Nobody teaches PAs about money. Kat decided to fix that.

Kat runs PA the FI Way, and this episode is about financial independence, which in the FI community means building enough savings that work becomes optional or at least dialed way back. She explains the framework she follows and how she got into financial literacy in the first place.

I want to be clear that I'm not a financial advisor and this episode isn't financial advice. Kat is sharing her approach and her experience so you have vocabulary and questions, not a plan to copy.

What I do think is universally true: the habits you build as a broke student carry forward. If you learn to live below your means while you have no income, that skill doesn't disappear when the paycheck shows up.

What we cover:

• What financial independence means in the FI community
• How Kat got interested in financial literacy
• Why budgeting is the boring foundation of all of it
• Things pre-PA and PA students can do now, like chasing scholarships
• Lifestyle creep after graduation and how to see it coming
• Where to learn more without getting overwhelmed

Resources:

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

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

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

Pre-PA Academy: https://prepaclub.thepaplatform.com/landing/academy

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey guys.

Welcome to this week's episode of the Pre PA Club.

We are continuing our discussion on finances and how they relate to PA school and being a PA with a great guest with Kat from PA the Fi Way.

We're going to learn a lot in this episode and I'm really excited to share it with you.

Keep listening.

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.

Okay, before we get too far into today's episode, I wanted to thank everyone who attended the interview webinar last week.

It was awesome.

You guys were such great sports, coming on stage and answering questions on the fly in front of hundreds of your colleagues.

And everyone did such a great job.

That audio will be posted as a podcast in a couple of weeks and it will be on YouTube this week as I've had lots of requests for the replay.

If you didn't sign up in time, make sure that you are on our newsletter or following on social media at the PA platform so you don't miss out on these webinars.

Next month we're going to do another interview webinar.

It will be on October October 14th at 8pm and we're going to focus a little bit more on ethical questions and mmi, but it's a good time and hopefully very informative.

So again, thank you to everyone who attended.

And if you are looking to do a mock interview with the PA platform, I highly suggest going ahead and signing up as soon as you know you're ready or you get that interview invite.

Our coaches slots are filling up very quickly.

A lot of the evening and weekend times are full and if you ever are struggling and don't see a time that works for you, please reach out to me directly.

Savannahepaplatform.com I don't have an H on the end of my name or infothepapaplatform.com is probably easier and I will try to make it happen for you because I know how important it is to practice.

So yeah.

All right, let's get into today's episode.

Thank you so much for listening.

By the way, I'm Savannah Perry, dermatology, Pennsylvania, mom, wife, living in these crazy times.

But we are making it happen.

And one thing that you need to know about today's guest, who's Kat from at PA the Fi Way, is she has a podcast.

So she has a podcast called PA the Fi Way.

And we're going to Talk about that in a second.

But I'm on her podcast today.

We did kind of a joint recording where I interviewed her and she interviewed me.

And I got to really talk about the PA platform as a business and creative outlet and writing books and the things that I enjoy outside of clinical medicine.

It was a really fun conversation.

So I highly recommend you check out her podcast, especially if you're interested in finances.

And so this is one thing, and I said this last week, that they don't really teach you in school is about money.

It's just taboo to talk about for some reason.

But it's so important and especially before you even get into PA school as a student and as a new grad, figuring all of that out because you're setting yourself up for success later on.

So that's why I really like to talk about that here on the podcast, because I don't know if you'll get that information anywhere else.

I am not an expert in it.

I'm learning myself.

But I'm trying to provide resources and people that can help you.

So Kat's awesome.

We talk about some other resources as well.

You can check her out on Instagram at pathefi way or her podcast, which is at the same name.

So what we talk about is something called financial independence.

Do you know what that is?

We describe it in the podcast, but it's basically where you get your retirement and assets to a point where you could essentially retire even maybe earlier than 65, versus working forever and ever.

I'm not sure if we talk about in this interview or mine with her, but for example, so both of my parents are teachers and so they have pension plans and so they never had to worry about retirement.

But working in medicine, most of the time, that's something you have to build yourself.

So I really like hearing from Kat and how she has gone about learning about this, the process.

We talk about student loans, we talk about kind of why we do these social media things.

