Struggles of a new attending

[DrMoneyTails]

I have nearly completed my third month as an attending post-fellowship. My spouse and I moved across the country and we feel like we are adapting well. I love my job and my schedule, my co-workers are amazing, the new city seems to suit us just fine. My salary is nearly 4 times my fellow’s salary.
Aside from the jitters/insecurities of being a brand new attending and making all the decisions, life is good.
However, I feel a little stuck on our financial life. We were able to liquidate my wife’s student loans (around 11K; I am lucky not to have any loans) but our monthly expenses just seem out of control. It has been non stop buying things for the new rental that never made it through the move, to expenses with switching car registration and getting ready for the winter
I feel a little frustrated because I had these grand plans of paying off our car loans by December and contributing the max to our HSA in 2017 and starting saving in January possibly for a down payment in a house but things are just moving a little slower.
Did you experience anything similar? Did it take a little while between residency/fellowship for things to normalize? Am I just being ridiculously impatient?

[adventure]

DrMoneyTails wrote:

Did you experience anything similar?

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Oh yes. In the first six months we spent so much it was crazy.

DrMoneyTails wrote:

Did it take a little while between residency/fellowship for things to normalize?

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Yes, at least 3 months. Maybe 6.

DrMoneyTails wrote:

Am I just being ridiculously impatient?

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No. You'll get there. You care, you you're okay. We spent way too much at first (same issues you have). We did have a plan though. We had a spreadsheet which showed the next several years of what our financial picture looked like. You should look at the next month - what is in store. Yesterday is over, moving expenses are horrible and seemingly unending. What else do you have on your list to spend? Does it really need to be there? You moved into a new life, your #1 job is to ensure you are stable to keep your attending job and show up and be there mentally. You lost your coffee pot on the move, yeah, go buy one, you'll need it. You need your car registered to do that, etc.

We had grand plans too, and the first year went out the window. However, our plan tightened up pretty quickly.

Are you going to be on track January 1st? What else do you have on your list to spend?

[DrMoneyTails]

Thank you for your reply! I feel better already to know where not the only ones spending like crazy. I keep thinking that we are failing the “living like a resident” mantra.

I had to adjust our plans and we won’t be able to pay both cars off by January 1st but hope to be down to one car payment only (2.9% interest) and back to our normal level of spending which should allow us to reach our savings rate.

[Craigy]

Life happens, but a lot of seemingly necessary expenses are in reality just choices.  You don't need a whole new wardrobe right away for the winter.  A few months ago your old household wares were probably just fine.  You can afford to buy everything you want right now, but some things can definitely be delayed.

We are experiencing new attendinghood right now and IMO the biggest things slowing us down are: 1) taxes, even though I knew going in that they would be huge and 2) not getting this salary in a lump sum.   

I'm not saying this is definitely you, but really do a hard look at the need vs. want.  The people I know with money trouble don't seem like they ever buy extra stuff they enjoy, it's just going from one "necessity" to the next.

[VagabondMD]

The struggle is real!

Don’t sweat it. A few months and a few thousand dollars here or there is not going to make a difference. It is more about developing good habits and spending intentionally, and it seems like you are on the right track.

[adventure]

DrMoneyTails wrote:

I keep thinking that we are failing the “living like a resident” mantra.

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We still fail - but I still try, and get better each month.

[q-school]

I differ slightly from above responses.  i think you are doing great!  imo, you are being impatient only in the sense that you have set extremely high goals.  just settle in for the long haul.  moving is a stressful time.  new job is a stressful time.

this is a good time to sit down and plan for next year.  if you make savings/debt reduction a priority, it will happen.  you have plenty of time to let a good plan work for you.   you will be fine whether things are paid off in 2018 or 2017.

 

[jhwkr542]

Sounds like a bunch of one-time things.  I spend much more time fixated on the recurring payments, which are usually the big things.  Mortgage/rent, insurance, cell phone, internet, car payments (haha, nope!), private school tuition (haha, nope again!).  Example:  my wife had a $3k ER bill the other week.  I didn't like it, but a one-time $3k won't hurt.  I will agree with you:  with moving, there's always lots of little things.  You'll settle in.  There'll always be lots of stuff like that that pops up from month-to-month for us, which you don't budget for.  That's why if you get the big stuff right (i.e. aren't house-poor), all this other stuff will just be noise and you won't worry about it.

[Dr. Mom]

Kudos.  You are paying attention financially.  You are so far ahead of where we were at your stage! We didn't have any plan back then other than saving for retirement which we weren't even maxing out.  Over the years we learned and improved as you will too.  Don't stress yourself over this period.  Enjoy it.  Good luck with the new job.  Glad it is working out well for you.

