WCI #145: Faith, Family, and Finance with Rogue Dad, M.D.

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011. Here's your host, Dr. Jim Dali.

This is White Coat Investor podcast 145 faith, family and finance with Fahad Ahmad. If you're finding our podcasts informative and helpful, we would encourage you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. It is totally free and includes use actionable information not available on the regular blog posts or this podcast. It's almost like being in a secret club. The kind of club that can boost your knowledge and enhance your wealth at the same time with no strings attached. Sign up today@whitecoatinvestor.com Newsletter. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Thanks so much for what you do. Just before we started recording this, I came from a five hour meeting. My butt in a chair for five hours straight. We had a trauma meeting, then we had an M and M meeting, then we had, then we had our three hour partnership meeting and by the end of it I was super grateful to be able to go out the door to another eight hour day of work. I tell you what though, sometimes, you know, we forget all the difficult things in medicine. You know, we're asked to do these things on the side. You know, hospital committees, partnership meetings. You got to keep a business running and you got to see patients and keep them alive. You know, it's not an easy job. That's part of the reason why it pays so well. If nobody's thanked you for it today, let me be the first. Our quote of the day today comes from John C. Bogle, who said, I didn't start the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund because I believed in the efficient market hypothesis. I did it because I believed in the cost matters hypothesis. And I think that's also a really important point, that the reason index funds work is not necessarily because the market is perfectly efficient, but because they're so much cheaper than active management. In fact, in a lot of ways active management can work. It just can't work well enough to overcome the costs of doing so. If you haven't checked out our recommended pages, we have some awesome recommendations for you for services you may need. The White Coat Investor has a threefold mission. The first one is to help you get a fair shake on Wall street, and that's what most of our content is geared toward. Of course, our second mission is to feed my entrepreneurial Spirit. It is a for profit business and I enjoy building it and providing jobs for others. But the third mission is, is connecting you with the good guys in the industry. So if you need somebody to help you get disability insurance or term life insurance, or a physician, mortgage or refinance your student loans, et cetera, all these kind of services that we need. From time to time, you can find people that White Coat investors trust at the recommended pages@whitecoatinvestor.com just go to the recommended tab across the top, it'll drop down, look for what you need and you know you're going to find good people on that page. Not only did I vet them up front, but they are continually vetted by other white coat investors who are using those services. We have a really special guest today that I'm excited to get on the podcast, so let's get them on here. All right. Our special guest on the podcast today is Fahd Ahmad, who you may know as Rogue DadMD. Welcome to the White Coat Investor podcast, Fahd.

Thank you for having me.

So tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm gonna let you introduce yourself for those who don't know who you are and especially tell. Tell us about your upbringing and how that affected your outlook on money.

Sure. So, very well. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy. He would make outrageous claims like he invented a question mark. And sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possessed in the insane. Lament in my childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge legends. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard really. At the age of 18, I went off to Evil Medical School. You know, Jim, I apologize. I realize that's actually Dr. Evil from Austin Powers there. That's his background. That is not my background. But I am a big fan of Dr. Evil and a lot of lessons to be learned from him. My background does not have many similarities to him. But you know, my parents actually are immigrants. They are born and raised in Pakistan, moved here in the 70s before I was born. I'm middle of three boys and you know, they both have an immigrant background and personality and culture as well as a religion that's not as common in the United States. They're Muslim. I'm Muslim, born and raised Muslim. And so the Muslim culture, the Pakistani culture, Even growing up here in St. Louis, which is where I was born and raised and where I am now is a big part of my background and lifestyle and culture. And that family culture that came along with it, the religious culture that came along with it, has been a big part of my life. Their perspectives on world politics, education, I think, is influenced and permeated probably all parts of me, even the parts I didn't agree with or rebelled against as an adolescent or an adult. It's all part of who I am. And from a financial perspective, you know, they came from an educated family. My father actually is a physician. He's a psychiatrist. And certainly having physicians in the family is probably affected me in ways I can't really even articulate. But even having a family that had a good education, they provided a lot for us. Certainly my brothers and I were not, I think, lacking for any needs growing up because my parents worked extremely hard. A big portion of what I learned from them is the work ethic. And I don't want to stereotype it as the immigrant work ethic, because that is a stereotype. But my father has worked extremely hard. He's 72, and actually, I would say still works more hours a week than I do. But as a psychiatrist, sometimes working two or three jobs because he just wants to keep working. My mother runs his practice, and while she was home a lot more with me and my brother, she put a lot of effort into helping him and helping us and paying it forward for education, for charity, for family, for friends. And they are very, very big on trying to give back around us and trying to make sure that we knew we were in a fortunate position and that we didn't take that for granted.

But doesn't sound like you were starving either.

No, I would be misspeaking if I said that I had economic hardship. My parents worked extremely hard, and I think they did well. And I wasn't starving, trying to get food stamps or anything like that. I'm very fortunate. I haven't had that struggle.

Did you ever note at all your parents struggling with the US Financial system?

My father at one point, and this is probably at some point where I started learning about finance, my father at one point did work with a financial advisor, and he never gave me details, but he would make oblique comments about financial advisors ripping him off or doing shady deals or making a bad decision, and he actually made a decision pretty early on. So I teach my older brother and I about finance because he wanted us to know what we were doing. So when I was in elementary School in the late 80s, because I was born in 1980, he actually started teaching us concepts of investing and he actually started quizzing us. And I still remember this, in the car we'd be driving places, he'd start quizzing us on things like the difference between a load and a no load mutual fund. Because he didn't want us when we were older, investing money and giving it away to people that didn't deserve it. Because he, I think, had felt like at certain points early on when he was getting started had been taken advantage of. And so he successfully started his small business, his private practice as a psychiatrist, and has done very well with that. But he also, I think, learned a lot of lessons just experientially about investing and saving in the United States. And he also saw that as an immigrant here there was a lot of work to do and starting up on his own and doing everything on his own, and he wanted to make sure that we were as prepared as we could. And so he's not the type to tell all of his personal stories to us, but he was the type to try and tell us the lessons he wanted us to learn.

Sounds like you were raised by the white coat investor, perhaps the og, the.

Original white code investor.

That's right. That's right. Too bad he didn't start a podcast and a blog and it could have saved me a lot of trouble.

You'd be out of business, you'd be working an ER shift right now.

That's right. You know, I just came from the hospital, so that has particular relevance today. But at any rate, let's talk about your education, your career to this point.

