On this episode, I interviewed Dr. Quynh Lan Nguyen, a traveling hospitalist and blogger about how she and her husband have turned credit card hacking into a lifestyle that allows them to travel around the world. We talk about her strategies and recommendations and whether its still possible to do this today. We also talk about her interest in the FIRE movement and how she and her investment banker husband both want to enjoy their life sooner rather than later.

Quynh Lan Nguyen, MD

 I myself was using credit cards, particularly southwest a few years ago to get companion passes for my wife and myself which has allowed our family of 5 to basically travel free (domestically and to Mexico twice) the last 3 years saving us approx 15-20K in airfare costs. It can be extremely useful if used appropriately, but there is risk in spending unwisely, late payments or interest charges which will far outweigh any rewards you accumulate, and negative impact on credit so be aware of this and other risks if you try to do this.

I think the credit card companies are catching on making things a bit more difficult now so as Dr. Nguyen recommends, use your miles sooner rather than later.

You can visit Dr. Nguyen’s website to get the latest in credit card tips and travel recommendations at www.smartmoneyandtravel.com

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the private Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Here are a couple of my favorite credit cards. 

Amex Platinum for travel, great hotel status and lounge access.

$595/yr but can be offset significantly by using uber credits and airline fee credits.  I get points but no $ if you use this link to apply.

Chase Sapphire Reserve for 3X travel and dining rewards points.

$450/yr, but also can be offset significantly by using rewards.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. In this episode I talk with Dr. Amy Shah, an allergy specialist and good friend who turned her passion for nutrition and health into a few solid side gigs.

Before I introduce Amy, I would like to talk a bit about why so many doctors are looking for side gigs. It seems crazy that people would undergo 11-17 years of post high school training and then want to look for an additional job after they worked so hard to achieve the primary one.  It speaks to the dissatisfaction, disillusionment, and loss of autonomy that so many in medicine feel now. The wall st journal had an article this past weekend about physician burnout and I have addressed it on prior episodes. We didn’t get into medicine to have our expertise undermined or questioned by those with less training. We are also less likely to be allowed to use our creative sides in medicine than generations past, and so we must express that part of ourselves in otherways. Finally maybe this is the function of living in the day and age of the gig economy and also the easy and cheap technologies with which we can start businesses (though succeeding is another story). That leads me back to my guest Amy Shah, who is succeeding.

Amy is a relative pioneer in using social media to expand her reach and develop a personal brand. It has been great to watch her develop this non traditional endeavor over the last few years. She definitely has been an inspiration and source of encouragement as I started my podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

Amy Shah, MD

• How she developed an interest in nutrition at an early age
• Her mindset about developing her passion into a viable business rather than just a hobby.
• Some of the fears she faced while trying to develop her status as an authority on these topics
• Her advice for those who are starting this process
• Her goals for the future of her various endeavors

Amy, in addition to practicing as an allergist, does personal wellness consults, has developed products including supplements, and as she talks about in the show, customized earbuds called SoundMolds (in conjunction with one of her ENT partners), worked with Bobbi Brown in the cosmetics industry, and now working with Genexa, an organic medication company. She also is starting to do physician webinars and live person coaching for those interested in learning how she has done these various things.

You can follow Amy on Instagram at @dramyshah or at her website www.amymdwellness.com. She also created a popular facebook group for those interested in healthier south asian cooking called Desi Carb Fix that has over 5k members.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of Doctor Money Matters. If this is the first episode you have heard, I appreciate you taking the time out and listening and encourage you to listen to our past episodes. I would also appreciate you leaving me a positive review on Apple Podcasts and also recommend you join our facebook group where we have ongoing discussions about this and other topics in order to help each other reach our financial goals. Finally please subscribe to our email list on the website and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app so you will have new episodes downloaded automatically when they are released.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters and on FB/Instagram at Doctor Money Matters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Episode 32 Jason Mizell, MD

First I would like to thank you all for continuing to listen to the podcast and also for those of you who have joined the Doctor Money Matters facebook group. Group has grown by nearly 50% last month and the discussions have been spirited. Please continue to add your physician and medical professional colleagues so they can join in the conversation. Some of the popular topics recently have been determining your retirement number and Dr. Meru, an orthodontist in Utah who was recently profiled in the WSJ about having $1M in student loans.

