You have survived your 20-, 30-, or 40-year career in medicine and now have enough money to retire. Congratulations! Obviously, you have done some important financial planning along the way including consistent saving and savvy investing. But now, is your work finished? Not at all! Retirement isn’t the finish line for your finances. It is the starting line for the rest of your life and is fraught with all kinds of financial traps. If something goes wrong, you can no longer ju

1. Upgrading Your Lifestyle Too Fast (aka Lifestyle Creep) You did it! You survived four years of medical school, three to seven years of residency, and for some of you, another year or two of fellowship. Finally, you are going to get paid well for all that training. You’ve been living in cramped apartments, driving a beater, and vacationing in tents instead of hotels. Meanwhile, your high school friends have boats and houses—and didn’t even go to college. After years of dela

The Physician's Path to True Wealth by Bryan Jepson MD, CFP The Physician’s Path to True Wealth: 12 Steps to Gaining Control Over Your Money and Your Time is now available on Amazon. As I began my journey as a financial advisor, I realized something important: most people have very different ideas about what it means to be “wealthy.” For some, it's a big house, fancy cars, or lavish vacations. But for me—and for the clients I work with—true wealth isn’t about “stuff.” It’s ab

This is my third post in a series about what to look for when choosing a financial advisor. In the first one, I talked about different billing models and why it is important to know how your advisor gets paid. The second post was about trying to understand what their credentials and designations were all about. In this post, I am going to dive a little deeper into what it means to be a fiduciary and why it should be an important distinguisher when you are deciding what typ

If you are in the process of looking for a financial advisor and have been looking through the "about us" pages of advisory websites, you have probably noticed that most financial advisors have letters behind their names—and if you’re wondering what they all mean, you’re not alone. Many people find themselves asking: What do those letters stand for? Which ones actually matter? Are they meaningful in helping me find an advisor I can trust? In this post, I am going to try to d

First, a disclosure. I have never used a financial advisor. I am a DIY kind of guy at heart and have always been that way, even for things that I would have saved myself a lot of time by using an expert, whether it's with home improvements or finance. A lot of the reason for that is that I like learning new things and am not afraid to make mistakes during the process for the sake of gaining fresh skills. And for the most part, it has all worked out. My own history of le