Swell AI Transcript: EP2 - brittne-halford-md202-02-2024_151240.mp3
SPEAKER_00: Ever made some money mistakes? Well, we have to keep listening to hear about our money mistakes of 2023. Hello and welcome to the Wealth Minded MD podcast. I'm Dr. Lisha Taylor here with my co-host, Dr. Brittne Halford. And as always, you can think of us as your money best friends here to help you build wealth and make good money decisions so you can create the life you desire with more control over your time. As always, before we get started, we've got to pay some bills first. All right, and now we get to enter our first segment of the show, our Life is Lifing section. And as always, we're going to kick things off by giving you a little peek into our lives. Yep. So here's the Life is Lifing segment, and this will drop probably in early March, which is springtime for a lot of people and people are going on vacations, breaks. Lisha, do Do you have any plans for the spring? I actually do. I'm so excited about the spring. Depending on when this episode's dropped, I will potentially be in South Africa. I'm so excited about this. I'm going with my immediate family, and that includes my parents, my brothers, their wives. And I'm so excited. Every five-ish years, we try to do a big family vacation. Our last one was in Europe, and it's been a while. And so my dad was like, hey, let's kind of get the fam together, and let's do a family vacation. And no, this isn't something that happens super often. It's really interesting. My dad is a very frugal man, except when it comes to his family and vacation. So part of his way of giving us an early inheritance is by paying for periodic family vacations. And so we got to choose the destination and we all decided that we wanted to go to South Africa. For those who maybe have never been to South Africa, their seasons are kind of opposite of ours. And so our wintertime is kind of their summertime and their summer is kind of our winter. And so we knew that we wanted to go when it would be a little warmer in South Africa, maybe even when it's a little colder here in America. And so we decided on late February and so we'll be gone for like 10-ish days. Wow. Going to Cape Town, going to Johannesburg, going to see Victoria Falls. I'm so excited. If you couldn't tell through my voice, I'm very excited about this trip. Well, that sounds fantastic. I've never been to South Africa. I've spent some time in Ghana when I was an undergrad. And I just remember stepping off the plane. Have you ever been in Africa? Have you ever gone to Africa? I've not. I've not been in that continent. Nope. Yeah. So you'll have to let me know your experience when you step off the plane. There was like a lot of humidity. I'm like, Ooh, my hair was frayed. I'm like, Oh, this flat iron is not going to last. But then there's also just this overwhelming sentiment and connection. Because part of being African-American is that I don't know where my people are from. And although they may not be from West Africa, I knew that there was some origin of my identity there. So I wonder how your experience will be. Yeah, I'm so excited about it. And you bring up a good point. I think this is really applicable for anybody, you know, whether you identify as African American or, you know, maybe you are Indian, maybe you are from some place in Europe or your ancestors are from that area. I think it's always really cool to visit where you may be from and just find that connection. And, you know, I'm pretty sure that my ancestors were not from South Africa. However, I am really excited to visit it because I've heard wonderful things about the country. And, you know, I think also it's fun to get away with my family and to be able to enjoy this experience with them, take lots of photos, make wonderful memories, you know, similar to most of us, my parents aren't getting any younger. And so just being able to travel with them while they're still able and healthy It's something that I'm really looking forward to. So I will definitely bring you back all the details. Yeah. And I love that your father is like, I'm about to spend money on this thing. Well, I definitely did a little convincing, but one of the things, Brittne, have you read this book called Die With Zero? And so my dad hasn't read the book, but I have. And the concept of that book, for those who haven't read, it's a fantastic book, by the way. One of the things that the author talks about is giving an inheritance to your children and how a lot of people say, I'm going to leave my children, my family, money, when I die. And it's not that that's a bad thing, but he talks about being a little bit more intentional. about how much you're leaving them instead of leaving it to chance. And two, being able to give to your family, to other charitable organizations while you're still alive, and being able to see that impact. Because most people, if they had the choice of receiving money now versus receiving a large sum later after your death, they would prefer the money now. It can have a better impact now. And so for my father, he was like, hey, I've got three pretty successful children. who don't necessarily need more money from me. But one of the ways that I can give to them in an impactful way that also allows us all to create memories is to go on vacation with them, is to go on trips with them. And maybe he can't afford to do it every year or every other year, but he can afford to do it every five years or every eight years or every 10 years where we're able to say, you know what, we are going to take this big trip. We all know well in advance, we're all able to make accommodations with our schedule and our jobs. And, you know, my brothers have kids and so they're able to get childcare and, you know, able to really enjoy this experience. I'm really looking forward to it. And I'm secretly really blessed and happy that I convinced my dad to do this. