How much money do you earn? And how do you spend it?

[notayoba]

You do realise a Dr, like most other professionals, sells their time - and there is a limited amount of it they can sell, and there is a hard limit on how much they can charge for that time….

Yes, that's how they make a living. Not sure what your point is.

have you actually run a succesful start up business before?

Yes

 

[Speedster]

The entitlement here is crazy. A doctor who says they're unemployed is a doctor who is lazy. The problem is they walk out of varsity into a guaranteed job paying up to R100k pm for 3 years, and then expect that to just continue. Some (most) doctors are able to kick on from there and earn substantially more. Some stay on in public service for the love of the people / medicine (and the security). Some start a small practice and get by like any other proffesional. Some complain that they are unemployed.

 

[notayoba]

The entitlement here is crazy. A doctor who says they're unemployed is a doctor who is lazy. The problem is they walk out of varsity into a guaranteed job paying up to R100k pm for 3 years, and then expect that to just continue. Some (most) doctors are able to kick on from there and earn substantially more. Some stay on in public service for the love of the people / medicine (and the security). Some start a small practice and get by like any other professional. Some complain that they are unemployed.

Exactly. I can't fathom how a doctor finds himself unemployed.

The demand is massive and the supply limited.

Many want full payment up front, and the patient claims from medical aid after the fact. It takes many day to weeks to get a booking. At +- R750 per 15 minute consultation it leaves a lot of meat on the bone for your rooms/insurance/staff salaries.

I even have a doctor here that doesn't have rooms, that brings his costs down. He only does house visits and WhatsApp consults. Fully booked.

 

[Juanado]

Exactly. I can't fathom how a doctor finds himself unemployed.

The demand is massive and the supply limited.

Many want full payment up front, and the patient claims from medical aid after the fact. It takes many day to weeks to get a booking. At +- R750 per 15 minute consultation it leaves a lot of meat on the bone for your rooms/insurance/staff salaries.

I even have a doctor here that doesn't have rooms, that brings his costs down. He only does house visits and WhatsApp consults. Fully booked.

I don’t think you understand. Some doctors want to specialise and there are no medical officer or registrar posts available. So their choice is either don’t specialise and become a GP or wait for a post in the public sector which allows them to specialise and pick up locum work until then.

 

[Speedster]

I don’t think you understand. Some doctors want to specialise and there are no medical officer or registrar posts available. So their choice is either don’t specialise and become a GP or wait for a post in the public sector which allows them to specialise and pick up locum work until then.

Well, that's exactly the point as they wouldn't be unemployed then while locuming

 

[Tomtomtom]

I don’t think you understand. Some doctors want to specialise and there are no medical officer or registrar posts available. So their choice is either don’t specialise and become a GP or wait for a post in the public sector which allows them to specialise and pick up locum work until then.

This is the right answer. There's always demand for GPs but not all doctors want to be generalists. And en route to specialisation there's gatekeeping as well as legitimate scarcity of posts that leaves us with the ridiculous situation of highly-qualified people with rare skills nevertheless out of work for a time.

They get the last laugh though playing the long game.

And to get back on topic here OP is doing the right thing saving 50% of his disposable income in liquid savings anticipating the need for some runway.