Finances, Family & More with The Physician Philosopher Couple (Dr. James Turner + Kristen Turner)

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Hello, and welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is episode one hundred and thirty eight and it is being recorded during part of Laura's maternity leave, and she suggested that Josh can do it with me. Greetings, Best of Both world Podcast. No, actually, so, the reason that Josh is on the mic is because we're interviewing Jimmy Turner, who is a regional anesthesiologist in North Carolina who's also really in to teaching about financial topics, especially within the medical community, and also kind of dipping his toes into that financial independence world. And he recently wrote a book called The Physician Philosopher's Guide to Finance. And I decided that he and his wife would make really interesting podcast guests, and Josh was excited because he had actually read the book as well. Yeah, I love the book. I thought it was very interesting. Sarah read it and she drops a lot of books on my nightstand, but this one I was reading because we were really thinking about, you know, changing our retirement goals, that kind of thing. And I always sort of assumed that if I worked hard, everything would just work out financially. However, you know, reading that book makes me really realize that if you do that, don't think about it intentionally, you could be leaving a lot of things on the table. So I learned a lot from reading it, and we've made some changes a little definitely. I mean we used to just throw money out the window, like it was just like what now, I'm just kidding. Not really, it was not that bad, but I agree with you. I think at one point we were just under the impression that now, whatever we earn, whatever, we need to spend whatever. And it turns out that if you don't really pay attention to how you're spending your money or your time, then you kind of lose out. And you also don't tend to get that much closer to your retirement goals. Right, Yeah, physicians are famously not, you know, the best at retirement and investing in general. So it was it was a very good service in that book, I thought. And we are definitely not planning on becoming a financially focused podcast, although we've had several episodes recently. I think that I, and to some extent Laura, but especially I, have just sort of realized that it is you know this, This podcast has always been about sort of intention and trying to enjoy your life and making work and life fit together. But I also think it's very important to make sure that your work is something you enjoy and that you're also kind of making the most of. And part of that includes making sure that you're making the most of the income that you are making, so that you're not necessarily dependent on doing work that might not be your ideal in some vague future, even in some theoretical world. Right. I don't know. You lost me a little bit there, but I'm with you in spirit, and thankfully I don't want to work till them, you know, till and barely walk up the stairs to work, you know, I want to anyway, Yeah, pretty much, And we really you know, we've talked about this here. We spend time, We spend significant time on some of our dates planning, and that either relates to planning how we want to spend our time with our kids, and you know, take the vacations we want to take, and make sure that we're doing the logistics of our household the way we really want to be doing them, not just by some default, but also have extended that to making sure that we are doing what we want to intentionally with our finances and spending still and enjoying spending, but not to the detriment of our larger pools. So all right, anything else you have to add. You don't get to be on the podcast very often, so I kind of feel like our listeners deserve an update of some sort. Oh I think I don't know what happened this year. You know, maybe it's the January thing. I go have this back and forth relationship with running, and I've stopped running for about two years when I was injured, and now I'm sort of slightly back into running. Do some sort of work related corporate five K thing that we want Sarah to be a part of. Oh yeah, I know what we need to mention because it actually relates to what you just said about your running, because I think this is where your brain was going. You created monthly goals. Oh yeah, Oh I wish I could show my planner. You can show your Okay, we can show your planner. My one page and my planner which is my January goals, which I'm not going to get to cross them all off, but I feel good. Actually, just maybe I'm going to migrate them over to the February goals. Do you think I'm going to cross up all of my January govel No, I'm definitely not. But it's okay. The active setting them means you at least knew what you were aiming for and probably helped you a little bit more toward them. And then in February you'll migrate some of them when you get rid of some of them, and you'll reass us and it will be okay, and now we can share our goals with each other. All right, maybe I can this like what not to do? That's my planning podcast. Josh does not want to be on Planner Cast. Okay, never mind. We are going to transition to our guests. Two guests who are fantastic today, so I will just transition to that portion, all right, and I would love I'm very excited to welcome our guests this show this week. This is another interview I'm doing with out Laura, but hopefully they'll bear with me, and I do have a special potential guest appearance for the end of this interview. I have doctor James or Jimmy Turner with me and his wife Kristen. Welcome, guys, Thank you, thanks for having us on. Well, I am very excited to talk to you because I have to say, Jimmy, I read your book about I don't know three months or so, and I promptly shoved it under my husband's desk. I was like, you have to read this too, because I just really enjoyed your balanced approach to some of the you know, financial topics that are all over the place these days with the whole financial independence movement, but also just as a physician who definitely seems to value a lot of the same things that I do, family, but also enjoying your career and enjoying your time together with your kids. So can you tell me a little bit about your background and Kristin you too, because I am like, really really honored to be your very first podcast experience. You can start bad, you know me start all right. So background, I grew up in Florida and then went to college in South Carolina, which is where I met Kristin and I both played soccer there. It's at Erskine College, the school that no one's ever heard of, flying fleet a flying fleet. And then went to medical school, residency and fellowship all at Wake, and so I really didn't have much of an introduction to the financial stuff until really my junior or I guess you say, third year in medical school. Very end of it. I was trying to get term life insurance and got talk to me applying for disability insurance and I have an essential trimmer and take Paprana laws. So I got flat out denied for that, And so I could have gotten a guaranteed issue policy in training, but didn't because the only stipulation there is that you can't have been denied. So I got screwed by an insurance agent when I was a medical student. So had a rough introduction there and started learning about it after fellowship and really diving in and started the website The Physician philosopher and then wrote the book and yeah, it's kind of the short version of that story. Yeah, I have a little of interest and finances, but most of I've learned most from Jimmy. I always joked when he was going into medical school that I would keep him around until he was making money. And now that he's making a little money, I'm like, I'll keep you a little bit longer until you're like really valuable, and then I'll figure it out. