WCI #23: An Interview with Miss Bonnie MD

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 Dahli.

Welcome to the White Coat Investor podcast. Number 23 an interview with Ms. Bonnie.

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Welcome back to the White Coat Investor Podcast. Our quote of the day today comes from Robert Dorigozi, MD, who said, if it is your desire to appear rich and important with all of the luxuries, do not expect financial security. A lot of truth to that. We have a very special podcast. This time we have a guest who many of you know Bonnie Koo, MD, FAAD. She's a practicing academic dermatologist and a former technology associate at Morgan Stanley and a moderator for the Facebook group Doc Moms Personal Finance, the largest online group of women physicians interested in taking control of their finances. She also blogs@missbonnymd.com and co hosts the podcast series Friends Talk Finance with Dr. Kerry Reynolds of the Hippocratic Hustle Podcast. She lectures on personal finance to med students and physicians to empower them to make the right decisions. And she's going to be one of our speakers at the White Coat Investor Conference next March. So I'm excited to have her. Welcome to the show, Bonnie.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here today.

That's great. Now your background, you did your undergraduate work at Barnard. How do you say that? Barnard College.

You got it.

And then medical school at Columbia, which we're going to have some questions about later. And then your residency training at the University of California, Irvine. And now you're out at Northwell Health and Hofstra Northwell Health School of Medicine as the co director of hospital based dermatology that's right. Well that's, that's quite, quite a list of accomplishments you've already done in your life and you're certainly very busy with a lot of other things going on as well. But we're going to go through a whole bunch of questions, some of which are relatively softball questions where we just want to learn more about you. But I'm not going to shy away from asking the hard questions too that I think our listeners want to know the answers to. So let's start at the beginning. You weren't really a traditional medical student. Tell us about your first career and your training, your family.

Yeah, so I didn't start medical school until I was 27, but I was pre med at Barnard. I majored in biochemistry, kind of the usual major for most pre meds. So I was pre med. I had all my letters on file. But like most people in college, I studied a lot. I was pretty burned out and I happened to have a part time job. I had two part time jobs during college besides babysitting, but I worked at the computer lab and mostly with computer science majors. And for some reason they all ended up having jobs at Morgan Stanley. And then they asked me if I wanted a job and at first I was like, I don't know, tell me more about it. They're like, you'll live in London for the first six months. And I said, sign me up. So ended up being, I graduated college in 1999, so that was kind of a great time. The tech boom. So they're offering a lot of money. Like I said, first six months I lived in London, all expenses paid. So I just felt like something I couldn't say no to and at least try to check it out.

Very cool.

So I was there for four years and then I took another year before I actually started medical school.

And then we went through your training earlier. Tell us a little bit about your family.

Oh, I grew up in New Jersey. I guess I'm, I always get confused if I'm first or second generation. But I actually was born in South Korea and I moved here when I was 2, so they're still here in New Jersey. I have a younger brother, just one year younger. We actually went to. Well, he didn't go to Barnard' cause that's an all girls school. But he ended up going to Columbia with me. So that was kind of fun and you know, kind of blue collar, you know, family in terms of what they did for a living. My mom worked for the US Postal Service, so she's kind of enjoying the pension life right now.

Very nice.

Yeah. My brother's actually a minister for church.

Both in serving professions, though.

Yeah.

And you're expecting.

I am.

Congratulations.

In about two months when we're recording this down to the wild.

Might be one by the time they hear it.

Right, exactly.

Now, you attended Columbia Medical School. I use Columbia all the time in examples as a particularly expensive place to go to medical school. Not only is the tuition bill relatively high, but it's pretty high cost of living there in New York as well. Can you tell listeners a little bit what that was like going to Columbia from a financial perspective? Especially listeners who maybe, like me, didn't go to a particularly expensive school? Was it harder to get loans? Did everyone feel particularly financially burdened there? Was there a big focus on going into a specialty that made good money? Tell us about what that was like.

Well, I wasn't thinking about finances that long ago, but ironically. So I applied to a bunch of schools, private and state schools. So I applied to the New York state schools and I got into a few schools and believe it or not, it was cheaper for me to attend Columbia than my state school.

Interesting.

