The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness

Over the past two years, there has been a dramatic increase in interest rates from historically low levels, the impact of which has been felt by everyone, regardless of stage of life. In this episode, we take a closer look at this dynamic. We start by explaining what an interest rate is, provide some historical context for how the current environment compares to prior periods, talk about how the impact of higher interest rates varies depending on the stage of life you're in, and wrap things up by sharing some potential strategies and opportunities that are presented by higher interest rates. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

As we head toward open enrollment season, this episode is dedicated to a deeper dive into Health Savings Accounts (or HSAs). As the title implies, this is one of our favorite financial accounts, and in this episode, we explain why. We start by outlining exactly what an HSA is, talk about the triple tax benefit of it, discuss the investment component of an HSA, touch on some of the different things you can spend HSA money on (including a surprising expense in retirement), and then bring it all together by sharing some of the strategies around an HSA and how we prefer to use it within a financial plan.  Resources & People Mentioned Episode #25: Planning for Healthcare In Retirement Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss five of the most common investment mistakes people make: 1) Waiting for the “right” time to invest, 2) Anticipatory selling, 3) Buying into (or buying more of) the latest “hot” stock or investment trend, 4) Concentrating in one stock or one area of the investment universe, and 5) Chasing income, yield, or a similar theme.  For each mistake, we explain what drives it, how it typically materializes, and what you can do to avoid falling victim to it. The universal theme underlying each mistake is human behavior and emotion, which makes for an interesting discussion of how to fight our natural survival tendencies that, unfortunately, don't serve us well as investors. Resources & People Mentioned Episode #48: Lump Sum of Cash to Invest – All at Once or Gradually?   Episode #53: How to Manage Your Retirement Paycheck During a Market Decline Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we do a deep dive into the topic of health insurance. We start out by reviewing some of the key definitions and terminology related to health insurance. We then transition into discussing how to think about your health insurance coverage and how that thought process changes over time.  From there, we move on to a breakdown of the two key phases of health insurance (pre-65 and post-65) and talk about the planning opportunities that are available within each phase. And lastly, we wrap up our discussion by explaining how to apply the information and framework of this episode to your own situation in order to create the best health insurance plan for you. Resources & People Mentioned Episode #25: Planning for Healthcare in Retirement  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup healthcare.gov Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we dive into the always-fun topic of life insurance. We start out by sharing an overview of life insurance and discussing the purpose of it. We then transition into the three general life stages (early-career, mid-career, and late-career/retirement), explaining how your life insurance need changes at each stage and sharing tips and strategies for how to ensure that you have the coverage you need, for the time you need it, while paying as little as possible for it.  Outline of this episode The purpose and life cycle of life insurance [1:17] The two basic types of life insurance [3:14]  Coverage you need in early career [6:23]  Coverage you need in mid-career [9:39]  Coverage you need in late-career [12:40] The recap [16:06]  Resources & People Mentioned Episode #14: Insurance for Physicians – What Types & Amounts You Actually Need Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to saving and investing for retirement, we all have a certain amount of tax-advantaged saving space available to us through a combination of employer retirement accounts and personal retirement accounts. However, for many physicians there comes a point where you're maxing out all of these retirement accounts and still have money left over to save and invest, so it's natural to wonder “What's next?” in terms of where you should then allocate money. For us, the answer is often a taxable investment account, and in this episode, we explain why. Outline of this episode  What's the best place to save and invest after Retirement accounts are maxed? [0:23] The drawbacks of taxable accounts [2:35] Why these taxable accounts are preferable to cash or doing nothing [5:44] There are some attractive tax aspects to these accounts [13:01] Legacy planning can be simpler and can save funds with these accounts [19:26] Recap [23:20] What a taxable account is and how it fits as an option For those of you who have maxed out their tax advantage accounts, and we strongly advise maxing out these accounts before using this, a taxable account is the next best option. We'll start out by clarifying the terminology since as with many other areas of personal finance there's no shortage of jargon here. For the purposes of our discussion, we'll refer to it as a taxable account, but you'll also commonly hear it referred to as a brokerage account, a joint account, or an individual account, but it's essentially an account that you can open similar to a bank account. However, unlike a bank account where you earn a set percentage of interest based on the amount of money in the account with a taxable account, you can invest the money in mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, bonds, et cetera, with the expectation that it'll grow over time. These are easy to open and can provide good benefits over time. The drawbacks of taxable accounts  Obviously, you don't get the tax benefits from these accounts that you would with typical retirement-focused accounts. You're going to make contributions to these accounts with money that's already been taxed