Seven figure pharmacist

[dereku]

Didn't read much of the other posts; saw a lot of heated discussion and kept scrolling. I'm not sure there is a need for pharmacists to have a special financial plan. Again, I haven't read the book, but used a similar system. Our story is that we paid off $740K in student loans, car loans, credit cards and other consumer debts using Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps. Since that milestone in 2013, we've accumulated a net worth of $540K. It isn't much yet, but considering where we came from, it's a about a $1.3M swing from one extreme to the other. Dave gets a lot of flack over assuming a 12% return, but I just say pick a number and run with it. Based on the summaries of this book I read on GoodReads, it seems like a lot of the advice parallels very nicely with Dave's. The impetus for us was that we were sick and tired of paying $30K/year in interest. It's been a great journey for my family and we sleep very well at night, not owing any debts but our mortgage. We're hoping/projecting to retire in six years with $1.2-1.5M.

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[WVUPharm2007]

I actually listen to Dave at work whenever I run out of podcasts to listen to. Mostly for the same reason I watch Gordon Ramsay videos. I like listening to him tear into idiots who are obviously being stupid. Following Dave Ramsey is better than doing what the typical American does, I'll give him that. I just have several issues with a lot of his thoughts. Many are just flat out wrong. Such as:

1) He shills hard for his financial partners and advises people get active management.
He'll always advise people to go to his "Smartvester Pros" and get into a mutual fund with high expense ratios. Low cost funds from Schwab or Vanguard will get you the same thing without the high fee. Dave gets a kickback from these people, so it makes sense for him to not like passive investing.

2) He's against credit cards. All cards. Period.
I get 2% cash back on everything. It's free money. Dave acts like credit cards are some insidious, evil things that are no good. In reality, if you are simply responsible and pay them off every month, you can get a lot of free travel.

3) He promotes the snowball method.
It's pretty simple math. You pay the bigger interest rates first. Dave has people pay the smallest loan first, then move up to the biggest. He's more into psychology than math, though. It seems like people that aren't into really getting into the weeds and understanding the math behind personal finance gravitate towards Dave. Which is probably ideal for them. If you suck at math, perhaps you need more motivation from the psychological end of things.

There's also the weird overtly religious thing, too. But I guess if people need the fear of god put in them to right their financial ship, whatever.

 

[sakigt]

I actually listen to Dave at work whenever I run out of podcasts to listen to. Mostly for the same reason I watch Gordon Ramsay videos. I like listening to him tear into idiots who are obviously being stupid. Following Dave Ramsey is better than doing what the typical American does, I'll give him that. I just have several issues with a lot of his thoughts. Many are just flat out wrong. Such as:

1) He shills hard for his financial partners and advises people get active management.
He'll always advise people to go to his "Smartvester Pros" and get into a mutual fund with high expense ratios. Low cost funds from Schwab or Vanguard will get you the same thing without the high fee. Dave gets a kickback from these people, so it makes sense for him to not like passive investing.

2) He's against credit cards. All cards. Period.
I get 2% cash back on everything. It's free money. Dave acts like credit cards are some insidious, evil things that are no good. In reality, if you are simply responsible and pay them off every month, you can get a lot of free travel.

3) He promotes the snowball method.
It's pretty simple math. You pay the bigger interest rates first. Dave has people pay the smallest loan first, then move up to the biggest. He's more into psychology than math, though. It seems like people that aren't into really getting into the weeds and understanding the math behind personal finance gravitate towards Dave. Which is probably ideal for them. If you suck at math, perhaps you need more motivation from the psychological end of things.

There's also the weird overtly religious thing, too. But I guess if people need the fear of god put in them to right their financial ship, whatever.

I like his advice but his conflict of interest with LifeLock Credit monitoring or whatever its called became too much for me. Credit freeze doesn't work bc credit card companies just randomly send out cards with credit? Uh nope.

 

[PromethazineDM]

Everyone has excellent advice when it comes ways to save money and be rich and some even go to great length to save a penny.

Remember to enjoy yourself and share it with your love ones. I know plenty of rich people who are miserable and some die with millions in 401K, apartment complex, etc. You can never buy back time.

I see more and more people at my hospital in their 30s getting cancer now.

When I first started out, I used to contribute to both 401k & 403b so it's possible to go over $18.5k limit.

 

[wagrxm2000]

I actually listen to Dave at work whenever I run out of podcasts to listen to. Mostly for the same reason I watch Gordon Ramsay videos. I like listening to him tear into idiots who are obviously being stupid. Following Dave Ramsey is better than doing what the typical American does, I'll give him that. I just have several issues with a lot of his thoughts. Many are just flat out wrong. Such as:

1) He shills hard for his financial partners and advises people get active management.
He'll always advise people to go to his "Smartvester Pros" and get into a mutual fund with high expense ratios. Low cost funds from Schwab or Vanguard will get you the same thing without the high fee. Dave gets a kickback from these people, so it makes sense for him to not like passive investing.

