Finance – Page 5 – Physician In Numbers

How Much Cash Do I Need To Retire?

Money you will need in the next 5 years should not be in the stock market.

I have heard this advice for years, but never really paid much attention to it as far as my retirement.

After all, I wasn’t going to be retiring in the next 5 years. I was young, not even 30 (or 40, or 50). I had plenty of time to ride out the stock markets ups and downs.

Now, however, I am thinking about retiring. I might want to keep working for more than 5 years, but I might want to stop even sooner than that. It is time for me to start preparing for retirement and the sequence of return risk.

That means reducing how much risk I am taking with my investments, and probably building up my cash position.

Don’t Forget To Add Back What You Love

Talk of inflation is all over the news. Worries about a recession are not far behind.

Blog posts are popping up all over to deal with money crunches, and I am sure we will be seeing more. Some posts will be about earning more, and many will be about cutting back on unnecessary expenses.

For those who aren’t confident they can earn more money, cutting expenses can be a quick win.

Which Is Better: Investing Or Paying Off Debt?

Last year, I was thinking about the different ways people can use their money to improve their net worth.

They can pay off debt. That will definitely improve their net worth calculation by decreasing (or eliminating) the charges against their assets.

They can save money and invest it. In the long run, that invested money should increase their nest egg nicely, thereby increasing their net worth.

However, it wasn’t really clear to me that using the same amounts to either pay off debt or invest would give the same results. After all, paying off debt is great, but if you aren’t investing, you are missing out on that special sauce: compounding interest.

I decided to run through a few scenarios using “typical internists” to see how these choices could play out.

I found out a few things, including that my underlying assumptions didn’t necessarily give the results I was looking for.

(This post was originally published in 2021, but has been changed modestly.)

Future Me, June 2022

I started this series of posts at the end of October 2018. I had just cut back my hours, and wanted to use my new free time wisely. Some of that time was to relax, but I also wanted to improve my fitness, make my home a more pleasant place to stay, and work on becoming a more well-rounded human being.

My last update was in January 2022; it is clear to me that waiting 6 months between updates means that I don’t do as much to meet my goals. (I was definitely one of those students staying up late to meet my deadlines.)

So, what progress did I make over the past 6 months?

Comparing Shoulder Season and High Season Travel

As you may recall, last summer Mr. PiN and I went to Maine (aka Vacationland) for the first time last year. We had a blast.

Since COVID is still affecting travel this year, we decided to go back, and see if it was just as nice as the first time.

The short answer: yes.

The other answer: it wasn’t quite the same.

The biggest differences related to visiting in the shoulder season, rather than high season.

For our international travels (back before COVID), we loved traveling in shoulder season. We were unconstrained by the school holiday calendar, and could find cheaper flights to destinations that had great weather and fewer crowds.

This year we found that shoulder season in Maine had some of the same advantages, and a few more drawbacks. I thought I would go through some of them.

5 Market Crashes, 9 Lessons On Risk Tolerance.

This is an update of a post I wrote 2 years ago, after the sharp drop (and quick recovery) of March 2020. I thought it was worth revisiting, especially since I haven’t properly learnt lesson #2: don’t look.

I have had the dubious pleasure of investing through a number of market crashes over the years. Each one has taught me something about my risk tolerance, and I hope that the lessons I have learned may be helpful to you. If only to show you what not to do.

I decided not to present each past market drop chronologically, but rather to discuss each drop in terms of my personal risk tolerance, from least to most. Please keep in mind that, of course, your risk tolerance will change depending on your age and life circumstances.

Money Minis

Life has been getting a little busy for blogging recently, but you really can’t get away from discussions of money–if that’s something that interests you.

I thought I’d note a few issues related to money-related that I’ve been dealing with recently.

Monday Melange, April 2022

A few links to posts that piqued my interest recently.

Sample Budgets For Intern Year

This is an update of a post from 2 years ago, which I ended up splitting into 2 parts, as the original was quite long.

Last week I reviewed the 50/30/20 plan as a framework for making your budget. That post ran long, too.

This week I offer the example of 3 fictitious interns, who use the 50/30/20 budgets in ways that suit their differing backgrounds and goals.

What Should You Budget For Intern Year in 2022?

I have noticed an uptick in people reading my prior posts on budgeting. Since Match Day was just 1 month ago, I assume people are thinking about how to arrange their finances for the upcoming start of internship.

This is an update of my post from 2 years ago. A few things have changed since then, including the student loan holiday extension and the salary offered to interns (it is nearly twice I what I earned!).

I have also stretched my prior, super-long post into two installments. This post will go over my suggestions on how to build your own budget, from figuring out your take how pay to deciding how to allocate it. The next post will give some examples of the different ways hypothetical interns might turn suggestions into plans.