Sure. So I went to undergrad, University of Missouri, and I went into undergrad actually not planning on medicine. I had a lot of family desire, pressure potentially to do medicine, and I went into undergrad with no desire to do medicine. I went into it with a specific desire to get a business degree, thinking I was gonna get an MBA with a very nebulous concept of doing something in the corporate world. And I went ahead and got my business degree. I focused on business management, but I realized as I was going through business school, I really enjoyed what I was learning, but I didn't really feel like I fit in very well to the culture of people who are interested in business in the corporate world. And so I wanted to get the degree, but I also didn't really at that point see myself going into business or going to the MBA or taking a corporate job or some sales job or something afterward. And so I Sort of circled back and started looking at other career options again while I was in business school and decided I sort of had rejected medicine earlier on, but as I explored it more, shadowed more, thought about it more, interacted more, I decided actually I was going to go into medicine instead. And so I finished my business degree, took all the prereqs to still go apply to med school, take the mcat and all that stuff, and then ended up going to medical school and did a pediatric residency in Houston at Baylor College of Medicine at Texas Children's Hospital, and then came to St. Louis for fellowship in pediatric Emergency Medicine at Washington University, St. Louis Children's. I've been here since then. During my fellowship, I started getting involved in academic research for the first time. During the fellowship, I did a master's of science in a postdoc program simultaneously. And then after a fellowship, I did more training in informatics and health it because I was very interested in that. So I ended up getting board certified in that as well. And so I've sort of been figuring it out as I go for the last 20 years. I guess you could say you sound.

Almost like a career student with all the degrees and experiences you've had. You ever felt that way?

I mean, I'm still in academia, so. And I'm still learning, as I learned a long time ago. I'm a lifelong learner. And so, you know, I'm tired of going back to school and I'm tired of going to class. And there may be a point in the future where I go back, get an mba, but at this point I just want to sort of build things out to where I am. But it's always learning process. You got to learn to become a business owner. And I'm trying to learn to become an academic researcher or still becoming a clinician. All those things just keeps going.

Now, a lot of my readers and listeners fantasize a bit about getting a business degree. Whether it's an MBA or whatever. You've got a business degree in business management. Was that a good move or a bad move Move? And why?

It was not a bad move. I would say for me personally, it was a good move because I had no interest in a traditional biology chemistry degree. It was going to serve me no purpose. I had no interest in doing a basic science career PhD and when I looked at the opportunities that something like a traditional science degree would have afforded me, it wasn't going to do anything for what I wanted in medicine. And when I talked to people in health care, they said as Long as you can do the science, it doesn't matter what your degree is in. So learn what you want to learn. And so I decided I was going to go learn the business stuff because I didn't know how I was going to apply it yet. I was, I went. But I think for me it was the right move because it was what was important to me. And as long as it doesn't become a distraction from being a good physician, if that's what your healthcare choice is to be, then I think it's great. You know, in medical school you don't get necessarily great opportunities to apply business lessons, but I think putting that background into my mind has definitely shaped a lot of what I've done over the last 15, 20 years. Even if I'm not applying management principles every day, I also am applying management principles every day, particularly now that I'm out of training and overseeing research programs, overseeing an er, overseeing all sorts of different things. So, you know, I don't read my management textbooks anymore. But I still actually have that grounding that makes me think about it all the time.

Now, most of my listeners know you best as Rogue dad md can you tell us the origin story behind Rogue dadmdash?

Yeah. So it was just over three years ago that the concept Rogue dad was born, and it originated as an anonymous creative outlet and it was born out of a desire to express myself. And it was actually born out of frustration and a little bit of dismay from the presidential election in 2016. And I don't want to delve into politics too much on your show because that's not really the purpose. But basically we touch on this, right? I'm a son of immigrants, I'm Muslim, and I had just finished watching our country elect a president who ran on a very anti immigrant and anti Muslim platform with lots of people supporting that. And I have three boys that we are raising in a Muslim faith. And while the heritage and their outlook is going to be a little bit different than mine per se, you know, I was frustrated and I was worried and I was upset and I wanted a way to talk about it in a way that was just an outlet. And so I started it really just to sort of write my thoughts. And it was anonymous. I did not attach anything on there that was going to be an identifier. Actually, even now if you go to the website or the Twitter account, you won't find my name on the website anywhere. You won't find my name on my blog post or on my Twitter account because I've kept It relatively separate, but it's maintained as a way to sort of discuss all the various things that are important to me, whether it's family, whether it's medicine, whether it's religion, whether it's finance. And it's moved away from talking about just things related to politics because that was just a portion of it. It was just a way to sort of get ideas out that I wanted to get out and interact with people in a different way.

So do you consider yourself a physician finance blogger? Why or why not?

No, I. I would say you are a physician finance blogger. I am just some guy who's putting words on a page and hoping someone likes it. I enjoy connecting with people, I enjoy writing about finance, and I've written many, many things on finance and things I think are both practical application of financial topics. But the blog is not in the Twitter account and the things I do are not really specific to finance. So I'm a physician, I write about finance, I blog. So those words technically go together. But, you know, the tagline of the blog is an all brown look at medicine, money, faith and family. And those are all the topics I write about. And sometimes I write about things that have nothing to do with money whatsoever.

Now, speaking of that term you use so frequently, alt Brown, you are the only person in the world I have ever heard use this phrase. What does it mean? And why did you think it was important to be part of that blog?

So I came up with alt brown as a direct counterpoint to the term alt right that had become popular during the 2016 political cycle. And alt right being sort of the term being applied in the media for the right wing, ultra conservative, almost hate group ethos that had become more popularized and associated with our new president, whether fair or not. And so while I partly coined that term, and I think as you mentioned, no one else is using that term, I think I'm the only one out there using the term all brown. Partly as a direct counterpoint, partly as a joke, but partly to actually say, you know what, let's talk about a different perspective in a way that people aren't thinking about it. Let's talk about the fact that immigrants are out there or even naturalized citizens or citizens from an immigrant background are being marginalized or actively discredited or push to the side and bring that back to the mainstream and show people someone who came in from an immigrant background through my parents, but is integrated into our society and our culture and give that perspective regardless of who's going to hear it. I thought it Was important to try and have sort of a middle ground, mainstream perspective from someone who's got a strong grounding in this country, but also a strong grounding in a religion that's not common here, in a culture that is not always welcomed here. And that I could provide a reasonable voice and some interesting thoughts and engage people in a way that hopefully would be an interesting or fun experience and a learning experience for them.

