Financial Insights for Every Season of Business & Life | Tim Ulbrich, Your Financial Pharmacist

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim, for those that may not have come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're going to talk about today.

Tim Ulbrich: My name is Tim Ulbrich, co founder and CEO of Your Financial Pharmacist. I appreciate the opportunity to be back here, Mike, on the show. 

I think what What is unique to our conversation today that you and I were chatting a little bit about is just the seasons of life and kind of the changing going from that new practitioner to mid career my boys are buttoned up against that, teenager phase my wife, Jess and I are trying to soak up all of this time that we have with them while we're also scaling a business, which is a demanding time on energy as well as the time that we have.

So look, looking forward to that conversation.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim, we met three, four, five years ago I was in kind of the [00:14:00] stage where you are with the kids now and how quickly it passes, but it does force us all to look, doesn't it?

Yeah,

Tim Ulbrich: really does, Mike. And, I was thinking a lot about this recently. I've been writing and blogging a lot about this. Part is my own therapy, but I do enjoy sharing others.

 everyone's journey is Different, and obviously I'm coming at this conversation, this perspective as someone who owns a small business that. Has four growing boys one of my top priorities in living a rich life is to enjoy as much time and experiences as I can with them.

But I'm not here to judge, nor should I, if someone else chooses or doesn't choose that pathway. And I think this is why it's so important. We talk about all the time with the financial plan before we start moving around the X's and O's and the chess pieces. We have to know where are we going and why are we going there?

And, a good planner will really take the time to do that because otherwise they might be projecting their own biases on you that aren't necessarily what your priorities are. And so, I see this [00:15:00] a lot in certain areas that we do where, especially in a small profession like pharmacy where we tend to have circles of other pharmacists around us.

The question I like to always pose to people is, are you living your life or are you living someone else's version of what they think your life should be? And that can be a colleague, that could be through comparison, that could be, a family member that's projected it on you. And I'm not suggesting we answer that question, today.

I'm convinced that's probably a much longer, lifelong journey, but the clearer we can get on, what ladder am I trying to climb and why am I trying to climb it? Okay, now if we feel like we're on that path, we can start to plan and move things around it. But, we talk about things in blanket statements as if everyone values them, ?

Travels, one I hear all the time, for our family in this season, I'd like to do a couple things here or there, but we love being at home. 

 I'm 10 years younger now than when people say, when we get to this age, we're going to travel. It's I can't even do it now.

Tim Ulbrich: travel, owning a second property for some people. Absolutely. For other [00:16:00] people, that'd be a nightmare. So these are the things where it's like, what do you really want? Why do you want it? And I think the more clarity we have around that, then we can start to try to put the puzzle pieces together knowing that of course it's going to, shift, change and evolve over time.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah, I've heard it put one time that they said, be careful when you go to retire that you've not painted stuff with too big of a brush it's easy to say, I'm going to retire and we're going to move to the weather where it's this and that.

But what are you going to do from six to seven in the morning? what are you gonna do from seven To nine nine to 11.And I've heard it said look to people who are already retired, maybe, and say, I like doing that during the day. And I don't like that. what am I going to do from, two to four in the afternoon?

Those I think are the questions that come down to the nitty gritty because. It's kind of cliche, but as pharmacists, we're kind of doers and all that kind of stuff. And it can be quite a shock to people [00:17:00] retiring. Look at the day more.

Tim Ulbrich: I love the granularity of that, because the more you do what you're describing, I'm envisioning like this daily agenda type of format the more you get into that, the more you can actually visualize that becoming real and what you do or don't like about it 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you can see if your wife wants to divorce you now or wait until actually you're retired.

Tim Ulbrich: that's .

right. But getting out of those broad. Paint strokes, as you mentioned, we tend to have these grandiose visions, like I'm going to retire and go to Florida or go to Arizona, and you hear these stories all the time, where for some people that works beautifully, for other people, they get out there, they move everything, and they realize, wow, we had this whole sense of community back home that we just overestimated how hard that would be able to recreate, and we know how important community is, , in terms of, what that means as a part of, 

Not just retirement.

I mean, at any phase of our life. So yeah, I think, talking with people that are in retirement, getting as specific as possible. And what does that day look like? So okay, you're [00:18:00] in Scottsdale, Arizona, you're 67 years old, and it's 9am on a Tuesday morning. What are we doing?

