A female primary care physician opines on money, travel, fitness, and other topics to be determined
In the corner of my parents’ living room sits a large armchair, Louis XV style. It’s my father’s chair, generally speaking no one else sits in it, unless one of the cats sneaks in. It’s quite handsome, and guests frequently remark on it.
My mother tells the story of how they acquired the chair:
Continue reading “The YOLO Chair”Something that I see written about frequently–and will likely write more about myself–is saving your money. As attendings, we doctors are paid pretty darned well, and ought to be able to live within our means, while also saving for retirement. However, some of the numbers offered as reasonable physician income are far higher than what an average primary care physician or internist can reasonably be expected to earn.
While it is reasonable to find savings to put away by spending less, another strategy is to make more. Working hard at your job, or negotiating better terms on a contract, are important factors to earning more. What I’d like to write about today is knowing where your money is coming from. That can help you make smarter choices about where you want to put your effort, possibly helping you get paid for work you are already doing.
Continue reading “Know How You Get Paid”In my prior post, I wrote about my father’s career and retirement preparations. He retired just over 20 years ago, and from what I can see, had a pretty good time.
Over the years we have talked about finances, and though I haven’t announced firm plans to retire early, I think he can tell I am thinking about it. He has been giving more advice recently, mostly to keep working.
I thought I would share some of his recent advice, and some of my observations of his two-decades-long retirement, which I hope will go another decade more.
Continue reading “One Doctor’s Retirement, 20 years later”My office mate is just starting out, and seems overwhelmed by finances. When I mentioned my father was a retired physician, and had retired well, she was very interested in how he had managed that.
I asked him this weekend, and got a shorter-than-expected answer. In many ways, the answer is very simple: save money and invest it. I will embellish the answer and see if it might be illuminating.
As Thanksgiving approaches, it seems time to pay special attention to the blessings and riches we enjoy.
Continue reading “When Are You Rich?”Lately I’ve been seeing quotes about keeping track of the company you keep; usually the one that says you are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. I had always thought of myself as an independent thinker and maybe, even, a mild rebel. However, I realize that I am absolutely not as independent-minded as I think (wish?) I were. And that is how I find myself paying off my mortgage.
Continue reading “All the Cool Girls are Doing It, or Why I’m Trying To Kill My Mortgage”I may have mentioned that I am taking a pay cut to reduce my hours. The plan is that with a slightly shorter day, I can finish earlier, and spend some time on my life outside the office, maybe working on future me.
Today was my first day with the shorter schedule. I had lots of patients who need extra time, but were scheduled for 15 minute visits. The electronic medical record wasn’t cooperating. Despite the supposedly shorter schedule, I finished at same time I used to finish, and went home just as late (actually, later) as I did before the change.
I can tell myself thank goodness my schedule was truncated, otherwise I’d have been in the office even later; but right now, I’m just not feeling the love. We’ll see how things turn out going forward.
Last year I finally got around to making an updated will, which means I had to open up my financial life to a stranger. My lawyer offered a number of unsolicited opinions about our situation, but the one that I am still thinking about is his comment about the multiple accounts my husband and I maintain. He seemed to think this was silly, and that we should be able to manage just fine with one or two accounts if only we were financially responsible. I beg to differ.
Monday I wrote about picking a health insurance plan. I compared the cost of the premiums and the costs for the care I expect us to use.
Today, I am going to cover the FSA (Flexible Spending Account) and HSA (Health Savings Account), which are tax free accounts that can help lower the cost of health care when you have to pay for it.
Continue reading “FSAs and HSAs”It’s that time of the year again. Benefits enrollment, when you have to pick your insurance plan (medical and maybe dental), decide on an FSA or HSA, and generally review any other benefits that come with your job.
I know a lot of my patients aren’t always clear on what their options are, so I thought I’d go through the process here. I was pretty sure before I started which plan I would pick, but it’s always good to review.
Continue reading “Choosing Medical Insurance”