#185 Physicians Don’t Need to Move the Financial Goalposts to Win

Dessert comes after the vegetables. A seven year old goes along with this because at seven the broccoli takes four minutes and the ice cream shows up in the same hour.

You have been eating vegetables since you were twenty-two.

The lake house for three weeks with your brother's family, all four grandparents in one place while they can still get on a plane, the summer where nobody is covering anybody's shift. Every one of those is sitting on the far side of a plate that somebody keeps refilling, and the ice cream is scheduled for your early sixties, but by that time your kids will be in their late twenties and your parents will have stopped flying.

My great grandfather ran cattle for fifty years and ate his dessert first, every day, before the meal. He was not a man anybody would have called undisciplined.

The pie did not cost him the ranch, and the week at the lake is not going to cost you your retirement.

This week we answer your colleagues' questions:

In “asking for a friend,” we answer, “What is inflation and how does it affect me?”

An Emergency Medicine Doc in Colorado asks: "We have 1.1M in assets and are on track to retire by 60 but I haven’t seen anyone in my group make it past 57 before getting a less demanding job and I still have 50k in private student loans. Can we afford to re-do our basement and go on a vacation?"

A Radiologist in Missouri says, “My company offers a cash balance plan, and I currently contribute $60k per year, but could increase that. Should I contribute more?”

A Dermatologist in Georgia asks, “I am 38, make 800k a year now, but I just went through a divorce and only have about 100k saved for retirement due to switching jobs multiple times before I qualified for retirement benefits. Can I retire before I am 70?”

Are you ready to turn worries about taxes and investing into a plan for college and retirement? If you’re evaluating your options and want to learn more, visit physicianfamily.com and click 'Get Started' or you can ask a question of your own by emailing podcast@physicianfamily.com.

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