Wealth Management For Doctors

Money Management Makes Long-Term Planning as a Physician Easier

In the early years of your physician career, saving money anywhere can seem like the best route. A savings account here, a few small investments there, perhaps a host of little retirement accounts from early jobs while you were in training.

Once you get to the point where the student loans and other expenses aren’t taking the biggest bite out of your income, you may start thinking about what you want from it all. Even if you’re still in the midst of it — plus a mortgage and saving for your children’s educations — you deserve to have a plan in place. With our help, it’s not as difficult as you may think.

At Physician Family Financial Advisors, we specialize in services for physicians with families. Our wealth management for doctors can assist you in creating a plan for the next few years, retirement and beyond. As fiduciaries, our advisors must act in your best interest.

5 Financial Services to Help You Manage Your Money

1. Financial Portfolio Simplifying

If you’re starting to accumulate different savings and investment vehicles, and you’re struggling to find the time to stay on top of them, you can benefit from these approaches to simplify: 

• Automation: Setting an automatic contribution  schedule for savings, investments and retirement allows you to increase the amount you put away without having to think about it.
• Consolidation: Limiting the amount and types of funds and savings vehicles can make it easier to know how you’re doing at a glance.
• Rebalancing: Once you have detailed wealth planning for doctors, you may need to rebalance on occasion to ensure that your portfolio has the right asset allocation.

2. Financial Modeling

You can’t predict what the market will do, but you can plan for different scenarios. Financial modeling allows you to explore what could happen if you make certain investments or adjust your strategy. In essence, this process involves taking your existing situation — including income, assets, investments and more — and introducing one or more variables to see what can happen. As part of our wealth management for physicians, we can help you determine the best path to get where you want to go. The results make it easier to choose the right asset allocation and risk tolerance for your investments.

3. Estate Planning

Ideally, any money management plan involves some discussion of estate planning. Estate planning includes: 

• Thinking about what you want in your final years
• Planning for what happens to your wealth once you’re gone
• Maximizing ways to help your beneficiaries now, without losing control of your assets

Adding estate planning to your financial management strategy gives you a means to simplify the process for your heirs. Because none of us know how much time we have, this type of planning can help to relieve a lot of stress and uncertainty about the future.

4. Consolidating Existing Financial Plans, Such as 401(k)s or 403(b)s

If you follow the common financial recommendation to start saving for retirement early, you’ll have the benefit of time. You might also have a bunch of small accounts that you have to track unless you consolidate them. Our wealth planning for physicians considers all your retirement accounts, including those left over from training. Some advisors haphazardly recommend that physicians rollover all assets into an IRA that they manage. As a fiduciary though, we carefully consider the costs and benefits of rollovers, taking special precautions to avoid unnecessary taxation or derailment of other tax strategies like backdoor Roth IRA contribution and conversion strategies. Benefits of account consolidation may include:

• Get a full picture of your retirement plan.
• Consolidate administration and fees.
• Keep a closer eye on your investments.
• Shorten the time needed to prepare your taxes.

5. Best Uses of Additional Cash

As your income grows, you may need help figuring out what to do with the extra cash at the end of the month. Our money management for doctors creates a complete plan to help you achieve your financial goals, which might include: 

• Building or expanding your emergency fund
• Adding more to retirement funds
• Starting new investments
• Paying off debts
• Converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA, so you can enjoy more tax benefits when you retire
• Refinancing your mortgage, to pay it off earlier or lower your monthly payment
• Plan for big expenses, such as college for your children or a second home

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