Now, I always assumed that by alt Brown you were saying that regular brown is Hispanic and alt Brown is South Asian. Is that not the way you see it? Did I totally misunderstand that or is there something of that there?

So it wasn't specific to being alternative to Hispanic. It was meant specifically talking about looking at the perspective of someone from an immigrant background of all different non white colors. Actually not African American really. It's more what I thought. And so, you know, the Caucasian perspective, the African American perspective, you know, it's African American or black, you know, who skin color is actually brown. When you actually look at skin color. To me this is more the immigrant perspective of someone who's from a country where the color of the skin is darker. And. And so I was not looking at it actually as the alternative to Hispanic. I was looking at it as an alternative viewpoint of what people were considering, which is generally that immigrant assimilated viewpoint in general.

Now with the Pakistani heritage.

Yeah.

Do you feel like you're more or less discriminated against than somebody with an African American heritage or a Mexican American heritage or whatever?

You know, I actually think I'm discriminated less in my current role. I certainly think there's going to be parts of the country where that may not be the case. But I think in my life growing up in St. Louis, even in a rural state in Missouri, I think African Americans face more discrimination than I do. I think in many places those who are Hispanic or Latino face more discrimination than I do. I certainly think because of the South Asian background and being Muslim in particular, there's a pretty strong general countercurrent against Muslims in particular because of the association with things like 9, 11, the association with terrorism, this sort of desire to paint people with a broad picture. On a day to day level, I think I'm fortunate in that I'm spared some of that. But on a broader policy level, I certainly feel like my background is being targeted very routinely now.

I feel like I meet a ton of doctors with a Pakistani or an Indian background. Right. Am I wrong or is it not A significant proportion of the physicians in this country have that background. Why do you think that is? Is that a cultural thing, a heritage thing, or is it just the fact that there are a lot of people in South Asia?

Well, you know, there's a lot of people in China, too, but I don't know how many Chinese positions are located in America. So I don't know if it's purely a population issue. I would say there's a hugely cultural issue aspect of it in that, you know, it's almost a stereotype in its own way that when culturally speaking, there's a big push always to make sure that the next generation, the generation is coming out, is able to do economically.

Well, so that way they can take.

Care of those after them and those before them. It's really an intergenerational viewpoint. And part of that is trying to choose a career path that will allow you to support yourself and your family and your kids and provide them education. Paying it forward and paying it backward is a big part of the culture, and that's part of a lot of cultures. But I think it manifests itself in the South Asian culture in a choice of professions that often get chosen very narrowly. And so a lot of people focus on things like engineering and medicine in particular, as stable jobs, good incomes. As long as you're competent, you'll have a job and you'll be able to raise your family and help them go to school and provide for them, and hopefully have ability to take care of future generations, whether it's grandkids or older generations like grandparents, because it's a lot of sense of responsibility and obligation. I would say that you owe it to the people before you and after you. And medicine in particular is viewed with a lot of respect, and that's part of it. Also, the healthcare profession, medicine is viewed with a lot of respect. So it's not chosen randomly just because it's well paying. It's a job that has a nobility to it, historically, that allows you to help other people. And so there's definitely a lot of, I think, cultural pressure, not necessarily religious cult pressure, but cultural pressure to pick a respected profession that can support you, support your family. That requires good education, because there's a big emphasis often on education and doing well in school. And so that often narrows down some of the topics. You know, when I was going through high school, I was very, very active in theater, and I was not a good actor. I was not a good dustman at all. I'm sure my parents were worried that I was gonna want to go up to Hollywood and Become an actor. And they probably were relieved when I went to business and then into medicine. I was never good enough to pursue theater anyway. I loved it, but it was never something I seriously considered. I think there is a change, actually now when I look at people younger than me, when I look at my own kids, my oldest is 10. I think both those who are coming over from the first time overseas, but also those being raised here, second and third generation now, I think there's a lot more branching out, a lot more people doing things besides lawyer, medicine, engineering. And I think that's part of the societal change overall, globally and here.

So your parents didn't tell you you can be anything you want as long as it's a doctor or lawyer.

No, lawyer wasn't the choice.

Or what's the other one? We hear a lot. You don't have to be a doctor or lawyer. You can be an engineer, too. I think I hear that one a lot. East Asians as well, Southeast Asians. I hear those sorts of stories from them as well. You write a fair amount about your faith. Can you tell us about the impact of your faith on your life? And particularly since this is a financial podcast, how you manage your money?

So from a life perspective. I was born and raised in Missouri, and at the time, there weren't many Muslims in St. Louis. My parents wanted sort of a new wave of Muslims and South Asians settling in this region. And so I grew up without a lot of Muslims around outside of the small community I was going to. I went to a Sunday school, I went to the mosque with my parents, regularly prayed at home, was taught all the tenets of the faith, and certainly became a big part of my identity and is a part of my identity. But then at the same time, I grew up with most of my friends being non Muslim, and a lot of my friends and extended people, I connected with school and work as non Muslim. And I, for many of those people, became sort of the Muslim that they knew because there weren't that many in school. When I was in elementary, the only other Muslims I knew were my older brother and another good family friend. And for a good chunk of my high school, there's only a couple other Muslims in high school. When I was in college, same thing, Medical school, same thing. For long periods, I go through stretches where for a lot of people, I'm the only Muslim they interact with regularly. And so, you know, I hear this from people from other backgrounds sometimes, you know, in terms of minority backgrounds, that sometimes you feel like you're representing that background even when you don't want to. And so I, I don't pass myself off as a Muslim scholar because I am not. And there are many people who are far more religious than I am though I would class myself as a Muslim and I practice the faith. I think there's definitely rooms to be more religious if I chose to be. But I also often in the position to explain certain things, whether it's basic stuff like a holiday or some of the tenets of the faith that people and both being a Muslim, but a Muslim in a sort of a sea of non Muslims, I think has just been a constant self awareness because I'm just always sort of aware of who I am because I can't just sort of blend in. And you know, I ended up actually marrying a non Muslim who was okay with it. But still that again became a part of my identity. And so it's defined me without me attempting to define it because it's just how I grew up. And so I don't think about it day to day and you know, I don't think my friends think about it day to day. My family doesn't think about it day to day. But it does impact things like money. So you know, talk about how does faith impact money? And charitable giving would be a great option. One of the tenets of Islam is zakat. It's one of the five pillars of the faith, meaning that we're expected to give to charity a certain percentage. And that's one of the things that I learned from my parents, importance of giving, if not time, then money when possible to those less fortunate. You know, my mom is probably the most giving person I've ever met in my life. Whether it's time or money or anything else, whether it's food, whatever she can give. And I wish I was as charitable and as giving as she is. And I learned from her and my dad who works a lot, but gives a lot. And so when it comes to my kids, I'm trying to teach them the same thing when it's time to donate to charity. Even our 10 and 6 year old are picking out charitable causes to give to with money they get or earn at times. Because I think giving back is important, giving forward is forward and recognizing where you are in sort of a position of privilege is important.

