Financial Wellbeing for Veterinary Technicians | Episode 76 | Reviving Vet Med

Veterinary technicians and technologists are the backbone of every practice, yet many face financial challenges that can feel overwhelming—especially when living paycheck to paycheck. During National Vet Tech Week and RVT Appreciation Month, we’re shining a light on this often-overlooked aspect of wellbeing: financial health.

In this empowering episode, we sit down with Grace Wu Ursery, founder of Vet Money Geek and longtime RVT and practice manager. Grace shares practical, judgment-free advice on budgeting, building savings, understanding benefits, and starting constructive conversations about pay and compensation.

Whether you’re a vet tech, practice manager, or veterinary professional looking to take control of your finances, this episode offers actionable steps to build financial resilience and peace of mind—without sacrificing your coffee habit or your sanity.

Listen to learn how small, intentional changes can make a big difference in your financial future and overall wellbeing.

Watch the Video Version of this Episode
https://youtu.be/2Qdu07f6uy4 

Resources

Follow Grace Wu Ursery on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracewursery  

Learn more about Vet Money Geek: www.vetmoneygeek.com

Follow Grace / Vet Money Geek on social media @vetmoneygeek

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Transcript

Dr. Marie Holowaychuk - Hi everyone, it's Dr. Marie Holowaychuk here. If you're like me and love staying up to date on what's happening in Vet Med beyond just cases and clinical pearls, you'll want to check out What's Up Doc, the new podcast from Scribenote, hosted by Dr. Katie Gallagher, veterinarian and co-founder of Scribenote, what's Up Doc dives into the real conversations happening in our industry, from the latest trends in tech to mental health and the everyday challenges veterinary professionals face. I had the chance to be a guest on the show to talk about all things veterinary well being and trust me, it's not your average vet med podcast. So wherever you listen to your podcasts, search Whats Up Doc by Scribenote, hit follow and join the conversation. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Met.

Dr. Marie -  Today we're diving into a topic that impacts every veterinary professional but doesn't get nearly enough attention, especially among our support team members, and that's financial well being. And what better time to have this conversation than during National Vet Tech Week and RVT Appreciation Month? Our guest today is Grace Wu Ursary, founder of Vet Money Geek, a veterinary financial coaching service dedicated to helping practices and professionals build simple, healthy and sustainable financial habits. Grace has more than 20 years of experience as an RVT and practice manager, NGP specialty and mixed animal medicine, and brings a down to earth operations savvy perspective to the often intimidating world of money management. In today's episode we talk about everything from living paycheck-to-paycheck to understanding your paycheck, budgeting strategies that actually work, and how to have open, constructive conversations about pay and benefits.

Dr. Marie -  Grace's mission is clear to empower vet professionals with the tools and confidence they need to make informed financial decisions and build lasting financial resilience. So while this episode is dedicated to vet techs whether you're a practice owner or a VA or anything in between, this conversation will leave you feeling informed, inspired and ready to take the next step toward financial well being. So let's jump into this practical and empowering episode.

Dr. Marie -  This is the Reviving Vet Med podcast and I'm your host, Dr. Marie Holowaychuk. My mission is to improve the mental health and well being of veterinary professionals around the world. Hi Grace, it's so good to have you on the podcast with me.

Grace Wu Ursery -  Hi, Good morning.

Dr. Marie -  You have had such a rich career in veterinary medicine, from veterinary technician to practice manager to financial coach. Can you share your journey and what led you to focus on financial literacy for veterinary professionals?

Grace -  Yeah, it was a winding path. But at the heart of every turn was seeing fellow colleagues, whether they were business owners, as, you know, practicing veterinarians, as fellow technicians, or even vet assistants and kennel attendants coming into the veterinary medical space very early in their own careers. Just seeing that money was always a point of conflict, whether it was personally or professionally. For our newest members into our industry, it could look like, well, I was told to don't come to veterinary medicine for the money. You know, come for the puppies and kittens. Your happiness level gets filled. But then the reality is, you know, somebody needs to be able to sustain their lifestyle with licensed technicians. You know, I myself being an RVT, I loved learning academically, but that comes at a cost.

