<prompt> Human: Im a 30M who just completed residency in a lucrative medical sub-specialty. I am tremendously fortunate and grateful for all the factors leading up to my success. This post is not about that, however - I am here for financial advice. I started working full time a few months ago. The numbers: My salary is 436kyear. As a recent medical resident earning 50kyear, the new salary is completely overwhelming. I am single with no children and have low fixed expenses. I have approximately 245k in consolidated student loan debt at 7.0 interest. I have about 6k in credit card debt and owe another 15k to family. I rent a cheap apartment for 1000mo and own an older vehicle, KBB 9k. Im not entirely financially illiterate but finance has not been a focus in my life... After reading the various sidebar posts I know I should pay down all my debt ASAP, max out my retirement contributions, and generally put away as much money as possible, etc. Does anyone have any pointers for wise investing? Im looking for safe options for responsible, long-term financial security. Thank you all in advance. Assistant: head over to whitecoatinvester lots of useful info slanted at docs in particular. youll get a big dose of get disability insurance stat! live like a resident for a year or two and pay off them loans. dont buy the new house, or the new car right away. lots of practical information here, but to temper it all--- you need to decide what your goal is going to be. is it live the high life now? be financially independent by the time youre 65? save like a fiend to retire by age 40? all those have tradeoffs but you need to decide what it is you want : Human: Looks like a great site, thanks for the link. Ive got some reading and thinking to do. Do you know anything about hiring accountants or personal finance advisors? I have heard that Vanguard and Schwab offer relatively low cost options who are hopefully? less likely to screw me over. Assistant: Not the parent, but:1 You do not need a financial advisor. If you get one, you need to confirm that they are fee only and not incentivized sell you bad financial products. These are difficult to find. The reason you probably dont need one is: by the time you understand finances well enough to know if you can trust a financial advisor, youll understand it well enough to do it yourself.2 Buy a copy of the White Coat Investor book. Its easier to read than the website, very short, very high-yield.Human: That makes sense, I have probably a couple years of loan payments to figure this stuff out. Thanks! Literally just bought it.  <response>: I concur about paying off the debts sooner rather than later. 7 is relatively high. A limited amount of debt at say, 3 might actually worth keeping for someone like you - because its pretty easy to get, say, a 4 return from a financial instrument. I also am the sort to buck the trend and suggest that for someone like you the right financial adviser can be useful. Be aware that many financial advisers specialize more in landing clients and then parking them in mutual or index funds or even annuities, occasionally and then trying to land the next client, rather than providing ongoing services. While this is certainly better than leaving your funds in the bank, it probably isnt what you need.Because of your high disposable income and young age you have, depending on your personality, a high risk tolerance. You will soon be a high net worth investor. You need the sort of financial adviser who specializes in actually building a portfolio and using it to generate income over time. And, yes, you can do this yourself. Youre smart enough; it isnt rocket science, and theres often a fair amount of guesswork. However, doing this sort of thing requires both learning how to do it, and then a pretty consistent dedication of time. You have to pay attention to your money. Thats why I hire people. 