On this episode, I interview Dr. Jason Mizell, a colorectal surgeon at University of Arkansas Medical Center. He started a class to teach 4th year medical students about finances. As I mention in the intro to this show, most of us were never taught these subjects in medical training leaving us to figure it out for ourselves, often at great expense (in terms of fees or mistakes).

Jason Mizell, MD

Dr. Mizell like many of us felt lost in dealing with finances when he first came out of training. I will let him discuss that during the show, but he realized that he was probably not alone and decided to do something to help his colleagues and students.  This has become a very popular class and hopefully spreads to other schools. Perhaps we should have some of these topics addressed before medical school starts to avoid a Dr. Meru situation.

Thank you Dr. Mizell for starting this conversation with medical students. It’s great to see someone taking initiative to help educate our younger colleagues. Doing it in the structured way he does really brings value to these students. Maybe some of you are already helping out by informally bringing up these topics with your students. If you do please let me know how, you can tweet to me or send me an email.

Sometimes once you start learning about financial topics, the basics such as interest, inflation, compounding can seem very simple but there is an article I read recently that had 3 quick questions about these topics and the vast majority of people could not get more than 2 of 3 correct. If you don’t understand these fundamental concepts, you will have a hard time getting ahead financially.

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Dr. Mizell is on twitter @jasonmizell1

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Welcome to the Doctor Money Matters Podcast. This is a podcast about financial topics related to the healthcare professional. I am your host Dr. Tarang Patel, a diagnostic radiologist in Arizona.

Our guest on this episode is Ike Devji, JD an attorney in Phoenix, AZ. Ike is our first returning guest. He previously discussed asset protection on episode 3 which remains one our more popular episodes. Today we will be talking about estate planning on part 1 and an update to asset protection on part 2. Both episodes will be released together, but you will need to download them separately. I apologize for some of the scratching sound you will hear during the conversation, but I didn’t want to stop recording because the content was important.

In part 1 we talk about the basics of estate planning. We define the basic terms such as wills, probate, trusts, etc. Ike talks about whether you need an attorney to set this up or whether you can do it yourself.

Ike Devji, JD

In part 2 we update asset protection including how practices can deal with gun violence and how practices can protect themselves. We also address the situation that Physician on Fire got into when he served on a hospital board as many physicians do and ended up being sued (with risk to his personal assets) when the hospital went bankrupt and board members were sued. We also talk about purchasing property into a trust. (Investment vs personal property). Finally we talk about the liabilities physicians face when we post on social media.

You can find out more about Ike and his company at www.proassetprotection.com

Please let your colleagues know about this podcast and add them to our private facebook group and join our email list.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Welcome to the Doctor Money Matters Podcast. This is a podcast about financial topics related to the healthcare professional. I am your host Dr. Tarang Patel, a diagnostic radiologist in Arizona.

Our guest on this episode is Ike Devji, JD an attorney in Phoenix, AZ. Ike is our first returning guest. He previously discussed asset protection on episode 3 which remains one our more popular episodes. Today we will be talking about estate planning on part 1 and an update to asset protection on part 2. Both episodes will be released together, but you will need to download them separately. I apologize for some of the scratching sound you will hear during the conversation, but I didn’t want to stop recording because the content was important.

Ike Devji, JD

In part 1 we talk about the basics of estate planning. We define the basic terms such as wills, probate, trusts, etc. Ike talks about whether you need an attorney to set this up or whether you can do it yourself.

In part 2 we update asset protection including how practices can deal with gun violence and how practices can protect themselves. We also address the situation that Physician on Fire got into when he served on a hospital board as many physicians 

do and ended up being sued (with risk to his personal assets) when the hospital went bankrupt and board members we

re sued. We also talk about purchasing property into a trust. (Investment vs personal property). Finally we talk about the liabilities physicians face when we post on social media.

You can find out more about Ike and his company at www.proassetprotection.com

Please let your colleagues know about this podcast and add them to our private facebook group and join our email list.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Episode 29. William Bernstein, MD

On this episode, I interviewed a physician investing legend, Dr. William Bernstein. He is a neurologist turned financial author and investment advisor. Now most of us will not be able to reach the asset threshold need for him to manage our money, but the good news is we don’t have to. He provides great advice for the rest of us also.

