[Editor’s Note: This is a classic post from Physician on FIRE, a member of the WCI Network. It discusses the reasoning behind his retiring from medicine before many people would even consider him to be at mid-career. When docs do this (and there are a few who have done so and many who would like to) there are lots of people who wonder “What was the point of going to med school in the first place? Did the admissions committee make a mistake?” I would be careful with that line of thinking, as carried to its logical conclusion it becomes a mistake to have admitted anyone who doesn’t work 80 hours a week for the next 50 years. No part-time to raise kids. No maternity/paternity leave. No cutting back. No forty hour work weeks. No vacations etc. So long as they paid their tuition/student loans/government obligations, there’s no reason doctors should feel guilty about cutting back or quitting completely at any time they choose, just like every other career path. In PoF’s case, that time is a lot sooner than it is for me and I know many of you spend more time seeing patients in a week than I do in a month. On to the post!]
Why on earth would someone put themselves through twelve years of education and training for a career of only about twelve years?
It’s a great question and one that I had best be prepared to answer again and again. My current job as an anesthesiologist is ending in the summer of 2019, and my time away from clinical medicine will be extended and perhaps permanent.
If I put myself in the position of an outsider looking in at this situation, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Here’s a guy who saves all this money just so he can quit his job. How much does this lazy bum despise working?
And why not live a little? He and his family spend $62,000 a year when they could easily afford to double it. So much sacrifice just to punch out a couple decades early.
Early retirement doesn’t make sense when you look at it that way. And that’s how most people, perhaps including you the reader, see it from the outside looking in on this fishbowl. But that’s not how it looks from the inside looking out.
I Never Focused on Early Retirement
When I was in medical school, I focused on drinking from the firehose — that is, learning all that I could about the human body and the many ways it can be assaulted by disease. I focused on approaching different hospital rotations with an open mind. I focused on learning what various types of doctors liked and disliked about their jobs, and discovering which specialty might be the best fit for me. I did not focus on retiring early.
As an anesthesia resident, I focused on maintaining my sanity while working long, stressful hours. I focused on learning enough and doing enough to feel confident as an anesthesiologist who would have no backup in a few short years. I may have focused some extra attention on a particular grad student who caught my eye and later became my wife, but I didn’t once focus on early retirement.
As a practicing physician, I focused on finding a job that would be a good fit for myself and my growing family. I focused on being a good physician citizen, volunteering my time to serve on committees and the hospital Board (which led to me being sued for millions). I focused on maintaining and honing my skills, and building good working relationships with colleagues.
I thought that after twenty years or so, I might want to be a locum tenens physician again once we had an empty nest and the freedom to roam. After that, I figured I might be in good shape to retire early in my mid-to-late fifties, or maybe just press on until I could call myself a decamillionaire.
Crazy Little Thing Called Financial Independence
When I accepted my current job late in 2013, I was happy with the timing of the move for my family. My elder son would start kindergarten the following year, and both of our boys would have a chance to start and finish their formal schooling in the same K-12 school system, just as my brother and I did. I thought we were done moving around. It was the best job I’d had, and it still is.
Then, something happened.
I read about something called financial independence.
I realized I had that something, a something that meant I didn’t really have to work anymore. Not for money, anyway. That something wasn’t anything I had been chasing. We had simply been living our lives in a way that naturally led us to be financially independent within a decade of launching my career.
It was quite a revelation.
Deciding to Retire Early
So, a couple years ago, I realized that I could realistically retire at any time while maintaining our current lifestyle. This came about in less than half the number of years I had figured I’d be working full time. Being content with the status quo, I wasn’t about to make any sudden changes, but I was ready to start exploring alternatives to maintaining the status quo indefinitely.
Like Josh Gates with a treasure map, I started slashing my way through the jungle of FIRE blogs. Mr. Money Mustache led me to Jim Collins and Mr. 1500. I read about people living out amazing dreams — J.D. Roth touring the country in a motorhome, like Courtney & Steve @ Think Save Retire are doing in their Airstream.
Bob Clyatt, author of Work Less, Live More became a sculptor. Carl Richards, author of The One Page Financial Plan is living with his family in New Zealand. Could we do something like that?
Of course we could.
While none of these guys and gals have stopped earning an income completely, they have stopped working the demanding jobs that allowed them to be financially free. For the most part, their endeavors are location independent and pursued by choice and not out of necessity.
skilled mathlete since 1990
Those who are driven and successful early in life are not likely to go from 6th gear to neutral overnight. Financial independence has allowed them to drive at a more leisurely pace on the roads of their own choosing. Rocky roads are avoided unless we’re talking sundaes.