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I was in Columbia, South Carolina. I grew up there and never moved actually until we got married in two thousand and nine. After we graduated college, I became a teacher, he was a medical school and then from there until now, which was gosh, we've been married almost eleven years. That would be extra schooling for me. A couple of different jobs and three kids later. Oh my goodness, how old are your kids now? We have a daughter who is eight, a son who is six, and then what do we call her? Another daughter that's three? Bit she is ooh crazy, Well, no wonder, no wonder. We saw I to eye with you guys, because our kids are like almost the exact same ages you have girl Boy Girl as well. That's exactly what we have. So almost eight, almost six, and we have a two year old, so yeah, completely in sync. We are duke and not wake. So I don't know if we can continue this podcast, but that's yes, depending on the sport exactly acc forever and I'm just kidding. Yeah, so no. So I am really fascinated to hear a little bit more about your financial journeys together and just how the career and logistics all fit together, because as you know this podcast, you know a lot of our listenership are We're women trying to fit everything into their lives that they care about their jobs and their families and particularly you know in the medical community and even in the financial independence community, which kind of surprises me, there are a lot of women who make the choice to stay home. So I guess I would love to hear you know how you two came upon your decisions to both stay in the workforce, and yeah, just if that's felt a little bit different, going against the grain at all. Yeah, I was telling so I've listened to several of your podcasts and was trying to articulate to Jimmy, this is what I'm gonna say so. I'm surely it's not going to go by script. But I feel kind of unique in my working journey because I was the breadwinner for us the first several years that he was in medical school on a teaching income, which in North Carolina, I don't know if knew much about that, were one of the lowest paid perfections teachers by state in North Carolina, but I did. My income was what we made when he was in medical school. And then we had our oldest daughter when he was going in his fourth year, and I decided to step away from the classroom, and so I stayed home for a short period of time, and then I slowly added on like about eight hours a week working for this local nonprofit education related company, and then slowly phased into about twenty hours a week part time. By the time we had our second child, You are, what year of residency? Then one of them want to I two here, Yeah, And so so I went purely from stay at home to part time to thinking, gosh, you know, I want to go back and get my masters. This is a good idea to do. When I'm pregnant with our third child, I should do that residency. While he was in residency, but it was online. It was purely online. It was through Queen's University. I'll give them a shout out. It was very doable, but it was a lot and so but I wanted to do that because I felt a little bit helpless in my part time position. I was back in the school system now at that point, pulling kids and doing reading. But like, I really saw the big picture and wanted to help more and support teachers. So I went back with the hopes of getting maybe becoming an administrator one day, and then decided I would just wait for the right opportunity to come around. We're getting a little bit more financially secure at that point, so I knew I had a unique position where I didn't necessarily have to go full time, but I could if I wanted, And Jimmy was super supportive of that. And so I think our youngest was maybe one, and this really unique job opportunity came up where it's full time in the school system, so not just like a teacher schedule, but twelve months, like I worked summer, some holidays and stuff like that, and now I'm a coach for kindergarten and first grade teachers. And I love it. Yes, so kind of a bad Oh that's great. That doesn't sound backwards at all. I mean, yeah, I do think it's a pretty unique story. And you found something you love in the education sphere, which can be punted. I mean, that's a really tough field. So no, that's a really cool story. I hear all the time people like I try not to just say, hey, my husband does this, but this week too a different times, teachers like, what does your husband do? I'm like, he works at the hospital. Oh really, what does he do? I'm like, he's analogist. Why you work, girl, I'm like, I love what I do. They're like, I love that. I love hearing that. Did you do you too? I mean it's part of obviously you know, yes, you don't quote unquote need to work for you guys to make ends meet at this point. But I also believe and I'm sure that your your job not only does it bring satisfaction, but it probably does still contribute to financial goals in your family. Do you too do a lot of planning together? Like, is there like a meeting of the minds that goes on in the Turner family? Have you always been on the same page with your financial goals. I would say, I don't know that we actually had a lot of financial goals until he started really researching and getting into all of this. And we probably have what you would call do I have a visitor? Sorry, we do, she's not allowed on the mic. We might have one of our visitors pop into and it truly will have the best of both sides. So he did a lot of researching. I started to learn, but I kind of stepped back a little and let him do his thing because he was so passionate about it. But then once he really wrapped his mind around it, we started having are they called money dates? Is that what you? And Ryan colls? That's right? And so we sit and talk, what are some things you want to do? What are things important to us? Do we to pull back on anything? Not necessarily