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At Wine Enthusiast, we bring wine to life. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. Today, my guest is Manher Patel.

Manher heard me talk on the show about how I admire immigrants in the United States, and I always am interested in their stories. He said, "Well, I'm an immigrant, and I've got an interesting story." So, after a little back and forth, I invited him on the show. So, Manher, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.

Thank you, Joshua, for inviting me. I've been interested in this, and I think you are originally from India, right? Is that correct? Yes. Yes, correct. I'm interested in this because the person that I heard that statistic I've cited on the show before was from where I've said that an immigrant to the United States is four times more likely to become a millionaire than a natural-born citizen.

And by the way, I have not independently verified that recently, so that could be slightly mistaken. But who I heard that from was an associate of Zig Ziglar years ago, and he used to do this work with Zig, and he was an immigrant from India. I forget his name.

I think I want to say it was Krish something like that, something. But he had arrived from India with $9 in his pocket, and he told the story of how he had arrived from India with $9 in his pocket and gone from there and had done very well. And I'd love to see a review of even the Indian culture, and I'd love to see some of the statistics broken out, because the Indian culture seems to be, you guys seem to be incredibly productive at building wealth.

So, welcome to the show. I'm going to pump you with questions today and learn all of your secrets as an Indian immigrant. So, let's start with a little bit of your story. Walk us through how you wound up in the United States. So, share with us. Yeah, go ahead.

Sure. So, I was born and raised in India, and, you know, I finished my schooling in India, and after I completed my 12th grade in India, I was jokingly, you know, telling my dad, you know, I should go outside of India to study something, and I want to study medicine.

So, it was very difficult to get admission in India, and the cheapest option was to go to Poland or Russia. So, I'm like, oh, Russia sounds good to me. So, I went there, new country. I didn't know language or anything. I, you know, I went there in 2005, and then I stayed there for six years in Russia and completed my med school in 2011.

So, after finishing my med school, there were a lot of challenges back in Russia to cook our own food as I'm vegetarian, and also, you know, to speak Russian because you have to learn Russian there because you are living in Russia. So, that was another thing which was very crazy back in Russia.

And then, after I finished my med school, I decided that I want to move to US because of better life and opportunities here in US. So, I started preparing for my board exam for US. So, after I gave my first board exam, I came to US. I had a visitor visa back from Russia where I got 10-year visitor visa.

So, I came back to US to give my first exam I gave in India, then second exam I came to US to give because that's the exam you can only give in US. So, during that time, I was also looking for, you know, to find a spouse in US because I want to move to US.

So, fortunately, I was able to find my wife whom I dated like for six months back in time, and then we decided to get married, and then eventually we got married in India in December 2012. How did you meet her? I met through matrimonial website. It's called shadi.com. It's specifically for Indian people.

Okay. How do you spell shadi.com? Shadi. S-H-A-D-I. It's like match.com. What does it mean? Is that in Hindi? What does it mean? Yeah. Shadi means wedding in our language. Okay. Awesome. That's a great way to meet. It sounds like a perfect way to meet an Indian girl in the United States.

So, keep going. I was just curious. Yeah. So, after that, you know, everything started, my immigration process and everything. So, after my wedding, I moved to US, and I completed my immigration process in US instead of in India because when somebody applies from US, it takes like one year to come to US, but I already had a visitor visa.

So, I just came to US, and then my wife applied here, everything, and it was a very smooth process here. In six months, I got my green card, and by that time, it was time to apply for my residency, and it's not like applying like a general job. You know, you have to pay money for each hospital.

It costs $25 after nine hospitals you apply. So, I applied like 400 hospitals, which cost me more than $7,000 just to apply for my residency, and I wasn't working, and my wife barely started working. So, and it was a huge disappointment because I didn't get any interviews for my residency, and I was like, "What am I going to do?" Then I started doing this externship at a physician office, and also, I started doing research at University of Illinois in psychiatry because that was something which interests me, and I was doing this free work for more than one and a half year, and still no way to get residency.

So, again, I applied for residency next year, which was 2014. Now, again, I did the same thing. I wasted more than $7,000 to $8,000, but no luck, and I was tired of working free for physician or the university, so I decided to get a job, and nobody would give a job.

