When is Enough, Enough? Rethinking Wealth + Family Priorities | Nate Reineke, Episode 064

#064.  In this episode, Justin sits down with Nate Reineke, a Certified Financial Planner from Physician Family who specializes in helping physician families take control of their finances and a father of two, who shares some hard-hitting truths about money, parenting, and what really matters most.  He shares his personal journey and experience.  We discuss how to best balance career ambition with quality family time, helping understand whether we are chasing financial success without a clear purpose, and how we actually teach kids about money in a way that sticks.

Show notes and more at:

https://moneydadpodcast.com/session064

Transcript

Nate Reineke

Justin: My special guest today is Nate Reneke. Nate is a certified financial planner that serves as the primary advisor at Physician Family, a financial advisory firm that provides smart financial advice for busy physician moms and dads. After leaving corporate life with over a decade of experience, he followed his passion for helping physicians get out of debt and on with life.

Justin: Nate and his wife, Brittany, also navigate the joys of raising two young boys. Welcome to the Money Dad Podcast, Nate. 

Nate: Hey, thank you. 

Justin: Thanks for coming on here and really chatting with us today about, the topic is really becoming a professional family man. But before we get into that, I always love to start with going back in time and understanding, going back to your childhood.

Justin: Can you share with us, , your own childhood experience? As it relates to your exposure to money and finances and learning about that, I know that your father was also a financial advisor. , so how did, perhaps he or your mom, who is a teacher, influence and inform those early beliefs about money?

Nate: Yeah , you know, I have an interesting childhood growing up when it comes to money. My mom she was a teacher and had been in the school district in Eugene, Oregon for, she's been in it for over 30 years now. So she when I was young, she was a teacher, but then when I started to maybe grasp the ideas about money, she was a principal and then, then she became superintendent.

Nate: So she kind of rise in the ranks and surprisingly you could make. Decent amount of money as superintendent of a school district. , but the problem was that or at least my problem with understanding money was that my mom had an entirely different situation than I was, the world I was entering into.

Nate: When you're a teacher back then, 30 years ago, you have really good pensions. And so when you make money, you can spend it all. You don't really need to save all your money. You need to stay out of debt. , so we didn't really talk about money a lot at my mom's house. Um, But I was able to, Perceive a lot of things and observe, , how she handled money.

Nate: And I wasn't really able to reflect on that until I was an adult. Because, obviously, you We didn't talk about it, but my dad and my mom split when I was , grade school age. And then at my dad's house, , the split was hard with money. , so kind of my whole past is one house at one time or another was either struggling with money while the other house was doing well and it would flip flop.

Nate: Oh, wow. Okay. I got to see what it was like to live on very little. When, my dad, when I was young, he was a youth pastor, got into construction and then, , decided he wanted to. make some more money than construction could offer. In fact, he uh, told me a story about he was standing on a building in rainy Oregon and he was trying to lay block.

Nate: So it's like laying big bricks, right? And so he's trying to lay block. There's not much he can do in the pouring down rain. So he's just standing there waiting for the rain to let up. And he saw a guy in a business suit run into a building. That was heated, , with a newspaper over his head. And he said, man, I need to do something like that.

Nate: So that, that started his whole, , kind of career in, , , finance. , he went to school, , he barely graduated high school and then graduated with a 4. 0 at. In college, because it meant something to him, like this was his way out and I think a lot of times nowadays we're conditioned, especially the younger generation and even my generation, like you go to college because you have to, and it doesn't make it very meaningful.

Nate: There's nothing tied to it. It's just the thing you're supposed to do next. But it shows you that if something meaningful is tied to your goal, , like my dad's was, , you can put a lot of energy into something and go from barely graduating high school to, , doing very well with an economics degree and a business background.

Nate: So, , Over the years, , some struggles with my parents in the 2008. Housing crisis, things like that. So there was some time to struggle at my mom's house. She's doing great now. But, , during that time, my dad was getting his feet under him and became a financial advisor. And that's when I really started to.

Nate: , take an interest like many young men do in their dad's career. Yeah. , and it just so happened to be right in line with what I was ready to receive as far as lessons about money. So as my dad was coming up to speed and staying a chapter ahead of me and investments and all that, , I got to learn all about what he did at work.

Nate: And the beautiful thing about what my dad did and what he taught me about money is he only taught me what I was ready to hear. So he was in the. Deep end of the pool when it came to investing and saving and all that. But he only revealed to me, , something I could actually hold onto when I was ready.

Nate: So he taught me, budgeting. He taught me, , how to use a credit card despite being in a Christian household with Dave Ramsey all over the place and not supposed to use credit cards. No debt. Yeah, no debt. He taught me how to do it. He, walked me through the importance of making a good college choice and not saddling myself up with a bunch of debt before I left.

Nate: And he even helped me decide what major I was going to have in college and make it meaningful and something that, that maybe didn't directly tie to this job that he knew I didn't know what I wanted to do, but it would give me some really good, right? Exactly. And he gave me some great experience to open up my options.

Nate: So, , Beyond that. My grandfather was very frugal and I got to see his relationship with my grandmother and how no matter how frugal you are, if you are not a great leader in your house, you might be a great leader at work. You might be great with your own personal finances, but if you cannot share a vision with your spouse about money, it's all for nothing.

Nate: He save, saved. did not spend a nickel on anything he didn't need to and would bail my grandmother out on her credit card bills every so often. And none of that really resulted in what I think he hoped, which would be to be financially independent and not have to trade your time for money for the rest of his life.

