Happy New Year!

In the past, have you set sparkling New Year's resolutions, only to have them fizzle out by February? Now is the time to reflect on the past year, and to start new, healthy habits. What are the top resolutions for people every year? To get healthier and make more money, of course.

We’ve found that both of those goals take a similar strategy to achieve:

1. Set a Clear Goal

A clear goal will help measure your progress and make sure you’re taking steps forward.

Struggling to come up with financial goals? Consider these questions:

What age do you want to retire?
What is your ideal future?

Doctors today will need on average $4-7 million dollars to retire. If your plan is to retire in 30 years, however, you’ll need to save even more due to inflation!

2. Make a Plan

A plan is the path we lay to reach our goal. For your health, it could be meal planning, meditating, etc. Financial health planning would include having a clear picture of your expenses, and making an annual saving/investing plan. Questions we ask to formulate this plan:

Can you maximize your work 401K/403B?
Should we utilize the Backdoor Roth strategy?*
How much should be put into your brokerage account every month?

The best way we’ve found to increase savings is to set up auto-draws; if you initiate these, you won’t even see that money, and you certainly won’t miss it.

3. Start Slow

You wouldn’t start training for a marathon running 26 miles on day one; and you won’t become a millionaire on day one either! You work up to your goals gradually through sustainable practices.

A few things you can do to save (start slowly):

Bring your lunch to work!
Host a few nights in to save money on food, drink, and entertainment expenses.

Reach out to your financial advisor to see if your savings is in need of a ramp up.

4. Track Your Progress

Tracking your steps or calorie intake are examples of tracking progress for your health. On the financial side, we want to track where your money is going and if it fits your budget.

People who track their budget spend on average 17% less than those who don’t!

If you haven’t established a relationship with a financial advisor, you can start tracking your finances with apps like Mint.

5. Have an Accountability Partner

A fitness coach, nutritionist, or a financial advisor are perfect examples of this! They are unbiased parties that can help you really prioritize your goals.

How are you doing?
Are your current goals doable?
What are your roadblocks?

6. Be Realistic

While working towards big goals, we don’t expect you to pass up every opportunity to have fun. You work so hard and deserve some stress relief!

This is why we recommend setting up a fun-money account. Money trickles into this (after your other savings and expenses are taken care of), and once you have enough for something you want to purchase, go for it! This eliminates all stress of worrying if this is taking away from your retirement goal or other regular expenses in your life.

Your future self is going to be very grateful for the actions you take today, because it gets you closer to your goal of top-tier financial health and independence. Make some goals this year, and stick to them. We’re here to help!

*Congress could be sunsetting this option in 2022

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Remember that you can send us any questions at: Info@MDFinancialAdvisors.com

Katherine Vessenes, JD, CFP®, is the founder and CEO of MD Financial Advisors who serve 500 doctors from Hawaii to Cape Cod. An award-winning Financial Advisor, Attorney, Certified Financial Planner®, author and speaker, she is devoted to bringing ethical advice to physicians and dentists. She can be reached at Katherine@mdfinancialadvisors.com.