There was funny thing. Whenever I apply even for pharmacy technician job, they say, "You're overqualified." So, I'm like... - How were you supporting yourself during this time? - No, my wife was supporting me. She was working. She's nurse. So, she was making pretty decent, and we used to live in like two-bedroom condo in Chicago, and in Chicago, you know, it's $1,000 for two-bedroom condo, so it's not bad as California where I live, where I pay two times more than that.

- Keep going. - Yeah, so I found a job on internet, and I moved to California, and then my job. So, what happened was we left my wife's job for $30 there, what she was making there, and we came here for $19 job here. So, we moved for $19 job from Chicago to California, and our moving expense was $3,000 to $4,000 or whatever.

I said, you know, "Let's move for better future." And then to transfer my wife's license from state of Illinois to state of California, it took them four months. I cannot believe that. My wife went to US school. She has already license in state of Illinois. Just to transfer the license, it took four months.

She was just sitting home for four months. Yeah. So, there was crazy part in California, and then eventually she got her license, and then she started working too. So, then what happened in my work, like there was mostly all our doctors, but we didn't, you know, went to residency because all were looking for some other job opportunities.

So, we had this specific exam for coding, which I do right now, coding and documentation review for the hospitals. So, as soon as you pass the exam, they raise you. So, my money went from $19 to $30 in less than six months. My salary went up that much. So, hold on just one moment to make sure that I understand.

So, you couldn't gain access to a residency. So, you took the exam to be a medical coder, and then you were working on that on the side. Is that accurate? Yes, yes. That's accurate. And so, is this a work from home thing? I don't know much about medical coding.

I've heard people talk about how it can be a great work from home opportunity. Tell me what is medical coding, and how does that work? So, medical coding is basically, you know, whenever you go to a physician, right, they treat you, right? For example, they treat you for hypertension or any disease, but you are paid based on what hospital submits to Medicare.

So, for hypertension, there is a specific code, for example, 410 or 420, whatever. So, the hospital has to submit that code to Medicare or any insurance company to get the reimbursement. So, if they don't submit their codes, they don't get the money. So, what we do is we generate those codes based on the, you know, documentation of the physician.

So, we generate like, in each coding sheet, we have like 20 to 50 codes, depending on what patient have. And based on that, we get reimbursed, hospital get reimbursed for those things. So, this allowed you to earn some income while you were still looking for a job as a physician to be able to support yourself.

Yes. Great. All right, keep going. Yeah, so after that, you know, and my old work was like, you know, I wasn't enjoying there much after one and a half year of work. So, I decided to find another job. And eventually, I land in LA in one of the universities here with the same job.

But of course, like the pay was two times more than my initial pay. So, I'm like, okay, I'm going to get this job, definitely. And so far, I joined the job this year, February, and it's going so far pretty good here. I like the university because of the benefits.

And, you know, before I was in corporate setting, but right now I'm in hospital setting. So, it's much more enjoyable in hospital settings. And so, you're working as a physician now? No, no, no. I'm not working yet, but I'm working as a document specialist for the hospital. So, basically, what we do is we review the hospital charts, and we try to improve the documentation there.

Got it. Excuse me, I misunderstood. Are you still on the path to be able to use your medical education and licensing? I don't have a license yet, but yeah, I'm definitely able to use my medical background because what we do is we review and we try to query physicians regarding the specificity of the diagnosis.

When we query them, the end result is reimbursement increases in that for the hospital. So, yeah, it's really beneficial for the hospitals to hire us. Why do you think you haven't been able to get a job as a physician? Sorry, you were cutting off there, Joshua. No problem. Why do you think you haven't been able to get a job as a physician?

See, it's highly competitive, and I will give you the statistic. Like last year, there were 26,000 open spots, right? And you can only apply once a year, which is in September, and you know next year in March. And there were 26,000 open spots, and there were more than 50,000 applicants.

And of course, the first preference is U.S. graduates. So who went to school to U.S. medical school, they are the first preference. And then there are the FMGs, which who went to Caribbean for two years and two years in U.S. And third are us, who are international medical graduates.

So definitely, you know, I am on the third number there. So that's why I think it's difficult for me to get in. Got it. Got it. So tell me about the finances of this way, because it sounds like a lot of knocking on doors that haven't opened. I mean, you were spent, based upon the numbers you were telling me, you're spending, you know, several thousand dollars, five or seven thousand dollars, trying to make all these applications.

Did you have money when you moved here to the U.S.? I definitely didn't have money when I moved, but you know, my wife was supporting me because she started working, right? So she was supporting me in that way, and we were able to save that money because we know that every year in September, I have to apply for my residency.

