March 2019 – Physician In Numbers

Fitness Log #25

One of the favorite things I have heard from a patient is: you’re a doctor, you don’t have to worry about blood pressure. Implying, of course, that doctor’s don’t struggle with their health.

I most certainly do struggle with fitness and health, like many other Americans with sedentary jobs and a proclivity to eat treats. One of my goals is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen). I was doing well enough that I added a second goal of 60 minutes of strength training a week; but then I backslid like crazy. I did turn things around, but the strength training remains a challenge.

Book Decluttering Challenge Update

I wrote at the end of January that I needed to work on decluttering my books.

My updated goal was to remove 180 books by the end of May. This should, in theory, clear up enough space that I would no longer need my tall bookshelf, and could make more room in my home office.

Yes, Doctor, You CAN Have It All, Just Not All At the Same Time

After worrying about whether I could max out my 403(b) earlier this year, I was very happy to see my updated paychecks. Between increasing medical insurance premiums, increasing my FSA contribution, increasing my charitable contributions, and fiddling with direct deposit to my “secret account” where I hide money from myself, I wasn’t sure if I could afford to increase my retirement contributions as a catch up.

Fitness Log #24

One of the favorite things I have heard from a patient is: you’re a doctor, you don’t have to worry about blood pressure. Implying, of course, that doctor’s don’t struggle with their health.

This week I make a comeback, with a huge improvement in my time spent exercising. I think the longer days have a lot to do with this, and also my embarrassment as I kept documenting weeks with less and less time spent exercising.

Staying the Course

A little bit ago, I was looking through the forum at the White Coat Investor site. Someone posted looking for support in staying the course. They had discovered the financial independence movement 2 years ago, and were in the long slog (as described very well at Our Next Life) between the excited discovery stage and the finish line.

In reflection, I realized it was just over 4 years ago that I discovered Mr. Money Mustache and fell down the rabbit hole of the financial blogosphere.

Budgeting for Intern Year

Congratulations! You’ve matched into residency, hopefully into the field and site of your choice.

The coming years will be busy, full of learning and service; also exciting, fun, amazing, and a bit stressful.

If you are a traditional student who went straight through high school, college, and medical school, this may be the first time you have earned a decent salary that you had to live on.

You might be a little worried about your budget during residency. You probably have plenty of medical school loans, and you won’t yet be making “doctor money.” This isn’t necessarily the time to pay off all your student loans, but certainly this is a very appropriate time to make sure you are living within your means. If you do this, you are setting yourself up for financial success once you finish training and make a higher income.

Fitness Log #23

One of the favorite things I have heard from a patient is: you’re a doctor, you don’t have to worry about blood pressure. Implying, of course, that doctor’s don’t struggle with their health.

I most certainly do struggle with fitness and health, like many other Americans with sedentary jobs and a proclivity to eat treats. One of my goals is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen). I was doing well enough that I added a second goal of 60 minutes of strength training a week; I totally backslid after a tough two weeks (bad weather, draining rotation in the hospital).

Wednesday Wool-gathering

I have some scattered thoughts, none really worthy of a full post.

Frugality Fails

This is a rewrite of a post I started a few months ago, in which I was going to detail all the cool tips and tricks my husband and I employed to reduce our spending when I took a pay cut. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as we had hoped.

Fitness Log #22

One of the favorite things I have heard from a patient is: you’re a doctor, you don’t have to worry about blood pressure. Implying, of course, that doctor’s don’t struggle with their health.

I most certainly do struggle with fitness and health, like many other Americans with sedentary jobs and a proclivity to eat treats. One of my goals is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen). I was doing well enough that I added a second goal of 60 minutes of strength training a week; I’m still working my way up to that part of the goal.