Why Am I Writing This Blog?
Many people have asked me, why in the world would you want to write a blog? You are already so busy being a neurosurgeon, a bishop, and a father of four kids. How will you ever find time to do that? Well, the simple answer is I really enjoy personal finance. So for me, it isn’t one more thing on my to do list, but rather something that is personally fulfilling and brings me happiness. It also gives me a chance to try and help others by passing on the knowledge I have acquired. But how did I get to this point? To understand that, we have to dial the clock back a few years.
After moving to Eau Claire, WI in 2014, I wanted to be wise and make sure I enjoyed my job and my family was comfortable living in the area before putting down roots. So, rather than buy a large house right out of the gate, we rented a townhome and saved money for our future home. After just a year, we knew we wanted to stay. We spent the next few years designing and constructing our dream home. As is typical with building a home, we chose upgrades along the way that continually increased costs from our initial plan. This ultimately ate up our cash reserves. When it came time to furnish the home, we ended up buying most things on credit, rationalizing that I could afford the payments and would have it paid off in no time. Despite sinking deep into consumer debt, we were very excited to move into our new home during the summer of 2017.
Since we had now moved into our new home, we no longer had to continue to save for construction costs. We slowly let our expenses increase to fill this gap in our income. I was paying off the credit card debt, in addition to student loan debt and our new mortgage, but did not feel much urgency in doing so. After all, I had a high income and “could afford it.” I “deserved” these nice things after years of training and living on loans. Shopping on Amazon became a common way to unwind at night and relax. I started to look at more expensive things like fancy watches and luxury cars, because that is what society expects of a neurosurgeon, right? While I ultimately didn’t head down this road of luxury, the temptations began to become stronger.
Next, I think it is important to understand a little bit about what a neurosurgeon does. I diagnose and treat surgical problems of the brain and spine. Conditions I treat include brain and spine trauma, tumors, and debilitating degenerative spine conditions. All of the surgeries I do are serious and often involve life or function threatening situations. I really love what I do. I love being able to help people during this critical time in their lives. I love the technical aspects of the surgery and the satisfaction of fixing a complex problem with my hands. However, there is one area of neurosurgery that is particularly difficult for me. I have a very hard time detaching myself emotionally from my patients and the difficult situations they are going through. I don’t have the “just leave it at the office” mentality that others seem to be blessed with. As a result, when my patients are suffering or going through a difficult problem, I take it very hard. My wife tells me it is one of the qualities that makes me a compassionate and empathetic neurosurgeon, and I know she is right. However, when these difficult situations come it certainly takes a toll on me as I ride this emotional roller coaster.
On this background, everything seemed to come to a head for me during the summer of 2018. I had a series of difficult surgical cases, busy stretches while on-call, and other life stressors all occur at the same time. It seemed to be the perfect storm. The burdens I was shouldering seemed more than I could bear at the time. While I had been through difficult stretches before, this seemed different. For the first time, I found myself doubting my ability to do this. I questioned how long I would be able to keep this up. Can I really do this for 25 more years? As I considered my new home, my student loan debt, and now my credit card debt, I started to feel trapped for the first time. The natural reaction when under severe stress is to look for a way out. I found myself googling careers after medicine and early retirement. It was during this search that I stumbled onto the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early). I was captivated. I had never really thought outside of the template of work until you are 65 and then retire. I had always assumed that was “just the way you do it.” This new way of thinking brought new possibilities, new ideas, and new freedom.
I wanted to take control of my own destiny so I would never feel trapped again.
As usually tends to happen, my patients ended up doing well, my call schedule settled down, and I got through things just fine. Remember, I really do love the core aspects of my job. I was no longer looking to find an immediate way out. However, through the recent storm, I had discovered something that would change me forever. I couldn’t stop learning about Financial Independence (FI). I devoured every bit of information I could from books, blogs, and podcasts. I wanted to take control of my own destiny so I would never feel trapped again. I wanted to continue to be a neurosurgeon because it was something that I wanted, not because my lifestyle was forcing me to work. That is when everything began to change. I started to implement the new strategies I was learning by changing my insurance policies, opening new retirement accounts, changing my investment choices, and altering my asset allocation. I stopped looking at nice watches and luxury cars and mindlessly buying things on Amazon. I started asking myself what really brings value to my life, how much is really enough?
As I made these changes in my life, I couldn’t help but talk about them to others at work, with my friends, and to family members. I also used many of the principles I had learned to counsel people at church about their finances. As I taught others about the principles of FI, I found I really enjoyed sharing it with others. I developed a strong desire to share the freedom that comes with taking control of your personal finances, knowing how trapped and lost many people are. I looked into getting my license as a financial advisor as a possible second career in the distant future. However, this presented three main problems: 1) Becoming a financial advisor would be a good way to help others in the future, but I wanted to begin sharing this knowledge now, 2) It requires more formal training than I would like to do at this stage in my life (especially after 15 years of training for neurosurgery), and 3) I would only be able to help those people that I meet with directly, which would be limited; I wanted something more scalable, where I could reach hundreds or even thousands of people. As I continued to read blogs and listen to podcasts, I began thinking to myself, “I could do this. Why not me?” I realized that starting my own blog, and possibly podcast in the future, would allow me to continue to learn more about something I am passionate about as well as share that knowledge with many people in need of it. And so, I made the decision to create FreedomThroughFI.com.
My primary goals for this blog are:
1) Empower you, the reader, to take control of your own financial life, which will give you more control over your own destiny and future. This will help you find the freedom that comes from moving towards FI.
2) Share my own path towards FI so you can learn from the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned (and am learning!).
3) Develop a stream of passive income.
If you’d like to read a more comprehensive and detailed account of my life’s journey with money, including my own progress toward FI, please read the posts under My Path to FI.
