Doctor Money: A Personal Finance Guide for Physicians

For those of you who did not have the opportunity to read last week’s post on How to Work Smarter, Not Harder, I shared my master plan to use my weekly posting cadence to simultaneously provide content and hopefully create an e-book (or book). As a family man and a full-time physician, piling more responsibilities on an already overwhelmed schedule is not an option. However, I have always had a personal goal to write a book. I do not wish to compromise my current priorities. Still, with the site growing, I want to give back to the community supporting The Motivated M.D. 

As such, this post marks the inaugural publication of my personal finance (e)book content series I am currently naming Doctor Money: A Personal Finance Guide for Physicians. My hope is to create a comprehensive and educational ‘chapter’ each week for the foreseeable future (potentially 15-18 weeks, give or take). I have absolutely no idea how this will go, but if it offers anyone (other than myself) a foundation to build their financial education, then I have succeeded. I genuinely thank you for visiting, and I hope you will continue to follow along, subscribe, and comment! Cheers!

Doctor Money: A Personal Finance Guide for Physicians

Introduction

Congratulations! Be it graduation from medical school, completion of your intern year, residency, fellowship, or just the first step on your financial journey, you did it! No matter your reasoning for picking up this book (or reading this inaugural post), a celebration is in order. You are making a conscious decision to educate yourself on personal finance and take back your life. So, where do you start? With so much information bombarding us constantly, how does a physician know where to begin?

Calm down and take a deep breath… that is why I am writing this series. There are a lot of incredible resources I could direct you to, and largely, they would all address many similar topics: saving, investing, Retirement, budgeting, insurance, and home buying. You name it, most works have you covered. So why start here? Why choose this book over so many others? 

That is a great question. Maybe the most important question you will ask while digesting this brief read. This is a question I will attempt to answer today, and I hope to answer it as the weeks march onward. First, let me explain who I am, and then we will return to the authority question, I promise.

Who Am I?

I am The Motivated M.D. I have chosen to remain anonymous for various reasons. Still, I am a real individual navigating the stereotypical physician experience. I graduated from college in 2011 and briefly completed a post-bachelorette program before entering medical school. This is largely because I did not get accepted on my first attempt! 

I completed four years of medical education in 2016, during which time I also happened to meet my wife, who is also a physician. I then ventured off to complete three years of internal medicine training, and in 2019, I entered a three-year fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic. Lucky me… 

I was fortunate enough to be offered a faculty position following my completion of subspecialty training, and I currently remain there. My wife was lucky enough to secure a place on faculty at the same hospital, too, which has worked out favorably. We now reside in the southeastern United States, where we both practice medicine full time and raise our children. 

However, my formal training only plays a small part in why I label myself as ‘navigating a stereotypical physician journey.’ The real heart of my journey has to do with personal finance and debt. Lots and lots of debt. 

My Story

$670,000.

That is how much combined educational debt my wife and I had when we finally decided to educate ourselves about our finances. At the time, my wife was completing a fellowship, and I was grinding through residency. I remember sitting and staring at my computer screen, speechless. I had just created a shared budgeting tool for us to review, and yet all I saw was our colossal debt staring right back at me.

How in the world were we going to pay this back? Even with our future income potential, the math was difficult to comprehend. Were we going to be living frugally forever? Was Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) going to still be around when we both became attendings? Should we refinance now? 

We had both decided to educate ourselves about personal finance, and yet the more we learned, the more our financial difficulties seemed insurmountable. We would have to move to ‘rural nowhere’ just to get ahead! We wanted family near, alongside the coast where we grew up. How was any of this going to be possible? 

At that moment, I recall feeling utterly helpless. I genuinely felt as if the lifestyle I was sold when I decided to pursue my medical career was a sham. Even more, we were a dual-physician household for crying out loud! If we could not find a way to eliminate our debt and get ahead, who could? I was overwhelmed and anxious, tirelessly looking for a way out. 

However, I don’t want it to sound all doom and gloom because it’s not. Like so many who have come before me, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got to work. I consumed all things labeled ‘personal finance’ or ‘physician finance’ relentlessly. I treated my financial education no differently than I did my formal medical education. I studied like my life depended on it. 

Trepidation gave way to intrigue. Intrigue gave way to interest, interest to passion, and passion to product. Step by step, day by day, I found myself unearthing a deep desire to share this knowledge with others. If there was a single overwhelmed individual who felt like I did, I felt called to help. But how can I best produce a concise and informative message that reaches those most impacted?

The Motivated M.D.

In 2021, I wrote as an outlet to prevent burnout as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on. I would write at nights and on weekends when I was not working. Writing was therapeutic for me and offered an opportunity to explore interests adjacent to clinical medicine. 

What started as personal writing soon amounted to a year’s worth of material. The Motivated M.D. was formed largely out of necessity. I was already looking for an avenue to marry my passion for physician finance and content creation to the internet. Being highly influenced by the likes of The White Coat Investor and Physician on FIRE, a blog seemed a natural fit. 