Nate: So I, I got my, Experience from many different arenas, grandparents, mom, dad, and different houses. 

Justin: , it sounds like a, the broad spectrum of experiences and wide range, whether that's going through times where, yeah, there's not a lot of money in the household and.

Justin: And that's great that I think part of it was really your dad also teaching you what you're ready to hear. I think it's almost like meeting you where you mean you, where you are, right. So, , or What you're ready to accept and learn and that you can grasp at that very moment in time that makes it meaningful for you to understand and pick up on So that's great.

Justin: And I think, you know, obviously a lot of people take an interest in their dad's career. I remember for me I went through accounting in school. That was my major I became a charter accountant and uh, and got into real estate, but I think that was also heavily influenced because my dad would, he came to, he immigrated to Canada.

Justin: He had, nothing him and my mom. And he, but he would do like accounting and bookkeeping work and he would also, he was also a realtor. So it's almost like, because of that early interest, you get to, see some sides of that, , and that tweaked my interest as well. You talked about the police.

Justin: And how those are formed through learning about and experiences with your parents and your grandparents how have those beliefs about money evolved now over the years? So now that, you had some time to reflect back in your adulthood about your childhood and how do those beliefs really serve you today as you provide, financial advice to whether it's physicians or others about investing.

Justin: Getting out of debt how have those beliefs about money evolved and really serve you today? 

Nate: , as you said, I work with physicians, and by every measure imaginable they make great money. And I think some, the silver lining with having parents who are split up, having, and remarried, so you have 75 sets of grandparents and a bunch of houses you're floating around to if a child is I guess internalizes it in the best way possible, like I feel like I did.

Nate: You get, you start to take a step back and look at and observe people in a much different way than you would if you just grew up in one household and maybe grandparents weren't. So I guess that is really the driver for how I think about money now I got to see a lot of people experience different things and I learned from them, but taking a step back and observing families that I serve my perspective had changed about money, even in the last 10 years.

Nate: So being in this industry, and what I see happening most often is, especially with on the internet and everybody online is, I hope I can say this on your podcast, but I see a lot of You can say whatever you want. Okay. I see a lot of what I refer to as financial porn. Okay. And people chasing money for really reasons that they cannot describe.

Nate: They want absurd amounts of money, and I get this from people who make absurd amounts of money, and they just want more. And so my perspective on this I feel very lucky to see these people want the same things I wanted in my 20s. Like just more because it has shifted my mindset to money is a resource and it is a resource to get and the things in life that are important to you and to make an impact on the world that is meaningful rather than just a pile of stuff you give to your kids when you die.

Nate: And that all comes from. Talking to hundreds of physicians who don't have perspective about their money. They just know that they're supposed to invest it and they're supposed to go for it all. And when I, the, I find that the most impactful advice I can give, it really has nothing to do with which index fund to buy.

Nate: And has everything to do with what is your purpose? , why are you doing this in the first place? And actually I think that's what bleeds into how do I teach my kids about money? It is a daunting task. to teach kids about money because a lot of people don't have their why cemented in their head about what they're doing all of this for.

Nate: They've just been told I want to retire early and I want to be financially independent and doesn't really hold water. It doesn't mean much to them. So how do you teach your kids something that doesn't mean anything to you? Other than just go out and be successful and try to make a lot of money. Rather than specific lessons that kind of got me to be stable, which I think is the real goal with your children, is you want to get them to the point where they're self sufficient and have a good foundation, but then beyond that build into their lifelong journey of just building a life worth living.

Nate: Oh, that's where I'm at this point. We'll see what happens in the next 10 years as we all continue to evolve. 

Justin: But yeah it's really, . Building a life worth living, understanding what your purpose is. I mean, I think it comes back to , it's almost like in, , inside of your program to, yeah, you just think, okay, yeah, I need, I want to be successful.

Justin: I want to make a ton of money. And, but if you don't really boil it down to what you're going to. Like, What are you doing it for? , you have, a lot of us. And sometimes myself included when I think back to some of the times that through my career, my life, it's like, okay, yeah, you're trying to , make all this income and, but I think one of the things that I've, I think I've gained is that, you're trying to boil it down to, okay, why does it matter?

Justin: It's okay, no, I'm doing it. You know, I'm doing it because I want to be there with my family. So for me, it's like one of the reasons why , from my own personal experience, I've, I built up a real estate portfolio, a separate investment portfolio that provides a stream of income that's separate from employment income, because I don't want to rely on having to work.

Justin: Through employment because, and I'd rather have the portfolio provide for investment income and that, so that I can just, I want to be at home. I want to be with my kids. I want to be with my wife. I'm going to spend time with my family. , , you know, we were talking before we got on about extended road trips and, , I had the opportunity to take an extended road trip through, through parts of Western Canada, through the U.

Justin: S. as well, but I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't have that freedom to be able to do that and so that to me, from my own reflection, it was like boiling it down to why does it matter to me, and, you talk about, or you specialize in Guiding physician, fathers, mothers who wrestle with that demanding balance also as well between like their careers and trying to make money.

Justin: But also I'm sure a lot of them also have a desire to be present at home, right? They want to be there for their kids. They want to. Be active and present. And, so we have a lot of fathers, mothers listening to this episode who, they may not be a physicians, but they feel that same struggle, that there's that same tug tug of war between striving and being ambitious and in their careers, but also wanting to be like the best dad or the best mom that they can be at home and, , what advice do you, would you have to give to fathers out there on how to achieve that balance between the two?

