MtoM #56 - Decamillionaire Doctors

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.

All right, this is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 56, Deca Millionaire Doctors.

If you are finding our podcasts informative and helpful, check out our website. Since 2011, we've been working hard to provide valuable personal finance and investing information. Through thousands of blog posts written by an array of authors, you can find information on how to manage your student loans, fix and avoid common financial mistakes, understand your retirement accounts, optimize your investments, find professional help at a fair price, get started investing in real estate, and so much more, all at no cost to you. You can find out more about the courses we offer, the conferences we put on, the newsletters we provide, and interact with other WCI readers through our online forum. Head on over to whitecoatinvestor.com to start learning today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help.

All right, I'm here with Vicious Batt, our co host on this podcast, and we are excited to bring on a little bit of a celebrity in the physician financial space, at least among their students. We have Stephen and Marinel coming on and he's actually a speaker at WC icon 22, but he's also been regularly nominated person for the White Coat Investor Financial Educator Award. So it's going to be a pleasure having him on today. Let's get them on the call. All right, I'm here with my co host, theja Spath, as well as a wonderful couple that many of you may already know and those who don't. It's going to be your pleasure to get to know them today. Stephen and Marinelle, welcome to the Milestones Millionaire podcast.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

All right, so we're celebrating today. It's been a while since you became financially independent, but it's a milestones podcast. We gotta celebrate some kind of milestone. So we're gonna celebrate the fact that you're financially independent even though you've been financially independent for a few years.

Yeah. So, Steven and Marinell, I understand you both are physicians. Can you please tell us what your specialties are and how far you are out of training?

So, I'm a pediatrician. I graduated pediatric residency in 1995, so about 27 years.

Awesome.

Yeah, well, I started my residency as an internal medicine and then went out to practice for two years, a couple of years, then went back to my fellowship and became an oncologist. So I'll be being in practice for like 25 years.

Wow. Amazing. So you went back to school. That must have been hard.

Yes. As an attending salary, then going back to a fellow. For us it's an opportunity. You know, investment is education. So my wife actually was the one who asked me is either she's going back to fellowship or me and take care of the kids. It was an easy decision for me, so I'd rather go back in training.

Awesome. So aside from that dip mid career, what has been your salary range throughout your career?

Well, I mean back then Doc has not been paid too much. I remember I started like 120,000 then when I became an attending as an apologist during that time, I guess 200,000 that time.

Wow.

What was the best year you two.

Had combined about 75750 to 800. Then we joined Ventures one time more than that as an anthropologist.

Awesome. And what is your approximate net worth now?

At least 10 million. At least.

Wow. So you have definitely bypassed the financial independence goal by a little bit.

Yes. Yes.

Congratulations. That's pretty awesome. DECA millionaires. Maybe that's what we're celebrating today.

There you go. That's the next step. Wonderful. So we had so much great feedback about your financial teaching and the amount of impact you've had on the students around you. What would be the biggest secret to your success? What's the biggest thing that you try to teach your students about money?

The best thing is to educate yourself, do your own research. Okay. And then I always tell them, look after the cost of investing, simplify things because we are busy physicians. Okay. And with growing kids during that time, I like to automate everything. Okay. And that time when I started investing, there was no Internet like my resources. Mostly old fashioned reading books, going to the library or even bookstore, reading all those financial magazines. So I remember when I started investing, I to send my check to Vanguard to invest like every month.

Oh boy.

It's not electronically. So I evolved during that time. There's no. So the key is really education. Try to learn. It's just like medicine. You attend your cme, continue medical education. The same thing with finances. Like, because it evolved during my time, there's no. I mean index fund is not that crazy. Then I think they're mostly active investing when I remember. Right. But then for me I was fascinated with these three indices. The Dow Jones, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ. So we came from the Philippines, so I had no idea about those indexes. So that's why it bothered me to say, let me do some reading about It. So that's how I teach them, is don't make any financial decision without understanding what you going to.

Yes.

Yeah.

