Many doctors today find themselves living paycheck to paycheck. They make a good income but just never seem to get caught up. Non-doctors see us as rich. But many of us are just broke on a larger salary. The whole reason I wrote my book stemmed from a conversation with a doctor who was struggling to make ends meet on a $450,000 a year income. That should never happen.
The national …
Read more…
As I work with people one-on-one as a high-performance coach, I have found that the most important aspect to their wealth accumulation, is their habits. Good habits create good results, and bad habits create bad results. The good news is, habits are learned.
You were not born with any of your habits; you learned them somewhere along the way. That means you can unlearn your bad habits and learn some new …
Read more…
As a personal finance coach, I have learned that the most important aspect to wealth accumulation is having good money habits. Good habits create good results, and good results are what everyone wants.
We were not born with any of our habits; we learned them somewhere along the way. That’s good news, because that means we can easily learn new habits. After all, we didn’t have any trouble learning the habits …
Read more…
I have been helping doctors with their personal finances for a long time. I recently realized that there is a single statement, if doctors would learn to use it, that would change their lives.
It is very common for me to encounter doctors who are in over their heads financially, struggling with debt, and living paycheck to paycheck. They have a high income, but never seem to have money left over …
Read more…
In my last post, I told my story of how I got out of medical school with only $18,000 of debt. By the time I left residency, I had that whittled down to $6,000 at 3% interest. Then during the next three years after starting my practice, I had accumulated almost $500,000 of new debt.
Initially, I didn’t think anything of this new large debt, after all, I …
Read more…
When I was a young lad, just heading off to college, I had no debt. I had no credit cards. My family didn’t use debt for purchases other than buying our house. I really didn’t have any knowledge about how to best use debt. My student loan package included a scholarship, a work-study program and $1,500 a year in student loans. I earned about $4,000 each summer working in the …
Read more…
I am continually running into people who are confused as to what constitutes debt when we are doing a makeover with their spending plans. Wikipedia defines debt as money owed by one party, the borrower or debtor, to a second party, the lender or creditor.
I have clients who list out their accounts payable as personal debt. For example, they see the dentist, and he is going to send a $200 …
Read more…
Congress has passed the new tax bill. This was certainly not tax reform as has been discussed, but simply a rearrangement of how they calculate our taxes. This new plan lowers tax rates but eliminates many of the items that were previously deductible. Sort of like rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic as it slowly sinks. Real tax reform might have made things so much simpler that the IRS …
Read more…
An unusual thing happened to me today; I was awakened by my phone alarm. Ever since I stopped practicing medicine ten months ago, I have rarely needed to set an alarm to get up. Today when my alarm sounded, Carolyn commented that when she woke up, she thought we were in Spain.
Last Spring, we were traveling through Spain on a two-week bus tour. Each day we had to have our …
Read more…
With a society living on credit, a government deep in debt, eight years of desensitization during training (something unique to doctors), rising tuition, and falling pay — it’s no wonder doctors are having a major problem with debt. Where will it end? Debt has become the norm. Will Rogers summed up this pattern of high consumption on borrowed money nicely: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy …
Read more…
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 …
Read more…
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 …
Read more…
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 …
Read more…
Recently, I had the privilege of presenting the Clinical Specialty Award for General Surgery at the 2017 Graduate Awards Celebration at Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP-NW). It was amazing to hear all the accomplishments and meet so many wonderful new doctors in this year’s class. I also got the opportunity to meet a few proud parents and professors.
The list of accomplishments of …
Read more…
There has been much talk over the years about resident work hours. How long is a safe shift? With safety being considered for both the patient and the resident. But no one ever discusses attending work hours. If putting in a 24-hour shift is bad for a resident, isn’t it bad for an attending as well? When I was working in critical access hospitals, I usually was on call for …
Read more…
Debt is destroying the lives of doctors everywhere. The cost of getting an education has moved into the ridiculous range. Many doctors are now starting their practice so far in the hole, that they do not see the way out.
I would not have been able to start on my debt-free journey (I peaked at more than $600,000) if I had not developed a new attitude toward debt. Putting debt into …
Read more…
I read it again this week, and I wonder why the editors of our medical journals continue to perpetuating this falsehood. An article in a prominent journal stated again that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. We all know this is not the case, and yet editors continue to let this be stated in their journals as if it were fact.
Ever since the …
Read more…
Most physicians, including me, would fall into the category of type A personalities, always on the go with a constant need to be productive. We cram every minute of the day with productivity and leave little time in our schedule for fun and recreation. Even type A personalities need a break from working to recharge their personal batteries. How often have you been packing for a vacation and included work …
Read more…
What is your dream job? It’s the one you would do every day even if no one paid you. When you find it, you never really go to work each day, you go and play. If that is the kind of joy received from working, then burnout will likely be a long way out of reach. Are there any jobs like that out there for doctors? Yes, there are. But …
Read more…
If it’s time to establish your first practice or change to a new one, don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s no big deal where you go. The decision you’re about to make will positively or negatively impact the rest of your life. If you don’t choose right, the correction can be very expensive and take a high emotional toll. The cost attributed to one of my friend’s moves to …
Read more…