Nate: Yeah, I have a very simplistic answer to this which the unfortunate part about this simplistic answer is that the epiphanies are when you go through this experience. But I just want to say about your trip, right? I was delighted that's how we started this conversation before the podcast started because you get it, right?

Nate: I think the, one of the most powerful things I saw a financial advisor that I really enjoy. I won't tell you her name because you probably can't become a client. She's like super selective and, but she rolls out a chart of how many summers you have left with your kids. 

Justin (2): Yeah. 

Nate: I have 10 summers left with my six year old before and probably less before he of summers that he actually wants to spend with me.

Nate: And so how do you balance that? I mean, it's, It's so backwards. It's so backwards when you have all this ambition, all this energy in your younger years, you want to build something for your family and all your family wants is your attention. If you went upstairs, if I'm sorry, if I went upstairs and asked my wife, so if I worked this many hours and I tried to do all these things and then, by the time we were 50, we made all this money.

Nate: She'd be like, what? Why? And I'm like because then we'd have money. What about now? You have a four year old holding on your leg, right? And I'm like, one thing, a perspective shift that I've had in the last several years is, if you're ambitious, if you're listening to this podcast, You're probably pretty ambitious, right?

Nate: If you listen to money podcasts, you care about taking care of your family from that aspect of things. But with that ambition needs to come some perspective about how long this stuff takes. Money preparing for your future. It does not happen all at once. Every 20 year old watching Instagram thinks that it can.

Nate: It does not. It does not. And if you're an ambitious person and you can spread out the energy that you have in life over 20 years, you will get there with some discipline. And nobody wants to hear that, but that is the God's honest truth. I've never seen anyone do it any different who isn't lying or selling a course to you online.

Nate: Yeah. You, understanding that experience, money, it will all come with time. And if you set some boundaries in your life, I'm married to a therapist, so we talk about boundaries. If you set some boundaries in your life about how much you're willing to give up now. It can be really helpful. Okay, so here's a great non money lesson.

Nate: I learned from when I was in that ugly corporate world Everybody there was young and hungry because that was the department I was in but there was one older guy there and he was like Everyone loved him, or I'm sorry, management loved him because he was such a hard worker and he really was a talented person, but on the nose every day at 5 p.

Nate: m. he was logged off of his computer and I just couldn't believe it, like how? How can you be this ambitious? How does that work? And, but then I started to, once again, me I'm an observer. When you are in this divorced family, you start to observe a lot of things. And I realized he was the most focused and energetic person in the entire room from 8 to 5.

Nate: The most focused. He was way more focused than me. Yeah. Like I had this idea that somehow if I worked till 10 p. m. that I was a go getter. What about all the time you're wasting sitting around, right? And you have to get real about this and sit there and say, what am I doing with my time and how can I make the most out of my time at work so that I still have energy and time at home and I can still have energy to give to my children.

Nate: So how do you do that? It's simple. You need a plan. To do this. Maybe people here are ambitious and they care, but I have really close friends that are business owners that work their fingers to the bone. And I asked them, why do you want to accumulate all this money? And they are completely lost.

Nate: They have no idea. In fact, I just had that conversation two weeks ago from one of my most successful friends. I have, he has a three year old and a newborn on the way. And he works 70 hours a week, and in his mind he's just trying to build something big, and the answer is for what. And he's following in the footsteps of his father in law, who has one child that is very grounded and just a terrific person.

Nate: The other two kinda hate his guts. 

Justin: Cause they don't know them. They don't, 

Nate: they don't know them at all. Why would you follow someone that you don't know? So you need a plan. And I'm not here necessarily to sell you a plan. You can do these online if you um, if you, if you're into money, you could probably do this without someone like me.

Nate: But a plan that describes a very well thought out goal and why you're doing all this. And roadmap for how much you need to invest and save and how much income you need to create. And beyond that, why? 

Justin: , not even beyond, I think because of that it's, it is really your why. I think if, and so I reflect back on when I was looking to build the real estate portfolio, like it was super important for me.

Justin: Like I remember like mapping out a vision like five years from now. And of course, cause I wanted things sooner rather than later. I didn't recognize her. Think through it's going to take more than five years, but it's so five years or, whatever your end point is like, how do you envision your life to be like, who are you, who am I surrounded by with, who am I where am I like, what am I doing?

Justin: Like what gives me joy., and I would revisit that regularly so that I would understand, okay, this is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it. And it would keep me focused on that. , like, so for me, it was. , family is I was like front and center this is why I'm doing this.

Justin: Um,, , and we have listeners out there who, they're working high paying jobs, maybe they're management executives, maybe they're entrepreneurs or building a business, maybe they're a partner at a firm. And, and the question is .

Justin: When is enough? What is enough? And that's, And that's a tough question answer, right? Like, Because it obviously depends on every different individual, but there's a certain point where, if you're making, whatever hundreds of thousands of dollars but you're sacrificing time, you're giving your energy.

Justin: To your work and you're not giving that energy to your family, there's you're sacrificing that and I put it back to you I guess maybe how can people out there identify or reflect on when is enough? 

Nate: Yeah, this comes back to having a financial plan. So a financial plan isn't just You know, so financial plans, a lot of people don't want to do them.

Nate: They take time, more time, more energy. Another reason they don't want to do them is the first time a financial advisor presented a plan to a client the reason they did so was to sell them more stuff. 