Grace -  You know, whether it's tuition, taking time away from work in order to attend classes, paying for books, we want to advance our careers, but it does come at that cost. And I think the most poignant part about veterinary medicine and its relationship with money on a business level, and that also intersects personal levels, are those that go into owning a business. And in our space, most of them are practicing veterinarians and they want to have their own practice. And even with all these resources, they still struggle with maintaining financial stability. Many of my DVM friends, you know, say, well, I opened up this business really with the intention of, this is my retirement, this is my nest egg. And seeing how that is a long term commitment with a lot of responsibilities.

Grace -  And I felt like I was always interested in finding ways to support those in my veterinary community to be able to stay on that path.

Dr. Marie -  So. Interesting. Yeah. When it comes to money in our profession, there's so many layers to it. You know, I think of veterinarians and their student debt that they carry in comparison to the amount that they get paid, which is thankfully improving very slowly. But, you know, when I think about veterinary technicians and technologists specifically, they are often paid at or even below living wage, which, like you said, the puppies and kittens will only take you so far. And then you have to pay your bills. From your perspective, what do you feel are the systemic factors that contribute to this? And what change would you like to see happen in our profession to better support these important members of our team?

Grace -  I think that as a collective, we tend to want to keep, maybe unconsciously, I want to give most of our medical leaders, our team leaders, the benefit of the doubt, but maybe unconsciously keeping people in their box. You know, we hire specifically for a kennel attendant that is friendly with animals, or we hire a veterinary assistant that we feel has the ability to be around blood and guts and the smells of feces and be able to restrain animals. We don't actually hire always for the potential to grow. And I think that is an area where I understand from being in a management and leadership position and as a hiring manager, you want somebody to just come in, plug and play and keep the train running. 

Grace - But the long term goal for us should be let's hire people who are passionate about some aspect of veterinary medicine and then find which channel that fits in, be able to invest in their growth and hopefully they stay within the profession. So having a career path mapped out for every new hire is very daunting for a practice manager or practice owner to take on. But if we can start thinking about it in that way, that it becomes more almost intrinsic and almost natural in our behavior, that, you know, 90 day new hire check in is not just about, hey, did you learn how to do all these things that we want you to learn? But also, is this the right profession for you? Does the noise of barking dogs really give you a migraine? 

Grace -  Because you know that's going to really limit the type of work environments you can be in. And I think that there's aspects of that. But also, well, do you really like maybe some aspects of laboratory medicine or do you like to be very tactile and be able to place catheters, you know, or are you much more scientifically minded? And you are, you don't understand all the diagnostic values that the veterinarian is interpreting. But it's very intriguing for you to understand that relationship. And then on the client service side, that's the same components. You know, we don't hire, we typically do hire and look for veterinary assistants and technicians who are technically able to touch things and have some critical thinking in terms of understanding disease relationships. 

Grace -   But then we're missing the component of the communication back with our team members and communication back with our pet owners. So there's that aspect of just understanding what that career map may look like. 

Dr. Marie -  I love that it intersects so well with well being because the research really does show that individuals tend to have higher levels of well being and job satisfaction when they feel like there's room to grow in their career, in their job. And I like what you said, we need to stop thinking about this as just like we're hiring somebody for the job versus we would love for someone to be having a career in veterinary medicine. And that means advancements, that means promotions, pay increases, so that we can get people into roles that feel more financially sustainable. When someone feels like they're living paycheck to paycheck, which I know a lot of our support team members are, financial well being feels like a pie in the sky, like that's they're just really surviving, nevermind like thinking about other things beyond that. 

Dr. Marie - What would you say is the very first step for a vet tech to start improving their financial stability? 

Grace - I think the most underrated aspect is having a 401k plan or a retirement plan. And that feels so lofty and so far away for somebody who, let's say age wise they're in their early 20s or there might be even, you know, 18, 19 and this is their first, you know, full time job out of high school years, that feels really far away. But every penny, every dollar that goes into a retirement plan that the employer will provide matching, which means free money, right? So you pretty much can almost double the amount that you're putting in. So there's an aspect of additional money that's being contributed by your employer and then the long term compounding interest on that and the long term growth on that. So you can start with $5 every paycheck. 

Grace - And if there's a way for you to spend $5 less somewhere else in your life, it's not just hey, ditch the Starbucks, because for some that is their one luxury. But there is probably somewhere where $5 can be allocated off of your paycheck automatically into your employer's 401k fund, even if you switch employers, which you probably will over the course of your career. But every time you have an employer that has a retirement program, and especially if they provide a dollar match for your contributions, try to get to the point where you can do the minimum effort for the maximum benefit. 