And now you can combine CME and financial education at the White Coat Investor Conference.

That's right. That's right. Hey, so, Marie Nell, he was super interested, right? He's writing physical checks to Vanguard. He's going to the library, he's reading books. Were you interested in this at all or were you just kind of along for the ride? I mean, what conversations did you guys have around money?

We actually are definitely good partners at this. We have the same financial goals, you know, Although I have to say, right after both our residencies, like, okay, where do we travel? What do we buy? You know, that's that kind of thing. And then our first son was born. And then we realized actually that he is the trigger for us to start being, you know, reading about finances. Because we want to have. We want to prepare. And at that time, the, the College Fidelity College fund was started, and we started on his one month old and he's now 24. So I was definitely on board, but I don't like the reading. I'm definitely interested in taking care of the kids, being a pediatrician and building up my practice. And I was actually interested in building houses. That was my part in our partnership. And with him, he's really, you know, he loves chess. And for him it's everything is like, that's the chess piece and finances. Is that for him?

Okay.

Yeah. In a way, it's like I treated investing just like a chess because I was a chess player. And I mean, chess is an important part of my life because with chess, I got scholarship. I finished medical school with chess because my family, they could not afford me to send to college. And especially medical school is still expensive, even though in the Philippines like we grew up really. Not that I would say not well or not. We're just the regular average family. My mother was a librarian, my father was a pastor. I mean, so we did not inherit anything. And I remember this one when my wife told me she's pregnant. So it kind of got thinking in my mind, oh, I'll be a dad. I need to support my family. So I have to stop thinking about my Portia or Mercedes or something like that. As a newly attending, no, I need to refocus my, my goal. So that's the time that I remember because of my reading and research, I heard about the 529 during that time, it's not even been initiated with Fidelity. And that's the only time I joined Fidelity because of the 529. Because I was always with Vanguard, and Vanguard doesn't offer the 529 during that time. So I remember when I first withdrawn my five to nine, when my kids got into college, and the Fidelity representative told me, oh, you're one of our first clients. Yes, it's time for me, after 18 years, to cash in with my investment.

That's pretty awesome. A little historical perspective there.

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

So we've talked About S&P 500 and Dow Jones and houses. Tell us a little bit about your strategy. What is your asset allocation?

All right. At this point, we're like hundred percent stocks, like index fund. Because my first index fund was s and P500. The funny thing why I chose it was because of my initial S and P. My journey. It's my.

It turned out pretty good.

Lucky, lucky, lucky letters.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. Because I don't know anything about it. I know. Oh, maybe this is a nice index fund because. But one thing is, seriously, when I look at Dow Jones, upon my reading, oh, it's the oldest index fund. But then there's only. There was only 30 stocks. I said, oh, it's kind of risky owning just 30 stocks. Then I went to the S&PYOD owned 500 stuff. So I said, being diversified in one index fund, then this is it. So that's why I chose it. And that time, Vanguard, that's. That was their flagship. That's what they offering. Like, they're, in a way, they're like being branded Vanguard S&P 500. It's like, when you're in Vanguard, you have to choose S&P 500. And it paid me a lot. So with my IRA 401K.

Got it. Got it. So, yeah, it's good to stay diversified and kind of buy into the whole market instead of just buying individual stocks is what I'm hearing.

Yeah. So, I mean, there's more. More to this story here. I mean, you guys made good money and you clearly invested aggressively. 100% stock. But how much of that income did you save? You must have been putting a lot of money into these accounts as you went along.

Well, first is, by nature, we're frugal. Okay. And I remembered your teaching, which kind of stuck me, like, living like a resident. It's like, oh, I've been doing that since day one. Even I wasn't attending. So that's what I mean. I heard about your podcast, like, in 2018, and that's why I admire your teaching. I mean, this is what I've been doing. It's like, kind of validated what I was doing then. So what we did is we're like a two doctor salary. One salary is for just investment, and the other we live within just one doctor salary. So that's how we do it. That's why we're so aggressive. Then I did not worry about bonds because my thinking was our bonds is like our salary. It's like that's our fixed income. If I go to work, I have monthly salary. So that would be my, in a way, fixed income, like advance. So that's why I never had advanced holdings since day one.