People find interesting because the state school offered me no financial aid except for loans. It was 100% loans. Whereas Columbia and I think a lot of the other sort of private schools, they have a lot of money, basically. So I actually got a half tuition grant every year I was there for scholarship.

That dramatically changes things, doesn't it?

It does. And then they gave you the subsidized Stafford. I think I got a Perkins loan and they actually have something that I think is great and I do plan to contribute once my loans are paid off. But they actually have an alumni sponsored loan. And so what that means is it's highly subsidized and you don't owe any interest until after residency.

That's pretty awesome. I know a lot of people who wish they had that loan.

Yeah. So that I think definitely I still graduated with loans, but I think it was definitely less than my friends who also went to private schools. Actually, I had less loans than some friends who went to state school, which I always find surprising.

So maybe your experience wasn't all that different from what some of the rest of us have. You know, I always kind of wondered about that having gone to a relatively inexpensive state school. Not that I was paying for it anyway, but I always wondered that because there was a huge focus on primary care at my school, they really wanted everyone to go into primary care in rural Utah.

That was kind of the opposite. I mean, I wouldn't say they pushed the specialties, but I think only one person went to primary care in my class. Maybe two. Primary care meeting, like family medicine. There are tons of internists and pediatricians, but primary care was kind of looked. I think they kind of said it was a waste of. A waste of your education to go. I know that sounds terrible, but I kind of felt like that was the perspective.

Yeah, yeah. I imagine that that varies quite a bit between different schools.

Yeah. And in terms of. I feel like most of my classmates were from wealthy families. I don't know for sure, but that's sort of the feeling I got. They subsidize housing, so most of us live there. So, I mean, my rent was 600 bucks a month, you know, which is pretty good for New York City.

Yeah, it's great.

So it wasn't bad at all. I mean, I wasn't living in a good part of New York. It's not a place anyone would want to live. But we're sort of located way, way north, so it's. It's a little bit far from the action.

But the price was right.

Exactly. So I had a great. I was on the 20th floor and a great view of the Hudson river and the Empire State Building. So it wasn't bad for a place. Poor med student.

Tell us about your practice and how you balance it with your life.

So I am in academics, and what that means is I am part of a residency program. I work with residents, I teach them, but it's basically run like a private practice in terms of how it operates. So I'm not sure how much you know about dermatology, but it's kind of a high volume, outpatient sort of life. The good news is full time dermatology is just generally considered four days a week. So that's what I work four days a week, not necessarily Monday through Thursday. Sometimes it's split over five days, but in terms of the actual clinic time, it's four days. And then I do have residents, so they definitely help with seeing the patients, But I don't think I see more. I think I see less patients than a private practice dermatologist would. And I think that's mainly because when you work for a large hospital system, the reimbursements tend to be better. So I don't need to see 50 patients to kind of make what a typical dermatologist makes. I. I don't think I ever see more than 30 in a day.

That makes a little bit nicer pace at work, of course, 30 a day sounds like a ton to me, working in an er, But I'm also, I know, spending a little more time with each patient, I imagine.

Yeah, I mean, they're scheduled for every 10 minutes, but, you know, we have no show, so it usually ends up working. Okay.

Yeah. Very nice. Now, when and why did you start a blog? And what's the main message of your blog?

So I didn't have a plan to start it. Kind of like you. It sort of. Basically, I started becoming active in this Facebook group that we'll talk about a little bit later. And I had a lot of friends saying, you should start a blog. And to be honest, I said, why? Like, I actually mentioned you, Jim. And I was like, well, he already kind of talks about everything. I don't think there's anything new that I would say. So I kind of just put it off. And plus, you know, I didn't have time to do that. Right. So. But. But I found myself answering the same questions over and over again in Facebook.

It gets a little old, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Especially if you're typing them with your thumbs.

Exactly. And so then I was like, well, I guess I could write a few posts on things. And it really just became a way for me to just be like, here, just read this instead of typing out an answer. And so I just started doing it. As I'm sure you know, it's a lot more work than I thought to set it up.

Yeah, it's a little higher barrier to entry than just paying the hosting, for sure.

Yeah.

And what. What do you think's the main message of your blog?