financially, but are there things we're over committed to? What goals do we have and how can we make that happen? And so we started having those talks. And I don't know, you think that's pretty on par Yeah, I guess the way that I explained to people is that we have lots of conversations about what we want out of life. And so most of our conversations kind of stopped there once we figure out the big picture that we both want for terms of our family, our careers, and all of that. In terms of putting numbers behind those things, Chris and trusts me a lot to do that, but at the same time, really that's the secondary part anyway. So I always have people. I get questions a lot about people that aren't on the same page as their spouse their partner when it comes to finances, and I tell them, if your partner doesn't want to talk about finances, then talking about money is not going to be helpful. So I actually have people who go through what's called the three Kinder Questions, and that really helps you figure out what's super important to you and your family. And you, I think you know what that is until you write it down and go through this exercise, and once you do, you'll figure out that you spend lots of money on things that aren't important. And so once we did that, it was very easy to get on the same page in terms of what we're spending money on, and like the day to day spending habits and that sort of stuff. And I would say that probably the biggest difference between the two of us is that so Kristen nicol and Nicholson dimes us. So she spends money all the time, but it's not a lot of money. And I'm not always on myself, just to be clear, it's usually on the kids. And I'm the opposite. So I don't spend money very often, but when I do, I buy very expensive things like a vehicle or like a tesla, And so we have different spending habits, but they're all, you know, able to accomplish this the goals that we've described for our lives that we want. No, that's so interesting and it's funny because I used to really rep against thinking about money, and to be honest, like I really don't feel like I, you know, woke up in that sphere until maybe I don't know, eighteen months to a year ago, which is crazy because we're a little bit ahead of you in terms of in our career journeys. We're about seven years out instead of three or four like you guys. Well, actually, Kristen, you're much more than four. But I'm talking about post postgraduate from training and you're right, it's like it's not about like it's not about thinking about money. It's more just thinking about, well, actually, what do I want long term out of my life? And how can I make sure that am I using my time to meet those goals? And am I using my money to meet those goals. I was always obsessed with time piece. The money piece is new and finding your stuff has helped me get into that even more. Well, we're going to take a very quick break, and then i'd actually love it if you would remind our listeners of those kinder questions so you'd be right back. Okay, we are back, and I will admit that I heard Jimmy talk about these questions on his podcast very recently, money Meets Medicine, one of my new favorites, and I was like, yeah, these are very good questions, So maybe he can remind everyone listening here what those questions are. Yeah. So the questions go in order, and it's important to do them in order and to stop in between each question. But the first question is, essentially, you just want the lottery. You're not financially independent, meaning you no longer need a paycheck, and given that information, what would your life look like? So what's your ideal life? Is? Essentially what the question is asking money's not a thing, you don't have to worry about that. What would you do tomorrow? Would you go to work, would you not work, would you be on permanent vacation? Where would you go? Just describe what you'd be doing with your time now that money doesn't matter. That's the first question. The second question is that money does matter, so you have to earn a paycheck. It has to come from something. And you have visited the doctor and the doctors told you that you have five to ten years left to live, and she says that you can die on the first day of year five or the last day year ten, but you're going to die knowing that information, how would that change your answer in terms of what you're going to do in the next five to ten years? And again you stop there and you talk about it, you write it down. The third question follows naturally, which is that you go to the doctor and again she tells you you're critically ill. You're going to die tomorrow, so you're not going to be any pain. But looking back on your life, what would you be really glad that you accomplished? What would you really sad that you or regret that you didn't, what legacy would you leave and how does that make you feel facing your mortality? And the purpose of those questions is really to outline what's important to you. And I do this exercise with my medical students in our personal finance curriculums the first talk we gave this year, and it kind of blew their mind, you know, light bulb moment when they realize. Once we look through this list of things like family and travel and you know, spending time with kids, and you know, just things that we don't spend money on. We spend money on houses and cars and consume items. And so I point out the discrepancy between what we spend money on and what we've determined is important to us, and all of a sudden, it becomes a little bit easier not to spend money on things that don't matter, which is the first important point, right, because doctors have and actually Americans have a spending problem, so it's helpful for that. And Kristin, did you ever do this exercise with Jimmy? Did you guys ever sit down and do those questions together or do you do you revisit them yearly or something like that? Yeah, I think it's a little more natural than you would think. You probably think he's like has a down at the end of the month and grills me. I do get really annoyed when he asks, what do you want your life to look like in five years? I'm like, I don't know. I like the way it looks now. I like the job I'm doing. I might want to be a principal. I might not. And I think part of that response for me is I know that we're in a place where if something were to happen at work and it was terrible, I could bow out and be like, I'm good. And a lot of my colleagues don't have that opportunity. So that's partially why I think I'm a little more laid back about it. But I really truly do love what I'm doing, and so I don't feel like I have to make this big list of things now as far as like the kids are getting older and I don't want to miss things like that. We have started to be better about like trips and experiences together. I had like this weird delayed postpartum depression with our third and so I got back into exercising a