Mike Koelzer, Host: . And that's a time too to be Dreaming about that with your significant other now because You know if you say I'm gonna paint for two hours in the afternoon or something while half better pick up an afternoon hobby, if they don't enjoy napping or something 

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: You've got to kind of match that up

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And I think this is why, you hear people a lot talk about the importance of hobbies, even in the phase of life that I'm in now. And I'm starting to really appreciate that. I often describe the first 10 years I almost feel like we went into this cave, we had four boys and it was like, what just happened in 10 years?

You're in survival mode. I would say we were really trying to survive and, maybe seasons where we focused on thriving, but it was really about. Hey, there's just, this is a lot of life change in a short period of time. Obviously that typically aligns with when career is kind of moving in our case business.

I really feel like in the last. Two to [00:19:00] three years, so my youngest is four. My oldest is 12. I always say four is kind of like from my experience at least four is the place where you can start to see things like really shift in terms of like Independence and we can go out and do things or we can, travel more fun than effort in some of those seasons and so, I think with those types of things in mind like I'm really just seeing in the last few years as we kind of emerge from this, it's wow, like there's a whole season we're in now, but that season isn't going to be that long, especially with our oldest, being the age of which they're at.

And so I think just really, giving yourself some grace if you're in that season and, understanding that, there are those times of the year and multiple years where it's, Hey, we're just in survival mode. And then obviously that will change over time too.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Yeah. I've heard from more than few couples I know someone in particular, they said that as the dad drove the daughter to college, their first day of school, he shared with her that [00:20:00] he and his wife were going to get a divorce, they've always had someone at least to look at in the house. Now they have to sit there and look at each other.

And so those are times it doesn't, hurt to be talking with your spouse when your, children are 12 because in another, 12 or 13 short years. The last one is on its way. And so, be talking about that stuff as you go. that's where the whole financial piece comes around that too.

Because if both of your goals is to just do X, whatever that is during the day, that's different than doing, five X. And so those are the things to be thinking about. What do you want to sacrifice now for that?

Tim Ulbrich: that's exactly right. And. I think that goes back to what you're saying about the granularity of what the days look like. Jess and I will often talk about, hey, there's some things that we love doing together. Like we love going on walks at the metro parks. We love going out for coffee. We both like to shop.

We, like to talk about business ideas. So I can very much see things that we will be doing together. [00:21:00] But we also like things that are Independent of one another and, I've seen this with my in laws where that independence and separation is a good thing as well and you have autonomy.

Maybe you're serving together, maybe you're serving separately, maybe one person is, working part time, maybe one isn't, you know, and I think really finding ways to your point, which I think is really wise, like discussing those even in this season where, it's easy if you're not careful that we go out for dinner for an hour and we talk about the kids for an hour.

if you remove that what are we talking about? Or maybe it's kids in business, but there will be a future state where both of those are probably no longer as high of a priority of what we're 

doing every day. And so what are those conversations? What are those hobbies?

And to be frank, like what scares me is even as I feel like I've been intentional. So in those hobbies, whether it's our social communities with our church group, I'm in a co ed volleyball league I've done a lot of coaching with my boys. Even as I look at those things, which I know in this season feel like there's such little time to do those.

If I [00:22:00] zoom out, like the amount of time those are actually occupying as a part of a week, it's not very much.

So there's a lot of space that's going to have to get filled. So for me individually, and again, everyone's journey is different, like I know it can't be for me going from working 40 to 50 hours a week, owning a business to doing nothing.

It just can't.

Mike Koelzer, Host: maybe a lot of pharmacists are in this, especially , if it's been in their family, they've been talking business maybe around Dinner or lunch table for 20 30 years and I don't think you can really predict What life is like without that on your mind?

 It's kind of impossible to look at a week of being off of work or two weeks and thinking that is gonna be close at All to your retirement. It's just a whole different bag and it's a whole different bag of what brings you your identity And I think even there, someone says, well, don't make your identity your job fine.

Mike Koelzer, Host: But there's still the identity though of being the caregiver and the person that's [00:23:00] able to maintain a job and that kind of stuff. What happens when that stuff goes away? 

Tim Ulbrich: So if I'm allowed to ask you a question on your own show as someone

who's in that next season, so you're youngest is kind of buttoned up against where

Old this is and you kind of see where I'm at in this phase of career and knowing you've got listeners at all different stages.

Like what advice do you have from your experiences of you've been running this business? I'm sure it's been a huge portion of your identity in the community and providing for the family and the time that you're spending all the while knowing you've lived it. This time is finite with your kids and several of them out of the house.

