You spend years focused on getting in, and then one day you have a real paycheck and student loans and no idea what to do with either.

Dave Duquette is a financial advisor who works with PAs, and he came on to talk about what tends to happen after graduation. The pattern he sees most: new grads get their first salary and their spending rises to meet it immediately, which makes the loans stick around a lot longer than they need to.

He also makes a point I hadn't thought about much - your biggest asset early on isn't savings, it's your ability to work. Protecting that matters.

This is his perspective, not mine, and everybody's situation is different. But it's worth hearing early instead of figuring it out at 27.

What we talk about:

• Getting organized financially before graduation
• Student loans and how new grads approach them
• Lifestyle inflation after the first real paycheck
• Why your ability to work is your biggest asset
• Mistakes he sees new grads make repeatedly
• Questions to ask before making big decisions

Resources:

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Free application timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Free resume download: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-resume-download

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to the Pre PA Club podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey, guys, thanks so much for tuning into today's episode.

I'm really, really excited about having Dave Duquette on the podcast.

This will be a little bit of a different episode, but I think it's going to be very helpful.

So.

So I first met Dave on withashleykay.com on her blog, if you know her from Instagram, and she had Dave come on to do a great post about finances after PA school and during PA school and things you need to know about.

So what's interesting is Dave is a financial advisor, but he's married to a pa, so he knows what we've been through.

He knows everything that goes into becoming a pa and he kind of can guide us a little bit better than someone who may not even know what a pa.

So this is gonna be a great talk.

I'm really excited for you guys to hear it.

Before we jump in, I wanted to mention one of our sponsors, which is MyPA resource.

If you use the code [email protected] you can get a discount on help with editing your personal statement.

And I know that that is a tough spot for everyone because you don't know if what you're writing about is correct or if you're in the right direction or if your essay is even just good.

So we can help give you a little bit of help with that.

So definitely check out my PA Resource.

That same code, Pre PA Club, also works on the PA platform.

So if you have an interview invite coming up and you need a mock interview, if you need a Pre PA assessment to kind of help you with figuring out if you're on the right track and a competitive applicant, we're happy to help with that as well.

So check that out.

But let's jump in with Dave, and I think you're really going to enjoy this episode.

All right, we should be good.

Can you say something to song test?

Yep.

Can you hear me well?

Yep.

And it's recording.

Okay, perfect.

All right, so we'll just jump in, and I'll record a little intro later.

But if you just want to go ahead, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Sure.

So Dave Duquette run a financial practice down here in Tampa, Florida, called Impact Medical Advisors.

I am the founder of it and actually from Boston and moved down to Florida 13 years ago.

Essentially chased My wife down here and she's from New Hampshire and she ended up coming down here to USF and I eventually followed her down.

And you know, since then we have, you know, started our own, you know, family and we have two little ones at home.

I have a four year old daughter, Elle, and two year old son Mason.

Oh, fun.

So have you always been in finances and she's always been medical?

No.

No.

So she is kind of a little backdrop on that.

I, I grew up in the mortgage industry.

Both my parents were vice presidents of a company up in the New England area and just kind of assumed that I would stay in that area.

But growing up my parents were both 100% commission with their job.

So we talked a lot about money and making sure that we allowed it to stretch and they shared a lot of that with me, which I think is fairly rare with families being that open with money.

And I just assumed I would end up in the mortgage industry like them.

And we took, you know, back in 06 they started making some layoffs.

This was before the crash and I was in my mid-20s then and they, you know, I was seeing families around me getting laid off and I, I went to them and, and told them to lay me off instead of, you know, laying off with kids and so forth.

So they, you know, I was the son of a couple of the vice presidents of the company, which was a little awkward for them, but I wanted to be laid off.

And my then, my now wife, but then girlfriend at the time was already down in Florida.

So I, you know, they, they laid me off.

I had a plane ticket to come visit in, in February of 06 and then never went on my return flight.

It was a, it was a lot better weather in Florida in February than it was in Massachusetts.

So that was a pretty easy decision.

Well, I'm in Georgia and I've visited Boston and yeah, I can't, I can't deal with the cold.

I'll, I'll stay south.

Yeah, I grew up in it, so that's why I live here now.

But, but yeah, my wife, she was always in, she, you know, got her degree in biology from usf and.

But in between going to PA school, she ended up teaching middle school for a couple of years down here in Florida and she was unsure if she wanted to go to medical school or PA school and obviously she went, she ended up deciding on PA school for a multitude of different reasons.

And in that time frame, I had just come down here, the market had now turned very sour, especially in the mortgage industry.

And she was teaching and she's like, hey, just put your resume in everywhere.

And I ended up getting a job teaching middle school for several years and did that.

Had a financial firm, actually West Shore Financial, which I am a part of now, just run my own company inside of it.

And.

