Meeting with MD Financial (first time)

[unduhkuvahbruddah]

I'm an incoming infant (first year med student) trying to set up financial stuff so I make my life easier in the future. I'm going to meet with MD financial and ask a bit about:

- insurance

- scholarships

- budgeting

I just wanted to check with you veterans out there, is there anything else that would be useful to ask discuss? I'm just trying to set myself up well from the beginning b/c I don't know much about finance. Thanks

[NeuroD]

Join the physician financial independence group, learn super simple basics (much quicker & easier than anything you'll learn in medicine), and, stay away from MD financial.

[adhominem]

23 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

Join the physician financial independence group, learn super simple basics (much quicker & easier than anything you'll learn in medicine), and, stay away from MD financial.

Out of curiosity, why stay away from MD financial/Scotia? They seem to offer fairly competitive services

[NeuroD]

They are not particularly worse than others, but the entire industry is predicated on their customers' ignorance. It takes very little time to learn the basics that will get you better returns/quicker debt repayment than a advisor can get you. They charge major fees for being a middle man without much value added (except for saving you an afternoon's worth of work to ge up to speed, or just follow the steps that have been outlined over and over again by many people).

Although MD financial gives free advice which could be useful for asking basic questions early on...just don't give them (or other managers/advisors) your money.

[mustardyellow]

3 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

Join the physician financial independence group, learn super simple basics (much quicker & easier than anything you'll learn in medicine), and, stay away from MD financial.

Where can we find this group? 

[Aurelius]

24 minutes ago, mustardyellow said:

Where can we find this group? 

Facebook

[rmorelan]

4 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

Join the physician financial independence group, learn super simple basics (much quicker & easier than anything you'll learn in medicine), and, stay away from MD financial.

Ha as a member of that group I would support that stance. 

It really isn't that they are terrible at all - it is just that they aren't any better and pretend that they are. 

[rmorelan]

Physician Financial Independence (Canada) is the search term on facebook for it. 

[rmorelan]

3 hours ago, adhominem said:

Out of curiosity, why stay away from MD financial/Scotia? They seem to offer fairly competitive services

They are - for insurance, setting up corporations and even investment planning in broader terms they are on par with others. 

Their investment products though are a complete rip off and under perform - you will lose something in the ball park of 30-40% of your end retirement savings if you go that route compared to other approaches. Their fee scheme nets them massive profits. 

[ploughboy]

MDM used to be my 'go to' for advice specific to Canadian physicians.  I didn't have any money with them, but went to their talks and met with their advisors a couple of times.  They seemed to get the issues physicians face, more-so than generic financial advisors.  Probably saved me quite a bit of money with some situation-specific advice in the last couple of years.

Since the Scotia buy-out, there's been a lot of turn-over at the local MDM office.  I have my suspicions about the significance of that.

Agree that their management fees don't justify their returns, and I've never given them any of my money to play with.

Specific things to ask about as an M1.  Insurance:  disability and maybe term life depending on circumstances  .  Budgeting, especially thinking ahead toward away auditions  electives in M3/M4.  Probably no point in talking about investing, as you're likely to be living off credit and your "investment" for those years is your brain.

Don't know if OP should start with the PFI Facebook page.  Maybe reading their Reference List (a pinned announcement) would be a good place to start, but diving right in to the discussions might not be high yield for an M1.  A lot of that page is more applicable to docs in practice or at least residents.

If OP doesn't know a lot about finance then a general, preferably Canadian, personal finance book would likely be the best place to start.  Something like The Millionaire Barber, or The Wealthy Teacher, or the Parsimonious Garbageman, or whatever. There's a few of them.  Just avoid anything by Robert Kiyosaki.

[ArchEnemy]

15 hours ago, rmorelan said:

Physician Financial Independence (Canada) is the search term on facebook for it. 

I think you may require an active college license to be able to join group (i.e. only residents & physicians in independent practice).

[unduhkuvahbruddah]

1 hour ago, ArchEnemy said:

I think you may require an active college license to be able to join group (i.e. only residents & physicians in independent practice).

I actually did some reading on the premed forums before I asked my question and ended up joining the group then. It asks for a license in the facebook questions to join the group, but I just wrote in that part that I'm a med student trying to get an early start and they accepted me into the group.

Thanks for all the replies everyone, I probably won't talk much about investing b/c I don't really have anything to invest (still in debt from undergrad). I think I'll meet with them anyway to see what they have to say and take everything with a grain of salt. I'm doing a lot of self-education though too with random stuff on the internet and podcasts etc. I recently read the White Coat Investor and read The Wealthy Barber a few years ago but I'll revisit it now, I'm still super naive about this stuff.

Just one more q, I'll probably learn this during the financial talk in O-week but do you guys recommend disability/life insurance as an M1? From what I've read, it's really cheap. Do most ppl get it? do you have to get it? any general knowledge about it?