Now I get a fair number of questions by email from Muslim docs, Muslim investors asking about Sharia compliant investing. Do you try to invest in a Sharia compliant manner?

I think it would be fantastic if the world economy was set up to be compliant with my religion, but it's not. Not. And I think being very American, I invest in a very traditional, vanguard oriented way. So you know, I don't consider VTI Sharia compliant, but that's where I invest a lot of my money. And a target date mutual fund is not probably necessarily Sharia compliant, but at the same time I make sure I don't choose specific investments that would be contradictory to my faith. So I don't invest specifically in a tobacco company or an alcohol company, but I do purchase broadly the S&P 500 or the things in the Dow Jones that I know would potentially have some of those classes in them. But because I don't feel like I'm supporting those companies specifically, I would say I justify it to myself. I won't put myself out there as a religious scholar, as I mentioned, to the point where I can say that a local Muslim scholar and imam would say how you should invest. There are principles in Islam such as you shouldn't charge interest in a loan because interest is considered haram or anti Islamic. It's against the principles, you know. So in that regards, one could almost say that investing in a bond would be against the Islamic faith. But you know, I don't say I sort of justify it in a way that it's okay, but I do it because that's really the way that the job environment and the economy here is set up to be able to make money. The cost of living here and the way to purchase and save and grow is to invest. And if I lived in Pakistan in a much lower cost of living, I probably save a lot more cash and invest more in real estate and probably invest in a slightly different way. And I would put less in the US stock market if I was living in Karachi instead of St. Louis, but when in Rome, do as they do in Rome. And here in America, I'm investing, I think the same way you do or the way at least you used to. I don't know if you're still doing a lot of VTI nowadays with all your white coat investor stuff, but I would say I invest in a very traditional standard way with broad based stocks and mutual funds and ETFs.

Yeah, certainly the Total Stock Market Index Fund is still a major holding in my portfolio as it always has been. It's actually a quarter of my portfolio and still remains my favorite mutual fund. Do you do anything unique with regards to your debt? Did you decide maybe to pay off debt earlier than you otherwise would due to your faith or do you look at the invest versus pay down debt question any differently than other people might. How do you treat debt?

I've become very anti debt in general and I don't attribute it entirely to the religion though I think that's certainly a portion of it. I think part of it's cultural for me with my parents and sort of just actually the lessons my dad was teaching me early on of trying to avoid debt, I mean, I don't even know what circumstance was making him tell me this, but my dad was teaching me a long time ago, before I even had a regular job, to avoid things like home equity line of credits and taking out extra debt just for the sake of lifestyle. And I was, he was talking to me about that before I was even in residency, just sort of as I planned ahead. And so when I came to medical school, debt, I did have some. I was fortunate to not have tons because I went to a cheap undergrad and then in state med school my parents were able to save money and put a lot of that money they saved from undergrad towards medical school instead. So I didn't have huge debt med school, but I paid it off relatively quickly. And then, you know, I have not always been debt conscious in some ways. I've certainly never held credit card debt month to month. And when it came to car loans, we actually did take out one car loan early on that we paid off super fast. And the other cars we bought, we paid either paid in cash or paid off extremely quickly. And it's partly cultural and partly lifestyle and that's, you know, I think there's good debt and there's bad debts, but when it comes to debt for consumer items, I just feel like it's all bad and I don't want that hanging over my head. I don't want to be buying a car for the next seven years.

I don't want to be buying my.

Education for the next 30 years. And I do have a mortgage that has a long time left to go, but if I can pay it off well before the due date, that would be fantastic. And I'm a saver and I prefer to save up for these big things. Now I will say if you go, you can find this on my blog somewhere. I talked about my series of decisions in the different homes we purchased over time refinances. Our first home I purchased with zero money down on a doctor's loan when we made our first purchase in 2010. And I was not super comfortable with that and I couldn't really articulate it why at the time, but I think in retrospect, it's because I just don't like debt. But that was our first major purchase, and we got out of that very fast and got equity pretty fast and got to 20% pretty fast and refinanced with 15 year fixed to get that payment. So we could be putting off more money into the principal quickly. And that's just sort of my philosophy, partly by culture, partly by religion, and partly by personal preference. And I have friends and family and colleagues who don't view things that way, But I feel pretty strongly about not having consumer debt, and I think that's sort of the best way to go about things.

Now we're buying in 2010 must have worked out pretty well for you.

Oh, yeah.

That was not a bad time to be buying a home.

It was perfect because, you know, I had. I had no money, literally. I mean, we had nothing to save for down payment. You know, we had enough money to cover our mortgage, but we bought at the bottom of the market in an area that was desirable, but it had a high turnover. When we ended up selling in 2016, it was at the peak of the market and we made a. We made a profit on it. But that also meant that the next one we purchased was also sort of near the peak of the market. So it sort of ended up trading off evenly there. But it ended up working out great because as the market recovered, even though I didn't have a lot of money built into the house, the house itself appreciated so quickly that I artificially ended up having equity in the house just based on the higher appraisal and actually started refinancing to a lower rate twice. So I refinanced to a lower rate twice in the first year and a half, barely having put any money into the house just because the value appreciated. And then therefore, they gave me a lower rate because I suddenly had 15%, 20% equity, even though I had done almost nothing. So it worked out quite well.

Not surprised. I bought a house late in 2010 as well. And I remember we looked at a whole bunch of different houses, 30 or 35 houses, probably. And I watched them all for the next six months after we bought ours and none of the other ones sold. I mean, we really had our pick of the letter at that point, so I'm not surprised. You did well on that house. Has Rogue Dad MD been a good business for you?