Justin (2): Yeah. 

Nate: That's really why. But your own plan, that just means your own goals and your own. roadmap to get where you want to go should give you some perspective about how much money you actually need to make.

Nate: Now, there is no substitute for bootstrapping and working extremely hard if you're an entrepreneur. What else? You can't just say well, it's five o'clock, but I don't have money for dinner, right? There's no way around that. But, and so maybe that is part of your plan. To put in a really hard several years of work to get there.

Nate: But for the people that I speak with, they are through that part of their life and they probably didn't have children until they were through that part of their life. So they're in there, they're 35, all of a sudden they have this huge income. And for people like that, and even entrepreneurs that have, made it, they make enough now, but they're still working on their business to improve it coming up with This plan for how much to save should allow you to put Guardrails on how much you work and that plan is going to tell you what is enough now I feel like sometimes when people hear me say this, they think I'm talking about like some small amount of money.

Nate: You still have to save a ton of money. You still have to invest a lot of money. Getting to a certain end point with, and understanding what investments are going to get you there. So you're not always trading your time for money. That's your plan. And you can find comfort in that and you can find Energy in that, like you're not, your energy isn't being soaked up with how do I get my hands on more money.

Nate: What I've seen over and over with physicians, so that they were crazy hours, right? And they really didn't get into that business to make money.

Nate: Because if they did, if they did, they wouldn't be physicians. You can make a few hundred thousand dollars a year, but you're trading your whole life for it. And so they're not great at managing energy and managing money and they are lying to themselves. If they think that they're going to from the time that they're, 18 years old to the time that they're 35, I think about all the time they put into school and training to get there.

Nate: And then they finally get to work and they're like, okay, now I have to work really hard to make more money. So then they make more money and then they say, I want to retire at 55. You just put 20 years into the ability to make this much money and did nothing but work for 40 years. And now you're just going to turn it off?

Nate: That is not, I've never seen it. I have, and maybe that's because they don't come to me if they're retiring at 55. Right, They are, yeah. But, yeah but for me, I've never actually seen it. So a much more balanced life, which I think is what you're trying to achieve when you're looking for enough.

Nate: It's enough of everything, enough money, enough time with family, enough energy. A much more balanced life is to look at this as a long road. That you can balance your time now, even when you don't have it all made yet and look into the long term future of saying, I'm probably going to work into my 60s or do something into my 60s.

Nate: I can't, Justin, with how hard you're working, how much you've put into this, you really think you're just going to turn it all off the second your kids leave? Probably going to put more into it. Yeah. Yeah. But you can't, but the financial freedom part of this is doing what you want with that time and putting your time and energy potentially into making money into the things that you like, but you can't figure out what you like.

Nate: Unless you leave time for that and leave space for rest and other things in your life, other than just your job. 

 .

Justin: You spoke about that other person who they were working like 70 hours a week, right? And so I've, coworkers or friends who they do that. They work, extremely long hours. They come home, have dinner, the kids. Play with the kids a little bit. And then as soon as the kids are asleep, fire back up the laptop and they're working away again, , but they feel guilty doing so because they want to be there for their family.

Justin: For those out there who, if they can't switch jobs is there a way to transition from being like a working professional? To a professional family man without needing that job change is there a way to create those boundaries or shifting those priorities to make that a reality?

Justin: . Or is a job change the only thing you can do? What is any advice you can give about that? 

Nate: I think a job change sometimes can. can be possible, but in the same industry, let's say, because if you're this valuable, somebody's going to want you. But sometimes the culture of a job won't allow you to make the decisions you need to make for your family.

Nate: In fact, I'm in that world. I left this industry. Because of that culture and then found a physician family, like families in the name, they got to respect my family, right? And so I came here and that got exactly what I wanted. I still work a lot. I love to work. I love to work. I love meeting with people.

Nate: I love finding personal finances. It's like my thing, right? Yeah. I left because I wouldn't be able to sitting there making sales calls all day. Wasn't my idea of. of living my best life with my family. So with physicians, and I'm sure this is the same way in a lot of other industries, you may need to switch jobs to where a priority shift for you and you can draw boundaries, but how to do this.

Nate: We just did a podcast where Ben, the owner of this firm played a drinking game. It wasn't. It wasn't beer, but it was yeah, so yeah, something else for every time I said the word plan, but I really believe in it. So if you have a plan that tells you how much you need to save, which then infers how much you can spend, you can cut, cut.

Nate: Cut off your money making ventures at that point. You need to save or invest a certain amount of money. You need to get to a certain amount of income and you should probably stretch that over that out over a long period of time without these crazy ideas that somehow you're going to be financially independent when you're 40.

Nate: That's how you get there psychologically. Here's how you get it done as a professional family man. Okay. That's you just got someone to write you a plan and that you're following the steps. Most people listening to this podcast, they're the money person in their household. Okay.

Nate (2): Yeah. 

Nate: And most of those money people are pretty boring. I'm raising my hand. Not necessarily. Oh, 

Justin: that's funny. Like between you and my household, like , I could talk about money like all day and different, more personal finance and things like that. My wife just, it's doesn't even. Exactly. It doesn't interest her.

Justin: Like it's not her thing. 

Nate: I asked my wife one time, why don't you like talking about money? Because I'm the guy that like, I failed at all this. I put spreadsheets up on the, my HDMI spreadsheets up to the screen, everything. And she said, it's boring. I'm like, what? Yeah. That means I'm boring.