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. And I love some of the principles in that book as well. So I'm glad that you are able to see it playing out in your life today. Yeah. And so now we're going to get into our financial focus. And this week, our financial focus is all about our money mishaps, because even though we are on the journey to build wealth and we have done really well in our lives thus far in our financial lives, we're not perfect. And so we're going to share some of our money mistakes from last year with you all. And so, Brittne, why don't you start us off? I am still dealing with my money mistake from 2023. Her voice changed, y'all. Did you hear that inflection? No. Oh my gosh, Lisha. It is, oh my. Okay, so let me give you all the tea on this money mistake that is still frustrating me in 2024. Let me take you back actually to 2021. Okay, so I receive a letter in the mail from a company that I'm not going to name that says, hey, you can get this discount on your car insurance, your auto, your home insurance if you enroll because there is an affiliation with my husband's employer. So I have mentioned in the past episode that like, I don't give money all the control, but I grew up kind of in this environment of looking for deals and discounts. So when the opportunity arrives, I pursue it sometimes to my chagrin now. So in 2021, I changed our auto insurance from another company that I loved. They were a local company here. They would call me if we had any problems with anything, if we needed any upgrades. I could drive right to their office. I knew everyone in the office, but I decided to make a change in 2021. And at that time, the system had been working. So essentially the insurance company gets paid from my husband's payroll and we get a discount because they're getting paid from my husband's payroll. The system had been working. for two years until it didn't work. And I don't know if you got scammed or I'm like very, I'm like super listening. So there's no scamming. What happened was that for some reason, the insurance payment was not made by my husband's employer or that the system fractured in some way that there was not a payment that was made. Now, I don't know about you, Alicia. I put almost everything on automatic because life is way too busy in our household and I don't want things to go amiss. So that's just part of the system that I've created is sometimes, you know, things get paid and we don't actually need them anymore. And I realized that on the back end, but at least it got paid and nobody's sending collection bills. So I thought that the system was working and apparently there were some letters sent to this house that I missed and the payment failed. And once the payment fails from my husband's payroll, it switches over. So now we have to pay it. And I didn't realize that. I'm thinking to myself that this system has been working for two years. My husband has not changed employers. This man is working overtime. and I've established it that the insurance company gets paid before we actually see any of the money. So the insurance is set. It's like set it and forget it unless I do something to change it. That was not the truth. So multiple letters were missed and we actually had a lapse in our insurance. Now, when you have a lapse of your insurance in Massachusetts, and I don't know how it is for every state, If your insurance has lapped for more than five days, you have to basically renegotiate your policy. And they had to write a new policy and the policy is now like $2,000 to $3,000 more than what we were paying before. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But we have the resources, so I'm not so upset about that. What I'm most upset about is that we cannot change our insurer. Because if you've had a lapse in your insurance, then it looks like you're irresponsible. And the reason why I set it up from my husband's payroll is so that we could be responsible. But I ignored a letter or two that had come to the home. So this means that I have to stay with this insurer for at least another year before I can change insurance companies. So the prior insurance company that I really liked, who would call me and say, hey, Brittne, I know this thing was set up on automatic payment and something happened, like go ahead and submit the payment. they are no longer available as a potential option for our insurance. So it's not just the money. We have the money that we can pay for it. It's that now I don't have options and I am relegated to stick with an insurer that I don't want anymore. And so that's really, really frustrating. And I've called numerous times to ask what happened. And no one can tell me why the payment failed because the system had been working for two years. And now I feel like, ah, it's not anything that I did. Yeah, I missed a letter. Like you sent a bill. But I