But I'm so glad you're here to listen and I hope you really enjoy this and pop on over to Instagram after this and tell us what your financial goals are either before or after listening to the episode and whether those change.

So happy to have you here.

Please leave a five star review if you enjoy the podcast and I will see you guys next week.

We are going back to the basics next week.

We're getting to what is a pa?

So we're going to answer some really basic questions that came up in a webinar a couple months ago.

All Right.

Thank you so much for listening.

And all of the links and all of the information you need is in the description of the episode.

My name is Katerina, but I often go by Kat.

I am a PA that lives in the upper Midwest and I went to PA school at Des Moines University.

Awesome.

And you're practicing now, correct?

Yep.

I started in family medicine for about six and a half years and I recently switched over to outpatient psychiatry back in January.

I still do have a casual position with my previous employer as a walk in PA slash urgent care role too.

So I like to kind of keep that generalized medicine still going on too.

Nice.

Are you doing in person psychiatry or mainly telemedicine?

Sure.

It had been all telescuse me when I first started because of the COVID pandemic, but just recently we switched back over to seeing people in person now again too interesting.

That's what a lot of my PA friends who work in psych have been doing.

A lot of telemedicine, which it's a specialty that definitely translates well to that.

I'm in dermatology and it's a little hard to see things over zoom when trying to look at skin lesions.

So we made it work.

We had to, but it was a little more difficult.

So take it.

Let's take it back a little bit.

And what made you interested in becoming a pa?

Sure.

So back when I was in high school, I felt as though I needed to figure out what to do with my life, as I'm sure many people do back then.

And I really enjoyed science and I had really thought about different types of careers in medicine.

So back then in high school, a lot of people only think of doctors or nurses, although there are so many other types of careers out there in medicine as well that I highly encourage anybody interested in medicine to research about and consider as well.

But when I was in 8th grade, I tore my ACL my first and last time skiing because I was not a good skier.

And so in the er, the provider who saw me was a pa. And I didn't necessarily register it at the time as a teenager.

But a few years later when I was thinking about what to do for school, my mom reminded me that that provider was a pa. And so we researched the profession together.

And I just really liked the fact that you get to have less student loan debt, a little bit less time in school as well.

And then I really enjoy the lateral mobility of the profession, obviously, as I've utilized.

So that those were the factors that prompted me to pursue the PA profession.

Nice.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel like everyone comes to it in a different way, but those like personal medical experiences tend to be a common theme where you figure out, oh, there are people who can take care of me who aren't necessarily doctors, which is nice and a good path to take.

So I've actually never had a PA who works in psychiatry on the podcast, surprisingly, because I feel like there aren't that many of y'.

All.

Yeah, certainly, like it's just a small specialty.

There's definitely a need.

And I know in our the area I'm in, in Georgia, we definitely need more psychiatry providers.

But what does a typical day at your job look like?

What is your schedule like in that specialty?

Sure, definitely.

Yes, you are correct that there are definitely few PAs in psychiatry.

When I was looking into switching into a specialty, the research that I found at the time was that probably less than 1% of PAs work in psychiatry.

I thought that was very interesting.

What a typical day looks like right now is that I will see either intake patients or follow up patients.

Those intakes are new visits and they are either self referred.

Some people just want to see a psychiatry provider for some reason, family medicine may refer them or a lot of times they are follow up from a recent inpatient hospitalization for psychiatric purposes.

And we are seeing them once they've been stabilized in the hospital.

As I mentioned too, it's both currently a little bit of telepsych visits, little bit of in person visits.

So it's a little bit of both going on.

But we manage their mental health medications.

We have to monitor labs with that.

It's very weird.

I'm sure you can relate as a derm pa, but it's very weird not to use a stethoscope anymore on my day to day profession, but that was something to get used to.

But I still feel as though I'm helping people and it's definitely a very interesting specialty.

For sure, you see a lot of different things, lots of different mental health illnesses, but it's very rewarding to try to help others feel better and try to help stabilize their mental health symptoms so that they can improve a bit.

Nice.

Are there any limitations in your specialty?

Because I don't know about where you're at, but as far as with medications you're able to prescribe or what that looks like, just being in a specialty where you may be prescribing drugs that are on different schedules.

Sure, that's a great question.

At my company, they are very much trained on the job.

The medical Director is the supervising physician that we work with.