Nate: This is my job. And so I realized in that moment and working with a bunch of couples, you need to involve your non financial spouse in these discussions and you cannot involve them when you're talking about. Investment opportunities and this and that's boring to them, but what's not boring to them is including in this plan a vision of how often they get to see their loved ones, how often they get to go on road trips that last weeks long.

Nate: That's what's the real purpose of all this is to live a life that's beautiful for everyone in your house and everyone should be involved in that decision. So if you're creating your own vision of coming up with all this money that your wife doesn't care about, now, of course, they will use it.

Nate: And they'll probably enjoy it at some point, but it's going to be a brutal road to get to the point where it finally pays off because we all know that creating something that's worthwhile takes a long time. They need to be involved in these decisions. So I did this by saying, I need to work this much to achieve this goal.

Nate: That gets us to this end point, but in between, this is my capacity for vacations, this is my capacity for spending time with the boys, this is my capacity for spending time with you. And money is not the most important thing to me. She sees me constantly encourage her to spend money on things that are important to her, as long as it's within our plan.

Nate: And she grew up with no money. I have the luxury of not having a big spender for a spouse, but I'm the money guy and I'm encouraging her to spend money. Yeah. Because when she sees you at work all the time working so hard and she's not a big spender, it worries them to spend money, and if you're not at home, what, if it's the opposite and they're not involved in the plan and you're not at home, what else are they going to do other than to spend your money? But if it's our money and if it's our vision and our plan, And you're truly involved at home doing the best you possibly can there.

Nate: They can support, the money person's dreams because it's part of their own. , 

Justin: I think, what you said about, really sharing that plan and developing that plan with your non financial spouse, right? So that they can understand , so talking about money and , you know, how you're investing it.

Justin: . I'll talk about things that. Whether, and again, I'm a real estate guy, so I love real estate. We're building, actually, we're building a, an accessory dwelling unit or garden suite in our backyard, . And I also love seeing something being built, but and I'll, talk about.

Justin: Different things that we're investing in, things like that. And , , it comes down to, she wants to know that we're like, are we okay? Are we okay here in terms of, do we have enough? So the trip that we went on, the last trip that we went on , it was a three week long road trip.

Justin: So we went to a number of different places and ,, we're spending money and , , I don't have a problem with spending money . But it has to be something we value and that we enjoy. It's to me, money is not not made to be just saved and put away and then do nothing.

Justin: You, you want to enjoy it together. That's the purpose of it. . And I remember, so walking through with her like, , this is, how long we're going to go for. This is how much we're going to spend approximately. And. But just to help her understand, yeah, we'll be, we're fine.

Justin: Like we, this is part of the budget. We love travel. So for me, it's like high priority for me. She loves traveling as well. And so it's yeah. So for our household travel is, it's a bigger budget and we don't care about like other things like clothes or other things because we don't have that.

Justin: We don't find value in that. But things that like involve the family that we can create experiences. Like I'm, I've always been about like creating memories. I just. It, to me, it's creating moments, creating memories, like experiences that's always been my jam. And so that's like her front and center for me and what I value.

Justin: And then, we make sure that we talk to each other about what she values and what she wants. So I think that's important. Yeah. Making sure that, the non financial spouses is involved as part of that discussion and and just knows and can gain comfort in that, in knowing that they're okay.

Nate: Yeah. I think If I could place a wager on whether or not you will have a fantastic relationship with your spouse and your children when they're older. I would do it because what I heard from you is that you understand what your wife values. And what I heard from you is that you're investing in your children in a way that I think some people get wrong.

Nate: They want to teach their kids skills, but they're, but the funny thing about experiences is they compound just like stock market or just like, . your returns in real estate they will remember these things forever. And even though you're a really hardworking dad, they will know that you were around and that you were around when things were really meaningful and that you made space in your life for those things.

Nate: And when I see physicians fail to do that, and then they end up with retirement with, 50 percent more money, it just didn't seem worth it. But when they end up with retirement with enough money. And a lifetime of experiences. They're the happiest people I've ever seen. They just were like, I got this right.

Nate: And you're right, get it, getting them involved is super important even if they don't totally understand, like they know how much you're spending, they know everything's okay. But the key there is that so one way or another, you've identified what's important to the family and you. So the the funny thing is when the non financial spouse.

Nate: Is in the room with me. I'm like laser focused on them because they'll probably be only show up to about one meeting, right? And so we're talking about what they want out of life and that gives permission to the kind of the more bold person Maybe the business person to go and achieve it and maybe do nothing more and it gives them permission to turn their computer off because they know they're doing enough to get everything their family wants rather than Perceiving that they should have more For no reason.

Nate: Yeah, you're, you've described this beautifully. I'm in the stocks and bonds world, but you're achieving it with real estate. Certainly 

Justin: there, there was a book I read recently. Um, , Dial zero. I don't know if you've read it before, but yeah, that's like you, you encapsulate there, right? Where it's almost like the experience is compound.

Justin: And like that, that came through in the book where I hadn't thought about it like that, but. Yeah. It does make a difference. Like you, it's funny, like I'll, there's stories that I'll tell to my kids and it's like the most, it's stories from when I was, younger, like in, maybe I just graduated university and things like that, but they, I could tell that same story and they will ask for that story.

Justin: And I'm just like, there's, and, but it's because we're reliving that same moment and I'm actually getting to relive that same moment again. Cause I can tell that story over and over and over again. , , other thing I want to talk to you about was, let's say generational wealth.

