We’re not earmarking as much for college as you are. I struggled a bit with how much help to give my kids (just because we can), versus how much to make them earn it/work for it. Maybe this is something to reassess for us.

Hearing your numbers is great, but what makes this blog so great is the special attention paid to the unique challenges of retiring early as a physician. I love how HP and the other commenters discuss loss of identity. And the challenge of staying relevant, engaged, etc. My aspirations are similar to yours, desire to travel, would love to spend time learning Spanish in Mexico (ala Curry Cracker), strongly considering locums after the military just to keep my hands in it a bit longer. Considering 6-12 months down under just for fun, maybe doing some development work in eastern Africa – setting up cancer care systems there, RVing around the US.

I also have to balance my spouse’s desires. Took some doing but have finally convinced the spouse the value of early retirement but he isn’t going to want to sit and twiddle his thumbs.

30 days is truly not enough time to travel the way I want! The military has been very good to me, but looking forward to some freedom – I’m several years behind you. Hope you can figure it all out before me! Good luck and thanks for your service

Dr. FISRE,

Thanks for the info. I thought you would have to be fluent in Spanish to work in PR. Unfortunately since your post things have gotten pretty bad there due to the hurricane, but in the future may be opportunity.

Telerad is something that has changed a lot since I finished residency. It opens up a lot of new options.

Good luck with your plan.

Other options that I can think of are:
1)Joining another telerad group that pays well
2) provide services to a hospital directly remotely

With these two options you would have to stay in the US but you could do US traveling including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska or other places.

Also consider doing your Spanish immersion in PR.
I know that PR has some incentives for doing telerad from there. 4% income tax (no federal taxes)if you are an independent contractor ( Google law 20 or Law 22 Puerto Rico).
Also, 4% income tax if you become a local rad over there Law 14( I think). Locally all the reports are in English but the patient and doctor interaction is in Spanish with the safety net that they all know English in case you get stuck.

I’m also a Rad in my early 30s and my plan is to semi-retire in 6-8 years by cutting down to 4 hour shifts with a telerad company.

Good luck

Wendy,

Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll work on the reframing.

Life is 90 per cent mental. The other half is physical as Yogi Berra didn’t say….

Dr. Sam,

I have a buddy who does tele-rad from Hawaii for a stateside group. He works off hours but seems to really enjoy it. There are definitely a lot of options to work especially for Radiologists.

I have thought about getting a small condo or apt somewhere in the states to use as a home base. Actually, it doesn’t have to necessarily be in the US. There are great places in Latin American and Asia as well.
One of my long term dreams would be to have a big enough place in a tourist location and run it part time as a bnb or hotel. Maybe I’m being unrealistic, but it seems like it would be fun to host people from all over. You could really meet a lot of interesting people potentially from all over the world. My wife’s family had a bnb and she helped run it when she was in college. She tells me that it’s a lot harder than it looks. For every interesting guest there are at least a dozen odd ones.

I think at least for the first year we will try to keep things simple. When we have a better idea of where we would like to settle down we can look into the real estate market…

Thanks,

Were actually headed to Kauai, but I’m sure we will be back to Oahu soon…..

You bet! Bellows is the best beach for pretty. Hale Koa/Waikiki if you want to learn to surf.
Also I just left WRNMMC-B last year – we may know each other!
?
If HP can show you my email then drop me a line!

ArmyDoc,

Congratulations on your job in Hawaii. Sounds like you are really enjoying your time there.

I have had a similar experience in my career with a series of fun and interesting tours. Probably the hardest, but most interesting were 2 deployments to Afghanistan. I also tried going down the command route which I found out wasn’t for me. There is a lot of energy at the tertiary medical centers. One of my best tours was at Walter Reed where I was able to teach residents and be in an academic environment. I loved living in DC as well.

At this point though I’m ready to move on. I am at terminal rank (O-6) and I will finish up a multiyear contract next year. From a financial perspective it just doesn’t make sense to stay. In order to maintain my current income I would have to sign another 4 year multiyear contract and I would be working full time for my current pay minus what I would be able to collect in pension had I retired.

If I wanted to maintain my current income a better option for me would be to retire next year, collect the pension and work part time.

But it’s not about money. I want to have more flexibility with my time. 30 days leave is just not enough to give us the time to travel and do the things we want to do.

We are heading out your way to Hawaii later this month. Any suggestions??

Hatton1,

Congratulations to your nephew. It seems that he has found his place and is enjoying his second career. I plan to have a similar big adventure with the family after leaving the military, although on land vs on a sailboat. After that I’ll have to see what the second act will be.