By The Motivated MD, Guest Writer
There are times in our lives that force us to stop and reflect. If I am being completely honest, I am a very self-reflective person. Recently, I found myself thinking a lot about the roles of money and personal finance in my marriage. That may seem ridiculous to say, coming from a personal finance blogger. Of course I think about personal finance. I literally write about it every week! However, with this post, I want to approach my thoughts and reflections from a new angle.
I write a lot about personal finance as it applies to my life and profession. However, I rarely provide my readers a doorway into how this interaction plays out in my day-to-day marriage. What are we (my wife and I) putting ourselves through to solidify a strong financial future? Is it worth it? Is it too much to ask someone to live like a resident when you are making “doctor money?” Here is a financial love letter to my wife for all she puts up with.
A Moment of Reflection
Just the other night, after our kids were finally asleep, my wife, an emergency medicine physician, and I settled in to watch the series finale of Ted Lasso. We had grown to love the show, and we were eagerly waiting for a time when neither of us was working nights or on call to watch the final episode. I won’t give any spoilers here, but needless to say, it pulled at our heartstrings and asked us to reflect on the age-old question of time vs. money. What is an amount of money that is “life-changing?” Is there an amount of money that would make you re-evaluate what is important to you? Your goals? I spent that night laying in bed relentlessly going over this trade-off in my head.
The next day we found ourselves on our usual morning routine. Out to walk the dog with our daughter as she gets FOMO (fear of missing out) if she is not included. We walked and talked, addressed our daily agenda, and determined how long we needed our nanny that day. Eventually, our conversations were divulged into finances, as they often do—whether it’s addressing how much is on the credit card or if we need to add more money to our emergency fund. Despite payday coming up, it just seemed like we would (again) not be able to “do it all.”
We would have to pay off the credit card entirely, but this would limit our ability to replenish the emergency fund. Furthermore, we both knew we needed to tighten the budget this month. Money would likely be tight with all the travel for graduations and family events. How is this possible? We are two freaking physicians making (academic) attending salaries, for crying out loud! How are we still in our mid-30s and having to make the same financial decisions we have since our intern year?! Inevitably, the conversation would make me seem overly frugal or mistakenly label my wife as a bit indulgent—comments that clearly do not help the situation.
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The (Self-Induced) Financial Pressure
How did we get here? Well, it is actually straightforward. We met in medical school, ultimately built a life together, and married. With the unification of our lives, so too did our debts combine. We faced a $670,000 educational debt for choosing to be physicians. With our debts fully realized, we took to recommended resources and self-education. We had to build a plan. With time, we created our financial plan, prioritized debt elimination, and started to chip away. Anytime we moonlit in residency, it either went toward affording our wedding or toward our student loans. There were endless shifts and countless nights working extra just to make a dent in our debt.
With time, we started to celebrate our progress. First, paying off $50,000, then $100,000. As my wife completed training and I entered fellowship, we could make annual payments of $100,000. It was not until 2022 that I finally completed my fellowship and could start to “carry my weight” regarding my income. With us both making physician salaries, we could finally destroy our debt, right?
We continued to keep our goal of paying $100,000 toward our student loans annually. Still, with a family of four, childcare, the cost of living in a coastal city, helping family members, and financial responsibility (emergency fund, maximizing retirement contributions, investing) . . . the financial pressures started to build. How is this possible? Our take-home pay is over $300,000. We do all the right things, after all. Just to name a few of our habits, we do the following:
- Keep an emergency fund of approximately three months of living expenses
- Max out our retirement accounts
- Invest regularly
- Plan far in advance for big purchases
- Exclusively buy used cars in cash
- Keep no other debts
- Purchased a home far below what we could…
Read More: A Financial Love Letter to My Wife (and the Realities of Living Like a Resident)