Drs. Moghaddampour & Mattison

Things I’ve been thinking about as the end of the year gets closer:⠀
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- I am not sure if it’s inflation or the multitude of things we’ve been having to buy, but it always feels like we have less money then before. We started contributing to our 403b each month 15% and it’s about $600 per month from each of our paychecks. So that coupled with conferences, house expenses, different flights, and booking housing in San Diego for our refractive course it feels as if we are constantly feeling the money squeeze! ⠀
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- the beginning of 2023 will bring student loan payments most likely :( I’m thinking we will stop contributing to our 403bs while we pay our loans and work toward maxing out our Roth IRAs. Then once our Roth IRAs are maxed out we will go back to contributing to at least one of our 403bs. ⠀
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- we are having to use around $6,000 from our emergency fund for our roof that had a huge hole under the solar panels. We are guessing that hole was probably there for a while and was missed on the house inspection when we bought the house. (The solar panels we inherited with the house and it’s a lease - nothing but heartache from them). So now we also are going to need to replenish that money. This one I’m less worried about because we also have a taxable account if things got desperate ⠀
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- someone asked me recently why even bother saving during residency when pretty soon we will have more money as an attending. Reason one is because money saved now allows you more time in the market for compound interest to work for you. Reason two is personal finance is more of an emotional game with yourself. Like with anything, we can always say “someday” and never do it. Practicing in residency sets you up for success and good habits for when you’re an attending ⠀
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Anybody else having financial woes? Please share so we can commiserate together ❤️⠀
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Photo dump of life happenings
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1st photo: Dr. Bowes is one of our wonderful attendings and is retiring this September to Costa Rica. Pura vida! I got to operate with him on his last OR day ❤️ he is a great teacher and we are very thankful for him. Our county hospital will be depleted both of his presence and of candy when he leaves us for beautiful beaches ⠀
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2nd photo: Each year our program director gives us a lecture on how to set up the phaco machine (the machine for cataract surgery). Here we are all together and happy ⠀
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3rd photo: Another photo with Dr. Bowes. You never take enough photos until you realize your time is short. The board behind us is how we keep track of who is next. Sometimes our techs will erase us before we get to it and I always feel slightly put out because that’s my favorite part 😂⠀
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4th photo: our amazing cornea and glaucoma attendings / cornea fellow performing a combined open sky cataract surgery, Ahmed valve, penetrating transplant. It’s not often we all are in the OR so they let me take a photo to memorialize the event. My coresident and I got to throw some sutures on the PK so that was a great time. ⠀
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Right now I’m on my 50/50 block where I share time between one of our county hospitals and Loma Linda. This is the year where we get to operate more which is really great. ⠀
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Braden right now is on pediatric ortho and senior call. We haven’t seen each other much lately between me being at county / helping our first years with call and him operating / taking call. ⠀
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Now we are almost to September at least my call will be getting a lot better! ⠀
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Here’s to our fourth year of residency! ❤️ ⠀
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What does $10,000 in loan forgiveness mean?⠀⠀
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It means a little less than 4% of our loan would be forgiven. So you get excited at first 🥳 but also get underwhelmed by how little it pays off and overwhelmed by how much there is 😂⠀⠀
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It means it would cover interest that will accrue for the year on our loans, so potentially when I graduate we will have zero interest and just principal to pay down. ⠀⠀
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It means loan interest will resume August 31, 2022 so we now get to decide if paying down our loan is worth the guarantee 4% return (which is the interest on our loan with the REPAYE subsidy) versus the potential return of the market. ⠀⠀
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So many possibilities! Looking forward to hearing President Biden’s announcement. From the sounds of it $10,000 will be forgiven for singles who make under $150,000 and for married couples who made under $300,000. ⠀⠀
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We will see what the future holds! ⠀⠀
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Are you considering paying down your loans over investing in the market when the student loan interest freeze ends? ⠀⠀
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Comment below! ⠀
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Which platform is better for opening a Roth IRA?⠀
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The question of where to open your Roth IRA is one of the first steps to opening it! ⠀