and you will also pay taxes on the growth of these accounts, over time. There are nuances, including qualified dividends, the interest paid on municipal bonds, and a few others. You can also pay taxes on the gains you make when selling these investments. Money invested here won't grow as much as you would experience in non-taxable accounts. What you'll like about taxable accounts You get a higher return on your investments. Not limited to cash, so you can invest with the potential of higher returns. While there is no guarantee that any investment will provide profitable returns, there are historical numbers we can consider. Historically, stock market returns average annual returns of around 10%, while the bond market has historically provided an annual return of around 5%. Historically, inflation has ranged between a 2% to 3% increase, so cash, which historically only provides around a 2% return, doesn't yield any return when adjusted for inflation. These accounts provide you the opportunity to earn a higher return, but they also provide great flexibility when it comes to your investments, much greater than what you'll experience with tax-favored accounts. You'll also experience SOME tax benefits in certain situations or with certain types of investments. Resources & People Mentioned Episode #20: The Waterfall of Retirement Savings by Account Episode #45: A Deeper Dive on Roth IRA Conversions Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to financial planning, there's often a fair amount of “low-hanging fruit” in terms of easy ways to save money. In this episode, we discuss seven of these items. Whether it's parking your cash in a high-yield savings account, shopping around home & auto insurance, harvesting losses in a taxable account, revisiting your life & disability insurance relative to your needs, evaluating your health insurance options versus your usage, rebalancing your investments, or optimizing your credit card benefits, by implementing a few simple tweaks and strategies the cost savings can really add up. Resources & People Mentioned Episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode, we share our list of ten things to do if you're within ten years of retirement. The list includes taking inventory of your financial situation, reflecting on your current vision of retirement, projecting your future expenses in retirement, understanding your healthcare options, running retirement projections to see where you stand, taking advantage of tax-advantaged retirement accounts and catch-up contributions, revisiting your investment portfolio and asset allocation, checking in with your spouse or partner to see if you're on the same page, and doing a “trial run” of retirement to see how it feels. We're big proponents of planning, and the earlier you address some of these things the more time you give yourself to do proactive planning, implement beneficial strategies, and make any necessary adjustments to ensure that your retirement ends up aligning with your ideal vision of it. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: Retirement Timeline – Key Dates & Opportunities Download our guide: Retirement Checklist – A Guide to Planning for Retirement  Episode #25: Planning for Healthcare in Retirement  Episode #50: Having a Plan for Long-Term Care Episode #51: Making Sense of Your Retirement Projections Episode #39: Should You Change Your Investments as You Approach Retirement? Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While it might not seem like it, understanding and contextualizing investment performance can be surprisingly difficult. In this episode, we share our framework for doing just that. We explain what makes up investment performance, how to have proper context around investing, the different ways to calculate investment returns, how to understand whether your investment return is “good” or “bad,” and how to tie it all together to the big picture and what matters for your situation. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode, we tackle the question of whether it's better to buy or lease when looking to get a new car. We start with a high-level overview, walk through some of the pros and cons of leasing, explain the pros and cons of buying, and based on that discussion tie it all together by sharing our overall thoughts on which option is best for which situations. As with most things in financial planning, there isn't a universal “black and white” answer since there are both financial and non-financial considerations, but our goal is to help you understand which is right for you based on the specifics of your own situation.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode, we share our checklist of financial planning items we've found helpful to address (or revisit) as you approach the end of the year when managing your finances and looking to optimize the many moving parts. While it's not an exhaustive list, we cover things such as confirming employer retirement account contributions, making backdoor Roth IRA contributions, confirming 529 plan contributions, checking FSA balances and HSA contributions, reviewing your investments, reviewing your charitable giving, and revisiting your overall goals and life situation. Our aim with this episode is to provide some helpful food for thought as we approach the end of the year.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing   Podcast episode #23: 5 Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Whether it's a new car in a year, college for the kids in five years, or retirement in 10 years, we all have goals that are important to us. And while being aware of our goals is an important first step, there's much more that goes into actually planning for and achieving a goal. In this episode, we share a four-step process for saving for any goal. From outlining the goal and its time horizon, to projecting the required savings, to planning and automating those savings and revisiting and adjusting over time, we walk through the entire process from start to finish and share helpful tips along the way.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #51: Making Sense of Your Retirement Projections Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

