MtoM #70 - Academic Pharmacist Millionaire

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to Millionaire. Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 70, Academic Pharmacist Millionaires. 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. We've got a great episode today from a profession that is actually a significant chunk of White Coat Investor followers. About 8% of our followers, according to our most recent survey, are pharmacists. So we're going to talk today with a pharmacist about a recent financial achievement. All right, our guest today is Bhavik Shah. Welcome to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

Thanks for having me.

I hope I pronounced your right name right. Was that right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

All right, perfect. All right, well, we're celebrating with you today. We're excited to have you on here. First, though, tell us your profession and how far you are out of school.

I am an academic pharmacist based in the Northeast, and I graduated from pharmacy school in 2008 and came out of training in 2010.

You're in a big city up there, low cost of living area.

What are we talking about now? Major city, Philadelphia.

Okay. And. And what's your approximate net worth?

I am married, so my wife and I, we have a net worth of about 1.6 million.

1.6 million. So you are millionaires.

Yes.

Congratulations. That's pretty exciting. Yeah, it's still millionaires, even given the market downturn the last few months.

Yeah, yeah. And part of it is because we also have real estate, and so that sort of made up for some of our downside in our stocks.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, tell us about your net worth. What are your assets and your liabilities divided up into?

Sure. We have about 75,000 in banking. Our 403B traditional 403B, we have about 720,000 Roth IRAs. Combined, we have about 145,000 taxable brokerage, about 45K. Our primary home, we have about 240,000 in equity. And we have two rental properties which combined have about a little over 400 in equity. And we also have a 529 and a UTMA for our son, but I'm not including that in our net worth calculation.

Awesome. So some mortgages in there, I assume, based on the way you described your equity mortgage on each of the rental properties and then the primary home as well, correct?

Yeah. One of them is paid off. I mean, it will be paid off soon, but we have a mortgage on each of them. In terms of liabilities, that. That's our only liability. Well, I shouldn't say only my wife has about 1500 in student loans left, but that'll be done. That'll be done very soon.

The question is whether it's done on Thursday or next Monday. Huh?

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, congratulations on that too. That's exciting to come to the end of that I'm sure for her. She came out of school about the same time as you?

Yeah, yeah, we both graduated the same year. We were actually in the same training program. That's how we met.

Okay, so both pharmacists.

Yeah.

And. And what's been your range of income over. Over your careers?

So coming out of school resident salary, I made about 45,000. We both. We were co. Residents. We made about 45,000 in our first year. And then once we finished residency training, I made about. Anywhere between 90 to about 125 now. And my wife approximately makes the same.

So pretty typical pharmacist incomes.

Yeah, I mean, a little bit less because of academia, pharmacy, but yeah, it's in the same. Within the standard deviation.

Okay, so take us back to when you came out of school a little more than a decade ago. What was your net worth? Did you ever calculate it?

I sort of backtracked that. We. My net worth was about. I graduated with about 80,000 in student loans and I had about 5,000 in the bank. So negative 75K.

And where. And where was she at about the same place or.

She, she. She was always a good saver. So her negative. Her. Her net worth was negative. She had about the same amount of student loans, but she had more in the bank, so she was about negative 50k.

So you brought all the debt into the marriage and she brought all the assets. Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah, yeah.

Sounds a little bit like our situation. All right, so did you get any help from your parents? Did they give you an inheritance? Did any of this come from them? Or did they at least pay for your schooling?

No, no. Schooling was all on my parents. Growing up. We were lower middle class, so they weren't in a position to give us anything in terms of that. So it was all student loans and scholarship for both of us. And so we didn't receive an inheritance or anything like that.

So, I mean, you guys make a good income. Combined you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars. But after just over a decade, you've got an awful lot of what you've made left, right? I mean, if you add up everything you've made over the last 10 years, most of it you still have. How did you do that? What's your secret to success?

You know, we were always savers. It's sort of that immigrant mindset of live below your means. And we were always saving, but we didn't really have an idea of how to invest. And so recently, in the last, I would say eight years, I got really interested in that and so being more strategic about where to, how to invest, where to save, what accounts to use and that sort of thing. But one of the biggest things is like living below our means and our biggest sort of expenses, housing. We were able to get our housing expense to be about 11% of our monthly income. And so we, we save and invest the difference. And so, so that's sort of where we are now.

