My interest in finance and money management started in June 2017 with a book titled Seven Figure Pharmacist. It’s a book written by pharmacists for pharmacists mainly about building wealth and how to get a net worth of seven figures — that’s the goal, right? (or so I thought) During my first read of the book, I was on vacation in LA and was just about to start my fourth year of pharmacy school. Most of it is geared toward new practitioners, so I didn’t get as much out of it as I had hoped. It did however greatly spark my interest into personal finance. It was at that moment I decided to make a change that has been the backbone of my wealth generation thus far. After getting home from vacation, I logged onto my 403b account (basically a 401k but for nonprofit organizations) and increased my contributions from 0% to 12% with a 3% match.
Now I know what you’re probably thinking, I told you about this huge change I made and all it was contributing to retirement, something most Americans are already doing. But for me, this signaled the start of my journey. My thought process behind this little change was once I graduated and earning a six-figure salary, I didn’t want to be tempted to spend the money I was earning and save as much as I could. Being a pharmacist is a somewhat unique situation because most of us earn high incomes right from the start and don’t have a lot of room to have substantial increases in salary. Knowing that, I wanted to get ahead of the 8 ball.
Once I graduated and got into the work force, the only thing I was doing was contributing to retirement, nothing too glamorous. It wasn’t until I read The Next Millionaire Next Door in December 2018 which introduced me to FIRE. It was a term I read in passing and didn’t think too much about until I finally looked up what it stood for: Financial Independence Retire Early. Once I was introduced to this community I was hooked. I read tons of different blogs and listened to many podcasts created by people in this community (I’ll get into my inspirations later). Once I found it and dove a little deeper in the community I knew this is what I wanted to pursue. It’s a community of individuals that are all on this journey together of accumulating wealth in the hopes of becoming financially independent and not having to rely on the typical or conventional 9-5 job.
And that is where this blog fits in. I want to be a part of the community that has shaped my mindset for the future. I want to document my unique journey and hopefully inspire other people that working towards FIRE can be such a rewarding experience.
Now that everyone is caught up, I hope you stick around to see where my journey for FIRE takes me next…
Thanks!
Steven | Rx for FIRE
Rx for FIRE 