You don’t have to feel trapped in your job because of “the money” with Katarina Astrup

Have you ever dreamed of cutting your work hours, going part-time or maybe even taking a nice dreamy sabbatical- but then start feeling panicked by the money. You wish you could just win the lottery so you didn’t have to worry about money- because the reality is- with your current lifestyle, you need almost every single penny of your income just to make ends meet.

The cost of living is draining your bank account. The cost of working is draining your soul.

It feels like you can’t win- and the result is you feel trapped in an unfulfilling job.

You are NOT alone.

Money is one of the biggest factors keeping many of stuck in less than satisfying jobs.

This is why I am so excited to bring you this conversation with Katarina Astrup, financial expert and founder of PA the FI way- to discuss how we can shift our relationship with money.

In this episode we discuss how to start approaching your financial life in a way that finally sets you free (no lottery winning required).

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Transcript

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Have you ever thought about cutting back hours at work, maybe going part time, but then you crunched the numbers and realized that you can't? That at your current level of expenses, you need almost every single penny of your income just to make ends meet. Sometimes we get so fixated on saving for retirement, aggressively paying back our loans, having the right home with a crazy expensive mortgage, the right car. Sending our kids to these expensive private schools and all the summer camps that we can't even imagine leaving our jobs or cutting back hours because even if you're making hefty six figures, your expenses are almost just as high and you can't imagine it being much different. You feel trapped in jobs that are draining the life out of you because of finances. On top of just our everyday, normal spending, there's also this concept of the misery tax, coined by Thomas J. Bevan. He's the author of the Commonplace Substack, and he writes, If you don't like the job you work, or the life you are living, you will spend more of your disposable income. either during work hours or immediately afterwards on things to cheer you up, on things to keep you going and keep you functioning in the job. This is the misery tax. And so this can be things like caffeine, alcohol, retail therapy. I remember after tests in med school, I'd buy myself really expensive clothes with my student loan money because I was like, I deserve it. Sometimes it can be planning out extravagant vacations. Basically all these things that you're spending money on. because you feel like you've earned it through the really difficult work that you're doing. Really, you're spending money to numb or offset the pain and dissatisfaction that you feel at your life or at your career. But as Thomas Bevan says in his Substack article, this compensatory spending drains your resources, which diminishes your ability to save and thus means you become increasingly stuck in the job. So how do we get out of this whole cycle? How do we stop feeling so trapped? because of money. This is exactly what we're going to cover in today's episode. I interviewed Katarina Ostrup of PA the FI way to discuss how we can start shifting our approach to spending and to finances in a way that finally sets us free. And if you want an exclusive opportunity to ask Kat all of your burning financial questions, at the end of this episode, I'll let you know what to do. But first, let's get to the show. You are listening to Life After Medicine, the podcast for health care professionals who want to make a difference, make a living, and still have the freedom to enjoy their lives. My name is Chelsea Turgeon. My mission is to help you, the frustrated health professional, find your authentic path to helping others and generating stable income without having to sacrifice your own health and happiness in the process. Hello, my loves. Thank you so much for pressing play today. Welcome back to Life After Medicine. We are here with Katarina Ostrup of PA the FI way to explore the topic of financial independence. So to begin, Kat. Could you take us back to that time, like when did you first learn about the concept of Financial independence. Sure. I love that question. So I am a practicing PA and I've been a PA for almost 10 years now, but the first half a decade of my PA career, both myself and my husband were definitely financially illiterate. And so we were making all sorts of financial mistakes. We were letting lifestyle creep into the picture where. My fancy new PA salary, we were spending quite a bit of it. Unfortunately, we were not prioritizing paying off debt aggressively or investing aggressively, although we were doing a little bit of both. So I learned about financial independence. In 2019, and it was actually on the way to a coworker's wedding, the husband of another PA friend and coworker, we were talking about traveling and they were talking about how they were Going on a trip coming up in Europe and using travel hacking with credit cards, rewards points, and they were going to be funding most of the trip that way. And so he pointed me to a podcast and that podcast is called choose FI. Which as you touched on FI stands for financial independence. And of course I loved learning about travel hacking and how you can learn how to use credit cards wisely, where you can earn free travel that way. But then when I was listening to the podcast, I was like, Oh, financial independence, what is this? And I started listening and definitely went down the rabbit hole. And that is how I learned about financial independence. What was the context of your life at that moment that made this topic of financial independence, click for you or like be so interesting to you? Yeah. Yes, Why it had such a draw