And at that time, it seemed a little risky to get into this business.

And I didn't decide to go in.

Although I loved what they.

They were doing, their philosophy on how they were helping people.

I just didn't, I didn't make the move.

And then I think in my seventh year of teaching, they approached me again and obviously, long story short, I've been there, I've been here ever since, and, and it's, you know, I certainly wouldn't turn back, but it's been a little bit of a wild ride.

Well, I think PA and finances kind of complement each other.

I mean, just kind of.

I think part of being a pa, you learn a lot about business, too.

So medicine in general is a business.

And I think what I've learned, so my husband is a physician.

What we've learned compared to my parents who were teachers, is that my parents have great retirement.

They have state required retirement that they kind of accrued over 30 years.

They were able to retire and have a great pension.

A great pension, yeah.

And so they, they were kind of sitting pretty once they retired.

And it's been different with my job and now him getting a job, whereas we don't have that.

We have to build our own retirement and we have to decide what that looks like, what, how old we'll be, how we want to live.

And that's a little bit overwhelming.

It's stressful.

And I think other people feel that way too.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, you know, there's, there's something to be said about pensions.

And they're, they're very powerful in the fact that, you know, you have guaranteed income from that pension, which is a huge help in retirement, and anybody that doesn't have that pension now needs to recreate it for themselves.

And that's, that's not easy.

No.

And especially with the average savings rate in this country being pathetic, not a lot of people are able to do that.

Yeah.

And then with the level of debt that a lot of grad students have.

That doesn't help either.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I definitely want to get into some kind of practical stuff just in general.

What are some.

Just financial mistakes, and you've probably seen a bunch, but kind of the top.

Just mistakes that you've seen new grads or students make when it comes to planning out their finances.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I work with a large number of new grads.

So I teach at numerous schools down here for the grad of three or four different PA programs down here.

A lot of the residency programs that.

So I see a lot of these issues.

I see people coming out and not knowing what to do, just being fairly overwhelmed with the amount of student loan debt that they're facing and now finally getting a job, but just not knowing what to do with that money.

So what I typically find is that people are fairly disorganized with their finances.

So what I mean by that is you finally get out of school and you have a lot of different places that are dealing with your money.

I mean, as simple as something from auto insurance down to finally money is coming in and you can choose to do whatever you want to do with it.

And now you're incredibly busy at work and you don't have a lot of time to manage all of these decisions, especially if you're married, you have children.

Right.

That takes up the vast majority of your time.

If you're anything like my household, we get home, we have to do a lot of cleaning around the house.

And by the time my wife and I can have a good discussion, it's, you know, 10pm Right.

So people are disorganized and there's not a lot of time devoted to actually looking at what they should be doing.

So that creates a lot of stress in relationships.

It causes a lot of stress in, you know, in creating more debt and so forth.

So we always, always want to start with just helping build a lot of the organization of the plan and just seeing where people are.

And then I.

What I find is that people aren't or they don't understand the value of.

Of protecting their biggest asset.

So the biggest asset that everybody has is just your ability to get up and go to work.

Right.

If that gets away, especially for people in the medical field, you have taken on a significant amount of debt to have an incredible career in medicine that will generate great income.

But if you're not able to go to work, that student loan is still bearing down on you and you can't file bankruptcy and get rid of it.

So when we're looking at understanding, protecting that, you got to look at things as simple as what would happen if you got into a car accident.

What does your auto insurance look like?

Do you have umbrella policies to make sure that you're protected against a lot of these crazy drivers on the road?

Right.

In the fact that if you're in medicine and you're wearing a white coat or you're wearing scrubs, you're almost a beacon for a lawsuit.

Yeah.

So it's all.

It's.

It's always said that, you know, it's not a matter of, you know, if you're going to get sued in medicine, it's a matter of when.

Right, right.

And what people don't think of is the second they leave the office or they leave the hospital, they're now susceptible to lawsuits as well.

So we got to make sure that people are insulated from loss and just the threats to their balance sheet.

Understanding that in a deeper level.

Right.

Things like estate plans for families, life insurance, disability insurance, things like that, that needs to be a starting point.

To me, it's malpractice to.

Not to start there.

If you look at it in the medical terms, it's almost triaging a financial plan.

You're going to start at the worst threats first.

Okay.

Yeah.

I was actually at a conference recently and there was a whole talk about malpractice, which was really interesting.

But one thing that was.

Made me feel better was that PAs are sued at a much lower rate than doctors.

It still happens, obviously, but that made me feel good about my career choice.

But still, I mean, yeah, there's.

There's always.

I mean, it's just something in today's world that we have to be aware of and think about.

But what concerns me more is really the lawsuits outside of, you know, outside of the workplace.

Right.

So car accidents.

If you're anything like Tampa or some of the major cities around, there are billboards surrounding us for attorneys that want to sue you for a simple accident.

