FI-iku: Financial Independence Haiku

crispydocUncategorized 10 Comments

Financial Independence involves striking a balance between minimalism and enough. What better medium to represent this balance in verse than through Financial Independence haiku, or FI-iku? Heart in hand and tongue in cheek, a ragtag band of personal finance bloggers convened to distill our words to their fundamental essence. Here’s what happened when geeky met artsy. After FI I Still …

Have You Completed Your AME (Anecdotal Medical Education) Requirements?

crispydocUncategorized 8 Comments

As a reformed academic, I still have moments of unrequited yearning to teach the young (defined as my age minus ten years). While I enjoy sharing interesting x-rays or clinical findings with our techs, nurses, and the docs I work with, my favorite teachable moments fall under the category of Anecdotal Medical Education (AME). Most of us working in the …

What Does The Zen Master Say About Market Timing?

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Lately there’s a lot of talk among newbies on the Physicians On Fire facebook group about how they are tempted to practice market timing: hold onto their cash and strategically wait for a market downturn to invest on the dip. Given the famously poor relationship we docs have with our money, it’s evocative of the famous quote attributed to investor …

Not Your Typical Warren Buffett Article

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David Sedaris once wrote a piece about walking into a curio shop and seeing a large bowl filled with prosthetic glass eyes. He reaches into the bowl, grabs an eye and holds it up to his own. Then he sees a sign stating, “Please do not hold glass eye up to your own to pretend it is yours as the …

That’s Not A Health Plan. That’s Wishful Thinking.

crispydocUncategorized 6 Comments

  I love that the FIRE blogging community makes our health a priority. It’s clear that taking responsibility for your finances goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for your physical well being. I take voyeuristic pleasure in reading prominent bloggers’ accounts of milestone physical achievements, and share their vulnerability when they confess their dietary indiscretions to a readership that …

If I Had To Do It Over Again, I’d Buy Less House

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When I moved from Boston to LA in 2005, everything was coming up roses. I was dating a woman whose presence had suddenly transformed my life from black and white to color, and we were moving in together (spoiler alert: I married her). I’d found us an apartment that was a nine block walk to the beach. I’d landed a …

Deprivation Vs. Discipline

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<![CDATA[ The Happy Philosopher, a radiologist whose thoughts on life routinely serve as inspiration for his readers and fellow bloggers alike, began an interesting experiment at the start of this year. He initially made a public declaration that he’d buy no clothes for the year. Reconsidering it a few days later, he grew more ambitious and decided that (excluding a …