The WCI October Newsletter - 12 Ways to Optimize for Career Longevity

Featured Business

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WCI News

We have a new, full-time administrative assistant here at WCI. We welcome Megan, a long-time reader and spouse of a dentist here in Utah, to the team. We are hiring yet again, this time a part-time position we call the Product and Event Assistant. Like all of our positions, this will mostly be a work from home job, but this one is a bit unique in that the hours will involve around 15 hours a week most of the time, but with a surge around the time of the annual conference where we'll need that person full-time for a few weeks. If you know someone that would be interested in working with The White Coat Investor, please pass this job posting along.

The Scholarship judges have been busy all month judging the nearly 1000 applications we received. This week they're working on the finalists. We had originally planned to announce the winners on October 4th, but we're not going to make it by then. Expect the announcement on the blog on October 11th and 12th. Once more, we have far more worthy applicants than we have scholarships to give out. Thank you to our sponsors for their support.

Platinum Level Contributors ($7,500 or more)

Larry Keller (Physician Financial Services) - Disability and Life Insurance
Bob Bhayani (Dr Disability Quotes) - Disability and Life Insurances
Splash Financial - Student Loan Refinancing
Laurel Road - Student Loan Refinancing
Credible - Student Loan Refinancing

Gold Level Contributors ($1,000 or more)

Andy Borgia and DK Unger (DI4MDs) - Disability and Life Insurance
Wende Headley (Abacus Wealth Partners) - Financial Advising
Chad Chubb (WealthKeel LLC) - Financial Advising
Jon Appino (Contract Diagnostics) - Contract Review/Negotiation
Pradeep Audho (PKA Insurance) - Disability and Life Insurance
Michael Relvas (MR Insurance) - Disability and Life Insurance
Pattern - Disability and Life Insurance
Scott Nelson Archer (MD Financial Services) - Disability and Life Insurance
Matt Elliott (Pulse Financial Planning) - Financial Advising
Johanna Turner (Fox and Company Wealth Management) - Financial Advising
Josh Mettle (Neo Home Loans) - Physician Mortgage Loans
Kathryn Hanna (Make Your Money Matter) - Personal Finance Workbooks
Thomas Hackett (NW Legacy Law) - Estate Planning
Stephanie Pearson (PearsonRavitz) - Disability and Life Insurance
Rick Warren and Joe Capone (Insuring Income) - Disability and Life Insurance <
Provider Solutions & Development - Job Recruitment

I spoke virtually last month at PIMDCON21 and in-person at FinCon21. I'll be giving two talks in person at the ACEP Scientific Assembly on October 25th. I hope to see many of you there.

Our partner DLP Capital launched two new funds yesterday, a preferred credit fund (includes 1st and 2nd lien loans) and a ground-up building fund. Learn more at the link.

I will be doing a Facebook Live in The White Coat Investor Facebook Group on October 19th at 5 pm Mountain time with the principals of our partner Origin Investments. Put a reminder in your phone and come learn about their private real estate funds!

We're cautiously optimistic as we watch COVID cases dropping rapidly the last couple of weeks, but we're still requiring vaccination to come in-person to The Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference (WCICON22) on February 9-12th, 2022 in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. It's selling well, but not sold out. It is approved for 17 credit hours of medical and dental CME credit and we've got a ton of awesome speakers and activities lined up. If you want to come in-person, you will want to register by the early bird deadline on October 19th before the price goes up. If you want to be a virtual attendee, you will want to register by December 1st or you won't get the sweet swag bag. More details at the link.

Market Report

Link to Spreadsheet Data sources: Vanguard and Morningstar

Well, that was a lousy month to be an investor. Almost everything was down: stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, and cryptocurrency. Commodities were the one shining light and have the best performance year to date. Bonds are mostly into negative territory already this year. Small value tilts are paying off this year, at least on the domestic side. Still some impressive numbers over the last 12 months.

Best of the Blog(s)

Lots of great posts from across the WCI Network this month. Check them out!

1. Is the Backdoor Roth IRA in Danger of Being Wiped Out? Congress is doing a new tax bill, and it is squarely aimed at high earners.
2. 2022 Retirement Plan Contribution Amounts. Did you know you could estimate these before the IRS announces them?
3. What You Need to Know About Annuities. I worked my butt off on this post and nobody seemed to like it. Here's one more chance.
4. The Case for Mutual Funds. Mutual funds might not be sexy, but they should still be a primary building block in your portfolio. Buy them instead of meme stocks no matter what the financial media says.
5. Economic Outpatient Care and the Aspiring Millionaire Next Door. Check out this post from our new medical student columnist.
6. Paying Off Spouses's Student Loans Together. We have a new columnist that is the spouse of a doctor too. Here's one of her pieces.
7. Retired Physician Traveling the World with His Party of Five. Physician on FIRE is interviewing his real colleagues, docs who have FIREd.
8. Retirement Spending: Which Accounts Come First? Hopefully we'll all eventually need this post!
9. 5 Ways to Get Started on Your Financial Independence Journey. You might be surprised by # 2.
10. 5 Reasons Doctors Prefer Passive Real Estate Investing. I think Peter Kim is right on with this one.