In my state, we don't technically need the true supervising physician role anymore because of legislation changes, but every company keeps that role differently.

He's a psychiatrist and he works with the PAs.

Very hands on.

We have a weekly meeting with him where we ask all of our questions.

We can send him messages all the time.

We can go down the hall if he's in clinic.

I'm actually at the clinic he's in.

But he oversees PAs at other clinics as well, which is really cool.

He's very hands on.

We prescribe and manage all mental health meds.

There's even one of the big gun antipsychotics called Clozaril or Clozapine is another name for it.

You have to take some online training that you do and then we manage that and prescribe that as well.

A lot of injectable medications too, A lot of controlled substances.

But I do appreciate that our company has a pretty strict controlled substance agreement policy.

So we don't mix biddy controlled substances or if people are using drugs or medical marijuana.

Depending on the situation.

We often don't use controlled substances as well.

So I do appreciate that support too.

That's awesome.

That sounds like a really great work environment and set up, which is I think should be a goal for anyone who wants to be a pa.

I want to pivot a little bit.

So the reason we connected was through Instagram and how I started seeing your post popping up with your account PA the fi way, which we'll explain a little bit about.

But so can you just explain what got you interested in financial topics and inspired you to kind of create your account and podcast and education platform?

Sure, yeah.

That's a great question.

So I guess for financial topics of getting into.

I really wasn't that much into finances.

My husband used to manage all the bills, so I just thought, oh, he manages the bills.

I don't really have to learn much about finances.

And as a PA and a new pa, you're just learning so much that I just didn't really necessarily mind so much.

I was definitely trying to pay off my student loans, but not very aggressively because unfortunately I started off working with a financial, excuse me, a financial advisor who was not the best fit because some things that he suggested aren't necessarily great sound wisdom.

So got burned a little bit right out of PA school.

But how I got into the topic of financial independence was through travel rewards or travel hacking.

One of my friend's husband told me on our way to a wedding.

We were Going together to a friend's wedding, the four of us.

And he said, hey, you like travel?

Have you ever heard about travel hacking?

And he introduced me to the Choose A five podcast.

And that's the podcast that I started listening to.

And that's how I got hooked on financial independence.

And then I became frustrated with our training about how we go into so much debt and we earn a fair income out of PA school.

But how do you balance that?

It made me want to try to educate other current and future PAs out there about the concept of financial independence.

Yes.

And this is something I've just recently, I would say, in the last couple of years, learned about, because they don't really teach us in school about even really debt or loans or investing or any of that.

So it's a lot of self learning.

But this, this concept of financial independence was new to me.

Can you explain what that means on kind of a basic level for somebody who's never heard of it?

Sure, yes.

So financial independence is a very broad topic, but I will definitely do my best to try to explain it simply to those who are just kind of getting started.

So, financial independence, the abbreviation is fi.

That's where pa, the FI way came from.

And that's the first part of the acronym fire, or Financial Independence Retire early.

But retire early is actually optional.

So once someone reaches the point of financial independence, they don't have to retire early.

They certainly can continue working as a PA for many, many years to come if they would like to.

But reaching that point provides many doors throughout your life.

You could consider cutting back on work or things like that.

So PHI is the point at once a person or a couple, if people are married or in a relationship at the point that they reach where their Invested savings are 25 times their expected annual expenses.

So a lot of financial calculators look at your current income, but it's not really what you make that matters for retirement.

It's what you expect to spend in retirement.

For example, if a couple expects to spend $80,000 per year once they stop working, then they would need to have invested $2 million or investments plus saved money.

Otherwise, if they are able to live very frugally on only $40,000 a year, then it would just be $1 million that they would need.

But some people are really frugal and live on less than that as well.

So financial independence is based on something called the Trinity Study.

And what that study shows is that if you reach financial independence, you have very high probability that you'll be able to last for 30 years with your finances.

So if you are thinking about retiring really young, you probably should have more than 25 times your expected annual expenses saved up.

Okay, that's what I was just thinking.

I was like, so you're saying If I had $2 million in the bank, I could just retire?

That doesn't seem like that would work, which I know.

I mean, investing is so complicated and compounding and all that, but interesting.

So are there.

I'm sure there are lots of calculators online where people can plug stuff in and all of that.