Oh, right. So I guess my. My audience, I would say. I say women physicians, but really it's really for any higher earning, you know, women. Women. Although it's the materials applicable to men too, obviously. But I guess the main message is, you know, you can make a lot of mistakes and start late like I did, and still be okay. And also to show as. I think women kind of have this, like, mental block when it comes to finances. I mean, I think you could say that of every physician, but I think women tend to be more afraid of learning about it. So I think just showing that, you know, a woman figured it out kind of makes it easier for other women, too.

Very nice. Now, financial bloggers tend to be of one of two schools. They're either kind of been there, done that, and I can show you how to do it too, you know, and I'll put, you know, our partner site physician on fire in Kind of that category where he's basically financially independent before he started blogging. And the other end of the spectrum, you see, come learn along with me as I kind of sort out my finances. And this is the way a lot of the, you know, get out of debt blogs tend to be, I find. Where does your blog fall on that spectrum?

I'm probably the latter, although I think I have some financial accomplishments to show that maybe they should listen or at least read. And I might not be totally full of it, but I've only been out of residency for two years, so. But I feel like I've done a pretty good job since I've graduated, mainly because I heard about, honestly, your blog before I graduated residency. I really do feel like if I didn't hear about you till later, it would have been a different story. So I think just setting myself up to make financial decisions before I got too used to the attending income was honestly super important.

Very nice. Okay, let's move into some of the a little bit harder questions. As I look at your blog here online, it's clearly heavily monetized. You have a lot of advertisers. Why is that important to you to monetize your blog? And does it generate any significant income for you? And do you feel that income dilutes your message?

I think I have four, actually, I don't remember. I have four or five sponsors. I guess I just felt like. So I didn't really have goals my first year. I kind of was like, well, I just don't want to lose money, which as, you know, running a blog fight financially isn't. Doesn't cost that much. It's just more of a time.

Your time is the most valuable component for sure.

Right. So I didn't really have any goals, honestly, Jim. I was like, well, if I make a few hundred bucks and I can open a solo 401k, that's kind of how I thought about it. Not so much to put money into it, but just to have that pot available. Should I leave my job or. Things change. So I just was like, I just wanted to have that. I still haven't opened it, but that was kind of my original goal. And then does it generate significant income? I mean, no. I mean, I could obviously probably just. Well, not you now. But before I could just see a few more patients and make whatever I'm making from the blog.

You'Re basically doing it for free in the beginning, right?

And then in terms of dialing the message, I guess, you know, the sponsors I do have, I Think most of them I actually have personally used. So then I just felt like I was already recommending them to friends, colleagues. So I thought, well, I'm already doing that. Might as well get compensated for that. Right.

So I found that when I took advertisers is, you know, I was being asked anyway, who should I go see for this? Who should I see for this? Who should I see for that? And if I was making the referrals anyway.

Exactly.

I'd get paid for it.

Yeah.

All right. Now your blog is geared toward female physicians. Now, physician finance. I mean, it's a pretty small niche to start with, and you've kind of just cut it in half. Tell me why you feel so passionately about helping physicians who happen to be women.

Well, I think being a woman is part of it. First of all, I think there are a few unique issues that we deal with. And so I think actually women have mentioned to me that they all love your blog and your book, but there's just a few things that weren't addressed. And I think also women in general just, they prefer to hear it from a woman. I think it's. That's not a physician specific thing per se, but I do have some male readers. It's not all women, although I do write some women specific topics. But generally speaking, I think the stuff I talk about is applicable to most people. And I, and I do live in a high cost of living area. So I think that also is different than some of the other blogs out there.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. There's a number of us that are definitely not in high cost of living. I mean, my area is kind of moderate and the physician on fire lives in a very inexpensive small town.

Yeah.

What's so different about female physicians when it comes to personal finance? What information perspective are they not getting from mostly male produced sources like the White Coat Investor?

So I think the difference is that most women physicians were working and we, most of us, you know, are married and have children and we still, and we go back to work. So I think, you know, just, it's just a lot more things on our plate. You know, we're for the most part working full time, although a lot of us do work part time. You know, we're raising kids. And even though, even if we have a working partner, you know, we tend to still have to run the household. So it's kind of a large mental load. And I think it's really easy for. And like I said, it's not so much just women physicians, but full time Women who work and have kids. I think it's just a kind of a different set of issues. Not issues, but just sort of things you have to keep in mind. And it's really easy to get bogged down by things, I think.