Dr. Marie -   I love that. 

Grace -  Aside from that day to day, there's also other employer benefits that you just need to be openly curious about and talk to your practice manager or practice owner about like hey, what can I do? What else do I have available to me now? 

Dr. Marie -  It's so interesting. I mean, you don't know what you don't know. So I love the notion of asking, you know, what are, what other benefits are there that I might tap into here? You know, so what I'm hearing you say, and this goes back to advice that my dad gave me like years and years ago, like you said, when I was probably in my early 20s, which is just like automate the savings, you know, have $100 or $5 like you said, $10 coming out of the account or out of the paycheck every month or twice a month. You don't even have to think about it. And I love this point. If you have an employer who here in Canada, it would be an RRSP, a Registered Retirement Savings Plan would be the equivalent of the 401k in the US they will match that. 

Dr. Marie -  So they're giving you money that is going towards your savings. So I love that idea. Feels like, oh, why do I need to think about that now? But you'll thank yourself later when there's that compound interest and everything grows. You talk a lot about demystifying the numbers. And as somebody who really does not like numbers, I get, you know, I don't like spreadsheets. I did well in math 31, but that feels like an eternity ago. For an individual vet tech who's not a practice owner, what key numbers should they know and track to get a clearer picture of their financial health? 

Grace -  Yeah. So first I wanted to emphasize I'm not a financial advisor. Right. Everything that we're talking about here is for educational purposes. I'm not going to give you any specific individual advice and you should. I really encourage people to learn some of these things on their own and then reach out to professionals as they're able to either afford it or find free resources for it. But the one thing that I struggled with as a young adult, as I was getting a regular paycheck, was I didn't understand what the heck was a FICO score. And this has nothing to do with veterinary medicine. This is just being a person. 

Grace -  And I don't know if this is something similarly equivalent in other countries, but I would assume that there is some type of numeric scoring system that demonstrates to, let's say a bank or a credit card company that says you're credit worthy to be able to lend money. And so you may think, oh, well, I'm not a veterinary practice owner that needs hundreds of thousands of dollars to open a business. I'm just somebody that is working as an hourly employee. Why the heck do I need to know if I'm credit worthy? I'm not. I'm not taking out a big loan. Now, big loans can look like a house mortgage. You know that you want to purchase your own home. A big loan can also look like a car loan for you to have your own means of transportation. 

Grace -  But also credit worthiness can come down to, can you get the better credit card than another credit card that's going to charge a much higher interest rate or requiring you to keep a certain balance and on the line there's different credit cards that have different super cool benefits. Like that gives you quadruple, you know, the points for travel points to get on an airplane or you get cash back rewards. A lot of that comes down to hey, are you credit worthy for us to lend? For us meaning some type of financial institution to lend you money so that you can have more than what you have actually saved in your checking account or savings account to pay for everyday expenses. But also maybe like the emergency stuff that comes up. 

Dr. Marie -  Yeah, so in Canada, I mean generally we just call it a credit score. I think FICO comes from the main entities in the US that generally calculate that score in the US Here in Canada it's calculated the same way. So it's typically that 300 to 900 score. We just call it a credit score. Grace, maybe you could explain to everybody, yes, it's important to know your credit score and build that credit score, your FICO score, how do people better that score? Because you have to kind of do something to even give people the notion that you are a good credit person. 

Grace -  So when I was a teenager, I think I got added as a user on my parents credit card. That did not actually help me positively on my credit score because I just got to use their credit line when I got to college. Then that was probably the first time where I was getting solicited. Hey, open up a credit card and in college you're like sweet. I got a credit line of 500 bucks. I can go buy my groceries or I can go buy my books and not have to worry about having it in my checking account. But that is usually that's where you start building up your credit is probably your first credit card as a young adult. 

Grace - Now if you use up that $500 credit line every month and you're not able to pay it off, that does start to decrease your credit score or keep you in the lower numbers, the better you're able to pay off your balance either in full or in majority, keep that balance low, not accrue a lot of interest with your revolving credit card debt. That helps build your credit worthiness. And then as you take out additional smaller loans throughout your young adult life, again, such as a financial aid or student loans or school, that also builds up your credit score. When you go to seek a rental property to live in, you know, an apartment to live in, typically property managers, landlords will run your credit score. 

