medicine

3 Main Ways the Rich get Richer (and you can too)

3 Main Ways the Rich get Richer (and you can too)

These strategies on how the rich get richer do not only apply to the wealthy. These same opportunities and strategies are open to you as well. If you’d like to accumulate wealth, or simply keep more of the money you currently have without paying a large portion in taxes, then follow the strategies

5 Pro Tips I'd Give My Younger Self:

  1. Realize personal finance is important. Despite what we may have been told about our careers and future high incomes, how we manage our money now matters a lot more than we may think. A lot of us are falling into a danger zone of being okay with rapidly accumulating student loans, credit card debt, and never-ending car payments which is a very VERY scary place to be.

    How we spend our money today, can drastically alter our quality of life a few years from now. The last thing you want to do is be in your mid-40s still complaining about the student loan debt your friends and family forgot you had, picking up extra shifts at a job you hate to avoid racking up even more credit card debt than you already have. DO BETTER.

  2. Figure out how much you spend each month. I cannot stress how much my life changed when I actually set down and tried to create a monthly budget. Regardless of how “simple” it is, I can tell you that 90% of my med school classmates didn’t have one.

    As a med student life was so stressful studying for organ systems tests, clinical rotation exams, or Step 1 of the US Medical Licensing Exam that you barely have time to wash dishes, let alone try to understand finance. Most of my us just filled out a FAFSA form each year and magically received money from the government that covered our tuition and basic living expenses. We’d pay our rent, buy the food we wanted, and then realize we’re suddenly broke when the semester was about to end and our account balance dwindled. We’d sweat it out for a month trying to make ends meet, then fill out another finance form (aka FAFSA) and “magically” more money appeared in our bank account. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

    No one told me not to over-spend my loan money on the post-board exam vacation I felt I deserved. No one stressed the importance of resisting the urge to “treat yo’self” during happy hour or a colleague’s birthday dinner.

    I am not saying you can’t do these things, but I want to stress making a budget because I’d bet that most graduate students and young professionals have no idea how much money they are actually spending each month. I know I didn’t. I mean I knew I was broke because I kept filling out loan applications every year, but I honestly couldn’t tell you my overall loan balance. Heck, I couldn’t even tell you my debit card balance. Don’t be as naïve as I was, DO BETTER.

  3. Minimize the interest rates on the loans you have. The money you borrow now will cost you much more in the future. Let that sink in. The higher the interest rate, the more money you will pay back later. When you borrow $30,000 for school, you pay back closer to $40,000 later (assuming a 7% interest rate that you pay back over 10 years). That’s $10,000 extra you’re paying just in interest.

    You can minimize this by not borrowing as much in the first place and by lowering the interest rate on the loans you currently have. If you have credit card debt, simply call your bank and ask if they can lower the interest rate on your credit card. Yes, it really is that easy.

  4. Spend less! We all want to look good, feel well, and vacation like a champ. Trust me I get it. I get envious when I see the Instagram photos of my med school classmates or work colleagues taking another extravagant vacation I cannot afford. It’s hard not to let the positive balance in my bank account distract me from the big fat NEGATIVE sitting in front of my net worth.

    As a med student, the student loan money sitting in my debit account was fictitious. It tricked me into believing I was richer than I was or that I can afford things I knew I couldn’t. When I finally had to face the big fat loan balance alongside my car payment and expanding credit card debt, I realized I needed to make a change.

    I knew I didn’t have much self-discipline so I had to stay far away from the malls. I deleted the text alerts of new “sales” from my favorite clothing stores, resisted the urge to buy a new outfit for weekend outings, and started cooking more meals at home. Before I knew it, I had changed my spending habits and paid off my car.

  5. Practice self-discipline and delayed gratification. For the love of God and all things man please break your expensive habits. Mine was wine and lots of it. I liked it red, aged, and expensive. It just tasted better. But man was it costing me.

    I was spending at least $15 a week on wine, which doesn’t sound like much but when spread that across 52 weeks a year that amounts to $780. I mean I was spending nearly $800 on alcohol! This was going to cost me closer to $1000 when I paid it all back, since I was buying the wine with my student loan money. What a waste.

    Every year for Lent I tried to give it up and the day Lent ended I picked back up the habit. Don’t be me. Curve your habits. Do not waste money you don’t have on things you don’t need. Granted there is a balance, but graduate school is not the time to be treating yo’self to wine and fancy dinners every other week. Face it. We aren’t rich…yet. Quit pretending you have more money than you actually do. Practice self-discipline so you can get out of debt and start building your net worth.

Tell me, what ways have you started practicing self-discipline? What things are you going to try to spend less on this month?

 

Money Tips You Didn’t Learn In College

Money Tips You Didn’t Learn In College

Be strategic about using credit cards. While having access to credit cards can provide added “protection” during emergencies, it also can be quite dangerous. I don’t know about you, but knowing I can use a credit card to pay for almost anything I want tests my self-control in ways I could have never imagined.

5 Things To Do As A Young Professional To Set Yourself Up For Financial Success

5 Things To Do As A Young Professional To Set Yourself Up For Financial Success

Learn about finance. I get it. Finance can be boring. You don’t want to spend the free time you barely have studying a subject you don’t really like. Hopefully this site can give you some quick tips about finance so that if you merely browse the info on this site you will have some semblance of what to do. Plus, if you want even more information you can use this site to find the resources and tools you need.

Why I started learning about money, despite my [guaranteed] doctor salary

Why I started learning about money, despite my [guaranteed] doctor salary

How could I, a person with nearly $200,000 in student loan debt, even begin to think about financial freedom, investments, or retirement plans when I had no job and was still in school?

Truth is, I had to start somewhere. I simply couldn’t afford not to. The more I waited to educate myself on money management, the longer I would spend making bad financial decisions that could dig me deeper in debt and delay my life of prosperity. Things needed to change and they needed to change now.

Money mistakes to avoid as a graduate student or young professional

Money mistakes to avoid as a graduate student or young professional

Don’t take out more loan money than you need. Figure out your monthly expenses (rent, food, transportation, gas, school expenses, incidentals, etc). Only take out in loans the amount that you need and do so at the lowest interest rate you can find. Although it’s nice to have “just in case” money, for emergencies or unexpected expenses, most of us just end of using the extra money for shopping trips or vacations. So unless you have an unprecedented amount of self-control, it is probably best to only take out what you need.

The basics: What are IRA’s and 401K’s?

The basics: What are IRA’s and 401K’s?

IRAs and 401Ks are types of accounts we use to save for retirement. A 401K is a retirement account offered through your employer and an IRA is a retirement account you can open up on your own (without being employed).