Now what are the biggest stereotypes about women physicians and which, if any of them are true?

You know, it's funny, I was thinking about this and I was like, I don't, I guess I can tell you what things I've heard. I think it probably depends what specialty you're into, to be honest. But I think we're type A. But that goes for male men too. We tend to be really type A, high strung kind of control freaks I think is what I hear a lot. And is any of it true? I mean, stereotypes are always based in reality, right? So I think there's some truth into it. But I think all women physicians would love to be less, not so much less type A, but maybe less sort of running around with our heads cut off. I think a lot of us feel that way. Like I mentioned, you know, we're, we're working full time, we've got kids at home where, you know, we're, we're still figuring out what's going to be on the table for dinner and all that kind of stuff. So it ends up being like two full time jobs. And that's, that's a lot for anyone.

Yeah, I agree with that. Two full time jobs is tough. Tell us your thoughts about the gender pay gap in medicine. How much of it is real and what are the causes of it?

So it's, you know, I can only speak from my personal experience. I mean, I haven't personally experienced a gender pay gap, but I've only heard about it. And the only thing I can really think of is it's, I have heard of, you know, women getting a lower offer than the equivalent male colleague. That's just, but this is just hearsay. But I think when general women are much less likely to negotiate their contracts or just, you know, happy they have a job and they don't really try to get more, not necessarily more salary, but you know, there's other aspects to negotiate a contract and you know, there is real data showing that women are less likely to negotiate and I think it's for a number of reasons. Part of it might just be sort of a social, cultural thing. And then I also do feel like women, or us women were kind of aware how we're perceived. You know, I guess there's some sexism at play in terms of you know, if you negotiate, you can be thought of as maybe not a team player, although even though that might be expected from, you know, a male physician. So I think it kind of depends on their comfort level or not. Like, I, you know, I'll be honest, I didn't really negotiate when I got my first contract. I also just assume, well, I'm an academic, I can't really negotiate anyway. But that's probably not true.

But I wonder if the pay gap's smaller in academics because of that reason.

It's possible. You know, I think it certainly doesn't.

Exist in some places, like the military. I mean, there's no pay gap whatsoever in the military.

You know, it's fun. I think also this gender pay gap, not so much under pay gap, but there's a lot of. I'm sort of changing topics here, but I feel like there's a lot of like, hush, hush, not, we can't, we shouldn't talk about salaries, you know, whether you're a man or a woman. And I think that's, that's wrong. I think, you know, there's no, there's no reason to be secretive about it. I actually, I probably shouldn't say this, but I think I'm not allowed to talk about my contract or salary technically. I think it's like in the rules somewhere. But.

Yeah, well, you know who that benefits? You know, it benefits the administrators and the people running the system to keep everybody else in their own little silo. You know, when people find out that other people doing the same work are being paid more, they start asking for more pay or they leave.

Right.

You can see why they put that in the contracts.

Yeah, I think it's in the bylaw somewhere. But I know that it's hard to.

You know, negotiate on that point when you'd rather have a little more vacation time. You're not going to spend your, your limited negotiating power on trying to be able to talk about your salary with other people. It's just not that important to you.

Right.

But I guess for them it is an important negotiating point. Now, you recently wrote a post about financial planning around a pregnancy. What should women and their partners be thinking about during that crazy time of life?

Right. There's a, I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but I think the first thing is that as a woman physician or, you know, a working woman, you kind of just have to accept the fact that you're going to make less the year, you know, before, during and after your pregnancy. I would even say mainly because You're, I think, specifically for physicians. And then if you're like a surgeon, for example, on your feet in the OR all day, like, I just. I. I can imagine it's physically impossible to keep up with your workload full time towards the end, you know, as you just get big, you know, I'm slowing down. I've seen this.

It's hard to reach the table, huh?