I started publishing my work on the site in late 2021, and since that time, I have worked to keep a cadence of weekly content. Though topics vary, one central mission for The Motivated M.D. remains: 

We seek to help individuals (both inside and outside of healthcare professions) improve their financial literacy. We seek to use our platform to share our personal journey pursuing financial freedom. I wish for our work to be used as a forum to introduce our audience to the content, tools, and services we believe can help them reach their financial goals. We only promote ideas, information, and services that we stand behind. 

Over the past few years, we have done just that. Our site now receives tens of thousands of visitors a month. Further we continue to create content that is applicable to nearly all healthcare professionals. Whether you are visiting to garner more financial literacy, utilize vetted services, or strictly looking for entertainment, you will find it all here at The Motivated M.D.

Why Listen to Me?

So, why listen to me? Why continue reading any further? I hope you will find my work worthy for two reasons. For starters, I am you. Overwhelmingly, the challenges you will face during your formal medical education, post-graduate training, or early career, I too have navigated. All the failures and successes so many of us will navigate, I too have encountered. Here is a list, just to name a few:

• Accruing six-figure medical educational debt
• Marrying a significant other with six-figure educational debt
• Self-educating on financial literacy
• Creating a comprehensive budget
• Navigating life and disability insurance as a trainee
• Contract negotiation
• Creating a financial plan
• Building an emergency fund
• Renting as a trainee
• Home buying
• Transitioning from trainee to attending income
• Child rearing
• Childhood educational savings
• Investing
• Debt elimination
• Loan refinancing
• And more!

Many of the challenges listed above are basic personal finance, with a few that are nuanced as they apply to physicians. I have faltered, fumbled, failed, overcome, and succeeded in my financial journey. Combining my personal financial education with my experience, I can help you navigate the road to financial prosperity with ease and avoid the pitfalls that so many others (myself included) may stumble into. 

Why should you listen to me? With time, I hope I can earn your confidence by helping you understand that I, too, am a physician walking a similar path who just happened to find his passion in personal finance. 

Second, I have now spent the same amount of time as a practicing physician as I have a personal finance content creator. I have created a platform that is making waves in the personal finance community, and I sincerely hope you will join me as I create this book over the next few months, week by week, word by word. 

Objectives for This Book

Financial Literacy

My first objective is to help all comers develop a solid foundation with which to build their future financial empire. This book is not intended to be all-encompassing. That book would be far longer and larger than I intend to create. However, I do want this book to address what I consider to be the most important financial requirements for physicians. No matter where you fall on your formal educational path or your financial journey, I truly believe that each of the topics (or chapters) included is necessary for building a well-protected financial home. 

Succinct

The second objective of this work is to be succinct. As I alluded to above, I do not plan nor intend to create the ‘all-encompassing’ guide. Instead, I hope this will be just one of many works you interact with as you build your financial knowledge. This work, at its completion, I hope is the length of an easily digestible book. This is something you could read through in a few short sittings but ultimately return to as you navigate topics covered. 

An Appreciation for Additional Resources

My final objective is to garner an appreciation for additional resources. The personal and physician finance community is just that, a community. I do not intend to be a ‘one-man show’ just as much as I do not intend to create an ‘all-encompassing’ guide. There are so many other excellent resources, and I hope my work will prove to be a gateway to those as well. Each week, I hope to close out each chapter of this book with an ‘Additional Resources’ section where applicable. Be it referrals to other websites, book recommendations, or courses, I will do my best to recommend resources that I feel are applicable and place your best interests at heart. 

Your Financial Journey

So, as I said at the start of this post, congratulations! No matter your reasoning for being here, you made it, and that is worthy of celebrating. Your financial journey will be unlike any other. Though I hope this book helps you navigate a few financial challenges with grace, I also hope it can supply you with the tools necessary to better understand and manage your finances and build a sound financial foundation for your future career! I sincerely believe that all physicians and healthcare professionals can practice better medicine when their financial house is in order. 

Additional Resources:

The Best Physician Finance Blogs

5 Physician Finance Books I Recommend

The White Coat Investor

Physician on Fire

Get Rich Slowly

Thank You

Whether this is your first time visiting the website or you are returning, thank you! I hope this content series offers something for everyone. You can really help the site by subscribing to our newsletter. This also places each blog publication directly in your inbox. With our current content series, each week, you get a chapter of this book delivered directly to you simply by subscribing. Further, I provide a FREE Microsoft Excel budgeting spreadsheet to all who sign up. You can find the signup sheet on our home page or at the bottom of this post. Make sure to join us next week when we publish Chapter 1 in this series. Thanks again!

Next Chapter:

Chapter 1: The Doctor’s Dilemma

Disclaimer and Limit of Liability

Before we finish, it should be made clear that this post (and hopefully its eventual publication) is designed strictly to inform and entertain. I am in no way, shape, or form a financial professional, nor does this site provide formalized financial advice. I do not provide nor engage in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other professional/expert assistance is required, then the services of an accredited professional should be sought. I am not liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Further, no part of this series, post, or any post on this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the author.

Standard Disclaimer: None of the information on this website is meant as individualized financial or medical advice.  These posts may contain affiliate links.