Right.

And all of a sudden someone neck hurts, you know, quote, unquote, neck hurts.

And all of a sudden you're being sued.

So we gotta.

You gotta really be careful of something even as simple as that.

We've had multiple different clients that have had to take on some significant lawsuits from fender benders.

Right.

So looking just understanding that at a deeper level, and then I would say the major foundational mistake that people make is they don't have any discipline when it comes to savings.

They think they save.

They may have a Systematic thing, that systematic savings that goes into their savings account every month, but then it's typically taken out for vacations or Christmas or gift giving in some cases.

Right.

And the only systematic savings they have is their 401k or 403b at the hospital.

Right.

But they don't have access to that money.

Right.

So you can't touch any of that money.

You can borrow from it in a couple of different circumstances, but there is a penalty to get some of that money.

10% Penalty and all the taxes owed.

So when people.

A lot of the themes of my conversations to these new grads are what does the next five years of your life look like?

You know, if you're anything like my wife and I, you know, within the last 10 years, obviously.

But in five years we've gone through building two different homes now.

We obviously got married in that time frame.

We have two children.

There's a lot of life that happens.

You need access to your cash.

Right?

Right.

So you have to be cognizant of your ability.

The one controllable that's going to create that success for you is your ability to save at a high level.

So we want to teach people.

Right.

It's a kind of a mission of mine to teach people how to save 20% of their income.

You answered my next question.

I was going to ask you what's a good number to shoot for as far as savings?

So 20% is kind of a good place.

Okay.

Before taxes or after taxes?

Because taxes are killer.

20% Of gross income.

Yeah.

So if you're making 100 grand.

Yeah.

If you're making.

Taxes are killer.

They are.

And, but it's funny, I've, I've, you know, listen, I've a lot of different circumstances that I come across, and one of some clients of mine that are very high earners, they make a million, over a million combined.

And when they came to me, they had barely anything in savings.

And, and I see this all the time.

It's.

It's commonly thought of, well, if I, if I just made more money than I could save, Right.

Instead of just in, you know, typically we can find savings in pretty, pretty easy places.

But.

Okay.

What I found with them is that they just didn't want to give up on what I would call the lifestyle creep.

Right.

They, they ended up just spending and spending at a very high level and it caused a lot of stress.

And one of their biggest excuses was, well, yeah, but we don't really make a million to.

We're taxed at a Very high level.

I simply said, okay, so you're telling me that, you know, you know, if you were making, you know, 1.5 now, you could save but a million two, that's just too difficult.

Like I, I'm confused here, right?

And, and yo, you see, I see that at all different levels, right.

I think a lot of people think that, okay, once I finally start making some money, it's going to be easy and it can very quickly get away from you.

So we always want to just focus on building that discipline.

And it's, it's usually for me when I'm working with my younger clients, it's pretty easy because they're not used to making money yet.

Right.

So when I work with my young pas that just graduated or my physicians that just graduated, they're not used to making money.

They're used to living off student loans.

So for me to tell them, hey, why don't you live off 80,000?

You know, if they add a hundred thousand of a job offer, why don't we just systematize 20?

Do you think you could make it if you're grossing or not?

You know, your gross income was 80 grand.

Do you think that would be okay with you?

Where they haven't been making anything?

Right.

So it's, it's easier to develop that habit early on and then just maintain it moving forward.

Yes, I completely agree.

I think, and I saw this with my classmates and I started to experience it some myself, that there's a lifestyle inflation that occurs where once your paycheck goes up, you feel like you can do more stuff.

So I really wanted to get my loans paid off very quickly.

And I was really diligent for a couple months with making sure kind of anything extra was going towards my loans.

But then I.

Cause I had a really high interest rate.

But then I decided that, you know, I've worked hard for this money, I've earned it.

I haven't spent any money the past couple of years.

I should just take whatever's extra, spend it on what I want, and then anything extra can go to loans.

Yeah.

So after a couple months, I mean, that number just started jumping kind of up and up and up till there wasn't really anything left to put towards loans.

And that's when I had to have a little come to Jesus moment with myself to realize that if I really wanted to prioritize my retirement and getting these loans off my back, I had to make some changes.

And there were things that could wait, basically.

Yeah.

And it's tough to, you Know, a lot of my job is just helping hold people accountable.

Right.

And, and just being there and being that unemotional advisor where it's, listen, I married into these student loans, right.

So I understand the stress of them.

I completely get it.

But I also know how to remove the emotion away from making decisions with your money.

And typical emotional decisions with your money is going to make bad decisions.

Right.

Really with anything.

So it's a big thing.

Usually after we can teach our clients to save.

That's the discipline that's going to create all the habits to get rid of the debt.

Right.

Because now we can pay all the debt off with a lump sum.

Right.

But we're not prioritizing the debt over your balance sheet.

