By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder
6 months after I started blogging, back in December 2011, I penned a post titled 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early. The point of the post was to demonstrate that early retirement had its costs, and many people, even people who are very smart with their money, will reasonably decide that the cost of early retirement is not worth the sacrifice.
Fast forward 2-5 years and the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement became somewhat mainstream, with many people taking it to its logical extreme: that all of the tools of personal finance and investing should be directed at the goal of quitting an onerous job and perhaps even paid work completely just as soon as possible. I started blogging before the existence of thousands of FIRE bloggers out there telling their story, calculating their net worth each month, and encouraging you to reuse your paper towels and wash your ziploc baggies so you could quit work 45 minutes earlier.
But retiring early was always an option. Just like changing jobs to one you liked better, going part-time, buying that dream house, vacationing in the nicest resorts, enjoying a less stressful life, or driving a Tesla was always an option. The point was that YOU could decide your own financial goals and aim as many of the guns of personal finance and investing as you desired at those goals.
I've never been a FIRE-maniac. I'm a firm believer in Seth Godin's philosophy:
Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from.
That could be reworded to:
Instead of trying to retire ASAP, maybe you should find a job you don't want to quit.
Or the Mark Twain classic:
Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
I still believe that. I wasn't sure if I believed it in 2011. You can't really be sure if you will retire early until you are financially independent, but now that I am and I'm working harder than ever, I've convinced myself that work will likely always be a meaningful part of my life. That doesn't mean I don't play and travel and do all kinds of fun things. But I've taken enough vacations and trips in recent years to realize that there is an upper limit for me on how often I actually want to play.
Fast forward to 2020. That 14 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Retire Early was republished at The Physician on FIRE. Jill, our content manager, sent it over to Leif as part of our Saturday WCI Network Series, not knowing the history of this article as I did. You see, this article was the one that pissed Leif off so much that it caused him to start The Physician on FIRE when he read it. So he dutifully republished it, but not without extensive rebuttal and a new title:
14 Reasons Why the White Coat Investor Doesn’t Want You to Retire Early
Now I'm a big fan of clickbait. If nobody ever clicks on your title, they never read your stuff, you never help anyone, and you never make any money. But that title isn't even close to accurate. I'm completely agnostic as to whether YOU retire early or not. I want you to set your financial goals and achieve them. If one of those goals is early retirement, then go for it.
Actually, I'm not COMPLETELY agnostic to early retirement. I want there to be some doctors left to take care of me when I get old and sick. But as far as the few of you who will ever actually acquire the financial skills, discipline, and desire to punch out of medicine in your 40s or 50s, knock yourself out. Lest I be accused again of being anti-FIRE, I guess it's time to point out the rather obvious benefits of retiring early. So after that lengthy introduction, here we go:
14 Reasons to Retire Early
Before we get too far, we must define the terms, both retire and early. Now I don't want to be the Internet Retirement Police, but without working definitions for our words it's impossible to have a conversation. So for our purposes today, let's define retirement:
- Leaving the practice of medicine or dentistry or your chosen profession whatever it might be.
- If you continue to bring in earned income, it should be less than 1/4 of what you were making before. Otherwise, I think it's probably more appropriate to call that “job change” than “retirement.” Don't worry Leif, I'm not going to make you retitle your blog as Physician on FIJC. We all know your plan wasn't to become a financially successful blogger. You were just too good at it, unfortunately.
- Now, let's define “early” as before age 60. (All the FIRE bloggers just snorted milk out their nose, but honestly, that's what most of the world considers early retirement and very few docs will ever retire before entering their 50s.)
#1 You Don't Have to Go To Work
I told you this list was obvious. But I still think we should start here. Even for those of us who love our jobs, it can still be a drag to get up early and go into the office, clinic, or hospital. There are still some parts of that job that you don't like. Maybe at the end of the day you're still glad you went, but if you retire early you don't have to even tolerate the few bad things you don't like. They're just….gone. If you ask the Physician on FIRE why he FIREd, it basically came down to the fact that he liked his Saturdays more than his Mondays. When you're retired, every day is a Saturday.
