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Happy Thursday! Here is your WealthKeel Weekly, or what we like to call “news you can use!”

What we read this week:

​8 Reasons Doctors Suck at Money
​Let’s first make it clear that this blog is written by Dr. Jim Dahle and not WealthKeel (But it’s a great and catchy title!)! While Dr. Dahle highlights some key points, it is important to remember that many individuals across the country struggle with money. There are a lot of things we are taught during our school years, but managing finances is not a class we are all mandated to take. Dr. Dahle’s first highlight is that doctors have no financial training. Even if you wanted to take a finance-related course, it would probably be quite difficult to fit it into your already very busy schedule. Two other points include the high-income doctors earn, which in turn also leads to physicians being targeted by the financial services industry. This pertains to individuals trying to sell products to doctors that they either do not need or the appropriate due diligence was not completed.

Doctors are busy. There is no other way to put this. We see this firsthand with our clients. When doctors do have downtime, the first item on the list is typically not finances. The next two points highlight an overdeveloped sense of mortality and the societal expectation to spend. Dr. Dahle mentions how doctors work with the sick and injured all day, which in turn could lead you to believe that “anyone can keel over at any time from one of thousands of strange diseases. This skewed view of reality causes us to YOLO, Carpe Diem, and basically try to enjoy what we have today because we doubt we’ll make it to our golden years. That results in overspending and undersaving, a recipe for financial disaster.” Finally, his last few points relate to the rapid growth in income and how doctors are used to living on debt. If you feel that you can relate to different parts of the blog, just know that you are not alone. Heck, even we financial advisors have different pain points when it comes to money.

​Young People Are Doing Better (Financially) Than You Think
​There are countless times when perception truly is reality. You may feel that younger individuals in the country are not doing well financially because of the constant chatter on this front. However, when you peel back the layers and look at the numbers, you might be shocked to learn that younger people are actually doing better than previous generations at this stage in life. This is exactly what Ben Carlson did when he looked at data and was surprised to see where Gen X stands when it comes to finances. Did you know that one in four adult Gen Zers already have a home? Shocking, right? In the same chart, you will see the jump in homeownership for Millennials. Not too bad! “In fact, millennials, Gen Z and Gen X are basically on track with baby boomers when they were are the same age in terms of homeownership rates.”

Homeownership is not the only category in which young people are doing well. "Jeremy Horpedahl compared young people today to Gen X and baby boomers at the same age regarding how much wealth they hold. Young people today are even wealthier than previous generations at the same age!” We recognize that although we highlight the success of Gen Z here, this does not apply to all Gen Zers. Do not be discouraged if you fall into this camp. There is still plenty of time for growth, one in which you can use compounding interest to your advantage.

​Beware Value Capture
​The last blog for this week is a Substack post from Trung Phan. While this does not directly relate to finance, we thought this was a fascinating read and wanted to share it with you. The inspiration for Trung’s post comes from C. Thi Nguyen, a philosophy professor from the University of Utah. He had a recent paper titled “Value Capture,” which “looks at how certain metrics — which are often “simplified, standardized, and quantified” — can overly influence our behavior in ways we might not actually want.” He goes on to highlight different ways in which companies or institutions utilize metrics to drive behavior. “But do we actually want the reward that a metric is motivating us to strive for? If not, then it could be seen as a form of value capture, as Nguyen writes, and could potentially be harmful “by making the formulation of our values responsive, not to our own interests, psychology, and experience, but to the interests of large-scale institutions.” Instead of doing a disservice by trying to capture all of Trung’s points in a short write-up, we recommend taking a few minutes and reading the full Substack post.

A random note or thought for the week:
Coming soon….my first-ever podcast! I was approached by a very well-recognized name in the personal finance for physician space a few weeks ago and was asked if I wanted to co-host and build a podcast together. I will share more details soon, but this week, we found our podcast/YouTube producer and started working on branding and a website. I am not going to share the name (but I did buy the URL this week 😉) or the co-host’s name, as I need to keep you on the edge of your seat. We aim to have the first episode go live sometime in March/April and then aim for twice-per-month episodes. We will also video record every episode so that we will be able to create both a podcast and a YouTube Channel from it. Episodes will be around 30 minutes. Stay tuned 😄

Speaking of YouTube, we continue to have fantastic growth and are now well over 700 subscribers. I have started to add live case studies as well, which seem to be a huge hit and something I am really enjoying. Here are a few of our recent videos:

**Am I Saving Enough for Retirement (with only a Solo-K)? Live Case Study!** — Fun question from a reader, “What if I only max out the Solo-K each year, is that enough?”

​Roth Conversions and Why They Are Vital. Live Case Study!​

​3 Tax Tips After Year-End​

​7’ish Financial Mistakes To Avoid In Your Accumulator Years​

🎥 Do you have a question or topic you want us to dive deep into on YouTube? Submit a question(s) here (Anonymously!)

​New “All-In-One” Card for WealthKeel; Socials Links, Icebreaker Calls, WealthKeel Weekly, and More!

Have a great day,
Your WealthKeel Team

​Disclosures​
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