Financial Clarity for Doctors

Traveling Without Breaking the Bank

Lots of people value experiences like travel in their lives.  With clients, this often makes the top three for short-term goals.  In this episode of Financial Clarity for Doctors, Rachelle and Corey walk through some ways to travel without breaking the bank - so you can do the thing you love right now, but also put some resources aside for your future self.

Travel tips discussed include:

• Timing when you go and when you pay!
• Bringing the kids only when it makes sense.
• Being selective about where you travel.
  • Balancing big trips and little trips.
  • Is Santorini worth almost twice as much as Crete?
• What to do when you get to your location.
• Using points and rewards.

 

Financial planning is all about priorities.  If traveling is a priority for you, then do it!  But you might as well do it in a smart way.

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Building a Custom Home

In this episode of Financial Clarity for Doctors, Corey and Rachelle walk through the time consuming (and somewhat rewarding!) process of building a custom home.  Corey speaks from personal experience and walks through the entire process.

Tune in to learn about:

• All the pros and cons (marital discord and all).
• The process – from buying the land to deciding which way you want your windows to open.
• The costs – Surprise! Sometimes it may be less expensive to build your dream rather than buy an existing home and try to make it work.
• Financing options.
• And the time commitment! It takes a long time and can be like another full-time job!

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Blog: College Savings: 529 Plans & Recent Changes

In this week's blog, we dive into college savings strategies, as well as some recent changes to the rules around 529 college savings plans.  

Our weekly blog posts that can be found at www.theFinityGroup.com/blog, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to have our weekly blog post delivered directly to your inbox.

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Taboo Money Topics

Why is it that people get so nervous and uncomfortable when discussing money?  Many of us were taught as children that it is rude to discuss money, but knowledge is power!  In this episode of Financial Clarity for Doctors, Corey and Rachelle discuss a few taboo money topics and why money needs to be a part of our everyday discourse.

In this episode we walk through the following off-limits topics (and a few more!):

• Salary – Sometimes this is even specifically prohibited in the workplace, but how else do you know whether you are being paid fairly?
• Debt – Discussing this can help you feel less shame (they have loans too!) and can help you come up with some solutions to deal with it.
• Gift giving – We have made this a habit and expectation in our culture but refuse to talk about the money and resources that go into it.
• Big purchases (house/luxury items) – Sometimes these purchases take a lot out of us, but we pretend it’s all easy and under control. Discussing the reality can help others understand the sacrifices we sometimes make to attain these things.

 

Social norms change all the time, and this one is worth changing.  We need to learn to discuss both the positive and negatives of money and help younger generations understand and learn from our own experiences.  We can’t do that without talking about it.

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Our Other Favorite Personal Finance Resources

If you are looking for more resources to dive into financial planning, this episode is for you!  Corey and Rachelle list out a few of their favorite books, blogs, and podcasts.  There is a little something for everyone here!

Books:

• Some of our favorites include:
  • Financial Planning Basic for Doctors by Marshall Weintraub, et al.
    • Advisors at our firm wrote this one!
  • The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
  • Behavior Gap and The One Page Financial Plan by Carl Richards
  • The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber

Blogs:

• Everyone’s favorite, The White Coat Investor! A little biased against advisors and a little heavy on the advertisements, but still a wealth of information.
• Another classic, The Physician on FIRE. For those that want to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible.
• If you like numbers and analysis, Of Dollars and Data with Nick Maggiulli is great.
• If you like a little of everything, Abnormal Returns aggregates daily finance articles and blogs from around the web.

Podcasts:

• Do you really want or need anything other than our pearls of wisdom? Maybe! Different perspectives can be very helpful and cover different topics.
• Bonnie Koo at Wealthy Mom MD talks about her own journey through medical training and debt.
• Corey’s favorite, Morgan Housel, has a podcast!

Listen to the episode to hear more about these resources and our thoughts on them.  With any media, especially resources found online, use your critical thinking skills and verify information before committing it to long-term memory.  In the end, a lot of this is behavior-based, and you have to find the resources that work well for you.

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

More Federal Student Loan Updates

They’re coming!  Take one final breath of fresh air before your federal student loan payments resume.  Finally.  In today’s episode, Corey and Rachelle chat about what to expect when payments resume and some of the additional changes to income-based repayment plans.