also thought that this thing was being paid because you're supposed to get paid before we get paid. So it's really, really, really, really frustrating for me. And I'm still seeking an answer. And I don't think I will ever get an answer, unfortunately. Yeah, well, I think we can all hear it in your voice. This is kind of a vent session for Brittne right now, in case you're listening. Brittne's pissed off at her insurance situation. And I think if we're able to glean a lesson from it, it is maybe think twice before pursuing deals. And it's also maybe double checking things and making sure that things are getting paid appropriately. And so that's one of your money confessions of 2023. And something that you had to battle for me, it's a little bit different. You know, as we mentioned in our intro episode, you and I are in different places in our lives, you're married, I am not you have children, I do not, you've been in attending much longer than I have. And so you know, as someone who is transitioning into attending hood, I did have prior jobs before I went to medical school, but I am new to attending hood, I am still figuring this thing out. And one of my money mistakes of 2023 is basically not having enough money in savings. I kind of alluded to this on our intro episode, but I had a lot of things happening in 2023. I moved across the country. I moved from Los Angeles back to Atlanta. I took a few months off before I started my new job. There were a bunch of medical expenses and fees, not because I was in the hospital, but just medical expenses that are associated with practicing medicine, licensing fees, DEA fees, organization dues, that sort of thing that were coming at me. I realized in the midst of it that I probably didn't have enough money in savings to cover all of the things that I wanted. Now, thankfully, I'm pretty creative and I'm really good at like side gigs and other sources of income and establishing that. But it was very stressful for me. I wanted to share this story, one, to talk about a money mistake, but two, so that anybody else who may be listening to this who maybe you are a physician like you and I, or maybe you're in a different profession entirely and you still get paid pretty well, that it's not that your money problems go away when you make a certain salary. And even people who are, quote unquote, compensated really well or compensated highly can still feel the crunch of not having enough in savings and having that anxiety and feeling like I don't have enough. And I think one of the biggest differences is when you're somebody who is a physician and who is making a little bit more than maybe other people is a lot of people have less sympathy for you. And so it's me inwardly feeling like I don't have enough money in savings. I feel like I don't have enough. And then also recognizing I make probably a lot more money than other people, other Americans How can I possibly have this as an issue? How can this possibly not be enough? And having to grapple with, I feel like it should be enough. So I'm shutting myself to death. I feel like this should be enough. I feel like I should have more. I feel like I should feel differently. And then also recognizing, wow, okay. I do have a lot of expenses now that I didn't have back then. And so even though I make more, my tax rate is a little bit higher, things are going a little bit differently. And so I'm trying to navigate this the best way that I can without feeling shame. And so one of the lessons that I've taken away is that I need to keep a little bit more money in savings and that it's been very eyeopening to know that you can still have financial anxiety and stress, even when you make more money and that learning how to deal with that in a conducive and helpful way. is really kind of the pathway forward. Lisha, I just want to say thank you for being so vulnerable about talking about the emotions because money is all emotion. What we do, what we buy to get that feel of prestige. We might buy a certain brand or a certain car. And unfortunately, also there's a negative side of money emotions, you know. I also had a similar experience with the shoulds. It was a different scenario about getting help in the home and actually what I should be doing as a woman and as a mother. And I had to go through a therapy session. My therapist was like, listen, how are those shits serving you? I'm like, they're not. They're not. So I just want to say thank you. I had a similar should moment and I think we all go through that, you know, but it's all about like reflection and giving ourselves grace. And it seems like you've definitely done a lot of that because you're bringing this to us on this podcast. And I also just want to give any other woman who's having their moment a little bit of grace because it happens to the best of us. So thinking about a should of something that I should have done differently in 2023. Another mistake that we've made is my husband. And when I say my husband, I'm going to say we. This is definitely his fault, but you're such a good wife. You're like, I'm going to take ownership for his mistake. But I am going to say we, because one of the things that I kind of wear the hat of keeping up on the financial stuff in the household. And I was trying to get the most of the free money with my husband. So he works for a few companies and one was offering a match. So I'm