little. And also around that time, we really noticed that we need to just start pulling back on things we over commit ourselves. Specifically around the holidays. There's like breakfast with Santa here, and then dinner with Santa here, and this holiday party I have to go to, and the childcare and I just like no. So we've kind of used that scaling back and prioritizing things, whether that's money, growth, treath, and just how we operate as in our marriage and with kids. Like we've just tried to have maybe a little bit of perspective. So we will have some talks about it and things like that, but in general, it does feel pretty natural, and we've pretty much been on the same page. I'm like, yeah, let's pay off our loans. That's fine, we'll just wait longer and the kids can share a room. Will be good. So I don't feel I don't know what I think that we to be honest, we never wrote it down. I don't think we've done that. No, not really, which I do encourage everybody to do, so that's kind of ironic. But we've had lots and lots of conversations and car rides or on dates and trying to you know, sort that stuff out. Yeah, car rides amazing for that, like long car rides where you're stuck. It's like, all of a sudden, we were like, wow, we've were forced to be here, so we might as well figure this out. We've done a lot of like vacation planning or financial priorities making no, that's that's awesome, And I don't think you necessarily have to write it down, although I do kind of like writing it down as well. We sit there like with our wine app, like, okay, what did we spend? Are we the savings goals, et cetera. It's so nerdy, but it actually like really helps and yeah, it totally works. So logistics. Our listeners are always interested in that. And it sounds like you neither of you have super flexible jobs. Although Jimmy, you're you're now transitioning into like part time podcaster. Maybe yes, No, I think that it's going to gradually change for me. So I just like Christmas saying, I mean, I call it my hell yes policy. So I say no to anything that doesn't make me say hell yes. And so essentially that means lots of no's at work, but I have said yes to something. So I'm becoming the Fellowship Director for Regional Anesthesia at WAKE in July. And so I'm continuing to do some things at work, but I have started to work towards having more time off. So I do some weeks of nights to get the post call week, and I have paying call weeks. I'd say probably I have between twelve and fifteen weeks off every year. And then I'm an academic, so I work four days a week the other other weeks. But when you're on, like it's not flexible, Like if he has to be in the r by five thirty six, I'm almo, I know, you anesthesiologist make the surgeons look lazy. My husband just has to be there about like eight or seven thirty or so. It depends on the shift. But inory, for the most part, you know, his shifts aren't always super predictable. So sometimes I know when to expect him home, or he can tag team and pick up you know, kid three from the daycare, and I can get kids one and two. But when he's off, like post call, he's like he's on and helpful and more flexible, and it's nice. My job is a little more flexible than it's okay, So I'm actually not stationed in an office. I have eight elementary schools that I support and I go to them every week, So I kind of make my schedule based on the needs of maybe meetings I'm having with teachers, observations, administrative meetings. I can kind of piece together together my schedule and maybe not schedule a late meeting on one day because I have to get the kids because he's working late or whatever. So for the most part, mine is a little bit more flexible. I just kind of have to get in my hours each day. It can look however, that's very interesting and actually something that Laura is not on tonight, but she will say that like sometimes when you move up in leadership, there's like a deceptive increase in flexibility that people don't always realize is there. And I know I have noticed that in my own career path. I'm half to now I'm the residency program director, so same deal. It's like you have to be at certain things and you have other deadlines, but then at the same time you're like a little bit more in charge, which can be great with kids because you know you have those times to take them to the doctor or an early release day or whatever. But you guys rely on daycare. You don't have an at home person or anything. No, So we our older two are in elementary school and so they go. The YMCA has a before and after school program at the elementary school, which is beautiful. So we can drop them off as early as six thirty, which we rarely are there by that early and that awesome. But and then they can stay as late as six pm, so if that's ever needed, it's there. Rarely are they there before seven am in past five pm, but it's nice that they're there. But thirty twenty five thirty minutes on the other side of town is where our third kid is in daycare. However it is she's in the daycare that's attached to the hospital that he works at, so that's really nice. And it's also in Winston Salem, which is where all my schools are, so it's nice. We pretty much divide and conquer on the regular unless he is on a shift that he really can't help. We can normally at tag Team in the morning and taged Teham in the evening and get home and start dinner and do all that. So, yeah, she's in full time daycare. That is super helpful with they're really good daycare. Yeah, hospital daycares tend to have them best, I mean most forgiving hours did. We did the Duke daycare for like a year and a half and it was fantastic on so many levels. Close they don't even know. They opened at like six am and they never closed. It was amazing. That's all great, that's I mean, we've really enjoyed the daycare. I had a little of that mom guilty, you know, because I was at home with them and provided and did everything and wipe their noses and made baby food with the first one and then now pick it up as chicken, You'll be fine, it's got hair on it. So there was a little bit of that mom guilt for me releasing them to full time care of someone else. But it really has been I think I feel more fulfilled professionally, and they're getting to socialize and really do some cool things that I don't have the energy to do circle time, like they send us pictures and stories and music. I don't have the patience for those crafts and stuff anymore. I really don't. So I'm so grateful that they're in places where they can do that and people love on them. But I'm also able to truly do what I love and feel gifted in doing so. And you're a teacher of young children, so you know that there's like all this effort and training and passion that goes into many of what these educators do with these young kids. So it's you know, it's like no guilt, no jill, and it's really emotionally taxing. So while I do get to like teach children and