As much as we all like to see the stock market go up, periodic pullbacks and bear markets are inevitable. And while these periods don't feel great for any type of investor, they can be especially stressful if you're retired and are withdrawing from your investments to fund your lifestyle (what we call your “retirement paycheck”). With that in mind, this episode is dedicated to managing your retirement paycheck during such market declines. There are certain things to do and certain things to avoid doing, so we explain how to approach these periods and not just survive them, but also make the most of them.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #40: Investing and the “Lifeboat Drill” Podcast episode #51: Making Sense of Your Retirement Projections Podcast episode #45: A Deeper Dive on Roth IRA Conversions  Download our guide: How to Create a Paycheck in Retirement Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Target date investment funds are an increasingly common option in many employer retirement savings plans (such as 401ks and 403bs). Yet despite their prevalence, not everyone understands exactly what they are and how they work, so this episode is dedicated to a deeper dive. We start out by explaining what target date funds are, switch gears to discussing the pros and cons of them, and finally wrap up by sharing our overall perspective on the people/situations for which they do and don't make sense. Our goal is to provide a framework for evaluating whether or not target date funds may be right for you. Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #3: The 80:20 Rule of Investing Podcast episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While retirement (or financial independence) projections are a cornerstone of any comprehensive financial plan, not everyone understands what goes into them, the different ways to run them, or how to interpret and make sense of the output. In this episode, we start by providing a high-level explanation of retirement projections, then proceed to do a deeper dive touching on these different items. Our goal with this episode is to help you understand the ins and outs of retirement projections so that you can better leverage and interpret them within the context of your own financial plan. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: Retirement Timeline – Key Dates & Opportunities Download our guide: Retirement Checklist – A Guide to Planning for Retirement Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While it's not the most exciting topic to discuss, long-term care is an important one given how common long-term care events are and their ability to impact a retirement plan due to their potential cost. In this episode, we start out by providing some background and overview of long-term care and some of the numbers around frequency and cost. Based on that, we explain why it's important to have a plan for how to protect against long-term care risks. We then wrap things up by talking about the different options for how to actually protect against this risk (which at a basic level is either buying insurance, self-insuring, or some combination of the two) and discuss some of the pros and cons of each option. Our goal is for you to come away with a good understanding of this planning area and which approach to protecting against long-term care risk is right for you based on the specifics of your unique situation. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: Retirement Timeline – Key Dates & Opportunities Download our guide: Retirement Checklist – A Guide to Planning for Retirement  Genworth long-term care cost calculator   Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Whether we like it or not, money tends to be an emotional topic and each of us has our own relationship with money based on our personal life experiences. When managing your finances, one of the best things you can do is to minimize the amount of stress that money adds to your life. With that in mind, this episode is dedicated to sharing tips and suggestions for what you can do to improve your relationship with money. We discuss giving yourself a cushion and living within your means, understanding the purpose of money, understanding your personal money script (and that of your spouse or partner), having a money plan that you understand in your own terms, finding the right balance between preparing for the future while enjoying things along the way, and more. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

