Investing Archives - Physician on FIRE

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The 10 Worst Places To Get Investing Advice

Paris Church

Investing advice is not difficult to come by. It’s everywhere. Sound investment advice? Now, that can be a little more difficult to come by, but it you know where to look (and The White Coat Investor shares some ideas below), it’s out there. The difficult part, particularly for those who are new to investing or have always let someone else manage their money, is differentiating the good from the bad. One criterion you may use is where the advice is coming from. If you’re getting it from any of the following sources, be sure to apply extra scrutiny when analyzing […]

The Basics of Angel Investing

I like investing in index funds. They give me great diversification, market returns, and don’t cost much. It’s a lot easier to buy all the stocks with one click than it is to research individual stocks, decide which to buy, when to buy, and whether or not or when to sell. Some people prefer the latter because they find it fun. Or they want to hit a home run. And I have no problem with that. The only publicly traded individual stock I’ve invested in is Berkshire Hathaway, but I do have a little “play money” that I’ve used to […]

Is it Time to Take Some Money Off the Table?

Angels Landing Summit

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to lock in your “winnings,” particularly at the end of a long bull market? You know, take some money off the table? The problem is… what do you do with the money then? Hold cash? Invest in fixed income? For how long? When do you put it back on the table? If you’ve done well with a particularly risky investment, it might make sense to take the money and run. Think Bitcoin in December of 2017 when it was worth nearly $20,000 a coin as opposed to less than $4,500 today. On the […]

WCI’s Fire Your Financial Advisor Course in Action: A Couple Creates Their Financial Plan

Earlier in 2018, the White Coat Investor debuted his first online course, the provocatively titled Fire Your Financial Advisor. The course may not have won him many friends in the financial services industry, but it has given him hundreds of happy course graduates who now feel empowered to create their own comprehensive financial plan and manage their own investments. I considered completing the course myself and writing a review of my own, but I know I’m not the target audience. I’ve never had a financial advisor to fire and I’ve been managing my own investments for years. I did, however, watch […]

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Should You Track Your Net Worth?

Well, should you? I first calculated our household net worth a few years after residency. Although much of our net worth was in our home at the time (which in 2009 was worth a lot less than we had into it), and the investments we made starting in 2006 had tanked, we were still in the black with a low six-figure number. I remember a few years later when we joined the “two comma club,” and could officially call ourselves millionaires. The next major milestone occurred a few years ago when I realized that our net worth included retirement savings […]

The Marginal Value of the Backdoor Roth. Is it Worth the Trouble?

Do you earn too much to contribute directly to a Roth IRA? Well then, you, my friend, must use the backdoor. And I say “must” not because it’s your only option to legally contribute to a Roth IRA, but also because you would be a damned fool to leave all that juicy Roth money on the table. Right? You’re not going to tiptoe around those $100 bills lying all over the place, are you? Are you?!? That’s the impression I get when I read thread after thread in the forums and facebook groups including my Physicians on FIRE and fatFIRE groups, […]

Ether to FI: Don’t Call it Retirement (and a Net Worth Update)

ETF Hiking Views

What will you be up to in sixteen years? I don’t pretend to know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing, but our friend Ether to FI, who is in his second year now as an attending anesthesiologist, has some more concrete ideas. If you recall, he started writing for us a year ago and stated his goal of achieving a net worth of $3.3 Million in ten years, or enough to live on $100,000 a year with a low safe withdrawal rate of about 3%. He’s made tremendous progress in his first full year as a physician anesthesiologist […]

2018 Q3 PoF Portfolio, Spending, and Blog Performance Update

With another quarter in the books, it’s time for a quarterly update on my investment portfolio, family spending, and blog stats. It’s the 11th quarter since I started this website, and I’m within 11 months of wrapping up what I believe will be my last “permanent” position in anesthesia. It was also the last quarter of part-time work before returning to full-time anesthesia for the rest of the year. With one of my colleagues departing for a military obligation, I agreed to step up my hours. After learning that he won’t be returning to us, we’re looking at bringing in […]

Four Ways to Boost Investment Returns Without Additional Risk

sex in the city slot machine

In general, it can be difficult to improve your potential investment returns without taking on more risk. However, that depends a lot on your starting position. Is your portfolio situated along the efficient frontier? Are you taking uncompensated risk? Have you done all you can to minimize your investment fees and taxes? There may be steps you can take to improve your returns without putting your money at further risk, and Dr. Jim Dahle outlines four easy ways in which to do so below. As always, this post originally appeared on The White Coat Investor. Four Ways to Boost […]

Retire Early with Real Estate & Real Estate Start School

Today, I’m excited to share with you two great resources from one sharp guy who attained early financial independence via real estate investing. Chad “Coach” Carson is a family man in his late thirties who has figured out what matters most in his life. It’s not having the most “doors” in his real estate profile or continually trading up to bigger and better properties with an insatiable appetite. Given his experience and business acumen, I imagine Chad could scale up to owning hundreds of properties if that’s what he wanted. Instead, he’s found a comfortable spot where his properties (currently […]