model and do stuff like that, a lot of what I'm doing is supporting the teachers and sometimes I feel like a life coach or counselor, but just wanting them to know that I'm there to help. And so you know that by the end of the day, like y'all probably are with your patients, I am emotionally drained. I'm grateful someone else took care of you and kept you clean today, and we'll go home and figure out and maybe get bath night for the second in a row. I like each kid we add a day of like, yeah, okay, for the first kid, they got bathed every day, the second kid every other and now we're like, oh, you're like, don't throw our kids hygiene under the bus. Well, we're in Florida, So we do bath every day. We definitely don't do hair washing every day. I've moved on the night. That's just too much. So I totally hear you, and I think Laura is all about like bathing like once every several days. So there you go. You cut corners where it makes sense to cut corners, especially when our kids haven't like hit puberty yet, so they're fine, you know, oh gosh y. So on that note, can you share a little bit of a day in the left? I'm sure not every day is the same, and especially when you're saying, you know, some days are an intense call day for you, Jimmy, and you're like gone the entire day, and other days you're like podcasting. So I guess that there's a lot of variation there. But on a very typical day, can you guys share what a day in the life would look like? Sure, so I wake up, well, recently you've woken up early, but I wake up early. Why are you laughing? I'm scared about what I didn't know I was going to start or you were going to start. Because we can do your version of the day and then we'll do mine. Oh yes, yes, I want to hear dual versions of the day. Is this will be fascinating. So I don't wally wake up around four four thirty And depending on the day, say, if I'm just in Regional, then I would have to be there by forty five or six fifteen forty five or six o'clock to start blocks for the day, because the r starts at seven, and so I would on a day like that probably not be able to help out with the kids in the morning. On other shifts that I do, I commonly have to be there at eight, and so on those days I would take two of the kids, or Anna or our youngest to todaycare one or the other, and then Chris would do the opposite, and then I work till completely depends. Some shifts three PM, some shifts seven and if I'm off before six, then I'm usually able to help pick up some of the kids. And if I'm not, then then I can't. For the off day is I usually pick up and drop off and try to cook dinner. Sometimes it was a really boring rendition of a day. Okay, most days are pretty routine, but oh, I want to hear the exciting rendition of the time your kids are in bed at set. Our routine starts at seven to go to bed by seven thirty so that we have time to ourselves, and then we go to bed really really early because we're like old people. It's like nine at the latest. Both of you. You're like actually in sync. Yeah, that's impressing my husband, who has just wandered in here because he's going to ask his question. We are not. He just doesn't really sleep very much, so we're not. That makes us not in sync. But that's that's awesome that you guys actually are both early risers and early to bed. It doesn't sound boring. And you even managed to get your kids in bed to get some time together. That's we got to learn some lessons from you. Yeah, I think so. I typically, if I'm up trying to get up, I like to work out before all of the chaos happens, because by the end of the day it's not happening. So if he's taking the kids to school and I in the house getting them ready, it's going to look like the older two being mostly self sufficient and getting ready with me yelling up the stairs reminders, did you brush teeth? Did you do this? This is your ice, packing your lunch box, and then I have we have our three year old who's probably crying at the kitchen table because her peanut butter and jelly sandwich got snatched by one of the dogs. That's pretty typical. Hi. And then once I get them all dressed and shuffled out the door and drop them off, I like sit in the parking lot of my first school and like three probably scarf down some breakfast, and I'll just go full force. I go in anywhere from two to four schools in one day, depending on what I'm doing, kind of on the drive back and forth between places. And then I'll text Jimmy, you know, towards the end of my day, Okay, when do you finish? Do I need to get all of the kids? Are you gonna be able to help with some of them? Do you want to go home and start dinner and I'll get the kids. That'd be great, And we actually will do that pretty often. We do Hello Fresh, we do. They were actually our sponsor. We did not not this week, but one point they were our sponsors, so we did not plant that, but that's cool. We do online grocery shop, online grocery shopping and I started, HelloFresh because he can't really read my mind. If I did do the meal planning or wrote down we're going to have this, like, he didn't know which cookbook to look in to do all that. Like, so it's nice for him to just have the recipe and just cook it and then we get home, we'll eat, and we'll do the whole bedtime routine and then we're exhausted and we're done. Yeah, and so the trend kind of continues. So like with the financial stuff, I deal with the big picture sort of stuff and Christen's the concrete bill payer, and with cooking or you know, planning for meals the same way. And the reason why is because I'm not a detail oriented person. I couldn't do that if I wanted to, even if I was single, that would not happen, just because I'm not good at that. And so anything that is detail oriented or schedule based typically Christen's taking care of. I just reminded him we have a date night tomorrow. Remember you said you wanted to have one. So we have a babysitter and her name is this, and she's coming at this time. Oh okay, great, Yeah, no shared Google plendar for you guys, so we do well, you know, you just might not check it. So you have to be your like doctor's appointments, and like, he took one of our kids to the doctor this week, so I put like that appointment on, and we'll put like church group, like we have fellowship group on Sunday evenings, and major things like that gymnastics night for the kids. But if like I just scheduled a babysitter a couple of nights ago, I didn't put that on the calendar. But a lot of things are. She likes to use paper calendars, me too. Wait a second, we have to have a little digression. Then what paper calendar you use? It's a very important question as what I ordered on Amazon. I forgot her name. It's that Mad's actual planner for work. So I have a work plan. Oh okay, Like I'm at this school from this time to this time, and then I have a meeting in our house. I have a paper calendar on the wall that just has like birthdays and stuff, so I