[Hatton]

You are way ahead of me at that time also.  I remember being so excited to buy my first clothes dryer.  A lot of setting up the household are one time expenses.  Enjoy yourself

[The White Coat Investor]

It's a marathon, not a sprint. But imagine how bad your spending would be if you weren't even trying to live like a resident. There are very few docs who don't increase their spending at all coming out of training, but if you can hold the increase to something like 50% instead of 400%, that will make all the difference.

Moving is expensive. You're done with your student loans YEARS before most docs, even those living like a resident. I'd say you're doing pretty good. Just hang in there, grow into your income as slowly as you can and you'll be surprised just how awesome your financial position is in 5-10 years.

I'm 11 years out of residency and have serious thoughts about retirement--complete and total retirement--every now and then. I was doing some rebalancing last week so I actually added up our assets and we've got enough for a PoF-style retirement right now. Would you like that kind of freedom a decade from now? I bet you would. Now, consider that you're FOUR YEARS AHEAD OF WHERE I WAS. This stuff works, just stick with the plan for a few years.

[hightower]

You're doing quite well compared to what I did post residency.  We already owned a condo at that time with a mortgage.  I bought myself a motorcycle.  I bought myself a new reef aquarium (a very expensive hobby btw).  We went on several vacations.  We had 2 car payments.  250k of student loans.  And we decided to buy an old house and fix it up (while we still lived in the condo).  I was spending money like I was Jay Z or something.  It was stupid.  This was in 2011.  The stock market was still fairly cheap.  If I had poured all that money in to student loans and my investment accounts, I'd be sitting pretty right now.  Although, we did get our house for super cheap and it's now worth a lot more with a ton of equity, so I guess it worked out okay.  But, I'd rather have no student loans.

Live and learn right?  I'm just glad I got it out of my system when I was young.  I'm 35 now and I've been on the right track for about a year now.

[Doc Spouse]

We just went through this ourselves.  Moves are horrible for those "unexpected but necessary" expenses.  As Craigy said, often times they're neither unexpected or necessary.  What helps us deal with the move is to have a budget walking into the month.  We pay ourselves first (savings, investing, etc) and then have a budget for the "unexpected yet necessary".

For example, we had a budget of $2,000 for "new house stuff" for the first 2 months, and then we dropped it down to $1,000 for the last two months.  Everything we all of a sudden "needed" like winter tires, etc got put against that budget.  If we didn't have any money left, that "need" got pushed back to the following month.  It forced us to prioritize and many of those expenses lost their urgency.  The dining room table and area rug for the bedroom still haven't been purchased, as some electrical panel work and the aforementioned tires took precedence.  We went to a local Goodwill (which was pretty darn nice) for $20 winter coats instead of dropping a few hundred on new stuff.  We'll get the new stuff next year, maybe.  It's all about those priorities.

There will be things you just can't put off and yet don't have the budget for, but I usually use emergency fund for those.  It hurts to pull money out of that fund; so I'll exhaust all other options before touching that.  Last week, we realized our chimney is blocked and there's carbon monoxide being back-vented into the basement when our hot-water heater and furnace are both running at the same time.  Obviously that's not something we could put off.  It would have blown our budget to get the chimney ripped up and cleaned; so instead, I learned how to drill basement vents this weekend.  I fixed the issue for about $200 in supplies which was still in budget and the emergency fund was spared.

As others have said, you sound like you're well on your way.  Don't stress out that it's taking you a little longer than you hoped.  Stay the course!

[DrMoneyTails]

thank you all for the replies. it truly helped a lot!

i feel less paranoid than i did before;worrying we are doing something wrong.

stay the course!!

[MPMD]

jhwkr542 wrote:

Sounds like a bunch of one-time things.  I spend much more time fixated on the recurring payments, which are usually the big things.  Mortgage/rent, insurance, cell phone, internet, car payments (haha, nope!), private school tuition (haha, nope again!).  Example:  my wife had a $3k ER bill the other week.  I didn’t like it, but a one-time $3k won’t hurt.  I will agree with you:  with moving, there’s always lots of little things.  You’ll settle in.  There’ll always be lots of stuff like that that pops up from month-to-month for us, which you don’t budget for.  That’s why if you get the big stuff right (i.e. aren’t house-poor), all this other stuff will just be noise and you won’t worry about it.

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One thing I will tell you struggled with is this concept of "one time expenses." When you are done living like a resident these might go up and up to where you can no longer justify them as being outside of your budget.

Major car repair, small house projects that must be done, Xmas, trip of a lifetime, various other reasons to tap the e-fund.

It takes a heckuva lot of discipline not to let a "one time expense" hit you every month especially the farther you get from training.

One of the ways to mitigate this which it sounds like the OP is doing is to pay yourself first. If you are maxing out 401k/BDIRA/other accounts and at 20% before you get your paycheck deposit then the spending is less damaging.