to me at that time was because I was practicing in family medicine at the time. And although I enjoyed the variety of family medicine, loved my coworkers, loved my clinic, enjoyed the follow ups with my patients, I was definitely starting to get symptoms of burnout at the time after only five short years of practicing the medicine. And it was. Like, wow, do I really have to do this until my mid sixties or seventies? Do I have to really grind away 40 hours a week and just feel drained at the end of the day? And I like to describe myself as being a very thorough person. So, you know, when people come in with multiple problems in family medicine, you have to be thorough, address them, things like that. But then also I like to be very efficient and stay on time for. Out of respect of my schedule, but also the patient's schedule who are scheduled later in the day, my nurse's schedule, my team's schedule, all those things. So being very thorough and being efficient at the same time, detail oriented, those two things were clashing. And I was starting to notice those symptoms and. I saw financial independence as a light at the end of the tunnel. It was like, Oh, you're totally right. I actually do not have to work until traditional retirement age. If we make smart financial decisions now, as well as in the next several years, and it just opens up a lot of options. Then of course we know shortly what happened in 2020. I got absolutely burned to a crisp with the pandemic. And I actually transitioned to outpatient psychiatry at that time, which I really, really enjoyed because. Focusing on only one specialty. And because it was during the pandemic to most of my patients, I was seeing through telemedicine. so I really love how telemedicine has given me the opportunity to enjoy medicine, you know, enjoy a specialty, help people with theirs, with their mental health. And then also balance that with being able to cut back on my hours because we've been making wiser financial decisions as well., That makes so much sense that it's like, You're five years into practice. You're already starting to feel burnt out from all of those competing forces on your time. What were those symptoms of burnout that you were experiencing? Definitely exhaustion. Definitely mental exhaustion. I like to use the term bandwidth. I was definitely feeling like I had very limited bandwidth to do things and I have Never really worked five days a week. I was doing four tens at the time and I loved my day off certainly. But those four days of 10 hour days, you know, depending upon how much charting you have to do at the end and work on your in basket and things like that. It was just, there was so limited time left in the days. I felt like I didn't have any time to myself and definitely becoming a little bit more cynical, I would say. just feeling more fried and feeling like, how in the world can I do this for so many more decades to come. yeah, and so then it's like you start listening to this idea of financial independence, and then the other part of that is, which you've talked about before, is like RE, it's like the FIRE movement, right, so it's financial independence, retire early, and it feels like this light at the end of the tunnel. And then how do you start implementing some of that? Like what are some of the shifts that you start making as a result of all the information that you're gathering? Yeah, totally. I think some people are really turned off by that. From the fire movement when they first learned about it, because they'll read about people who, were in their thirties and retired because they really lived on ramen noodles and hardly spent any money. But then by the time they get there, they're actually kind of depressed because it was like, Oh, I got here. I got all my money. I can stop working, but I don't have any hobbies now. I don't have great relationships now. So I definitely want to point out that my perspective of fire is not the hurry on up. Be really restrictive with your spending, but instead spend out of the place of what brings you value, what brings you joy and spend intentionally on the way to financial independence. Yeah. Can we pause on that for a sec? That you shared that because it's like, I'm totally with you. I honestly, when I first heard about it as well, I felt like my inner child, like wanted to cry because I grew up, my dad like became obsessed with Dave Ramsey at some point growing up. And so he had all these like envelopes and budgets. And I just remembered this feeling that like budget, all I knew is like the moment we started having budgets. I couldn't go out and get clothes that made me feel like it in with my friends. And then I felt like losing. It's like, I just had this deep sense of like deprivation and like an outsider. Like I just had these really strong feelings around the idea of budget or like around the idea of restricting or depriving myself. And so that just never felt like, I was like, I can't do that. Like, I don't want to do that. Yes, yes, exactly. I think that the term budget, it has that connotation for many people, where it intimidates them. It does take time to sit down and evaluate your spending, but you have no idea what you're doing. go or where you're at, unless you take the time to do that. So it is really important that you do that initial assessment on your finances. And I think a great place to start is just sitting down and figuring out how much debt in the world you actually have. But then also see where their assets are because When I learned about financial independence, I was surprised to actually look at my 401k and see, Oh, wow. I actually, you know, even though I haven't been maxing it out by any means, the fact that I contributed to it for five years, I was surprised actually how much was in there. So, you know, figure out what types of investment accounts you have access to and figure out the numbers and just do that initial analysis. And