Grace -  If you're a young working adult, you'll need to supplement that information maybe with some paychecks and so forth because you don't have a lot of credit history. But again, as long as you're able to pay your monthly rent on time and you don't have a conflict with your landlord in terms of your monthly rental obligation, then that also builds up your credit score. And so then as you go through life and there's more financial transactions that happen that's associated with your name and your identity in a positive fashion, you continue to build that credit score up and up until you're in the higher numbers. 

Grace -  Now when you start to ask for a lot of credit line, like let's say you carry five different credit cards and you're nearly maxing them out all the time and you're carrying a lot of debt, that will bring down your number. And then your ability to say, get a bigger line of credit for another reason, like let's say a car loan, you may get either declined or you're going to get an offer that has a really high interest that can be economically crippling to you. 

Dr. Marie - Such great advice. Thanks for putting that in context. I know a lot of people in the financial space talk about budgeting and I always personally feel very overwhelmed with this. I'm like, oh, what does that even mean? How do I do that? You know, especially when expenses are unpredictable. Do you have any practical or realistic budgeting strategies that would work well for a vet tech or somebody else on the veterinary team? 

Grace -  Yeah, I think we all assume that you have to like sit in front of your computer and create this drive spreadsheet. And for some people like spreadsheets, you know, make themselves cross eyed. For me, I love them. But at the same time, I admit when I was working as an employee having only a singular source of income, there was no budget method. It was like, okay, the paycheck got deposited in and I knew how much I had to pay for rent and have some money left over for gas and groceries. And then you just hoped and prayed that nothing else came up. Right. And you just made sure like checking your online checking account every week or even every day you had money left over in the bank, that's incredibly stressful to any singular person. 

Grace -  And so when you can think about budgeting, if you can reflect back or even pull your bank statement, let's take your checking account and that's you only have one checking account, let's pull your bank statement for the past month. And you start to just highlight things like this is what I absolutely need to do. Right? So 50% of your paycheck should in theory go to what you need to have. And that's typically, it's going to be maybe some insurance premiums and your rent and you want to allocate some acceptable amount, realistic amount to like utilities and groceries. And then you'll have maybe 30% of your paycheck to your wants. And that's gonna be, hey, I wanna go out to have a movie night every once a month. I want to have a dinner out, you know, with friends and family once a week. 

Grace -  I want to spend maybe like I wanna be able to buy like a set of concert tickets once every couple of months. So, so either you can divide your paycheck up so you, let's say for simple math sake, you have a thousand dollars on your paycheck and you're going to divide that up into 50% of that $500 goes toward your needs, 30% goes to your wants, 20% of that goes toward the savings and your extra debt payments. So that's $200 out of the thousands. So that's one way to do it. 

Grace -  Or we can look at your bank statement for from last month and we start color coding things and then when we add all the color codes up so we have one color for our needs, one color for our wants, and do we have a, hopefully we have a third color for things that are being transferred out of our checking account into our savings account and then we add our colors up, does it fit into a 50, 30, 20 bucket? So either you want to look at your paycheck or you want to look at what you actually have done. So you're looking at either. Okay, I know what my paycheck is and I'm going to live within 50% of my paycheck for this, 30% for that, 20% for my savings, hopefully. Or let's look at how I actually lived my life last month. 

Grace - Did it fit within or was I actually overspending, you know, or did I spend everything more than 30% on my wants and nothing on my savings and my debt? So there's two different ways. I actually like to do both exercises to see where I can make those adjustments. 

Dr. Marie - That's so helpful. It's really looking at your spending and then working backwards from there to ideally try to fit it into this like 50, 30, 20 rule that you said. Beyond budgeting, building savings and financial resilience is really important. How can vet techs or other members of the team start setting aside money even if their income is limited and you kind of touched on this in the beginning. This is so important. I'd love to hear your more thoughts on this.

Grace -  Yeah, so I've been hearing from some other like financial like advisors and social media posts and so forth, those that are actually actively in this personal finance and coaching space and there's kind of traditionally been like two schools of thought. There's an older school of thought which really worked for maybe let's say Gen Xers. That said, just deprive yourself of all these luxuries, right? Get rid of your Starbucks coffee drink, your daily Starbucks and put that $7, or maybe back then it was five, put that, you know, five or $7 away into your savings, into your retirement or paying down your debt. I think currently the concept is a little bit more fluid and adaptable to not wanting to create this internal culture of deprivation and of having to give up things. 

