2019 Goals

Im back. Sorry for the long gap between the last episodes and this one. Holidays and an extremely busy work schedule limited my ability to work on the podcast. I have a series of episodes ready to go and am excited to get back to it.

While finance and money are the main topics, I would also like to continue to address other issues that impact health care professionals including the burnout epidemic that has become a major topic amongst all of us.

My last episodes on private equity in medicine were very popular and well received. It is the continued erosion of physician ownership and employment that troubles me. (I don't blame anyone for taking a buyout if offered, I probably would go that route also, but the long term effects for the profession are probably not good.) When you are not an owner, you lose power, and when most of us are employees (myself included), we lose major negotiating power for healthcare policy decisions (You will hear about this in an episode with Dr. Marion Mass and an important organization she is a part of called Practicing Physicians of America.

I would also like to continue to highlight entrepreneurship and independent practice owners as I truly believe that ownership allows for a more fulfilling career. So if you are or know of any independent practice owners that I should spotlight, please shoot me an email at [e-mail] , tweet me or FB message me.

Every year starts out with optimism and that is one of humanities great traits, to look arbitrarily at a calendar and decide that January is when you make a change.  I am, just like most of you a working healthcare professional who puts in too many hours at work, tries to spend time with his family, and tries to take care of patients. I hope this is the year you make a commitment to your financial wellness.

So first basic goals I think everyone should try to get to as soon as they can this year.

1. Fund your 401k, 403b (esp if you get a match) (I want to make a quick tribute to Jack Bogle, the father of the index fund who recently passed away. He did more than anyone to help the average investor protect themselves from Wall St. Billions of dollars in investor accounts are there because pioneered low cost investing)
2. Fund your roth or reg IRA, (backdoor roth IRA for high income professionals)
3. If you have a HSA, fund that
4. Pay off high interest debt (if credit card or other very high interest, this may move up a few notches)
5. Take a moment to invest in yourself. This can be health, education, or just something that makes you feel better. Life is too short (as we all know) to not enjoy the journey.
6. Do something that makes you uncomfortable. For me that is going to include some public speaking. It’s not too tough to sit behind the microphone on this podcast (though it was very scary to put it out there), but speaking in front of a group is nerve racking. I’m always impressed with those who do it so well and make it look effortless.

Finally I want to expand our investment mindset. While, I truly believe that equities and real estate should be core holdings (they are mine), I am always looking for other opportunities that are available (for diversification and non correlation) and educating myself and hopefully the audience about these. If you are interested in hearing about specific types please let me know and I can try to do shows about them. It has been a long bull market in most assets and no one knows where we are headed and I am certainly not a good forecaster. But there is a role for other investments and I do think that it’s always good to explore these. Last year I joined an investment group of physicians looking at early stage healthcare companies. I will probably be talking more about this in the future, so keep a look out for that.

I want to thank all of you for listening to this podcast, sharing it with your colleagues, and your participation in the Doctor Money Matters FB group. While it may not be the biggest podcast or the biggest group, I hope they have been entertaining and useful, I hope we can continue to help educate and empower each other in our financial journeys.

I am thinking of putting on a webinar to discuss investing, taxes, and other financial topics. If you are interested let me know by email. 

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