A recently widowed client asked me an important planning question, one that many parents eventually face. One of her sons was preparing to enter graduate school, and his 529 plan had been depleted during his undergraduate years. At the same time, she had just received life insurance proceeds following her spouse's death. Should she use some of that money to help pay for graduate school for her son instead of requiring him to take out federal student loans? And if so, should s

Introduction Managing life with a disability is challenging, whether it affects you, your child, your sibling, or someone else you love. For parents especially, each day can feel like a balancing act of therapies, school meetings, doctor's appointments, challenging behaviors, and sometimes simply learning how to communicate with your child in a way that helps them thrive. Looming over all of that are the bigger questions: How am I going to keep doing this for the rest of my l

Most physicians have their number in mind—their retirement number. The amount that they have determined that their net worth must reach to sustain them for the rest of their lives. Once they hit it, they assume that they will be ready to hang it up and call it a career. They may have come up with this number on their own, using a tool like the 4% rule, or perhaps a financial advisor has helped them with some more sophisticated planning. Either way, the number becomes the g

Transitions are rarely just financial decisions. Whether you are thinking about retirement, cutting back clinically, selling a business, changing careers, or stepping away from a role that has defined you for decades, the hardest part is often not the math. It is the conversations. Most major life transitions place stress on identity, relationships, routines, expectations, and communication long before they create financial problems. And yet many couples spend far more time d

Your dream house should not become the reason you lose financial freedom. Physicians tend to be detail-oriented and data-driven folks. You have to be if you want to be a great clinician, surgeon, or medical researcher. And, in my experience, that mindset often spills over into their investing style, especially for those who enjoy doing it themselves. Paying attention to those details is important, absolutely. It can save a lot of money over the long run. But it is also s

Of all the alternative investment options marketed to physicians, real estate probably gets the most traction. And I understand why. Doctors tend to have more discretionary income, even after maxing out their 401(k), and the smart ones are looking for ways to leverage that income for their futures, rather than just spending it on a fancier lifestyle. Because of that draw, a whole industry has emerged—physician real estate investing. And with any industry that involves mon

Doctor dragged down by anchoring bias Have you ever noticed how the first number you hear tends to shape everything that comes after it—whether it’s the price of a house, a job offer, or even your retirement target? That’s not just a quirk of human thinking; it’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon called anchoring bias. It affects our financial decisions more than we realize—quietly influencing what we think something should be worth, what we feel we deserve to earn,