like, okay, well, you should fund this 401k to this amount. and fund the other 401k to that amount. But unfortunately, we've overfunded one 401k because now he has two 401ks that we were trying to leverage and get the most match from. And unfortunately, we have to take some money out. And when you take money out of a 401k, that is supposed to be for a retirement account, you will get a 10% penalty. So we will actually probably lose all of the money that I was trying to gain in the match by taking the money out early because we have to do a withdrawal. I have called the companies to see if they would allow us to roll it over into the next year as a 2024 401k allocation and unfortunately they will not. So we will have to pay the 10% early withdrawal penalty for the excess funds. You know what, Brittne, now that you bring this up, I think that there might be another way around this. Usually when people, this is what I've heard, I've not personally tried this, but sometimes when people overfund their retirement accounts, they are able to get their human resources department to recharacterize the contribution. And so basically the HR takes it out and is able to give you that money back and you'll pay taxes at your ordinary income tax rate, but you may not have to pay the penalty. I'm not sure if that's possible or not, but I would look into that on your end. And for people who may be listening and are like, I don't know what y'all are talking about. So for most people, when you are working and you're employed, you may have access to work retirement accounts. And if you work for a for profit institution, that is called a 401k. If you work for a nonprofit institution, then the retirement account is called a 403b. If you are in the military, it is called the TSP, the Thrift Savings Plan. And so there's different kind of names for these accounts. But basically the job is trying to encourage you to save and invest money for your own retirement. In order to incentivize you to do that, they will oftentimes offer you a match. And that's what Brittne was referring to as the free money. So they may say, all right, if you contribute, you know, 5% of your income into this retirement account, we will match your contributions and also contribute 5% of your income into this retirement account. Usually it's up to a certain amount, but that's what a lot of people refer to when they say free money, because it's additional money on top of your normal salary that you get to add to this account and allow it to be invested in. What you were kind of alluding to is a problem that a lot of physicians and people listening may have if you have multiple jobs. Or maybe you have one main job and you are self-employed and you have some sidekicks. And so maybe you might have multiple retirement accounts open to you. And it's like, how do you navigate that? If job A is matching your salary up to 5% of your salary and job B is matching up to 4% of your salary, how do you do that without overfunding it? Because there are contribution limits. And so you're trying to get matches from both places without violating the contribution limits that the IRS sets each year. And what you were kind of alluding to is the fact that you guys in the quest to take advantage of the matches at multiple places, you sort of overfunded that account. And now you're kind of dealing with the consequences. Hopefully you guys can get that sorted out. Sorry about that. I will ask them if they can recharacterize the funds. So far, it seems like we have to take them out. More to come. So keep listening to the podcast. Subscribe so we can give you updates. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, another money mistake that I made in 2023, was overspending on vacations. So I kind of had this mindset that I was finishing training and I was so excited. I wanted to go on some vacations and kind of enjoyed my time off. And so I actually went to Hawaii for the first time in 2023. It was so fun. I went to Maui. I also went to Alaska. My extended family was doing a cruise to Alaska. I was off work and I thought, well, why don't I join? That sounds like a fun trip. You know, I don't know if I would ever go back to Alaska just because it's so far away. And so I thought, man, this might be a once in a lifetime chance for me to go to Alaska and go with family. And so I went on this Alaskan cruise or cruise to Alaska. And then I also went to Hawaii and I had a blast, had a fun, fun time. But I also, basically I had a fun time, but my wallet didn't. And so I spent probably a lot more than I was planning to, you know, it's so funny. I tried to plan for this in advance and I said, this is how much I'm going to spend on the flight. And this is how much the actual cruise costs, or this is how much the hotel costs in Hawaii. And I was budgeting for all of these things. And what I did, didn't account for was the other incidentals, right? You go on a cruise, there are excursions, and you got to pay for the excursions, you know, or maybe you want to eat at a different restaurant that isn't included in the package. Or, you know, in Hawaii, we decided we were going to take this helicopter ride. And so we did this helicopter ride in Hawaii, which is incredible, but not cheap. And so there were all of these other things. And I think that sometimes for me personally, I'm really good at having self-discipline. But when I'm on