Now, as you look back. Are there not necessarily things you would do differently, but are there words of advice that you'd have for me that's in the thick of the season that you've gone through?

Mike Koelzer, Host: Whenever I think of myself as like a 20 year old or something, I always think I was a lot more wise back then than I'm in now. I guess that's kind of [00:24:00] impossible because you've been through it, think one false hope is I'm always looking and thinking that life is going to keep getting bigger and more Heroic and poetic and things like that as we build the family together.

And I think the thing that I see, because my generation above me now is already six feet under, they're already gone down that slope. And it's kind of a tragedy in a way that at some point you make that turn and you start.

Coming down on that one. Let's say you're 75 and your spouse dies and you know half your siblings have died and the pharmacy world no longer knows who you were and you got an award from the state association, 22 years ago, things like that. maybe it becomes more internal. Maybe it becomes more of a personal gratification with where [00:25:00] you've gone and so on. You don't necessarily get it from the world. I look at poor old Jimmy Carter sitting there as a 99 year old, at his wife's funeral. And it's like, y'all kind of make that turn down.

And so I think that's part of the acceptance to Tim of you always want to build, where I kind of just came from and where you are, you always want to build. And I guess that is who we are, but that even kind of goes away.

Just human nature, it kind of goes away. What's the lesson in that? I don't really know what the lesson is. Maybe that we're all, On our own journey and be sure you're doing stuff for yourself and your small little family and not for anybody else, because it all passes away, but I think in a good way, because then it forces you to say, what do I want?

Who am I as this human here on earth? That's in my body. And maybe it puts the stuff in perspective about who you [00:26:00] are and you end up not doing stuff for other people. 

Tim Ulbrich: That's really good. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts that are coming up as you're sharing. I think a couple that are standing out for me is, I know for me, there are things that can start as a true, authentic, internal motivation that can quickly translate to externally driven, over time.

And so it's not even a yay or nay. It's what's the source of, the motivation that's there. So that really resonated with me. I was also thinking about isn't this interesting that, as you're talking about the generation above you, six feet under. It's interesting that generation after generation after generation, like these aren't new conversations

Mike Koelzer, Host: no,

Tim Ulbrich: And it, it almost feels certainly there's wisdom and, intergenerational conversations and all that between one another. But also there's kind of like a, you just go through it. You gotta go through your own journey and maybe you get a couple of shortcuts here or there, but you have to go through your own journey As you're talking about, that kind of build build, like I see that in myself and there's value like innately I [00:27:00] am a builder. I am a creator. That's what I like to do, and I think I'm good at it. But, the truth is there will be a point that it's no longer going up and it's coming down and Yes that's true.

And so I think that really, kind of stood out to me as you're sharing, that as well. And then also just your comment about, kind of the state awards. And, I had this vision of a plaque, an old dusty plaque at a state association building that may or may not even exist in 20, 25 years.

And also, even when you just think about the history of our profession. is not that old and who knows what our profession will look like in 20 years, let alone 50 years or longer. And we know with a hundred percent certainty that no one's going to remember who you or I are in the profession of pharmacy shorter than we probably would like to, even imagine.

And so, I think just the check of the identity there, I think is really, valuable, but yeah, thanks for sharing. That was awesome. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I read in a book one time and there's a few outliers Trump and Biden and Colonel Sanders and things like that But you look at the [00:28:00] graph how it goes up and at 35 people want to do this at 45 is when you might want to Be CEO 52 as you and it's all the same curve So it's not like there's anything wrong with it and you have to have I think that maybe a little bit of more Ego at this certain stage in your life and doing certain things.

You have to do that. 

But As I go through things I'll see like an old guy, you know and I'll say Oh, that's sad.

He used to be , so upright and dominant, you know, and now he's a little bit hunched over. Well, the thing is I think I'm mourning that in myself sometimes, as you start getting older and just see your family and all that kind of stuff. I think you kind of mourn that, but I do it through feeling bad for other people,

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, it's a mirror, ?

Mike Koelzer, Host: It's a mirror to you, I suppose.

Tim Ulbrich: yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom in that and again, what I'm kind of struck by in the moment is I think there's certainly value for advice and wisdom and passing it down. But even [00:29:00] as you're sharing it's like, okay, I hear that knowledge here, but I also recognize like some of these things.