So for example, this year I have to apply, but of course I won't be applying that many hospitals. So I just need like two thousand dollars for this year, which I already saved up for my this year residency application. And over the last few years, have you been able to build savings, even though you are still struggling to get into the position that you want to be in?

Are you back? Yes, I'm just back. Great. So over the last few years, have you been able to save money while you've also been working towards your medical... Yes, can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Your voice is cutting off. Okay, let me just wait a moment here.

Hold on a second. Alright, can you hear me now? Yes. Alright, let's try again. Over the last few years, have you been able to save money while you have been trying to get into a medical physician position? Or have you just basically been treading water? So here is the funny thing.

I wasn't able to save anything until I moved to California in 2014. And not in 2014 even I didn't save anything. But in 2015, when I applied for my residency again, you know, I started reading about finance a lot, a lot. Like all the finance blog and, you know, listening to podcasts.

So I was thinking like I should learn about tech stuff because it seems interesting and complex. And what I'm supposed to do after I come home from job? I work for eight hours a day. I have three weekends and I'm free after I come from home. I just go to gym for one hour, cook my food, and still I have three, four hours left in my day.

So, okay, let me read like this finance thing. So once I started reading, I learned about 401k. So I started maxing out my 401k. I started in September 2015. So my goal is to put $692.32 each pay period for me and my spouse. So it comes around $3,000 a month.

I mean, so $36,000 a year and if you divide by 26, sorry, 12 months, it should be $3,000 a month. So that's my goal for now. Congratulations, man. That's awesome. That'd be a great step. And you're working now towards early financial independence. Is that right? Yes, my goal is that.

And when do you hope to be financially independent? So here is the thing. In five years, I want to at least, you know, accumulate like $500,000 so that if I wish I cannot work, my wife's job is clinical. So of course she loves her job and she wants to keep working.

So that's fine. So right now my goal is to save anywhere between $5,000 to $6,000 a month, which I'm close to $4,000 a month, but which will only get me $348,000 in five years if I say compounding is 7% and I right now have $52,000 invested. So if I increase that to $6,000 a month with my principle of $52,000 based on 7% compounding, in five years I will be able to get $586,000 approximately.

So I hope to, you know, increase my savings to $6,000 a month so I can get around, yeah, my magical number in five years. How long now have you been in the United States? Three and a half years. And you've been able to, you don't have any debt, you've been able to save $50,000 and you're now working hard towards five years with the goal of having half a million dollars.

How much are your monthly living expenses? My expenses are actually pretty high because I live in California in SoCal and just my rent is $2,100. So my bare expenses are $3,500 a month. That's great. Do you think that people from India are more productive at becoming wealthy in the United States than either natural-born US citizens or from other ethnic groups?

I think so because the thing is the people who come from India to US, they already have their mindset that they have to work hard to make money in US and they work like long hours. Like, you know, I have a couple of friends who have business right now and they did a minimum wage job for seven to eight years, but they did like two or three jobs and saved up money and bought the business in cash.

So I know people like that too who did like crazy work and got business in US in seven to eight years by working two, three jobs. So people who come from India are very like, they are like, their mind is already set that they have to work hard because they are going to new country and they have to make money.

So, yeah. It's been my experience and I can't prove this with data. It's just been my observations that people from India with the Indian culture tend to be drawn towards starting or running a business of some kind. I haven't found that many of them have wanted to participate in things like the 401k system, investing in large publicly traded companies.

Do you think that's true? Yes, that's definitely true because I haven't met any Indian so far in my family or anywhere who believes in 401k and who has even a little bit knowledge about 401k. They just believe to have savings as a cash money and then buy some business down the line.

That's what majority of people, Indian, believes. Why do you think that is? Because, I don't know, because it's like sometimes their family has the business or their friends' business, so they want to copy or replicate them. But they're like, "Okay, let me save this much money." Like, for example, "Okay, let me save $250,000 to buy like $1 million model or something, which will be 20% down payment.

And based on that, I can buy a hotel or any business like Subway or Papa John's." They just want to keep saving and saving. And once they have enough money, they will jump into business. The stereotype, and I don't know if it's true or not, but the stereotype is that there are a few different types of businesses that seem to be dominated by people from India, Indian immigrants.