So what?

So when we talk about investing and saving and paying off debt and all of these things, I mean, there's so many different techniques and terms to you.

What stood out about this fire concept, this financial independence?

I mean, do you plan on retiring early?

Like, what, what steps?

When you found out about this, were you like, okay, I'm going to do these things to make this a reality for myself?

Sure, that's a great question.

So the two very condensed ways of achieving financial independence is trying to cut back on costs and save a lot of.

But then also try to invest throughout your career, too.

And so you're trying to invest as much as possible for your future.

So in regards to whether I'll retire earlier or not, probably.

I really probably don't want to work until I'm in my mid-60s or potentially even 70s.

So I'm not exactly sure when we will for sure retire.

But again, as I had previously mentioned, reaching financial independence or being close to it allows you the point that you can really cut back on your work if you really want to.

So you can cut back on your hours as a pa Work part time.

My husband and I don't have kiddos yet, but once we do, then that can help with the balance of our life at that point.

And then both myself and my husband's father passed away at relatively young ages.

My dad was in his early 60s and his dad was in his 50s.

So you hear all the time again in our life, but also all the time from patients about how somebody reaches retirement age, where they're like, oh, I'm so excited to retire.

And then unfortunately, something awful happens where a spouse passes away or they get an illness that they can't do those things that they really plan for in retirement, whether that's traveling or other hobbies or activities.

So that's why we're trying to pursue financial independence.

Yeah, and those are great, great reasons.

That's so true.

I mean, looking at just.

And there's so Much variation in the PA profession between our specialties and jobs and locations and, you know, life and debt and all of that.

I mean, is this a concept that you feel like most PAs would be able to, you know, achieve and kind of grab onto and pursue, or is it kind of, you know, you need to be in a certain place already before you consider making actions towards setting yourself up for financial independence?

Sure, that's a great question.

So, yes, I think that every PA and their family can reach financial independence.

And there's a few reasons why.

One is that PAs do make a pretty decent and good salary.

So there are many school teachers that reach financial independence on a salary that's way less than us as PAs.

So again, it's about those expenses.

So you don't have to cut back everything and live super frugally, but you need to find the balance of finding those things that you value in life.

So if you're a PA and you don't have to be married to a high income earner as well, you can be the primary bread earner, but if you have a PA salary, then you can certainly reach financial independence.

Yeah.

And I mean, I think, I don't know, are there any resources that you use or have used learn?

I know there's a Physician on Fire who talks about this, who's a physician, and then White Coat Investor.

I feel like everybody knows about or should know about because they always have great resources.

But what resources have you found to be the most helpful in just learning about finances and fi?

Yeah, exactly.

So I do absolutely love the White Coat Investor and Physician on Fire.

They are both excellent resources for those of us who practice in healthcare.

As I mentioned before, Choose Fi Podcast is great as well.

And there's another PA on Instagram that you know Kristen Burton with Strive with Kristen.

You've had her on her podcast.

She's awesome.

I recently interviewed her for my podcast as well.

So she has tons of good resources too.

There's so many good books.

So the Simple Path to Wealth is an excellent book to start with or Quit Like a Millionaire.

So it really depends upon what type of modality you want to learn from.

So there's podcasts, there's YouTube channels, there's books.

I do have my podcast, as mentioned too.

It's called PA the FI Way.

So I try to really teach about these financial independence concepts and break it down in understandable pieces for PAs and make it applicable to them as well.

Nice.

Yeah.

And that's what I love, that it's specific to PAs.

And as a PA, you can understand the education and everything that goes into it and the job and kind of all of those factors as well.

Let's talk about some things because there are lots of different stages.

Listen to the podcast.

We have pre PA students, PA school students, and then definitely new grads and PAs.

What are some things that people can start doing at these stages to kind of set themselves up for financial success later on?

Sure.

So again, this is a really deep question that you can go into many different branches, but I'm going to do my best to be concise here and try to give some actionable tips along each step here.

So in high school, try to keep your college costs low when you're planning for college.

So you can do that by taking AP or dual enrollment courses CLEP exams.

I went to community college for my first two years of college too.

So you can plan to apply to community college and then start applying to tons of scholarships in high school.

Then in college, consider living at home.

That can keep your costs low.