Best of the Web

Every month I recommend (about) 10 articles from across the web. Thank you to those who send me suggested articles.

1. Financial Independence: The Pandemic Within Anesthesia. This one is NOT from POF, it's by Colombian doctors in a European Anesthesia journal. I thought from the title it would be anti-FIRE, but in reality it's very pro-FIRE and even mentions my first book.
2. MD vs Computer Science. This Bogleheads forum thread went over 200 posts discussing whether young people should be encouraged to go into medicine or tech.
3. Health Care Workers Once Saluted as Heroes Now Getting Death Threats. Nobody is clapping as you go to work anymore and there's yet another good reason not to wear your scrubs to the store.
4. This Is How America's Richest Families Stay That Way. The author of this one definitely hails from the left side of the political spectrum, but the article discusses how some view what I think is good policy, the step-up in basis at death. I think there are better ways to tax generational wealth such as, I don't know, perhaps the estate tax?
5. The U.S. Needs Only One 401(k) Plan. John Rekenthaler wrote a nice piece about our dysfunctional 401(k) system and how it can be improved.
6. Why U.S. Housing Prices Aren't as Crazy as You Think. Ben Carlson argues that it isn't a bubble. I'm just really glad I don't have to buy or sell right now and can watch from the sidelines. I don't know where my kids will live though. They certainly won't be able to live here unless I buy their houses for them now.
7. Social Security Planning Approaches: Insurance vs Maximizing Expected Outcome. When Mike Piper talks about Social Security, I listen. He might speak quietly, but I can't remember him ever being wrong about it.
8. Financial Advisors Stole Your Money. Okay, that's not the real title, but it should have been.
9. How to Use Securities Based Lending to Manage Cash Flow. Harry Sit shows you how to really use that margin account or affiliated bank line of credit.
10. Can You Save Too Much in a Health Savings Account? Christine Benz shows you the escape hatches.

Great Stuff from the Forums

The WCI Forum, subreddit, and Facebook Group continue to be great places to get some help with your questions. See these great topics that people are discussing now:

1. Thoughts on I Bonds. Now that inflation is up a bit, everyone loves inflation-linked I Bonds again. I wish they were less hassle to buy in large amounts.
2. All I Think About Is Money. If you're not a financial blogger, that might be a problem. Even if you are a financial blogger, that might be a problem.
3. At What Net Worth Did You Start to Cut Back On Your Clinic Schedule. Everyone wants to work part-time.
4. HSA - Do You Save Receipts? Many of us should, but I'm not sure many of us actually do.
5. Physician Salary Trends. Have you been over the WCI Subreddit lately? It has really taken off. I think the med studs and residents prefer Reddit.

New Podcasts

Be sure to check out the podcast if you haven't yet. 30,000-40,000 are listening to every episode. If you'd like to leave a question to be answered on the WCI Podcast, record it here.

• #230 Congress Proposes a New Tax Bill Impacting High Earners (Sponsored by Comphealth)
• #229 Retirement Accounts Q&A (Sponsored by Locumstory.com)
• #228 Charitable Giving: DAFs vs CRTs vs Private Family Foundation (Sponsored by Locumstory.com)
• #227 Starting a Medical Practice (Sponsored by Weatherby Healthcare)
• #226 The State of Physician Financial Literacy (Sponsored by Cerebral Tax Advisors)

The Milestones to Millionaire Podcasts (all accessible at this link) are short podcasts celebrating your accomplishments! Lots of professional variety this month.

1. #33 Millionaire Podiatrist (Sponsored by LocumStory.com)
2. #32 Pediatric Specialist Gets PSLF (Sponsored by DLP Capital Partners)
3. #31 Millionaire Dentist (Sponsored by GoodRx)
4. #30 Nurse Practitioner Millionaire (Sponsored by Set for Life Insurance)
5. #29 Teacher and Doctor Become Millionaires (Sponsored by 37th Parallel)

Not enough podcasts to get you through the month? Try these from Passive Income MD!