I have admired Dr. Bernstein’s approach to investing for many years and want to acknowledge him as one of the pioneers of index investing. His books are a must read for those who want to learn about financial history. Despite his tremendous expertise, he is very accessible and approachable and above all a teacher.  

In this episode we discuss

William Bernstein, MD

• His basic advice to young physicians.
• What he recommends you do before investing.
• How you can construct a very simple yet effective portfolio
• His thoughts on cryptocurrency
• How does the FIRE movement affect asset allocation/savings rate?
• Whether or not most physicians need a financial adviso

Dr. Bernstein’s website is  efficientfrontier.com On it there are great resources for beginning your financial education from beginner to more advanced levels.

Join our email list or private facebook group and I will let you know how to get a copy of his book If you can for free for kindle. Although even if you listen to this podcast later and it is no longer free, this book is high value advice for very nominal amount.

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Episode 28 Doctor Money Matters.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. In this episode I talk with Kayee Tong, a medical student in TX who is a cryptocurrency expert and recently wrote a post on passiveincomemd about paying for medical school and college with profits from cryptocurrencies.

I have mentioned my thoughts about bitcoin previously but let me reiterate that I don’t feel like its an investment rather a speculation. I am not an investment professional, and this represents my opinion alone. No one knows what will happen with Bitcoin or the other coins out there. Currently it is around $9k having hit near $20k in January 2018 and down to around $6500 a few weeks ago. Do I regret not buying it when I first heard about it in 2012? Absolutely but even then it was purely speculation. The mania from around the 2017 holiday season has died down but that was the closest I have seen to the mania surrounding tech stocks in the late 90s. During the 6-8 weeks of Dec 2017 and Jan 2018, the various social media finance groups were littered with people talking about buying cryptocurrencies. The volume has now died down quite a bit, but still questions and concerns remain.

Kayee Tong

In this episode we talk about:

• • The basics of the blockchain, and how he started with bitcoin. He also created a bitcoin mining operation and also ran a bitcoin exchange.

• • The different coins that are out there

• • His advice on speculation with coins now.

• • What he plans on doing with his varied operations going forward

• His thoughts on the security of the different exchanges

He mentions ICO which is an initial coin offering, similar to a stock IPO. An ASIC rig is an Application specific integrated circuit. Basically a dedicated machine for mining only.

Mr. Tong is definitely an entrepreneur and once had a job offer from Google which he turned down prior to starting medical school. It’s amazing to see how he is able to balance his varied activities along with the demands of medical school. I expect we will be hearing from him in the future.

Check out his Quora page in which he talks about cryptocurrencies https://cryptosignal.quora.com/

The book he recommends is Mastering Bitcoin

Here is the article Kayee is mentioned on passiveincomemd.com

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, Whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. This episode is about striving for work life balance within the context of a dual physician couple. I talk with a physician couple, Drs. Nisha Mehta and Parag Butala from Charlotte, NC. They are both specialists in demanding fields (Nisha is a radiologist and Parag is a plastic surgeon).

In this episode we discuss:

• How they balance their professional goals between 2 high achievers
• What did each of them give up and how did they structure the life they want to lead
• How does their typical day go?
• The reality that you won’t be able to be the best in all aspects of your life everyday.
• Parag’s bucket strategy
• They talk about their hopes for their children
• How Nisha’s “side gig” has grown and altered her balance and how they both have to frequently reassess their lives
• General financial advice they have for other physicians

Nisha Mehta, MD

I really enjoyed talking with Nisha and Parag and this impressive couple really has a great perspective about the life they want to lead. It’s not always an easy path but financial independence is a tool to help us achieve this ultimate goal.

Nisha’s blog can be found at nishamehtamd.com

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group  where we discuss many of the topics addressed on the podcast.

Nisha’s Physician Side Gigs group is also on facebook and many of you are already part of it. I encourage you to join if you haven’t done so.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Parag Butala, MD

Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are:

Docs Outside The Box

The Hippocratic Hustle

The Happy Doc

Doctors Unbound

The White Coat Investor
There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Episode 26 Doctor Money Matters.