So I did not form it originally as a business. As I mentioned, it was a creative outlet. And it was a while before I Even decided to try and explore, trying to become use it as a business. So the short answer is, no, it has not been a good business because I think I didn't form it creatively that way. And when I started exploring it, unlike I think your site or even Leaf and Physician on Fire, I didn't have a business focused mission. So even though I've got that business background, business degree, I didn't come into this thinking it was going to be a business. I thought it would just be a way to make myself enjoy my life more and connect with people. And it definitely, I think, has been a struggle in that because of the way I write and the content I write, it doesn't necessarily focus itself on one specific audience that's always going to come back for a specific educational opportunity where they're going to learn and click on a referral link. The people that come back or go to the Twitter account are people that like to hear my voice of what I talk about, or my jokes, or what I reason about, or the thoughts I share, or the connections that I make. And that doesn't necessarily in a blog, lend itself to generating large amounts of income, I would say.

What did you find most surprising when you decided to see if you could make money online?

I mean, I just, I'm shocked more people aren't reading my website, Jim. I mean, come on. I mean, it's fantastic material, you know, I think the hardest part, honestly, is when I lined up the first couple advertisers is trying to figure out the best way to make sure they were getting a return on their investment and trying to keep my content the way I wanted, with the voice I wanted, without trying to basically appear like I was actively writing content meant to steer someone to a specific person because I didn't want the content to change. I just wanted to make money by writing the content. Right? I mean, that'd be the greatest thing in the world. Just do what you love and people pay you for it. And I think being able to generate a return on investment for someone who doesn't have any direct connection to the content I'm producing because sometimes I'm writing about religion and politics, but I had advertisements from an insurance broker and a financial advisor on there. It was hard to make my reader, I think my reader who is coming for all these other worldly topics, sort of say, oh yeah, while I'm here reading about Islam and charitable giving, I'm going to go have this person give me disability insurance and therefore that'll make him want to renew his advertisement on my site. And so I think focusing that and figuring out how to make the ad portion of it generate content was difficult. Interestingly, I think one of the ways I continue to make money, even though I've not been writing as much recently, is through affiliate courses like yours, like the Fire Financial Advisor course. I wrote a review of your Fire your Financial Advisor course. That's sort of some evergreen content there that's still good. And I actually got an email, I think two days ago that someone used my link to buy your course. And I haven't shared that link online in months, but people are still coming across my review and clicking on the link and apparently. And I make, I don't know how much I make 50 bucks or $99 or whatever whenever someone buys that through the site. Because I wrote a detailed, accurate, objective review of it. And I think if I focused on something like that, I probably would generate a lot more revenue, but then I probably wouldn't enjoy the writing as much.

Yeah, it's a bit of a catch 22 there, isn't it?

Yeah.

Now, you've been blogging a lot less as of late. In fact, the last blog post I see up as we record this was in July. How come? Are you done blogging?

So, no, I am on a bit of a hiatus. I've had a lot of schedule changes really starting into summer, going through this year, and probably into the spring. And so just to make sure I could focus on the things at work and home that needed more priority and time, I shelved some of the writing. It's not dead. I've made sure the website's active and live and functional. I still answer the emails and the Twitter account is quite active. Feel free to follow me on there as well. And still a lot of random things on there were relevant to the blog. And actually at the end of the summer I recorded a podcast that I have not finished. I never got into editing because my schedule changed that I hope to put out over the holidays when I finish, get around to it is actually interviewing my oldest son about a tweet that went viral. And I think it's gonna be a fun podcast to put out. I think it'll be fun for those who know about the tweet. And even though it's a an interview with a 10 year old, I think it's actually kind of fun. And so the blog is not dead. It's gonna come back. I hopefully will branch it out when I do it with a new focus and you know, the podcast hopefully I will be able to put out later this month or early January. If any of your listeners want to be a advertiser on the first ever RogueADMD podcast, feel free to drop me a line, but not required. And that'll be out at some point. The next few weeks, I would hope.

Awesome. So for those who want to follow you on Twitter, that's oguedadmd, correct?

Yes, sir.

Now, your blog has a charitable mission, a little bit like Physician on Fire that way, who donates 50% of his profits to charity. Why do you have a charitable mission? Number one and two, why did you choose to do it a little bit differently in that you've chosen to donate from revenue rather than profit?

So once I started actually earning a little bit of money from it, even though it's never been a large sum, it was pretty important to me to pay it forward again, because this was a way to connect with people and demonstrate who I am, even to people who don't know who I am. Because I wanted the site to be about the message I had, the who I am a way to connect to people that I know and don't know. And so for me, giving a portion of that money to a charitable cause really was almost a requirement of if I was going to generate revenue. Some of that had to go to something besides just paying off my bills or going to buy a gift from my whoever, because I really wanted to make sure that someone else could benefit from any small revenue I made. And the reason I chose revenue and not profit was really, you know, depending.

On how you want to do it.

With the tax return, you can do a lot of financial accounting tricks to make your profit pretty small and say you're giving 50% of this or 50% of that. Now, you know, Physician on Fire obviously has donated quite a large amount. His revenues have gotten quite high. But I also sort of expected and knew that I probably was not going to be generating six figures in revenue. And so if I then played a lot of accounting tricks and started deducting my Internet cost from it, my profit, which is going to end up being pretty small. So to make sure, I actually was feeling like I was giving money away and not just giving away 50% of some arbitrary number, I wanted to make sure it was a real number off the top line, not the bottom line. So that way I knew that it was a real amount, that it wasn't just enriching me, that it really was something that I was paying forward. And, you know, if this website or blog or podcast or Speaking fees or whatever somehow at some point makes six or seven figures. Maybe I'll adjust that formula, but there's no reason to do at the moment.

Now you're going to be coming to WC icon 20, the physician, wellness and Financial Literacy conference in March in Las Vegas. In fact, that'll be about a couple of weeks after this podcast runs. Now we're recording it obviously a few months before then, but that's only two weeks away. By the time people are hearing this podcast now, you're going to be speaking about 800 people there. Is that the largest group you've ever spoken to?

It probably will be. I've spoken to large audiences. I've spoken to, you know, crowds of a few hundred. It's a very different type of crowd I've spoken to, usually academic related, research related. So I've spoken to 2, 3, 400 people before. But I do think 800 will be the biggest group nervous at all. You know, I enjoy public speaking, but I always get a little bit nervous. But I think it's a good kind of nervous because I enjoy being out there. Once I'm out there talking, usually the nerves go away.

Awesome. What are you most looking forward to about the conference?

