Struggling to find peace with my finances...

[Vesalius]

wonka31 wrote:

Congrats on your success, I’ve had similar feelings to what you have but on a lower scale. Consider this book, it may be helpful in understanding why you are feeling the way you do. It’s about a 4-5 hour audiobook. I read it recently and felt it was well done.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Leap-Conquer-Hidden-Level/dp/0061735361

 

Best of luck to you.

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Thanks, I will take a look at that.

[MPMD]

2 things

1. Congrats on crushing it

2. Seriously, find a counselor. You need to talk this out. There's some stuff to explore here. You can certainly afford it. If you were a friend of mine in this situation I'd be relatively nervous for you.

[LIFO]

Nice work.  Unfortunately, you now have more to lose than you stand to gain.  That creates a very difficult psychological situation for someone who is goal oriented. I would recommend some combination of talking to someone, hiring someone to offload the daily finances just so you're not looking at the numbers regularly, get more hobbies, and/or find a new venture that has meaning beyond becoming marginally more wealthy.

Also, you would gain quite a following if you decided to write about your experience of stepping out of clinical medicine into a startup.

 

[ZZZ]

"These days we are living the extreme high life, spending roughly 300k per year, "

If you think spending 300k/yr is the extreme high life (you need to get out more) and you're worried about your future with an $18M net worth and $2M income, you don't seem to be benefitting all the much from your success. Either keep saving like crazy like you're doing,l and quit worrying, or start spending more of it and enjoy it if you're going to be a nail-biter anyways. You can't take it with you.

[q-school]

may we ask questions?  are you still practicing medicine?  are you worried about a sentinel event, ie malpractice suit beyond coverage?  how do you plan to transition to retirement, if at all?  are you going to do more startups?  can you share a little about how you decided to do a startup?

 

[wideopenspaces]

I'll be honest, I'd feel really uncomfortable with this amount of wealth and spending as well. For several reasons, mostly related to my background. I am a psychiatrist and I don't think you need to see a fellow psychiatrist because there is nothing pathalogical going on. But you would absolutely benefit from therapy to try to get to the root of your fear and what options you then have to address that fear. It may be that the spending just doesn't make you happy, like flp. Or that you need to get more liquid in your investments. Or that you need to increase charitable giving. Or none of those things. But you need to sort out the cause of the discomfort and anxiety. Good luck!

[Zaphod]

Even with a good amount of worth in non liquid assets you still have a decent amount in liquid, so nothing to be too terribly concerned about.

I would focus on filling every available into more liquid areas, and maybe decreasing any obligations that cause you concern.

Then I'd do as ENTdoc says, take comfort in the cold hard numbers and enjoy it.

[Vesalius]

q-school wrote:

may we ask questions?  are you still practicing medicine?  are you worried about a sentinel event, ie malpractice suit beyond coverage?  how do you plan to transition to retirement, if at all?  are you going to do more startups?  can you share a little about how you decided to do a startup?

 

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Regarding medical practice:

Yes, I am still practicing medicine part time.  There isn’t too much out there that supersedes the joy of connecting with and helping patients.  And with part time practice, the stresses of the daily grind are gone.  I do think a bit about the risk of malpractice, but I have a good excess policy in place.

Regarding retirement:

I’m having too much fun at the moment to consider retirement.  I have total control of my schedule and work is 90% fun, so why would I even want to retire?  I have hobbies and I get plenty of exercise.  At this point I am near my peak fitness, better than I was in some earlier years of my career.  Plus I am very type A, I need to keep busy and productive all the time.

Regarding more personal details:

I don’t want to say too much more about personal details.  It is nice to have this forum where one can anonymously discuss finances, which is quite taboo to discuss in normal polite social circles.

[jfoxcpacfp]

In reading your post, it struck me that you seem to feel almost compelled to increase your lifestyle because you have reached a level of success you had not planned on. You need to know that there is a purpose to a life of living large and you're not feeling it right now.

I think you may be lacking clarity and context about your wealth, how it fits into your value system and what it all means. True financial planning (not "investment management") could help give you that.

[SValleyMD]

To quote an ex-NBA player that is broke in 3 years after earning 30-40 million...

“You don’t go broke buying Ferrari’s. You go broke with bad investments.”

So the spending probably doesn’t jeopardize much imo (unless you start getting creative)

My father in law takes home 5-10 million a year. I guess he spends 600k-800k a year

I do think it gets to a point where it truly is ridiculous and not healthy for anyone involved. At least you recognize it unlike my in laws..

I guess the easy answer is to cut back a bit and see if that helps but I can kind of relate only because it makes me sick to my stomach to see the in laws burning cash even though they can “afford it”

[Vesalius]

jfoxcpacfp wrote:

In reading your post, it struck me that you seem to feel almost compelled to increase your lifestyle because you have reached a level of success you had not planned on. You need to know that there is a purpose to a life of living large and you’re not feeling it right now.