How'd you get it so low in a northeastern big city?

We, we, we bought a really. We bought a starter home. And we've been here for about six years now, seven years. And so we were thinking about upgrading and getting a larger home, but not now, not the way homes are right now. But that's sort of. We wanted to leverage having that starter home and saving and investing the difference, because that was before we had Trojan. And we always wanted to give ourselves the option that if my wife wanted to go part time or zero time, if and when we had a family, like, we would have that option. And so we were very comfortable with beginning with the starter home.

Now you mentioned a little bit the immigrant mentality. Are you first generation immigrants, second generation immigrants?

So I guess I would say first generation for me, even though I was born overseas. But I had all. I came here when I was three years old, so my mindset is American. So I would say I'm first generation and my wife is also first generation. But we had those values instilled to us from our parents.

So Tell us about that upbringing. How did that affect how you manage your money?

So for our parents, it was sort of like we were always able to have what we needed. My parents made sure that we had what we needed to be successful in school. So if we needed a computer or whatever, classes for being successful on exams or whatever they would make, they would make that happen. And so we under. And my parents, my dad, I remember him sitting down with the monthly checks that he would write for the bills. So I was very familiar with the amount of money that was coming in, going out at a very young age. So I understood the process of running a budget in that sort of like at the best as I could at that age. But I remember my dad saying, make sure you pay off your credit card bill every month. And so that's what we. So those lessons sort of stayed with us. But, you know, my parents didn't really have the means to, you know, talk about investments and, you know, 401ks, 403bs IRAs and that sort of thing. So. But they gave us a really good foundation from which to sort of have that launching pad because we were in a position to have that income that would allow for that.

What advice do you have for someone that's just like you were a few years ago coming out of pharmacy school, probably not owing just 80,000, now probably owing 150,000 or 180,000. What advice do you have for them if they want to get to where you are and a decade from now want to. Want to be millionaires like you?

Yeah. So this is the same. These are the things. I actually have an elective course in my college that I started on personal finance. And so these are the things that I share with them. It's like, live below your means. Have a plan what you're going to do when you're living below your means. So not just saving it in a bank account, but investing it, automating as much as you can, making sure you have a financial plan with a partner, if you have one. So making sure you're on the right page and the same page, and just invest in index funds, ETFs, target day funds, if that's what you want. And so just go from there and then sort of commit yourself to lifelong learning. Because in my process, I gotten bad advice along the way. And at the time, I didn't realize it was bad advice. I was being pitched whole life insurance policies.

Welcome to the club.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was sold a disability policy that ended up not being what I wanted or needed. And so I had to change that two years ago. And so that whole process of lifelong learning, I try to tell students, is that you're doing that anyway for your career. And no one's going to. You're not going to. There's going to be no better steward for your finances than yourself. So to commit to learn as much as you can, even if you do use a professional, to then know that you're getting good advice.

Awesome. Well, that's good advice. That's good advice for all of us. Congratulations to you on your success. It is very impressive what you guys have done, and I know it doesn't happen by accident. You know, it takes deliberate plan and it requires some discipline to follow it. So congratulations to you and I know your story will inspire others to do the same. Thank you so much for coming on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast.

Thanks for having me.

All right. Hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did. You know, a 2 pharmacist income is about the equivalent of a family practice income, a pediatrician income, right? And double pharmacist debt is about the same as the debt you get coming out of medical school. And so there's a lot that most of you can take from that interview that you can build wealth even when you're starting out in a hole. And that step by step saving, investing in a smart way as you go through the years very quickly adds up to substantial sum of money. And I think that's the lesson to take away from that. That small and steady steps as you go along will bring you success in the long run. 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 White Coat Investor can help. If you'd like to be on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast, you can apply@whitecoatinvestor.com Milestones and we'd love to celebrate your financial achievement with you and use it to inspire us to do the same. Until next time, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this and we can help.

The hosts of the White Code Investor Podcast are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is free entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.