Nurse Practitioner Becomes a Millionaire by Doing Locums - MtoM Podcast #199

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 199. Nurse practitioner becomes a millionaire by Doing Locums One of the most underrated financial moves in medicine is working locum tenants. It pays significantly more on average, and you can work locums full time or on the side of your full time. And when you work with Comp Health, the number one staffing agency, they cover your housing and travel costs, which on top of higher pay really adds up. Locums also gives you more control of your career, allowing you to go where you want, when you want, with a schedule that works for you. It's the perfect way to get ahead financially while getting focused on what you love. Whether it's locum tenants or a regular permanent position. Build your career your way with the power of Comp Health. Learn more at Comp Health. All right, by the time this drops, I think it's the last day of our Black Friday sale. So if you have not heard this yet, Black Friday sale is ending today. What can you get on Black Friday? Well, you can get all kinds of things, but at wci, you can get anything that comes out of our store. Okay, so shop.whitecoatinvestor.com you can get anything there. T shirts, swag, mugs, whatever. But you can also get all of our online courses. Okay? That includes our no hype real estate investing course. It's 20% off. That's save you hundreds of dollars if you don't have a written financial plan in place yet. That includes our fire your financial advisor course. Okay, There's a student version, an attending version, a resident version. There's even a version that comes with CME. They're all 20% off through today. You know, December 2nd. Also, if you're interested in continuing buy financial education, we have our CFE 2024 course. It's also 20% off. In fact, you can buy last year's for even less money. The CFE 2023 course, it's also 20% off. It's dramatically less expensive than the current course. And let's be honest, not much of this stuff actually goes out of date year to year. So if you're looking for a real deal on something you can use your CME dollars for and really get a lot of good education, that's a great option. There is like 4:50 hours of material in these CFE courses. It's basically a packaged up version of that year's WC Icon and so it's a great opportunity. You can check out the courses. Easiest place is probably just to go to whitecoatinvestor.com and go up to the courses tab at the top. But you can Also click on whitecoatinvestor.com courses and go there as well. Okay, we've got a really cool interview today. It actually aligns really well with our sponsor for this episode. I found out after we finished this recording with this guest who has done a lot of locum's tendons, that she's actually done a lot of work with Comp Health. And so, you know, she's very positive about her experience there. So keep that in mind. You know, when we pick sponsors for wci, when we have, you know, recommended advisors or insurance agents or whatever, these are people that we think are the good people out there, you know, that are doing a good job. And so while there's only so much vetting you can do and there's no guarantees, I mean, these people are buying ads from us. So we obviously have a conflict of interest there. We're trying to get the best people in front of you out there. We're trying to connect you with the good guys in the financial services industry. So keep that in mind when you realize who's helping us to complete our mission here as White Coat Investor. Thank you for supporting them. That does help to support our mission. Stick around after this interview, we're going to talk for a few minutes about trading. Trading? Yeah, like trading stocks, trading options, whatever. We're going to talk about trading for a few minutes, so stick around after the interview. And we will do that. Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Sophia. Sophia, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Let's start by just introducing you a little bit. Tell us what you do for a living, how far you are out of school and what part of the country you live in.

Yeah, so I'm a family nurse practitioner and I finished school about 12 years ago. I'm originally from Miami, Florida, and that's my home base, but I have been working as a locum tenant nurse practitioner for the last nine years. So you'll find me all over the country.

Very cool. And you recently hit a milestone. Tell us what milestone we're celebrating today.

Yeah, we're celebrating millionaire status. So I became a millionaire. Awesome.

You're a millionaire. How does that feel?

Yeah, it feels great. I have less worries, less stress. Can do whatever I want now.

Very cool. Very cool. You know, a million might not be what it Used to be. Right. When we think of our image of a millionaire, you know, from the 1920s or whatever, that's actually probably a Deca millionaire now. But it's still a big number. That means a lot to people. I think those of us who are millionaires can remember the first time we realized we crossed that line, and it was a big deal. So congratulations to you. This is a big deal.

Thank you. Yeah, for sure. The net worth just continues to increase rapidly since then.

Yeah. They say the first million is the hardest. Right. And it's true. It is the hardest. It takes the longest. After that, you've got your money helping you to do some of the heavy lifting. Okay, let's talk about what your net worth is. All right, So, I mean, it's. It's everything you own minus everything you owe, your assets, minus your liabilities. So tell us about your assets. What do you. What do you own?

