Are you a mid-career pharmacist who’s tackled some of the financial planning basics but is left wondering, “What’s next?”
You’re not alone!
Whether you’re feeling confident in your current trajectory or are wondering if you need a financial tune-up, we’ve got you covered with six financial moves to make as a mid-career pharmacist.
1. Recast the Vision of Your Financial Plan
2. Savings, Savings, Savings
This step of the checklist includes your emergency fund and taking a pulse on your retirement savings.
Let’s dig in.
Emergency Funds
We recently released a podcast episode that took a deep dive into emergency funds, including how to determine if it’s adequately funded and optimized.
If you haven’t recently revisited your emergency fund and the reserves you have on hand, now is a good time to do so as there is a possibility that your needs have changed.
For an emergency fund, what we’re looking for is three to six months of non-discretionary monthly expenses. These are expenses that have to be paid whether you are working or not, including mortgage or rent payments, utilities, insurance premiums, and food. After you add up all of your non-discretionary expenses, multiply that by three if you have two household incomes or by six if you have one household income. This gives you the number that you should have saved in your emergency fund.
Typically for Your Financial Pharmacist planning clients, we see anywhere between $15,000-%50,000 that’s needed to be saved in an emergency fund.
Retirement
Have you recently wondered if you’re on track for retirement?
Pharmacists we talk to at this mid-career stage often feel like they are getting hit in every direction.
Between kids’ expenses, kids’ college needs, retirement savings, caring for elderly parents, and paying off remaining debt, there are a lot of financial and personal priorities. Because of all of these different pressures, sometimes the retirement piece falls to the side or wasn’t a top priority for a while, and now, as you get to a point of being able to visualize retirement more, you may be wondering if your retirement savings are on track.
Check out these podcast episodes in our retirement series that dig into retirement savings, how to determine how much is enough for retirement, nest egg calculations, and how to build a retirement paycheck:
Don’t miss downloading this free guide: Retirement Roadblocks – Identifying and Managing 10 Common Risks
3. Social Security
If you haven’t looked at ssa.gov to see what your social security statement or projected benefits look like, now is the time to do so.
Having an understanding of your projected social security benefits at retirement and how that fits into your nest egg calculation and overall financial plan is crucial.
To learn more about social security and mistakes to avoid making as a pharmacist, take a listen to these podcast episodes:
- Social Security 101: History, How it Works, and Why it Matters for Your Financial Plan (YFP 242)
10 Common Social Security Mistakes to Avoid (Part 1) (YFP 294)
- 10 Common Social Security Mistakes to Avoid (Part 2) (YFP 295)
4. Estate Planning
Number four on our list of mid-career moves to consider making as a pharmacist is all about the estate plan.
We dug into this in detail on YFP 310: Dusing Off the Estate Plan.
Unfortunately, estate planning is a part of the financial plan that’s often ignored or isn’t given enough attention. Doing a beneficiary check and ensuring that you have estate planning documents in place so that your dependents and family are protected is so important.
The reality is, getting these documents in place isn’t fun to think about and it’s so easy to push this task to the side. This is your call to action to either update, take a fresh look at your estate planning documents, or get them created.
5. Conversations with Aging Parents
It’s not uncommon to see mid-career pharmacists entering a new stage of caring for their elderly parents. This is not only an emotional and time investment, but can also be a financial expense that you need to consider.
On top of that, knowing if your parents have the right estate planning documents in place or even having a deeper understanding and transparency of their financial situation can be valuable.
But how do you have these sometimes very hard and awkward conversations?
We had Cameron Huddleston, award-winning journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, on YFP 321: Navigating Financial Conversations with Aging Parents. This one is a must-listen.
6. Insurance Check-Up
We often talk about term-life and long-term disability insurance at the front end of someone’s pharmacy career, but it’s important to re-evaluate these policies in your 30s, 40s, and 50s.
For example, if you bought a 20-year term life policy in your early 20s or 30s and now you are in your 40s or 50s, does it still provide adequate coverage for your family if something were to happen to you? Do you need to supplement your policy in any way because your earnings have continued to climb?
Other items to consider is looking into long-term care insurance, especially in your 40s or 50s, and property and casualty insurance.
We dig into long-term care insurance in this podcast episode:
Conclusion
If you’re a mid-career pharmacist interested in how working with our team of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERS™ at Your Financial Pharmacist can support you on your personal financial plan, which would touch on these six areas as well as many more, click here to learn more.
If you’re ready to take the next step, click here to book a free discovery call with our team.