A few of them would be like the 7-Elevens. And for me, locally, most of my Dunkin' Donuts seem to be run by Indian families. Also hotels, like you mentioned. Do you think, first, do you think the stereotypes are accurate? Are these industries dominated by Indians? Or do you think it's inaccurate?

No, definitely true. Dunkin' Donuts and hotel business are mainly dominated by Indians. And because I used to live in Chicago before, so I know like majority of Dunkin' in Chicago are owned by Indians, majority of them. Why do you think that is? What is it about the Indian culture where Indian immigrants to the U.S.

are drawn to businesses like Dunkin' Donuts or like running and buying and running hotels? Yeah, because they think one thing, okay, most of them when they came to U.S. like 20, 30 years back, they weren't that educated. So they are thinking, you know, let me work like very hard for now, five to six years, you know, save some money and buy business.

And once they got one business, they see how much money they can make. So they keep buying more and more. Like I know, I know one person who has like more than five subway with him because he came from India. He's as old as me. He's 28 year old, but he has five subway because he came to U.S.

He's like, I'm not going to study or do anything, you know. So he saved up for a couple of years, got a subway. And once you have one business, whenever there is another business nearby there who want to sell, like for example, Dunkin', they will offer to the Dunkin' guy or the person who owns the business nearby because it's easier for them to control in that way.

Tell me about, are there any Indian customs surrounding money? For example, I'm thinking of things like lending within the Indian community or things like that. Are there any Indian customs surrounding money that you think would be useful or helpful to the audience of Radical Personal Finance to think about?

Yeah, yeah. Indian do lend the money to each other based on the, you know, so based on the families they know each other. Like, for example, if somebody knows for somebody knows them for a long time, they will give cash money to them. OK, you need money to take $10,000, for example, but you have to repay me in one year.

But I don't like the system at all because I'm I don't like the system. But yeah, there is this system which is integral to Indian community in U.S. or anywhere where there are Indians. Why don't you like the system? Because I had some bad experience like lending some money back in days in my school to my friend.

It's very hassle, you know, and they don't repay you on their time and you've got to keep them asking and asking. So from that point, I decided, you know, I won't jump in this kind of things. Is there so the reason I'm interested in these in this topic is because a lot of times when you get into an ethnic subgroup, there are different systems of accountability.

So as I've observed in some systems in the United States, your credit score in working through the credit reporting agencies is the primary way of establishing somebody's trustworthiness as a borrower. But when you get into an ethnic subgroup where you're getting a loan from somebody to someone else, there's not you don't have that same system.

You know, your relative or your friend is not reporting you to the credit reporting agencies as being delinquent on your debt. So what are the mechanisms in when borrowing and when lending money? What are the mechanisms for accountability to make sure that you're being paid back? So basically, for example, if I want to like if you're if you if you ask money for from me and I don't need that well, so you have to find some person who knows me very well and that person can vouch for you.

That's the only way they get the money. And then if you don't repay, then there's the public shaming, basically, your reputation within your community group is damaged. Is that yes, is that accurate? Yes, accurate. OK. What are the lessons would you like to share with my audience from looking at the United States and looking at your experience within the context of being an immigrant going on almost four years now?

What are the lessons would you like to share with my audience to help them win with money? So number one is like, don't be scared to move because I moved to Chicago two times and I moved to California two times because of better job opportunity. And probably by next year, I'm going to again move out of California because it's ridiculous expensive to live here.

So number one is don't be afraid to move and take a new opportunity or job because it always gives at least if it doesn't increase your money, it will increase your skills and reach down the line can build money for you and you will know a lot of people.

That's the number one. Number two is like study something about finance. It's very easy to put money in 401k if you're if you're eligible and traditional IRA, of course, and then Roth IRA or whatever, or just finances. Study online, there is a lot of free material, you know, to get started with.

And that's what I did. And I'm very happy this year. I start I mean, I started last year, September, but in this year, I already had 18,000 in my 401k. It's growing by 12% actually, to tell you the truth. So I'm like, pretty happy about that. You know, I never imagined that I would be able to save this much money and have this much growth in a short time.

So of course, you know, read online, ask family and friends if you don't understand anything. And you know, sometimes things seem that it won't work out, won't work out, but it eventually works out in long term. So for example, me, I'm still trying from a physician, this will be my fourth year trying and if I don't match this year, again, I'm going to try and actually I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to keep trying and trying because that is what I want eventually down the line. So that's what I can tell from my experience. Have you ever regretted moving from Russia to the United States? No. Just because it's easier to be a vegetarian in the United States than Russia or for other reasons?

