I have a close friend, someone I’ve known 32 years and counting, who is astute and insightful and easily fulfills all those prerequisites for managing his own personal finances. Add to this his MBA from a top 3 business school, and basically there’s no excuse for his not taking on this responsibility. Let’s call him my friend on the fence …
Once you go iphone, can you go back?
I have an embarrassing confession to make. Despite my otherwise frugal instincts, I’m a sucker for a well-designed Apple product. My brother-in-law, a conscientious consumer, reminds me that the equivalent PC or Android product offers far more flexibility and bang for my buck, but I see a sleek aluminum case and my rational mind turns to mush. The prospect of …
Don’t Lose Sight of the Small Victories
Heading into a recent Monday overnight shift, I was greeted by a six rig salute (six ambulances parked fender to fender in the ED drop-off lot). As is my custom, I bounded down the staircase from the physician parking lot taking two steps at a time. I was psyching myself up for what was sure to be a whopper of …
Obituary
A recent debate held simultaneously on the WCI forum and PoF blog touched on whether physicians owe a long career in practice as part of a greater debt to society. As a doc pursuing FI/RE, here’s my contribution to the discussion: When my then girlfriend (now wife) and I moved from the northeast to southern California, we rented an apartment …
Determining Risk Tolerance
One of the challenges for a new investor is determining your risk tolerance, which is how aggressively to invest your savings. There are several considerations to factor into determining how much volatility you can handle – in this case volatility means what percent of stocks (vs. bonds) you feel comfortable owning in your asset allocation. 80/20 would be considered aggressive …
The Less I Do, The Wealthier I Become
One of my favorite attendings in residency used to quip: “Don’t just do something, stand there!” This was said in the Emergency Department at UCLA, not exactly known as a place of passive observation in the face of chaos, but the underlying Hippocratic rationale was solid: unless your intervention is likely to help the patient, first do no harm. Strangely, …
Exciting Times For An Underdog Blog!
Please check out my new article on Student Doctor Network, part one in a series on financial literacy for the newly minted physician! With apologies to my specialty’s journal, Annals of Emergency Medicine, whose format I’ve adopted, the following is an abstract and editor’s capsule summary to whet your appetite for the full article. ABSTRACT: Objective: An elder with credibility …
My Top Money Mistakes As A New Attending
“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention…” These famous lyrics from Frank Sinatra’s My Way unfortunately remind me that my financial decisions during my first decade earning an attending’s salary were chock full of regrets. I did it my way, and I paid dearly. With the sincere hope that you avoid these same pitfalls, following …
The Bank of Mom and Dad
Inspired by this post from Mr. Money Mustache, the wife and I sat down to figure out how we could teach our children about money. At ages 7 and 9, we wanted to encourage saving and investing over consumerism and profligate spending. Over a series of sit down discussions with the kids, we were able to cover some basics and …
What Uber Can Teach You About Investing
Uber, the ride-sharing colossus, was recently highlighted in a New York Times article that left them looking like a diabolical Bond villain. Whether you regard Uber as a brilliant tech disrupter of the complacent taxi monopoly or an opportunistic lord abusing a new class of serfs, the provocatively titled article, “How Uber Uses Psychological Tricks to Push Its’ Drivers’ Buttons,” …