can say, Hey, your mom's birthday is tomorrow. Hey, your mom's birthday is today. You need to call her. Did you call your mom today? Because it's her birthday, and then we have the digital world one. So I live in the digital world and my nickname at work is Dory because I am extremely forgetful. This isn't like a marriage thing. This is just my personality. So if you ever meet me in person, just ask me what your name is. Don't be offended what I forget. It actually works in my favor all the time, so I'm fine with it. That's really funny. I mean, there's definitely some more common gender lines and we're the same way. I mean, as much as I want to book the trend, I am more the calendar management manager, although Google Calendar is pretty good, Like if I use it and actually do it, which I rebel against sometimes because I do like my paper. Then Josh usually pays attention. Speaking of Josh, we have a guest on the mic. Hello, Hey, nice to meet you all. Good podcasting. Thank you. Yeah it this could be our retirement job maybe. Yeah. So Josh actually had a question for you because he also read your book, because I said, I shoved it in front of his face after I finished it, and he was like, oh, this is good, thank you very much. I really really appreciate the book and learned a lot from reading it alsome. The one thing I was thinking about when I was reading the book is I don't really know how to phrase it the right way or and I'm sure that maybe I missed the part in the book, but how do you plan for kids and kids college in your planning to become financially independent early? That's a formula? Is there a mess? I was thinking, yeah, there's an app No, So yeah, that's a great question. So I do everything backwards, and what I mean by that is starting with the big picture life plan. So the first question you have to answer their is do you want to pay for your kids college? Right? And the reason I mentioned that is because there are lots of people, surprisingly that or not surprisingly depending on who you are, that don't plan on paying for the kids college at all. So that's the first thing. And if you're making the decision between paying for your kids college and saving enough to be financially independent by the age that you'd like, you should probably be saving for your financial independence and not for your kids college. Like if you have to choose between the and the reason why is because no one wants to take care of their parents and their elderly years and pay for all that, which is substantially more expensive than what college is going to cost. That they can take out on loans. You can't take loans out on your retirement. You can take it out on college. And so there's you know, kind of an important decision point there. But after that you have to figure out how much are you going to pay for? Are you going to pay for the whole thing? Are you going to pay for a certain amount? You know, It's like for our family, I fully anticipate and hope that my kids will have you know, tuition or something a scholarship of some kind, and so I don't plan on paying for necessarily all of it. I think that between the three kids will probably have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per kid right now. Now. If we start saving more, once we get the rid of the mortgage and stuff like that, then it might turn into two or two fifty. And of course, if one of my three kids don't go to school, then I can transfer beneficiaries. And now I have seven to fifty between two kids. I have three seventy five per kid, and then wake Forest, so everyone's situation is different, is what I'm getting out here, but Wake Forest, they meeting a faculty member there. They pay for I think ninety five percent of tuition for Wake and so they're going to be a demon deacon and they and they'll and they'll cover the cost of a state school. So if they got into UNC, the would it would be paid for and and so for that reason, I don't want to cover all of it because it's just gonna be additional money. And they're five twenty nine. So if they go there, you have to figure out how much you want to say for each kid, and if you really run the numbers, they get to kind of be scary if you like inflate them at current tuition. No, we know it's I mean it's like one hundred k per year per kid. I'm assuming like that's literally like right, so yeah, it's like three or four hundred thousand dollars for one child. And so the idea of you know, putting away one point two million bucks or nine hundred thousand dollars for UH for three D education is insane. You know, our financial independence number is you know, like three million or so, give or take. And I'm not gonna sit, you know, put a third of that in my kid's college education. So all that said, I think that there are multiple ways to pay for college, right. They can earn scholarships, they can you know, be a part of your employment. They can work, they can you know, use the five twenty nine that you have. But I don't know that everyone has to cover it. So depends on where you sit. So I guess I would start there. But you mentioned that. I remember you were talking in the book about in your state you can choose among different states where you can Okay, got it, Never mind, I know more about the financial that's an important distinction. So if the what what I say is that there are some states that offer a tax benefit if you participate in the five twenty nine in your state, and if you have one of those, you should consider doing that if they have a good plan, because you're going to get a tax break. If you don't have a state like North Carolina that doesn't do that, then you can invest anywhere. And so we're invested in my five twenty nine planning Utah. I think that's a popular one. Actually, Yeah, they must have like good like lo fees or something like that. Yeah, low cost index funds and they're through Vanguard. Where'd you hear about that? Vanguard? Through Vanguard? Just do other blog and stuff. Yeah, no, Utah's off there. That's okay. Yeah, A bout of California and New York are kind of the big ones that come up commonly. But the decision starts at how much you want to pay for. If you want to pay for the whole thing, then you know you have three kids, so four hundred thousand dollars times three is one point two million bucks? How old are they? And then you got to figure out how much you need to save to get there by you're twenty two, you're not going to go. You can pick your favorite quickly. Sorry, I want to kid? Do you enough time? You can also change beneficiaries. So, and this is one of the comments that we made on the Money Meets Medicine podcast recently, which is that I don't my kids may not go to college with the way that college tuition is skyrocketing unless the government steps in or someone steps in and stops the student loan crisis that's happening right now and allowing basically institutions universities to go up on tuition by six or