MtoM #13 - Millionaire Internal Medicine Doctor

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast. Milestones to celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom. Here is your host, Dr. Jim Dali.

This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 13, Teresa the Millionaire. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast, you can apply@whitecoatinvestor.com Milestones. Whatever the milestone you've reached is, whether it's paying off debt or becoming a DECA millionaire, we'd like to feature you you and use your story to inspire others. Did you know that the White Coat Investor not only has a podcast and a blog, but several books that will help you on your way to financial independence? These books cover topics such as asset protection and minimizing your taxes to keep more of your hard earned money. They discuss plans for insurance, housing spending, student loan elimination, investing and estate planning. You can learn how to become a millionaire within five to 10 years of leaving residency and how to invest in a sensible, low cost and effective manner with or without the assistance of a financial advisor. There's even a book geared directly toward medical and dental students so you can start optimizing your finances early in your professional journey. Find the book that is right for you at the WCI store, at shop.whitecoatinvestor.com or on Amazon. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, let's get our guest on the podcast. All right, our guest today is Teresa. Teresa, welcome to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Dr. Dalle.

So tell us about what your specialty is and how far you are out of training.

So I'm an internal medicine geriatric physician. I graduated in 2016 from fellowship. So I've been out now for almost five years.

And you are a millionaire. Five years out of training, internal medicine doc. And you're a millionaire. That's awesome. Congratulations on your success.

Thank you.

Now, what's your approximate net worth right now?

Right now? A little bit over a million markets.

Have been good to you lately.

Yes. And that's a big help. That's a big help for sure.

What's your net worth divided into? How much is in retirement accounts, other investments, real estate, etc.

Sure, sure. About 42% of that is in real estate properties. That's with my husband. And we both have have about 55% of the rest is in investments and so in different stock portfolios.

Okay, and is your husband working as well?

Yes, he's a mechanical engineer.

Mechanical engineer. Okay. So what's been your range of income throughout your career?

So for both of us coming out of training, it's been anywhere from 280k on up to 372.

And so in five years, if I do the math, that's only about 1.5 million. And you've still got over a million dollars of it left.

Yes.

Very impressive. Right. It means you've saved a lot of it for sure. Took you five years to do it. I mean, how'd you do this? How'd you become so wealthy so quickly? Give us the secret tips here.

A lot of this has come from the real estate properties and the real estate investments. And so, kind of early on, my husband and I, we made a plan to just live off one income. And at the time, he was making more, so we lived off his income. And I used my income during fellowship to start to help pay down on loans. And so we just continued this. And so now, as an attending, my income is still used for investments, whether the stock market and with rental properties. And right now we have nine total properties, including our primary residence, but we have eight rental properties.

Real estate's a big part of it, yes. Yeah, for sure. So take me back to when you came out of school. You mentioned some loans. I'm assuming you had a significant student loan burden. How much did you owe when you came out of school?

I did. I had about 200k. My husband did not have as much. So, yeah, we were definitely poor.

Were you married when you graduated?

No, we got married when I was a resident.

While you're a resident.

Okay.

And what was your net worth when you came out of medical school?

Negative 200.

Nothing but debt.

Yes.

Okay, and how about by the time you came out of residency five years ago, what was the net worth you guys had at that point? At that point, you're married, you had at least some debt pay down that had been done. Maybe he brought some assets in, I don't know.

So outside of residency, when I finished training, we still had mine student loan debt during fellowship, we paid down his college debt, we paid down his car. And so when I started work, we still had my car to pay off and my student loan, further from both college and medical school.

What do you think your net worth was then when you came out of fellowship five years ago?

If you had to guess, probably like negative 240, 250, because we also had the car.

Okay. All right. And it doesn't sound like your parents helped pay for school or anything, or that you received any sort of an inheritance along the way?

No, no. But I will say I was very fortunate in that my family did buy a townhome for me. And so I lived there during medical school and that was actually the start of our real estate journey. And so we rented that out while I was in fellowship in that after doing that, we realized, oh, this is not too bad way to make extra income. And so that gift kind of, you know, really started the real estate business.

Actually, I'm guessing you have some significant leverage going on with the real estate business. How much debt do you have currently?

Yeah, we do. We have about 800k in debt with the real estate.

$800,000 in debt and a net worth of over a million. So really not terribly outrageous, is it? It sounds like a reasonable amount of leverage for a typical real estate investor.

We think so.

Fair enough, fair enough. And your parents were able to help you with that condo. But tell me a little more about your upbringing and how that affected your views on money.

My mom, she always taught me the importance of saving and so that's something that I remember doing as a kid. Half my money that I received went into my savings account. She always taught me never to get into a lot of credit card debt. So that's something that always took to heart. So I never had a huge credit card debt and if I did have a balance, I would pay it off every month. And then my mom is not a big spender. So the help with the townhome came from extended family members like my, you know, my granddad helped out a lot with that because it was just my mom growing up, you know, being frugal. You know, I did that from her.

Okay, so let's go back. Let's go back five years. Let's go back even 10 years. Someone that is where you were at a decade ago. What advice do you have for them?

I would definitely encourage to start learning about finances like for, you know, medical students, residents. Just start. I mean I definitely promote white coat investor to any trainee that I come in contact with. I've actually brought my pre med mentees your guide for medical students because I think it starts early and just trying to develop good practices blogs, even if you're on your way to work, any little thing that you can do. And I definitely recommend to couples to have written goals. One thing that we use is the one thing couples goals and where we have to write out written plans for every part of our lives, not just finances, but for children and career and etc. And that really puts us on the same page. And that's really how we've been able to do this because we're both on the same page as far as our finances and what we want our lifestyle to be like. And I think if you're able to have those conversations and be on the same page, this is something that anybody can do, especially if you're a physician. I'm internal medicine, geriatrics. We are on the lower end of the pay scale. So if this is something that we could achieve in a relatively very short amount of time, I think more of us can do the same.

Awesome. I think that's great advice. Well, congratulations on all your success, Teresa. Doctor, internist, geriatrician, wife, millionaire. Awesome. Congratulations on your success.

Thank you. And thank you all for having me.

Pretty cool, right? Internists can do it too. Right? Internists can do it too. And as you can see, there are many roads to Dublin. You can invest in real estate, you can invest in mutual funds, you can invest in both. But the principles are the same. You earn money, you carve a bunch out, you invest it in some smart way, and it doesn't take long before you got a lot more money than the average American does. You know, whether you're a millionaire or whether you're financially independent, you get there very quickly when you have a deliberate plan and you follow it. You know, after we got off the call, she talked a little bit more and actually became a little bit emotional about how what a dramatic change it was when her husband brought the White Coat Investor blog to her and said, hey, maybe we should do some of this stuff. And they really took living like a resident to heart and it's made all the difference in the world in their finances. So congratulations to them. I think it's really pretty awesome. Did you know that the White Coat Investor not only has a podcast and a blog, but several books that will help you on your way to financial independence. These books cover topics such as asset protection and minimizing your taxes to keep more of your hard earned money. They discuss plans for insurance, housing spending, student loan elimination, investing and estate planning. You can learn how to become a millionaire within five to 10 years of leaving residency and how to invest in a sensible, low cost and effective manner with or without the assistance of a financial advisor. There's even a book geared directly toward medical and dental students so you can start optimizing your finances early in your professional journey. Find the book that is right for you at the WCI store, at shop.whitecoatinvestor.com or on Amazon. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

My dad, your host, Dr. Dalle, is a practicing emergency physician, blogger, author, and podcaster. He is not a licensed accountant, attorney, or financial advisor. So this podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered official, personalized financial advice.