Dr. Wise Money

Ø  Serve 
You came this far, at the opportunity cost of becoming CEO’s of fortune 500 companies, to serve. Nothing else could drive a human being this far against all odds, facing all stressors from all dimensions of life: physical, psychological, spiritual, financial, you name it.

Find the most suitable job where you can make the greatest positive impact on the society. It will serve you well to serve. That’s what you have dreamed of doing all along.

Ø  Teach 
There’s nothing more rewarding than to share the lessons you’ve learned and have someone else avoid the pains and mistakes you had to struggle with. Our generation of doctors stood on the shoulder of the giants who came before us; it’s only befitting to lift up the next generation of docs following our footsteps. 

Ø  Lead
Get involved in politics. I hate politics. But I hate the fact that businessmen and lawyers make laws on regulating doctors. Doctors who know what serving our community via medicine truly entails, should be the ones making laws to improve healthcare, which should include healthy patients and healthy doctors.

Ø  Clone yourself
Other than teaching, you can clone yourself via social media such as YouTube. Record patient education in short videos where you can go into much more detail than your allotted 3 minute visit with each patient.

Ø  Work for yourself
As highly motivated, self-driving individuals, we do better when we can take charge. So if you don’t find “the job” that maximize your positive impact and service to your community, create a job for yourself, be your own boss. Identify the problem, you are the solution. Find the need, your skills and knowledge will satisfy it.

Ø  Publish
Find something you are interested in. Learn the limits of what have been done and made known. Ask a new question outside the boundary of established literature/known facts and do research to answer your new question.

The quest for new knowledge is incredibly rewarding for personal edification alone, not to mention advancing the collective knowledge of the human race. While you put your heart to this, your publication will bring you authority and more support all around. 

 Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement, Practice Management, & Lifestyle More articles like this on Physician’s Money Digest.

I recently had the honor to virtually meet Mr1500 by PoF’s introduction, who blogs about 1500 days to retirement. I thought it would be fun to share my journey to financial independence as well.

I originally wrote Why I Can Retire at 38, But Won’t on Apr 11, 2016 @ 12:19, which means if I meet my ultra-conservative financial goals (set up for me to surpass easily, building in a positive feedback loop and self-fulfilling prophecy J for the next 6.8 years, I’d be able to retire by January 28^, 2023 (Apr 11, 2023 minus 73 days.)

Today (7/25/2016), I have approximately 2375 days (6.5 years) till FI (financial independence.) Rounding it up, I’ll just call my journey “2400 days to Financial Independence.” I’ll be writing at minimum annual posts on my progress to FI and likely will have more posts as I get closer to FI.

What I plan to do when I reach FI, (Cliff note version)

1. Cut back work to 30 hours/week.
2. Teach Math and Sciences at Mini’s middle and high school.
3. Become a yoga instructor.
4. Resume writing children’s books.

How is my progress to FI? (Cliff note version)

1. Retirement funds: Exceed target.
2. Day to day: Feel great and will continue to follow my idiotically simple investment plan.

What I plan to do when I reach FI, (Elaborated)

1. Cut back work to 30 hours/week. I learned from venerable radiologists that we need to work at least 2 full days per week to stay sharp in our trade.
2. Get credentials to teach middle/high school math and/or sciences and apply to teach at Mini’s school. Mini has requested repeatedly that I use my wonderful teaching skills on her (she’s witnessed from the innumerable tutoring sessions held at home since she was an infant and the various teaching awards I have gotten.)
3. Train more intensively to get credentialed as a yoga instructor.
4. Pick up my college dream of writing children’s book on college level academic subjects.