#2 You Can Spend Your Time Doing What You Want
Work takes up a large part of your useful time. Think about it. There are 24 x 7 = 168 hours in the week. Even surgical residents average 6 hours of sleep a night, and most people want one or two more. So let's subtract 8*7 =56 from that 168. That leaves us 112 hours. You're likely going to spend something like 2 hours a day preparing food and eating, so now we're down to 96 hours. Maybe add on another half hour for grooming a day, leaving us with 92 1/2 hours. We all have chores of some kind, whether they involve cleaning a house, repairing stuff, buying stuff, or taking care of the finances. Maybe that's another 4 1/2 hours a week. Add in 5 hours of commuting and that leaves us 83 hours. There is some debate over how much doctors work (some studies say as much as 59.6 hours on average) but that number is clearly above 40. Let's call it 50, just to be conservative. 50/83 = 60% of your useful time going to your job. How would you like to have 150% more time to do whatever you want? Obvious benefit.
#3 No Commute
We mentioned the time involved in commuting above under # 2. But I don't think that's quite enough focus there. You see, if you are like most people, there is NOTHING in your life that makes you as miserable as your commute does. If you are retired, you can live where ever you want and still not have a commute. The WCI Podcast will help, but even it cannot make up completely for a terrible commute.
#4 No EMR
Some of you have never practiced medicine without an Electronic Medical Record (EMR.) So perhaps you can't even relate. But if you talk to doctors in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, dealing with an EMR is a major reason they cite in leaving medicine. I was able to enjoy four years of practicing without an EMR while I was in the military. (Air Force emergency departments were exempt from AHLTA at the time because leadership correctly understood that we literally could not see all the patients they wanted us to see if we were charting in that most terrible of EMRs.) Imagine, if you will, writing a single handwritten paragraph about each patient before moving on to the next one. Crazy I know, but that's what happens when the need to bill and the need to CYA goes away. I know EMRs have some benefits, but if you retire, you'll never have to log in to one again.
#5 No Call
Here's another part of medicine that a lot of doctors would love to see go away. I hated being on call so much as a medical student that it had some impact on my choosing a specialty that was never on call. Show me a mid-career doctor who likes being on call and I'll show you the pathway to El Dorado.
#6 No Malpractice Liability
Who likes getting sued? Nobody as far as I can tell. Most doctors will be sued at least once during their career. They are extraordinarily unlikely to ever lose any personal assets from that lawsuit, but it still wastes a lot of time lying awake at night and defending yourself. The earlier you retire the more likely you are never to be sued at all.
#7 Watch Your Kids Grow Up
All of us think we're there for our kids. I'm not retired, but I'm only at the hospital half as much as I used to be. I'm amazed how much better I know my kids and how much more time I can spend with them both in their daily routines and on trips. I don't think it's hard to argue that you will be with them more if you retire early.
#8 No Regrets About Trips Not Taken
I don't have any regrets about trips not taken. In fact, I turned down a trip to Vietnam last year because I was “tripped out.” (See what I did there?) But ask a few doctors what they would do if they retired some time. Almost universally they will tell you that they would like to travel more. Guess what? If you retire early you can travel more. Captain Obvious to the rescue!
#9 More Time to Volunteer
I think volunteering gets glorified a little too much sometimes. It's a bit like the travel thing. We all think we'd like to do tons of volunteer work, whether medical in a homeless clinic or overseas, or non-medical. I suspect most people do a lot less than they think they'll do. But if you would like to prove me wrong, retire early and volunteer to your heart's content!
#10 An Encore Career
Instead of volunteering, perhaps you just want a different job. Maybe you want to write, blog, go to law school, be a financial advisor, or guide clients down a river. Who knows? But if you retire from medicine you can move on to that other career.
#11 Better Health
There are two aspects to this one. First, if you retire you have more time to take care of yourself. You can actually go to your own medical appointments. You have less stress. You have more time to eat well and exercise more.
The second aspect is that you have more time while your health is good. We all know someone who had these great plans for their retirement but when they arrived at their mid-60s they discovered their health (or that of their partner) didn't allow them to do all of those activities they had wanted to do. There are some activities that are just a lot easier to do in your 40s and 50s than your 70s and 80s. It isn't that there are no 75-year-olds out there skiing, but most of them aren't.
#12 Less Infectious Disease Exposure
The recent pandemic has brought this home for many of us. Health care workers are something like 32X as likely to catch coronavirus. But I noticed this long before then. When I cut back on shifts and especially when I quit staying up all night, that nasty cold I'd get 3 or 4 times a year became an annual event, and only lasted half as long. Don't like being sick? You'll be sick less if you don't spend so much time with all those sick people.
#13 No Toxic Coworkers or Bosses
Many of you work with or for some real jerks. As physicians and dentists lose more and more control over their practices, this has become a bigger and bigger problem. Lots of early retirees say they miss their co-workers. But they're not talking about all of them.