with budgeting, I tend to not feel like people need to budget every single penny forever and ever. But it's really good to do for at least a month, maybe three to six months, try to get into that habit of seeing where in the world your money is going. It can be really eyeopening to understand that, Oh, I forgot about that subscription that I probably should cancel and I never use, or wow, that's a really high utility bill or another type of belt. Can I negotiate that? Or. Do I need that in my life still? So some people will find that they tend to spend really impulsively and frequently on Amazon and sitting down and actually having to enter the numbers can be really eye opening and see, oh yes, that spending was not actually something that I value. That brought me joy. That, you know, Brought convenience to my life. It was just because of the quick hit of dopamine that I thought I was going to get from it. And I used it maybe once and then don't use it again. So, so yes, a lot of people have that perception of budgeting at the same time, I think that it's a really great place to start and again, having that goal for me for the future of. Yes, I just don't want to, have to work full time until traditional retirement age only doing one thing in my life. And it can just open up so many doors. So when you have that perspective, then sitting down and doing the hard work can, you know, not feel like such a chore. It can get you more excited about it. Yeah, no, I love that. And I love the way you're describing and the process you're describing. And for me. I don't even like the word budget, so I use the word financial alignment plan. Ooh, nice. I like that. It's not a roll off the tongue, but, it just feels more like a self care thing. And to me, like, budget feels like shame and deprivation. Yeah, that's great. I like when people tend to view their finances for their financial alignment plan as where they try to pay themselves first, so they pay themselves first by getting their money in investments by paying off their debts and then, figuring out what is left over to spend on those fun things in life where you're not just, you know, Spending furbously and then trying to scrounge a few dollars to put into investments too. Okay, so we've gotten into some of the bigger picture, like the ethos and the vision of the FI movement, but for you, like on a very granular level, like what did that look like for you to start to implement some of those pieces? for me personally, I had to try to have those conversations with my husband and he is definitely the spender in our relationship. I'm definitely the saver. I can self deprive all day long and, hardly spend any money because I want to, you know, Put it towards investments and he likes, you know, the fun, the toys live for the here and now. And from a personal experience too, for both of us, actually, I lost my dad at age 25 and he lost his dad at age 25 too. He's about six years older than I am. So his dad was in his mid fifties. My dad was in his early sixties. Both of them were unexpected and sudden. So we both View finances in opposite ways, but it actually leads to having those conversations of compromise. So again, my husband's like, well, we don't know how many years we have left. We want to be able to enjoy life now. And I say, correct. Yes. But we also don't know how long we're going to live for. Hopefully we do live a long time and I don't want to spend all my years working traditionally and working, super hard grueling hours. Right. So we have the. Place where we need to have those difficult conversations of, this is my goal and this is why, and then this is your goal and this is why. And try to compromise. We also figured out where in our life to cut back on those things that did not add value. So we were spending a lot of money on cell phone plans, for example, and we now use Mint Mobile. It's way cheaper. Great coverage. We really, really like it. And then also we were leasing an expensive car at the time too. That was one of our biggest financial mistakes. at the time we were spending almost 700 a month while I was still paying off our student loan debt. And that just was not a wise financial decision. And I had come from this car that I had driven for nine years and I was the second owner, so it had several miles on it. I thought any newer car would have been a nice upgrade. Well, my dear husband, he thought I needed, all the bells and whistles. So we got this really expensive one, which was definitely not necessary. So once I was able to return that lease, it was such a great feeling. It was as great as getting the car initially. And then we spent a few thousand dollars on an older car again, for me to drive, because now, especially working in telemedicine, I hardly drive anywhere. So again, some people really value nice cars, comfortable cars. I don't value those things. We have a reliable car that I drive, but it's only a few thousand dollars and there's no payment. So it's also finding those areas where you can cut costs on those things yeah, I really don't want to spend several hundred dollars worth a month on this thing. How did you start To come back to what actually mattered to you and how to know, am I spending money to like impress people or for reasons that aren't really adding joy versus me spending money on the things that really do bring joy and that matter. So let's take the car shopping. For example, I definitely initially thought I wanted a cool looking car, one that, had great features and heated leather, heated steering wheel in the Minnesota winters and things like that. Sure. It was nice to have, but then by the time that several months came by and, you know, year two into the lease, it was like, yeah, this isn't worth 700 worth. So sometimes it's a little bit of trial and error. You maybe do try this more expensive thing or this thing that you think will bring you a lot of value and joy. And then