Tag: money

Why Clinicians Shouldn’t Worry about Retirement

On By Clinician LifestylistIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

3 keys of financial independence

When you think about the word retirement, what images come to mind? For me, the first ones are silver haired folks teeing up on the golf course, gathering at a community center, or sitting on the front porch at any day or time of the week. That picture might be wonderful, but what does it have to do with me and how I’m living my life right now? If you’re like me, retirement is something that happens way down the line, in the sunset of our lives. If we wait a little while to think about and plan for it, no big deal! There’s plenty of time, right? Plus, who in the early stages and prime of their career wants to stop and think about getting old anyway?

I’d like to invite all of you reading this post to go ahead and throw away the word retirement. Yes, throw it out! Let’s all learn to put financial independence in its place. Ok, retirement might show up in the name of savings accounts that could be using now, like Individual Retirement Accounts. Other than that, focusing on financial independence is going to create the mindset you’ll need to start planning and positioning yourself for the best clinician career and lifestyle that you can!

So what exactly is financial independence? Some of you may already be very familiar with the concept, but it will be new for others. When I shared with other people in my life that I was creating a plan to reach financial independence, the response was confusion. Oh, are you still getting money from your parents? Aren’t you independent already? When we use the terms financial independence or financial freedom, we are really talking about growing enough savings and investment profits to live off of so that we can be independent from required employment and have ultimate choice in our lifestyle. This growth process will be the same for all clinicians, no matter how much money you make! The amount of savings needed to call yourself financially independent is personal and depends on the lifestyle you want to have. At that point, you could retire if you wanted to, or just have the freedom to work and live however you desire. Whether or not you plan to retire or leave a job at financial independence does not change the overall process, but financial independence is needed to be able to successfully retire. Thus, financial independence is really the only term we need! 

Clinicians are passionate, hard working, and motivated people. Thinking about retirement can be a strange concept for us, especially early in our careers, and many will attempt to keep working in some way for a very long time. Focusing on financial independence means that we are making the most out of our career choices and clinician lifestyle, regardless of what the end points might be.

Financial independence (FI) for clinicians:

  1. Growing wealth with savings and investments
  2. Controlling your own career path and lifestyle
  3. Not worrying about retirement

Coming up, I’ll start off more discussions about financial independence and how clinicians can pursue this with their career and lifestyle. Go ahead and ask me a question or request a personal consultation.

Welcome to Clinician Lifestylist!

On By Clinician LifestylistIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Ready

Hello and welcome to Clinician Lifestylist! A little about me here- I have a clinical doctorate degree and professional license. After finishing my training and preparing to start a “real job,” I very quickly I realized that personal finance and lifestyle management were going to be just as valuable skills. 

I work in a respectable academic medical center, with hospital privileges and a faculty appointment. By many accounts I have “made it” as an early career clinical professional. On the other hand, there’s living in an expensive city, seeing the full reality of working in my chosen profession, and thinking about the next phase in adult life. 

Position 

There are some well developed websites out there for doctors, but I was also somewhat discouraged to constantly hear about family medicine docs, psychologists, nurse practitioners, veterinarians, and many clinicians described as “low-income” and advised in a different manner. This kind of relative thinking can lead to a downward spiral that might contribute to poor mindset and consequently poor lifestyle management. Everyone knows at least theoretically to avoid Keeping Up with the Joneses, but who wants to be told that they are the Littles? The reality is that the best advice will generalize broadly without much calculation about if it will work for you compared to others. Even more, we know that positive mindset and positive environment are some of the most valuable tools in developing and maintaining helpful skills.

Onward

I’ve enjoyed sharing my ideas with people and my life and would love to build a community here to discuss how clinicians and medical professionals are crafting their lifestyle. So pull up a chair, subscribe, follow, or direct message me. What do you think?