#14 No Worrying About Finances
A prerequisite for RE is FI. In the CoronaBear a lot of doctors not only lost a big chunk of their assets, but also a big chunk of their income. When you FIRE appropriately (i.e. with enough assets), you stop worrying about money. At all. It's not so much the act of retiring that does it, as working toward that goal. But it is a nice benefit.
What do you think? What other reasons to retire early are there? Comment below!
Good to see this!
# 15: Better Sleep. Not being on call helps. Not getting up at 0515 to have a patient in the OR at 0630 also helps. Waking up naturally is wonderful — it used to be such a rarity. Now it’s the norm.
Cheers!
-PoF
Hear hear!
Please just remember when you retire and think about volunteering: beware of becoming a board member (church deacon, etc etc)! My happily retired aunt and uncle warned me prior to my first temporary retirement but I didn’t listen. It ties you to 2 or more meetings usually monthly, phone calls to ask you to pitch in an extra donation when a crisis or failure of a fundraiser arises, and as I found, happy to have no more schedule, always seemed to have an important meeting scheduled just when I wanted to leave town or on the day I had woken up happy not to have to go anywhere until I look at my calendar and see the meeting. (Of course working with 3 groups made that even worse.) After 7 years I finally shed my last board membership, though I still haven’t handed off the duties of being treasurer, and honestly in many ways I returned to work to escape my volunteer activities. (Before this 16 year stint in one place I got to resign when the military moved us every few years.)
Also, it turns out, as my financial advisor (my FIREd since he was 36 brother) had recommended, I probably accomplish more for my causes by working and donating than by serving as a volunteer/ officer/ board member. And volunteer organizations- I don’t know so much about church positions, but in charitable groups or political groups- the other volunteers are as ‘bad’ as patients and physician colleagues. No one is naturally in charge, no one can be made to do what they promise to do or ought to do or are tasked to do, and anyone who has ended up as a board member/ club officer is mature and accomplished enough that you really have no clout or position to compel them to do so (and are as likely incorrect as correct in your belief that they ought to). And I won’t even start on the ugliness of people misunderstanding one another and taking offense/ reacting badly, bar saying bullying drama and rudeness doesn’t end in high school!
Why did it take you 7 years to get out of your board membership? Could you not tell them “I quit” and let them find someone else? If you’re not getting paid, I don’t see why you can’t just leave.
16. Spend more time outside-
It goes without saying that that practicing medicine is 100% an indoor sport. I noticed on my 3 month COVID furlough that I spent much more time outside – walking the dogs, running, biking, reading, eating, even watching the birds, watching webinars, or watching shows and movies.
Great article!
Great article! I can’t wait for my FIRE date. Yes, spend more time outdoors with family members!
Ob/Gyn here. My 14 reasons are #6 written 14 times. And I’ve never even been sued… yet.
When I was making the choices to get into medicine and then my specialty, I had no idea how much this would psychologically weigh on me. Probably no one could have talked me into doing anything else, but now all I want to do is be in a position to get out.
I stopped OB at 56 for this reason.
You can practice in a state that has Tort reform
@staradmiral
I do! 😫
It doesn’t quell the fear. (Or maybe my fear would be unimaginably worse)
I’m in my 30s so can’t say how I’ll feel in 10 or 20 years, but I have a feeling that seeing the assets pile up rapidly while I’m working will make it difficult to just let it all go and stop having any income outside of my portfolio. The opportunity cost seems so high I think that would weigh on me. Changing jobs and/or going part time seems like a good compromise. FIJC sounds like my path.
17. You have time to learn and do all the things you never had time to do! For me yoga, painting, and book clubs. There is a world of activities that are occuring when you to go to the hospital and work.
Comment on 11 and 12. I have been retired now for almost one year. I think the improved sleep, exercise, and nutritious diet all have led to no illness of any type. COVID happened after I retired and I recognized that one reason I was not overly worried about it was that I had no work exposure.
18. Time to rescue a new puppy and have to really train him.
Pre-covid I used to think I should FI to get to #7. Almost 3 months of active home schooling later, I am starting to change my mind- god bless teachers! They are only 3 and 4 years old right now, but my kids were tough and didn’t learn one thing- well, except maybe that daddy has a short temper when teaching toddlers.
Although maybe the key word in #7 is “Watch” . . .
#11. One of my most respected partners retired after practicing anesthesia for 35 years. Excellent clinician, never been sued. He said he never realized how much stress he had until he retired. You don’t understand just taking vacation, because you know you’re going back. Only once you’re finally all done is that weight completely lifted.
