Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. It’s gone, it’s done. 3 years and 4 months after finishing training, I’ve paid off my medical school student loans. I’m taking a well-deserved rest today, so this month’s charts are presented without further comment. Budget/Cash Flow PayItBack Progress Mortgage Net Worth Financial Independence Graph courtesy of Mad FientistFinancial Goals for 2022 1) Max out 403b: $20,500 of $20,500 (100% done) 2 ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. Budget/Cash Flow The holiday season is in full swing, as is our end-of-year spending. I’ve been without an iPad for the past 6 months and finally bought a new fully loaded one on Black Friday ($1,160). ASRA conference hotel ($700) and reservations for spring break travel next year ($670) round out the rest of the big ticket items. We spent a week at Disney which was mostly paid for in October, and ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. Budget/Cash Flow Back to normal two-paycheck months. We finally dropped the $4,000+ for our Disney trip, which will be our largest expense of the year after buying a house and a car. The next two were a ladder that is probably going to be my cause of death ($260) and my new running shoes ($170). Restarted payments on student loans, at a reduced rate now that I’ve refinanced them out to 5 years aga ..read more

There’s no such thing ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. Budget/Cash Flow “Renting is throwing money away”, they said. Spent $3,600 on home repair and maintenance this month, in what was otherwise a fairly low-spend September. That would be two full months of rent at our old place. C’est la vie. I made my final contribution to our crypto accounts, bringing the total to an even 10 grand. Overall down just about exactly 50%; will be interesting to see whe ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. The long days of summer are drawing to a close and the kids are going back to school. We’re totally moved into the house, and while that as kept us from any major traveling, we’re gearing up for our big Disney trip in the fall. We continue to balance efforts on saving vs ‘spending for the now’, and I think we are succeeding. Budget/Cash Flow I would love to see our monthly spending get back down t ..read more

Three years have passed since I became an attending. I entered practice with my finger on the proverbial trigger, ready to put my newfound salary to work immediately. It took 10 months to ‘get back to broke’ (reach a net worth of zero), and by a year out our net worth had increased by $193,000. In year two, we began saving for a house downpayment in earnest, we benefited from an incredible market recovery after the COVID crash, and we continued to chisel away at our student loan debt. In the end we had increased our net worth by $322,000 for a total of $515,000. The past year has seen somewhat ..read more

Last November, I made the decision to pay off my wife’s remaining student loans. While it is always satisfying to get rid of debt, this wasn’t an entirely straightforward decision given how low the interest rate was. The loans had been refinanced to a variable rate, which at the time was sitting at a paltry 0.59%. I did the math and calculated that if the conditions of that moment continued, I could be expected to lose out on $4,244 in investment gains over three years by paying them off early. An expected loss of <$1,500 per year was little enough to be outweighed by the guaranteed peace o ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. In July we’ve continued to settle into our new house. This means a lot of up-front spending to fill the rooms and make repairs, but I’m optimistic that we will be cresting that hill shortly. There continue to be rumbles about the ‘financial challenges’ of my hospital system, and while I don’t believe it (or my job) are in any sort of existential peril, I am counting less and less on any sort of mea ..read more

Welcome to another Dr. PayItBack monthly checkup! I use this space to remain accountable to our expenses and goals, track net worth and debt, and muse on what was done well and what can be improved. We bought a house! We closed earlier this month and are in the process of moving over the next few weeks. Long-time readers will know that being a homeowner has never been a must-have for me personally, but it’s the right thing for my family at this stage of our lives. We’re ready to begin putting down roots, and it’s a huge upgrade from the place we have been renting. Budget/Cash Flow We finally ..read more