Grace -  So if that Starbucks drink is really high value for you, then that's not where you want to cut back. But there are probably some other areas where you're maybe convenient spending instead of intentional spending. So I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine and I realized that I really enjoy dining out with my friends. And when we do it's a three hour evening. It's very enjoyable. I may have spent either $20 on my dinner or $50 on my dinner but it's the time that I've spent with my friends that is really enriching to my well being. What I realized also there were times where I was spending on convenience whether it's the drive through or I'm going to pick up a smoothie on in between stops. And it was less about I need this to fulfill my nutritional needs. 

Grace -  And it definitely wasn't. There was no social, you know, aspect to it where I was enjoying the company of others and I was just kind of running through it because I didn't plan my day. So I think that there's an aspect of budgeting and savings that is less about how many dollars you move around but just more pausing to think, do I truly need to buy this? So many times whether it's on Amazon or even online shopping. What my friends and I will talk about is we will find something that we really, we just really wanted to look at something online. Let's say it was a pair of shoes or a new blouse and then we'll put it in the shopping cart. But we've built up a resilience of okay, leave it there overnight and then if we left it there overnight. 

Grace - We probably got really busy the rest of the day. And I may not have gone back to the shopping cart for like a week at that point. And then I really think about, well, did I really need it? Because I actually went a whole week without it. So again, intentional spending, giving yourself a pause and thinking, like, do I truly want to purchase that? Is it a need versus a what? 

Dr. Marie - Hey there. My book, A Compassionate Calling: What it Really Means to Be a Veterinarian isn't just for vets. It's for our amazing vet techs too. I even have a chapter celebrating vet techs called the Unsung Heroes of Veterinary Men Medicine. Celebrate RVT Month or National Vet Tech Week by grabbing a copy for yourself or your favorite vet tech by visiting ACompassionateCalling.com or wherever books are sold. Such great points. Everything in life is so accessible now, like food delivery, apps and subscriptions. Like, people can have so many different subscriptions to streaming, to music, to workout, whatever it is. And I think sometimes those set it and forget it things we really don't add up, right? Or like you say, these late night purchases, shopping. What's the word I'm looking for when it's like spontaneous, you know, these spontaneous purchases. 

Dr. Marie -  And like you said, you're driving between stops and it's like, I'll just pull in here, but do you really need to do that? I'm definitely somebody like you who really enjoys experiences. And I know the wellbeing research really shows that spending money on experiences has such longer benefits for your wellbeing and overall happiness versus spending money on things. So I do take note of that. It's different if my daughter and I go to Starbucks together and get a treat and sit there versus if I'm just like, because I'm bored, you know, going out and getting Starbucks when I don't really need it. 

Dr. Marie -  I think some vet techs may be hesitant to talk about money with their employers. I think money is such a heavy topic for a lot of us, and they might feel like, well, this is just the life of a vet tech or a vet assistant and everybody's just being paid this amount And I just have to deal with it. What do you feel might be some good tips for respectful, constructive conversations about pay raises, benefits, whatever it might be to make their lives easier. 

Grace - Yeah. From the manager's perspective or the practice owner, practice leadership perspective, our gut kind of clenches. I have to feel this. Our gut clenches when an employee says, hey, can I talk to you about my upcoming review or my pay? Because we're assuming that somebody's going to ask for something that we can't provide or they're giving us their resignation. And I think what to acknowledge that there's nervousness and anxiety on both sides of the fence. The employee is really typically at a critical point where they're not coming to the employer and saying, hey, I'd like to talk about my career path and like, I'd like to grow some more. 

Grace -  It's usually at some point of conflict, personally, where they realize, hey, my rent just went up, so I think I need to go ask my boss if I can get a raise or some other financial stressor is happening. So I think if we can approach it at a time when that stress isn't at the forefront of our mind, that we can just proactively try to have this conversation regularly throughout the year and throughout the course of employment with that veterinary practice that both sides of the fence, there's no fence to divide. Both parties are. This is just normal for them to talk about, hey, you're doing great. What's the next skill level that you want to work towards? 