Right.

And that was one thing that we made a priority.

My husband and I was tithing to our church and this is kind of how I learned that.

Because from the beginning, we just set aside and actually have an auto drafting, so it pulls 10% out.

And because I never saw that 10%, I never missed it, if that makes sense.

The same thing we've started doing with our savings, whereas we have our jobs, automatically pull out money, and we automatically pull out money so that we just never see it, really.

And so we never miss it, if that makes sense.

Systematic.

It's intentional, right?

Right.

Yeah.

It took us a while to get there, but we've learned some.

Absolutely.

Now, another big mistake, though, just to kind of go on, that just is the, I would say over reliance on retirement accounts, things like 401ks, right.

A lot of people say, okay, I need to save for retirement.

So it has to take place in the account that is labeled retirement.

Right.

401K, IRA, things like that.

But now you're locking your money away when you're going to need it for having children and things of that nature, or paying off debt.

So you got to make sure that where you're saving is very important in the liquidity of it, having access to it, so that it'll give you the capability of taking advantage.

Not only obviously paying off debt and things like that, but in the medical market, you're going to have opportunities to invest in business, and that's where great returns are.

Okay.

If you have the capability of investing in a clinic or if your husband, as a physician, has the opportunity to buy into a practice, you're going to want to take advantage of that.

So that's stuff that we teach our clients.

Getting in on the business side versus just being the money, money horse or something.

Correct?

Yeah, we just want to make sure that we're educating people on how to take advantage of opportunities.

Yeah.

Opportunities finds cash, and cash finds opportunities.

Well, that's something interesting I've noticed about the PA profession.

And PAs in general is a lot of PAs, I feel like, have other interests and have interests, like in the business side of things and have been able to kind of get some cool administrative roles or move into, you know, being more involved in practices or starting practices.

Florida is a great state for that.

Georgia's a little bit more limited, but that is something I see across our field a little bit more.

Yeah, no, and it's going to continue to increase with PAs.

Right.

Where you have the capability of whether it's opening your own clinic, potentially, whether it's buying into a clinic, you know, whatever that may be, the opportunities are going to continue to arise for PAs and get stronger and stronger, and you have to be able to take advantage of those if you want to.

Right.

Okay, well, let's.

Before we can invest, let's jump back to the whole loan side of things, because a lot of people end up having loans either from undergrad or in grad school.

Is there any.

Just if someone, let's say someone's listening who is in undergrad or starting undergrad, they know they want to become a pa. Like, is there anything they can do at this point to kind of set themselves up for success in the future when it comes to their finances?

Couple of things.

What I would recommend.

So when it comes to just in general, and I'm sure this is something you've advised them a million times on, you need a intern and, and, you know, come around with and figure out all the different types of specialties you think you're interested in and go around and check them all out, shadow, get in all the different places so that you can really learn when you're an undergrad.

Right.

There's a lot of confusion, I would.

I would say, in that time of life.

So the more experience you can have in a job, the better.

Not only are you building a reputation, right.

Of just being young and being able or being, I would say, motivated to get out there and learn in the job, you're.

You're building a network of people that have seen you as a.

As now as a professional instead of a student, I think that's so important, and that necessarily isn't really about, you know, their finances per se.

But I just took on an intern from down here at usf.

He's a sharp kid, and it shows a lot to me that he's willing to come in here and learn and really be wanting the knowledge.

So I would say that's huge in undergrad.

Obviously in PA school, you're going to have your rotations, and that's another opportunity to build your reputation with a lot of people that could potentially hire you.

But I think you should be doing it even earlier.

No, I agree.

I mean, I think, like, I mean, those people could be your future employers.

Really too.

Absolutely.

But as for the financial side of things in undergrad, you know, a lot of it is you should be.

You should work during under.

And this is my opinion sometimes.

And if you don't need to take out the max student loan, whether it's undergrad or PA school, you really have to have an understanding of how much you should be taking out based on your cash flow, what it.

How much is rent, and certain aspects there.

Right.

Making sure that you're just not taking out the max just because it's offered to you.

Okay.

So I think that's a big thing.

And I mean, undergrad's one of those difficult things.

It's.

I think one of the biggest things is just making sure you're getting your name out there, showing yourself as a professional rather than a student, and then just understanding cash flow work and don't take out the max student loan.

No, I agree.

And I tried to take out the minimum.

Another thing I did that.

I don't know if this was smart or not was I luckily only had to take out federal loans and not any private ones.

But I didn't even look at my loans until right when I finished PA school.

I figured there wasn't really a point since I had no money to pay them back.

So that was a shocking moment when I was able to see how much they had grown with me doing nothing.

But.

Yeah, I mean, the interest, all of that is crazy how it just adds up and adds up and adds up.

Yeah.

That is never a fun moment.

