the debt side, that's your balance sheet. That is just a very objective way to say where are you today? And then we look at your cash flow, what's coming in, how you spend your money, what's going out, and that is the system that is operating right now behind the scenes. Whether you are attuned to it or not, it's just what's going on and right from there is when we can start to, to jump forward to understand, okay, what makes you the couple, you know, doctor couple. A lot of times we work with doctors, they're both doctors. What makes you different than the next doctor couple? And it's not necessarily your income situation because it's probably similar. It's more about what your values are, what your goals are, what you're trying to achieve in your life in the short term for lifestyle purposes, in the long term for retirement or college or whatever else you have going on with your kids. Because that's going to help us understand what you need to do. Not because you're a doctor or because you make this much money, but because you value X or Y in your life.
[00:08:24] Speaker D: That's a big part of those first conversations. Actually, one of the first action items that we give people is go and talk through like as a household, what are your core values? And some examples of those. They could be things like community or family. It could be stability.
Status is a value for some people. So it just runs a huge spectrum. And like Eric said, it's not, it's not about the one particular thing, but it's about what it is for you. What are your values? What's most important to you? And that will drive. All right, what are the actions that we need to take to get you closer to those things that you've identified are most important to you, that you want more of in your life?
[00:09:05] Speaker B: That is insightful. And you mentioned the, you know, physicians. A lot of times you're, you're dealing with two physicians as a couple. So I wanted to get you guys take on that. You know, when you have two high earning partners and they have different money goals, how do you get them to align or how do you work with, with somebody, you know, a team like.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: That want to get this one usually question.
[00:09:32] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it goes back to the values is starting there to understand beyond the money. Like what is it that you actually would you want more flexibility? Do you want like, do you very highly value achievement and accomplishment? Therefore your career is going to be very important to you. Knowing those sorts of things can help frame or influence your decisions. And I think a big part of it, the value, I mean obviously biased as financial advisors, but I think the value in having a financial advisor is that you get this objective third party in that conversation, that really difficult conversation of I want this and you want that. What are we going to do about it? I think an advisor can help kind of mediate those conversations and look for the commonalities and also point out, well, you could actually have both. It's not an either or conversation, it's a both. And we just need to figure out the right way to structure it. So I think just having the conversation with that objective third party who's not involved emotionally can be really, really helpful, especially when that person is an expert so that they can kind of fact check you as you go. Because a lot of the times when we have household couples, one will come in with, meaning, no ill intent or anything, but they just have a piece of information that's not correct or it's not quite right, or they have a half right and they're trying to apply it to their situation. And Eric, as a planner could come in and add some context, say, well, that's not, that's not even really, you know, the, the information that we're working with, that's not completely correct. So let's reset it with the correct information and then go from there.
[00:11:08] Speaker C: Two of the things that pop up when, when it comes to the conversations where people may disagree, I mean, there's many ways that you can disagree and not everybody should agree. I mean, you have your money mindset, your, your money blueprint from when you're 3 to 5 years old and everybody has their own experience and comes together. If you're exactly aligned, that's weird, right? So I think it's, it's very normal to, to not be aligned. But big, big ones are. All right. If we have kids, who's going to back off work? Do we need to back off work? Do we, are we okay outsourcing to a nanny or, or does one person drop their jobs or, or go to part time, then if you don't agree on that, that's a major conversation that needs to be had. Probably, hopefully before you have a child, another one might be someone for whatever reason wants to spend more money now. Feels like now is the only time we have and tomorrow is not promised, so we should spend now. And the other one says, I want to save for the future because I like security in the future. And I think that's where you can actually have both. If you, if you really focus in on what you value on spending today and what you want for tomorrow, you can save enough for tomorrow and you can spend on what you value today. Just chop out the stuff that is not something that is valuable to your family today.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: That's great advice. And I, and I assuming you guys have dealt with some physicians that are interested in transitioning to private practice. Obviously That's a big, you know, change, and that's something you need to prepare for financially. Any advice that you'd give to physicians looking to do that?
[00:12:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a. It's a big move. And, and funny enough, a lot of advisors don't necessarily know what it's like to run a small business. Right? They work for a beer company and they grow their client base and they, they never actually have to manage a business. We happen to start a business from scratch in 2013. And so not only are we advisors, but we understand the ins and outs of, oh, no, what do I do for health insurance now? How do I structure my business? Is an llc? Is it something different? What kind of retirement account? How do I hire people? Like, all these things are really important to consider. Again, probably before you start to make the move, but we've done it before. And so we have those conversations with people to help them understand before they jump what they're jumping into and making sure that they actually want to jump into that next iteration because it's a great place to be. Right? You have your own business and you have the freedom to run it the way that you want to, minus insurance considerations, of course.
And so that's where we start that conversation.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: I think the biggest piece of tangible advice for someone looking to do that is just that. Have the conversation, ask the questions, think through it. Especially when it comes to counterfactuals. This is what you think is going to happen, but what if it doesn't?
