June 2018 - Doctor in Denim

“They’re Too Young to Appreciate It” & Other Objections to Traveling With Kids

By Doctor in Denim | June 22, 2018

Let’s take a well-deserved break from talking about houses and moving and house projects and money and dive back into the topic of travel!

As somewhat seasoned travelers who have now entered the life phase of family travel, we run into a fair number of objections to traveling with young kids (and even medium-sized kids):

“They won’t remember it.”

“They’re too young to appreciate it.”

“It’s too expensive to take the whole family.”

“The kids would rather just stay home and play (latest trending video game) anyway.” …

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Doctors with Money Problems

By Doctor in Denim | June 20, 2018

I was just about done with the original version of this post when the Wall Street Journal published this article with the apparent goal of making my profession look like it’s composed entirely of Tesla drivers who can’t do math.

This article of course popped up almost immediately in my social media doctor groups and in my social media finance / FIRE groups and got thousands of comments and shares and emoticon reactions.

The doctor group’s reaction was largely along the lines of “No one understands what doctors go through, student loans are the worst, school costs so much, the educational system / federal loan program is oh-so-broken, etc.” The FIRE group’s reaction was (to bring it down to PG vocabulary): “Stop whining and pay back your debts like you said you would, you spoiled rich brats.”

Things got so exciting that Dave Ramsey got involved. …

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Hiking Gear, Bike Repairs, and Other May Spending

By Doctor in Denim | June 18, 2018

A quick reminder: these spending reports are an effort to keep myself accountable to the idea that doctors do not have to spend a totally ridiculous amount of money to live well and love life. We’re trying to do these spending reports for every month of 2018.

As I have mentioned before, we do not do traditional budgeting. You absolutely should do traditional budgeting if that works for you as a way to control your spending. More on this topic here.

Notes About May

May seemed to be an explosion of spending money, and not just because we purchased a house (which we consider to be a separate endeavor from our month-to-month spending). You can read the details about the money part of the house purchase and the move here. …

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Why “I Make More Money at the Office” is a Bad Excuse to Avoid Real Work

By Doctor in Denim | June 17, 2018

It seems to me that as soon as we doctors are making any kind of decent money (which is usually immediately after graduating) we start looking for reasons to not do any actual work outside of the office.

Usually the reason given for this attitude is some version of “I can make way more at my job than what the (insert any type of manual laborer or domestic service provider) charges me per hour, so why would I not hire that out?” If we want to throw an extra layer of guilt on for anyone who might object, we say something like: “Well I have to pay someone to clean my house and cook my meals and cut my lawn so I have time to do things with my kids!”

Both of these excuses may have some superficial merit, but neither one holds much water when examined closely. …

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What Does it Really Cost to Buy a House and Move?

By Doctor in Denim | June 5, 2018

We’re moving! It’s just across town, but still quite exciting for us. You can see from that banner photo that’s it’s also been pure chaos. More info about the house and why we decided to move can be found in this post.

The most obvious money-related part of this is the sticker price of the house. But it turns out the whole buy-a-house-and-move process is a conveyor belt of random fees and expenses, which in the end will make you realize that renting is awesome. …

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