In today’s “cancel culture” and even before going back a few years, a very important aspect to financial independence and the ability to “retire early” is that it allows the physician to tell truth to power without fear, or speak out on issues he/she feels are important without having to worry about being blackballed by administration, colleagues or professional associations. Many employed physicians feel they need to keep their mouths shut on many important issues lest they end up in administrations crosshairs.
It seems to me that you left the best to near the end at #13, mainly administration rather than co-workers. I am not sure of #14 as it strikes me that once one is cut off from the potential of returning to a large income, perhaps after 5 years out of practice, then it is hard to be absolutely FI in a place that doesn’t have affordable or universal health care for oneself and family. That is just the impression I get on the FIRE forum. Perhaps it is specialty and/or practice specific or personality specific but for me the best thing about retiring was not having to constantly worry about people who I felt responsible for dying. I found that leaving the hospital in the evening or even going on vacation didn’t release me from thinking about critical patients or those who one knew had the potential to go off the rails. Six years post retirement I don’t dream of work nearly as frequently but I still do once in awhile.
Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble. I am a pediatrician married to an Internist and I actually like working and seeing patients. Being a doctor is not just a job for me. It gives my life meaning. To be a part of something more than just myself, my life, my money, my house…me, me,me…… sorry but there is more to life. I think its BECAUSE I have meaningful work that I am a pretty good Mom and wife. It forces me to juggle both work and homelife. Is it hard? Yes. Do I sometimes get less sleep than I want? Yes. But to give to others, to care for others, to see parents at their best and worst and be a small part of helping take care of their sick child, to see the smile on their faces when they come back to me after a rough few days in the hospital MEANS something. To see a parent of a child with delays and help them navigate referrals to Speech, Early Intervention, OT and to see that child come for their 3rd birthday caught up and developmentally on target MEANS something. I’ve seen Kawasaki’s 5 times in 26 years. To see the parent’s faces on the follow up visit, knowing that I was able to detect a potentially fatal illness early MEANS something. I am the youngest of five siblings, three of whom were doctors and one was in healthcare as an Echotech and respiratory therapist. Three of them are retired now. All I hear ALL DAY are the texts going off from the family chat… they have time on their hands… TOO MUCH time on their hands. After all the vacations and morning jogs and yoga classes and trips to Tahiti… what makes some people ACTUALLY want to get out of bed is to go to a job they love. I think it’s ridiculous that so many of you fellow physicians are doing ANYTHING to retire early. I feel sorry for you guys. How many people out there cried out in despair when they didn’t get accepted into YOUR medical school class??? You are all counting down the days when you can stop working. Shame on you! We didn’t go into medicine to sell shoes!!!We went into medicine to WORK!! HARD!! To serve others, the Hippocratic Oath. Now I am 200 percent sure this letter will never get posted. But I can sleep at night, very well, knowing I put my heart and soul into my efforts to help people and trust me, they appreciate it!! And I appreciate my patients!! It’s a two way street. I feel badly for all your patients that you all are so happy to abandon. Do they know they are being treated by a doctor who is counting the days till he can get the hell out of there? Am I sick of EMR? Of Course! Do I love to reminisce about the halcyon days before EMR? Yes! But as much as I hate the computer, I still love my patients, and my work and even the bad days serve their purpose. The bad days make me run home to my imperfect kids and my imperfect husband and my imperfect house and give them all a hug and say ” thank you, guys, did I ever tell all of you how much I love you and how much I appreciate our imperfect life together??”. Yes, we make time for family vacations. Yes we are able to pay our mortgage on time. Yes, we have food on the table and are able to pay for the kids schools. But when our kids hear about our days in the office, people we helped, the laughs and the tears, they kids learn something. How my husband ( an Internist) and his big heart helped one of his patients who never wanted to go to a psychiatrist get out of a major depression just from being there, week after week, month after month. How I cried and was so worried about a bunch of my pediatric patients and their parents because a few of the kids and both parents got Covid. How this same Mom and kids came to my office recently to wish me a Happy Birthday, all of them thank goodness recovered from their Covid scare and so appreciative of how I send them meds, called them everyday, went to check on them outside their house when they were afraid to leave during the quarantine. All these stories are true. All these stories come from good and bad days at work . And all these stories made an impact on my kids MORE than just having the time to take them on another great vacation. Of course I value family time. I squeeze it out of each and every day. But to live and breathe for an early retirement as a doctor is a waste of a life. Sorry. You could have chosen another profession at 21. You could have done hedge funds, investment banking…any of a number of jobs that are just JOBS. Good luck with all your time off. FIRE when ready but you won’t see me at your vacation air bnb… I’ll be at work. Good luck with all your time off. Hope the boredom is starting to kill your spirit, you’ll appreciate all you’ve left behind.