vacation, I feel like my self-discipline meter goes down because I can talk myself into things and being like, I may never be back here again. And so it's easier for me to justify spending more than I probably should. And so for me, I learned that, OK, I need to probably budget more money. for vacations, save in advance for vacations and whatever the cost that I think it's going to be probably add another 10 or 20% for incidentals. So again, this is the learning curve of being a newer attending physician and trying to navigate this life and navigate vacations. But it's definitely a money mistake of spending too much money on vacations and hopefully something that I can avoid this year. I hope that it was enjoyable. It was. And that you have a lot of memories and pictures. I don't know. Maybe I'm a little bit more lax now in finances. There was a time in my life that you will ask my husband where I unplugged the microwave. because it was draining too much of our coins. But Alicia, I appreciate that you had two fantastic vacations and that you really enjoyed yourself and you took advantage and you didn't allow a little overspending to hinder your progress. I don't want women to listen to this podcast to think that I'm about debt. We're not about, especially credit card debt. If you're leveraging debt, then that's good. Right. So you have to have some discipline, but I also think that you have to give yourself some latitude to really enjoy the experience. And I've overspent, but we've just figured it out, you know, like, OK, there's a grace period on a credit card for a reason. So in this next 30 days, we're about to hustle and work an extra shift or something. You know, we also have an emergency fund that we have definitely pulled from before. Was Usher in Las Vegas an emergency fund? that it was, right? You could argue that your helicopter ride was an emergency. But I appreciate that you had a lot of fun. And I would just say that women, if you're in this position to think about how to be creative with your finances, but also to definitely plan ahead and try to plan, not aspirationally, but like specifically, you know, and, and getting some of those fine details. And then Alicia, I love what you said about putting 10% on the top of that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so if you're listening to this episode and you're saying, okay, Brittne and Alicia screwed up, you would be correct. But I think, you know, some lessons that we can all take from this and that we hope that you take from this is that when it comes to car insurance, maybe being very diligent and making sure that things are getting paid and trying to take ownership yourself of those bills instead of maybe relying on a different company. When it comes to me and I didn't have enough in savings for this transition period when I moved across the country and started a new job is making sure that I'm saving a little bit more in anticipation of those needs, whether it's saving to move across the country, saving to go on vacation, saving to cover different expenses that may be coming my way, but just making sure that I'm keeping enough in cash and having enough to cover those things so that I'm not running into these cashflow problems. And then, you know, in Brittne's example of overpaying or overfunding a 401k, just making sure that you're aware of what those yearly limits are. They've increased this year in 2024. So for those who may not have been aware, the contribution limits of the amount of money that you can contribute into your work retirement accounts changes every so often. It usually changes with inflation. So meaning it goes up from time to time and this year it went up. And so last year, the contribution limit was 22,500 for employees under the age of 50. And then you could contribute a little bit more if you were above the age of 50 this year in 2024, the limits have increased slightly. And so now you can contribute if you're an employee up to $23,000 a year. And if you're above 50, then you can make a catch up contribution of an additional, I think it's 7,500. And so just being aware of what those contribution limits are. And I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to get the match at multiple places if you're employed by multiple institutions, but just making sure that you're keeping track with that and making sure that you're not overfunding it. I love that. I would add, um, just as a summary that try to keep something simple and also value when there are good persons that you can rely on or customer service, like do not underestimate the value of customer service and having someone who can help you, especially if your life is complicated with kids, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. And now we're going to get into another segment, which is our wealthy wonder section. So, you know, we were just kind of talking about some of our money mistakes, and it's interesting because Part of what I was talking about was about retirement. And that's what Brittne, I guess, was talking about is overfunding her 401k. And it's interesting because I actually got a question the other day from someone that I work with who asked me how she should adjust her retirement account contributions. She said, hey, Lisha, I heard you talking about retirement to one of our other colleagues. I need to make sure I'm actually contributing enough to