Yeah. I mean, I. You know, I'm a dermatologist, so it's mainly outpatient, but I do run the consult service, so I actually have to do a fair amount of walking in the hospitals, and I've noticed that it's getting difficult, so I've actually had to change how I run with the residents. So I make. I kind of say we need to sit down and talk about everyone first, and then we'll just see everyone quickly because it's before, we kind of just walk and talk each time, and I just can't be on my feet as much as I used to. I still have two more months, so we'll see how I do. But I think that's part of it. You just can't, you know, physically work as much. Although I know a lot of women who definitely tough it out. And then, you know, most women take some sort of leave, whether it's one month or three months or four. And, you know, most of us don't get paid maternity leave. And so depending on how your finances are, you might not have the freedom to take that time off, which is unfortunate. And when you're making a physician salary every day, you're not. There is a lot of money, especially as an Attending.

Right.

So I.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry. I actually tell women that the best time to have children financially is during residency as a med student, which they probably.

Which they probably don't believe the first time they hear it, because it seems like you should be putting it off. Putting it off. Putting it off. Right.

Yeah. I mean, there's a few reasons why it's not. It might not be as obvious. One is you don't get as much time. You know, most residents don't take three months off for maternity leave, although I do know people who have, and they just extend their residency and they're okay with that. If that's okay with them, I think that's a great way to do it. And then you're. If you're a resident, you're working for a large hospital. That usually means you have pretty good health benefits. And usually the maternity costs, including delivery, are very inexpensive. To virtually zero.

Right. That's the way my first child was. $10, $10 as a resident.

I think mine's gonna be 40 bucks, you know, when it's all said and done, because I work for a large hospital and then, you know, but then people say, well, childcare is more expensive, et cetera. But at the end of the day, you know, if you're out three months or one month, you know, you're, you're making a resident salary. So it doesn't, it seems to hurt because you're a resident. That's all, you know, but once you become attending, that those three months off could be a lot of money on the table.

For sure. For sure. That adds up. And in a hurry.

Yeah.

All right. Speaking of maternity leave, there's been a little bit of a trend towards state sponsored maternity leave even in our country. I mean, this is something that's available all over Europe, but pretty rare in other parts of the world. While maternity leave is obviously good for the individual using it, do you think the overall economic benefits of policies like that outweigh the downsides?

That's a tough question. I mean, I think, you know, I see both sides of why we don't have it, you know, who's going to pay for it. It's just, you know, the way our country's been doing for so long. But, you know, I just feel like a lot of it keeps moms from going back to work, which I think is a bad thing. I think it's, you know, great for women to work if they want to. I don't think they need. I don't think they should have to choose between work and being a stay at home mom if they don't want to. And I guess for a whole societal good, I think it just sets a good example that you want to take care of the women who have babies. I mean, that's kind of what keeps the world going around, if you really think about it on just a insular level. But I live in New York and they just passed a paid maternity leave act. I actually looked it up. It's not a whole lot of money if you're a physician, but it's definitely better than zero. And I think it will help a lot of women in the state. So I think it's.

How much do they pay in New York? What do you get per month?

It depends. It's based on your salary, but it's capped at like 600 bucks a week.

Okay.

So it depends on what you're better.

Nothing. But it certainly isn't going to be anywhere near replacing your physician salary. Now for a lot of women, particularly employees getting something from short term disability for their pregnancies.

So I do, I think if you work for a large hospital system, that's generally how the paid maternity leave works. You know, they're not, they're not losing money. They just pay into a short term policy, short term disability policy, which my hospital does. So I get I think six or eight weeks paid leave plus any saved up vacation. So at least two of my months will be paid, which is better than most of my colleagues. I will say that I know who. And if you work for a private practice, you know, they generally just won't pay you. I mean, you're not there, you're not bringing money, so why should they pay you unless you had the foresight to buy a short term disability plan.

Right, that's, that's, that's the way my partnership is. I mean, yes, we'll, we'll cover all your shifts, but you know, we, you don't get the money from them. That's the way it works with ours.

Yeah, it's tough, I think it's tough to, you know, physicians, you know, we're in a special sort of place because we only, we only bring in money when we see patients, for the most part. Right. So, you know, it's, I get why we don't get paid, although it's unfortunate.

Now what other states besides New York offer that? Isn't there, Aren't there a few other states?

Oh yeah, it's California, Rhode island, and there's one more, I can't, can't recall. Kind of highly, highly blue states, I guess have them.