you realize, oh, it doesn't well, you don't have to feel stuck in that decision. You can go ahead and. get out of it at some point or return it or things like that too. So sometimes it's a matter of trying other times it's again, before you swipe that card, before you pay something, ask yourself. Do I really feel like this will add value to my life, add convenience to my life? Am I buying back my time? You know, maybe you're paying for a service or, a cleaner or something like that, where you're buying back your time, even though you could mow the yard or clean the house yourself, but you're spending intentionally because your time is valuable. So. Again, always ask yourself, am I just spending money to bring me a few moments of joy and a few moments of value, or do I feel like this will be a long term thing? life is about trying things, right? You don't have to feel stuck. like I've had clients who are like, well, we just bought this huge house and there's a big mortgage. And so it's like before. Making those types of decisions. really checking in and calibrating, like where is this coming from? Like, is this something that really is going to add value to us? Or is this just going to make me feel trapped in a job that I'm not loving at the moment? I think that a lot of people don't recognize that renting can have a great place for people. Renting provides a roof over your head and. Sometimes you just need to try out a city, try out a location, try out a job and rent for a period of time before feeling pressured to buy that house. but yes, mortgage, housing, transportation, and food are the top three budget items or top three spending for Americans. So if you can limit the costs in those three things, then your budget can already be So much better if you're not spending astronomically in those three things. So when we talk about financial independence, um, What does that term actually mean? Because I know there's different things, like there's financial freedom or financial whatever. So like, what is financial independence? I love that question. So the technical definition of reaching financial independence is the point at which you no longer have to earn an income because your investments or your, your passive income on the side, those things. Cover your annual expenses. So for most that's 25 times their annual spending. However, there was a study called the Trinity study, and that study showed that that number usually lasts only about 30 years and people can withdraw about 4 percent of their overall portfolio and lasts for about 30 years. So if you're wanting to retire really early, you know, maybe in your forties or something like that, then it would be suggested that you aim for about 30 to 33 times your annual spending your annual expenses instead of only 25 times, because then your money will last longer as you age. So the technical definition is one thing, but again, you can. make it fit how you want for your life. So it's like, you have this sort of definition of financial independence. It's this number in your investment account and then you're working towards it. And then how do you still enjoy your life and live your life on the way to this goal? Like, how do you not make it this thing where you're, like, holding your breath and putting this huge emphasis on, like, reaching a goal in the future? How do you basically live in the now while you're on your way to, to FI? Yes. So again, I think that this answer is very individualized and personal for myself and my husband. He definitely keeps me more in the here and now more, you know, let's spend money on some of these toys type of thing that we're enjoying. So one of our favorite hobbies is ice fishing being in Minnesota. So we have, fishing gear, we have our fish house, that's certainly not a cheap hobby by any means, but it is something that we enjoy doing together and it's quality time together. We invite. Friends and family members, nieces and nephews and things like that too. So we enjoy the time. So it is finding those hobbies or those things that you enjoy doing. Some of them are very cost effective hobbies. You know, like I love reading, right? That's a very efficient hobby. I enjoy traveling, but I use travel hacking to again, help with the cost of travel and things like that too. So it's finding those hobbies that. you are spending a little bit more on, but you're not having five hobbies where you're spending a ton of money on, or you have other hobbies that are either free or very cost effective on the way as well. This is just a question that came up as you were talking, like, every time you're spending money, like, on the ice fishing or on those things, do you feel a sense of like, this is taking me further away from the financial independence deadline, or does that not, Registered with you or yeah, what is it like when you're sort of spending bigger amounts of money now? I definitely do have that little hesitation at times where even trips coming up it's like wow if I you know, can't quite use points on this trip or find a good deal on this trip. It's going to be a few thousand dollars, but I always remind myself that spending money on experiences with my people in my life that I value. So my family, my friends, things like that. and having those memories. That's how I enjoy spending my money on versus lots of clothes or shoes or purses or things like that too. So again, it's trying to find those things that really align with your values and telling yourself, Hey, it is okay to spend here and there whereas people that I work with or that I've talked to that tend to be more impulsive spending. They definitely have to work on, you know, that pause and. Again, tracking every dollar that they spend for a while can be really helpful with that and identify, Oh, wow. I was spending, hundreds of dollars going out to eat every single week as well. And I think what I'm hearing from all of that, just like from