And I've lived it on the spouse side of things, so I get it.

Right.

But I love that sentiment.

Like, it doesn't matter what your student loans are in PA school.

It doesn't really.

You're.

You're getting.

Yeah, you'll get it back.

Right.

Your undergrad loans.

Hopefully you're not taking out in a massive amount of student loans and hoping that degree will just get you this insanely successful career.

Because under.

Unfortunately, you know, it's.

It's unfortunate that it doesn't, but often it doesn't.

So PA school, now you're taking on significant loans, but you're now going out and grabbing a job.

And depending upon your location in the country, you know, you're ranging.

Typically, what I find is somewhere between 80 to 100,000 of.

Of first year income.

Yeah.

So it's actually a great decision to take on student loans in PA school.

I mean, obviously, if you don't.

Don't have to.

That's beautiful.

But the vast majority do.

But they stress out about it too much.

Right.

They're just so stressed.

Well, and that's what I mean.

Some people come to me and they're trying to decide between schools and cost.

And, I mean, at the end of the day, basically, all PA schools are expensive.

Some are a little bit more expensive, but you're going to pay it back.

Yep.

It'll be fine.

Your stress in PA school should be on passing and graduating.

That's what should it be.

You shouldn't even stress about the student loan.

Now.

Once again.

No, I agree.

But like you said, try to take out the minimum.

So.

I did have classmates who.

I don't want to.

Okay.

I'll be honest.

They just made terrible financial decisions.

Like, and I want.

I would love your thoughts on this.

So they would, I mean, eat out every single meal, including breakfast, bringing Starbucks every day.

But then as soon as PA school was over, I mean, they were going out buying cars, buying houses.

I mean, is that something that you would tell clients?

Like, hey, take a step back.

Do you really need that?

Absolutely.

So.

Well, there's one thing I don't.

So I don't budget clients.

I'm not gonna sit there and say, you know, once I get to a meeting and we're analyzing cash flow, I'm the last guy to sit there and say, hey, create an envelope system, because it's not a sustainable habit.

Right.

So I'm not gonna sit there and say, hey, keep $400 in your entertainment budget and then don't spend any more.

Because then.

Then, I mean, then they're gonna get the.

What.

What's gonna really happen, Right.

For maybe two months, they'll do it.

And then they're gonna get a call and say, hey, I want you to be in my wedding.

You're gonna say, sorry, right.

My entertainment budget not gonna be able to make it.

Like, it doesn't take into the reality of life.

Right.

So when.

What I do see, though, is I see these.

I see people making decisions based on what they deserve.

Right.

Or, you know, hey, I've been.

And you said it.

Right?

And it's a mentality you get, and you have busted your butt in school and there is, and it is absolute, you know, very difficult thing to go through PA school and med school and graduated and residency and so forth.

So when you get out, what I've seen, I've seen people with eleven hundred dollar car payments.

You know, my job's not to be emotional.

So when I see that and I'm looking at everything else, I don't care if you have an eleven hundred dollar car payment.

If you can still save 20% and protect your income, that's fine.

Right?

Like if your priorities are set where there's money left over after you've prioritized the two most important areas of your balance sheet, then I don't mind what you spend the money on.

Just don't spend it by the 15th of the month.

Right.

So you just got to understand that.

But yeah, you see some people making pretty poor choices and all that does is cause a lot of stress.

Right.

Like unfortunately, finance and money is the leading cause of divorce.

And it's simply the stress that it induces when, when people are making poor decisions.

And it's unfortunate when you see stuff like that happen.

So a lot of my job ends up being, you know, I would say mostly psychological in nature and a lot less math than you would ever think.

Well, I mean, like we said, if you get everything kind of in a system, it makes it a lot easier.

But how?

So when it comes to, let's say, graduating loans, refinancing, I mean, should someone refinance?

Like what, what's kind of a first step that someone can take if they're trying to get their financial life in order?

And should, I mean, is it best to work with a financial advisor?

Just kind of guide us?

Like, what steps should we be looking at?

There was a lot of questions in there.

Sorry, that was a loaded question.

I want to be able, pretend I'm a new grad, I have some loans, I don't know what to do with those.

Yeah, let's.

Yeah, let's.

Is there a. I think one of the questions, you know, is there a Should I refinance?

Yeah.

Okay, that was a question I had when I graduated.

But having government loans, I really couldn't refinance.

But yeah, that's something that comes up a lot.

No, absolutely.

So you know, you're going to love the answer of it depends.

Right, right, exactly.

So.

But it really does.

Right.

Everybody's situation is very unique.

Can you tell us what refinancing is?

Maybe give us a definition?

Well, refinancing can mean numerous different things.

So in some of your, some of your graduate loans or government loans, you sometimes can refinance those and just, or consolidate them into one loan instead of having the numerous 20 different loans that have all different numbers on them.

Right.

