You’re a busy person, you want only the essentials: what can you do today (as a med student or resident) to make your life better tomorrow? Following is a basic tool kit with immediately actionable items, to be elaborated in later posts.
- Reduce expenses. Optimize housing, transportation and food. Dine in. Buy staples in bulk. Brew your own coffee. Get roommates.
- Cut your commute. Choose housing so you can walk/bike to class, work, and market. Make your car a rarely used beast of burden (or eliminate it completely).
- Save for financial independence. Maximize tax-free retirement contributions.
- Minimize investment costs. Avoid financial advisors. Use Vanguard to do it yourself, or Betterment to have it done for you.
- Understand your finances. Track expenses with a free account at Personal Capital.
- Optimize social outlets to save. A potluck in the park or value-conscious dining out with like-minded friends hurts the wallet far less than the celebrity chef restaurant.
- Look for heroes. Find mentors, especially among the misfits of medicine.
- Don’t accumulate stuff.
- Identify pursuits that give you pleasure out of proportion. Spend judiciously to do what you love.
- Get a ridiculously cheap cel phone plan (eg, Google Fi or Republic Wireless).