The Attending Transition Blueprint
The highest leverage financial window: the months on either side of the jump from training income to attending income.
What it is
The Attending Transition Blueprint is Financial Fellowship's framework for the highest leverage financial window in a physician's life, the months on either side of the jump from training income to attending income.
The Blueprint takes a position against the standard advice. "Live like a resident" treats the whole increase as one decision made once, by refusing it. The Blueprint treats it as a set of decisions made deliberately, on the argument that a household which never designs the increase will make it anyway, later and worse.
The six steps
-
1
Find the real number first
Not the offer letter figure. What actually lands, after taxes at the new bracket, after benefits, after the retirement contributions the household intends to make. Most transition mistakes are made against a number that was never going to arrive.
-
2
Set the savings rate before the lifestyle
The savings rate gets chosen first and treated as fixed. Everything else is designed around what remains, rather than the reverse.
-
3
Design the spending increase on purpose
Name the categories that are allowed to grow, and by how much, before the money arrives. An undesigned increase still happens, later, larger, and permanently.
-
4
Close the protection layers in the same window
Coverage is cheapest and most obtainable at this exact moment, and the window closes quietly.
-
5
Choose the student loan strategy before the first attending payment posts
The first payment made under the wrong plan is difficult and sometimes impossible to undo.
-
6
Automate it so it survives the schedule
A plan that requires attention during an attending year's first twelve months is a plan that will not run.
Where it shows on the show
It applies in the final year of training and the first year as an attending. That eighteen month window is where the largest share of a physician household's lifetime spending pattern gets set, mostly by default.
It applies to fellows finishing a second training stage, where the increase is often larger and the household has been waiting longer. It applies to a physician moving from an employed role into partnership or ownership, because the income structure changes shape and the household is effectively running the transition a second time.
It applies to the partner of a physician entering practice, since the household's decisions are joint. It also applies retroactively. A physician three or four years past the transition who never designed it can still run the Blueprint. The window was better then. It is not closed now.
Financial Health Assessment episodes built on the Attending Transition Blueprint are listed here as they publish. Physician households can submit their own finances at financialfellowship.com/submit.
What it is not
It is not a spending target, a savings rate, or a recommendation about any household's specific numbers. It is a sequence for decisions the household is going to make regardless.
Takeaways
- Six steps, in order, around the jump from training to attending.
- Find the real number first.
- Set the savings rate before the lifestyle.
- Design the spending increase on purpose.
- Not "live like a resident." Design the increase rather than refuse it.
- The numbers belong to the household.
Common questions
Does the Attending Transition Blueprint say to live like a resident?
No. It takes the opposite position. It says the increase in spending should be designed deliberately rather than refused entirely, on the argument that an increase which is never designed happens anyway and does more damage.
When should the Blueprint be run?
The strongest window is the final year of training through the first attending year. It still works later, and running it late is better than not running it.
Why does the savings rate get set before the lifestyle?
Because whichever one is set first becomes the constraint on the other. A household that sets spending first saves what is left, which is usually less than it intended.
Is this advice about how much to spend?
No. The Blueprint names a sequence. The numbers belong to the household.