Which sometimes is a little confusing to the eye.

You could also, you know, there are a million different consolidation companies out there or you could refi it with a different company.

Right.

So you can take it out of the government and, and move it into, you know, there's the sofis of the world and other companies.

Not that I'm promoting them over others, but that's just one that does a good job marketing to students.

People have used it and said it was good.

Yes.

So they, I've seen.

Now you just, you have to know the pros and cons to each one of these things.

You know, staying with the government has major, major pros because you can get into those 10 year repayment strategies if you're working for a nonprofit.

Okay.

So if you refinanced out to one of those other companies, you can't do that.

Okay.

So that's a major con.

Right.

When you're looking at the pros and cons of these situations.

So once again, going back to the dependence, it really depends on the specialty somebody's going to get into.

It depends on are they working for a non profit hospital or group.

Then there's also the programs where you can go work for an underserved area where they may give you a portion, you know, call it 20, $20,000 a year to go and work in an underserved area.

You want to look into these programs.

But for a pa, you have to be inside of, Sorry, the specialty has to be in a family practice domain.

Oh, okay.

So it can't be in any specialty.

So there's a lot of things that once I'm able to sit down with someone and really see what they're thinking about in the specialty they want to go into.

Right.

Then we can start looking at, you know, what, what can be the best options and inside of those decisions.

So is the main benefit of refinancing to lower interest rate or just to kind of make it easier to have everything in one place?

Typically, typically the look is the, the idea is to lower the interest rate to get, to get it paid off a little bit faster.

What I've seen is that it depends on the situation, but I would, I would steer away from variable rates.

So oftentimes variable rates will be promoted because the interest Rate will start out lower.

Right.

So you may be in a, an average of a government loan of.

Let's, let's use an example of six and a half percent.

If you averaged them all out.

Yeah, that's about where mine were.

Yeah, it's typical.

And then maybe you could refi with an outside company or an outside bank and maybe they're going to give you an example of 4%.

I know I'm just making up these numbers, but if they give you 4% on a variable rate, so sometimes people look at that and say, oh, I can save money by moving it in there and pay it off sooner, but the variable rate can go up and we're at a fairly historically low interest rate environment.

So all of a sudden, if interest rates creep up in the next five, 10 years, that interest rate could go above where you were before.

Right.

So you ideally want it to be on a fixed rate when you're looking at these options.

And then you want to measure the decision based on that.

Okay, well, that helps give some direction to people who are kind of in that trying to decide type thing.

Like I said, it's a lot of factors that they have to look at.

And I think the best thing is just to talk to multiple companies and people before making that decision.

Shouldn't really be like, oh, this, this deal looks good, let's do it.

Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of my planning is analyzing the student loan strategies because, you know, I would say 80% of my clients are in the medical field.

So that's certainly something that I'm dealing with on a day in, day out basis.

We have a lot of loans.

That's true.

All right, so, okay, so let's say we've talked about that.

Um, at what point would someone need a financial advisor?

Is it if they have a certain amount of money in the bank?

Is it if they just feel completely lost?

What I mean.

Yeah.

And how do you find someone?

Because I've, I've heard different things about, you know, different types of advisors and what to look for.

Yeah, so that's a great question.

There are.

So my belief is that it should not be a, it should not be about an amount of money you have to invest to meet with an advisor.

Because advice is not driven on simple investments.

Right.

That's where.

But a lot of people think, you know, I don't need.

Why do I need a financial advisor?

I don't have any assets to invest.

Don't you want some?

It's a common sentiment, but exactly, exactly Right.

Our job should be to teach people how to build wealth.

So a lot of my clients haven't made a dime yet.

My meeting, this, my meeting actually right before this one with some clients up in Minnesota.

She hasn't started practicing yet.

She's about to practice in a couple of weeks from now, start her first job.

This was our third meeting that we've had.

She hasn't made a dime yet.

Right.

Her husband or fiance is making some money.

And we're just looking at building a structure so that they can be organized and they can be educated on how to make these types of decisions.

So in my opinion, you should seek advice as early as possible to make sure that you're understanding how to organize your financial world.

Yeah.

Now there are, you know, in, in the.

And I think, you know, did you ask something about the types of advice or something along.

Well, just like.

Yeah.

Types of investment.

So is there anything.

We talked a little bit.

You said maybe not putting all your eggs in the kind of for like retirement accounts, but I guess how can people divert.

Diversify their portfolio?

That's a very financial term.

Yeah, that is.

Right.

So it's funny with my wife and I, you know, if I'm ever talking in financial terms or acronyms and, you know, she's looking at me like, you know, she doesn't, she doesn't know at times.

Right?

Yeah.

But then I'll come home and I'm like, my elbow really hurts and I'm not sure what it is.

And she'll say whatever the medical term is for tennis elbow.

Right.

