Essay · Investing
The case for boring money
Index funds, term insurance and an emergency fund will never make a good story at dinner. That is rather the point: the dull decisions are the ones that buy you choices later.
Money
Money, decoded for doctors.
What doctors earn, what it costs to live well, how to protect it, and how to make it buy the one thing that matters: choice.
Education, not advice. Nothing here is individualised financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Our money standards
Wealth is freedom and optionality, not status consumption.
Measure wealth in time
How many months could your savings carry you? That number is freedom; net worth is just a snapshot.
Make the boring decisions early
A cushion, the right insurance, low-cost long-term investing. Dull, and the source of almost every good outcome.
Know what you are paying for
Fees, commissions and status spending all compound too. Ask how anyone selling you something is paid.
The Guide · Start here
A doctor’s first money plan
Your first stipend or salary, in the right order: know your numbers, build a cushion, protect what you cannot afford to lose, deal with expensive debt, then invest simply for the long term.
Tools
Your own numbers, worked through in your browser. Assumptions always visible.
Tool
The Doctor Wealth Calculator
Wealth measured in freedom: how many months and years of your essential costs your savings cover, now and later.
Open the tool
Tool
Loan Repayment Calculator
Your EMI, the true cost of the moratorium, and what paying a little extra saves.
Open the tool
Data
Doctor pay: the official numbers
Published pay scales and surveys, with their source, place and year. Nothing estimated.
See the numbers
What we cover
Six questions every doctor eventually asks about money.
Doctor income
What do doctors earn, and what shapes it?
Personal finance
Where do I start, and in what order?
The Guide
A doctor’s first money planIn preparation
Your first stipend, allocated: a one-page plan for residents
Investing, explained
How does investing work, without the noise?
Tax
What do I owe, and what am I missing?
Loans
How do I handle what I owe?
Insurance
What could derail me, and how do I protect against it?
From the Business desk
Money questions that are really questions about building something.
Practice economics
Does the clinic actually make money?
In preparation
The first two years of a solo clinic, month by month
Entrepreneurship
What does it cost to build something?
Alternative income
Can expertise earn beyond my hours?
Evergreen guides
The reference shelf
Maintained guides, reviewed against their sources and dated, so you know how fresh they are.
The Guide
A doctor’s first money plan
The order of operations for your first salary or stipend: cushion, protection, debt, then investing.
In preparation
Tax basics for doctors in India
Salary, stipend, consulting and practice income: how each is taxed, in plain words.
In preparation
Insurance for doctors
Health, term and professional indemnity cover: what each does and what to read before you sign.
In preparation
Investing from first principles
Risk, return, costs and time, explained without products or predictions.
The glossary
The words in payslips, loan letters and fund documents, explained plainly.
- Runway
- How long your savings would cover your essential costs if your income stopped. We think it is one of the most useful measures of financial freedom: it is the time you could take to choose, rest or change course.
- Real return
- The growth of an investment after inflation: how much more it can actually buy. Our calculators use real returns, so every result is in today’s rupees.
- Expense ratio
- The yearly fee a fund charges, taken from the fund’s value as a percentage of your money. Small differences compound into large ones over decades, so it is worth checking.
- Moratorium
- A period, common in education loans, when repayments have not yet begun. Interest usually still accrues; whether you pay it as you go or it is added to the loan changes the total cost.
- Term insurance
- Life insurance that pays a sum only if you die during the policy term, with no savings or investment element. It protects people who depend on your income, usually at a far lower cost than policies that mix insurance with investment.
- Break-even
- The volume of work at which a practice’s income covers all its costs. Below it you lose money; above it you begin to earn a return on your time and capital.
Our standards
How we handle money
RICH DOCTOR is a publication, not a financial adviser. These rules apply to everything on this desk.
- 1
Every number has a provenance
Each figure we publish states its source, the place it applies to and the year, with the method where it matters. If we cannot say where a number comes from, we do not use it.
- 2
No tips, no picks
We never recommend a specific share, fund, policy or lender, and we never promise returns. We explain how things work so you can judge them.
- 3
No commissions on money products
We take no affiliate fees or referral payments for investments, trading apps, insurance or loans. Partner content elsewhere on the site is always labelled.
- 4
Examples are labelled as examples
Worked examples use hypothetical numbers and say so. Calculators show their assumptions, and their results are illustrations, not forecasts.
- 5
Wealth is freedom
We measure money by the options it buys: time, choices, security, the ability to say no. We do not celebrate status spending, and we never shame anyone for where they are starting from.
Looking for personal advice? Use a SEBI-registered investment adviser, and check the registration first. SEBI press release: deal only with registered investment advisers
The Handover
Money, decoded, every Sunday.
One considered letter a week. Money pieces that explain rather than sell, alongside the rest of a richer life in medicine.