Physician In Numbers – Page 39 – A female primary care physician opines on money, travel, fitness, and other topics to be determined

Running On Empty

Today is day 1 of a vacation, one I have been looking forward to for about a month.

I knew I still couldn’t go anywhere (thank you, COVID), but I made big plans for my 4th staycation in 2 years.

Oh, the plans I had! Walking, tidying, decluttering, taking care of lots of postponed business. I wrote a list, and I got tired just writing it down.

Fitness Log #127 And Friday Firsts

I have been keeping track of my exercise every Friday for over 2 years, and plan to continue doing so.

I started the Friday Firsts sections as a way of keeping track of some of my “firsts” as I dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. Things seem to be settling down, but I will keep it for now–more as a way to be aware and thankful of what is happening in my life.

Fitness Log #126 And Friday Firsts

I have been keeping track of my exercise every Friday for over 2 years, and plan to continue doing so.

A Year Of Decluttering

A few weeks ago, one of my patients who is also a doctor came in for a physical. As I was asking about drinking (drinking has gone up quite a bit during the pandemic), he said something I found quite interesting: At the end of this pandemic, people are either going to be a lot healthier [exercising more and eating better] or much unhealthier [substance use and exercising less]. He is totally right.

One year ago, I returned to the office after a meeting (one I attended remotely because of concerns about this new virus out of Wuhan) to a new hospital, one preparing for an onslaught of very ill people with a disease we might catch and die from. Stay at home orders had been issued. It was the real beginning of the pandemic for me.

I did a little more drinking last Spring, to be sure, but as I spent more time at home, I looked around and decided it was really time to deal with the messes I had been ignoring as I rushed to work each day.

Fitness Log #125 And Friday Firsts

I have been keeping track of my exercise every Friday for over 2 years, and plan to continue doing so.

What Does Saving 20% Get You?

Last week I read this post by The Prudent Plastic Surgeon, which starts out calling a savings rate of 20% “pretty much mandatory” for building wealth. I think this is a fine goal. He writes that paying down debt should count, as it improves your net worth (which it does).

I wasn’t so sure. After all, if your plan relies on saving and investing 20% of your money for 30 years in order to build up your nest egg, then using some of that money to pay off debt should, in theory, mean that you come up short.

As I was walking this weekend, I was thinking about this more and more, and was getting more and more annoyed. I figured it was time to bring out the numbers and see how this worked.

Fitness Log #124 And Friday Firsts

I have been keeping track of my exercise every Friday for several years, and plan to continue doing so.

A Tale Of 4 Stocks

This is another do as I say, not as I do post.

If you read a lot of financial independence blogs, you will see, over and over again, advice to buy a low cost index fund if you are going to invest in the stock market. It is very good advice, and you can read more about it in posts by JL Collins, and The White Coat Investor, among others. They lay out their arguments in a very logical way, bolstered by graphs and spreadsheets.

That is not this post.

This post goes through my personal experience with buying individual stocks, and the various ways this has come back to bite me in the butt.

Fitness Log #123 And Friday Firsts

I have been keeping track of my exercise every Friday for over a year, and plan to continue doing so.

Building A Better Life

When I had first started reading about FI/RE (Financial Independence Retire Early), it was mostly about cutting unnecessary costs and saving lots of money. I devoted a lot of my brain space to these ideas, even if I did feel that some of those “unnecessary” costs were important to my life (they stayed).

Even going gung-ho on the project, I could see that it would be many more years until I could retire in the style to which I aspired (Physician on Fire would eventually christen it “Fat FIRE.”)

Not too long into my journey, however, I came across this piece by The White Coat Investor: Using a Venn Diagram to Decrease Burnout. The posts from WCI have much catchier titles these days, but this article has stuck with me for 5 years.

Inspired by that Venn diagram, I have tried making a change or two to make my life better. After nearly a year of the pandemic, and a significant increase in my investment accounts, I am thinking more seriously about changes to build a better life now, rather than waiting for the future.