Physician education

Sarah Catherine Gutierrez, CFP®, CRPS®, is an expert on the unique financial challenges that physicians, especially women physicians, face and the conflicted advice they often receive. She is a sought-after presenter at physicians' conferences and podcasts.

Sarah Catherine is an instructor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and has spent years educating physicians about paying off student debt, creating a financial plan, and tax-efficient investing so that they can build a life and career with security and freedom.

two topics for presentations

These sessions can be presented solo but are ideal paired together.

my magic number

In this presentation, SC will lead participants down the simple path to becoming a financial DIY’er. This presentation will guide participants to calculate their ideal savings rate, or “My Real Magic Number,” perhaps the most important financial decision a physician will ever make. From there they will learn a cash management system that allocates shorter-term savings to important priorities like emergency funds, travel, home repairs, cars, etc. Accounting for these planned expenses prevents them from disrupting the ability to save long-term. The final discussion is how to involve a spouse who lacks interest in decision-making around finances.

The tax efficient waterfall

In this presentation, participants will walk through how to apply their estimated savings from their savings rate through the tax-efficient waterfall, helping them to choose the most tax-efficient “buckets” for those savings. Physicians accustomed to more input yielding more output in their own disciplines will benefit from the anecdotes and experience of assisting 800 physician DIY’ers who have come through Aptus Financial, as well as the behavioral and investment research evidence pointing to the outperformance of simple, passive, automated investing. Finally, no plan is effective unless both spouses are on board. This session is intended for physicians new to the financial planning space who want to get stronger on the financial planning basics. This would not be an ideal session for financial optimizers who are looking for more advanced financial planning topics.