The Successful Staycation

Last year I wanted to take my family on vacation during Christmas break while my youngest son, Keith, was on break from college. My oldest son, Brian, was not able to get time off work as that was a very busy time for the store. So we decided to take a staycation to allow our … Read more

The One Statement Every Doctor Must Learn

I have been helping doctors with their personal finances for a long time. I recently realized that there is a single statement, if doctors would learn to use it, that would change their lives. It is very common for me to encounter doctors who are in over their heads financially, struggling with debt, and living … Read more

How I Paid Off $500,000 Of Debt

In my last post, I told my story of how I got out of medical school with only $18,000 of debt. By the time I left residency I had that whittled down to $6,000 at 3% interest. Then during the next three years after starting my practice I had accumulated almost $500,000 of new debt. … Read more

How Did I Accumulate So Much Debt?

When I was a young lad, just heading off to college, I had no debt. I had no credit cards. My family didn’t use debt for purchases other than buying our house. I really didn’t have any knowledge about how to best use debt. My student loan package included a scholarship, a work study program … Read more

Calculating The New Tax Plan Results

As the year comes to an end, congress has passed the new tax bill. This was certainly not tax reform as has been discussed, but simply a rearrangement of how they calculate our taxes. This new plan lowers tax rates but eliminates many of the items that were previously deductible. Sort of like rearranging the … Read more

A Modern Christmas Carol

Almost everyone is familiar with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. I was thinking about that this year and thought Charles Dickens could have just as easily written about Ebenezer’s financial situation and had visits from the ghost of finance past (Debt), the ghost of finance present (Budget), and the ghost of … Read more

What is Retirement?

An unusual thing happened to me today; I was awakened by my phone alarm. Ever since I stopped practicing medicine ten months ago I have rarely needed to set an alarm to get up. Today when my alarm sounded, Carolyn commented that when she woke up, she thought we were in Spain. Last Spring we … Read more

If It’s A Payment, It’s Debt

I am continually running into people who are confused as to what constitutes debt when we are doing a makeover with their spending plans. Wikipedia defines debt as money owed by one party, the borrower or debtor, to a second party, the lender or creditor I have clients who list out their accounts payable as … Read more

Living the FIRE Life in my RV

Many people are blogging about FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early). Most of them write from the prospective of a goal they want to reach someday. I write from the other side, having already attained financial independence and retired from my medical practice. Although there are those who would say I haven’t retired yet since I’m still … Read more

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, a time when we all think about what we are thankful for. It is unfortunate that we are not thankful every day of the year, since giving thanks does wonders to brighten our disposition. As Thanksgiving approached, I picked up the ACS Surgery News and found an article written by one of … Read more