both ends of the spectrum, the impulsive spender and like the, the hoarder kind of person, like, It's just this intentionality that starts to bring it towards the center. Yes, exactly. Definitely. It's, always trying to be intentional with your spending and with your life, right? I think that so many of us go through life and end up in medicine because it was almost a prescriptive path. You know, we're told, Hey, you should do this. Hey, you should do this. Hey, you should do this. And then when you don't have anyone to tell you that anymore, What should I do? And you have to decide for yourself because you're an adult and, you don't have these life rules anymore. You need to ask yourself these hard questions, yeah, I love that. We've been given this rule and this like path that's been laid out for so long that just the idea of coming back to ourselves and being the authority and creating our own way forward. I think it's scary initially, but then once we start to learn that skill set, it's so empowering. And then we realized that we can design a life that's so much more fulfilling and satisfying for us as individuals. Yes, definitely. And I think it goes back a little bit to what you what you touched on as well with your dad and Dave Ramsey and all of a sudden this budget being implemented. And that goes into a little bit about what your money story is as an individual. So your money story is your personalized story that you have surrounding money, but then it's important to identify that that usually starts in childhood. Kiddos are learning all about money, you know, in elementary and they're developing habits and modeling what their parents are doing and seeing what their parents are doing and hearing what their parents are seeing about money too. So whether you're a parent or not, you can either, you know, think about this for your children or reflect back and think about how you grew up surrounding money, what were those questions that. Your parents asked you about money, or what did they tell you when you asked to spend it? Or did you hear your parents always fighting about money? That can bring up a lot of things of, Oh, wow. Yeah. I no wonder why I think this way, because it was ingrained. In me for so long. So I always encourage people to try to have grace and patience with themselves to when they're trying to make financial changes, because it's important to identify and recognize that they went through how many years of life thinking one way about money, these changes aren't going to happen overnight, right? So just identify that what you know about money or what you think you know about money, probably you learn from other people too. So a lot of times it's from a scarcity mindset that we come into where it's weary. Think that there's not enough money to be had. We don't feel like we can earn enough income, but if you can learn to identify that and change it to an abundance mindset, where you recognize that there's money to be made, you can earn an income. You can travel the world and earn an income. You can work in medicine from home doing telemedicine. There's lots of different ways to do life and seeing people do life a little bit differently can be motivational as well. So for your own, lived experience, it sounds like one of the things that has changed the most is not feeling trapped anymore. Not feeling like. you're stuck in this job until retirement. Yes, definitely. I feel like having options in life is so empowering and so freeing. And then what about. Burnout how can pursuing FI, like being on the way to FI, how can that help with burnout? If you are in a place of burnout, working in medicine, many people are working full time. Many people do have kids. They feel like they don't have any time for themselves or for their family. Maybe they're taking call, you know, they are just grinding away, but let's go back to the question of why they feel that pressure. Is it because they have this giant mortgage? Is it because they have this giant car payment? Is it because they, have to eat out a lot and spend lots of money at restaurants because they don't have any time to cook or meal plan or prep or things like that, right? So really take an analysis of your life. Seeing those pain points, what you don't like, what you want changed and thinking about how to get there for a lot of people cutting back on hours can really help with that. You know, maybe they don't switch specialties. If they're able to switch specialties, maybe they don't decide to stop working clinically completely, or, switch to a nonclinical role or, leave medicine altogether. But maybe they just need to start with cutting back on hours. Well, how can they do that? Well, you need to start asking yourself those big questions. Is this big giant house that I'm never even home in? I'm always at the hospital working. Is this really bringing me joy and adding value to my life or, Hey, can we downsize and sell and, have a lower mortgage payment and still be happier and be able to cut back on hours. So I feel like that that is a huge place where if you. Are spending more intentionally learning, even how to negotiate as well can be really helpful too, so that you're negotiating and getting, better roles, better benefits as well. That can help with. Your finances and help with your overall burnout level as well. Hey, I have a question for you. That's like very specific what you were saying just now reminded me of an exact client So for one of my clients, she was very burnt out and like wanting to reduce hours. She was even part time, but like to go to a per diem, basically to decrease hours, but which would also reduce income as like kind of a pathway to burnout. And when she was looking at the numbers, she's like, well, we can't, we can't make that work financially. But the reason was because of her desire to try to pay back her loans really aggressively. It wasn't that the loan payment, the required