I just got to go through them, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: think

you have to go through them, and of course being on your deathbed at some point, well, of course it comes when you hear the bad news of a family member dying, someone just told me last week they had their mother was like 94 and she commented like, you know, it's coming, but when it gets there, You kind of struck still, you can't really believe it.

And how much more powerful is that going to be for us on our deathbed? But you can't, it's not something you can really prepare your mind for. It's almost like a supernatural experience because you have no idea what you're going to feel like at that point. 

Tim Ulbrich: I think what's interesting, is we're having this conversation, and I'm thinking back to the work that we do obviously every day financially, is we actually see, I won't say a majority by any means, but we actually see a decent amount of [00:30:00] pharmacists that are, objectively speaking, over saving 

for the future. Oversaving, a lot of younger practitioners and part of that might be attributed to, there's been a big movement around financial independence to retire early and, I do think the financial literacy education has gotten stronger over a while, but it also makes sense when you think about higher income earners earlier in their career 

and people that are saving huge percentages of their income in 5, 7, 10 years.

Well, if you wake up after 10 years of your career and you've got, a million dollars saved, like the math says, you're going to be doing really well in 30, 40 years, just because you've saved so early time, value, money, all those

things. So what's interesting though, is when you, I just did this on a.

webinar a couple of weeks ago where I walked someone through an estate calculation and they were brave enough to volunteer and, share their own numbers and kind of walk through. And that was a revelation. This person works for the VA. They've got a pension. We were kind of toggling social security, no social security, all those things.

And no matter which way you cut it, [00:31:00] what we always get down to is, okay, what's the estimated need? Based on your assumptions, which we had to figure out. And then that's typically the big scary number, three, four or 5 million, whatever. But what does that actually mean per month based on what you already have saved, what you're currently saving?

And obviously there's assumptions there. Are you ahead? Are you behind? What's the Delta? What do you need to do? And his number clearly showed that, he's got more, if he didn't save anything else at this point, he would meet his nest egg goal into the future. And mid thirties. Kind of, and I'm seeing this more often and I think it's really interesting to this conversation because I think it's one thing to look at the numbers.

It's another thing to actually make the emotional shift. And, you see this in retirement as well, where if someone's been such a diligent saver for 30, 40 years,

no no wonder, I see this, with some family now where it's like the math says they're more than fine. But they're struggling with an operating under an emotional stress, as if [00:32:00] the math doesn't exist 

Mike Koelzer, Host: They can't change those gears.

Tim Ulbrich: can't change those gears.

And I can look at that and say, create systems and buckets and numbers. So you can do, but if you just step back and try to look at it from their viewpoint, no wonder you've been operating in a certain way for 30, 40 years, we've quote arrived. But now we can't arrive because we can't let go.

It's so

interesting. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: And Tim, I was thinking they've got the RMD, you know, the Required Minimum Distribution, and they should almost have the government should say, for people especially who have done their homework and put in the sacrifice, they should say have to take out this percent, and you have to spend at least 8 percent on your coffees in the morning, and you have to spend, so much percent on buying a 6 Hallmark card when in the past you'd only buy, four for a dollar, forcing you to live a bit. Cause you're right.. People do that their whole life and they can't [00:33:00] switch that.

Tim Ulbrich: I mean, I see it myself where, I teach and preach this every day, but my mom in particular, very frugal still is they financially don't need to earn another dollar. But, she's the first to cut a coupon, she's the first to look for a deal, she's the first that when we get there for, the weekend and we're ordering pizza, she's got the coupon ready.

Make sure you tell them the 2 off the pizza. I'm like, okay, mom, got it. And it's just interesting because it has nothing to do with the math. It is all about the emotional side. 

And I think the point I'm trying to make, and I'm in part preaching to myself, is that we have to, throughout our careers, and this will look different, we really have to, Kind of grease that wheel and put the training wheels on spending throughout our career.

Now, when we first got started, Jess and I, we had a very aggressive debt repayment. It was kind of all in. And so, again, different seasons of this will look different, but we're at a season now where, obviously life's expensive with the boys. And, I just look at the food line, the activities line with sports, and it's oh my gosh, like these didn't [00:34:00] exist, ?

Six years ago, but we also need to have a line that is we kind of call it like a family fun experience you know that hey, we're gonna go out for Random dinner on a Friday night, which we don't go out to eat a whole lot, we're going to go, shopping one day, but it's we put a box around it because I know for me emotionally, that's important, but I've always shared that I don't mind spending money as long as I know that we have planned for it.