This is part 2 of Episode 25. Written content below is the same.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. This is a double episode with guests in 2 separate locations in Texas. I split the conversation into 2 separate episodes (25 and 26) so please make sure you listen to both. I interviewed David Anderson, DO and Victor Mangona, MD, 2 of the most detailed oriented and helpful members of the various physician finance facebook groups including the Doctor Money Matters group. There was a little technical issue with David’s audio so it may not perfectly clear, but bear with it as the content discussed today is pure gold.

In this episode we go into detail about many of the concepts repeatedly discussed on these various forums.

David Anderson, DO

• Tax rates (Effective vs Marginal)
• Paying down debt vs investing.
• Using a 529 plan to establish a legacy of education for future generations
• Cryptocurrency. To be fair this interview occurred while we were near the height of the mania earlier this year.
• The necessity vs the value of paying for financial advice. When should you pay for advice?
• We also discussed an interesting idea about medical schools paying for disability and life insurance for their students after hearing about a sad story in which a young medical student passed away on the interview trail. The GoFundMe page is no longer active and ended up raising $304K. Victor also outlined a strategy for how to use the funds to generate income for the family.

I hope you enjoyed this double episode and hearing the voice of 2 people who have provided valuable and detailed information to many of us in my group and many of the other forums for physicians. I know I have benefited from their well thought out analysis and explanations and I am that will continue.

Victor Mangona, MD

Remember we are not professional planners (though David is working on that) and our discussion and recommendations may not be appropriate for everyone. Please do your own due diligence prior to acting on any topics discussed on this and any episodes of this podcast.

Please continue to let your friends, students, colleagues know about this podcast by sharing it on text, or whatever social media platform you are on and please leave positive reviews. It really does help a lot. I know its not the easiest thing to leave a review, so on iTunes/Apple Podcast via your iPhone just find the show and scroll down to where it says Tap to leave a review and put in the number of stars you feel appropriate (5 stars are the best).

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and our Facebook page also.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are:

Docs Outside The Box

The Hippocratic Hustle

The Happy Doc

Doctors Unbound

The White Coat Investor

There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Episode 25 Doctor Money Matters.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. This is a double episode with guests in 2 separate locations in Texas. I split the conversation into 2 separate episodes (25 and 26) so please make sure you listen to both. I interviewed David Anderson, DO and Victor Mangona, MD, 2 of the most detailed oriented and helpful members of the various physician finance facebook groups including the Doctor Money Matters group. There was a little technical issue with David’s audio so it may not perfectly clear, but bear with it as the content discussed today is pure gold.

Victor Mangona, MD

In this episode we go into detail about many of the concepts repeatedly discussed on these various forums.

• Tax rates (Effective vs Marginal)
• Paying down debt vs investing.
• Using a 529 plan to establish a legacy of education for future generations
• Cryptocurrency. To be fair this interview occurred while we were near the height of the mania earlier this year.
• The necessity vs the value of paying for financial advice. When should you pay for advice?
• We also discussed an interesting idea about medical schools paying for disability and life insurance for their students after hearing about a sad story in which a young medical student passed away on the interview trail. The GoFundMe page is no longer active and ended up raising $304K. Victor also outlined a strategy for how to use the funds to generate income for the family.

I hope you enjoyed this double episode and hearing the voice of 2 people who have provided valuable and detailed information to many of us in my group and many of the other forums for physicians. I know I have benefited from their well thought out analysis and explanations and I am that will continue.

David Anderson, DO

Remember we are not professional planners (though David is working on that) and our discussion and recommendations may not be appropriate for everyone. Please do your own due diligence prior to acting on any topics discussed on this and any episodes of this podcast.

Please continue to let your friends, students, colleagues know about this podcast by sharing it on text, or whatever social media platform you are on and please leave positive reviews. It really does help a lot. I know its not the easiest thing to leave a review, so on iTunes/Apple Podcast via your iPhone just find the show and scroll down to where it says Tap to leave a review and put in the number of stars you feel appropriate (5 stars are the best).

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and our Facebook page also.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are:

Docs Outside The Box

The Hippocratic Hustle

The Happy Doc

Doctors Unbound

The White Coat Investor

There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.