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Nights destroy me in a way that would shock my past self in medical school/residency. I have a rare month next month where I’m doing 3 in a row and I’m already dreading it. The circadian switching is NOTHING to me compared to how bad night shifts make me feel.
It’ll take more than 4 years to get to completely financially independent with his current lifestyle and net worth. He needs $4million to be FI if he is 60 years old. Generally you want to give yourself a bit more of a buffer if you’re retiring at 45 instead. $6million would be my minimum target if my annual spend rate was $200k/yr and I was trying to retire under 50.
Medicine will let you do quite a bit financially. It'll let you spend a lot. It'll let you retire early. But, you typically can't spend a lot AND retire early.
Some of the patients can be challenging but that challenge is on balance much less than the challenges of EM. I don't only do procedures, but procedures are half of my time. I have gotten to the point where I'm busy enough at my current job that I no longer accept new medication management patients. All new patients are procedure only, which is great. Of the patients I have on oral opiates, they're low dose and heavily screened by me before accepting. They are compliant and have been my patients for a long time.
This is what I don’t get about the N.z setup. It’s done more for the purpose of living in NZ. You could do locums in the us and work 4 12 hour shifts. Month and make 150. There are jobs doing rural medicine in the us making 275/ hr. You could do like 2 24s a month and also make that money almost and in your 48 hours see like 24 patients.
Some of that is home renovations, which is wrapping up. But, I also like to travel and take several trips including international a year. I also have a relatively expensive hobby. But these are the things that bring joy and make life worth living, you know? I have no intention of stopping working (mid 30s, plan on partial retirement at 55). Maybe I just need to buckle down and invest more but you never know the future and I just want to enjoy living my life while I’m (relatively) young and able instead of waiting for some golden retirement that may never materialize.
It’s been such a boon for physician staffing groups. We win about 95% of our cases and third party batches them and takes them to arbitration for us. Our collections have never been higher. It also gives better bargaining chips for contracts with insurance companies. Don’t want to contract fairly with us? No problem, we’ll see you in arbitration for all of your OON reimbursements.
Right now is the golden age of EM for private groups. Best to print now b/c everything is cyclical and can not last forever. Hospitals owned EM staffing must be making some serious coin b/c they can bill facility on top of professional. I actually feel bad for these EM docs who are salaried or part of a CMG. The are getting fleeced and will not partake in the golden age of EM.
@RustedFox One more vote for you telling us about your secret sauce.
Somehow I missed this the first time. It’s a sorta amazing combination of two of my lawsuits.I made mention of this about a month or so back as well. Several people contacted me via PM about it and we've talked via text and such. Nice to make new friends.
I'll tell y'all what: I'll give the people what they want, but it's gonna take me some time and keystrokes to do it. For starters, go read this:
I think physicians overestimate how much one needs to be FIRE.
Not overestimating anything, the numbers you quoted are the basic calculations utilized to determine when someone is safe to retire financially. What you are stating wouldn’t be FIRE, that’s what we call coastFIRE which still requires someone to work. The individual I was replying to was talking about outright retirement in 4 years which is not possible for the OP.
I live in small city in the south and I can retire here easily with 2.5M net worth.
Concur. That’s my target for “f you” money and a base retirement. Will still probably coast after that, but $2.5 is plenty. You will never want for food/housing/transportation/basic pleasantries.
Most Americans would be ecstatic to retire with 2.5M net worth.
It’s a disease. I have partners in my own practice that are well out of residency and still moonlighting at other shops to supplement income for a lifestyle that has gotten completely out of hand.
It’s all relative. I’m well past that number but with two young children it doesn’t feel like enough to live the life *we* want. Could I retire now and be ok? Probably, but a 30-50% drop in the market would have me thinking otherwise. We’ve never been big spenders but have recently been loosening the purse strings in various ways.
Which is fine. I’m confident my wife and I will end up higher than that number (in 2026 dollars) by retirement.
The point I was making was if for whatever reason I am not able to work after reaching 2.5M net worth, I will be ok financially--better than 90% of my fellow American compatriots.
You are confusing your calculation based on your lifestyle with the OP’s. Again, these are basic retirement number calculations. What you can retire off of has 0 bearing on the calculation I made.
'Sacrifices' have to be made if you HATE your job.
I’ve cut my hours back a bit but I’m still trying to make some hay while the sun is shining while not missing family time. The stress on if something happens job wise has significantly lessened but I’d like the group to continue to do well for the newer physicians. Significant financial flexibility is still very important to us.
