Some might assume that individuals in careers that tend to have higher incomes associated with them would not have much in the way of problems saving for the retirement they want. However, such an assumption is incorrect; retirement savings challenges can arise for individuals in any sort of profession, no matter the typical earning power of the profession.
This is underscored in a recent survey of doctors. The survey asked around 125,000 practicing doctors how they felt they were doing regarding saving for their future retirement. Well over a third of them (almost 40 percent) said they felt they were behind on their retirement savings.
So, careful planning and preparation when it comes to retirement is something that can be important for workers of all types and income levels, including doctors.
Now, retirement savings challenges are not the only types of problems that being in a higher-earning profession does not make a person immune to. Another type are problems with the distribution of a person’s estate upon their death, such disputes arising within their family over the distribution or the distribution going a different way than they would have wanted it to. As with individuals in more modest-earning jobs, individuals in high-income professions could create particularly high risks of such problems arising if they fail to do any estate planning or fail to do such planning in a careful fashion.
So, in addition to retirement, another thing it is important for doctors to make careful preparations regarding is their estate plan, such as the wills and/or trusts they ultimately decide to have. Experienced and skilled estate planning lawyers can work closely with individuals, whatever their line of work, to help them understand what kind of strategies and devices might be best suited for their estate plan given the particular details of their life, including their profession and income level.
Source: Becker’s Hospital Review, “40% of physicians 'behind schedule' in saving for retirement,” Kelly Gooch, Aug. 24, 2016