Financial advisors?

My advice would be to wait a year. Make sure you have plenty of term life and disability insurance (NW mutual is a good company for physicians). Try to keep living expenses the same your first year, and build up a nice nestegg. Open an IRA through Vanguard.

I made the mistake of opening an IRA through the NW mutual guy. Good for insurance, but basically Edward Jones quality for financial planning. He suggested whole life, and I ran.

The most important decision will be your first job contract. Make sure to get any promises of partnership buy-in and days on call in writing. I was verbally told about the call schedule for my first job, but did not get it in writing. Big mistake.

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I have a financial advisor hounding around quite aggressively

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If you do need a financial advisor then you should probably pick somebody else, ask around for someone that has proven themselves in the long run. Shortly after college I had a financial advisor that was mostly interested in putting me into high commission funds. My in-laws had a financial advisor take off with a good chunk of their money so be careful. I've managed my own finances for the last couple of decades but I enjoy doing it.

Are you going to be in the Louisiana area or staying in WV?

The person we use is a finical planner who caters only to MDs in South LA. He is excellent. He manages a fair about amount of MDs in BR. He comes to our house at our convenience and is low key or aggressive as you want him to be.

FWIW I used the first year out to just get my feet underneath me, track our income and spending habits, then started looking to investments/planners

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you should consult with a CPA and/or attorney with respect to the advice you are getting from financial advisors.

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Actually you should consult a CPA about tax issues, not financial planning matters. I am routinely surprised at how little CPA's know in regards to anything related to investments. For a comprehensive financial review you should work only with a Certified Financial Planner. If your advisor only holds a series 7 or some worthless designation then you should drop them immediately because he probably lacks the skill set you need for true advice.

No joke, CPA's are often in the dark. Especially when it comes to tax planning using qualified plans. They are often leaving a lot of deductions on the table because they just don't know about them.

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I am confused as to how anyone could possibly develop a comprehensive financial plan without considering income and gift and estate taxes. Since those tax issues are an integral part of the plan how can you exclude the CPA from the process? Or do you feel you are competent enough in tax matters to deal with those issues?

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The odd thing is that alot of FA's don't really want to include the CPA or attorney because they might shitcan their chance to sell some insurance. 9 out of 10 times the comprehensive plan will say they need more insurance and that the client should establish an ILIT. However, the CPA often times will suggest using other methods such as FLP's as well as other things.

I'd also stay away from an advisor that is too aggressive. If he is good enough and established enough, business will find him. He shouldn't have to be out hounding potential clients if he is as good as he says he is.

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Would you guys/girls advise getting involved with someone like this? Is it worth the money? Or should I stay conservative until my debts are done and kid is a stable situation?

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Don't trust financial planners that hound you. Don't trust accountants to give you investment advice. Don't trust investment managers to consider your tax implications.

Trust me when I say this, you do not need to reach on "other financial ventures" as you say to get significant returns. Dividend paying value stocks, core fixed income, EM fixed income, and long duration fixed income for the carry (yield) advantage will probably yield you better results over the long run than any sort of high beta equity investment.

Think of this example that most people don't realize. If you have a security with a 6% return followed by a 4% loss, it will be worth more than a security with a 60% return and a 40% loss. Investment returns over the next 20 years will be lower than the past 20 years on an aggregate basis. My best advice is to go in 3-4 diversified 40 act mutual funds, diversified across dividend paying equities, emerging market bonds, and core fixed income. The market is EXTREMELY complicated right now, and if you're just looking to just dabble in stock picking you are lamb for the slaughter. It would be like me saying I just want to dabble in heart surgery in my free time, it just doesn't work like that. Vanguard and Fidelity have some good low-fee funds that retail investors can get exposure to. Then just sit back and enjoy your returns and easy sleep.

Keep enough liquidity to handle your needs. I would recommend some sort of CDs, but short-term rates are going to get driven down even more over the next year or two. You're going to see massive amounts of bank capital having to find a home soon due to decreased commercial paper supply, negative real rates (and negative to zero nominal rates in Europe), and a decreasing "preferred habitat" for short-term investing. Hopefully this is somewhat helpful for you, good luck.

It's still affected by both, depending on your asset class.