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We recently hosted a friend of decades who had a fly-by-night trip through town. We collect weird friends like elderly mid-western matrons collect Hummel Figurines. We regard this label as high praise. One of the blessings of time is a loss of inhibition. This can be awkward, as in the dementia patient who grabs at anatomy he or she should …
Middle age shifts your perspective and broadens your frame of reference. Time has helped me accumulate multiple examples that demonstrate the evolution of both aspirations and exasperations. Then: Stasis is death. Seek novelty in every experience. Always keep moving. Now: Repetition creates opportunity for eventual mastery. Ritual lends comfort. Routine is a blessing. Roots form only when a seed stays …
I recently listened to the always engaging Jonathan Clements being interviewed on the White Coat Investor podcast, during which he explained a neologism I’d not heard before to refer to a type of rookie mistake I recognized for having committed it: naive diversification. As a quick review, diversification is a means of reducing portfolio risk. I own exclusively Apple stock …
I recently got a hot tip from a friend I trust and respect. Gasem mentioned that he’d enrolled in an online video course on creating a Financial Independence spreadsheet taught by blogger and math whiz Actuary on Fire (henceforth “AoF,” which I imagine to be the sound of a sucker punch to your cerebral cortex). He’d found it to be …
If you’ve read this or any other physician finance blog, odds are you’ve encountered Gasem. He is a retired anesthesiologist, a prolific writer with guest posts spanning the blogosphere, and his ubiquity and depth as a commentator has few rivals. Gasem now has his own blog at MD on FI/RE, where this piece was originally published, but he kindly permitted …
Memorial Day weekend means many things to me. It’s a chance to remember and honor men and women who gave their lives to protect our freedoms. It’s a chance to gather with family. It’s the unofficial start of summer and winding down of the school year. It’s also the weekend when many towns plan their most popular local events. My …
As an ER doc, my first perception of any large financial decision is, “How many shifts will this cost me?” I have an idea of my average income per shift, and it helps me to reconcile major expenses or splurges by deciding whether it’s worth working those extra shifts. There’s an important caveat in how to frame any added shifts, …
Like a lot of overachievers who end up pursuing medicine, I entered college with a great deal of credit from a combination of Advanced Placement tests and courses taken for credit in night school at my local community college. Thanks to classes in physics, French and philosophy taken as a high school senior, I was exempted from a slew of …
I’ve been remiss in doing some basic housekeeping – I compiled a comprehensive financial checklist plucked a variety of sources, and ran through the checklist mentally, but it’s high time I take a deep dive and examine each of the items on that checklist. First item on my list: my disability insurance policy. I pay my premium annually, and I …
For the past several years, sea kayaking along the California coast has been my workout of choice. A precarious goat trail brought me down the face of a 300 foot cliff to a rock-strewn beach during my weekdays off, where as often as not I’d greet a couple of 50- and 60-something surfers I was friendly with who shared my …