Well, that's no surprise. You know, they tend to have more Europe like policies just because of political reasons.

Most of the time California's paid leave is higher. I think actually they have a little calculator. You enter in your income for the past 18 months and it tells. I just was curious. It sped out 1200 bucks a week. That's double what New York is planning on paying.

So. And who pays for that? Is the state paying for it? It's paid for it out of state taxes.

So I, I assume that's how California.

Pays or do they mandate the employer pays it?

So it's a, it's a payroll tax In New York, it's a payroll tax. I don't know how California does. I'm sure it's some sort of tax in California as well, but it's a payroll tax that starts actually don't know when it starts. It starts sometime this fall, I believe. So just, you know, just, just add on the taxes, I guess. The taxes are pretty high in New York already.

Yes, they are. Yes, they are.

Yeah.

At least something for them, right? Even 2400 bucks a month.

Yeah.

What. What about paternity leave? What do you think about that?

I think it's great. I just think we should probably work on maternity leave first. I mean, we're the ones having the babies, not the, not the dads. I mean, I think it's great when it's available. My fiancee actually does get two weeks of paternity leave and this is on top of his vacation that he can use. I know. Facebook. Didn't Facebook have six months for both mom and dad or something?

I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Something ridiculously generous. Yeah. Now they can afford to do that. I'm assuming. So. But it's, it's tough. I mean, just same thing for the men. Like, you know, if you're, you know, who pays for that? Like, I don't know how parental leave works. I think it's just the company just swallows that cost. But.

Right. I mean, I think it's a little bit like a lot of jobs that when people go in and ask for two weeks off a two week vacation, they say, if I don't need you for two weeks, I don't need you at all. I mean, I can't imagine a lot of employers are going to say, yeah, I can do without you for six months and then come back and everything's hunky dory. I mean, you're going to be gone for six months. I got to hire somebody to fill that gap. So you can do that with Locums, I suppose. But it's, you know, the longer it goes, the more difficult it becomes.

That's what they do in the you. So, like, I have a friend of a friend who lives in the uk, you know, they get one year maternity leave, which is, I don't, I don't know if it's 100 pay, though. I think it's like 100 for a certain amount, then it drops down. But you can get paid for up to a year. And so apparently they hire temps. But I don't like, kind of like you said, I'm not sure how that really works, I guess. How are they? That's still an expense on the company, obviously. So.

Right.

They're basically paying for two people.

I wonder how many people take their year of maternity leave and then just become Unemployed.

I don't know. I don't know that. Yeah, the person that I heard about this from did go back to work, but I bet. I bet a lot of people don't. That's. Yeah, yeah.

I'm kind of. With you on the paternity leave, I think it probably ought to be dramatically less than whatever the maternity leave policy is. It is just different. You haven't been through a major, you know, health change, and you're not the one that's likely doing the breastfeeding. And, you know, there's just a lot of differences, I think, between the genders that probably ought to be reflected in any type of leave policy. And I think these people pushing for equal ones are probably not recognizing that as much as they should.

Yeah.

All right. You're very active on the Doc Moms personal finances subgroup on Facebook, which is a subgroup of the physician moms group. Tell us about that group and what you like about it and what you don't like about it and. And how it's affected you.

So my. My friend added me a year ago. I didn't even know. I didn't even know this group existed. But one of my girlfriends, obviously, physician, she's like, oh, I should. You know, I was. We're discussing money, and she's like, oh, I should add you to this group. I was like, what's this group? And she's like, you'll see. We just talk about finances. And she's like, there's no one really knows what they're talking about, so maybe you could help them if. I shouldn't have said that. But. So when I joined. When I joined, I mean, there's, you know, what's great about the group is there's really all levels. You know, one thing about, you know, I read. I'm on your forum, and I read a lot more than I participate, but it just seems like for the most part, your people who post actively on your forum are very, I would say, select group of people. You know, they kind of know what they're doing. They're very smart.

They're the 1% of the physicians.

Exactly. Yeah. And this. This group is really.

Which I hope isn't intimidating to other people that want to come in. I mean, they're a great resource for you if you're just beginning. But I hope they're not intimidating out of participating at all. That's what I worry about.

