MtoM #59 - Resident with 100K in Assets

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to Millionaire. Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom. This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to millionaire. Episode 59. Resident with $100,000 in assets.

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All right, today, we have the pleasure of having a resident here with us today. Welcome.

Hi. How are you doing?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm doing great.

So how would you like us to refer to you today?

You can call me Mike. That's fine.

All right, Mike, what's your profession and how far are you out of school?

So I am a primary care general internist. I just finished up residency actually in July, so this is a little bit later, I think, than when I submitted it. But at the time I was a resident, I think, when I submitted my initial application, so.

Awesome. Congratulations and welcome to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

Thank you so much.

So you wanted to come on to share your achievement of achieving $100,000 in assets. Tell us what that's divided up into.

So virtually all of that $100,000 is in Roth retirement accounts, actually.

Oh, excellent. So you were so smart and started that in residency.

Yeah, basically just did my best to kind of max out my Roth accounts every year. I was lucky in that my residency did kind of offer a match for everything.

Wow.

You know, and I was actually able to open a Roth solo 401k with my moonlighting money, too, so.

With your moonlighting money. Perfect. Wow. So you. You really booking it with the investment side?

Yeah, I. You know, some people might say that I went a little overboard, but I just, you know, kind of started to read the White Coat Investor really early on in my career, and I knew that that was something that I wanted to do, so.

Wow. And so had. Did you graduate with any student debt?

I did. You know, at the time, I basically had borrowed for my entire medical school career. So I think at the time I was maybe about 300,000 or so in debt when I graduated.

Okay. Okay, awesome. And you were able to invest to still get $100,000 in assets?

Yeah. So basically just trying to automate everything that came out of my paycheck and setting money aside and, you know, obviously the COVID kind of for like, forbearance with the loans of being at 0% and not having to make any payments on it made it a lot easier to make that decision to invest too. So.

Awesome. Very good. And what's your net worth when you came out of school?

So when I came out of school, I basically had nothing in terms of assets, so it was probably negative $300,000 or so. But now, you know, I'm at about negative 84,000.

All right. Making your way up. I love it.

Someday I'll be at zero, so it's.

Going to be a good day. That's awesome. Did your parents pay for your.

They didn't help me at all for medical school, but I was fortunate enough to have them help cover my undergraduate education.

Awesome. And did you receive an inheritance of any kind?

None. No.

Awesome. So how do you think your upbringing affected the way you manage your money?

Yes. So my dad actually is a primary care physician as well, and I think that he kind of really raised us right in terms of the way that we approached money. We never were the kind of people who were spending kind of beyond our means. And honestly, I didn't even really know how much money my dad made, you know, until way later on. You know, in my. In my life, we never really lived extravagantly, but at the same time, I never really felt like we were super deprived, you know? You know, we just enjoyed, I guess, you know, some of the things that are common to a lot of white coat investor readers. You know, like, we liked outdoor activities. We liked, you know, spending time hiking and, you know, just doing stuff to stay active. And that was really where we had most of our fun and did most of our things. And turns out that those are actually really cost effective activities too. So, you know, so I think that, you know, I was. I learned, you know, kind of early on the importance of, you know, saving money up for things. You know, whenever I, you know, wanted to buy something, whether it was a, you know, a new cell phone or a laptop or something like that, I always had to save and, you know, save up for it. And, you know, that was, I think, really helpful for me growing up. I never felt like I had, you know, like, anything really given to me in terms of, you know, the money that we had growing up.

So that's awesome. So you really learned how to live and enjoy life frugally when you were growing up, and you sort of just continued that throughout residency.

Yeah, I mean, that was really, I think, the key. I'll also say just one other thing about that, too, and that's that I've always kind of been a guy, you know, that's been a little bit obsessed with, like, tracking and budgeting. So even when I was a kid, you know, when it came down to if I. If I knew that a video game that I wanted was, you know, X amount of dollars, I knew how many hours I would have to put in at my job in order to get that video game or. Nice how that translated. And I actually would keep spreadsheets of everything pretty obsessively, even. Even in high school, when I got my first job, just to kind of keep track of, you know, where my money was going and whether or not I could afford something before I bought it. So.

Oh, my gosh. You are my people. I love spreadsheets. That's wonderful. Yeah. And they really do give you so much power to just track your goals and then keep you on track towards your goals as you move along and, you know, try to avoid all the 10 temptations along the way, for sure. Well, wonderful. So do you have any kids yourself?

No, not yet.

All right, tell me. So you were investing in residency into your Roth IRA. Roth IRA and your solo 401k. What were you actually investing in those accounts?

Everything is almost exclusively in just low expense ratio index funds, lots of equities, and, you know, kind of. I think our provider was with Fidelity at the time, so it was whatever the Fidelity, you know, index fund was that just tracked the S&P 500.

Awesome. Sounds like a solid strategy. And you've probably seen some good growth since then.

Yeah, absolutely. Except for the last. The last couple months have not been as great, but yeah, before that, it certainly was something that, you know, was doing pretty well. So.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a solid strategy and sounds like you have a really good start on investing and a really good head on your shoulders to make sure you get out of. Get to zero net worth and then much farther beyond in a very short amount of time. Congratulations. Thank you for being on Mike. We really appreciate you coming and sharing your story. What advice would you have for those who are a decade or two behind you right now?

I think that starting early is really kind of one of the keys, and getting the education that you can while you're in med school is super important. Reading as much as you can while you have that time. You know, just about how to invest, you know, and making it automatic too, I think was really helpful for me. Just not seeing that money kind of, you know, before you get your paycheck and just having it go straight into a retirement account. You'd be surprised at how fast that can kind of build wealth for you, you know, and you don't really miss it either because you, you know, you never really saw it in the first place almost. I think that, you know, if I was just going into medical school or, you know, I was considering medical school, I would definitely just try to educate myself as much as I could about how to automate my investments and my savings to just learn the basics of budgeting and try to stick to a budget.

I love that. Thank you so much, Mike. I really appreciate you being on today.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Absolutely. That was such a wonderful episode because Mike shared so many wonderful tips about how to succeed as a resident. It is so important to budget and track your goals, especially when you're in a lower, lower paying field. And that that skillset is going to serve him so well from here on out. The fact that he learned how to invest in residency on a very low salary means he can most definitely make that room as he continues on as an attending. The fact that he was tracking his goals and learning about finance in residency is just going to be awesome. There's nothing but success there. So congratulations to Mike and thanks to him for joining us here.

Do you ever find yourself wishing there was somewhere to go to ask your finance, insurance or investing questions? The White Coat Investor community is a great place to turn. We have a thriving community across all of our social, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit and our WCI forum. We have been discussing solutions to your money problems since 2011. Join the Conversation with thousands of other White Coat investors. Follow WCI on your favorite social media platform for financial resources, tips and strategies. Just head to your platform of choice and search for the White Coat Investor. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help.

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