Justin: Most people look at Generational wealth in terms of when financial assets are passed down from, from this generation to the next generation. But I wanted to hear your perspective on how , we,, as fathers, as parents instead should be redefining generational wealth to creating legacies that focus on, we talked about experiences rather than just financial assets.

Justin: Can you talk about your perspective on that? 

Nate: Sure. Yeah. I've actually never been asked that question, but I'll be happy to try. So I think that we have a kind of perverted look at legacy when it comes to money. I don't think it does children any good to give them a fistful of money.

Nate: I really don't. In fact in the plans that we write we definitely have, there's money. Any decent investors going to keep their principal, to pass on to their children and their children will get some money, but in today's dollars, what it amounts to essentially the goal. This is the goal.

Nate: It's not worst case scenario, the hope is they get a paid off house and a million dollars. And if my kids will be Hopefully, 60 years old by the time I die, right? I hope they're not waiting for me to die, I sure hope not. And yeah, and they will get something but waiting for mom and dad to hand something over to them.

Nate: I just don't see it. It's a crapshoot to be honest. Sometimes kids, they, they do great things with it. My friend that I told you about, he's got. He didn't need to work. He's gonna have money. But he does, he works really hard and I think that there's some ways he could make it better with this family life.

Nate: But the other people in the family, they don't work and their father is ridiculously rich and they don't do anything with it and they don't like them. And so to me, I've just never seen this work out. So as far as a legacy, the things I do see work out are humble parents who raise their kids with almost no money, but pass down values to their kids that are hugely impactful in the way that they navigate the world.

Nate: And so, , how do you pass on the values that you hold closely to your kids? There is no way you can do that without spending a lot of time with them. A lot of time with them. You need to be around. Otherwise, they will, and hopefully it's shared values, but they're gonna get shared, they're gonna get values from the parent who is around, or they're gonna get values from, God forbid, nannies!

Nate: And I really believe that, again, people listening to this podcast, I, If you even care about this a little bit, you will do just fine with money and you probably don't need a giant kick in the pants to go make some money. Now if you're comparing yourself to everyone around you, it will look like it's all peaches and cream because you won't hear the good stuff.

Nate: When it comes to investments and money and all that, but the reality is a huge paradigm shift needs to happen where you are balancing life. And money and time with your children and you're making that more valuable than just numbers in a bank account. So that's why I've never answered that before, but that's how I approach my life.

Nate: I still want to make great money, but I'm not willing to sacrifice certain things. There is a moment in every day that I want to keep working to achieve this Bleeding dream of being rich and all that and I turn it all off and I go upstairs and I have dinner with my boys And I spend some time with them.

Nate: I take care of myself. I don't let myself deteriorate another thing I see doctors do they build up all this money and they die early they're not taking care of themselves. 

Justin: , they should be focused on health, but , they're deteriorating.

Justin: They're not taking care of themselves. They're not healthy themselves. And that's a bit of the irony, around it. 

Nate: It is. It is a scary thing. And it has become I've spent almost a decade now just at this firm. And I never thought I'd be talking about health and fitness and kids. I thought it'd be talking about the stock market.

Justin: And I talked about that less and less because honestly, that is not the hard part. Like these people make great money. And take the most passive approach possible. For people who have a great income to the money side and the investment side. And I would focus all my time and energy on my family. 

, I know you did an economics degree, but I'm sure you have a degree in counseling as well. Because it sounds like you, it sounds like, it's not, yeah, it's obviously it's not just about money. It's about all this other stuff, right? 

Nate: Sometimes when I have a good conversation with my spouse about money, she goes, you should have been a therapist, but I get it from her.

Justin: Cause you know, I get the therapist talk from her. 

you've got two, two boys, , six and four, are there things that you, you and your wife do, or that you do that we're consciously trying to, whether it's talking about money with the kids or showing them something .

Justin: Certain things that you do with your kids that you think would be useful for other parents or other listeners out there to listen to and take on, take those on as well and incorporate as part of their lives. 

Nate: Yeah. We're so passionate about kids and money that we almost started like this program for it.

Nate: And then we decided, we decided to stay focused, but it bleeds into every conversation you can have with one. Caring parents are doing this. They're doing this usually for their kids as far as accumulating wealth So I think when you have really young kids like I do there is no teaching Especially like one to four my four year old has no concept of money.

Nate: That doesn't mean anything to him He has everything he needs Which is our jobs as parents to give your kids what they need and giving them what they want is a whole different story. So I think it's important to identify with your kids what they need and what they want and explain to them that my role in their life is to provide them with what they need and define what they need.

Nate: And in my line of work and seeing how difficult it is for physicians to make headway early in their career with student loans is, I believe that my mission, I guess I need is to pay for college. And a lot of parents don't share that same thought, and a lot of people don't, you know, and I, I might,, I believe some of them college isn't for everybody, but they need to have a clean slate when they start.

Nate: And so wants and needs is huge for my four year old. There's nothing you can really explain to him about actual money. So all you can do is teach them how in the beginning is lay a foundation to teach them how to make great decisions. Because money is just a series of decisions and consistency.

Nate: Okay? How do you teach a four year old how to make decisions about money? You teach them to make decisions about anything. And you don't make all their decisions for them, and you don't save them from the consequences of those decisions. They have to live with those consequences. Spend all your money on one thing because you got 20 of birthday money, and you decide to spend it on, for whatever reason, my kids are into Squishmallows right now.

Justin: What are those? 