• PIMD Podcast # 72 What's Keeping You From Financial Freedom?
• PIMD Podcast # 74 How Doctors Can Make an Impact by Building an Online Brand

New Videos

Welcome to the new WCI Youtube Channel. 400 more of you subscribed this month. Please subscribe, like, and share!

Tons of new videos this month. Here are just a few of them:

1. What Should Single Income Doctors with Large Families Do? Hey, that was me!
2. Can I Use a Revocable Trust as the Beneficiary of an IRA or 401(k)? Absolutely, here's how and why.
3. How Does Life Insurance Work for Military Doctors? Very carefully! Note this video has an error--acts of war are covered by life insurance, but not disability.

Tip of the Month

We are now 21 months into this COVID nightmare, 19 if you start counting in March 2020 when it really started affecting the lives of US doctors. While there were occasional bright spots, for the most part this has been all bad for you. I didn't think physician burnout could get any higher, but have been appalled by comments made by physicians and other health care providers on social media demonstrating burnout, lack of compassion, and ridiculously bad work hours and conditions. I'm not judging people; I totally get it. But I do view it as a demonstration of the severe stress we have all been operating under the last couple of years.

The pandemic opened with the relatively rare combination of a significant loss of physician income and a major market downturn. Many lessons were learned and much pain was endured. However, things got worse from there. Eventually, the patients came back, and in many hospital-based specialties, they came back in record numbers with COVID. We watched colleagues get sick and die. We worried we would bring COVID home. Many of us holed up in our homes, reducing social connections. Our kids started having problems due to fewer outside activities, less time with friends, worsened interpersonal interactions due to masking, the stress of having to learn at home, and their own fears of getting the disease.

Finally, the vaccines came out and most of us rushed to get them for ourselves, our family members, and our patients. The masks came off, the politicians began making plans for recovery, and we all saw light at the end of the tunnel. Then the Delta variant came along. The variant was more contagious and more serious for younger people, but was combined with even more tiresome politicization of public health procedures. The resulting case count spike dashed our hopes and made us all despair that we would never be done.

While COVID, like influenza and most of the other illnesses in the world, will always be with us in some quantity, once more we are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel in the form of declining cases. For the last couple of weeks the case count has been going down again, and some of the most audacious among us are beginning to have hope again. So today I wanted to write a few words about recovering from COVID. I'm not talking about recovering from physical illness, although I suppose some of us are dealing with that. I'm talking about recovering from the personal, financial, and career ramifications of this extraordinary time.

I was at an online entrepreneur conference called FinCon this last week in Austin Texas. I'm sure some of you think that was very bold of me, but you should have seen what I was doing the week before that in the canyons of Southern Utah! At any rate, one of the speakers at the conference recommended that rather than optimizing for growth or income or anything like that, that we instead "optimize for not quitting." In entrepreneurship, just not quitting is a win in and of itself. Companies take time to get off the ground and lots of people don't have a long enough "runway" (whether financially or emotionally) to get the company into the air.

Medicine is likewise also a career where success = longevity. Just not quitting is a win. Thanks to the progressive tax code and compound interest, a family practitioner who works 30 years is going to be better off financially than an ENT that burns out in 10, and that's only considering the financial aspects. The longer you stay in the game, the more people you can help and the more satisfaction you can have knowing you are contributing to the world around you.

So as you make career and financial decisions, I suggest you do so first with career longevity in mind. That will often mean leaving some money on the table. That's okay. Longevity is worth much more than some extra income.

How can you "optimize for longevity?" Consider the following:

1. Take less call
2. Work fewer hours per day
3. Work fewer days per week
4. Work less onerous shifts
5. See fewer patients per hour
6. Use your vacation time
7. Take advantage of sabbatical opportunities
8. Take time off between jobs
9. Spend a little less
10. Use your income to purchase assets, not consumption items
11. See a doctor, therapist, or coach or attend a wellness conference like WCICON22
12. Prioritize eating well, exercising, and sleeping appropriately

Enough discussion of the career implications of COVID. I hope with the assistance of the resources at The White Coat Investor that you have weathered the storm financially. Markets have more than recovered and physician income loss seems to have been mostly temporary. However, there is still the personal aspect. Between partisan politics creeping into relationships and simple isolation, most of us have some relationships to rebuild and new ones to create. I want to encourage you to reach out to someone this month and rebuild a relationship that has been on the backburner for the last year or two. You've done it before. Most of us had a lot of relationships to rekindle after residency. At the end of the day, you're going to value those relationships a lot more than your portfolio or your job, so don't neglect them.

Dare to hope. Dare to focus on the future. Commit to making every day better than the last. See you next month!

Jim

James M. Dahle, MD, FACEP
Founder
The White Coat Investor
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com

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