2) He's against credit cards. All cards. Period.
I get 2% cash back on everything. It's free money. Dave acts like credit cards are some insidious, evil things that are no good. In reality, if you are simply responsible and pay them off every month, you can get a lot of free travel.

3) He promotes the snowball method.
It's pretty simple math. You pay the bigger interest rates first. Dave has people pay the smallest loan first, then move up to the biggest. He's more into psychology than math, though. It seems like people that aren't into really getting into the weeds and understanding the math behind personal finance gravitate towards Dave. Which is probably ideal for them. If you suck at math, perhaps you need more motivation from the psychological end of things.

There's also the weird overtly religious thing, too. But I guess if people need the fear of god put in them to right their financial ship, whatever.

Isn't snowballing pretty much the entire point to his show? Every single one is the same, if you listen to one, you've listened to them all.

No one should ever do this so there's no point to his show.

His millionaire show is even horrible. He always says none are celebrities, sports stars, etc but almost every single one of them makes like $200k, those aren't typical people either.

 

[lane one]

I actually listen to Dave at work whenever I run out of podcasts to listen to. Mostly for the same reason I watch Gordon Ramsay videos. I like listening to him tear into idiots who are obviously being stupid. Following Dave Ramsey is better than doing what the typical American does, I'll give him that. I just have several issues with a lot of his thoughts. Many are just flat out wrong. Such as:

1) He shills hard for his financial partners and advises people get active management.
He'll always advise people to go to his "Smartvester Pros" and get into a mutual fund with high expense ratios. Low cost funds from Schwab or Vanguard will get you the same thing without the high fee. Dave gets a kickback from these people, so it makes sense for him to not like passive investing.

2) He's against credit cards. All cards. Period.
I get 2% cash back on everything. It's free money. Dave acts like credit cards are some insidious, evil things that are no good. In reality, if you are simply responsible and pay them off every month, you can get a lot of free travel.

3) He promotes the snowball method.
It's pretty simple math. You pay the bigger interest rates first. Dave has people pay the smallest loan first, then move up to the biggest. He's more into psychology than math, though. It seems like people that aren't into really getting into the weeds and understanding the math behind personal finance gravitate towards Dave. Which is probably ideal for them. If you suck at math, perhaps you need more motivation from the psychological end of things.

There's also the weird overtly religious thing, too. But I guess if people need the fear of god put in them to right their financial ship, whatever.

Couldn't agree more. His method makes zero mathematical sense. It's like he's going for some sort of koolaid drinking cult where everyone follows the leader and doesn't question the math.

 

[Dr Wario]

Couldn't agree more. His method makes zero mathematical sense. It's like he's going for some sort of koolaid drinking cult where everyone follows the leader and doesn't question the math.

I am not a huge fan of DR for myself, however, eventhough his snowball method does not make good mathematical sense, he is quite right in that if people understood math, they would not be in consumer debt. The purpose of the method is to influence behavior which is infinitely more complex than math.

Also I doubt many of us here are in the 8-9 figure club like he is so there is that...

 

[ExpressMaiL]

To each his own. Some exist to save, others to spend. Probably more savers than spenders in our income bracket but who knows. There are always exceptions and "averages" can be surprising.

Working for 40+ years to end up with retirement money... what do you plan on doing with all that money, assuming you actually have something to spend, once you're 75 years old?

You can't buy back your youth.

 

[pezdispenser]

My goal is to have enough in investments that produce enough passive income so that I don't have to work anymore. The pharmacy profession is clearly going down the tubes so I'm not counting on having the $120k salary x 40 years. But the people who spend everything they make and then some by racking up debt and complaining about all their bills... we all know people like this, well they will always have to work and will be in trouble if they lose their job.

However, you should also realize that you need to invest a large amount to produce enough passive income to live off. If you make a 7.5% return minus 2.5% for inflation = 5% withdrawal, to make $50k/yr you need $1 million invested. That's why I also try to reduce my expenses, and paying off my mortgage made a huge difference. Now I can live on $25k/yr so I only need $500k invested.

 

[ExpressMaiL]

My next large investment will be acquiring a "trendy" restaurant that hopefully makes some profit when I sell it 2 years from now. Investments can be outside of securities and contributions...