So my current net worth is 1.6 million. I'm 60% in the stock market, 35% real estate, and 5% in cash. My. I don't have any current debt. I only have debt in the mortgages for my rental properties, in which I have three rental properties. So most of my net worth is in a brokerage account. So I have $550,000 in a brokerage, 370,000 retirement accounts, like a 401k and an IRA. And then I have real estate, which Equity is about 450,000.

Very cool. And are you renting, or do you live in a home you own right now?

So with locum tenants. Since I'm provided housing, I don't technically have a home I'm paying for. When I go back home to Miami, I rent a room from one of my relatives. So that's usually just a few hundred bucks a month.

Very cool. And so you made this transition, it sounds like, what, about three years into your career? You said, I'm going to do full time locums. Tell us about that. I think there's a lot of people that dream about doing this. Right. Tell us about what that's been like the last nine years.

Yeah. So after three years of working as a permanent nurse practitioner, I got bored of the same routine. You know, every day is the same thing. So I decided to take a local locum tennis assignment to see if I was comfortable with jumping into somewhere new and meeting new people all the time, and that was fine. So then I took my first assignment all the way in the opposite side of the country, which was near Seattle, Washington. And it was amazing. I liked working with different populations. I like to travel and the pay was much more as well. In addition, I've been able to save a lot because local tenants, they cover housing, they give me a rental car. So those are usually the number one costs that people have. And since I don't have those costs, I'm able to save most of my paycheck. In addition, most providers end up working most of the year, only have like two to four weeks off per year. And I always knew that wasn't the type of life I wanted to live. I wanted to have more time off to travel abroad.

Amen to that. That's not the type of life I want to live either.

Yeah, it's the best when you have flexibility. So I'm able to work for most of the time I've been doing locums. I worked only nine months a year and I took three months off to travel abroad or spend time with my family.

Very cool. What are some of your favorite places you've been?

Yeah, I. Well, being from Miami, I like to be warm and near the beach, but I take advantage of the summer to go up north. So I really enjoyed being in Maine because it's really laid back. I like the scenery and during the lunch breaks, the doctors would go fishing. That's how laid back it was. I've also liked working in Virginia. I worked at the geriatric clinic and they have clinics all over the US So I've been able to work with them in different places already knowing the system. So it's been a really easy transition.

Very cool. And how about when you're off, where do you like to travel to when you're off? You mentioned some foreign travel. Where's your favorite places there?

Yeah, I travel everywhere. I've been to almost 60 countries, but I took a sabbatical once I became a millionaire in 2022. I spent three months in Barcelona and I ended up meeting my partner. So now I go to Barcelona and spend three months a year and I'm actually in Barcelona right now because my partner is going to be moving to the US Next month.

Very cool. Well, I appreciate you recording this even though you're like eight hours ahead of us. Luckily it's morning time here in Utah while we're recording, so it's not too late for you. So this is super duper cool. I'm curious if you add in the benefits of the car and, you know, the rent and everything that they cover for you, how much more do you think you get paid doing locums you know, on a daily basis or an hourly basis, compared to if you were sitting there in Miami working a regular, you know, family nurse practitioner job, how much more do you think you get paid? Do you get paid a third more? Twice as much? What are we talking about?

Yeah, definitely, I would say maybe almost double. When I took my first job in Florida, which is a low paying state, I was paid $94,000 a year and then I got a raise up to 124,000 a year. But in locums, currently I only work six months a year and I make 200,000 a year. So that's, you know, almost double. Not including the benefits of the housing and car. Without having a house and a car payment, you know, I'm able to save an extra 30,000 a year probably.

Yeah, it's wild. I mean, you couldn't have made a better advertisement for our sponsor of this podcast. The sponsor of this actual podcast is Comp Health. Right. Which is a big Locums. And they're always trying to get the message out about Locums, but this is a legitimate way people go out and increase their income now. It's a little bit of a unique lifestyle. Right. And this might not work if you got a bunch of kids that are in high school, but, you know, if you, even if you have young kids, you know, my friend Leaf, Darlene, this is what he did for like the first six years or so of his anesthesia career. He was full time locums all the time. Him and his wife, they'd go, you know, rent and use the cars they were giving them and they made good money, put a whole bunch of it away and, and reach financial independence very quickly. So it absolutely does work. All right, now you became interested in finance at some point. When did you become financially literate and decide, you know what, I'm going to save a bunch of this and try to reach some financial goals?

Yeah, I think it started in 2019 because I was working an assignment and I had saved up to buy a rental property and I maxed out my 401k and I bought the rental property and I still had an extra $100,000 in the bank. I was like, oh, what do I do with this? So I search on YouTube and I found a couple called Outrich Journey. And they're a couple from California that retired early in their 40s and moved to Portugal. And that's when I became really interested in investing more.