It's not uncommon to find yourself in a situation where you have a lump sum of cash (from selling a home, an inheritance, savings having built up in the bank, etc.) that you want to invest but are having trouble deciding whether to do it all at once or in a gradual manner. It can be easy to get hung up on this decision, especially if you don't fully understand the pros and cons and each approach and how they apply to your situation. And in fact, the uncertainty can often become enough of a roadblock that it leads to inaction and that money just sitting there (or even continuing to pile up as you save more). Therefore, this episode is dedicated to sharing some perspective for how to think through the decision and decide which approach is right for you.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #3: The 80:20 Rule of Investing Podcast episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Podcast episode #30: How to Manage the Emotions of Investing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While it's not always the most exciting topic, estate planning is certainly one of the key areas of financial planning. However, despite its importance, not everyone understands the value of estate planning or its relevance for people beyond just the ultra-wealthy. In this episode, we provide an introduction to estate planning. We cover the basics and key documents involved, explain why estate planning is important, outline the process of actually implementing an estate plan, discuss how estate planning changes over time and when to consider updating your estate plan, and finally wrap up by sharing what to expect when it comes to working with an estate attorney, both in terms of the experience and cost. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Your tax return contains a ton of valuable information that can be quite helpful with it comes to tax planning and managing your finances. The problem is it's not the most intuitive document and extracting that valuable information can be difficult to do. In this episode, we walk you through a checklist for reviewing your tax return. We go line by line, explaining the key items, how to find and interpret the useful information, and some of the important things to check on your tax return as they pertain to your overall finances and potential planning opportunities. Our goal is to help you decipher your tax return so you can use and apply the valuable information it contains.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast Episode #23: 5 Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Roth IRA conversions can be one of the most valuable tax planning strategies in retirement. While we've touched on Roth IRA conversions during previous episodes of the podcast, in this episode we do a deeper dive. We explain what a Roth IRA conversion is, why you would want to consider making one in the first place, what to be aware of from a tax perspective and factors to consider before making one, the key windows where Roth IRA conversions are the most impactful (and what to be aware of during each window), and wrap up by sharing some perspective on how to view Roth IRA conversions within the context of your overall financial plan. Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement Podcast episode #35: Explaining Social Security and How to Maximize Your Benefit Download our guide: Retirement Timeline – Key Dates & Opportunities Download our guide: Retirement Checklist – A Guide to Planning for Retirement Download our guide: How to Create a Paycheck in Retirement Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

For most people, your home is the single biggest purchase you'll ever make and is one of your most valuable assets. However, despite it being so important, not everyone knows how to look at it within the context of their overall financial life and plan. In this episode, we start out by explaining how your home works as an investment and a source of wealth, and how it grows over time. We then discuss how to think about converting that value into something you can use (if you want to). Finally, we wrap up by talking about how to view your home as part of your overall financial and retirement plan, some of the different roles it can play, and why each might be attractive to you.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #33: What to Know About Mortgages and Refinancing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to investing, there are very few “free lunches.” Asset location is one of them. In basic terms, it's a way to improve your after-tax investment return (the one that matters) without taking on more risk, by simply being strategic about which investments you hold within which accounts, based on their unique tax treatment. In this episode, we walk through the different investment account types (Roth, pre-tax, and taxable) and explain how to think about which investment to own in each.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast Episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing  Podcast Episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Retiring earlier than the “traditional” retirement age brings with it a number of unique factors and considerations. In this episode, we dive into five of the most important areas to address if you're planning to retire early, and what's unique about these compared to someone who's retiring a decade or more later. Specifically, we cover health insurance (including the important period between retirement and Medicare at age 65), cash flow considerations and the rules for withdrawing from various investment accounts (including which ones have more or less flexibility), safe withdrawal rates, and strategy from withdrawing from your accounts (while also balancing tax and other considerations), how to view your investment allocation and the difference between retirement and financial independence and making sure you know exactly what you're retiring “to” before making the transition.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast Episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement Podcast Episode #35: Explaining Social Security and How to Maximize Your Benefit Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to taxes, a key distinction to make is the difference between tax planning and tax preparation. Tax preparation is a reactive process that primarily consists of reporting what has already happened in the prior tax year to understand your tax liability and whether you'll receive a refund or owe taxes when you file your return. Tax planning, on the other hand, is a proactive process that involves looking at your overall financial situation, your goals, and your expected future path, to figure out what you can do proactively to minimize your tax liability, not just in a given year, but more importantly throughout your entire lifetime. Keep in mind that just because you have someone preparing your tax return, don't assume they're also doing proactive tax planning for you.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #3: 6 Ways to Save on Taxes as an Employed Physician Podcast episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement Podcast episode #23: 5 Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving Podcast episode #27: The Key Questions You Should Ask a Financial Advisor Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to investing, one of the principles for success is to avoid letting your emotions creep into your decision-making or behavior. Apart from maintaining a proper perspective about how the stock market has historically behaved, one of the best ways to do this is by proactively engaging in “lifeboat drills.” These involve imagining the next stock market pullback, or bear market, and thinking about how you would feel (or be inclined to react) in light of your situation, your investment temperament, and your goals. Doing this can help you put together a playbook in advance (even if that playbook is ultimately to do nothing), so you aren't left making reactive decisions in the moment when emotions are involved.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellnesson Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

