Early career Emergency Medicine physician trying to navigate the financial world
- May 2025 Update
May Total Income:
Another typical busy month had family visiting the beginning of the month, so all my work was packed into three weeks. Telemedicine work continues to go well, hope it can continue on.
Expenses
Fairly typical month, I had to renew some of my licenses for work thus credit card bill is a little more than it otherwise would be, although 5k in expenses seems to be fairly typical.
Investments
May was a great month for the market, with the market finally turning green for the year. Just goes to show you how important staying invested it, can’t tell you how many friends reached out to me and told me they were going all cash until the tariff war ends, I’m sure a few did.
Everything is fully funded for the year besides my wife’s 457 which we are working on. I decided to add 21k into taxable so I could get an even 300k invested. I now need to save up a cash pile for various expenses for the year, school tuition, property taxes, income taxes, etc
Investment Accounts:
Another positive month with an almost 200k swing in the green.
My Financial Goals for 2025
- Hit $2 Million in investments. Approaching 1.9 mil…I’m saying…theres a chance.
- DONE- PAID OFF IN FEBURARY!!!! Pay off remaining student loans. I start the year with ~$95k left in student loans refinanced to 1.1%. I know mathematically it makes zero sense, but I only have two years left on them regardless. I plan to fully fund my retirement accounts in the first quarter of 2025 and then have them gone by midway through the year.
- Work less? July I am going down on my shifts.
-AMJ
- April 2025 Update
April Total Income:
Busy month, this was my highest income month ever, making over 56k, mainly thanks to continued solid telemedicine income. I also worked 17 shifts in the ED, it is just not sustainable in the long run with trying to also balance my family life at home. I feel I’m financially getting to place that I can work a little less. I asked my main job to drop my hours starting in July and hopefully that will help.
Expenses
Nothing major in expenses, credit card bill a little higher than usual as I got my wife a birthday present
Investments
After a punishing start to the month with tariff/trade wars, the market has been recovering nicely. Still negative for the year, but I have been buying the dips along the way.
My wife’s 401k is fully funded, she is now working on her 457. I am funding my DB plan for this year to 75k, I now have 30k left and my retirement savings will be finished for the year.
Investment Accounts:
A nice jump of over 100k for the month, I’ll take it!
My Financial Goals for 2025
- Hit $2 Million in investments. Now seems far away with the market drop and pulling money out to pay my debt, but time will tell!
- DONE- PAID OFF IN FEBURARY!!!! Pay off remaining student loans. I start the year with ~$95k left in student loans refinanced to 1.1%. I know mathematically it makes zero sense, but I only have two years left on them regardless. I plan to fully fund my retirement accounts in the first quarter of 2025 and then have them gone by midway through the year.
- Work less? I said that last year, didn’t happen.
- I emailed my main job and asked to drop my hours…tbd
-AMJ
- March 2025 Update
March Total Income:
Another solid month of lots of work for the both of us, still blows my mind that we make 50-60k a month now as that’s what I’d make for an entire year as a resident.
Expenses
Fairly standard month for us, we booked a vacation for the fall on our credit card so the bill is a little bigger than normal. We also had our HOA quarterly bill so our expenses are a little higher this month overall.
Investments
Ouch, despite pumping in over $180k this year, market has turned negative for the year. I am still heavily invested in US Growth (largest holding is VUG), which have gotten crushed this year. Tough to swallow, but I am changing nothing in my plan. Everyone seems to be jumping to international stocks. I remember in 2022, everyone was jumping to syndications and ibonds when the market was crashing. I just kept buying then and those are some of my best investments ever. Just keep buying.
My 2025 401k and 2024 DB plan is fully funded, I’ve decided to also partially fund my DB plan for this year (2025) given the market downturn to get some more money in. My wife will have her 401k plan maxed in April and well get to work on her 457.
Investment Accounts:
We keep pumping money in but the market keeps on its downswing. We are staying the course but never full to see your accounts drop despite the aggressive funding.
