As you know, I’m an internal medicine doctor. I often get asked the question, “What does an internal medicine doc do exactly?” Well, I hope to get that question less now. Internal medicine docs are one of the main people who take care of you when you have coronavirus and get admitted to the hospital. Generally, we deal with complex adult diseases. We can either be primary care outpatient doctors or inpatient hospitalists. We are also one of the specialties dying en mass from COVID.
As such, I find myself on the frontline of this epidemic. Recently, I have been an outpatient only doc. But, given the current situation, I felt compelled to step up and offer my services as an inpatient doc as well. So life is busy between learning the hospital systems again and taking care of myself and my family.
Getting Financially Prepared for the Frontlines
Adequate Insurance
Part of taking care of my family has been to ensure that I’m adequately insured. I worked with Stephanie Pearson to buy more life insurance recently. She had a great team of people following up and helping us through the process. I would highly recommend her. Also, I have worked with Jamie Fleishner at Set for Life. Another great resource for insurance purposes. We are lucky to have both Stephanie and Jamie as sponsors of this site.
Will
Next, I looked over my will and made sure everything was as I wanted it. I had forgotten some of the details. I think I’ll need to tweak of couple of things. So, next on the to do list is to call the lawyer who wrote it, to modify it. If my attorney asks for too much for it, I may go with Trust and Will instead- they are offering healthcare workers free wills online.
Legacy Letter
Finally, since I largely take care of finances in our family, I wanted to write a letter to my husband with details of our accounts and some suggestions on what to do with them if something happens to me. You know me, I kept it pretty light. Here’s a preview. Thanks to Jimmy at TPP for the inspiration.
Contract Review
I recently signed a contract, so I know what’s in it. For those who don’t, I’d recommend a thorough review of the contract at work just so you know what you’ve signed up for and what you haven’t signed up for. If you need help with that, reach out to Jon at Contract Diagnostics. Jon is a sponsor of this site and has helped me out, as well.
Budgeting Course!
Finally, I’ve been busy creating a budgeting course!
Now that we are facing likely our first black swan event, the importance of being debt free and having a good cash cushion is apparent. I am very thankful that my family has been well prepared for an event like this, thanks to frugality and being debt averse. I want to help you save more money and have less stress.
When Josh and I first started to try to take control of our finances, we fumbled around with several budgeting methods, including different apps. Finally, we realized a spreadsheet budget did the trick the best- least amount of time spent (let’s be real, we’re all busy) and most effectiveness. Using our budgeting method, we were able to increase our savings from $1000 per month to close to $10,000 a month on average.
I’ve put together a course that will teach you how to make your own budget that you can actually stick to. With the course, you’ll get instructional videos that will guide you through setting up your first budget, a spreadsheet template to get you started, as well as a private Facebook group of classmates and me to support you as you start on your money saving journey.
When trying to break the momentum and start something new, just getting over the hump of getting going is often the hardest part. I want to help you with that. After this course, you’ll be set to save thousands of dollars a month and will not have to spend another single penny on monthly fees for apps.
Sign up here if you are interested in being a part of the Founding Members for this course. Founding members will receive a heavily discounted entry to the course, for a limited time. The course will launch on May 1st!
Thank you for being here! Till next week!
Stay Frugal, Y’all!
Disha
Standard Disclaimer: Not meant as individualized financial or medical advice.
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