loan payment would have kept her expenses that high. It's that the desired loan payment. And so like, how do you reconcile that? Yeah. So that, that specific question super personalized is her goal to now cut back on hours, or is it to hurry up and pay the student loan really aggressively and then be able to cut back on hours drastically in a few years, right? So when people are early in their career. It is nice to aggressively pay back those loans. If you know, they have the energy, they have the bandwidth, maybe they don't have kids or as many kids, and they have the time to dedicate more hours. But again, I also come from the place of not necessarily adding more shifts and picking up more work and because that's a recipe for burnout too, right? You don't want to be moonlighting, frying yourself out, working 60 to 80 hours a week, because that's a giant recipe for burnout. You also. Cool. Need and want to have time to work on your self care and your goals in life. And again, if you don't have any time to. Sit and reflect and think, or again, do those self care things, then that's a giant recipe for burnout too. So it always depends upon the situation for her, for example, could there be a way that she could negotiate either in that current role or switch roles that's similar, but negotiate a higher pay. Another question, could they do what's called house hacking, where they're living in, you know, maybe the upper level of their. House and they're renting out the lower level to have an income from that. Yeah. there's just a lot of options and to just always come back to like the why behind it. Like, what does that give me to pay back the loan so aggressively versus what could I gain? Now by having just more sanity and more time to myself and like just doing that personalized cost benefit analysis for yourself and your family. Yes, definitely. it really comes down to what are your current goals and thinking about what are your future goals and what steps now will take you there for the future too. For people who are listening, who just don't have this sense of control when it comes to their finances. What is one step that you would recommend? Like what's one piece of advice that you would give to them? Yeah, I would say the most eyeopening piece would be to sit down and track every single dollar where it's going, at least for a short term. Again, I know that's tedious. I know it takes time. I know it takes dedication, but if you're serious about making a change. You need to do the hard work and which can feel like homework, at least for a period of time, but it'll be super eye opening. Like, it'll be amazing what you'll see you and what your habits are. And again, identify, Is this a really high bill and I really don't want that thing anymore that I'm paying this bill on or is this a utility that I can negotiate and working on figuring out where you can cut costs, but then as you're doing that exercise, identify really what brings you joy. Hey, I really enjoyed taking my mom out for breakfast that day and spend time and covered the cost of her coffee and breakfast and mine too, because it was a really great conversation we had. And You enjoy giving back to others too. So you don't want to be a scrooge, so to speak, where you're recording all the money for yourself and finding the places and the time to spend the money on those things that you value. So I think that that is the first step to do is to really analyze where in the world your money is actually going. Just creating that awareness. I think with finances, especially, it's just like. The truth sets you free, you know, the knowledge is power. Like all of these things that are like cliches, it's like totally applies. Kat, thank you so much for coming on this show and for this conversation we'll include all of the links to your podcast, PA, the FI way. You have some other free downloads, like getting started with financial independence. And so we can include all of those links in the show notes so that people can find them. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of your wisdom with us. So how do we stop letting finances be the reason that we're trapped in our careers? How do we start feeling more freedom and start identifying more options for ourselves? The answer lies in intentionality. Taking a good, honest look at your spending and seeing, like, is this bringing joy to my life? Is this aligned with my values? Because the more we know where in the world our money is going, the easier it is for us to make decisions about how we truly want to spend our money. So my challenge for you, after listening to this episode, is to take a good look at where your money is going. Print out three months of bank statements and just evaluate, without judgment or harshness, evaluate what is being spent where. And for each expense, like, how does that make you feel? And with that information, what do you want to do differently going forward? Are there things that you can cut back on without reducing your quality of life? And if you were able to free up a few hundred dollars a month, even, what would you do? What kind of opportunities could that open for you? Would you be able to start saving more, investing more, maybe working less hours every month and thus freeing up more time? Remember, the goal is not financial restriction, but really just spending in a way that aligns with your personal values, whatever those may be. When we start being more intentional with our spending and with our finances, that can open up options for self help. and if you want an exclusive opportunity to ask Kat all your burning financial questions, we are having a Q& A thread within the Life After Medicine Facebook group. All you have to do is hit the link in the show notes to join the Facebook group and you can ask your question on the Q& A thread that's pinned to the top. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'll see you next time.