No, other reasons. I do have family and friends here, so it's pretty much convenient for me. And my dad who lives in India, he also wanted that I would settle in the US. That's what he wanted for me. So yeah. Final question. Do you interact with your financially? Do you interact financially with your family living still in India?

Yeah, I interact with them, but they of course, they don't know about 401k and you know, IRA and stuff. That's not part of our conversation. But yeah, I interact with them in a way they understand me, you know, like my parents understand me. Hey, I'm saving this much. I'm hoping to save much.

And just general numbers, but nothing very detailed because they don't have knowledge about finance in the US. But let me be more clear. What I meant by interact was, are you sending them money? Are they supporting you? Have you supported them? Oh no. Do you intend to bring them to the United States?

How is your financial relationship between your family at home versus here? Okay. So normally, yeah, I don't ask money from my parents, but they, when they were, when, whenever they need, they ask from me and of course I send them. So whenever they need like, but it's not a big amount.

It's like two to $3,000 at a time, once a year probably. So whenever they ask me that they want to build something there, you know, or do something in our farm, you know, build a fence or something, then I send them money. So it's not a big deal. Yeah.

But yeah, in our culture and community, when parents ask you, you cannot deny them. That's the, that's the whole thing in our community, Indian culture. You cannot deny to your parents. Do you think that, uh, will you ever try to bring them to the United States or will they stay in India?

No, no, definitely. Once I become a US citizen, which will be next year after I become a US citizen, I will definitely, you know, apply for them and they can come to us in, I think six, six, it takes six to 10 months for them to come from India to here, whole immigration process.

It's it's, uh, it's so interesting. Almost every, uh, US immigrant for whom I've done financial planning has those line items on their budget that US Americans don't generally think about and it's support for family back home. And I really admire that. Uh, I really admire the, the support of parents, the support of extended family.

I really admire, um, that immigrant mentality. I find it so lacking on the US American culture. But it also comes with a whole different range of considerations that you have to consider for financial planning of thinking about how do I prioritize my goals and how do I also care for my family and what are my responsibilities, uh, responsibilities there.

Uh, do you think that, um, do you think that you'll be able to pass along some of your values to your children or are you worried about them looking just like all of the other, uh, American children around with regard to how they handle money? So, so for that, I had been thinking for quite a bit.

I don't have children yet, but down the line, once I have, my goal is to take them India every year for their summer vacation. So by the time I hope I will be financially independent and I can take their whole summer vacation, then to India so they can, they can learn our culture and things in India so that then I can, you know, then I can tell them about finance and then I can teach about finance and things to, to them.

But they have to go outside of US to learn those things. That's what I believe for now. But yeah, you never know. Well, man, this has been great. Anything else that you want to share before we wrap up here? Yeah, we haven't talked about travel hacking. I do a bunch of travel hacking.

Tell us what you've learned. So my credit score is more than 750 for me and my spouse and I do apply like, okay, three credit cards for me every three months and three for my wife. So six cars every three months. So I have been traveling literally for like $22 wherever I want to go in US or even Hawaii.

So because I use my points and miles. So yeah, that's the way I travel. How have you learned about these skills? So before I learned about finance, you know, I was just as I, as I told you, as I mentioned earlier, I started my job and I had a lot of free time.

I mean, you just work eight over a day here, right? And then you come home and you have free time. So what are you supposed to do? So I started reading about this travel blogs and it says like, if you apply this card, you get 50,000 points, you know, and I'm pretty good at paying my bills on time.

I have zero late payment so far in one and a half, two years. So I'm pretty good with that. So I'm like, okay, let me take the benefit of system. You know, if they allow here, then why not? That's awesome. And you're not, and you're not even a citizen of the United States yet, but you can still access the travel hacking system.

That's awesome. Anything else that you want to share? No, that's so far I have, you know, achieved in US. So I'm excited for, I'm excited for your future and I hope that you'd be able to gain access to a residency program. And I'm sure that if you continue, if you continue forward, I'm sure that you'll find an opportunity and I congratulate you on all your progress, on all your progress thus far, taking advantage of the opportunities that you do have in front of you while working towards what you really want to have.

And thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing your story with my audience to inspire them and welcome to the United States. May your American dream be rich and fruitful for a very long time. Thank you, Jeff, so much. Thank you for listening to this episode of Radical Personal Finance.

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