And I think that's the technique I really encourage people to do if they struggle with spending I'm not saying this is a free for all. I'm Put a box around it, call it as such, and you'll see the emotional shift that happens with spending. If you earmarked 500 a month in your budget, because we showed that the plan can support that, and that's a priority budget that, put it in a bucket, call it that, and spend that money.

That feels completely different than not knowing where that money's going or kind of wondering, anxious about it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I never grew up with a budget and I [00:35:00] don't have a budget I mean in the back of my head I do.

can be dangerous though that can be dangerous to live the way that I do because You haven't made that decision up front to make sure you spend money on Enjoyment when you don't have a budget and you're just doing it in your head it's hard because everything else is kind of negative on the budget, 95 

percent is kind of negative but you really should budget in there.

 This is going to be for those coffees that my kids go to after they just got their nails done and I know they're going to be going out again for something else, those are the things you should have in a budget to say, I want that to happen. And in fact. Because I want it to happen, I don't have to look at it. I don't have to think about it. that's where I fail. I don't earmark it. We have fun, but should force yourself to do that or else you're too structured.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, this is why I'm [00:36:00] a huge advocate. It doesn't have to be overly structured. I do think there's a place where, especially if people are getting started, you tend to start more structured, you gain some clarity, consistency, you let the reins come off over time. I'm not suggesting a hyper structured approach for everyone, but this is where I advocate so much for buckets.

We call them savings buckets. We use online banking where you can create it's, it's all in the same savings account, but you can create all these little buckets. Hey, we're going to Montana this summer. We're going to go to Norway next year. Let's see, where's the Norway bucket. Where's the Montana bucket.

We're trying to finish the basement. And what that's all about is the clarity and the feeling. If you've got 50, 000 just sitting in a savings account versus you have 50, 000 earmarked to say, Hey, 20, 000 is my emergency fund, 5, 000 is for this vacation, 5, 000 it feels completely different, even though the number is unchanged.

 I remember a conversation Jess and I had a little over a year ago where, we were feeling just kind of the pinch of month to month and one income and the boys and all that stuff. [00:37:00] We really spent time shifting our mindset to say, well, wait a minute. Like we've made some intentional choices.

 We homeschool our boys. They go for. piano guitar lessons every Wednesday at our local music store. It's not cheap. It's an investment we're making. It's something they enjoy, we enjoy. We've invested heavily in, activities and sports that they're doing. So there's certain things we looked at to say, well, yeah, does it feel tight?

It does. But why does it feel tight? Well, it feels tight because we have intentionally made these decisions of things that we've determined are important. And we can choose to not do those, but there's a cost of doing that. As well. And so it was a reframe, it was a mindset shift of, okay, yeah, sure.

There's not a lot of extra cash sitting around, but the reason there's not a lot of extra cash sitting around is because we've made decisions to, save and invest for the future or vacations or these lessons or whatever are the different activities that are happening. And, I think that's where we overlook so often how emotional.

This topic can [00:38:00] be, and yeah, sure. There's a lot of math that's involved, but it is very emotional. No question about

Mike Koelzer, Host: I tell you one place that Margaret and I budget, and I think it's Tim because of the emotions involved, is with our children's weddings, and we've only had one so far. And with our daughter, and my parents did this to us too, it's like we gave her X thousand dollars and we said, this is for your wedding.

Do with it what you want.

Tim Ulbrich: My parents are the same.

Mike Koelzer, Host: If you don't do that, then all those childhood emotions of daddy doesn't love me. And this whatever they are, I don't know them, but let's say all these emotions, you're not dealing with that emotion when you're in the bridal shop and you're looking at a dress for.

Or three X. And it's this is my day and I'm a princess and you [00:39:00] don't love me for this or that's where we have budget. And I think that's where a lot of that comes in Tim too, it's a discussion builder, how important is the piano and the swimming and that versus something else?

 it's a forced discussion basically. 

Tim Ulbrich: So two questions I have for you there. One is should I start saving for my kids? Like how early should I start that? And then two is does your youngest get an inflation adjuster to what you say, save for your oldest?

Mike Koelzer, Host: You know this,  Tim, but we have 10 children.

Mike Koelzer, Host: A couple things we did one was we, started putting. Like a hundred dollars a month for each of the kids for college. And It doesn't create a miracle, but one thing it did, we have a good junior college in our town, a community college.