It’s been a couple years since I realized I was already in One More Year mode, padding the nest egg and donor advised fund, and I’m just beginning to explore the possibility of slowing down. I can’t say exactly how that would be for me; it’s surreal to contemplate the option of working maybe half as much or not at all after keeping the pedal to the metal since junior high.
While it may seem odd, that doesn’t mean it’s not enticing. I feel like I’ve been given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live a life less ordinary, and I would be a fool not to explore it further. After more than a year each of contemplation and now writing about the topic, I’m more excited than ever.
Now Boarding Zone One
While I may not have pursued an early retirement, that plane is at the gate, and I’m holding this golden ticket called financial independence. They haven’t called my zone yet, but when they do, I can tell the pilot where we want to go. Why wouldn’t I walk down that jetway and hop on board?
Of course, if you’ve read much about retirement, you know it’s best to retire to something, rather than from something. Or better yet, retire on something. I have taken that advice to heart, compiling a list of 50 ways I’d like to spend my time as an early retiree.
For the first decade, we’ll have our boys with us as we help them navigate those awkward years between elementary school and adulthood. We’ll get to do that as a pair of “stay-at-home” parents, although with the freedom we’ll have, I’m not sure we’ll be all that homebound.
The world is our oyster, and we plan to take full advantage of the time we have with our boys to show them as much of this globe as we possibly can. I’m a lucky man, but I might be third luckiest male in our household.
Luckily, She Chose Me
I am eternally grateful that early retirement chose me, and not the other way around.
If I had discovered the FIRE movement as a medical student, and made early retirement a goal, I might have spent the last fifteen-plus years wishing life away. It would have been awfully tough to embark on a career with the express goal of finding my way out of it.
I’m not saying financial independence shouldn’t be in everyone’s sights. It’s a great goal, and I challenge anyone enjoying a six-figure salary to live on half to expedite the process. It’s true, of course, that you don’t have to hate your job to want financial independence, and you don’t have to retire once you have FI. You can keep right on working as long as you want, but you’ll have the leverage to work in the way that you want.
Regardless, while I am enthusiastically anticipating our upcoming adventures, such an early retirement was not even a blip on my radar screen just a few years ago. It wasn’t until I realized I had the option that I started to consider it.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Is financial independence or early retirement something you’ve actively pursued? Did you stumble into it by being a diligent saver and investor? Would you retire within five years once you realized you could afford to do so?
“Work more, live less.”
Perhaps a typo, but an appropriate motto nonetheless for my work-life balance. Maybe I should write a book…
That one got past PoF and my assistant editor apparently. Fixed now.
We started with Retirement, not FIRE, as our goal. Also with the conviction, in the late ’80s when we started this financial journey, that doctor pay might well drop to that of a school teacher if the US joined the rest of the world with socialized medicine. Hasn’t happened yet, but had it since then we’d be ready at any time to accept that pay perhaps switching to being school teachers if the hours were better. In addition to the $1m +SS I thought we oughtta have by 65, he earned his military pension so we reached FI on about what 2 better paid teachers could make when he was 46. His license just expired after volunteering would have involved way too much paperwork, and he spends his life playing computer games, sailing (the family financial adviser assured me we could afford to get him a new boat, and that the family financial adviser would always be willing to crew the boat), hosting game nights for our friends, and keeping me fed and comfortable almost as well as I did for him while he was full time.
However I am struggling: clearly I do not want to give up medicine. My 5 year sabbatical; proving to myself I can do more for the world by earning doctor pay and supporting my political and charitable interests with money than my time; is over. I am happy with my job and the chance to add a little more to the pension payments later on if I stay a few more years. Not willing to risk our savings or my freedom to quit with no strings attached or a big money hit I will not take a job without FTCA malpractice coverage nor start my own practice. So this is the best job for me locally, however even at only 55 hours a week it seems way too long after 5 years of usually 20 hours a week committed time, never all in medicine. I find myself wondering if my health is suffering because of my “long” hours on top of a few mild so far chronic diseases. I find myself wondering if maybe my doctor will tell me I need to work less for my health… If I were not FI though I’d Karōshi if needed for my family- and maybe I’d think I was healthier than I do now! Next experiment: sleep hygiene, limit screen time? So this might be my last comment here for a while, though WCI ranks well above FB for me. I don’t want to retire to anything but part time medicine right now, and haven’t yet found a good way to do that locally.
Socialist medicine (e.g., Canada or England) does not mean physicians are paid the same as teachers. This is a myth meant to support the status quo. As simple google search reveals that average physician pay in Canada is $339k, while teachers get paid less than $100k on average (these are in Can$). In England, average general practitioner salary is £100k, while teachers are at £29k (after 10 years experience). I think that physicians generally have the freedom to go pretty much anywhere in the developed world and know that they will be among the privileged.
