5 Habits That RICH Veterinarians Do

What's up everybody? It's Megan here from Student Loan Planner and today we're going to be chatting about what rich veterinarians do and what rich veterinarians do not do. So we're going to talk about what they always do, what they never do, compared to folklore. These bullet points that we're going to be chatting about are all in good fun, but good way to think about how to have that rich mindset and to want to do better, to want to avoid things that can really put you in turmoil. Everyone wants to be rich. So let's kick things off. Of course we got to start with student loans because, hey, we're Student Loan Planner. We talk about student loans all the time. Actually, you guys have a lot of student loan debt. You're next to physicians. You're one of the most indebted professions out there, next to physicians and dentists actually, but you are the top three. I don't want the reward. Your debt to income ratio can sometimes be challenging where we're looking at loan forgiveness options or we're looking, of course, at a pay down structure if not. So what rich veterinarians always do is they optimize their student loan strategy. Now, student loans are, again, a big part of your financial journey, so it is smart to get that right. These balances are not small that we're talking about, right? Don't remind me. So we need to make sure that we've got a game plan for either walking ourselves towards forgiveness or running towards paying those loans off, right? So there's only one of two ways we want to go with our student loan strategy. We either want to be going towards the loan forgiveness route on an income-driven plan, saving for that potential tax implication in the future, or we want to be paying more than maybe a regular standardized payment would be, paying those loans off sooner rather than later to pay them off as soon as we can and to save ourselves as much interest as possible. So we need to optimize our student loan strategy to make sure that we're making good use of the dollars that are going towards the student loans and we're not wasting time, we're not wasting money with the wrong plan. So that's what rich veterinarians will always do is optimize their student loan plan, make sure this step is not skipped. This is a lot of times the first step to somebody's financial planning journey, which can be a very overwhelming step of course, but with the right plan it really opens up the ability for you to think about other financial things in your life and what else you're trying to work towards, not just the student loans, right? So get to that good place. Will do, will do. Next up for what rich veterinarians always do is they are always leveling up their skill set. Sharpen your skills. Yeah, you guys are always learning, hey you are here right now, welcome, congrats, you're already learning here, you're doing things to help you progress in your finances right now listening to this channel. Rich veterinarian is always trying to level up their skill set on an ongoing basis, not just in finances but also in your career space. So looking at specialties or looking at certifications or going to conferences and networking with your fellow colleagues, learning more on a daily basis. I think you could say you probably learn something every day. Rich veterinarians don't stay complacent. They continue to level up their skill set and continue to learn. I'm almost sorry, I'm so doggone smart. Now what else do rich veterinarians do? Well, they save for retirement. Big event coming through. Saving for retirement I know can feel like a very out there thing, like really far out there into the future but I'm telling you it is the biggest bill that you're ever going to have in your life. So we need to save early and we need to have a game plan for that early on. Now that doesn't mean that you have to know exactly what retirement's going to look like. Again, this might be a little ways out for you but time is on your side right now. If you're earlier on in your financial planning journey or if you haven't started saving yet, now's the time, right? What is that saying about when's the best time to plant a tree? But it's like planting a tree. Well, 20 years ago, right? So same thing with savings, you know, when's the best time to start saving? It was yesterday, right? It was earlier because when you're saving and when you're investing, especially for retirement, you're looking at a long window of time and so you're going to be investing that in the market and in the market, we are going to be participating in growth. Thanks to my investments, I've watched my money grow. Your employer likely has some kind of plan that you can contribute to, whether that be a 401k, a 403b, a TSP, a simple IRA, a SEP IRA. There's something that you can likely contribute to and if not at work, you can open up your own retirement accounts like IRAs, for example, or if you're a contractor, you can look into a solo 401k. So there's really no excuse to not be saving for retirement. Rip the band-aid off, start contributing, make sure you check to see if your employer provides some kind of matching program. That means if you contribute a certain percentage, they'll contribute a certain percentage. It's part of your benefits package, which is pretty cool because that means that they're Pretty nice. So take advantage of that if you have access to it and then also pay attention to the the maximums that you can contribute per year. There are limits on how much you can contribute to these accounts and we want to shoot for those limits, right? We want to try to max out what we have available and that's a good problem to have if we've run out of room to put retirement savings. Once you've maxed out retirement, you want to be considering looking at other savings vehicles like maybe a Roth IRA, backdoor Roth IRA, a brokerage account, high yield savings account for some shorter term goals that you may have. But saving is key. Rich veterinarians are certainly