The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide to Personal Finance and Investing (The White Coat Investor Series)

When you become an attending, you’ll probably want a policy in the range of $2 million to $5 million. You might not want to spend that much as a resident, but at least buy $500,000 to $1 million. A healthy 27-year-old female can buy a $1 million 20-year level term policy for about $400 a year. A 30-year policy will run $550 a year. If you develop a

There are many ways to avoid paying these taxes, but nearly all of them involve giving money away to your heirs prior to death directly or using irrevocable trusts or giving money away to charity prior to or at your death. One of the more commonly used methods involves an irrevocable life insurance trust. The owner of a large estate places money in

Certainly having a will is better than “dying intestate” (without a will), but ensuring your assets don’t have to pass through the probate process is a worthwhile endeavor. There are two ways to do this—naming specific beneficiaries and using a revocable trust.

Combining the Good News with the Bad News

Good News About Retirement

One of the easiest, and cheapest, asset protection techniques is to title your home properly. For married physicians in many states, this will be “John and Jackie Smith, Husband and Wife, Tenants By The Entirety.” This means that both John, and Jackie, each own 100% of the home. So a successful lawsuit that only names John cannot take the

The second priority is to determine a plan for your student loans. The two most common options with standard interest rate student loans (5%–8%) are 1) to pay them off as soon as possible or 2) to pay the minimum due and get the rest forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

Unfortunately, there are nineteen states with estate and/or inheritance taxes, and most of them use lower estate tax exemptions than the federal government. Political types won’t be surprised to see that most of these are “blue states” and include Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New York,

home, because Jackie owns 100% of it and vice versa. If you are married and your state allows for “tenants by the entirety,” be sure to use it. It is free and easy and has the potential to save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.