Nate: Squishy pillows. 

Justin: Squishy pillows, okay. 

Nate: And I hate it. There's so many squishy pillows on their bed. I'm like, you don't even like them. Anyways but, I let them buy them with their birthday money, and when they come back and they said, Dad, I really want this, I go you spent all your money on Squishy Mallow.

Nate: And I don't buy it for them. And I do my best, okay I'll say this as if I'm really good at this, but Grandma doesn't buy it for them either. Yeah. They have the money and they have the ability to make money if they if they wants to around the house at this age, we don't force them to do anything that earns money.

Nate: They have some responsibilities, keep up with their room. But, a series of, giving your child the ability to make their own decision and live with the consequences, that is the real world. And right now I have the opportunity, anybody with young children has the opportunity for those decisions not to be life and death.

Nate: Small decisions that seem like the end of the world to them really aren't a big deal, and that's when I want to teach them. I don't want to teach them that lesson, let's say when they're off to college and they decide to go to some private school that's going to give them 100, 000 in debt, or for the people I serve, 300, 000 in debt.

Nate: I've seen 500, 000 in debt. Wow. 

Nate: . 

Nate: I don't want that to be when they start to learn from the consequences of their decisions. So I'm doing that now. Yep. And so for my six year old though he, really is good at basic math. He likes to count. He knows how much money he has. Yeah. I still let him make those decisions, but he's starting to learn that something that provides value earns money.

Nate: And so if he wants to make money, he just does something. That he knows is valuable to me and he earned some money for it. And then if he needs a plan to figure out how to get to a certain amount of dollars, then we talk it out and he has to do that over time. I see a lot of parents have their kids pay, almost do a debt thing.

Nate: Okay, I'll buy this 10 thing for you, but then you have to do chores when you get home. That's not how the well, that is how the real world works. Yeah, it's not how it should work, right? So we don't do that. And then over time you I view so imagine you're this professional dad, right? And you're spending time with your kids.

Nate: There is endless opportunities in life to teach them about money. They hear me and my wife talk about the price of things. They hear us talk about whether or not we want to buy this over this at the grocery store. , I recently my six year old asked me why we drive a used car. I don't even know how he knows what a used car is, but as soon as they get in kindergarten, they all of a sudden start asking questions.

Nate: And I was like, okay, I could take that as oh my gosh he thinks we drive a bad car, which we don't, it's a perfectly nice car. , And I, but instead of taking it as a negative, I said, oh, so glad you asked. I said, buying, so this car was one third of the cost of this car. And it's, it works great, right?

Nate: It's comfortable. We got a stereo. We got all these things. And I said, and so I said, the real reason we did this, because it would be nice to have a cool car Matteo? And he was like, yeah, I want the car my friend has. It has this. I'm like. But look, because we didn't do that, we got to go on this trip this year.

Nate: Remember when we went to that place that had that really cool slide? And he's yeah. And I was like, we paid all that. We saved up for that and we paid for it. And the only reason we could is because we have this used car. There's so many opportunities, but you have to be around to grab them.

Justin: Yep. You gotta,, yeah, you gotta be around. , , you know, you're converting everyday conversations and making them teachable moments and talking and providing. Lessons and perspective on something that's, you know, as you're talking there, one thing, a couple of things I thought about was one thing that we just talked about last night over dinner was so ever since we got back from the road trip, we were like, Oh yeah we, because we were eating out on the road for so long and we're like, okay, we enjoy home cooked food.

Justin: And so one idea, my. Five year old he started to help out with pairing, breakfast, like little things breakfast cutting so he's cutting fruit or or like he helped me the other day I don't know, open a can from a can soup or whatever. And so we were talking over dinner and it was like, okay, you know what, for both, the older and the younger one, , let's make one night a week where you guys are in charge of.

Justin: A meal and we'll help like mom and dad will help. But you guys figure out, okay, what do we need? And so we're going to go to the grocery store. We'll figure out like what the ingredients are to like making whatever, and then we're going to buy them. So you'll know the price of things. And then.

Justin: Come home and we're going to prepare it together and, you can help prepare it and then that'll be your meal, your contribution to the, what meal we're going to have that week. And so we'll test it out.

Justin: We'll see how that goes. But 

Nate: oh, I got to know how this goes. Cause yeah, and, 

Justin: And then the other thing. When you were talking about squishy, squishy mallows, 

Nate: squish mallows, so squish 

Justin: mallows. So when we were on our trip what I said, it was the beginning of the trip. I said, okay, I'll give you guys 40 each and you can do whatever you want the 40 to spend on souvenirs for this entire trip.

Justin: So you don't have to ask me, can I buy this? Can I buy this? , whatever you buy, whatever you want. Just, you only have 40 total. So you figure out how you want to spend it. And so like, when we went. I guess the first, not the first place, but like one place we went to that stuck out of them that they both decided to get something.

Justin: It was a stuffy. They love stuffed animals. They're not squish mallows, but they're stuffed animals. So they each bought one and I think it was like 30. Yeah. 30 a piece around approximately. But then what happened was so that. The 10 year old's great. He's fine. He figures out what he wants to do with the rest of it.

Justin: The five year old, towards the end of the trip after we went to Yellowstone and we're on our way back, we stop off at a Target. And at this Target is this it's this toy. , , I was into Transformers when I was a kid and he loves Transformers. And so it's like this this , Optimus Prime type toy.

Justin: And he's Oh, I want that as my souvenir. I'm like, okay well, how much is it? And it's like, whatever, like 50 bucks. 