Oh. So the Facebook group is really literally, you know, people who know absolutely nothing. And then we have sort of like our. I don't know, I don't know if experts. Right where. But, you know, if there's a few people that I would say are experts and they answer a lot of the questions. But I think that's what's great about the group is there's really a wide range of abilities and even the new people just. And also when you see these, the newbies literally start and they just have all these questions and then what happens a lot is they come back and they'll post sort of the progress they've made. And it's really great to kind of see how they've changed their, you know, turned their lives around. So it's kind of a nice, it's kind of nice to see that your advice was helpful and that they use it and really help them make some good decisions. So it's kind of nice to see that. But lots of, you know, lots of random topics. It's not all. It's mostly personal finance. But, you know, because we are women, we like to talk about shopping sometimes too.

That's part of personal finance.

Right, right. You know, we obviously try to curb it because obviously the, the goal of the group is to get people to not, you know, I would say in our group, fire is not a goal for most people. You know, retiring early. I think financial independence is a goal and I think everyone approaches it differently. So it's kind of interesting to see how everyone's doing a little bit differently and where they live, cost of living, etc. But I think there's 10, over 10,000 women in the group, so a lot of perspectives.

Yeah, that's great. What kind of. You're doing a lot of things now, don't get me wrong, you're doing all kinds of things between your practice and your family and the blog and the podcast. What can we expect in the future from you?

I'm just trying to stay on top of the blog right now. I find it hard to be more than a few weeks ahead in terms of having things auto scheduled, but my goal is to get ahead enough so that when I do take maternity leave, I can not do it for a month and it'll still post something occasionally. But actually part of the reason why I started the blog, besides getting tired of writing the same answers over and over again, is a lot of. I have this grand idea of writing a book. It's still an idea. And then I just figured, well, I guess I'll start the blog because it just will provide material for the book. It's probably kind of like how you did it, I'm assuming. But a book takes. It seems like it takes a lot of time. And now that I'm expecting, I'm not quite sure when that's going to happen, but it's on the list of things I'd like to accomplish in the next few years.

That's wonderful. Definitely. One great thing blogging does, aside from providing material, is you get used to writing frequently and you get better at it. And I think that helps a lot when you turn around and decide to go write a book. Is there anything else you'd like WCI podcast listeners to know?

You mentioned the podcast already, but just to say a little bit more about that, that's something that. So Carrie Reynolds started the podcast completely separately from what her and I do together, but she just thought it'd be cool to interview women physicians who had a kind of a side hustle. That's. Hence, that's why it's called Hippocratic Hustle. So something separate from their main practice, and then just kind of discuss how they got there. And then she thought it'd be a good idea to add on a little finance podcast. I think podcasting is a lot of work, actually. It might be more work than blogging in some ways, for sure.

It's more work than blogging.

I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into, and I said yes. I was like, I can barely keep up with the blog and I gotta do podcasts twice a month. But it's been fun. It's. It's, you know, it's like it's another medium. And as you know, I think your audience. Some people prefer to read, some people prefer to listen, and some. A lot of us have long commutes. So it's kind of nice to just listen to a podcast. We can't always read a blog or a book. Right.

For sure. That's why I got into it. I figured there's people that'll listen to a podcast that won't read a book and won't read a blog.

Yeah. So it's. It's been fun to do. It's been fun recording. We're just kind of going through topics one by one, so. And we have a good time talking about it. You know, Carrie is just starting to get our finances in order, so it's kind of a nice. I wouldn't say it's a complete dichotomy, but it's kind of a nice. Kind of have two different people at different stages of their careers and finances to kind of discuss different topics. So that's been a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to speaking at your conference in March as well.

Yeah, I'm sure there will be a lot of people looking forward to meeting you there. If you haven't been on her blog, you can find@missbonnymd.com and the podcast series is again Friends Talk Finance. And then the other podcast she mentioned with Dr. Kerry Reynolds is the Hippocratic Hustle. Those can, I presume, be found on itunes or anywhere else that you can download podcasts, so I encourage you to check those out. Well, I sure appreciate your time and coming on today. It took us quite a while to line this up, but I think it'll be worthwhile, a worthwhile listen for our listeners and I'm very grateful for you coming on today.

Thanks so much for having me.

You're welcome.

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