You might like this post better: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/14-reasons-why-you-shouldn%E2%80%99t-retire-early/
You might also be surprised to see on the poll at the bottom that about 50% of readers plan to retire before age 59.
I’m super happy that you still love what you thought you were going to love at 21. But I also empathize with those who don’t. It’s hard to know who you’ll be at 41, what you will be interested in, and how you would prefer to spend your time two decades later when you’re only 21.
I am also at least a little skeptical of anyone who says they love to work full-time but isn’t yet FI. It’s a little harder to get motivated to put in all those hours when you truly have no use for any of that money. It’s a lot easier psychologically to say “I love my work” than to admit “I suck at budgeting, saving, and investing”, but until you’re FI, you don’t really know how much you truly love it. When I survey groups of doctors and ask how many of them would work just as many hours if I gave them $10 Million, fewer than 5% raise their hand and most of those have already cut back from full-time. Few docs admit they would quit completely, but almost all would cut back if they had the money.
You seem so angry! No need for all the shaming. Each to his own!
There are so many different types of doctors and different areas of medicine. To criticize someone who wants to retire prior to 60 is at best ridiculous. Do you take 24 hour calls in the hospital? Is it as much fun to be up all night in your 30s as it is your 60s? Some of us don’t think so. I do feel vested in my patients and their health outcomes. However sometimes you have to know when to hold ‘em know when to fold them. I know I will be enjoying my life traveling after retirement. That doesn’t make me a bad doc but rather a wise one. Don’t be so judgmental.
Started off lovely then became a shamefest. If you feel you have to shame others you are likely not coming from as good a place as you purport or believe. I believe the great majority of doctors are uplifted by the same things you are but the costs (pretty much covered in the article) can be difficult to sustain and the costs seem to be rising with time. There are many ways to have a good life-you see that everyday in your patients. Try to value your colleagues in the same way.
Sorry, that reads a little harsher than intended, now that I have had a moment to reflect. I’m glad that you have a life that is fulfilling to you and I hope it continues to be so.
I was retired for three months because the state of Pennsylvania said I couldn’t practice and it was great for about a month until I got bored of shooting over 100 golfing and being exposed to the Florida Heat. The trick is to have a practice with people that you enjoy seeing and at reduced hours and not to have any stress. If you can do that I would recommend making a few bucks and not retiring.
I actually enjoy seeing my patients as a non surgical orthopedic surgeon. I gave up surgery not because I couldn’t do it because flying my playing is a lot more difficult than doing arthroscopy, but because I was actually losing money doing surgery. Because even not being sued in 30 years didn’t reduce my malpractice rates for doing surgery, but giving up my surgical practice sure did. You would think not doing surgery would be a problem but it actually was beneficial because I had no stress and no postoperative complications and actually I enjoy flying my plane more than I do during surgery. On the other hand it is hard to watch your grandchildren grow up and think they know everything. Anyone who thinks it’s great to watch their kids grew up being retired is sorely mistaken. Maybe in 20 to 30 years when they realize we’re not complete idiots it might be good but right now I don’t think he thinks I know anything.
And I’m not sure he’s not correct about that either
I always wanted to retire early. I did well investing and now have reached the 20M mark. I decided to go part time instead of full retirement. I’m just not ready. I think I would get depressed without having a purpose. I actually enjoy the practice of Medicine much more now. If you completely quit then you should really have a passion for something or you will lose meaning in life. My advice is to go part time at first and see how it goes. Keep your license and your hand in it until you are sure it’s what you want.
Congrats on your success! I agree that part-time is awfully nice.
I retired from my practice of 20 years at age 51 and did some part time locums work for three years before stopping completely. I was just worn out from 20 years of trauma and call. I still loved my job, but needed a break. Something I could do at a slower pace. I still wanted something to do for a purpose so I started teaching personal finance and writing books. That gave me a reason to get up every day. Until the pandemic, I was traveling 50% of the time and loving exploring the world. I can write from anywhere. I would advise you to never retire to nothing. Always have a purpose. We will all retire from medicine someday anyway so don’t get on people’s case who retired before you did. I worried that I might miss medicine when I quit, but that was not the case. I had a new mission to keep me busy. You can read about that in this article.
https://financialsuccessmd.com/will-you-miss-medicine-when-you-retire/
I hope everyone will be able to retire at the time of their choosing.
I’m adding this to my Fawcett’s Favorites on Monday.
Thanks Jim.
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Financial Success MD