Grace -  Because we want to be able to continue to support you and reward you financially for being more versatile as a technical team member, for example. Right. And at the same time, for the employee to be able to say, hey, like, I'm doing this okay right now, but I'm really interested in that. Like, what can you do to help me get there? And does that come with any type of compensation change? So I think when we talk about things that both sides can win on is going to be your total compensation package. It's beyond the hourly wage. 

Grace - And it's difficult for our, an hourly employee to see that until we can see what the monetary value looks like. So that can look like medical insurance that's being provided by the employer. If they say, hey, we're going to contribute like $150 flat rate on every paycheck, but there are 24 paychecks in the year, that's a lot of money that you don't have to pay out of your wallet that your employer is going to take care of because they're going to be supplementing that premium amount. Is it that you are, you know, going to benefit from having a dental and vision plan that they're also paying for in full or in part, but it will also depend on your life circumstance. 

Grace -  Maybe you're at a point where you need a little bit more flexibility in that, in your schedule, and that will actually be something that's much more valuable than you, to you, than a $2 raise. As a mom and when I had my child about a decade ago, when she was born, I was very fortunate that my employer said, you can come back to work part time if that is going to be what we can accommodate to get you to come back into the clinic. You know, we'd rather have you come and work with us part time than to. For you to say no. 

Grace -  And there was a moment where everything that I was making was going straight toward daycare and I wasn't making any additional money, but I knew that it was a path to get me back into working full time and that continue with my momentum with my employer so that then I can say, oh, actually, look how much more efficient I've become in the limited time I am. Would you consider a, you know, a pay adjustment? If I can do these additional things? And still, and it doesn't take me extra time to do, I can actually do it within. Within a limited time. 

Grace - And so I think there was that ongoing conversation of like, well, I really want to be able to be at home certain days or certain hours and have work shorter days in order to be able to take care of a young child. Maybe in your situation, it might be an older parent or an extended family member that you need to be more involved in their medical care. As much as we, some of us may not want to share our personal life at work, and. And a mom, I typically fall into that category. I also find that when my coworkers are able to share some aspects of their personal life, it helps me understand that context and say, well, let's see if we can work something out. Can somebody else kind of switch a shift with you? Is this temporary? Is this permanent?

Grace -   Can we stagger your shift so that you're home during the day to help your grandmother take her morning medications? When we know that context, us as human beings, we absolutely start to understand, like, hey, it takes a village. And when we have that village support, we tend to find much more satisfaction, not only in our job, but in our life as a whole. And So I think being able to share just enough of your personal life to help your employer, your scheduler, your supervisor, your manager, whoever that is in that position of authority to help you navigate that may actually be something where it's not about I need a couple more dollars.

Grace -   It's, I just need a little bit more flexibility and time so I can come to work and do what I love here. But I'm also able to take care of the things that I love outside of work. 

Dr. Marie -  I love that. Yeah, it's so interesting. You know, well, being is such a multifaceted thing, right? Like there's so many different layers to it. Part of it is financial, part of it is physical, emotional, social, et cetera. And what I'm hearing from you is even within financial well being, there's many different aspects of that. It's not just what you're getting paid and it's I think, very encouraging. I know in the last NAVTA survey, national survey that they did for vet techs, they saw that number and type of benefits that technicians and technologists were being given had gone up quite a bit since the last survey was done. I think it was back in 2016. What would you recommend that vet techs look for and ask about when they are evaluating a job offer? I know you mentioned flexible work. You know, might be one thing,

Dr. Marie -   What different things should they be looking at that may not be seen right in their salary or their wage, but that are going to make a big difference for their financial wellbeing? 

Grace -  I think if you have licensure for your or your state or province or whatever national association membership, participation is either required or is beneficial for your ongoing career path. Those are some little hidden expenses that your employer may very easily be fine taking on. And as somebody who works with practices on understanding their business financials, that's the one thing I advocate a lot is hey, give your employees continuing education budgets, even for the unlicensed and non registered team members because they also need a career path for growth. Give them paid time off to engage in continuing education and give them a budget to renew their licensure. What happens on the management side and on the business side is we tend to worry about I'm going to pay for this and then that employee is going to leave. 