I am looking forward both to hearing a lot of the other speakers you're bringing in because I think you have a fantastic group of people coming in to talk about all sorts of purely financial and non financial topics. Connecting with people that I've only met online because I came to your conference a couple of years ago and met people that I never met in person, but only connected with through your website, comments forum, Twitter, et cetera. And I'm looking forward to giving the talk. I think it'll be a great opportunity to sort of connect with people on a topic that's really important to me.

Speaking of which, what can people expect to hear from you at the conference?

So it is not something I've spoken about publicly before, but I think it's actually going to end up being probably one of my most important talks I've ever created or delivered, probably the most important for me professionally and personally. And I'm going to be talking really about second victim syndrome, which is essentially for those not familiar with that term, you know, to give you sort of a basic definition, it's almost like PTSD from healthcare associated events. And I'm going to be talking about really personal experiences I have had as a physician, the impact on my professional life, the impact on my personal life. I think it's going to be a topic that really, all healthcare providers are familiar with conceptually, even if they haven't heard the term or ever thought about it. And I'm going to be talking about sort of individual things I've done to help me sort it through the difficult times I had, as well as some institutional or environmental things you could do wherever you are to hopefully try and help people who are going through difficult times because of negative healthcare outcomes from their patients or their, you know, or their loved ones or things along that line. I think it's something that's a pretty universal topic. It's not money related at all, but I think it's far more important than a lot of the money topics that I have talked about or the research topics I talk about.

Not to mention it helps people get CME credit for coming to the conference. That's always a good thing, too.

Yeah, I mean, you gotta. Gotta have people pay their way somehow.

That's right. So, you know, I think you have the perfect specialty to give that talk in pediatric emergency medicine, you know, because if you ask any emergency physician what their worst day was or their worst case, they're always gonna name a day when some child was hurt or was really ill. And those cases are concentrated in a pediatric emergency department and often happen unexpectedly to the family and so can really make for quite traumatic situations relatively frequently.

I think that's a very good synopsis of some of what I will be talking about. You know, I work at St. Louis Children's Hospital. We're busy. We're in an urban environment. You know, while this is not specifically the case I'll be sort of reviewing in the talk, you know, I also am in one of the hospitals or maybe the hospital that sees the most pediatric gunshot wounds in the United States because of unfortunate gun violence in the St. Louis region. And so my colleagues and I, the trauma team, the emergency environment team, and because we're in a subspecialty referral hospital, we see a lot of ill and injured children. And unfortunately, some don't survive their illness or injuries. And that's hard. And there's no sugar coating it. It's part of the job, whether we like it or not. Even knowing that that's part of the job, that doesn't make it easier whether you're trained for it or not. And so, you know, knowing in advance, having resources in advance, doesn't suddenly make that child's death in the ED or in the ACU any easier. And so knowing that that's going to happen and making sure you can support yourself or Your colleagues or your family or your friends or whoever it is. I don't think it's done enough anywhere. There's a handful of places who are doing a great job of that kind of thing, but most institutions, even big universities and children's hospitals, still lag behind and recognizing when people need help, when their own employees need help.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing you speak at the conference. All right, for the listeners, here's a bit of a warning. If you have young kids in your car with you listening to this podcast, you may want to turn it off now and come back and listen to the rest of this podcast later. That's your warning. That's your last one. All right, Fawn, I love the Tooth Fairy story. Can you share the tooth fairy story, why it made you proud and what you learned about going viral on the Internet?

Yes. So my oldest son, who's now 10 and a half foot when he was nine, this was spring of last year, was going through the traditional losing all of his baby tooth. He'd gone through several episodes of Losing Teeth. And Tooth Fairy is part of our household. And even for me growing up, I didn't grow up with Santa Claus in my Muslim household, but I grew up with the tooth fairy wife did. And so putting money under his pillow was something we always did. A lot of times it was me sneaking in after he was in bed and putting a quarter dollar, whatever the heck it was in. And so last spring, he told my wife that, oh, I lost another tooth and the job fell to me to say, okay, I'll sneak in after he's asleep and I'll put a dollar under his pillow. You know, I'm on night owl, so I make sure he's in bed and asleep and passed out. I sneak in and take the tooth, throw it away, put a dollar in, and then find out the next day I wasn't actually home. He has a conversation with my wife and basically says, mom, I know the tooth fairy is not real and I know it's you guys. And she says, no, it's no, there's tooth fairy. What makes you think it's me? It's not us, it's the tooth fairy. And he goes, no, I know it's not a tooth fairy. I know it's made up. I know it's you. And she goes, no, how would you know that? And he goes, because this tooth fell out three days ago. And I've had it under my pillow for three days. And I've been checking every morning and Every morning the tooth was still there. And then I finally told you that I had lost a tooth. And then the next morning there was money near my pillow. So I know it was you guys that put money under my pillow. There wasn't tooth fairy because it didn't happen until I told you. And she basically gave it up right there and said, oh man. She was just flabbergasted, caught off guard. He's a smart kid, right? He's very interested in science. He's also very creative with arts, but he likes to do experiments, but he's never done anything like that to us. It completely caught her then me off guard. And so when she told me the story, it was sort of like, ahaha. Our son, our nine year old made us look stupid, pulled one over on us. I wrote a short tweet about it, took me five seconds, write the tweet, put it online, forgot about it, and then the next day, you know, some people started reading it. I didn't. This was a year and a half ago. My Twitter account, I think, had 700 followers maybe at the time. A few people started liking it. A few people started retweeting it. I was joking with friends, I went viral. 75 people liked it and 10 people retweeted it. And then it actually started picking up traction without me doing anything. Suddenly went from 100 to several hundred and then it started hitting the thousands of likes and retweets. And then a friend of mine said, hey, you know what, this is starting to pick up steam. Maybe you should talk to some local news about it. And I actually got into contact with a local reporter from the St. Louis Postal Dispatch who read the tweet, thought it was amazing, both funny and insightful, thought it was really cool that our 9 year old had done this, actually interviewed us and wrote an article about it. And then it got picked up nationally and internationally. The story itself did. The tweet, continued to expand. It ended up having something like 700,000 likes and ended up being viewed 35, 40 million times. We got written up in multiple articles. My son got interviewed by multiple people, ended up getting picked up on Facebook and Instagram and probably, I can't tally the actual number, but the tweet ended up probably having a reach of 50, 60, 70 million people, which certainly was not what any of us were expecting. You know, I think the thing I was actually most proud of my son about was that he never let any of this go to his head and that he never spoiled it for anyone else. We talked to him about, you know, the fact is that some of his friends at school or the parents might hear about this. And he was, you know, when he's getting interviewed in the news or local newspapers, rather that it's going to be tempting to go tell all of his friends or his younger brother, who is, you know, four and a half years younger about this and spoil the tooth fairy for a lot of other kids. And that was not something we wanted to happen. We wanted him to enjoy it. We wanted him to enjoy these 15 minutes of fame, but we didn't want him to take away that joy from his younger brother or friends at school who may still believe in the tooth fairy, or to let it go to his head that reporters were interviewing him about this experiment he'd pulled over on his parents. And he didn't. He never spoiled it for his younger brother. When his younger brother was losing teeth, he actually helped and encouraged the younger brother to even write a letter to the tooth fairy. Wrote him a letter for him to the tooth fairy, make sure he got his money from his first tooth. He did not talk about it with friends at school. He didn't make a big deal out of it. He thought it was amazing and cool. We kept news clippings and things like that. And then six months, a year later, it would still pop back up and people would ask him about it and he'd basically be like, oh, you're still talking about that. You know, I'm doing this and this and this now. You know, this is where I'm spending my time. You know, I'm not still talking about the tooth Fairy. Why are you? So it catches them by surprise because every so often I'll tell him the tweet will suddenly pick back up again randomly. It's been a year and a half, and suddenly I'll suddenly get another hundred people looking at the tweet and sending me messages about it. And I mention it every so often. He's just blown away that people are still thinking about it a year and a half later.