So with whatever they do, babysitting or whatever, almost all of them have been able to get themselves through the first two years [00:40:00] living at home and having jobs. And then remarkably the third year seems to have been taken care of by this hundred dollars a month from the time they were zero.

So for, my children now who are in their third year of college, that. Fund is like 30 grand for each of them it's 18 years and we've put 20, 000 into it or something like that. But then it gets them through their third year, then their fourth year of college, they're on their own.

But if you're at a state college, it's 25, 30, 000. So the most any of my kids have walking out with degree wise has been, 25, 30 now. None of them are pharmacists. So that brings the average down from 150 or 200, 000. So none of them have taken that road but there's ways to do that.

So that's talking about savings. I think that was your question, Tim. That's the one thing we did for them. Was [00:41:00] there another one that you were asking too?

Tim Ulbrich: I was asking if you're going to give an inflation adjuster to your

youngest, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Oh, well, they get it somehow. And I don't know, it might've been that. We didn't start this till the older kids were like two or three. And so they automatically get an adjusted one. But as far as the weddings go,

Tim Ulbrich: that's what I mean for the wedding. So if you're oldest gets, I'm just joking, but if you're oldest gets 10, 10, 000, like if I'm your youngest, I'm like, well, wait a minute. I need 13, five because of inflation.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And Tim that's what it is. In fact, it's 10, 000. And I don't know how far that goes now, but when we were kids, my dad. Girl or boy, because I came from a family of 12 kids, girl or boy we were all given five grand for Margaret and me, it paid for the whole wedding. And for some of my siblings, it paid for the bar bill at the country club 

Tim Ulbrich: I like what you shared too about the conversation starter. That's been our experience and I know, topic can not always be the best one, relationships and money. 

But I think that what I always encourage [00:42:00] is. Start with the long term vision or dream, especially if you find like you're on a different page.

What does financial success look like for us in 5, 10, 15 years? And it's intentional that it's lofty, it's, we can we get on the same page about what success looks like? And then we get a little bit closer, a little bit closer. Okay. What are three things that we want to do over the next year?

That if we're able to do these, it kind of puts us on the path towards what we just said is the 5, 10, 15 year. Okay, then we get into the budget. Now, not to say it's easy, but now, like this is the mechanism that we're going to achieve what we just said was most important to both of us, and we're taking the pressure off of I'm tracking you spend and why are you spending too much?

If we're doing this proactively in advance, we've agreed upon. What the boxes are that we're playing in, and that involves compromise, hopefully in the process. And then again, hopefully when we get to that step, the budget, we proactively have thought about it. That now is simply the mechanism by which we're [00:43:00] achieving what we said we were going to achieve.

And that's why I'm such a huge fan for automation, because if we're doing this in advance and we define the things that are most important and we put them in the budget and then we automate them. Wow. Talking about mindset shift now. You get paid, money starts moving, because we've already done the hard work.

And when that happens, you feel like you're playing offense versus defense. This is stressful. It's overwhelming. What about this? We've already thought about it, doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but that, helps us get really some momentum going forward.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And it's probably better to always have those conversations when you can and your

frontal cortex is working because typically those kind of conversations Come up where, it's kind of a kick the dog thing. You just found about some unrelated financial strain

 so you yell at your kid for leaving the light on in the bathroom with LEDs. It's going to cost a half a cent a month or something like that, but you kick that [00:44:00] around because you're probably not doing some of it at the proper time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep. Absolutely. No, I think that, and that's what you see, so much of the stress, stressors that come from the financial plan are exactly that. I think it could be prevented, could be an advance. And I think the budget, the goals talking about the future, really help.

And then you get into the discussion decision of, is this all merge? Is this some separate, some merge? But you know, for us. Transparency is everything and transparency isn't a big deal because we've already talked about what we want to accomplish, where are we at today, what's the gap, what do we need to get there.

I have nothing to hide from Jess, nor does she have anything to hide from me.

Mike Koelzer, Host: One interesting one I've come across, Tim, when you have an entrepreneur or at least a business owner there's always dreams of getting bigger and earning more, but I know somebody who they've had their own business [00:45:00] for years and it's just not successful.

They've just had problems it might just be a bad plan. Maybe it would never be successful because there's too many hours spent and not enough employees and that kind of stuff. I know I, with my pride, I would always want to get out of the pharmacy before it even came close to that.