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Options include: Vanguard, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Wealthfront, Betterment and the list goes on. ⠀
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Prior to a few years ago, each trade you made charged a fee. So Vanguard had been better to go with because they had a discounted trading fee for when you bought their ETFs or mutual funds (which have low expense ratio fees). Now that trading costs are minimal - this becomes less of an issue. ⠀
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Personally, I opened a Vanguard account initially but then the app and platform was not user friendly so I switched to TD Ameritrade. Thus, I have around $3000 in Vanguard and the rest in TD Ameritrade. This is just to say you can switch platforms if you wanted to it’s just not easy to transfer them I don’t think. ⠀
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Other points about the other platforms:⠀
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Charles Schwab - is a very good platform with lots of information and good customer service. They actually bought TD Ameritrade so they are essentially under one umbrella and will merge in a few years. ⠀
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Wealthfront / Betterment - have robo advisors for if you want effortless investing. They have a lot of options that are for target based investing so you put in your retirement date and it creates a portfolio for you. Over time it adjust the portfolio from one with more risk to less risky over time depending on your retirement date. ⠀
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Essentially, the hardest part is picking! They are all good options. If you want more information just google “Best Roth IRA accounts” and there are plenty of articles to read. ⠀
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Of note, the most important step is knowing that after you put your money in your Roth IRA you have to assign it to an investment. This is key!! Otherwise it’s just a bank account. ⠀
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Hope this was helpful! Which platform do you use and would you recommend it? ⠀
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When he uses 8-0 nylon and says he is thinking of you ❤️⠀
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Happy birthday to the love of my life⠀
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It’s always been you. From sophomore year of high school when you were five feet tall and I was a foot taller you made me crazy. ⠀
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From college, to med school, to residency you have been my constant. You inspire me each day when you continually work as hard as you do and keep a positive attitude. ⠀
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You are witty and keep me laughing even when I don’t know it’s what I need. ⠀
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You tell me to dream bigger so I do. ⠀
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I can’t wait to continue to build our life together. ⠀
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You are my Gilbert Blythe and are SO COOL. ⠀
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Love always ❤️❤️ ⠀
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When ophthalmologists advocate, patients and physicians win!⠀
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This year my co-resident and I were Advocacy Ambassadors at the Mid Year Forum!⠀
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This is a time when ophthalmologists from across the country come to Washington D.C. to advocate for issues which directly affect patient care and health care disparities. ⠀
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During the meetings, we are talking about prior authorization and how it harms patient’s access to vision saving treatments, Medicare cuts, and research funding for ophthalmology. ⠀
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These issues all have national impacts. It’s been really enlightening to see how critical it is for physicians to be advocates. ⠀
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This photo is with part of the California ambassadors from different California ophthalmology programs. ⠀
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It’s a privilege to advocate for our patients! ⠀
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What do you do with $4400?⠀
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The student loan interest freeze is extended until August 31! 🥳🥳⠀
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That means the $600 we would have put toward interest each month is no longer part of the budget! ⠀
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This four month extension saves us $4,400 in interest that would have accumulated on our loans. ⠀
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That brings the grand total of money from interest saved by the pause to over $30,000 between myself and Braden! ⠀
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Overall, this hasn’t really changed our financial plan other than that we are now able to max out our Roth IRAs sooner for the year. ⠀
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As of right now, we have put $9,600 toward our Roth IRAs for the year. We are hoping to max it out hopefully by the end of this month! ⠀
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I share our numbers not for any other reason then to be transparent. I find people say it’s not possible to save in residency - so part of my purpose is to show that you can. Braden and I don’t have children and have a combined resident income which helps for rent. I hope this is helpful. ⠀
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How are you going to use the unexpected bonus of not having to pay student loan interest? Comment below!⠀
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