My Financial Goals for 2025
- Hit $2 Million in investments. Now seems far away with the market drop and pulling money out to pay my debt, but time will tell!
- DONE- PAID OFF IN FEBURARY!!!! Pay off remaining student loans. I start the year with ~$95k left in student loans refinanced to 1.1%. I know mathematically it makes zero sense, but I only have two years left on them regardless. I plan to fully fund my retirement accounts in the first quarter of 2025 and then have them gone by midway through the year.
- Work less? I said that last year, didn’t happen.
-AMJ
- February 2025 Update
February Total Income:
Busy month of work and shifts. My telemedicine gig is going really well and I’m making good money from it. Hope that can continue because its allowing me to drop some of my clinical shifts. But as I know from experience, a lot of the telemed gigs can go belly up quick so I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket at this time.
Expenses
So the major news this month, I paid off my student loans!!!! How? I won big on a single stock. Back in 2021, I bought Palantir (PLTR) stock. Honestly, I was just watching CNBC one day and heard about the stock. I bought it in the mid 20s, watched it drop all the way down to $7 and I slowly bought to average down over the last few years. Well, it went crazy in the last year and I ended up selling it at $122 at nearly at 700% gain and sold it for $83k.
I always kept holding it because I said the extra cash won’t change my life but once it got large enough to nearly pay off my loans and was clearly overhyped/overvalued, I figured it was time. I actually timed it almost perfectly to sell as the stock dumped the next week. A lot of people told me not to do it as my rate was super low, but honestly having the freedom of not paying those huge monthly payments anymore was worth it.
Investments
Hard to see this chart, the market took a dump toward the end of the month with all the crazy pollical stuff going on right now. This coincided with me pulling 83k out of my taxable account from my PLTR stock to pay off my student loans.
I fully funded my DB plan and have started contributing to my 401k. We continue to invest regardless of market conditions. Just keep buying.
Investment Accounts:
Despite our huge debt payoff, we are still down a bit with the market drop. We continue the grind.
My Financial Goals for 2024
- Hit $2 Million in investments. Now seems far away with the market drop and pulling money out to pay my debt, but time will tell!
- DONE- PAID OFF IN FEBURARY!!!! Pay off remaining student loans. I start the year with ~$95k left in student loans refinanced to 1.1%. I know mathematically it makes zero sense, but I only have two years left on them regardless. I plan to fully fund my retirement accounts in the first quarter of 2025 and then have them gone by midway through the year.
- Work less? I said that last year, didn’t happen.
-AMJ
- January 2025 Update
January Total Income:
We had a great start to the year. My wife got paid three times in January and she is aggressively funding her retirement accounts to start the year. I had a solid month, busy with shifts, I am doing more telemedicine and providing a surprisingly high income which I’m happy with for now. I also started a new PRN gig in another local emergency department, I haven’t gotten paid for these shifts yet (get paid RVU bonus a few months later) so this will drop my income slightly until I get paid out.
Expenses
A standard month for us expense wise, continue to make minimum payments on my student loans and our mortgage.
Investments
Market went up about 3% this month.
We have super funded our retirement accounts for the year. I had some left over cash from December that I deployed into our Roth IRAs (14k), HSA (8.5k) and DB plan (38k). The rest includes money from my wife’s paychecks and I added another 30k into my DB plan this month. We will continue to aggressively maximize our retirement accounts early in the year.
Investment Accounts:
Another great start to the year, up almost 90k debt vs investments. We continue to chug along.
My Financial Goals for 2024
- Hit $2 Million in investments. Currently at approximately $1.7m Need some movement in the market as we continue to aggressively fund our retirement accounts.
- Pay off remaining student loans. I start the year with ~$95k left in student loans refinanced to 1.1%. I know mathematically it makes zero sense, but I only have two years left on them regardless. I plan to fully fund my retirement accounts in the first quarter of 2025 and then have them gone by midway through the year.
- Work less? I said that last year, didn’t happen.
-AMJ