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The Monthly Checkout: January 2019

By Jimmy Turner, MD
The Physician Philosopher

It’s that time again. Time for The Monthly Checkout: January 2019. We will highlight my favorite posts from the last month on The Physician Philosopher, share some posts worth reading from other sites, and then give an update on The Physician Philosopher Book.

Speaking of the book, it has already produced some pretty high remarks:

I have frequently told physicians and dentists that the first really good personal finance and investing book you ever read is likely to be worth $2 Million to you over the course of your life… This is a $2 Million book.
  ~James M. Dahle, MD (The White Coat Investor)

Also, make sure to tell all of your friends to subscribe to The Physician Philosopher email list. All of the subscribers will be getting first word when the book goes live, and – the exact day(s) it will be offered free on Amazon.

January’s Best Posts from TPP

This month’s monthly checkout is being published a little earlier than usual due to upcoming scheduled posts. In the shorter time frame that we have had, I want to highlight two posts that I was most proud of this month.

If you haven’t read them, check ’em out and share them with your friends.

Sports and Personal Finance

When my wife read the post on sports quotes and how they apply to personal finance, she loved it. We both had a genuine laugh finding the most inappropriate Freudian sports’ slips to start the post.

After the initial humor found in the post, we went on to discuss 5 sports quotes that really do apply to successful personal finance behavior. If you haven’t read it, I dare you to read it without it making you laugh, think, or cry. [Well, hopefully, not “cry” – it isn’t that bad].

Have You Joined a Cult?

For those that frequent personal finance and financial independence blogs, our ideas probably don’t seem that foreign anymore. Yet, compared to the typical American, our thoughts are as counterculture as they come.

While the title (Joining a Cult:The Financial Independence Counterculture) has a bit of a “click-bait” nature to it, I think the meat of the post more than makes up for that. It also got featured on the Sunday Best, which was a nice plus.

Recent Guest Podcast Appearances

Before we get to the awesome blog posts for this month, let’s not forget our podcasting friends. I’ve recently been featured on several podcasts. If you have missed any of them, here are the highlights:

  • Anesthesia Success w/ Justin Harvey: A brand new podcast, which my friend Justin – a financial advisor who is married to a resident – owns and operates. Tag along as we discuss fair financial advising models, life planning, and burnout.
  • Doctors Unbound: Dr. Dave Draginhas takes us on a ride as we discuss the anonymity of this website, a bit about my origin story, and the great need that still exists to spread the word on Physician Finance.
  • You can expect some other upcoming guest podcast appearances on The Financial Residency Podcast and the Docs Outside the Box podcast, too. I am really excited about these. Make sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss out.

The Monthly Checkout

I’ve read a lot of really great blog posts recently. Here is the official round up where I’ve done the hard work to find good content so that you don’t have to!

Debt Destroying Interview Series

The Frugal Physician had two great posts recently. I want to highlight both.

In December, she had “the big reveal” as she let the world know who she really is. As an anonymous blogger who is about to announce his identity to the world, I could really relate to this post.

Then, she also introduced us to an interview series where she chronicles the journey of doctors who have overcome their student loan debt! Join along as they describe the mountain they’ve climbed, and their advice for those still tackling their debt.

Personal Finance 101

I am about to publish a book with subtitle of “The 20% of personal finance doctors need to know to get 80% of the results.” With that kind of title, it should not surprise anyone that I think going back to the basics often proves helpful.

While this Monthly Checkout post isn’t recent, it provides such solid advice it is hard to leave it out. It comes from The Finance Twins (one is a doctor, the other is a Harvard trained MBA) and is titled Beginner’s Guide to Personal Finance. They also have quite the origin story.

Backdoor Roth Math

If you have ever wanted a post that really goes into the deep detail of whether a Backdoor Roth is worth it for you, then Physician on Fire has your back.

In his post, Calculating the Value of Your Backdoor Roth Contributions, he takes a deep dive to help everyone figure it out. Teaser: he doesn’t think a backdoor Roth is best for everyone (the horror!).