It's quite a story. Did you see your blog traffic pick up quite a bit from it? Did that seem to last or was it kind of a flash in the pan?

So the blog traffic picked up enormously. It was such a spike in traffic, I actually had to call the hosting company and pay for a higher tier to make sure the site didn't crash that day because so many people. Because I. Actually someone gave me the idea and I hadn't thought about it in the first comment below. I stuck in a link to one of my blog posts that actually was talking about the Tooth Fairy. They'd already written previously about the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. And so people started clicking, going to the website now. Some of that traffic caught on, some of it didn't. I don't think I did a great job capturing that and turning into long term readership. It did turn into a lot of Twitter readership. So I catapulted from 700 Twitter followers to 7,000 and now it's at 12,000 since then. And so I've actually gained a pretty significant loyal Twitter following who just like the jokes I make, the things I talk about and things I write. That actually has driven more traffic. The spike in traffic I saw directly from that I don't think lasted because I also wasn't producing tons and tons of content and my son is not producing constant science experiments to make me look bad. So I didn't have evergreen content every day for for people to come and read. But it certainly helped quite a bit. I would say, though it's not lasted to that degree by any stretch.

It's a pretty fun story though. Anyway.

Fantastic.

Now you've been developing a bit of a niche in academia, giving lectures on physician finances. Can you tell us about your experience, what you've learned, why more docs don't do this, and whether or not you think you're making a difference by doing so?

So it started a few years ago where I was asked to give a small talk to a group of fellows in my division and then I decided to speak to the residents in my department and then I started getting asked to speak in a more broad group and I actually ended up making a four to five part lecture series that I now either I give a couple portions of these lectures and host or invite people in to talk to the combined medicine and pediatrics groups here at WashU. And then I've also been invited to give talks around campus to multiple other residencies and our medical students and have been invited to speak off campus as well. And there's just a craving for it. You know, people have found your website. I think White Coat Investor is the leading voice in educating physicians on personal finance, but people crave the in person contact. People want someone who's approachable, who's been through financial mistakes and learning processes, who's a physician, who's not trying to sell them a product specifically, but has learned a lot that can speak intelligently on the topic to them and they like hearing it. And so we've Integrated our lectures in the lectures I'm giving to our residents into their noontime curriculum to make sure that they have time to come see them or they get recorded so they can watch them later. And they love it. The lectures are well received. And I will say anecdotally, I've had lots of people come up to me over the last several years and tell me, yeah, Father Dr. Ahmad, I went and changed my insurance policy because of you, or I asked this question about an advisor or chose to leave my advisor because of something you said, or I asked this question to my family who was giving me this advice or people randomly. I'll be working an ER shift and at 3 in the morning to slow down and the peas, residents will say, hey, can I ask you a question about such and such. And so I do think locally a lot of people are benefiting from it. Though I can't quantify it exactly, but I think people want it and we're not planning on having it locally go away. It's something that I really enjoy doing. It's some of the most enjoyable talks I give, even though there's no healthcare aspect directly to it. And I also make it a fun talk. I make it personal. I give a lot of personal examples when I give the talk about things I've done that are good and bad and things like buying a house with no money down when I was in fellowship and not knowing where my faculty job was going to be. So that way they think about these things, where they're at and why I saved and didn't save at certain points and why I bought a car when I shouldn't have, etc. I think people want to hear that from someone who's just a little bit further ahead of them because it makes it more real to them. And so, yeah, I think people don't do it because they're not comfortable doing it. People think you have to be a financial advisor or some expert to do it, and you don't. You just have to know enough to know more than the person behind you. Just like anything else in medicine, right? You don't have to become a certified financial planner to teach the basics of an ETF to someone. A senior resident can teach a junior resident how to do a lumbar puncture and they can also teach him about disability insurance. Same thing for finance, I would say.

Yeah, I wish I could clone you. I wish There was a Dr. Ahmad at every academic medical center in the country. It would really, you know, make my job much, much easier. I'll Tell you what.

Well, if. If some of your listeners want me to come talk to them, I have traveled to talk on these talks before and they've been well received. So it's something I could consider for someone who wanted to contact me.

Awesome. Now, you've written that you don't budget. Why not? Do you think most people should? And do you think you can only get away with doing that because you're high income?