You can become a resident assistant as well.

You can use use textbooks.

Again, apply to more scholarships and then try to obtain health care experience in a financial independence way so you don't have to spend tons of money on your education to be able to start getting some of those health care experience hours.

And then when you do apply to PA school, make sure that you are applying only to those programs that you have met all of those prereqs because as you know, the cost of CASPA is pretty high and if you aren't meeting all those prereq requirements then it's probably not worth even applying to because you have to pay for every single PA program that you apply to.

And then in addition to applying for more scholarships, consider joining the military because you can get your debt paid back as a PA provider.

And the PA profession is founded in the military, so it's very fitting as PAs too.

In PA school, live below your means so you're going to have your student loans that you're going to get, but it's really important to start budgeting.

You need to start tracking probably three to six months of every single dollar that you are spending.

Keep your housing costs low.

You don't need to spend money to buy fancy medical equipment, just the simple medical equipment can do.

Try to get rotations near your friends or family.

And then as a new grad, try to live like a PA student for two to five years.

So don't let your fancy new income as a PA cause you to have lifestyle creep, meaning that the more money you make, the more money you're spending.

And then really try to plan out how you're going to pay back those student loans.

You can consider programs like pslf.

You can consider refinancing loans certainly after the current Covid federal student loan pause is over though.

And then try to start investing ASAP.

So many jobs will have a match for their 401k or retirement plan.

So try to start investing even if you are paying off your debt, because time is your friend when it comes to compound interest.

And then also try to track your net worth.

So it's hard to know where you're going to be going, what type of number is your financial independence number, and then how far along you are in reaching that number if you don't know what your current net worth is.

So there's a tool called personal capital that I really like to use and it allows you to put in different types of accounts in there to see where you are at at that moment of time.

Yeah, I've used that too.

That's a really helpful way to visualize everything and like see kind of where you're at.

So no, those are great tips.

And it's funny as you were saying those, because I think at every level this sounds bad but like people stand out.

Either myself, who I was either making a mistake or doing something good, or somebody that was like, that was that person in my class who ate out every single meal and bought a brand new car right when they grew, graduated.

Exactly, exactly.

Little things.

But I mean I clearly did not do everything perfectly either for sure.

Exactly.

And I definitely did not write out a school.

I only, I only learned about financial independence five years out of PA school and I've been practicing for seven years now.

So I definitely made all of those mistakes as well.

And you bring up a good point with food and transportation.

So food, transportation and housing can comprise 61% of Americans budgets.

So if you can really focus on cutting back in those three areas, then you're be able to save more money and invest more for your future?

For sure.

Yeah.

What advice would you have to somebody who's like, okay, yes, I need to learn about this, but I am overwhelmed.

Like, do you have a good episode?

That's like a good place to start?

Should they just come the podcast or where's like just a place where they can be like, okay, I need to get the basics.

Let me go here and start here.

Yeah, definitely.

That's a great question, Savannah.

Thank you.

So with my podcast, I did start the first few episodes in mind from the beginning.

So in those first couple of episodes I talk about what the PA profession is if people aren't familiar with it.

And then I do also talk about financial independence and the different steps that I mentioned along the way there, too.

I also did recently create a free resource called the PA the Fi Way Beginners Workbook that you can find on my website, pa thefiway.com so you can you can sign up to get that resource to start.

Otherwise, you can shoot me an email@katfi way.com and I'd be happy to send you a copy of that too.

Perfect.

Yes.

That's awesome.

And you're on social media as well.

You've commented on my stuff and I've definitely seen yours popping up.

You and Kristin.

I must look at y' all stuff a lot because it comes up on my Instagram all the time.

Likewise, Savannah.

Likewise.

I need the reminders.

It's good.

That's great.

No, that's awesome.

We'll put all of that information in the description so everybody can find everything.

And I definitely appreciate all of your insights and information.

Um, and hopefully this will be encouraging to some people to take at least take a look at their finances and kind of see what changes they can make.

Yeah, definitely.

And I wanted to thank you so much, Savannah, for having me on for today's episode.

I've been following you along for several years now.

I think we graduated PA school right around the same amount of time, so I think it's awesome what you've built over the time that you've since you've graduated from school.

So thanks for all that you do for current and future PAs too.

Sam.