Well, we're running short on time, but let's go back. I mean, you guys got on this pretty early. Let's say somebody else is just coming out of training and they're interested. They're listening to the White Coat Investor podcast. They want to do what's right. What advice do you have for them so they can get to where you are now by the end of their career?

Invest early.

Yeah, invest early and live within your means. That's the key. You don't try to delay gratification. Those discretionary expenses, okay? Prioritize your allocation. Be tax efficient. I always maximize. First our 401k IRA. Even way back when I was a resident, during that time, $2,000 was the IRA maximum. Imagine now they have more. So that's why even my kids, they started their Roth ira. And when they started, like any kind of summer job, I will fund them. It's like my matching for them is to, okay, this is how much you earn. I will match that for your Roth ira.

Awesome.

Well, awesome. Congratulations on your story. It's going to be super inspiring to our listeners, right, to see that doctors can not just become financially independent, but build serious wealth. I mean, eight figures plus of wealth. So, Stephen and Mariannell, congratulations on your success. You've done a wonderful job. And also particularly, thank you so much for what you're doing for other White Coat investors to help them to do the same things and become as successful as you have.

Well, thank you. And thank you very much for having us.

All right, a lot of takeaways from that one, huh? For those who don't know, Stephen was nominated by like, 15 people for the White Coat Investor Financial Educator Award. I mean, he came very close to winning it. Maybe he'll win it this next year, I don't know. But he's got a lot of people out there that think the world of It. I can tell you that based on the nominations we got, but a lot of awesome lessons there. I mean, look how powerful it is to start so early. That was kind of what I took away from it.

Yeah. He has a lot of history in the market. And Vanguard Fidelity being the first investors.

Like the first 529 investor at Fidelity. That's pretty cool.

Oh, my goodness.

I wonder how much his immigrant status affected this.

Right?

You see lots of immigrants come to the country and they're like, I was living on three grand in the Philippines, you know, now I'm rolling in the money, let's save 90% of it, you know, and it makes me wonder if. If how much that mindset, that classic immigrant mindset came to play in their success. And I wonder how hard it might be to pass that on to the next generation.

Right? And it's so difficult as an immigrant sometimes to really learn even the fundamentals of a stock market. And like the Dow Jones, the S and P, like, what the heck is this? Because a lot of countries don't have that. And the. And the power of just a regular old Joe to be able to buy an inde fund and invest into that and buy parts of companies. I mean, this is a really unique opportunity we have in the States that really is not there in a lot of the world.

It also demonstrates you don't have to know that much when you get started. I mean, he picked the S&P 500 because those were his initials, right? You just got to save something, put it into some sort of reasonable investment and let the magic of compound interest work on it. So I thought that was pretty impressive. I was impressed with just the power of starting early because so many of us make a few mistakes at the beginning, know we lose that first five or 10 years. Those guys didn't lose that first five or 10 years. They were doing the right thing right from the beginning. So I thought that was pretty impressive.

If you are finding our podcast informative and helpful, check out our website. Since 2011, we've been working hard to provide valuable personal finance and investing information. Through thousands of blog posts written by an array of authors, you can find information on how to manage your student loans, fix and avoid common financial mistakes, understand your retirement accounts, optimize your investments, find professional help at a fair price, get started investing in real estate, and so much more, all at no cost to you. You can find out more about the courses we offer, the conferences we put on, the newsletters we provide, and interact with other WCI readers through our online forum. Head on over to whitecoatinvestor.com to start learning today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help.

Thanks for being a Milestones listener. If you want to come on the podcast, you can do so. You can apply@whitecoatinvestor.com Milestones. We'd love to bring you on. Share your story with others and use it to inspire them. To do what. Until then, keep your head up, shoulders back. We'll see you next time on the podcast.

My dad, your host, Dr. Dali, 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.