How is my progress to FI? (Elaborated)

1. Retirement funds: $47,892.5 in Roth-Vanguard Index funds.
2. $31,225.97 liquid asset in case I see the dream home.
3. 7k of credit card debt at 0% interest rate without additional liability under my name.
4. Mini’s 529 on target to top off at 14k for 2016.
5. Starting SEP-IRA and maxing Mini’s Roth IRA at 5.5k for 2016.
6. On target to max out 23.5k of Roth 2016 plus getting ~1k of company 401k match.
7. Day to day: continue to select lowest fee, most stupid simple index funds.
8. Invest $ passively and emotion-lessly. Embrace life actively and feeling everything to the fullest.

 If you like this article, you might enjoy other DWM articles on Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement, Practice Management, & Lifestyle.

Do you have student loans? Won’t you love to destroy them and be debt-free? What would you do with the cash flow you free up once your student loans are paid off? I’d like to invite you to join me in a movement to terminate the deadly burden of student loans.

Under my cover as a mom, radiology resident, blogger, gourmet chef, USMLE tutor, my true identity is a terminator, specifically programmed to terminate deadly student debts. Below, I will share my weapons of termination in hopes of eliminating student debt on the scale of an entire generation.

1. Credit cards.

• I charge all my expenses that are chargeable onto my credit cards and funnel my (limited) cash flow towards debts with interests. There are lots of variations in terms of what can be charged on a credit card. Some people’s circumstances even allow them to pay for rent on credit card. At one point, I used to pay my landlord by charging her necessities such as gas and groceries on my credit cards. This takes a little more effort than just writing a check.
  Now, I buy thousands of dollars’ worth of grocery gift cards (enough to last 6-12 months because once a year there’s a 10% discount on gift cards). I also pay my electricity one year in advance. Funneling cash this way, often got me negative 1-5% interest, which gave me more cash to pay down student loans. But there’s a limit to this.`
• This second method, balance transfer checks, usually allows for more aggressive paying down of a higher interest debt. The cheapest balance transfer checks I got was with Travelocity American Express at 1% transaction fee for 0% APR for a year. So by writing a check of $15,000 towards a debt such as student loan at @ 6.8% interest rate, I would save 5.8% for the next 12 months. The balance transfer transaction fee is charged up front, so just be sure that if your limit is $15,000, that you write a check in the amount lower than the limit enough to pay for the fee. This is to ensure that the check goes through, and you’re not charged an additional fee. (I have never gotten a fee before, as I always err on the safe side.)
• There is one card that does not charge transaction fee for balance transfer if you use it within 60 days of account opening. You can read about it here.
• Some banks allow you to open a new checking account by funding it with a credit card. You need to be very cautious with this. You need to make sure that funding is equivalent to a purchase, and not considered a cash advance. When your credit card company processes funding a new bank account as a purchase, that purchase will give you cash back (if your card offers cash back features). When your credit card company processes funding a new bank account as a cash advance, you will be charged an interest of 20-30% starting the day the transaction posts. So this method only works if your credit card company processes your act of funding a banking account as a purchase.

2. Refinance

For a while residents and fellows have no refinancing options to lower their student loan interests. However, mid 2015, private banks began to offer student loan refinancing to residents and fellows so no one needs to suffer the 3-7 years of debt snowballing at 6.8+% during training. The only drawback is that you forego loan forgiveness when you refinance. (My mentor Dr. James Dahle @ whitecoatinvestor.com commented that “student loan refinancing isn’t new. It just went away for a few years. My class all refinanced at 1-2% back in 2003.”) To think that the refinancing option disappeared for a while and all the PGY’s who suffered through their debt snowballing during training, until 2 private banks come along and start refinancing student loans during PGY.

3. Home equity loan.

Home equity loan is frequently much cheaper than 6.8%. It’s a perfectly simple, passive, effortless way to make your hard earned dollar go further. With lower interest rate, every dollar you dedicate to your debt pays down a greater percentage of principle.

For 7 more ways to terminate your student loan, read the full article  published on Physician’s Money Digest here. 

Then make comment or ask questions on this blog, drwisemoney.com; I usually answer them within 24-36 hours.