that. Do you have any advice for me? And I thought it would be great to kind of address here, give her a little bit of guidance. And I had sort of this four-step plan for her that I'd love to share in terms of our wealthy wonders and what would I do if I were in her position. So step one that I told her was determine the max amount that you can contribute. As I just alluded to, there is a contribution limit each year. And so making sure that you're aware of what that limit is. And remembering that if you're above age 50, as she is, that you can contribute more. And so, you know, making sure that you're aware, okay, it's a new year, relatively early into 2024. What is the contribution limit for 2024? And how much can I personally contribute given my age? And so I think that that's step one. Step two, what I told her was now you need to determine what percentage of your salary that amount is. So if your max contribution limit, because you're under age 50, is $23,000 in 2024, then take that $23,000 and divide it by your salary. If you're a physician and you get paid, I don't know, $200,000 a year, then you would say 23,000 divided by $200,000 of your salary. If you got paid $300,000, you'd say 23,000, which is the contribution limit for people under 50, divided by the $300,000 salary. And so just understanding what percentage of your salary you can contribute. And of course, as I mentioned, if you're over age 50, then you can make a catch up contribution. And so you can contribute more. And so first two things I told her was determine how much you can contribute and then determine what percentage of your salary you can contribute. Brittne, you have anything to add? Yeah. So I love that. Just taking a step back to seeing what are the options available. I know not everyone maxes out their 401k, 457b, but what options are available? The next thing that I would say is if she feels that she's able to do that and to do that comfortably, and she's still going to have some money in the bank, then the question will be, when you approach retirement, how do things look for you? How do you want them to feel? Because some people have been depriving themselves, unfortunately, and they haven't had those moments like you've had where you're like, Let me go to Hawaii. Let me go to Alaska. And so they see the retirement as an opportunity for them to live their life. And if that is the case, then it might be you need to start to save more on top of what your employer will allow you to contribute. some individuals will have additional expenses in retirement, such as caring for elderly family members. And so that's one of the things that we don't think about is, okay, it's not just about us as we're getting older, but also the people that we love are getting older. Now, if she has children, then she won't have to care for them ideally, but caring for family members. Do you want to live in the same house or do you want to move to a bigger house, a different location? All of those things, those considerations should be factored into Okay. What is money going to look like in retirement? And that way you can adjust your savings today so that you can accomplish that vision of retirement then. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. It's figuring out, you know, how much money might you need in retirement. And we'll probably do a whole podcast episode on that in terms of figuring out how much you need in order to retire, and then working backwards to figure out, OK, how much do you need to save from year to year? What investment vehicle should you use or can you use in order to accomplish that goal? So I'm happy that we were able to kind of help her out here. Hopefully, she's listening to this. And if you yourself are listening and you've got a question, don't hesitate to leave us a voice message or shoot us a message in our link, and we're happy to address it here on the show. Alrighty. Love that. Now for our next segment, this is something that we didn't do in our intro episode, but we definitely want to introduce here and that's our wealthy minds top five or our wealthy minds, this or that. And this is kind of where you all get to kind of learn a little bit more about us and hear different perspectives on various things. And so I've got a wealthy minds, this or that question. for Brittne. So here's the situation. So Brittne, my health care system is opening up a new clinic and they basically have a couple of new docs coming in to service that clinic, if you will. And what intrigued me is that I found out that each physician, so the two doctors who are working there full time will each work four days a week. And so, you know, your traditional work week is Monday through Friday, which is five days a week and two days, you know, up the weekend, but they actually switch things up. they are going, so one doctor is going to do Monday through Thursday, and the other doctor is going to do Tuesday through Friday. And I was super intrigued because basically each doctor gets a three-day weekend each week, and it sounds really lovely. And I was curious about what you would do in that situation. I know that you're a hospitalist, and so your schedule is a little bit different because you work in the hospital. It's a more seven on, seven off sort of thing. But if you had a traditional sort of outpatient primary care job, what would you prefer to be your day off? That's a