So I think the not budgeting sort of general philosophy was born of circumstance and perspective. And my income is obviously a lot higher now than when I was in training. My wife was even working full time back then. She's gone between full and part time. Budgeting didn't work very well for us because of just the way we chose to spend. And so what ended up being the simplest thing to do was say, okay, here's our savings goal. Let's save this much. And as long as we're saving this much, then it's okay to spend. And I think to budget appropriately, you have to. It's almost like having a whole bunch of microscopic goals you have to agree on that becomes challenging. Okay, you have to spend this much on gas and you have to spend this much on groceries and this much on eating out, this much on travel. And it becomes really hard to set 17 different goals that you agree on. It becomes much easier, I think, to set one goal of, let's say, for this percent of our income or this absolute dollar amount for now and then spend the rest. And as long as we're paying off month to month and we're meeting our goals, I think for some people budging is a requirement because otherwise if they don't set those goals, they're going to overspend, they're going to take out credit card debt, they're going to make bad decisions or they won't save at all because they'll wait till they see what's left over and then save and there's nothing left. You know, I think relative to the median US Income, even as a resident, I was making good income. So that's fortunate for me that I started off in a good position. You know, certainly as I said, it was less than I'm making now as an attending. But you know, back then it's still $50,000 or $45,000, whatever I made as a trainee, still it's probably the same as the median parent of two or three kids. You know, I think even then saving first was really important. And you have to prioritize saving. If it's a priority. I don't think you have to budget to save appropriately and I don't think you have to do my model. I don't think it was specific to being a high earner, but I do think there's people that do need a budget. I just don't think it worked well for us.

Now you've got some bright kids. How do you teach them about money?

You know, it's sort of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. So we've tried different things. Some of it's sort of just real time, momentary stuff when we're talking about purchasing things at the store and why we don't purchase this versus this or why I make a purchasing decision at the store about generic versus brand name. But then it's also when they get money or they want to earn money or they want to buy something, it's sort of teaching them the limits of what money can buy you. And then when they run out of money, what that means. And when they ask us to buy something and we don't want buy it for them, what that means. So they, our older two kids who are ten and six get a small allowance of five bucks every two weeks or so. And we basically say, okay, that's your money to spend. We want, you know, if you're going to go to the store and want to buy something, you need to have your wallet with you and plan in advance and then you can buy something. And our 10 year old, you know, every so often splurges on something over the top expensive and then he has no money for a long time until he's saved back up. And he asks us to buy stuff and we say no, that's your personal discretion. You chose to spend it on a bunch of whatever you bought. And so now you have to wait till you save up more money. My 6 year old would spend every dollar he ever gets on Pokemon if we let him. So we put some restrictions on him. But then also we try to give big picture stuff. So when it comes to things like charitable giving, when they get money for holidays or for birthdays, we sort of preset for the older kids that they have to give a portion of that to charity. And so we ask them to pick a charity of something that they would find important and then help them do the donation. So our 6 year old donated to an animal shelter this year our 10 year old donated to group in Africa. You wanted to search for groups in Africa. And so I think having them invested in those decisions is important. So they can actually sort of see where the money's going, even if they don't see the fruits of it. It's all abstract with a 6 year old and even to a 10 year old, it's hard to see it, particularly when, you know, frankly, they're privileged, right? Their dad's a physician, their mom is a nurse practitioner. They're not living in poverty, they're not lacking of things. And so it's almost like a forced austerity thing to a degree to make them recognize that, you know what, you're in a pretty good position. And we're not just going to give you everything you've got to work for something, you've got to give back, you've got to pay it forward, you've got to think about those around you, even if it's just $5 at a time.

All right, now our time's getting short, but you've got the year of 30,000 docs here. Is there anything else you'd like to tell them we haven't had a chance to talk about during this podcast?

I would say after this podcast comes out and after the conference happens, if you are not familiar with second victim syndrome, I would look into it. I think for you personally or professionally, it's going to be pretty important. I think this is something that impacts people, you know, or maybe impacts you. And I would say, you know what, you're not alone. We all struggle in our jobs and there's resources out there, even if they're not local to you, to help you through difficult times. And feel free to contact me or people local to you. I'm happy to chat, talk on the phone, or potentially even come talk to a group, I think in the future, because I think this talk I'm giving for you for the first time, I think it's a talk that's going to be relevant to a lot of people in a lot of places. You know, when it comes to the other stuff we've talked about, family, faith, money, you know, these are, these are just topics of interest to me and I could talk about all these things all day long. So if you have any interest in hearing more about it, say, just check out the website. Well, I haven't written much in a while. A lot of my thoughts are still, I think, relevant there. You know, we talk about politics, rentering, another political cycle. Probably the best blog post I ever wrote was in January this year where I had a one hour talk in a car repair shop with a 75 year old Trump supporter who was very anti immigrant and I think it was the best blog post I've ever written. So I would say check that out.

Awesome. We'll put a link to that blog post in the show notes.

Awesome.

This has been a discussion with Dr. Fahd Ahmad, the Rogue Dad, MD. That can be found at roguedadmd.com that is subtitled an Alt Brown look at Medicine, Money, Faith and Family. Fahad, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and for coming to the White Coat Investor Conference. I'll see you you there.

Thank you, Jim.

All right, that was great to have Dr. Ahmad on here. I met him in person. I'd been reading his writing for a while, but I met him in person at the last WCI con, the one in Park City in 2018, and I was so impressed with his presence on stage. We just had him on a blogger panel that we kind of threw together at the last minute. I was so impressed with his presence on stage that I thought he would make for a great keynote at the White Coat Investor Conference. And so I'm excited about the top he's bringing. I think it's an important one. I think it's really significant as a contributor to Burnout. He's going to be talking about the second Victim Syndrome, you know, without giving that away before his talk. We don't want to discuss too much about it today. We wanted to, you know, tease it a little bit for the conference, but I think it's going to be really fun. And for those of you who are coming to the conference, make sure you catch it. And for those who aren't coming to the conference, well, you're going to be able to buy the conference videos afterwards, so be prepared for that. We're going to try to get them done just as quickly as we can after the conference and get them out to you. If you're finding our podcasts informative and helpful, we would encourage you to sign up for our monthly newsletter. It is totally free and includes useful, actionable information not available on the regular blog posts or this podcast. It's almost like being in a secret club. The kind of club that can boost your knowledge and enhance your wealth at the same time, with no strings attached. Sign up today@whitecoatinvestor.com newsletter. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Also, be sure if you have not looked at it, be sure to check out our recommended pages. In particular, this time of year, a lot of people are interested in our recommended insurance agents, whether you need disability or term life insurance. And as the home buying season starts to heat up, especially with Match Day coming up and so on and so forth. If you need information about physician mortgages or doctor mortgages like the one Dr. Ahmad mentioned in the podcast, you can find that under the recommended pages@whitecoatinvestor.com as well. And of course, if you need a good company to refinance your student loans to a lower rate and give you cash back, we also have a recommended page for that. Thanks for leaving us a five star review and telling your friends about the podcast. Head up, shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor Podcast.

My dad, your host, Dr. Daly 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.