That's what she'll tell me.

Throw it back at each other.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, what?

Can you, can you speak English, please?

So, so, yeah, so diversifying portfolios.

Right now, there is no one secret sauce on how to do this.

There isn't, you know, one specific strategy that people should look at doing.

You need to first.

So the fundamental here, Right.

And I think that's a big takeaway for my clients, is that rate of return doesn't matter.

Rate of savings does.

Okay.

Right.

So you need to work on the fundamental and you need to work on the controllables in your life.

The controllable is how much money comes in and how much can you put away.

Yeah.

You can't control the market.

Nor.

Nor can I.

Right.

So the market's going to ebb and flow.

It's going to go up, it's going to go down.

Right.

And to stress about that or to say, hey, here's the one investment you can get into it doesn't exist.

So you just need to work on the fundamental of that discipline of rate of savings and really focus on that.

And then organically, if you're focused on that Organically, whatever happens 30 plus years from now will be the best thing that could have happened.

If you're focused on that habit and discipline.

Does that make sense?

I know it doesn't answer your question perfectly of like do this.

Right.

But because there isn't that, you know, there certainly isn't that answer.

Well, and I feel like what you're saying makes sense and that's what you know, you always talk about or you hear about, you know, all these people sold when the market was low and blah, blah, blah.

But you kind of have to know that that's part of it and you just have to keep staying your course and whatever it is that you've decided to make your investments and savings and all that, stick to it.

I feel like.

Yeah, you just don't want to be.

I would say a good, good piece of advice is pay less attention to the financial news.

Yeah,.

The news.

Like everything.

Like not just in the financial world, but really in all sense.

Their job is to sensationalize everything.

Right?

Exactly.

So whether it's up or down.

Right.

Their job is to make people panic, essentially.

So they're in there always, you know, they'll always be the person, what I call the water cooler mentality that will tell you how they got rich on this one particular strategy.

Right.

They'll never tell you about the losses, they'll only tell you about the win.

So in that, you just gotta be wary, you gotta be careful.

You should seek advice from a professional.

The way I explain it for a lot of my clients, listen, I can certainly manage my health by myself.

I can go on to WebMD and figure out what this pain in my side is.

Now I'm gonna get everything from I'm perfectly fine to I have cancer, definitely.

Right.

But you know, I can choose to manage it that way.

Yeah.

It probably would not be the best thing long term.

Right?

Probably not.

So it's the same in the world of dealing with your financial situation.

I'm going to be emotional about my, you know, my body.

Right.

Like if I'm feeling something, I mean, no, this is cancer.

This is, this is it.

Right.

Where you know, you'd assess me and you're unemotional about this stuff and you're like, Dave, you pulled them up.

Right, right.

Whereas when people come into me, oftentimes they're, they're emotionally upset or not necessarily upset, but just kind of probably overwhelmed.

That's how I feel about finances.

It's just overwhelmed.

They're not emotional time and they want to get rid of the debt.

Yeah, it's overwhelming.

Yes.

That's a good way to put it.

And, and a lot of my job is to really remove the stress from the situation and just design a plan so that they can move forward and do what they do to that that earns money.

Right.

Like, you want to be able to focus on getting up, practicing medicine, which you went to school and you love to do, going home to your family and having a great time with them and being less stressed out about, you know, should we go out to dinner tonight?

I don't know.

Should we go out, you know, on this vacation, a family vacation?

Should we spend this money?

Ideally, if a well planned design is in place, you should be able to freely spend what's left over without stress of doing it.

That was, that was worded perfectly and something that I needed to hear too, so that's very helpful.

Okay, well, and I think, I think it's good and kind of something that I feel like you've insinuated is it's good to just kind of check in with your finances and whether that's with your spouse or family, which is an important thing to do, a financial advisor, kind of everyone making sure that it's not just something that you're kind of not.

I mean, people tend to not want to be open about money stuff, but I feel like that gets you into trouble.

Absolutely.

You know, you'll never know what your neighbor, you know, whether or not they have a boatload of money in their bank account or whether they're dead broke, they'll look very similar to you.

You know, if you just kind of take a visual look around your neighborhood, you're all driving around the same cars, your house is around the same price.

Right.

But the, what I see is the interior of the balance sheet.

Right.

And, and that's where, unfortunately, it's a taboo subject and it shouldn't be.

And I think, you know, we discussed it earlier is, you know, growing up, my parents talked about this stuff with me often.

Right.

I, I vividly remember them showing me a $25,000 check.

This, this was probably in the 90s.

Wow, that was a lot of money.

Yeah.

So I was, I was like, all right, what are you buying me?

Right.

And I was, I was probably in my teens, right.

And, and then they were like, okay, well, here's this check we haven't gotten paid in three months.

So here you need to focus on right.

This is, this is great but we need to make this last.

Yeah.