Yeah, and you're almost living kind of a fire lifestyle now with all the travel you do. And I think that's the way it works for lots of people. Right. It's not nose to the grindstone, 1.5 FTEs for 12 years and then punch out completely. For a lot of people, it's cutting back. It's, how can I enjoy some of my freedom now? Because financial independence is not an instantaneous thing. As you become more and more financially independent, you can take advantage of that. How come you've decided on the split you have between your stock, your index fund investments, and your real estate investments? How come you didn't decide to go more into real estate or more into stocks, for instance?

Well, I like to be diversified. It really helped during the COVID times because the stock market did go down. And I like that the rental rates went up during that time, so I didn't have to worry about having no, you know, income from investments and the stock market. It's easier, more passive. It's less work than having, you know, rental properties.

Yeah. Now you're in Barcelona, so I assume you're not managing the rental properties yourself.

So I actually own two of the rental properties with my sister and so she helps manage them and then we self manage the properties. One of the houses I own on my own and if I need anything, I just call the plumber to go fix it or my dad will help me out.

So you are able to manage it from Barcelona?

Yeah.

Very cool. That's our digitized world, you know, and that's pretty cool. Now, a lot of people that think about going to real estate, they're like, oh, it's a second job, or I'm going to get 3am toilet calls. Have you ever gotten a 3am toilet call?

No. I think the most important thing is making sure you screen your tenants really well and make sure they're able to pay. They have a good job, good income, and also that they're handy. They can fix little things on their own. That way they're not calling you every second for little problems.

Do you actually ask them that when they're, when they're applying to live there? Do you ask them how handy they are?

Yeah.

I wonder if you're allowed to discriminate against people based on their handiness. I don't think that's a protected class. Yeah, they can't be disabled, of course, but you can't discriminate against that. But I don't think just not being handy counts as a disability. Sorry to all of you out there who, you know, can't replace a doorknob. But that's. That's the way it is. Very cool. All right, well, you've been very successful. I think there are probably a lot of nurse practitioners, PAs, pharmacists, even docs out there that go, oh, I wish I had that in my life. I wish I could spend, you know, three months in Barcelona. I wish I could, you know, control my schedule. I wish I could work all over the country. I wish I was a millionaire. What were your secrets to success? Why have you been successful?

Yeah, I think going back to the locum tenants again, there really is a life hack. When I started, at the time, there weren't many nurse practitioners doing it. I created a blog, travelingnp.com and I've been able to help a lot of nurse practitioners start doing it. And they're able to do it, even, like you said, with their children. I know nurse practitioners with young children. They go on our RVs and work throughout the US sometimes they have a spouse that's able to work from home so they can help out with the childcare. Other times they leave their kids at home. You know, if they work in the hospital, they go for one week to the site, then they go back home for the week, and they feel like they have more time with their kids instead of having to work, you know, a regular schedule back at home.

Very cool. What's next for you and your financial goals?

So I have a large cash portion right now because I am saving to buy a primary residence. I think I want to have a place to go back to that's my own and for my partner when he moves to the US and when I'm not using, I want to be able to maybe rent it out, like on Airbnb or as a midterm rental. And I'm also looking to grow my net worth to 2 million. That way I can be more comfortable and have more flexibility. Even more flexibility.

Very cool. Well, I'll bet you are going to accomplish both of those goals in relatively short order. So congratulations to you, Sophia, on all of your financial success, and thank you for being willing to come on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast to share it with others and inspire them to do the same.

Thank you so much.

