Welcome UT Southwestern HEAL Group - Physician Life Management

Welcome UT Southwestern HEAL Group!

Thanks for stopping by.

During our discussion, we talked about the 6 Essential Financial Skills for Residents:

Calculating your Net Worth
Organizing Your Financial Life
Building Your Budgets (Monthly and Annual)
Saving Up an Emergency Fund
Treat Your Debt
Start Savings for Retirement

Below you will find some resources that we talked about to help you reach your financial goals.

1. 1. Calculating your Net Worth – This is simply what you own vs. what you owe. Besides going to a fancy smancy website like CNN Money website, you can just do it on our own.
  2. Organizing Your Financial Life – This is figuring out how to organize your Cash Flow. Where the money comes and goes. Remember the crazy turbulence of the first funds flow I showed you? Make your cash flow from your paycheck to a landing site (read checking account) then out to all the bills. If you have two pay checks, dump into the same place.
  3. Building your Budgets – The King of Budgeting has got to be Dave Ramsey — here is a quick guide from his website here. If you really want to get into budgeting, and doing the entire Dave Ramsey system, you can check out his book here. Dave doesn’t talk about it, but I also recommend an annual budget, along with the monthly budget.
  4. Saving Up an Emergency Fund – Once your budget is built, you know how much it costs to “run your financial life every month.” Start by saving up at least $1,000, so that you can use that money to take care of life’s emergencies … cars that break down, hot water heaters that leak, and the other numerous things that happen to residents.
  5. Treat Your Debt – Probably the most amount of debt that you have is from your college or medical school loans. The average medical school debt for 2016 was $180,000. Once you have your budgets figured out, you can look to see how you are going to treat your student loan debt. There are several different options for you to start paying on your loans when you are still a resident. Check out income driven repayment options here. You can also look at StudentLoans.gov and it tends to bounce you back to StudentAid.ed.gov for some of the FAQ. It can still be a good resource for how to consolidate your loans. For figuring out your “disposable income” as defined by the government, you can use aspe.hhs.gov/poverty When you calculate some of the loan repayment options such as IBR, PAYE, REPAYE, then you need to calculate your expendable income based on your family size and the poverty line. If you want to use an estimator to do it for you, check out https://studentloans.gov/myDirectLoan/mobile/repayment/repaymentEstimator.action There have been a couple of other repayment programs added since the book was published, and this website will walk you through the payments for each.
  6. Start Savings for Retirement – Start taking advantage of the matching funds that Parkland and UT Southwestern offer as part of your benefits. Getting into the habit of saving for retirement will serve you well as you continue in your career as a physician.

Book RESOURCES

The Physician’s Guide to Personal Finance is a review style personal finance book that will be reminiscent of the high yield review books you used in medical school. Our book is listed in whitecoatinvestor.com’s Top Ten Physician Specific Financial Books in the number 2 spot, right behind the author’s own book, which I consider a huge compliment.

To get you started in the right financial direction, this book has quick chapters and multiple checklist

The Physician’s Guide to Personal Finance as paperback and Kindle versions from amazon.com. Get your copy today and be on your way to your Continuing Financial Education.

The Millionaire Next Door is one of my all time favorite books. We talked about the “Physician Millionaire Next Door”, because this book has a lot to tell us about physicians. You will learn about Dr. North (those physicians who do well) as well as Dr. South (those that do not do well). This is one of those finance books which should be in everyone’s personal library. You can buy the book as a kindle, paperback, or audiobook.

The White Coat Investor: A Doctor’s Guide to Personal Finance and Investing. This book was published not too long after mine was out. It is written by Dr. James Dahle who is the editor at WhiteCoatInvestor.com. There are many things to like about this book. What I really like about the book is Dr. Dahle’s tone – fighting for physicians not to be taken advantage of. I also like how Dr. Dahle lays out the book and that physicians should not be embarrassed or feel guilty about being wealthy. I had the pleasure of being a beta-reader for the book. It consistently is a number one seller in both the physician and mutual fund category on Amazon. It is available as a paperback, Kindle, and as an audio book.

Smart Couples Finish Rich: 9 Steps to Creating a Rich Future for You and Your Partner by David Bach. This book is my favorite book on personal finance for couples. (It is also useful for single people as well.) Bach’s approach to personal finance is to really think about the end in mind. This is one of the books that I had a paperback version, that I bought twice (because I lost the first one) so that I could continue to go back and read it again from time to time.

It is available as a paperback, hardcover, Audible and audio CD.

Thanks for stopping by. While you are here, you can also check out some of the other resources in my book, and some others that I found after I published. Pick a website, pick up a book, or start by getting organized and get yourself on the way to building your Continuing Financial Education.