saving their dollars and having their dollars work for them. I'll do it. All right, next up, rich veterinarians make financial education part of their continuing education. I kind of cheated and talked a little bit about this earlier when I was talking about leveling up your skill set. You said that already! But financial education is key. You're not taught this in school, right? And you're here learning about finance stuff, right? So make sure that on an ongoing basis, you're checking in on your financial picture, you're educating yourself on financial news, financial topics that are going on, making sure that you're also very grounded in your financial goals. And a really great way that you can make sure that you're staying on track and healthy, financially speaking, is working maybe with an accountability partner such as your partner, such as a friend, or a financial professional. Did you hear me? And the next and last little plug I'll put in here is rich veterinarians always want to work with our team. We've got a vet-specific financial planning team at SLP Wealth. Meredith and David are who runs that team. If you know, you know. So if you are needing some help leveling up your skill set with finances and getting started with saving for retirement, wanting to optimize your student loan strategy, really starting to learn and grow in your financial picture, that's what a rich veterinarian is going to be doing. And you have the resources. You've got folks out there like us that can help you. You want to be working with somebody that you trust, of course, and somebody that knows your situation. I know you. And knows how to help you reach your financial goals. So check us out if you haven't already. All right, so we talked about what things rich veterinarians always do. Let's talk about things that rich veterinarians never do. So let's talk about the flip side. Don't do this. Rich veterinarians never accept the first job offer. Now, job hunting is not fun. It is not fun. But you don't want to limit yourself with just one offer or one option that you're considering. The veterinarian space is looking really good, job prospect-wise. And you want to make sure you know your options. You're the employee. You're the one who's going to be coming in and doing these jobs. To me? Spending your life, your day-to-day in this practice or in this office or in this facility. You want to make sure that this is what you want and that you can see yourself being very happy in this position. But also that it gives you what you need financially. Plus benefits. Work-life balance-wise, don't accept the first job offer. Compare options. Make sure you're making the right choice for you. All right, this next one is a little funny. Rich veterinarians never use a simple IRA. Now, this is kind of a joke. Is that funny? There's a lot of practices that use a simple IRA for their retirement plan. Now, both plans, a simple IRA and a 401k are very similar. They both encourage workers to save for retirement and you can deduct the contributions that you're making towards these. That's a write-off? Yeah. Both allow employers to contribute. But one of the common problems that we run to in planning with simple IRAs is what's called the pro-rata rule. Now, the pro-rata rule is something that has to do with IRAs and a lot of people like Roth IRAs, right? You've probably heard, oh, it's probably a good idea to contribute to a Roth IRA. Well, if you make above a certain income level. Look, you're rich. Or you file taxes married separately for student loan purposes. You are not going to be able to contribute directly to a Roth IRA for that post-tax money to go toward your retirement because the IRS says so, right? So we can't contribute, but we can do what's called a backdoor Roth. Of course, the backdoor. Well, the IRS is saying, hey, you can't cherry pick what you are contributing or converting into your Roth IRA. The simple IRA is problematic because people who want to do a backdoor Roth, they can, but it's taxable when it otherwise wouldn't be. So simple IRAs can provide that issue or can bring that issue to the table where we're having to deal with taxable conversions, where otherwise we wouldn't have taxable conversions if this money was in a 401k, for example, or a solo 401k. Rich veterinarians are not using simple IRAs. They're small potatoes. There are bigger buckets that you can contribute to. Potato. And lastly, rich veterinarians never let their student loans get in the way of building wealth or let their student loans dictate their career decisions. Now this of course is really near and dear to our heart. Rich vets never do these things. They never let their student loans dictate them. Your student loans are not the boss of you. I'm going to tell you that right now. Your student loans are not the boss of you. The balance might be overwhelming. Your student loan situation might be overwhelming, but there's going to be a plan that's going to work for you. Is this a pep talk? There's one of two routes we can go. The loan forgiveness route, which a lot of times provides a lot of relief in our budget and is still very mathematically beneficial to us. Or paying the loans off. Refinancing could be a good way to reduce our interest rate, reduce our cost over time. But really what tanks a financial plan, especially early on, is just not having the right plan in place and not knowing all the like savings tricks and tips when it comes to this big piece of the puzzle. I can do this. You've worked way too hard to let the student loans be the boss of you. They're not going to be the boss of you. Let us know if you need some help with some of these things. We can certainly help put together a student loan plan. We do one-on-one consultations here at Student Loan Planner to really drive down deep into exactly what you should be doing with your loans and how to save the most money on your plan. I like the sound of that. We're here for you if you need us and I'll catch you in the next one.