Docs Who Cut Back

If you haven’t read Crispy Doc’s series on doctors who have cut back from medicine, you are missing out. This series is close to my heart – and my writing – as doctors discuss their roads towards a better work-life balance.

Sometimes, it involves simple change, and other times it involves something quite drastic. In this post, by Dr. Jordan Craig, the change was huge – but you’ll have to keep reading to see if she felt it was worth it.

Emergency Funds Aren’t for Dummies

I have gone back and forth with how much to have in an emergency fund (or whether to have one at all). We plan to steal from ours soon to pay off the remainder of our student loans.

That said, Millionairre Doc wrote a post recently that reminds us of exactly why we shouldn’t be lulled to sleep by the monotony of our routines. Emergency funds are recommended for a reason. If you don’t have one, or have considered giving it up – read MD’s post on Why Everyone Needs an Emergency Fund.

To Pay Down Debt or Invest?

This is the quintessential question – and the one that is most often asked. While this post was written by Dr. Krygowski almost a year ago, it so perfectly encapsulates the argument that I felt it was worth bringing to you.

Oh, and if you haven’t read Dr. Fawcett’s book on eliminating debt, which is highlighted in Dr. Krygowski’s post – go buy it. Your view on debt may be forever changed.

An Update on The Book

The first 2/3 of the book has come back from the editor. It will be titled, “The Physician Philosopher Guide to Personal Finance: The 20% of Personal Finance Doctors Need to Know to Get 80% of the Results.”

I also ran a cover contest on 99Designs, which resulted in a lot of impressive covers. So many in fact that it became hard to choose. So, I enlisted the help of some email subscribers who voted on which cover to choose. To those that participated, I can’t thank you enough for your help and commentary.

As I alluded to earlier, Dr. Dahle wrote the foreword to the book. It was my honor that he said yes (and that he thought well enough of it to write a fabulous foreword recommending it to all of you)!

The current projected publication date is February 4th, 2019. When it comes out, I’ll be letting my email subscribers (click here to subscribe) know so that they can know when to snag a free copy (and hopefully leave a rockstar review on Amazon).

I’ll be running a 24-48 hour promotion each month where the book can be had for FREE. My only request is that you consider reviewing it if you feel it would be helpful to others!

Now, go check out those podcasts and posts! Let me know what you think in the comments below.

TPP

8 Comments

  1. Xrayvsn

    Congratulations TPP on the upcoming book release. Great title and you really can’t do better than getting a glowing recommendation from the person who pretty much launched the physician financial Renaissance we are in now.

    You can now add author to your resume which is a really impressive one to list.

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Thanks, X-ray! I am really excited about it and hope it proves helpful for everyone. I am going to run a free promotion every month as the goal isn’t to make money. The goal is to help. Amazon will only let you run 5 free days per 90 days with their KDP program as I understand it, though.

      Reply
  2. Millionaire Doc

    Thanks for the feature TPP. I’m looking forward to checking out your new book.

    Reply
  3. Wealthy Doc

    Thanks for the list of posts. I hadn’t seen a few of those.
    Congrats on the book too.
    That is exciting. As a blog writer, I’m beginning to realize how much work is required to write a whole book!
    Looking forward to reading it.

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Yeah, I tried doing the math the other day on how many words I wrote in the last calendar year. 156 posts three each week) x 1250 word average plus a 45,000 word book = almost 250,000 words.

      It was a ton of work, but I really enjoyed writing the book. Even the research I had to do was fun because I was learning material that will be helpful to my residents and readers.

      I’m also going to write a couple of guest posts on the nitty gritty details of publishing a book via Kindle Direct Publishing after it’s done. That part (plus the editing and cover) was a lot more work than I realized.

      Reply
  4. B.C. Krygowski

    Woot woot on the book! That’s awesome! Congrats in advance. And thanks for the mention 🙂

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Thanks!! And thanks for a great post! Really enjoyed that (and could totally relate to it)

      Reply

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