When I was a young lad, just heading off to college, I had no debt. I had no credit cards. My family didn’t use debt for purchases other than buying our house. I really didn’t have any knowledge about how to best use debt. My student loan package included a scholarship, a work-study program and $1,500 a year in student loans. I earned about $4,000 each summer working in the …
The story of how this physician got into debt
So a new year is upon us! 2017 was a fantastic year for investors in general, so I hope it was a prosperous one for you. I believe that 2018 will be a great year as well and filled with multiple opportunities for everyone. A quick wish: May your 2018 be filled with much joy, great health, and hefty growth of your passive income streams.
Now back to the post – One …
18 ways for physicians to invest $25,000
Pamela Wible: Today I’m sitting here with Sydney Ashland, an expert in physician mental health, who has worked with doctors for decades helping them overcome negative thinking patterns. And we’re going to dive into the top 10 lies that physician’s tell themselves. The number one thing that I hear over and over again from doctors is, “I’m stuck in assembly line medicine.”
Sydney Ashland: Yes. I …
Top 10 lies doctors tell themselves
I was browsing the Bogleheads forum last night, and my eyes naturally gravitated to the thread titled “What is FI if you love your job?”
The short answer is that FI is financial independence. Nothing more, nothing less, and it doesn’t look any different if you love, hate, or feel indifferent towards your job.
The long answer, after learning that the man asking the question is about ten …
5 reasons to keep working after financial independence
Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 late last year. Americans and corporations are feverishly reading news summaries of the bill, trying to figure out how the new bill will affect their taxes.
In this post, I will summarize the major provisions of the bills as they apply to medical residents and fellows. I’ll then go through three case scenarios to see how the tax bill might …
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: What does it mean for medical residents?
Recently, we learned how lifestyle inflation can be toxic. In case you’re wondering, there is a time and place to inflate your lifestyle. However, you can’t just do it whenever you want. You have to earn it. Here’s how it works.
The basics
If your goal is financial independence, I recommend that you live on half your income and save the rest.
This means that if you’re making around $50,000 per year, …
Earn the right to inflate your lifestyle
I am continually running into people who are confused as to what constitutes debt when we are doing a makeover with their spending plans. Wikipedia defines debt as money owed by one party, the borrower or debtor, to a second party, the lender or creditor.
I have clients who list out their accounts payable as personal debt. For example, they see the dentist, and he is going to send a $200 …
Physicians need a new attitude towards debt
What are the most important things we can teach our kids? These days there are a lot of possible answers. Obviously, STEM skills (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) often lead to lucrative, stable careers; they seem to be tickets to “the good life,” or so we’re taught. Languages are helpful. You can’t go wrong with basic computer programming skills.
But in a world where people seem increasingly unkind, dishonest, greedy, violent and …
The critical importance of wisdom
When doing scientific research, we expect to fail. In fact, we write the likelihood of negative findings into our protocols and plans. We expect things to not always work as we think they might, and we accept that we may not prove what we set out to prove.
In the scientific community, we depend on complete transparency when we fail. We depend on it to advance science, to help people, and …
We need to embrace our failures
At first, it may seem strange that “physician” and “side gig” are even used in the same sentence. After all, the average physician in the United States is already working more than a 40 hour work week and struggling with issues related to work-life balance. As someone who talks about physician burnout and as the founder of the Physician Side Gigs Facebook group, I’ve been asked many times how adding …
Never was I used to having money to invest; it seemed like I always found a way to make income equal expenses. Such was the life of the young, naive 20-something-year-old who had no idea how to build assets.
Going into my 30s, I began to read more, study more, and inquire more when it came to finances. This led me to finally figure out what this investing thing was all …
This physician’s keys to financial freedom
The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is controversial, to say the least. However you feel about it though, the fact is it’s here to stay, affecting everyone by 2018.
However, in looking at our own situation as a two physician couple (purely from the medical income standpoint), at first glance, it seems as though our taxes would actually go up. In addition, if it’s going up for us, it surely …
How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects this two-physician couple
When I described my drawdown strategy in early retirement, I stated we will “sell from the taxable account first.” I also plan to collect quarterly dividends from my index funds, but if Vanguard were Burger King and I could have it my way, I’d hold the dividends and take bites out of my account only as needed.
When I discuss the downsides of dividends, note that I …
A physician’s love-hate relationship with dividends. And what he does about it.
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When you browse finance-related websites, it doesn’t take long for you to see ads that claim that they can help you make money, fast.
“I’VE BEEN ABLE TO WIN ON 90% OF MY TRADES WITH THIS PROVEN STRATEGY.” – TYPICAL AD #1
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Why published trading strategies rarely work
Personal finance isn’t complicated. In fact, if you do just six things right, you will become financially successful. Let’s keep it simple and get started.
1. Earn a decent income. If you don’t make any money, you will never get ahead financially. Forget about winning the lottery, getting an inheritance, or expecting the government to subsidize your lifestyle. The only way to build wealth is to work.
Jobs with a decent income include computer …
I walked in the other day, and my colleagues were shooting the breeze. They were both staring at the computer and were online looking at watches. Seemed harmless enough. So I sat down and asked them how much the watch cost?
They said $7,000! I almost spit out my coffee. $7K! Seven grand! That’s an expensive watch. That’s how much my 2011 Nissan Altima is worth.
“That much for a watch?” I asked. …
How much will an expensive watch really cost you in the future?
Congress has passed the new tax bill. This was certainly not tax reform as has been discussed, but simply a rearrangement of how they calculate our taxes. This new plan lowers tax rates but eliminates many of the items that were previously deductible. Sort of like rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic as it slowly sinks. Real tax reform might have made things so much simpler that the IRS …
What the new tax plan means for physicians
2017 has been the year of the cryptocurrency. Of course, the most famous is Bitcoin. It’s been all over the news recently, largely because its value has skyrocketed in a very short time. Since the focus of this blog has a lot to do with investing, particularly in alternative investments, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least touch on the subject.
Now, making money from currency exchanges is nothing new. …
What physicians should know about Bitcoin but were afraid to ask
My goal with this post is to try to answer some of the more popular questions that we get asked about multi-level marketing (MLM). Why write about it? Besides the fact that my wife and I are involved in one, and it’s made a significant impact on our income, the number of physicians getting involved these days is huge.
My goal is not for everyone to go out and …
Why are so many doctors doing multi-level marketing?
In January of this year, I wrote one of my favorite posts after helping a retired couple free themselves from their financial advisor, greatly simplify their portfolio, and saving them more than $20,000 per year in the process.
For details, please read “From 28 Funds to 3,” then return here for a follow-up. In summary, the couple previously owned 28 funds (with 48 positions between three accounts). The …
A physician helps a retired couple rebalance their portfolio. Here’s what he did.
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