I may be wrong but I thought I remember the bank saying that nobody is liable for my LOC if I die/get in accident etc. If that's true (which very likely may not be), why would one get insurance?

[polarbear123]

I would be remiss if I wouldn't share the experience I had with MD Financial. I met with the advisor in case he had any cool tricks on reducing debt during med school beyond the obvious. I made very clear that my short- and medium- term goals were to keep that debt low. Well, he made a budget for me that would almost max out my LOC after 4 years (with his budget I would have ended up with nearly 290,000 debt- an insane amount even for me who is starting with significant undergrad/masters debt). The advisor kept insisting that it is important that I take trips and vacations as this will help me socially and make me a better student. Yeah, I was confused too.  I can't say conspiracies theories regarding cahoots with Scotia  didn't cross my mind. Anyways, glad I read this thread.

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, medschool40&cool said:

I would be remiss if I wouldn't share the experience I had with MD Financial. I met with the advisor in case he had any cool tricks on reducing debt during med school beyond the obvious. I made very clear that my short- and medium- term goals were to keep that debt low. Well, he made a budget for me that would almost max out my LOC after 4 years (with his budget I would have ended up with nearly 290,000 debt- an insane amount even for me who is starting with significant undergrad/masters debt). The advisor kept insisting that it is important that I take trips and vacations as this will help me socially and make me a better student. Yeah, I was confused too.  I can't say conspiracies theories regarding cahoots with Scotia  didn't cross my mind. Anyways, glad I read this thread.

yeah that sort of thing bugs me - the first rule of personal finance is to understand the client and figure out how to make sure their financial plan lines up with their goals - even if you think the goals are something you wouldn't want etc. It is PERSONAL - that is the point. 

and that budget sounds nuts - any up tick in the interest rates and you are big trouble. 

 

[ploughboy]

6 hours ago, unduhkuvahbruddah said:

I may be wrong but I thought I remember the bank saying that nobody is liable for my LOC if I die/get in accident etc. If that's true (which very likely may not be), why would one get insurance?

If you're living the single, no kids or other dependents lifestyle, there's an argument to be made that you don't need life insurance  You're dead, you didn't need to provide for anybody else, nobody else is liable for your LOC and it's the bank's problem.

Different situation if you're disabled.  In the unlikely but catastrophic event that you suffer an acquired brain injury, or a c-spine injury, or develop some weird auto-immune thing that makes it impossible to complete your entire training, the last thing that you and your family need is to be worrying about paying for your long-term care.   Get disability insurance.

[freewheeler]

12 minutes ago, ploughboy said:

If you're living the single, no kids or other dependents lifestyle, there's an argument to be made that you don't need life insurance  You're dead, you didn't need to provide for anybody else, nobody else is liable for your LOC and it's the bank's problem.

Different situation if you're disabled.  In the unlikely but catastrophic event that you suffer an acquired brain injury, or a c-spine injury, or develop some weird auto-immune thing that makes it impossible to complete your entire training, the last thing that you and your family need is to be worrying about paying for your long-term care.   Get disability insurance.

Agreed. From what I understand, if single with no dependents, skip the life insurance.

However, everyone in medicine should have disability insurance.

[rmorelan]

2 hours ago, ploughboy said:

If you're living the single, no kids or other dependents lifestyle, there's an argument to be made that you don't need life insurance  You're dead, you didn't need to provide for anybody else, nobody else is liable for your LOC and it's the bank's problem.

Different situation if you're disabled.  In the unlikely but catastrophic event that you suffer an acquired brain injury, or a c-spine injury, or develop some weird auto-immune thing that makes it impossible to complete your entire training, the last thing that you and your family need is to be worrying about paying for your long-term care.   Get disability insurance.

but that doesn't mean you need LOC insurance - those are often really overpriced etc. The banks know that the amounts are buried in fine print and people don't shop around or pay attention. You can often get critical illness insurance - which can do the same thing - for much less. You still need disability insurance ha - that is probably the most critical financial tool med students need. 

[rmorelan]

10 hours ago, ArchEnemy said:

I think you may require an active college license to be able to join group (i.e. only residents & physicians in independent practice).

Hmm valid point ha - I thought I saw some med students on their but maybe that are in under the spouse of a physician rule. 

Ha, join it when you can in any case. 

[ploughboy]

1 hour ago, rmorelan said:

but that doesn't mean you need LOC insurance - those are often really overpriced etc. The banks know that the amounts are buried in fine print and people don't shop around or pay attention. You can often get critical illness insurance - which can do the same thing - for much less. You still need disability insurance ha - that is probably the most critical financial tool med students need. 

LOC insurance benefits nobody but the bank. 

On the flip side to not getting some term life as a medical student, the counter-argument goes something like "you might not need it yet, but life circumstances can change and you can get $100k for cheap (?for free from OMA insurance) so why wouldn't you".