I think you may be lacking clarity and context about your wealth, how it fits into your value system and what it all means. True financial planning (not “investment management”) could help give you that.

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Our lifestyle choices come to me as one half of a partnership, not as a solo decision maker.  And maybe that is where some of my angst arises.

Like many couples, our spending habits are not the same.  We are fortunate to share somewhat similar goals, but I am a bit more of a saver and my spouse is a bit more of a spender.  I greatly enjoy outdoor activities that often don't cost much of anything.  My better half enjoys the luxury of a special hotel, and I also enjoy it vicariously.  We have found our peace somewhere in the middle ground of spending, and we do make collaborative decisions about the big stuff.

Most recently, we have agreed to meet my conservative financial bent.  We will reduce monthly expenses by paying off our last real estate related mortgage in the coming months.  That was my first choice for our excess funds in the coming months.  My spouse took on an expensive home related project, but agreed not to take on any more major home projects until that final mortgage is paid off.  I feel that my personal comfort level will increase once we reach our zero debt goal.

As far as values, I want to use my creativity and financial means to leave the world a better place.  That is something that will have much more meaning to me than a plusher lifestyle.

[Zaphod]

Vesalius wrote:

jfoxcpacfp wrote:

In reading your post, it struck me that you seem to feel almost compelled to increase your lifestyle because you have reached a level of success you had not planned on. You need to know that there is a purpose to a life of living large and you’re not feeling it right now.

I think you may be lacking clarity and context about your wealth, how it fits into your value system and what it all means. True financial planning (not “investment management”) could help give you that.

Click to expand…

Our lifestyle choices come to me as one half of a partnership, not as a solo decision maker.  And maybe that is where some of my angst arises.

Like many couples, our spending habits are not the same.  We are fortunate to share somewhat similar goals, but I am a bit more of a saver and my spouse is a bit more of a spender.  I greatly enjoy outdoor activities that often don’t cost much of anything.  My better half enjoys the luxury of a special hotel, and I also enjoy it vicariously.  We have found our peace somewhere in the middle ground of spending, and we do make collaborative decisions about the big stuff.

Most recently, we have agreed to meet my conservative financial bent.  We will reduce monthly expenses by paying off our last real estate related mortgage in the coming months.  That was my first choice for our excess funds in the coming months.  My spouse took on an expensive home related project, but agreed not to take on any more major home projects until that final mortgage is paid off.  I feel that my personal comfort level will increase once we reach our zero debt goal.

As far as values, I want to use my creativity and financial means to leave the world a better place.  That is something that will have much more meaning to me than a plusher lifestyle.

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There is a recent thread all about this. The TLDR version is this, we will almost always regard someone spending money on things we wouldnt or dont value as wasteful, and not care about our own things. However, in the context of it not being reckless (which in your case its not), just recognize its just a human irrationality and if it makes your spouse happy, thats great. You can slowly try to get them to think about being more mindful about things, which may help but in my experience just changes the things they buy not the amounts.

If it isnt putting you in danger and its causing happiness, its not really a problem. Pick a number or goals first like you have, and allow that amount to be spent willy nilly and free from judgement. You'll be happier.

[Vesalius]

ZZZ wrote:

If you think spending 300k/yr is the extreme high life (you need to get out more) ...

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Thanks for sharing your perspective ZZZ.     Please don’t feel offended if I defer introducing you to my spouse!

[Hatton]

I think this forum is a great outlet for situations like this.  It really does help to understand that you are not alone.  The drive that many of us have even after FI may have some basis in our childhoods I think.  Always worrying about do I have enough is pretty common also.  I choose to not consider myself wealthy just FI.  I spend lots of time with people who have significantly less money which helps check my spending.

[FireBall]

Vesalius, Congratulations on what you achieved so far. Your thread got me thinking. I am roughly about your age and in the beginning stages of accumulation having just paid off business loans and still have mortgage to pay. We are about to cross 1M mark in income this year and I never really took stock on expenses. We consider ourselves thrifty and neither of us really spend much on anything but our kids. So I spent the last hour or so going through the bank transactions figuring out our monthly expenses for the last 6 months. I realized we are on pace this year to spend 200k (I was under the wrong impression it may be like $125K ) with almost 35% being spent on kids (private school and extra curricular activities). I have similar fears that business income will dry up.

One thing that should comfort you is your ability to realize the expenses that can and should be cut if the gravy train stops. Your type A personality and risk taking ability (hopefully measured) that created the wealth to start with is still there. As others have mentioned, may be diversify your holdings and breathe easy that you are not really destroying your wealth with your spending.