eight percent every year, which is highway robbery. Until that happens, people are going to start going into online learning or go into trade skills like being becoming a beautician or an electrician or a plumber, and those jobs, honestly are going to be far ahead and make more money in the long haul. If they know something about personal finance and they're saving, they'll do much better than someone who goes and gets a four hundred thousand dollars degree and takes out loans on those and then has to go to graduate school and takes out another three hundred thousand dollars just to become a doctor and earn one hundred and fifty like that, Just that math doesn't work. I said the same thing today in the physician cafeteria and everybody laughed at you. I don't know. I don't know if they're all financing their tests, So whatever is true? Thing are I really do? And I think they We're going to see more and more of that. So I'm not convinced that I have to pay for all three of my kids. Maybe it might be two of the three, and hopefully we'll have some help from other areas well. We do have like the cheapest in state college tuition. So if our kids go to UF then it's like six k per year per kids. So I'll take that. What was it called the I should know this because I grew up in Florida, but they have the state program where it's right futures. Yeah, a lot of people take advantage of that too. Yeah, there's a lot of I mean the interesting thing now is now I'm seeing it from the again doing my GM job, and then I'm seeing kids who, like you know, go to med school and good med schools. And you don't have to go to a fancy if you want to be a physician. I mean, not that I necessarily want my kids to want that. That's a whole other podcast episode. But you don't have to necessarily go to a quote name brand or private school. There's so many different ways to get there. And I think, I think it's tough because you know, and I'm an example of this. So I got into WAKE and that's the only acceptance I had at the time, and after I started, I ended up getting an acceptance at at MSc. But I didn't apply to enough schools. I applied to six. I didn't realize I should applied it more, didn't get good advice. But I was faced with the decision of taking out full to it, you know, full room board, tuition and everything for medical school or being a doctor, like you know, like I. So most people don't know anything about money, so that's not a financial decision, or they just know they want to be a doctor. Sign me up for five hundred thousand dollars student loans, like that's just a drop in the buck here, I don't be a doctor someday. So I agree with you. I think think that someday, hopefully personal finance will be taught in high school or even before that, and people will be considering those decisions when But I think that a lot of people are just like I want to be a doctor, I don't care how much it costs, and then they get saldered with a million bucks and all of a sudden they care. Yeah, Well, it's interesting they're also making those decisions when I'm not even sure their frontal cortex is like finished than me. I don't know, I don't know. Oh my gosh, Well this has been such a pleasure. But before we finish our episode, everyone has to share a love of the week. Hey, you have to share a level of the week, think of one. So wow, I didn't even think of my own level of the week yet. So why don't you guys go first? I have I have one. So we've been trying to look at food differently. Okay, everyone's like right, trying to work out and eat better, but for real, as a family, just making better food choices. And so there's a cookbook called Run Fast, Eat Slow. I love that cookbook. We literally like that's like most frequently used cocoke in our half. That's awesome and I love it. Like. I haven't done a lot of dinner recipes from it, but what has helped is like the breakfast burritos and trail mix and snacks, so getting all that stuff ready for the week, so that when we're packing lunches are hungry and are hangry we get home, we're not reaching for potato chips or we have good options kind of everywhere for every meal. So that's that's my favorite thing right now. I actually love that book too, and it's been a benefit from it. I'm a snacker, so I don't use it. I don't need big meals, but I snack all the time. And so now that we have healthy snacks is much better. But I guess the love of the week for me has to be the peloton that that we bought recently and such a name dropper everybody wants to follow me is JT T one seventy five and your turbo turner eighty six. I have y'all. Have y'all been on one? You know? We're both runners. We're like not spinners. Maybe tread maybe, but we'll see. Well, it's super interesting because I wasn't a big spinner either. She dragged me to a few classes over the years and I hate it. And there are the running you can do any type of workout, you can get off the bike and do strength there, yoga and all kinds of different things. We have loved it. We really have a lot. Both both of those have so that I guess that would be my love of the week. Cool. Well, now that you've inspired me with run fast and slow, I will share with you my love of the week. One of my favorite recipes from there that we just ate last week is the broccoli chevros soup. Now you might not think your kids would like that, but actually my kids love that stuff. They will like lock at every bit of it. So you might want to give it a truck. In that book. Yeah, yes, there was the pumpkin pancakes. Also the pumpkin Tough pancakes, although we never actually make it with the tough, we just make it with like holy flower whatever. But yeah, we could just do a love fest to Shaleine fun again that cookbook because it's amazing, awesome. Well, thanks so much. This has been such a pleasure. Maybe we'll meet in the medical or financial world someday, who knows, or maybe both of them will collide, but we will. I'm sure our listeners will get lots out of this. So where can our listeners find you? Should they want more of you guys, So they can find me at the Physician Philosopher dot com that's the blog that I run, or at Money, Money meets Medicine dot com, which is the money meets Medicine podcast that I host with Ryan Inman, who's a flat feel only financial advisor who's also married to a pediatric doc. So that's the two best places to find me. And then where can they find you? I mean, I'm not really going to give my work email. Yeah, don't say that. I have a family blog that I used to be really good about updating. Called you have a Twitter? What's your Twitter? I was about to give my blog first, and then there were three Turners dot blog so cute. I'm a couple of months behind. And then my Twitter it's like kg wait oh shoot, yeah, it's like Turner early learner, yep partner. Yeah, oh that's cute early learner. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. Thanks for having us. Thank you well. That was a great interview. I really enjoyed speaking with them and having my husband help out. So we're going to transition to our Q and A and we have Laura back for this. Yayy. So here we go. Dear Laura, I will be working at home for my father's company. This will be my first real job since having my first child boorn and a half years ago, and which since that time I've been preparing to take this job, fulfilling licensure requirements, et cetera. I've heard you and Sarah talk about having in home childcare, which in my case seems to make logistical sense given the number of kids my husband and I have. We plan to send our two older ones, who will be three and five, to a nearby local preschool in kindergarten. In regard to the baby and third child, who will be two, we are thinking about hiring a nanny instead of shuttling half the kids in one direction for school and half the kids in another direction for day care every weekday morning. Also, considering how frequently kids in daycare tend to get sick, my husband and I would worry less about our kids falling ill if we had a nanny. All I can see these benefits. I'm wondering about the practicalities of working from home while she is taking care of one or more little ones. How do you concentrate? Do you turn on a white noise machine? Is there a stash of snacks and beverages in your workspace so you don't have to go to the kitchen risking the kids seeing you and wanting to play with you during the work hours, or does the nanny bring the baby to you when you need to nurse? How do you work while still nursing a baby? Do you plan to accomplish certain tasks during nursing sessions. I've found with my previous three babies that I can do tests that require one hand while nursing, but not both. Yeah, it's a unique talent, and it's one that people don't really think about. But I have divided all work tasks into things I need two hands for and things I can do with one hand, and so longer typing things need to be done when I have two hands, and you know, simple answering short emails can be done with one hand or possibly the baby sort of propped up. If I have the pillows quite right, then I can kind of make it work. But now I think this is a great question. It was definitely something that I struggled with, you know, when we had our first child many years ago, because we were living in a one bedroom apartment in New York and my husband was definitely saying, well, we should we should hire a nanny, you know, based on our kind of needs, his travel and sort of the need for more flexible hours and that you know, kids get sick in daycare all the time, and that was the real source of tension for us. But I was like, where is she going to go? Like, I mean, I'm sitting here in our one bedroom apartment like they're going to be on top of me. So, among other things, we wound up moving to a two bedroom apartment so that made it slightly bigger, But then we also realized it doesn't have to be quite as big a deal as people often make it out to be. We've hired people who understand that if you are working from home, your job is not just to keep the children safe while you're working, which people might understand as kind of the basic job of childcare, but also to keep them out of your hair, and so that is a separate part that needs to be part of the job description. Basically you need to be totally transparent about that. And so you know, we've had generally the at least part of the day, they'll go out and do activities. Everyone who's worked here has made sure to take the kids out, like we have memberships to everything, you know, children's museums, zoos, play areas. You know, they go to library for story time, do play dates. You know, it's just understood that that's part of the job. You know, it's also what kids get used to, like if they know you work from home, then it's not a huge deal. And especially your younger kids will grow up with that, meaning that as they're older, this won't be a weird thing that mommy's in her office working like they'll come to understand that. Of course, you can also sort of minimize the problems with it too by yes, staying in your office, Like you have to know that you're not going to intervene in things. And I know that some people find that difficult, Like if you hear your kid arguing or you know, saying something really rude, for instance, you want to come out and be like, you stop that right now. You just can't do that because once you cross that line, it's your micromanaging. You're causing problems. So you stay in trust that the professional you have hired will deal with it. You know, I haven't actually kept a stash of snacks in my office, so, come to think about it, that is probably a good idea of like listening, is anyone in the kitchen, No, no one's in the kitchen. Okay, I can sneak out and go get my snacks, but it would probably be better to have them in here. So yeah, that's that's basically how you deal with it. And I've found it it's really a good setup when you do have a nursing baby because you just don't have to pump as much or anything like that, and that is a huge benefit, as Sarah can tell you, Yeah, way way more efficient and more pleasant, at least in my experience. Yeah, so I love that answer. I will just commiserate with a reader that sorry with the listener that probably because I don't have nearly as much practice as Laura has with this. I think it's hard too, So I'm guessing the more it becomes routine and the more they're like, oh no, mommy needs to work, like it's this is not optional time, this is just hard. Stop. Like I like how you said, like you know, no exceptions really, because that just makes things confusing. The better it's going to go. And for the record, I have hidden upstairs on a different floor on occasion when I have been home and I have to get stuffed onne or again, I force our nanny to or really highly encourage them to go do something fun outside of the home because then they're distracted, they're happy, and they're physically not there. All good exactly. One thing I'd add is that you know, with your older children being in school all day, you probably shouldn't think that you're going to get that much quiet done once they get home, though, So plan to have the bulk of your calls or focused work happened during the school hours, and you probably will be able to do things like answering emails after after school hours, but I try to confine the bulk of it to the school hours. And given that you know elementary kids are gone for about seven hours a day, you can generally do that and get away with that with a full time job. So this has been a yeah, best of both worlds. And I know that Sarah did the rest of this episode, so maybe she has a little sign off for ah. I don't have any extra special sign up, but we hopefully this one brought you more on what makes work in life fit together. As always, thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work in life work together.