One of the common questions we hear is how (or if) you should change your investments over time, especially as you get closer to retirement. Most people know the way they invest in their 50's and 60's should probably be different than the way they invested in their 30's, but aren't sure what this looks like in practice. In this episode, we tackle this question and share our thoughts. We cover the principle of matching your investments with your time horizon, discuss sequence of returns risk and how to protect against it, and share a framework for how to think about the right investment mix for you, particularly as you get closer to retirement and needing to withdraw from your investments to fund your lifestyle. Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook

It's common to accumulate one or more old retirement accounts throughout your career. Perhaps you have a 403b from residency, another 403b from fellowship, and now a 401k with your current employer where you plan to stay. Regardless of how it happens, having old retirement accounts “floating” out there can be frustrating, not only from a logistical standpoint but also from the perspective of trying to coordinate and manage your overall financial situation. In this episode, we walk through your options for what to do with old retirement accounts. We cover the pros and cons of each and share the perspective you need to figure out which option is right for you. Resources Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup IRS Rollover Chart Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

For anyone with a pension benefit through their employer, you know how confusing it can be trying to understand the value of your benefit and comparing the different options for how to collect it when you retire. In this episode, we share some background on pensions, talk about how the pension system has changed over time, and break down the various pension options and how to think about each. Specifically, we provide a framework for making the biggest pension-related decision, which is whether to choose a lump sum payout or an annuity. Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #12: How to Create a “Paycheck” in Retirement  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While unfortunately there's no silver bullet to avoid paying taxes entirely, there are a number of things you can do to reduce the amount of taxes you do have to pay. In this episode, we share our year-end tax planning checklist and walk through some of the different areas to consider and specific strategies you can implement. We cover employer retirement plan contributions, Health Savings Accounts, 529 college savings plans, charitable giving, and backdoor Roth IRA contributions. Resources & People Mentioned Podcast episode #4: The Best Way to Save For College As a Michigan Physician  Podcast episode #23: 5 Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving  Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup

Social Security can be a confusing topic with a lot of moving parts and options, scary headlines about its future, and generally speaking a great deal of misinformation and misconceptions. In this episode, we provide a comprehensive overview of Social Security. We explain what the system is and how it works, talk about the different claiming options and how to think about which strategy is right for you and address some of the common misperceptions about the Social Security system and its sustainability. Resources & People Mentioned Downloadable Guide: Setting up a My Social Security Account Downloadable Guide: Applying for Social Security Podcast Episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement  Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Managing your cash can be a tricky balancing act. On one hand, you want to make sure you have enough for any potential near-term needs and to help you sleep well at night, while on the other hand, you don't want to keep too much when you know you could be doing other, more productive, things with it. In this episode, we share our approach for managing cash. We cover the entire process, from figuring out how much to keep (between your emergency fund, any cash earmarked for near-term goals, and what “feels good”) to figuring out what to do with the cash you do decide to keep on hand.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to mortgages and refinancing, there's no shortage of details and questions that come up. How much should I put down for a down payment? What length of mortgage should I choose? Should I do a variable rate or fixed rate? Is it better to escrow property taxes and insurance or not? How do I know whether or not it makes sense financially to refinance my mortgage? In this episode, we dive into these questions (and more), providing a full rundown of everything home financing-related and sharing tips and guidance for how to approach the various decisions that come with it. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

For most employer retirement plans, such as a 401k or 403b, you have the option of making either Roth or pre-tax (also known as traditional) contributions. However, not everyone understands the difference between the two types of contributions, let alone the significant implications for their lifetime tax bill (or that of their heirs). In this episode, we dive into a discussion of Roth versus pre-tax contributions, explaining what they are and how they work, as well as sharing some perspective around how to think about the two relative to your own situation, in order to decide which is right for you. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Episode #3: 6 Ways to Save on Taxes as an Employed Physician Episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Open enrollment can be a confusing process. While employers often provide a lot of information regarding your employee benefits, they don't always provide as much in the way of guidance or interpretation of that information. In this episode, we share an open enrollment “checklist.” We start by providing some high-level background on open enrollment, then walk through the most important employee benefit areas and explain what decisions to make (or things to consider) for each one. We hope this provides some useful context and makes navigating open enrollment easier by breaking down the key areas and decisions in a step-by-step manner.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast  