And it's not to be pessimistic, but it's just to try to get your mind thinking in more directions because that's going to surface questions you didn't know you had, and that will lead you to uncover information that you might not have otherwise thought of. So it's really kind of trying to push beyond binary thinking. That's another big part. If you're looking at, well, I can either do X or Y. Try to force yourself to come up with, what's the third option? What does Z look like in that situation?
And again, where an advisor can be helpful, it's not necessarily in running the numbers, because spreadsheet's really important. The math matters. You have to know, you know, what is financially optimal. And you have to be grounded in your financial reality. Like what. What does your balance sheet actually support in your life? But then you also have to overlay the context of we have to live your life. And you don't live in a spreadsheet, so you have to understand what is this financial decision going to look like in reality? What are the trade offs I'm making? What are the opportunity costs here?
[00:14:57] Speaker B: That is very insightful and I think great advice for anyone in our audience listening. I want to you mentioned something about financial freedom and I wanted to go back on that because we do work with a lot of physicians at Pacific companies that are doing locum tenens work. And what that means is that they are, you know, doing temporary work. It's usually an additional supplemental income stream and they are effectively 1099. So can you give us some tips that you would give to anyone that is interested in locum tenants work?
[00:15:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's, it's.
When I think of our clients, a lot of them are W2 employees at a hospital and they do moonlighting, which is the 1099 work that is additional and it's not guaranteed and it's variable, but it's 1099. And essentially when you're 1099, you're your own business and that creates opportunities for future or bigger savings for retirement. For example, if you're working at a hospital, you can save into their 403B plan or their 401K, whatever they have there. Sometimes they have a 457 plan as well. You can kind of double dip and put more in. But then if you are your own employer as a 1099, you might be able to create a SEP IRA which allows you to save more money, get more tax deductions, save on taxes today and put more towards the future. And so that gives you another angle in because you have this different type of income, of course it will be taxed differently and you'll have to worry about paying tax estimates because it doesn't automatically come out of your paycheck. A lot of people get stuck with big tax bills because they don't do that first off. But it's, it's, it's. There's a lot of cool ways to, to support yourself because you have this different way of making money.
[00:16:47] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a great way to increase your savings for the future. I think a lot of our clients who, who do that, they do, they take the 1099 money and just set it aside completely, save it, invest it. They're not accounting for it. I think that's a temptation you have to avoid on the planning side is when you are starting to make that extra money on the side, you know, not starting to budget based on that money because it's not guaranteed, it is variable, it's not your core job.
To your point about financial freedom, it's a great way to kind of accelerate your progress toward that. You just have to be careful not to start thinking like oh well that's money I could use to my home renovation. Because that kind of, you know, defeats the purpose if that's what your goal is.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: And I know a lot of physicians also have bonuses that they're dealing with. Any advice there? Obviously you deal with that a lot in, in your practice tips around bonus and you know, additional supplemental money that comes in.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I do think that there's, that's a major commonality between our clients, whether they're doctors or not is it's the variable, the size of their income, the variableness of their income. So making between 500,000 and a million dollars as a household, but half of it or at least a quarter of it is coming through a bonus of some sort, like a one time bonus that isn't guaranteed. And so what we like to say is it would be nice if we could design your budget, your annual spending around your normal consistent, should I say guaranteed baseline salary. And then when you get your bonus, you look to complete your savings goal for the year. Maybe, maybe you're saving into your 401k long throughout the year, but then you need to save an extra $25,000 towards long term because we've set that up for your plan. Part of that bonus can be plugged into that or you're, you're going to be going on two trips this year and they're, they're 10, $15,000 a piece depending, depending how big your family is and where you're going. So you might not fund those out of your normal salary, but you'll fund it when you get your bonus because it is a nice to have, not a need to have type of a thing. So we love to talk to people in the beginning of the year after they get their bonus when their bank account is flush because we can design the year to come and get ahead of those spending goals and savings goals for them.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Smart. So definitely sounds like a good time to bring you guys in is early or at the beginning of the year year so you can plan effectively for that year and coming, you know, years to come. Now tell me a little bit. I mean we've obviously one topic on our podcast is that, you know, doctors are retiring earlier.
What conversation would you have to a physician that's looking to retire early? How do you go about giving advice on that?
[00:19:42] Speaker D: It's all about your savings, right? Really, that I think that's one of those places where it really is a math problem first, because the impact of suddenly you don't have an income and you're going to start drawing down your assets, it goes faster than you think it would. So you can do it, but that's what you're, you're really going to have to have a really strong savings rate in order to support you when you're trying to retire early. And then you're setting up possibly decades of time where you're not bringing in an income. So the more that you can save now, the higher your savings rate, meaning percentage of your income that you can put toward investments now for long term growth, the easier you're going to make that early retirement goal for yourself. And the flip side of really pushing your savings rate while you're making the money while you can is it takes some of the pressure off of your investments. You don't have to take as much risk because your investments don't have to have this outsized return in order to meet your goals. Your savings rate is really the workhorse there, and that's something you can control, which is why we really like to focus on that because it's, again, it's within your control. You don't have to cross your fingers and hope you got a winning lottery ticket with your investments, which is just not a strategy or a mindset that we recommend with your investment portfolio at all. But it's so tempting that people want to do that. They want to take on more risk than they need, which is dangerous because it's your net worth that you're gambling with. But yeah, the, I mean, the earlier you want to retire, the more you need to be saving now while you can. While, while you have it.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I would add a couple things there too with early retirement. I mean, if you're thinking early retirement's 50 years old, even 60 years old at this stage, when people are living so much longer these days, what are you going to do right? You, you've been a, a doctor or a doctor in training for 20, 30 years and now you're not that. How is that going to impact your well being, your mindset? Like if your brand and who you are is a doctor and now you're not a doctor, is that okay? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But just think about, like, what is the next stage? What are you going to fill your days with that is going to keep you engaged and excited? Because if you kind of get distracted and pull away from society in the World probably not a good thing for your health, right. So like there's a whole aspect of not the financial side but like just lifestyle and what are you trying to do with your life going forward that you want to assess before you make the jump.
And I think the second one, I kind of lost my train of thought there. But the second one might be just Kelly touched on it, just your spend rate, right. If you're spending at a hundred thousand dollars a year on your lifestyle, it's a lot different than spending at $200,000 a year on your lifestyle. And if, if you think in retirement you're going to spend more, well, you need a lot more assets to support that spend more piece of it. And, and the good news is if what you're saving now today. So if you make 100, I always use percentages. If you make 100% of your income, but you do and then 20, 20% goes to taxes, the average tax rate, 20 to 25% is probably what's going on here even if you're in the 37% tax bracket.
And then you save 25% too. So 25% goes to taxes, 25% goes to savings. Now you have 50% left. And if you're spending that 50% now, great, you can use that to apply to your retirement spend.
But if you're spending 70, 80% now, then that's going to be a whole heck of a lot more you need to save to, to live 50 years in retirement.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Great advice. And I think obviously we're with the aging population, we're seeing, you know, some doctors after Covid retired early, but we're seeing a lot of them extend, you know, how long they're practicing, which, you know, we think obviously it's great because the shortage really is real and it's just going to get worse as our population, the boomers, start to age as well. So very good insights there. And I appreciate both of the financial and then yeah the mental kind of aspect of it as well. So tell me one actionable financial tip physicians could implement today to help them create a stronger foundation for their careers and their family life.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: Identify how much they're saving towards long term goals, right. Growth assets, things that not. This isn't saving into a bank account, it's saving into your retirement account, it's saving into investments. It's even putting back into your business how, how much of the money that you're making on an annual basis are you putting towards productive growth assets versus spending on your lifestyle today.
[00:24:38] Speaker D: And you have to Differentiate like a lot of people want to lump in, like, well, savings for, for college for my kid or saving for home down payment or home renovation. That doesn't count because it's really just deferred spending. It's not something that's going to be able to support you and your lifestyle down the road. So take that into account when you're trying to calculate that.
[00:24:58] Speaker C: And a lot of times, right, if, if you're, let's call it $500,000 a year is what you're making as a household and you want to save 20%, right? That's, that's a hundred thousand dollars if you max out your 401k at $23,000. 23,5000 this year times two. Right? That's, that's $47,000. You still have $53,000 more that you need to save. How do you go about saving that? And that's where if you have 1099 income, maybe you open a SEP IRA to put a bunch of money in there. Maybe you save into a taxable and non retirement investment account which is more flexible and you don't have time restraints or penalties on taking that money out.
But you got to figure out where the money's going to go. Even if you can identify what you're saving, where does it go? How does it be productive?
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Great tips. Eric and Kaylee, really, really appreciate your time. You guys. It seemed like you're such a force to be reckoned with. The two of you, very powerful team. So please tell our audience how they can get a hold of you and work with you.
[00:26:05] Speaker D: Sure. Our website is beyond your hammock.com that's a great place to start. We have a big blue work with us button on the top, right. If you want to learn more about becoming a client that takes you through a process of kind of getting to know us.
You can request a one page financial plan from us just to kind of get an outline that's yours to keep whether you work with us or not. We're also on social media, mostly on LinkedIn. So Eric's on LinkedIn and Eric Roberge, but also on Instagram at Beyond Finances.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Love it. I hope our audience checks that out. That will be great tools for them to just feel in power, you know, empowered about their financial planning and their financial future, which they've worked so hard to, you know, take care of all of us and, and be the physicians that they are. So we love sharing the insights and advice from you guys. Appreciate both of your time and coming on the Doc Lounge podcast.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Thanks Stacy. This was great.
[00:27:03] Speaker D: Yeah. Appreciate having so much.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Thank you to all of our listeners. If you would like to be notified when new episodes air, make sure to hit that subscribe button. And a big thank you to Pacific Companies. Without you guys this podcast would not be possible. If you would like to be a guest, Please go to www.pacificcompanies.com. thank you.
[00:27:24] Speaker D: Ra.