It sounds like you need a change of scenery. If moving isn’t an option and there’s no way to negotiate a better position in the city you live in, locum tenens work could be a viable option. You can work assignments of varying length as little or as often as you want.
It’s a sad statement when 55 hours a week is referred to as “only 55 hours a week.” We’ve conditioned ourselves to think that’s a light workload.
Best,
-PoF
Head down, nose at grindstone for 20 years before I even came up for air and even thought about what retirement would take.
Clyatt’s book was an eye opener. I had always blindly thought the stupid 70% income replacement rule defined the amount needed. I also had wasted years buying individual stocks and making maybe 4% returns. When I actually educated myself (especially thanks to William Bernstein books) I fired my broker moved to index funds, sold
Stupid whole life policies and invested those. And luckily for me this happened right around the market lows 2009.
Now 5 years + since I hung up my stethoscope for good, most everyone who knows me marvels at how much happier I am, myself included.
Now the challenge is convincing my spouse to stop. Not just OMY but paralyzed by fear of 2 things/ the loss of access to health care if pre existing conditions is repealed (or the successful elimination by lawsuits currently working through the courts), and not certain what to do if not working. Also not convinced that money will be enough despite current spending + $20000 for health insurance coming to less than a 3% WR.
Also unwilling to approach hospital to restructure current job to have more flexibility for fear of being cut loose and thanks to “pesky/outrageous” non compete contract, worries that could only end up unwillingly retired or slaving away at current job with even less sense of control.
But to me, here is the real kicker:
Me: when are you getting shingles shot?
Spouse: can’t risk the side effects messing with my ability to work.
Me: what about if you get shingles?
Spouse: well, at least I wouldn’t have to go to work!
Getting Shingles is preferable to going to work? I remember feeling that way once. It is TIME to GET OUT!
Fear holds a lot of people back. The emotional component to retiring, particularly from a career in medicine, is huge. It sounds like your spouse lives in fear of an outcome that would be overwhelmingly positive in the long run; it obviously was for you.
Some of those “what if” fears can be assuaged with a better education and understanding about how safe withdrawal rates work. ERN’s SWR series does an excellent job of examining just about any “what if” scenario one can come up with. https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/
Cheers!
-PoF
Realistically how many docs, dentists, lawyers, etc ever retire at 65 able to maintain their present lifestyle
I know with dentists its no more than 5%;poor investors, poor planners, poor savers, financially illiterate; the list goes on
docs get too late of a start and lose those early crucial yrs of compounded profits in the mkts; not enough doublings to get real wealth
And that’s exactly why sites like this thrive. The need is huge!
I really liked this blog post. Thank you for writing it. I’m basically in the same position but I don’t have any kids. I didn’t set out to do early retirement either. I didn’t even know about the community.
Now I wonder what to do next. I exited my practice because I didn’t want the administrative issues any longer. I could take a job part time or full time, I could just retire or go into an entirely different non-clinical direction. These are difficult choices.
The one thing I know for sure is how much gratitude I have to be in this position.
The world is your oyster. Now you have the opportunity to do whatever it is that gives you purpose and leaves you feeling fulfilled. And with a solid nest egg to support you, there’s no hurry. If you need a year at the beach or the mountains to contemplate your next move, you can take it.
Cheers!
-PoF
I love being a doctor. I live better than 95% of my fellow citizens. I have a great life. Have enough savings, able to help my kids and relatives. I worked hard for 20 yrs, and now work 30 – 40 hr week, and still make more then 90% of of Americans.
For the most part we work in a safe, clean environment. Most people still respect our profession, and are thank full if we can help them.
So, to all my fellow physicians, stop complaining.
That’s great!
I encourage everyone to do whatever it is that makes them happy and fulfilled. And of course, you need to make money, too, at least for a while.
If you’re referencing the recent guest post from Side Hustle Scrubs, I thought he made some good, valid points. If you’re referring to the post I wrote above, I’m not sure what you’re referencing. My glass is half full.
Cheers!
-PoF
Mmm-
42% of 15000 surveyed physicians reported being burnt out. For those in middle age it was 50%.
Just “stop complaining”
Really?
Maybe there is more going on in medicine than your experience.
Did you save enough money to put your kids through college before retiring early? I suspect that is a barrier for many doctors who would like to retire early but have young kids
Our kids, now 8 & 10, each have a 529 Plan with a low six-figure balance that we started when they were babies.
WCI’s plan is to give them some skin in the game, and in some ways, that’s our plan, too, although we’re still contributing to their college funds. Whether or not we’ll have enough for them depends less on how much we will have saved and more on what sort of merit scholarships they qualify for, how much college credit they earn for free prior to graduating high school, and what type of schools they attend (in-state public vs. private or out-of-state public).
Best,
-PoF