Okay. I hope you enjoyed that interview. That was a lot of fun, right? I mean, here's somebody that's crushing it. Crushing it through locums. If your lifestyle works with locums, I'd encourage you to check it out. It's a pretty cool way to do your career. You know, my first four years of my career I got to practice medicine on four different continents now. My locums agency happened to be the US Air Force and I didn't have a lot of choice in my assignments. You have much more. If you're working with a typical locums agency like Comp Health, you get to choose where you go when you work, sometimes even how much you work there. You can have local locums that's near your house. You can have locums that's in New Zealand. You can go with your spouse if you want. You might have to buy the ticket for your spouse, whatever. You could take your kids there and stay in a place that would be okay with your kids. Maybe as they get into school, that becomes a little bit harder. But there's a lot of different ways locums can work with your career. If you don't like where you're working, go check some other places out and you'll probably find someplace like, better. And I've run to a lot of docs that that's the way they found their, their long term gig was it started out as a locums gig and they're like, I love it here. I love it in Maine. I love going fishing at lunch, you know, and so that's what they do for their career and they move. And it's pretty cool to be able to do that. All right, I told you we were going to talk about trading. And I ran a blog post on the, on the blog about a month ago. I wrote it, I don't know, a year before that, before we ever got around to writing it, I called that post 11 reasons I don't trade investments. And you can go search the blog. You know, there's a search tab at the upper right on the website. If you go to whitecoatinvestor.com and just put in 11 reasons I don't Trade Investments. And you can see this post. I'm not going to read the post to you, but I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the ideas in that post because I get emails all the time. I see people posting spam comments on whitecoatinvestor.com on the blog post or on the forum or subreddit or whatever all the time talking about trade trading. And usually they're selling some sort of system to help you to trade. So you can be super successful jumping in and out of stocks or options or crypto assets or whatever. But I want you to be very skeptical when you see these things, when you talk to people doing this. Because when you really step back and think about it. None of this really makes much sense, right? I get that maybe some people just learning about this stuff or wanting to evangelize it and really believe that it's true, but most of the time it's just not true. I wish people that are doing it well, but I encourage you to do a few things if you're really into trading. The first is to actually calculate your returns. If you will do this, and you will do this faithfully, especially if you will adjust for the value of your time and the additional taxes and expenses you are generating by doing it, most of the time, you will discover that you would have been better off not spending that time trading, that you would have been better off just spending your time doing something else in your life. Right? And something hopefully more fun for you. Although most traders I talk to say they enjoy it, but really what they enjoy is they think they're making money.

And.