Grace -  So they're worried that they're putting out those business expenses, but they're not going to get the return on the value for investing in that person. So I think understanding that there's that sense of anxiety on both parties needs to be addressed. You know, and the challenge with on the employers is that going back to that plug and play kind of thinking is I just want to be able to bring somebody in and do this job at this hours because that's where my business is open from 8am to 6pm for example. And I can't do flexible scheduling for everybody. That's just only one way to run your business. If you are able to have that flexibility to cultivate a roster of part time employees, you may actually have a lot of long term loyalty as with employees there. 

Grace -  On the flip side, as somebody who's asking for flexibility in their schedule or additional compensation in the form of continuing education reimbursement or licensure reimbursement that also may cultivate long term loyalty too if they know that, okay, not only is my employer going to pay for this but I'm going to need to demonstrate how I'm going to be able to apply that back into my practice immediately, not two years from now. 

Dr. Marie -  So, so helpful. Yeah, so there's so many different things beyond the salary and like you said, there is that consideration on both sides, you know, in terms of weighing the value of the investment with the longevity of the team member and so on. I think it just, it speaks so much to feeling valued and appreciated when your employer does invest in your learning and your growth and development. So I think that's wonderful. And you mentioned so many other things too in our conversation today in terms of the 401k or RRSP matching in the various different types of health insurance and yeah, just so many great takeaways for everybody. I would love to hear more about the different services that you offer through Vet Money Geek and where listeners can connect with you if they want to learn more. 

Dr. Marie -  I know you're doing lots of great things. I first met you watching a panel discussion so I'd love to hear more. 

Grace -  Yeah, so the best way to find me is either on my website at moneygeek.com and there you can find all the social links for LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. I'm pretty much most active on LinkedIn. It's not just for other business professionals in terms of like corporate type of entity. I love it when NVAs and practice managers and practice owners reach out and they say hello. That's a great way to connect with more of our industry. At the end of the day I love talking about financial literacy in different forms, whether that is for somebody's individual well being. I’m more passionate for veterinary practices because that all connects back to an individual person. 

Grace -  So just like that kitten comes into our practice, you know, it needs to be vaccinated, you know, it needs to be dewormed, it needs to have all this preventative care and given the right diet, that kitten is attached to a human being that is going to take care of it. So I see that as the kitten is like our veterinary practices, I love working with the veterinary practices as a whole so that they become financially stable and resilient and grow because that veterinary practice is also attached to a lot of people who are taking care of it. 

Dr. Marie -  That's so beautiful. The last question I wanted to ask you then that I asked all of our guests is what does the phrase reviving veterinary medicine mean to you? 

Grace -  I did pause on this because I think what I struggle with in veterinary medicine is pushing against the norm, you know, in the status quo. And I think what reviving veterinary medicine means to me is about getting new perspectives and creating like non-conventional and non-traditional paths and roles for our team members. And that whatever was may have worked well a decade ago or a generation ago is not necessarily what we need to continue to do today. And to explore how we can continue to evolve veterinary medicine from a personnel perspective as well as from a business operations side will then lead to being able to support all the medicine and therapeutics that we bring to all the animals around the world. 

Dr. Marie -  I love that. So nicely said and this has been such a great conversation, Grace. So many wonderful words of wisdom for our listeners. Even if you're not in a vet tech role and or a support team member within the veterinary practice. I think there's great information here for everyone. So thank you again and I hope that we get to chat another time soon. 

Grace -  Yes, thank you so much for having me. 

Dr. Marie -  So that's it for this episode of Reviving Vet Med. I hope Grace's insights left you feeling a little more equipped and maybe even a little less intimidated about your finances. From budgeting tips to asking about benefits to taking that very first step toward financial stability, Grace reminded us that small, intentional changes can lead to big shifts in both financial and overall well being. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with your vet tech colleagues, especially during National Vet Tech Week and RVT Appreciation Month so we can help spread the word about the importance of financial literacy among our veterinary support team members. Please don't forget to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode and check the show notes for links to connect with Grace. 

Dr. Marie  -  You can Also follow us on social media @revivingvetmed for more tips and support for questions, topic suggestions or sponsorship opportunities, please reach out to us anytime at podcast@revivingvetmed.com a huge thank you to Grace Wu Ursary for joining us today and to all the veterinary technicians listening this week and every week. We appreciate you and everything that you do. Until next time, take care of yourself. Bye for now.