Post FI Notes 002: Early Retired Physician Reflects on Investing

In our second Post FI interview, we learn that you don’t have to do everything right to be a successful investor. You can buy variable universal life insurance, invest in an annuity, bail on individual stocks before they soar, and lose a bunch of money in a master limited partnership and still come out on top.

It helps if you learn to do things a better way, which the featured interviewee eventually did. It also helps to have a physician’s income, which he also did. Now, the young baby boomer is figuring out what life looks like for a somewhat early retiree with a net worth, as I calculate it, above $5 Million.

Getting to Know You

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Tell us about your household. How many people and at what ages? Are you supporting anyone outside of your home? Where do you live?

I am a 55 to 59 year old very recently retired MD, who lives with his wife in the Midwest.  My wife is a bit older and retired nearly three years ago. We have one child who is independent and had given us beautiful grandkids.

Imagine how much more challenging the pandemic would have been if this was 1991 and not 2021 – no Facetime, no streaming of TV shows and movies, no ordering online with delivery in 2 days,  no electronic news, no Podcasts, no Twitter and Facebook — perhaps we would be better off without these last two!

You’re financially independent. About how much does your household spend in a typical year? How much could you spend while still abiding by the 4% rule?

As the pandemic has altered our lives in so many ways, including travel, which is obviously a major expense, it’s hard to know exactly how much we would be spending annually in retirement as I  retired so recently.  However, pre-retirement, we were spending about $110,000 to $120,000 annually.

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