Hello hello!
It’s been a while since the last blog post. It would be easy to say that it was due to the “busy life of a physician” but, since I found time to watch many TV shows in the interim, it really was at least partly due to prioritization XD Another truth is that, I’m busier now than I ever was as a resident, and after coming home from work, there’s often very little creative energy left. The (non-call) weekends provide a better opportunity for creativity, and gets split between different projects. I started writing a ¾ Staff Life Update, but never finished it. And now it’s a few months later.
It’s good to take a pause and look back to see what financial developments have occurred.
We Bought a House!
This one is huge. The biggest financial change since my last post. Mr. Sparks and I are now in more debt than we ever have been before (and this includes set up costs for his clinic, which is quite equipment heavy and with extensive renos).
The market we are in is not Canada’s most expensive, but it’s up there. Based on my income alone, the mortgage would take up 65% of my after-tax income – much higher than the commonly discussed 30%. Thankfully, it’s split between Mr. Sparks and I. Also, a rough estimate of after-mortgage finances leaves a fair monthly spending amount, enough to support a family with – I think. We intend to stay in this house until we eventually downsize due to infirmities related to older age, so I am hoping that it is a worthwhile move. There were also important non-financial reasons to proceed with buying a house that also made this worthwhile (and important non-financial reasons not to start with a “starter home”, with a plan to move).
The House Needs Renos
Ever since buying a house, and even before buying a house, people have been telling me a house is a never-ending to-do list.
Well, it seems to be true so far.
This house is in a great location, but the reason we were able to buy it is because it definitely needs some work. A lot of work.
Mr. Sparks and I may be sinking our entire paycheques this year into the house renovations. This will delay our journey to FI/RE. Using the Walletburst calculators:
CoastFIRE: if I were to support the mortgage and whole family on my own, discounting tax deferrals through the corp, and wanted to retire at age 55, I’d be 12 years from CoastFIRE (11 years, plus this year’s lost time for investment due to house renos). If I cut those expenses in half (given that both Mr. Sparks and I are working), I’d be 7 years from CoastFIRE with a retirement age of 45 (6 years plus 1).
The Markets Have Gone Down
This is no surprise to anyone. The implication is, I ran my initial CoastFIRE calculations during a rather optimistic time. Now that I’ve tasted the markets gong down for a longer period of time, I’m feeling more cautious, and have decreased my projected investment growth rate to 7% while keeping the inflation at 3% (even though that’s not what we’re facing this year, in 2022, lol).
I am happy to report that there was no panic selling.
I am sad to report that, due to house renovations, I am holding off on investing in the market. *sigh*
Other Financial Findings
It is so easy to adapt to change. I remember the first staff paycheque and feeling like a millionaire.
Now, I’m pretty used to seeing the same figures each month.
This is why there are repeated warnings about the hedonic treadmill. It’s too easy to get used to changes and novelty, and it can get out of hand. But as long as one keeps a close eye out, it doesn’t have to, and you could loosen the purse strings a little bit. Physician Philosopher suggests a 10% increase. For me, there has been approximately $3000 per year increase in lifestyle inflation since becoming a staff physician, this first year (translating to about 8% more than previous years). That seems okay 🙂
Updates Compared to the First Quarter
I wrote a post about the first quarter of staff life. Let’s see how things are stacking up now compared to then.
The Paperwork
In terms of non-clinical paperwork, this is mostly set up and running now.
I no longer spend 20 minutes billing every day – it might be closer to 10 minutes.
Mr. Sparks and I are not getting health insurance and are instead going through my corp for health costs to be corporate expenses. (This needs to be set up by a lawyer, for anyone out there thinking about this route). I looked into the different kinds of health insurance that can be purchased privately and it just didn’t seem worth it for the coverage amounts. This a benefit of being employed with benefits – you don’t see the cost directly.
There is always room for improvement in any system we work in. After a year of getting of my feet in the clinical respects, I am starting to try to advocate for some changes in the clinical settings I work in. We’ll see how that goes, lol. Many a doctor has given up due to lack of change. But my plan is to start small and work my way bigger slowly.
The Work Life Balance
This continues to be a struggle. I really dislike bringing work home, but wrapping everything up on site means leaving later. And because I have a 25 minute bike commute, this means arriving home relatively late. There is a tension with leaving myself enough time during the day to complete clinical documentation vs. fitting in more patients, and I have tended to fit in more patients but end up staying late for charting. I get home drained, if not sometimes grumpy.
Documentation and admin tasks are a leading cause of physician burnout. The Ontario Medical Association looked at recommendation to decrease physician burnout in 2021 and the first recommendation was to streamline and reduce required documentation and administrative work.
I am not sure if anything is being done about this right now at my work site. I’m slowly tailoring my documentation to be more in line with my more experienced colleagues, who are briefer.
The Responsibility
I’m still waking up at night thinking about patients, but I think this has decreased in frequency compared to a year ago, unless there’s a particularly difficult clinical issue going on.
I’m no longer dreaming about patients, thankfully. Need a break from working sometime!
That’s all for now!
Until next time (which may or may not be a year from now, lol),
Dr. FIREfly
Well it seems as though your blog frequency is similar to the FI Garage now! Best of luck with the house and getting that paperwork streamlined.
Haha, thanks Money Mechanic. Nah, I gotta take a leaf out from the FI Garage book for post frequency. And fun factor!
Yeah, if one of house stuff or paperwork can get streamline this year, I’ll call it a win. At least I have you to bug about house tips 😉
Congrats on staff-life. I remember the first five years being a big frontload of time to build up my practice. And yes, home renos too. We downsized to a good location fixer-upper just before covid hit. Your plan to hit coast-FIRE seems similar to ours. We actually hit it just as the pandemic hit, but I kept working more than full-time due to clinical needs. Now, I have gone half-time clinical to ramp up my blog/teaching/mentoring. Your comments about time be creative ring true! Stay the course and enjoy the journey. Appreciated the update and peek into this career milestone.
-LD
Thanks Loonie Doc! Appreciate you stopping by and yes, I will try to stay the course 🙂 It has been exciting to follow your recent posts and I’ve pointed several residents the way the of your blog, as they start thinking about finances. Will take the opportunity to thank you again for creating such great content and being a cornerstone of the Canadian physician finance community!