Nate: Yeah. 

Justin: And he's like, can I get it? I'm like, no. First of all, it was more than what I was going to give you, but you've already spent the 10 left. And so as part of me was I was trying to teach him a lesson there where, yeah you figure out.

Justin: Like how you're going to spend it over the time and you can decide what you want to do, but I'm not going to buy another thing to go on top of this because it's more than what you have. So anyways, those are yeah, you 

Nate: know, parenting is just one big long road of sacrifice. And I think that a lot of people, especially probably like our parents, they sacrificed in a way that is slightly different than the way we're talking about.

Nate: They sacrificed at work. Traditionally, let's say dad sacrificed at work and they had commitment. They had courage to work that hard. They worked, they had all these values, but the thing that I see from, at least if you have young children now, there's the sacrifice that is unspoken about, which is you just, you didn't even want to see your child not be able to get that thing.

Nate: You want to get it for them, but it's, by the way, the road trip back, it's not going to be as pleasant if you don't like, there's all these things you're sacrificing. A lot, and it has to do with kind of internal feelings, and just immediate happiness to not give them the thing that they want so that they can learn this lifelong lesson.

Nate: It, that's the real hard part of being to me, like the making the money part, like my kids are secure. Everything's great. But teaching them how to manage their way through life when it comes to money is a lot more difficult than just buying it for them. Yeah. So yeah, that's a great story.

. 

Justin: I want to transition to our rapid fire round here. , I'll rapid fire kind of a bunch of questions and you answer them. Question number one is what's one of your favorite books that you've read and enjoyed?

Nate: Okay. I'm going to leave out all the business books cause that's where I spend most of my time. Right. I think very relevant to this and where I get a lot of my ideas about parenting is parenting with love and logic. Give your child choices, let them live with the consequences. Hopefully before it's too late.

Nate: Another one really great for personal reading rather than to thinking about your kids is have you read your money or your life? No, I don't think I've done that. Your money or your life. So that's essentially the prioritize a life. Of purpose over accumulation of wealth. I gotta, 

Justin: yeah, that 

Nate: sounds 

Justin: like a great, sounds like a great book.

Justin: Number two is ,, when you're not working and other than your family, cause obviously I know you spend a lot of time with your family. What do you love to do in your spare time?

Nate: Yeah, I do love work. So I spend a lot of time there, but

Nate: okay. I'm going to give a family one. All right. A new one that I think is. I like wasting time with my kids. 

Nate (2): I am so 

Nate: What's the next thing? We gotta get something done. I've been going outside, now that's good weather in Oregon, and with no agenda. We're just kinda putzing around the yard and my, six year old's what do we do?

Nate: I'm like, I don't know, what do we do? 

Nate: Yeah. They're not used to being bored, you know, in today's day and age. And I like to do that. Other than that it's, it's fitness, 

Nate: I guess. .

Justin: .

Justin: Um, Question number three is what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given. 

Nate: When I finally started to care a lot about being successful and making money, I was still around my dad a lot. And one time he stopped me and he gave me these eyes because he realized he had put this into me and he concerned eyes and he said he's talked about contentment. He said, finding contentment is a beautiful thing in life.

Nate: And there's a quote that I recently heard someone say, they said, you've accomplished goals. You've already accomplished goals that you said would make you happy. And so, , I have to be reminded of that still to this day quite often. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Justin (2): And it's 

Justin: it's sometimes hard to fight against human nature because it's almost once you've accomplished it 

Justin (2): like it's okay.

Justin (2): What's next right? But yep That's correct. That's great one 

Justin: Question number four is if you could sit down and have dinner with anyone dead or alive who to be and why

Nate: okay I guess I'll leave business leaders and Jesus out of this but My I definitely would go to dinner with my wife, like dinner out is our favorite pastime. It's the best. Don't tell my financial advisor how much I spend on sushi. It's out of this world. That's, that's one thing we care about though.

Nate: So we prioritize it. That's awesome. Yeah. 

Justin: And especially with young kids, it must be, you gotta you gotta make sure you make time for that for dinner. 

Nate: Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't be my kids. 

Justin: And then finally, , what's the one conversation that you recommend parents have with their kids today about money?

Nate: Kids, so I don't know how it'll go, but conversations with kids about money is about. You take opportunities that life presents you and you illustrate money as a resource. It is just a resource. It is not a measure of success in life itself, but it is required and the skill to learn how to handle money is required.

Nate: So it is a resource to make an impact on a meaningful life. Awesome. 

Justin: And as we wrap up here where can my audience, stay in touch with what you're doing or if they're interested in working or, if they're a physician, they're interested in working with a physician family, where can they go to find you?

Nate: Yeah, you can go to our website. Our podcast is on our website. It's usually about 20 30 minutes and we just answer questions that we get all week long team of advisors gets a lot of questions So physician family calm we have a podcast You can ask questions to that podcast. So check us out physician family calm or anywhere You can listen to your podcast.

Justin: Okay, cool. That's awesome. , I appreciate you the time here. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation today, just, you know, connecting with you and, it sounds like in terms of, value, family values and placing such a huge importance on, making that time with your family, your kids, kids, your spouse and just creating that life and that.

Justin: Understanding your why and that purpose, creating that plan is so key and obviously sharing that with your nonfinancial spouse and talking through that as well. So, ,, thoroughly enjoy the conversation with you. Thanks so much. Appreciate this. Thanks, Justin.