I first heard the term “accredited investor” over coffee with a friend who happened to be a financial advisor. He was excited about a real estate deal he was involved in. My interest piqued, I asked him how he finds access to these deals. He said he’d be happy to introduce me to the operators, but I needed to be an accredited investor first.
I had no idea what that meant, …
What does it mean to be an accredited investor?
“Can I look at that book?” said the man next to me in an accent I would soon learn to be Pakistani. I had placed the book face down on the park bench intentionally. In a busy, public place, I didn’t want to broadcast that I was reading The Doctors Guide to Smart Career Alternatives and Retirement.
The back cover contained enough information to pique the polite man’s interest. “Sure,” I said. …
How physicians can retire early without regret
Many of us take for granted that we should be paying next to nothing for our index funds.
Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab offer great index funds with very low expense ratios.
But there are many other providers of index funds. And unfortunately, they do not charge the low expense ratios we have come to expect from Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab.
Interactive Brokers and no transaction fee index …
Watch the expense ratios: Not all index mutual funds are cheap
Being in a high income, high-risk field I often think of asset protection. The lawsuit may not come from medical work, but from an auto accident or someone slipping on my front step. All of these can lead to suits, and as a high-income earner, we all have a target on our back. The last thing I want to do is work hard to save money to then have it …
Physician asset protection: Is it a good idea to pay down debts?
The high-pitched wail of the pneumatic saw cutting through the tibia, and the little bits of tissue the blade flung onto the surgeon’s gown were not enough to get to me the first time I saw a surgery, during my senior year in high school. It was the smell. Sliding down the wall in the corner of the operating room, wondering if lunch would stay put, I began to question …
Did medical school desensitize doctors to debt?
The fall is over, and winter has come, which means I have just wrapped up a busy season of medical school interviews. Most interviews are conducted in a similar fashion with an hour of introduction, speeches by the dean, presentations of facts I already knew from the website, and finally the interviews.
Within the first hour, I understand the reason: “We are the best medical school at (fill in the blank).” …
The first rule of medical school interviews: Don’t talk about cost
That’s right folks, I am talking about two types of money saving maneuvers:
Save money on purchases
‘Tis the season for giving, but ’tis also the season for buying. Make sure you are doing everything you can to save …
Take advantage of these 2 ways to save money
I owe a lot to Robert Kiyosaki. His book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, actually helped start me on my path to financial freedom, and his other writings have all taught me very valuable lessons. While I don’t agree with everything, he says in every book, one thing that really cemented the idea of passive income in my mind was the concept of the “cash flow quadrant.”
This concept is so important and …
Physicians: Understand the the cash flow quadrant
In order to safely plan for a successful retirement, it’s imperative to have a general idea of what your spending needs will be when retired. We cannot calculate whether or not our anticipated withdrawal rate would be considered safe (in the range of 3% to 4%) without knowing the size of the annual withdrawal.
That number can be difficult to pin down, as there are many variables. It can be informative …
5 expenses that go down after you retire
Most people’s monthly spending is a series of recurring payments, like rent, food, and utilities. There are also some one-time purchases that might require a few months of saving, like a nice vacation or a new suit.
And then there are some things that require many months or years of savings.
An engagement ring. A wedding. A new car. A down payment on a house.
When saving for big purchases, how do you …
So you want to make a big purchase. How do you save for it?
I am frequently asked the following question: “Should I pay off my student loans before I put money aside to invest in the stock market?” The person asking this quick and simple question is looking for a yes or no answer. The problem I am faced with is there is not enough information in the question to give a proper answer. Therefore, I say, it depends.
It depends on how the …
Should you pay off medical school debt or invest in the stock market?
As the husband of a physician, I know what it’s like to live on a low income while watching your spouse go through the grueling process that is residency. I know what it’s like to want a nicer car, a nicer home, and just about nicer everything.
One one hand, I think physicians have earned the right to a better than average lifestyle. After all, doctors are some of the hardest …
When it comes to lifestyle inflation, where do you draw the line?
Buying a home is a big deal; it’s one of the biggest and most emotional financial decisions you’ll make in your entire lifetime. Haven’t we all dreamt of the home we’d buy when we grow up?
When my wife and I neared the end of our medical training, discussions of where to live (and how many kids to have) began to arise. Like most people, our first home felt like the …
Should your home be part of net worth calculations?
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“Ask not what your money will do for you. Ask what you can do for your money.”
– Anonymous
I think what this Anonymous fellow is trying to say, isn’t “what will you do for money?” because frankly, we probably don’t want to know what you would do for money, but rather, “what will you do for your finances?”
We all want our money to grow and grow and be there for us when …
Physicians: What will you do for your finances?
Congratulations!
After months of planning, you are now a proud parent. Starting today the rest of your life will change. No longer will you worry about getting reservations at the “in” restaurant. … or any restaurant. Nope. You won’t have time. Nor will you have energy. Both will get zapped, and that is okay.
Instead, you will be figuring out breastfeeding, bottle feeding, sleep schedules, diaper changes, educational and interesting toys for …
Doctor, you’re now a parent. It’s time to get your financial plan in order.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am a frugal physician. Frugality has served me well, and I wouldn’t be financially independent without that quality.
Yes, I refer to frugality as a quality, and as far as qualities go, it’s a quality quality to have. While not everyone thinks of frugality as a decidedly positive quality to possess, it just might be that others confuse frugality with its …
Physicians: It’s possible to be frugal, but not cheap
The only time my husband outearned me was during our first three years of marriage when I was still in residency and working 80-plus hours per week earning less than minimum wage per hour. Since then, despite graduating in a professional degree, we have made relocation moves that primarily help with my career growth, to the detriment of his.
In 2015, an NPR article quoted statistics showing that 38 percent of …
Make more than your spouse? Here’s how to save money on taxes.
You’ve worked hard for your money, now make sure it works for you.
We all want our money to grow and grow and be there for us when we ask for it, serve as our nest egg during retirement, eventually go to our kids, grandkids and charitable accounts when we leave this earth. But if we don’t take the necessary steps now, our money will not do this for us.
This is …
6 ways doctors can make their money work for them
I recently had an experience that opened my eyes to a big problem in medicine: availability.
My son came to me one morning and said he was kept awake by the dripping over his bed. My roof was leaking. Once I found the source of the leak and discovered that it was more than I wanted to tackle, I needed to find a roofer.
Every call to a roofing company resulted in …
The difference between doctors and roofers? Not much.
Let me start by saying that I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan. When I completed residency and began my current position, The Total Money Makeover was the first personal finance book I read, and pardon the cliché, but it changed my life. It instilled in me a strong foundation in money management and offered me a road map to handle the situation I was in: hundreds of thousands of dollar in …
Pay off debt, invest, or both: Advice to young physicians
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