The final stretch:

• If all goes as planned, interest on student loans is resuming in September and payments are resuming in October.
• If you haven’t already, log into your student loan servicer’s website to verify your next payment due date and amount.

 

REPAYE to become SAVE:

• If you are currently enrolled in Revised Paye as You Earn (REPAYE) you will now be enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan.
• The payment amount will still be 10% of your discretionary income, but discretionary income is determined using 225% of the federal poverty level instead of 150% as it was in the past.
• If your income-driven payment does not cover the interest, 100% of that accumulating interest is eliminated.
• You will be able to file separately from your spouse and only use your own income with SAVE. With REPAYE, you had to use both incomes.

 

Other changes this summer:

• IRS integration for income verification and family size which will mean automatic income recertification if you enroll.
• Redesigned and simplified application through Studentaid.gov.

 

To hear more about the details of these changes and others, listen to the full episode.  To read more about the SAVE plan, read the Federal Student Aid announcement on the program here.

 

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Blog: A Guide to Money in Residency

This week's blog post is an overview of the financial topics you should be addressing during your training years.  

Our weekly blog posts that can be found at www.theFinityGroup.com/blog, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to have our weekly blog post delivered directly to your inbox.

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Do You Need a Financial Advisor?

In this episode, Rachelle and Corey discuss the value a Financial Advisor can provide to different types of people.  Not everyone is the same, so the answer to this question is not always the same!

Folks that we think could potentially get a LOT of value from working with an advisor include:

• People that feel very uncomfortable dealing with money. This is a lot of people and can be for any number of reasons.
• People who haven’t been taught the basics of managing their finances. This includes folks that aren’t sure how to protect themselves from risk, how much to save, how much they can afford to spend on a home, and much more.
• People who ignore all things related to money. You can’t ignore it forever!
• People who want to delegate some of the financial aspects of their lives. Some folks don’t want to spend the time and mental effort managing all of this on their own.

 

For the Do-It-Yourselfer:

• There are some folks that really enjoy learning about financial topics and prefer to tackle this on their own.
• If you can understand your own biases, save a lot, and do things very consistently, this can be the way to go!
• For these folks, sometimes it can make sense to use a fee-based or fee-only advisor to review and spot check things occasionally. Totally up to you!

 

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

This episode contains a client story that is based upon an individual client experience and may not be representative of the experience of other customers and should not be considered a guarantee or indication of future performance of success

Invest for a Long Time, Not a Good Time

In this episode, Rachelle and Corey use a LOT of metaphors to explore the idea that investing for long-term growth should be boring!  This isn’t a game; it’s trying to achieve your goals (like having enough money when you retire) without taking on unnecessary and often unsuccessful risks.

Our favorite metaphor:

• Did you know that Greenland sharks have a life expectancy of 250-500 years?!
• They grow very slowly, live in cold water, and are more or less immune to most cancers and diseases.
• Definitely a slow and steady wins the race creature!

Applying this to investing:

• When you invest for exciting returns in the short-term, you win some and you lose some. Not usually the best results when you do that over a long period of time.
  • More exciting = more risky
• Taking a well-diversified approach does not usually result in “exciting” returns. Sometimes your portfolio goes up a bit, sometimes it goes down.  But it gives you the best change of “good enough” returns over a long period of time.
  • Less exiting = less risky

Sometimes folks think investing is glamourous; but if you’re doing it right, it’s more like the Greenland shark.

For more financial planning tips from Corey and Rachelle, find them on social media!
LinkedIn: @CoreyJanoff and @RachelleVanderzanden; Instagram: @CoreyJanoff and @VanderzandenRachelle; and Twitter: @CoreyJanoffCFP and @RachelleFinance 

Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions. Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Adviser. Finity Group, LLC and Cambridge are not affiliated. Cambridge does not offer tax or legal advice.

Blog: 11 Ways to Teach Your Kids About Money

This week's blog post dives into 11 ideas you can implement to help educate your children about money. 

Our weekly blog posts that can be found at www.theFinityGroup.com/blog, where you can also sign up for our newsletter to have our weekly blog post delivered directly to your inbox.