 

[Richanesthesiologist]

I'm hoping to get an BMW 530 e plug-in hybrid a few years from now during residency. After 4 years of residency, I'm hoping to start off my career as a physician with a Mercedes S-Class. Then, by the time I'm 35, I'm hoping to get a Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and by the time I'm 40, a Rolls-Royce Ghost or Bentley Mulsanne (slightly used , for around 150K-200K). I'm not going to bust my ass off all these years to drive a Honda Accord or Honda Odyssey (those are nice, practical, safe, and reliable cars though). I know minimum wage workers and Uber Drivers with nice late model Accords/Camrys (I currently have a 2013 Altima and am in Undergrad. Got it pre-owned for $10K. Many of my friends also have late model Sonata's, Corollas, Civics, etc.).

Not to downplay on the work that teachers do, but back in middle school, my history teacher gave me the keys to her brand new Mercedes E-Class Coupe (a $60K car) to fetch a pair of shoes for her. If my teacher can drive a Mercedes E- Class, I don't understand why I would ever drive a non-luxury car (maybe with the exception of the Nissan-GTR or Toyota Land Cruiser) as a physician making 4 times more!


My point:

If I can give 40% of my income to Uncle Sam, then I can also give 40% of my paycheck to the Lamborghini dealer.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

I'm hoping to get an BMW 530 e plug-in hybrid a few years from now during residency. After 4 years of residency, I'm hoping to start off my career as a physician with a Mercedes S-Class. Then, by the time I'm 35, I'm hoping to get a Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and by the time I'm 40, a Rolls-Royce Ghost or Bentley Mulsanne (slightly used , for around 150K-200K). I'm not going to bust my ass off all these years to drive a Honda Accord or Honda Odyssey (those are nice, practical, safe, and reliable cars though). I know minimum wage workers and Uber Drivers with nice late model Accords/Camrys (I currently have a 2013 Altima and am in Undergrad. Got it pre-owned for $10K. Many of my friends also have late model Sonata's, Corollas, Civics, etc.).

Not to downplay on the work that teachers do, but back in middle school, my history teacher gave me the keys to her brand new Mercedes E-Class Coupe (a $60K car) to fetch a pair of shoes for her. If my teacher can drive a Mercedes E- Class, I don't understand why I would ever drive a non-luxury car (maybe with the exception of the Nissan-GTR or Toyota Land Cruiser) as a physician making 4 times more!


My point:

If I can give 40% of my income to Uncle Sam, then I can also give 40% of my paycheck to the Lamborghini dealer.

Hopefully you grow out of thinking like this, but do what makes you happy at the end of the day. I hope you don’t go out and buy the big doctor home to go with it; my best advice would be to live like a resident for 3-5 years (once you’re an attending doc) and pay off your debts.

I recently heard a physician talk about how he bought a luxury car and was embarrassed every time he’d pull up next to his peers at work, and how relieving it was when he sold it and bought something far less eye catchy.

Edit: Always humors me to see RNs with the fanciest cars in the parking lot as well.

 

[Momus]

I'm hoping to get an BMW 530 e plug-in hybrid a few years from now during residency. After 4 years of residency, I'm hoping to start off my career as a physician with a Mercedes S-Class. Then, by the time I'm 35, I'm hoping to get a Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and by the time I'm 40, a Rolls-Royce Ghost or Bentley Mulsanne (slightly used , for around 150K-200K). I'm not going to bust my ass off all these years to drive a Honda Accord or Honda Odyssey (those are nice, practical, safe, and reliable cars though). I know minimum wage workers and Uber Drivers with nice late model Accords/Camrys (I currently have a 2013 Altima and am in Undergrad. Got it pre-owned for $10K. Many of my friends also have late model Sonata's, Corollas, Civics, etc.).

Not to downplay on the work that teachers do, but back in middle school, my history teacher gave me the keys to her brand new Mercedes E-Class Coupe (a $60K car) to fetch a pair of shoes for her. If my teacher can drive a Mercedes E- Class, I don't understand why I would ever drive a non-luxury car (maybe with the exception of the Nissan-GTR or Toyota Land Cruiser) as a physician making 4 times more!


My point:

If I can give 40% of my income to Uncle Sam, then I can also give 40% of my paycheck to the Lamborghini dealer.

Buy it, let me test drive the GTR :-D

 

[Cleaveland]

Hopefully you grow out of thinking like this, but do what makes you happy at the end of the day. I hope you don’t go out and buy the big doctor home to go with it; my best advice would be to live like a resident for 3-5 years (once you’re an attending doc) and pay off your debts.

I recently heard a physician talk about how he bought a luxury car and was embarrassed every time he’d pull up next to his peers at work, and how relieving it was when he sold it and bought something far less eye catchy.

Edit: Always humors me to see RNs with the fanciest cars in the parking lot as well.

Agreed.

Off-topic: Nice Pic. Illidan Stormrage is a beast.