really good question. And two days come to mind. The first day is Monday because I feel the hustle of Sunday, like, oh my gosh, the week is coming up. You know, I have to prepare all of these things. So if I had Monday off, I could still prepare and get my kids off to school and feel some of the burden of the week, but not have the complete burden of planning the week. So that would probably be one option. The second option would be Wednesday. My husband and I talked about this actually. I think there's some study out there. Don't quote me. So we will not have a reference in our show notes. I'm just kidding. But he talked about, you know, the frequency of vacation and not just like the length of vacation. And so I'm just kind of taking that knowledge and extrapolating that. Like if you had a Wednesday off, then it would feel like you actually had more days off because it's kind of breaking up the work week a bit. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Lisha? Which day would you choose? So, okay. So I have thought about this because, you know, even though I work full time, I have a substantial amount of admin time and research time because I'm working on various projects at my institution. And so they asked me about this and before I gave them an answer, I asked a lot of positions that I know. And, you know, it's really interesting. A popular answer is Friday, right? Everyone wants that three-day weekend. Friday is the day. And so I get a lot of Fridays. I got a lot of Fridays in my responses. Some of the people that I know that I'm really, really close to, they also kind of mentioned what you said about Wednesdays and how it's nice to get that break in the middle of the week. It makes the week kind of easier to get through when you know that you're gonna get to some sort of break in the middle of it. And so a lot of people talked about Wednesdays, a lot of people talked about Fridays. It's interesting that you said Monday though, because the study show. Again, don't have a reference, but I'm pretty sure I've heard this before. I think I'm right. That a lot of holidays fall on Mondays. And so I have actually steered away from asking for Mondays off because you will automatically get some Mondays off because a lot of holidays tend to fall on Mondays. And so I specifically did not ask for Mondays off. However, I did get an admin day like or half day on Monday morning some weeks. And I must say it is quite nice. It is very, very I get so much done in that half day on Monday because everybody else is working that I don't get distracted. I don't get disturbed. And I am able like I get stuff done. And so I feel you and like the Monday kind of thing. But at the same time, like I don't want that as my normal day off because, you know, that's the day that a lot of the holidays fall on. So I was curious. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And as a hospitalist, you know, I was calling my father actually on a drive home. He's like, oh, so you're working weekends now? that I always work weekends. Like when I'm on service, I always work weekends. So I forget about the holidays because they don't impact me so much as far as my work schedule, just more of the childcare work that I do. But we'll put a poll, we'll put a poll and we'll see what you guys think. So maybe we'll have one on our social media and we'll create a little poll here and we'll see what you all think. If you had to choose a day off or a day to have some extra admin time, Tell us what you would choose. And maybe, I don't know, maybe I'll listen to your opinions and I'll think about switching mine. All righty. And now to our last segment of the episode, we hopefully it's not too, too long. It's our fun money segment. All right, Brittne, do you have anything fun that you are doing with money or any cool purchases that you've just made? So one of the things that I like to avoid doing is purchasing a lot of things. But I just told you that I purchased a bunch of dresses for it. for my conferences. But what I love to spend my money on is experiences or like self-care, like getting my nails done. Nonetheless, my husband and I are going to an elevation worship concert with Tasha Cobbs. And it's just reflective of the last concert that we attended, not Usher, but the one before that. So for those who don't know, Tasha Cobbs is a gospel artist. So it's like, okay, we're going to see Usher, not gospel, And then we're going to see Tasha Cobb. So, okay, we got, we got some variety, some diversity. Some diversity here. Yes. We are more about like the Tasha Cobbs and the worship in this household more than the Usher, but the Usher definitely took me back to, yeah, those young party years. But we will go and see. And it's just a really nice time for my husband. We both love music. And I think music does something for your energy. It just puts you in a different space. Last year, we saw Maverick City and OG Kirk Franklin and really enjoyed ourselves. So I'm happy that we are spending money. getting a sitter and going to enjoy another concert here in Boston. No, that sounds fun. Yeah. So I just talked about how, you know, going on this vacation with my family. So I'll stay away from the trips right now, but I just not too long ago, I purchased some new running shoes. So this is not an endorsement. We are not paid by the running shoe company, but I just bought some hokas. Have