 If I was way below the standard wage in the community, and now I might do it to buy myself a job, but if it was way below, I'd say, well, Screw this. I'm going to go be a what do you call it? Not a trash man. What's the word for that now? A 

Tim Ulbrich: Waste 

management. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Waste management.

or something engineer or something like that. But I would do that. I'm like, screw it. I don't owe this profession anything. And I'm not going to stick around and be it's, whipping horse and that kind of stuff. So I would do that myself, but I think there's some guys and gals who have started the business and they could do a lot better as a, you know, UPS driver 

or, 

pizza delivery or something like that. And [00:46:00] those are the ones that sometimes can bring down a family and maybe they needed to wrap things up but I've seen some rough families because of that. And I wish, like I say, I wish they would just go and get a better plan.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And I think again, without judgment, I think there's a huge sunk cost component there. I mean, there's definitely the, there's definitely a pride aspect, for sure. And it even as you're sharing that, feelings were coming up for me of Hey, if we're ever in that point 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, Tim, 

your wife called me earlier. No, I'm

Tim Ulbrich: speaking directly to you to have the humility to say, Hey, this is.

Bigger than my ego. This is about, the family and other things. And, but I think the sunk cost of, Hey, I put so much time, certainly you look at the percentage of businesses that, failed just statistically. The data says there's a lot of businesses out there that especially, you know, a topic that we often talk about is.

Are you, as the business owner, paying yourself a reasonable wage? If not, are you over inflating the profitability of your business? And I'm not talking about from a tax standpoint. I'm talking about, if you try to put on the [00:47:00] hat of somebody looking at your business that would buy it, I can guarantee 99 out of 100 times the business owner thinks it's more favorable than would a person buying, right??

Because, if I don't want to own and operate that thing, I'm going to look at it to say, hey, can I hire someone to own it? And that's usually where so many businesses start to kind of fall out financially, from that. I honestly even see this in pharmacy, Mike, to be general, the sunk cost fallacy, you see a lot of pharmacists.

I don't want to say a lot that might be extreme, but I can speak to the people that I've talked with that are miserable, in the work that they do, but Hey, I've got a doctorate degree. I spent this much time. I have this much student loan debt all the while, we look at pharmacist incomes, what happened relatively flat.

You look at what's happened in other career sectors. Sure you might make a, lateral or downward salary move but perhaps objectively more upward trajectory, long term. But there's, that I think there's a sunk cost and there's the pride that's involved. And, certainly if you love the [00:48:00] work, that's one thing.

But if you don't what's holding you back from, pursuing alternative pathways?

Mike Koelzer, Host: Well, and the sunk cost is so objective. You can put a price to it, you can do a lot of things with it, where 

you can't always put a

Meter on your depression or your relationships. What is it doing for that? Well, sometimes don't know until your spouse walks out on you or something like that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim, what mistakes can you imagine that people do in retirement And not necessarily with their finances. Because that's all water over the dam, pretty much. I mean, you can do some shifting, but let's say you're not even talking any more saving for someone who's 65. What kind of mistakes do people.

 they could be financial. They could be like, I talked about some divorces happening or giving up on life physically and stuff. What do you see are some things that [00:49:00] maybe you hope to look out for at that age?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. two thoughts came to mind. One actual financial and one non. To your point, we talk so much about accumulation, we talk about how much you have to have saved, how much is enough. And, what we don't talk enough about is decumulation.

What we call building your retirement paycheck. So you might have a pile of money that's, in real estate that you're going to sell. You've got a pile of money in the business that you're going to sell. You've got a pile in an IRA. You've got a pile in a 401k.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I'm going to put a couple of kids up for adoption.

Tim Ulbrich: exactly. So we have these buckets which are all different. When you look at them from a tax standpoint some of them have things like required minimum distribution. Some of them don't. So the order in which you draw from these is social security in the mix. all of these things come together at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is replace what was a paycheck from our job with a retirement paycheck, or if you're working part time, maybe it's a half paycheck, 

So we don't give anywhere near as much of attention. And I think you [00:50:00] see a lot of mistakes that are being made there. People that aren't thinking about, especially from the tax strategy of in what order and how and why am I doing this and are there conversions of assets that I can do to optimize that and, I really think there's, we talk about like the eye of the storm five years before, five years after where a lot of mistakes can be made or other side, a lot of opportunities to optimize if we're being really intentional.

