Personal Archives - Physician on FIRE

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Money is Everything

Grand Hotel Mackinac

I have a difficult time understanding the level of apathy that so many people have towards money. Apathy may not be the best word. People do seem to care about money and they certainly want more, but I don’t see a lot of people making the wise and sometimes difficult choices that will help them actually grow their money and achieve financial independence. My wife and I were talking about this very thing. I was talking about people wasting money in pointless ways and she said “a lot of people just don’t care about money.” I guess not, but how […]

A Q & A with Physician on FIRE (that’s me!)

gumbalimba zipline

Last summer, I took part in an interview series with another anesthesiologist named Tom from High Income Parents. Unfortunately, his site doesn’t exist any longer, which means my interview disappeared, too. Why did he stop? All this talk of FI must have gotten to him. He and his family are in the process of selling most of their belongings and making plans to move his family of seven to a sailboat for a major sailing adventure! With all that is entailed in a major change in life’s course, he hasn’t been able to keep up with the blog. But I’ve […]

Coming Clean: How Financial Independence Came More Easily & I’m Not Exactly Retiring.

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With all the talk about early retirement around here, you would think I’m about to retire. Given the plethora of posts I’ve written on financial independence, you’d think I’d have covered all the angles. You would be wrong on both counts. Recently, our friend Tanja at Our Next Life wrote a blogging manifesto (<– that’s called a back-link, which helps send traffic to the target site and improves its rank and position with search engines) calling out the FIRE bloggers to be more honest and transparent about their true plans, side hustle income, advantages they’ve had, and more. I fail to […]

Taking Steps Toward a Better Life

queens bath kauai

Today we have a thoughtful post from Passive Income MD, and it’s one I can certainly relate to. We’d all like to improve our bodies, our minds, our habits and such, but first we must overcome a number of obstacles, most of them internal. How exactly is the good doctor taking steps toward a better life? Read and learn. This post originally appeared on Passive Income MD. Taking Steps Toward a Better Life “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Laozi At some point in our schooling (and for the doctors out there, […]

I Volunteered for the Hospital Board and was Sued for Millions.

The telephone rang. Why would he be calling? Must be a misdial, I figured. I hadn’t worked with him in several years, and we were never known to make social calls back when we did work together. That call was no mistake. What he had to say made me simultaneously queasy, fearful, and angry. It felt like the first couple loops on a rollercoaster ride I I didn’t sign up for. I had no idea at the time that I would be stuck on this coaster for years. He had been sued. I had been sued. A few dozen other […]

Physician on FIRE Turns Two.

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That happened fast! This website turns two years old today. Still drinking from a sippy cup and smearing its face with frosting every time it eats cake, but at least it’s taken well to potty training. Now, if it could just drop a nap, I’d be happy. Scratch that. I am happy. Thrilled, in fact! I’ve met so many impressive people, both virtually and in real life, as a result of this two-year old blog. I am grateful for the time you take to read, comment on, and share my writing, and for the dozens of people that have helped this […]

Five Financial and Five Non-Financial Lessons Learned From Our Family Doctor

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We are departing from our regularly scheduled program to bring you a guest post on Tuesday. Fear not, you will see a post from me on Thursday, and the reason for the swap will be clear. Tina and Max of 99to1percent.com are a pair that started from scratch as immigrants and built a net worth of about $2 Million. Today, they share some of the lessons they gleaned from the Family Doctor that helped them get to where they are today. Five Financial and Five Non-Financial Lessons Learned From Our Family Doctor Hi guys, PoF (PhysicianOnFire) has been […]

The WCI Network Expands!

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On March 4th of this year, Dr. Jim Dahle of the White Coat Investor and I “marched forth” together, announcing the creation of the WCI Network. In case you missed it, these are the announcement posts from nearly nine months ago: Physician On FIRE – Applying FIRE Principles to High Income Professional Mixing Business with Pleasure: PoF goes to SLC As the collaboration has proven to be a successful venture, we are growing the network, and I’m excited to introduce you to our newest WCI Network member. If you’ve been a reader of this site for awhile, you’re probably […]

FinCon17 Recap: The Conference That Doesn’t Sleep

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Last week was an extraordinarily busy one. I attended not one, but two international conferences that are the largest of their kind in their respective fields: the American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting and FinCon17. Over the course of eight days, I attended 40 to 50 hours of lectures, panels, workshops, and seminars. I learned a lot, talked a lot, and met so many wonderful people. If not for this new part-time schedule, I would have had a tough time making both conferences, and certainly would not have had a few days off both before and after to prepare for […]

An Electrified Fortified Commuting Machine

My first bicycle was a Schwinn with a banana seat, training wheels, and it may or may not have had tassels dangling from the handlebars. It definitely had playing cards clothes-pinned to the frame in such a way that made a sweet rat-a-tat-tat sound as I tooled around the driveway. I learned how to ride and I learned how to crash on that thing. I vividly remember taking off down the gravel road sans training wheels, and promptly laying it down at the first curve, scraping the skin right off my thumb. The thought of picking those tiny rocks out […]