And in the end, a lot of times they aren't making money. And that's really unfortunate. Whether they are scalp trading, buying in and out of a stock every few seconds or minutes, whether they are day trading, whether they are swing trading or position trading usually has the same issues with it. How do people try to do this? Well, they're trying to divine the future. They're trying to look at the daily economic news and figure out which way the value of a stock or the market itself is going to go. Or they're doing technical analysis, analysis, which is a nice name for what's mostly black magic or voodoo. It's a lot of guesswork. It's a little bit of gambling and a lot of guesswork. And sometimes it works out okay for people, but most of the time it does not work out okay for people. They lose money. The SEC has statements out telling you, basically, don't do this. There are lots and lots and lots of people out there who have lost money doing this. But let me just tell you what the 11 reasons are that I don't trade investments. The first one is that trading doesn't add any value to the world. Maybe it helps keep prices a little bit more efficient than they would otherwise be in the market. But you don't need, you know, these people buying in and out every day in order to do that, okay? I'm already financially independent. I don't have to work for money, okay? So when I do work, because fun is, most of the time, a lot more fun than work, when I do work, I want to do it because I enjoy it and because I'M making a contribution to the world. Well, I don't enjoy trading. It's not fun to sit behind a computer and analyze the numbers and buy in and buy out. I'd rather go rafting or climbing or canyoneering or whatever, right? And it's not adding any value to the world, right? I mean, I'm not helping anybody. At least here, recording this podcast, hopefully somebody out there is getting something beneficial out of it. They'll change their life. They'll be happier. They'll take better care of patients, they'll be a better parent, better partner, whatever, right? When I go to the ER and try to take care of people, you know, I actually enjoy that. You know, I enjoy putting in a chest tube. I enjoy suturing up a laceration. I enjoy talking to people about their belly pain and trying to give them some relief. I think it's fun. I don't enjoy trading. And so, you know, you gotta think about that. All right? Another reason why I don't trade is that most people have not adjusted the returns for the risk they're taking on the additional taxes they're having to pay and the effort they're having to put in. If you actually calculate all that stuff, you might not be making as much money as you think you are. In fact, there's a good chance you're losing money. And so if you do want to trade, please account for all that stuff. The taxes by themselves are a huge nightmare, right? You might make 2,500 transactions in a year. And guess what? They all come to you. If you're trading in a taxable account, they all come to you on 1099 at the end of the year. And granted, most software can just download it directly from Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever, but imagine if you hadn't put that in by hand, how many days would you spend doing your taxes for this activity you've decided to do? Okay, a bigger problem, I think, with people trading is I think a lot of them are just addicted to gambling. Gambling addiction is very real. There's a reason they have Gamblers Anonymous and all these kinds of helplines for gamblers. And whether you are gambling in a casino or you are gambling in the market, it's really kind of the same thing. So if you really enjoy gambling, you think gambling's fun, you know, block out $400, go to Vegas and lose it. You know, maybe sometimes you'll come home with some money, and that's great. But real investing is not a casino, okay? It's not about figuring out if Apple's going to be worth more in 16 minutes than it is today. It's about owning Apple because Apple makes a whole bunch of iPhones, and iPhones are cool and really useful, and they make a whole bunch of MacBooks. And MacBooks are really cool and really useful, and a whole bunch of people buy them. And Apple makes profit. And when you own Apple for 10 years, you get a share in those profits. That's an investor. If you're buying it hoping the price goes up in 16 minutes, that's a gambler. You're speculating at that point. That's not what investing is all about. So don't do that. You might also end up having to register with Edgar, which is a regulatory agency, if you're making too many trades. That's apparently a big pain to have to register with Edgar, and I don't think you want to necessarily do that. The biggest issue, though, is just that most traders are not successful. They're just not. They lose money. I've talked to lots of docs that were trying to day trade in between patients in 99 through 2002. It didn't work out well for them. They quit doing that because they realized, hey, this is stupid, okay? It's not a smart way to manage your money. The SEC will tell you that. Every investing authority I know out there will tell you that. And yet there's still people that believe it's not true. Who's on the other side of these trades you're making? Who's on the other sides? Well, it's probably a very powerful computer managed by some very smart people working 80 hours a week sitting there on Wall street, right? You are not trading with, you know, average Joe. That's not who's buying the other end of your stocks, okay? They're better equipped than you. They have more knowledge than you. Bill Bernstein likes to use the analogy that, you know, day trading is like playing tennis with an invisible partner. And what you don't realize is that your partner is Serena Williams, right? This is not going to end well for you. You don't have an advantage over this person, and you're probably going to come out behind. You're trying to generate alpha, right? Beta is the market return. The thing you can get just by buying an index fund and forgetting about it for 20 years is super easy. Alpha is trying to beat that, and that's what traders are trying to do. But remember, before expenses, before taxes, net alpha is zero. Just as many people as get positive alpha must have negative alpha, right? There's not like extra alpha out there you can tap into. You gotta take it from someone else. And you may or may not feel very good about that. But point is, they're working very hard not to give it to you. It's hard. Okay? And so these people coming to you saying, I'm going to sell you my trading secrets for six payments of 499.99. This doesn't make any sense, right? These people are saying they can beat the market. They're saying they can get 60% returns a year, right? Well, here's the truth of the matter. If you can get 60% returns every year, you are going to own the entire net worth of the world in 45 years. Okay? It's just, it's mind boggling that people believe this. It's like they can't do math. Okay? You're not gonna own the entire world in 45 years. You're not gonna get 60% returns every year. It's just not going to happen. And if somebody knew how to do that, they're not gonna sell it to you for just a few thousand dollars. Are you kidding me? They've got a money printing machine. They're gonna take their secret and they're gonna use it and make gazillions, right? And if you're a talented trader, you got this great system. Why in the world would you just be managing your measly little six or seven figure portfolio? There's no way you'd be doing that, much less your five figure portfolio, right? Doesn't make sense. You should be managing billions of dollars because people will pay you a lot of money. If you can beat the market by 1 or 2% a year reliably, you'd be amazed how much people will pay you to do that. And so it doesn't make sense to be just using your money if you truly are this talented. None of this is logical, right? People get sucked into these trading games, they get sucked into these schemes, they end up paying a bunch of money in taxes, they waste a bunch of time and they set themselves back financially. Instead, I would encourage you to spend your time and effort making a real contribution to the world that is valued by others. Carve out a big chunk of your income, invest it in some reasonable way that doesn't suck up all your time. Give it a few years and you will retire very comfortably and be able to leave lots of money to your favorite charities and your favorite heirs. This stuff is not that complicated. Don't make it more complicated than it has to be. Earlier we mentioned work EM Locums with Comp Health, the number one staffing agency. But Comp Health isn't just a locums agency. Comp Health staffs regular permanent positions across the nation as well. They also offer telehealth, medical missions and more. That's what makes them unique. They can look at your situation and offer multiple solutions to build your career the way you want it and meet your financial goals. And they know their stuff, especially when it comes time to negotiate contracts, which they're willing to do for you. So whatever career move you're looking for, check out Comp Health. Use the power of Comp Health to build your career your way. Learn more@comphealth.com all right, if you've accomplished a financial milestone, you can apply to come on this show whitecoatinvestor.com milestone for the rest of you, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this. We'll see you next time on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is for your 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.