Investing can be an emotional process and successfully managing your emotions is one of the keys to realizing a positive long-term investment experience. In this episode, we dive into the emotional side of investing and share some thoughts and tips for how to win the emotional element of it. From understanding the purpose of investing and knowing what you're investing for, to having the right perspective and expectations around investing, to focusing on what you can control and planning around what you cannot, there are several tangible things you can do to become a better investor. We dive into each, explain how to implement it, and share perspective on why it's so important. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Podcast Episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing  Podcast Episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this mailbag episode, we answer three different questions:  #1) I don't feel comfortable with investing and don't check my investment accounts, but I'm worried I might be missing something or not taking advantage of everything.  #2) I like to spend a little more money and my spouse is a saver and thinks we aren't saving enough, and we're trying to find a good compromise. Any tips?  #3) I'm wondering if I should pay ahead on my mortgage or invest that extra money instead? What's the better use?  If you would like to have your questions answered on the show, please send them to us at info@mdwmllc.com! Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Podcast Episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing  Podcast Episode #19: The “Other 20%” of Successful Investing Podcast Episode #22: The “Reverse Budget” – an Alternative to Budgeting  Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

This is our first-ever mailbag episode. In it, we answer three different questions we've received:  #1) I'm not sure if I'm doing everything I can to minimize taxes – is there a way I can check this or what should I be considering?  #2) I've built up quite a bit of cash in my savings account that I don't know what to do with and I'm nervous about investing now after the market has gone up.  #3) I like the idea of passive income and I've heard real estate is the best way to do this – what are your thoughts?  If you would like to have your questions answered on the show, please send them to us at info@mdwmllc.com! Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Podcast episode #3: 6 Ways to Save on Taxes as an Employed Physician Podcast episode #15: How to Minimize Your Tax Bill in Retirement Podcast episode #23: 5 Strategies for Tax-Efficient Charitable Giving   Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

The world of financial advice and financial advisors can be confusing. Given the industry jargon and huge variability in types of advisors, the way they work with clients, the quality of the advice they give, their experience and credentials, and what they charge for their services, it can be hard to tell one from the next. In this episode, we share the five most important questions to ask when interviewing financial advisors. By asking these questions and comparing the answers provided by different advisors, you'll not only have a good understanding of exactly what it looks like (and costs) to work with a particular advisor, but you'll also be able to differentiate them and understand who the best fit for you is. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to personal finance, there's no shortage of advice and opinions out there. Along with that, there also are a lot of myths and misinformation about managing your finances. In this episode, we tackle five of the most common myths we come across, including: 1) I need to change my investments based on XYZ headline, 2) Once I have $XYZ portfolio value, I'll be content, 3) A tax refund = good tax planning, 4) Whole life insurance helps cover your insurance needs while allowing you to efficiently save/invest at the same time, and 5) Just save 20% of your income toward retirement and you'll be fine. We explain why each myth exists, why it's misguided, and provide an alternate way to think about each underlying topic. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Healthcare is a key financial planning item in retirement and one of the many areas that changes dramatically compared to your working years. Specifically, there are two key healthcare planning windows to consider in retirement: 1) prior to Medicare eligibility at age 65 (assuming you retire before then), and 2) from 65-onward once you become eligible for Medicare. In this episode, we discuss these two windows and share practical tips and strategies for things to consider and how to go about making the important decisions that have to be made in each phase. By being smart with how you approach healthcare planning in retirement, you can make sure you have the right coverage for your situation while not paying more than what's necessary for it. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: Retirement Checklist – A Guide to Planning for Retirement Download our guide: Retirement Timeline – Key Dates & Opportunities Download our guide: How to Create a “Paycheck” in Retirement  Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Financial planning is an always-evolving process as life changes and you receive new information. In this episode, we walk through a blueprint for what to cover in the annual “review” of your financial plan. From revisiting the big picture and your goals to checking in on cash flow and your investments, to keep up with changes to legislation and tax laws, by consistently following this process year in and year out, you'll help ensure that your financial plan continues to evolve with your life and reflect what's most important to you.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

While we never recommend donating to charity solely for tax purposes, if you're giving to charity anyway, why not maximize the tax benefit of your donations? In this episode, we share five different strategies for donating to charity in a tax-efficient manner. These include donating appreciated investments rather than cash, “bunching” your gifts, using a donor-advised fund, making qualified charitable distributions, and even starting your own non-profit. What you choose to do with the tax savings is up to you, even if that's turning around and donating the money to your favorite organization!  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