And they worked like I, like I shared.

It was 100% commission for them.

Right.

In the mortgage industry as a lender for both of them.

So just on how to manage cash flow very effectively was instilled in me.

And just to like a thing that we talked about often and I wish it was, it's almost a mission of mine.

I love like, and that's why I teach at a lot of these schools and I, I, I enjoy it thoroughly.

Presenting to large groups of people, anywhere between 70 plus people to, you know, groups of 10, 12 of just come in.

Let's, let's just talk about this stuff.

Let's talk about a systematic way to manage this stuff if you choose.

Obviously I'm here to help if you want it, if you're working with somebody, here's some stuff to hold them accountable to.

Right.

And if you're, if you want to manage this or what I call diy, it's right.

If you want to manage this all yourself, then here's a systematic approach to doing it and be wary of the emotions that you're going to have within managing yourself.

I like the discussion of the emotional side because I've never thought about it like that, but I've definitely experienced that.

So I think that was helpful for me to make that realization.

I mean I seek advice from advisors.

Am I, you know, at my shop, I need it.

Right.

Even, you know, I recently had to have them talk me off the ledge of buying a new car just because I had to put a new radiator in my car.

It annoyed me.

I'm not a car guy.

I don't need cars.

I like my, you know, my, I like my car.

It's good for my family and, and it's paid off.

Like I'm fine with it.

It's paid off, but I had to put money in it.

And I'm like, oh, is it going to start breaking all the time now?

Maybe I need to get a new one.

And I was like, all right, I need some advice.

Just talk me off the ledge.

Here's the situation.

What do you think I should do?

They're like, well, do you, why do you need a new car?

I'm like, well, I guess I don't.

Right.

And just talking through it was enabled me to not have to go out there and get another four or five year old car payment that I really didn't need.

Right.

Need vs. Want vs. Easy decision vs. Yeah, yeah, not as easy.

Those are.

Those are decisions we make all day long.

Well, thank you so much for sharing.

Are there any resources you'd recommend to people or places they can go to find you or more information about what you do?

We'll make sure we link to all of that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you can always go, you know, to my website, impact medical advisors.com you know, you can schedule a free consultation with me.

I do a lot of web meetings around the country.

I have clients everywhere from California to, you know, to New England and obviously Florida and all, all over the place.

So there's always free consultations that you could schedule directly from my website, reach out to me.

My cell phone is always on and I'm always responding to text messages and so forth of just certain questions.

And this is my passion.

I like to help people.

I like to de stress, you know, this situation that people are so panicked about and like you said, overwhelmed.

I'm here to help, obviously.

And it could be a simple conversation of here's how you should look at this and go back to your advisor and look at it this way.

I love that.

Well, thank you so much for being willing to talk to us and for everything you do for PAs and the healthcare professionals of this world who have no idea what we're doing.

No, I truly appreciate you having me on.

And yeah, I mean, I love working with you guys.

Like I said, my wife is a pa, so I know the world pretty well.

It's an unbelievable career.

I truly hope that you found that helpful because I know I did.

I got a lot out of that.

And I think, like we talked about, you know, people don't really like talking about finances, but they want to talk about it.

So I think this was a great episode.

Thank you so much, so much for Dave coming on.

I'm really appreciative of his time and expertise.

That is way outside of my realm.

So if you have more questions, I'm going to put his email in the description and then you can also go to www.impactmedicaladvisors.com and that link will be in the description for you as well.

So just, you know, if you have any questions, send them Dave's way.

And also he is available to be scheduled for speaking engagements at your school or practice or hospital association.

So if you ever need someone to come talk about finances and kind of get your people on the right track.

You may want to reach out to Dave, so if you have any questions, send them his way and stay tuned if you want to hear the disclaimer.

Alright, whenever we're talking about financial stuff, usually there's a disclaimer in place.

So this is in the description, but I wanted to go ahead and add it here as well.

Material discussed is meant for general informational purposes only and is not to be construed as tax, legal or investment advice.

Although the information has been gathered from sources believed to be reliable.

Please note that individual situations can vary.

Therefore, the information should be relied upon only when coordinated with individual professional advice.

Guardian, its subsidiaries, agents and employees do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice.

Consult your tax, legal or accounting professional regarding your individual situation.

Guardian and its subsidiaries do not issue or advise with regard to student loans.

Dave is a registered representative and Financial Advisor of Park Avenue Securities, LLC.

Securities products and advisory services offered through PAS member FINRA SIPC financial representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Guardian, New York, NY.

PAS is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian.

Impact Medical Advisors is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian.

Impact Medical Advisors is not registered in any state or with the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission as a registered investment advisor.

This podcast is for informational purposes only.

Guest speakers and their firms are not affiliated with or endorsed by pas.

Guardian or Impact Medical Advisors and opinions stated are their own.