How Much Money Is Enough? Beyond a Physician’s Retirement Number

Click the link below to schedule your free 30 minute call!

https://www.vestiaadvisors.com/contact/

How much money does a physician really need to retire? And once a physician has a retirement savings goal in mind, how should that number influence the decisions they make about work, family, and life today?

This episode was originally recorded more than two years ago, when we were beginning to publish the podcast more consistently. Since then, the audience has grown, and we’ve continued to hear interest in the ideas discussed here.

In this episode, Lauren Oschman, Partner and CEO of Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors, discusses an aspect of physician financial planning that can be easy to overlook when the focus is primarily on retirement savings, investment portfolios, and net worth.

A retirement number can be useful. Physicians need to understand what they are saving toward and how their financial decisions may affect their future options. But Lauren believes those calculations are only part of the conversation.

Financial planning also involves understanding what physicians want their money to make possible while they’re still practicing medicine.

Lauren recalls meeting with a physician and her husband. He wanted to stay healthy, enjoy life, and have the flexibility to coach their daughter’s soccer team. She was preparing to start her own practice and wanted more control over her schedule and how she practiced medicine.

Lauren also reflects on growing up with an interventional cardiologist for a father.

She remembers how hard he worked when she was young. As she approached the end of high school, he began making a conscious effort to spend more time at home. Instead of regularly filling his afternoons with additional cases, he made more room for family.

Physicians spend years working toward demanding professional goals. They become accustomed to pursuing the next achievement, whether that’s completing training, advancing in their careers, earning more income, or building additional wealth.

Lauren believes that drive also raises an important financial question.

If you’re already making progress toward your financial goals, what would earning more money actually allow you to do?

Later, Lauren describes another conversation with a family who had accumulated additional savings and was considering whether to invest the money.

During their discussion, the family shared that their daughter would be leaving for college in a few years. They had places they wanted to visit and experiences they hoped to share before that chapter of family life changed.

That led to a conversation about how their savings could support those priorities alongside their longer-term financial goals.

At Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors, this perspective is part of what we mean by Wealth That Matters®.

For physicians, building wealth may involve preparing for retirement, managing the financial implications of a demanding career, and making decisions about how much to work along the way. Those considerations are connected, and the right balance will look different for every family.

The central question isn’t simply how much money a physician needs to accumulate.

It’s what that money is meant to make possible.

Investment advisory services offered through Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors, Vestia Retirement Plan Consultants, and Vestia Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor with the SEC. Securities offered through Ausdal Financial Partners, Inc., 5187 Utica Ridge Rd, Davenport, IA. 52807 (563)326‐2064. Member FINRA/SIPC. Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors, Vestia Retirement Plan Consultants, Vestia Advisors, LLC and Ausdal Financial Partners, Inc. are independently owned and operated.

This material should not be construed as legal or tax advice and is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified attorney or tax advisor.