So that was the financial thing that came up. The non financial, which we've been, talking about throughout the episode is, I would like to think for myself and it's a reminder for me and those that are entering in the season, will I be just as intentional about how I'm living my life and planning for my year and planning for my week in retirement as I am now?

with the boys, with the business, et cetera. So, I think about strategic plans we create for the business and what are the goals for the family and what are we working on? How are we making sure we're intentional? And I really want that to be the same season. And I think the people that you see thrive in [00:51:00] retirement.

It's because they've done the work of what you're talking about. what does a weekly schedule look like? What does my community look like? Where are the areas that I'm serving and hobbies? And sure, there's a financial aspect there. But it's really about getting to that level of granularity and detail.

And I think again, just culturally, we talk about retirement as a finish line, 

 I had a guest on our podcast recently say, it's really more like halftime. And if we view it like that, What are we doing to plan for the second half and what adjustments do we now need to make?

And hopefully we would put ourselves in a position that just in the second half, we have a little bit more options of what we're going to do with our time, but the same intentionality should be there.

Mike Koelzer, Host: You might be depressed in your job or something like that, but you get a hell of a lot of stuff done. You take care of your family, you take care of your house and that kind of thing.

So there's something to be said about that schedule and not just, letting that all go to pot.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And I even think, you say something like you know, work a lot, you bring home a paycheck, you pay a mortgage. Like some of those things we look at as like nuances ah, I got to work so much. I got to pay a mortgage, but I think we underestimate [00:52:00] the feelings of contribution that come from.

things, not to say, if I didn't have to make a mortgage payment, I'll take that every day. But, that feeling of, Hey, you're working, you're earning income. And because of that you're providing in part or two people are providing, space for your family to live and all of that.

There's value and contribution in that. And so I think there's some of the things that societally we look at is Wow. These are like stressors and I can't wait to that future state when I don't have to worry about money and these other things. And sure. That's going to be great, but also, are we being intentional with how we're both spending our time and spending our money?

Mike Koelzer, Host: life, Tim, because we could be spending all this time talking and we get hit by a car tomorrow or something like that. So you just don't know, but that doesn't prevent you from planning, though. You have to keep thinking. And it's good for us humans.

we like to keep moving forward. That's our human nature. Whether it's reality or not, we like to keep moving forward.

Tim Ulbrich: Yep. Absolutely. And I think that generative drive, that idea, especially if you're, someone that really likes to create things, build things [00:53:00] like, here we're talking about obviously business owner to business owner. What does that look like, in the next phase? 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim 

Let's talk a little bit about your business. your structure set up at your company. I know that you have a very active podcast, a very active mailing list and so on. And I know you have a full service of financial planning and so on. But I'm noticing this middle part, the YFP plus, it's a little bit more getting your feet wet.

What is that?

Tim Ulbrich: YFP plus is to be a community. Where people can come and participate to up their financial knowledge and IQ, interact with financial planning tax professionals from our team, CPAs, and really be in community with other pharmacists all across the country at different stages of their career that are also trying to be intentional with their financial plan.

 Even if someone's working with a planner, whether that's us or another planner or they're a DIYer, [00:54:00] I really think of this as the glue to have that community accountability that this isn't just a three times a year thing that we think about.

but it's something that we're engaging about all throughout the year. So yeah, it's been really exciting.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Tim I was just telling my friends last night. I said, I would hate to be a public figure that couldn't.

Be honest. Like in my little show here, I can just be honest. I'm an old fart. No one's going to hurt me anymore. I can just say whatever the hell I want to say. There's a lot of people though that are in things like coaching where they've got to talk about positive attitude or something like that.

And it would suck because they might be just feeling like crap, like they don't know what's going on in their life and they've got to preach all this stuff. But it's really cool coming from you, Tim, because you've walked the walk and you're walking the walk now. And so it's more substance than just.

Me spouting off over here, but it's true. It's where you are. It's [00:55:00] where you're going. You've spent time looking at that model. So way to go keep it up and it's been a joy following you And I know you've got a lot of other things you could be doing right now So I appreciate you spending time with me and our listeners

Tim Ulbrich: Thanks so much, Mike. And really appreciate the opportunity to come back on the show. I genuinely get enthused from these conversations. So thank you so much.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Likewise tim. All right.. We'll talk to you soon

Tim Ulbrich: All right.. Take care. 

You've been listening to the Business of Pharmacy podcast with me, your host, Mike Kelser. Please subscribe for all future episodes.