18 Ways to Invest $25,000

Klondike Experience

With four months and change to go in the year, there’s still plenty of time to deploy some funds and invest in your future in 2018. Today’s post, a Saturday Selection from Passive Income MD, was originally published early in the year as we were making our New Year Resolutions. Most of those were broken 7 months ago, but if investing a pile of cash was on that list, PIMD has some interesting ideas below. Personally, I’ve been hoarding cash in preparation for building a home on the lake, so I haven’t invested nearly as much as I normally do, […]

Adulting & Investing: How To Become An Adult Investor

Adulting

You’ve heard of “adulting,” right? If not, it’s essentially the verbification of a noun that represents growing up and behaving less like a dependent child and more like a responsible adult. Learning to cook your own meals? That’s adulting. Shopping for your own groceries with money you earned all by your big boy self? Also adulting. Covering your own health insurance, auto insurance, and cell phone bill? Adulting, adulting, adulting. Some people are essentially adulting before they finish high school. Others don’t cut the tether until they’re well into their twenties. But most of us get there in some way, […]

How I Convinced My Wife to “Budget Party” With Me

budget party

I was listening to a ChooseFI podcast with Andy Hill, a young family man I met at FinCon17 who happens to have his own site and podcast titled Marriage Kids and Money. Andy was articulate (he’d better be — he is a podcaster, after all) and he also had a great grasp of family finances. In the conversation, he mentioned the concept of a “budget party” that he and his wife had made a regular habit. I had heard of the monthly budget meeting before. My wife and I have never held a monthly budget meeting because it sounds so […]

Your Money or Your Life? Both, Please.

YMOYL Review

The 1992 book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez (a.k.a. YMOYL) is considered by many in the financial independence space to be one of the most influential bodies of work in this realm. Joe at Retire by 40 reviewed the book back in 2011. Mr. Money Mustache wrote about the book in 2012. More recently in 2016, Coach Carson shared his thoughts on the pivotal paperback. I knew it was a book I would likely enjoy reading, but I wasn’t all that interested in reading a book published 20 years ago. A lot has changed […]

Is Having a Mortgage a Great Way to Force Savings?

mortgage forced savings

Today, Passive Income MD looks at a mortgage and how it forces one to “save money” by paying down the principal on real property, building equity. Is that one of the key advantages to holding a mortgage? PIMD will go into detail below, but when I hear the term “forced savings,” I am reminded of one of the arguments in favor of cash value life insurance, often purported by those who profit from selling such policies. A mortgage, of course, is very different from an insurance policy, and is actually a good and necessary product for many people. I no […]

Track Your Financial Goals with Four Key Measurements

Today’s Saturday Selection from The White Coat Investor gives you four key benchmarks to track while working to achieve your financial goals. Whether you’re trying to get out debt, save up for a big purchase like a trip, house, or boat, or achieve financial independence, tracking these four key measurements will help you achieve those goals. We wish you success in achieving whatever goals you’ve set! As always, this article originally appeared on The White Coat Investor. Question: I am an emergency physician who recently completed residency. How can I make sure I am as successful in my finances as […]

My First Bear Market

FIrst Bear Market

Today, we have an insightful guest post from a frequent contributor here on both physicianonfire.com and on the White Coat Investor Forum. You may recognize him as Vagabond MD, a radiologist who recently appeared on the WCI Podcast. He writes about his first bear market, which occurred just after the turn of the millennium. At the time, I was a medical student and was minimally invested in an IRA and not paying a whole lot of attention, and certainly not adding to my investments. I was only adding to my student loan balances. However, I did finish my training in […]

The Ten Commandments of the White Coat Investor

WCI-Banner

Do you want to reach financial independence? Of course you do. Do you want to get there in a reasonable amount of time? I’ll take it that’s a yes. Back in 2012, Dr. Jim Dahle of The White Coat Investor wrote the Ten Commandments you should be willing to follow. More recently, in late 2017, Ether to FI shared with us his report card as it relates to these directives. How did he do? Check out Ether to FI: Obeying WCI’s Ten Commandments & Net Worth Update. Today, I’m happy to bring you the original commandments, complete with explanations and […]

Investing Basics for Physicians With Little Time or Experience, Part II

In Part I, we explored the various types of common retirement and investment accounts, including workplace retirement plans, self-employed retirement plans, and the taxable brokerage account. Today, in Part II, we will explore how to choose funds to occupy those accounts, touching on fees, asset allocation, and asset location (yes, those are two different things), and we’ll touch on real estate. Entire books are written on these topics, so if you’re looking for a deeper dive into some of these topics, please see my recommended book list. This is meant to be a brief overview for the busy professional who […]

Should You Consider Your Primary Home a Part of Your Net Worth?

Home Net Worth

Today, in the Saturday Selection, Passive Income MD ponders whether or not a home is a good investment, and whether or not you should count it as a part of your net worth. Note that these are two distinct questions, and the answer may not be the same for both of them. And the answer or answers may depend on the experiences you’ve had as a homeowner. Personally, I don’t think of my primary home (or second home) as an investment in the traditional sense, but I do include any and all property as part of our net worth. However, […]

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