Our Latest Real Estate Investment: 7 Acres of Lakefront

Waterfront Lots

We thought we had a good plan. Work another year or two, minimize our belongings, downsize to our 700-square foot cabin as a home base, and travel extensively for a few years. It was a good plan, actually. It still could be. But one great opportunity has us thinking a bit differently. Our Latest Real Estate Investment: 7 Acres of Lakefront Ten days ago, we closed on ten lots, including 4 waterfront lots with 560 feet of frontage with a total of nearly 7 acres on a recreational lake Up North. A month ago, we weren’t in the market for […]

Four Rules I Followed To Get Wealthy

a real rocket scientist

Today’s Saturday Selection is a classic post from The White Coat Investor. I apologize if the title is misleading. Perhaps I should have replaced “I” with “WCI,” but the truth is, I’ve followed these same principles, so I let it stand. As per usual, this post originally appeared at the WCI network partner site The White Coat Investor. I guess we’re rich now. It’s not a huge surprise. As a resident, we made a plan to get rich. We then followed it. It was a good plan and so it worked. In fact, it worked a little faster than we had expected, but […]

Kids are Dynamite for Your Early Retirement Plans

baby bili blanket

Today’s dynamite post comes from a dynamic interventional radiologist who is a regular reader and commenter on this site as well as the White Coat Investor website and forum. The author goes by the moniker Vagabond MD. You may recall the name from a previous guest post he wrote for us: Top 5 Reasons This Physician Holds $500,000 in Cash. Read on to find out why the good doctor feels kids can be dynamite for your early retirement plans. Hint: it’s a double entendre. So, Vagabond MD, let’s hear your take on having kids while playing with FIRE. Kids […]

I Decided Not to Go For Medical School. Twice.

family on horses

Today’s guest post comes from Lisa, a mother, scientist, and personal finance enthusiast. She founded Mad Money Monster, a personal finance blog chronicling her and her family’s journey from doing money all wrong to doing it all right. She and her husband are known as Mr. & Mrs. Mad Money Monster on the site. They pride themselves as being Gen-Xers who have turned it all around and are now charting a course towards financial independence. Their goal is to inspire others just like them to take control of their financial future and realize it’s not too late! Take it away, Lisa! […]

Debt Free by Forty: Why I Chose to Pay Off My Mortgage

Dream House Sunset

Debt free by forty. That’s the goal I set. I liked the sound of it and at some point in my mid-thirties, I realized it was a possibility for us. When I said debt-free, I didn’t mean having a zero or positive net worth with assets equal or greater than debts. I meant I didn’t want to owe nothing to nobody. Positive net worth, zero debt. My decision wasn’t based on mathematical modeling. I didn’t cycle different scenarios through a spreadsheeet. It was a personal decision. A psychological decision. Nothing more. I had taken on some serious debt and paid […]

So Long, Full Time Employment!

Hello, part time position. Feeling fairly fraudulent as a financially independent full timer, I wrote a post about a fictional Dr. Findley last summer. In that post, I came up with a somewhat convincing argument for the good doctor to consider working part time. Trust me. The doctor considered it. His family discussed it. They evaluated the numbers and decided they weren’t quite ready. The math at the time showed them they would reach their financial goals in 2.9 to 4.5 years working full time at 2% to 8% real returns, or 4.3 to 9.4 years working half time. […]

Mixing Business with Pleasure: PoF Goes to SLC

Welcome Physician on FIRE

Have you ever had an amazing weekend but you couldn’t tell anyone about it? Or, at least you couldn’t tell anyone without telling a long story that you’re not ready to tell, and revealing a fact you’re not ready to reveal? Me, neither. Well, not until a few weeks ago. About a month ago, I told my parents about an incredible opportunity I had. They were nearly as excited as I was about this opportunity to collaborate, and they offered to watch our boys so my wife and I could take a quick trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to explore the […]

$62,000 Spent. Here’s Where it Went.

maui shoreline

In today’s post, I’ll review and breakdown the spending for our family of four in 2016, and will make projections for 2017. In about a year, we’ll see how close my predictions were. A few months ago, I shared our spending totals after our first twelve months of actually tracking it. I was relieved to find that we had spent about $74,000, just shy of the $75,000 I had used as a ballpark to determine that we were financially independent. I also was confident that we would spend significantly less in the final four months of 2016 when compared to 2015. Back then, […]

One Year of Physician on FIRE. Happy Blogiversary to Me!

Wow! A year? Already?? Boy, things escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand, fast! Last year, I made a New Year’s resolution. Just one — to start the blog I had tossed around in my noggin for awhile. I had written down some ideas, I had the name picked out, and I had some ideas for at least a couple dozen posts. January 9th, 2016, I hit “Publish” for the first time. It felt good. Like that first sip of Hopslam. My plan to post 3 or 4 times a month was tossed aside as I found […]

Giving Thanks with a $100,000.00 Donation

Last week, I celebrated my 41st birthday. A year earlier, I celebrated my 40th in style with a scrumptious steak dinner followed by a nighttime kayak with my wife in the world’s brightest bioluminescent bay on Vieques Island of Puerto Rico. It was an amazing getaway. You only turn 40 once, and I made sure my big day was a memorable day. 41 doesn’t deserve the same treatment. Just like a 21st birthday is a big deal (Hooray, Beer!), 22 comes and goes without so much pomp and circumstance. For my 41st, I didn’t go anyplace exotic or throw down on any steak. I slept […]

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