you heard of hokas, Brittne? I have heard of hokas. I am also a runner. I like Brooks, but I haven't tried hokas. Oh my goodness. Let me get you over to the hoka side. So I had never heard of hokas before I lived in LA. So fun fact, I used to live in LA. I did some of my training out there. And so when I was in LA and I would go to work, I would see so many people wearing hokas. It was like a thing, like so much so that if you didn't have hokas on, you were kind of like, Oh, she doesn't have hokas on. Right. And I never understood it. I'm like, They look kind of basic, to be honest, and they've got these funky colors. They kind of look like sketchers, but they have hokas on the name. I don't understand. And people that I respect, mind you, I'm a sports medicine physician, so I'm like kind of like very into running shoes and trying to be active and talking to active people. They were like, Lisha, I promise you. these shoes are so comfortable. They are better than dance goes. So for those of you who do not work in healthcare, dance goes used to be the shoes that people would wear in the operating room because you're standing all day. And so if you're not standing in good supportive shoes, your back can start to hurt, you can start to feel a little crampy, it can cause some muscle tension. And so people have been trying to get really good shoes. And dance goes was a brand that we use, or at least when I was in training that a lot of people talked about. And hocus kind of had become that out on the west coast. It was like, everybody was wearing hokas and there was this brand that I hadn't really heard of really before I moved out to the west coast. And so when I moved back to Atlanta, it was time for me to get some new workout shoes. Remember I talked about on the last podcast, how I'm trying to work out more part of that is buying new workout clothes and new workout shoes. So I was like, okay, I'm going to buy some new workout shoes. And I went into the store and I was like, I'm going to try on different shoes and see what's comfortable. And just like you, I immediately gravitated towards the Asics and the Brooks because Brooks is kind of like a good brand. And I saw some Brooks that I like stylistically, and I asked the associate if he could bring me some different pairs. I could figure out my size in this particular shoe, that sort of thing. And I thought, this is a great shoe. I've heard really good things about Brooks. I like Brooks. There's nothing wrong with that brand. And then I was like, you know what? The hokas are sitting right there. Let me just try them on. I just, I was like, okay, I got to see what the hype is about. And I asked the cook. I was like, you know, there's like 20 different brands. I don't know, or 20 different kinds of hokas. Which kind do you prefer? And he says, well, what are you using it for? And I said, well, I'm trying to get back into running, but I also do a little bit of cross training. And he said, you know what? I think you should try these. And so he points to, you know, a kind of hoka and I go, okay. And so he brings out the shoe. Brittne. When I tell you, it felt like I was walking on clouds. It was not even close. It was not even close. Mind you, I am not paid by Hoka. I'm just saying it was not close. And I was floored. I was like, these feel so good on my feet. And the Brooks did not feel bad, but it wasn't, it was like, this, this is, this is not even close. Interesting. Yes. So my, my fun money is that I bought new hocus and now I feel like I am walking on clouds and it makes running so much more enjoyable because my feet do not hurt. And I'm like, wow, I, I think the first time I put in the hocus on, I like ran a 5k on the treadmill and I was like, yo, your girl is killing it. Okay. And I was like, man, it's due to the hocus. So we got to get on that. So the Hoka has turned you from Lisha to Flojo all in a minute. 20 seconds. That's funny. That's funny. And I just want to say, Hoka, Brooks, DanceGo, if you want to sponsor this podcast. Yes, yes, yes. We're going to send this clip out to them. But yeah, that's something fun that I just did with money as I bought new running shoes. So again, you know, we're going to try to end this show each time with something fun that we're doing with our money, because we really want to give you permission to spend your money in enjoyable ways while still being fiscally responsible. You can invest and enjoy yourself. You can save and enjoy yourself. And part of that is finding new experiences, new things to spend your money on. And so we are happy to share our things with you. Yeah. So this is a really fun podcast. And Alicia, I feel like I learned a lot about you. We'll have to talk about running on another episode. So ladies, gentlemen, if you're listening, I, um, as a side note, I told the dentist today that I was doing this podcast with you and it was for women in healthcare or men. Yeah, he's a man and he's like, well, maybe you start with the ladies and then you can start to teach us guys. Guys, we welcome you too. But Brittne, on this side, I have a bias towards women. So I will just leave that there because I want women to win and our money. I want men to win too, of course. You know, I have brothers. I have a husband. I have a son. So we want everybody to win. But as always, thanks for listening to our episode this week and we will see you next week.
