Go from burnt out to FIREd up.
As part of the process of losing a loved one, I’ve made myself available to help a widow get through the tedious and at times overwhelming process of dotting i’s and crossing t’s in ensuring the timely legal transfer of assets into her name. During this process, we had occasion to discuss finances in a fleeting fashion. She and her …
My eight year old son and I were lounging on the sofa with a few minutes to spare before piano lessons commenced. Sun was streaming through windows overlooking the Pacific, warming the exposed bare skin on our arms. We were at opposite ends of the sofa, playing that game where we plant the soles of our bare feet against one …
I’ve never been a manly man – I’m the Michael Cera of physician finance bloggers. I sang a capella and participated in the annual high school musical. I never cared for ESPN, and my final year playing in a league was as a t-ball player. If I go a week without shaving, I resemble the Latvian exchange student who probably …
Dr. Jim Dahle (aka, the White Coat Investor) authored a famous 2014 post describing 150 Portfolios Better Than Yours. While an impressive feat, this is not terribly helpful to the newbie physician investor who just doesn’t want to screw things up while she figures things out. Social science and economics research have demonstrated that too many choices can increase anxiety, …
Assuming control of your financial life involves scrutinizing multiple aspects of your income stream(s), accounting for assets and liabilities, and establishing a timeline for achieving specific financial milestones . The Financial To Do List I’ve assembled is a checklist that you can run through as superficially or carefully as you see fit. I thought applying it to my own situation …
This morning I read a book review in the New Yorker exploring the inherent tensions in raising a child prodigy: you want your special snowflake to make the most of their potential without spending so much time in competitive mode that their childhood is defined exclusively as a long and dreadful slog toward adulthood. Every elementary school classroom has at …
Starting in middle school, my friends decorated their bedroom walls with posters of sports cars whose names, to my virgin ears, suggested high end Italian prostitutes. Lamborghini Countach might wear something gauzy and translucent as she lured me into her softly lit Tuscan den of iniquity, while Ferrari Testarossa would teach me moves that were surely illegal in the U.S. …
I come from a proud line of Costco shoppers. My father knows most of the cashiers at his local warehouse by first name. When I accompany him there during visits home, he claps backs and greets the staff like a Tammany Hall mayor, all the while whispering conspiratorially to me, “She recently split up with her baby-daddy,” or “Next week …
Just like your financial portfolio, once a year it’s worth sitting down with your priorities to ensure that those areas where you’ve made satisfying gains have not inadvertently created blind spots of neglected priorities. This was underscored by a funeral a couple of days ago – a family member I loved died after a long hospitalization. Weirdly enough, his eulogy …
Dr. Jim Dahle, a.k.a. the White Coat Investor, is the hardest working and most entrepreneurial physician finance blogger in the space, and he’s developed an online course to spoon feed the financial GOMERs among us. As far as I’m concerned, every bit of help that weans us off the teat of Big Advisor is a welcome addition to old fashioned …