For anyone who dislikes budgeting (ourselves included), this episode provides a great alternative – the reverse budget. By switching your focus from tracking monthly expenses to hitting specific savings targets, it makes it easier to stay on track with your financial goals while at the same time reducing the legwork involved along the way. In this episode, we explain how to implement the reverse budget using a four-step process and how to periodically review your progress over time. Hopefully, this helps you keep on pace with your savings while also allowing you to enjoy any leftover money “guilt-free.” Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode, we talk about pursuing early financial independence and what all goes into it. We explain what it means to be financially independent, how to calculate how much you need in savings/investments to become financially independent, and how to figure out how much to save and invest each year to reach that number within your desired time frame. We also talk about some of the potential trade-offs involved with pursuing early financial independence and how to think about them within the context of your overall financial life. Lastly, we wrap things up by covering some of the specific investment accounts that can be particularly helpful for anyone with an early financial independence goal.  Resources & People Mentioned Blog post: The Math of Financial Independence Blog post: Pursuing Financial Independence Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

In this episode, we talk about retirement accounts and how to prioritize which ones to save to and in what order. Each physician has certain retirement accounts they're eligible to contribute to. However, since different accounts have different features and tax treatment, it can be hard to determine how to order them when allocating your retirement savings. In this episode, we provide a blueprint for the typical employed physician, explaining the key features of the various accounts and the rationale behind how we rank them. Our goal is to help you leverage your available retirement accounts in an optimal way, to make the dollars you save for retirement go as far as possible. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

This episode is a follow-on to a previous episode we did on the basics of investing (episode #5). In that episode, we explained the foundational principles to focus on first when it comes to investing, using the 80:20 rule (or Pareto principle) as a guide. In this episode, we take it a step further and share some of the additional things you can do to further improve your investment experience. We cover asset allocation, portfolio rebalancing, asset placement, and tax-loss harvesting. As you'll see, when applied properly, these additional strategies can add up in terms of their overall impact.  Resources & People Mentioned Podcast Episode #5: The 80:20 Rule of Investing Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

This is a follow-on episode and the second installment of a two-part series on how we manage our own finances. In episode one, we covered organization and tracking, managing debt, and prioritizing/allocating cash flow. In this second episode, we discuss investing, risk management (estate planning & insurance), and the big picture and putting it all together. Hopefully, our discussion provides some useful insight on how there are different ways to manage your finances successfully, and how the approach can (and often does) differ depending on each person's unique situation.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

When it comes to managing your finances, there isn't always a “right” or a “wrong” way, and the exact approach tends to differ depending on the person and their unique circumstances. In this episode, we demonstrate this by walking through how each of us manages our own finances. You'll see similarities and differences in the way we handle things and understand why the best course of action doesn't always have to be the financially “optimal” one. This is part one of a two-part series, and in it, we cover organization and tracking, managing debt, and prioritizing/allocating cash flow. Resources & People Mentioned Mint.com for tracking spending Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Download our guide: The Financial Checkup Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

The concept of vital signs is second nature for physicians. When it comes to personal finance, the idea is that these indicators not only provide a snapshot of your current financial life and help identify potential areas of concern, but they also give you a baseline from which you can then assess progress and improvement over time. In this episode, we discuss three financial vital signs, explaining what each is, how to measure it, and why it's important to track over time. Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Toolkit for Optimizing Your Finances as an Employed Physician Blog post: 3 Things All Physicians Should Track With Their Finances  Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellnesson Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast

Tax planning in retirement doesn't always get the same attention as tax planning during your working years, which is too bad because, for many people, there's potential to lower your lifetime tax bill by tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars through proactive planning. In this episode, we discuss the three key tax planning windows in retirement and share some tips and suggestions for what you can do during each window to minimize your retirement tax bill. From Roth IRA conversions to strategic withdrawals from your retirement accounts to qualified charitable distributions, and more.  Resources & People Mentioned Download our guide: The Key Tax Planning Windows in Retirement Blog post: How to Save Taxes in Retirement Connect With Trent and Andrew https://mdwmllc.com  Follow on LinkedIn Follow on Facebook Subscribe to The Physician's Guide To Financial Wellness on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast