Neither my wife nor I ever managed to earn $100,000 for even a single year on our journey to financial independence. However, my story contains many parallel lessons that are applicable to physicians.
I didn’t earn a massive salary, am not particularly frugal, and struggled with the technical aspects of personal finance for over half of my adult life. Then how in the world did I retire as a physical therapist at the ripe old age of 41, after a career of only 16 and a half years?
We’ve been able to live a life full of amazing experiences by spending our money in alignment with our values. Being a high earning professional will give most readers of this blog the opportunity to live an amazing lifestyle while still being financially responsible.
If you get the big things right and minimize your structural costs, you can easily save thousands of dollars EVERY month compared to other high-income professionals.
Moving away from the city allowed me to cut my commute time and cost drastically. Utilizing geoarbitrage was a lucrative decision. Still, we needed to figure out what to do with the money we were saving.
Once you build your desired lifestyle, accumulate wealth and learn how to manage it, there are still challenges to retiring early.