Journal Club 1-21-17

Topics: Rent vs Buy, Landlording, Are We Rich, Forget Stealth Wealth, Post-Trump Investing

Every week, I hold a JOURNAL CLUB. After manually filtering through the millions of articles out there, I present a few that I impacted my life this week. This will also help lay the foundation for some of the topics that we’ll dig into deeper on this website.

Here's our Journal Club for the week, enjoy!

• You should all know by now that I’m a huge real estate fan and I love hearing about people’s personal experiences, whether it’s with their own personal residence or having to do with investment properties. I read two great ones this week:
  • Investing Doc wrestles with the question all of us are faced with when we finish our training – Rent vs Buy as a New Attending?
  • SomeRandomGuyOnline is another physician (with a new web address by the way) who shares some lessons he’s learned about being a landlord. Read about a crazy incident that happened to his parents in Real Estate Lessons from Mama and Papa.

• Wealthy Doc is great at trying to unpack big concepts in some concise posts. Here he gives us some perspective on our wealth while trying to figure out how to answer his inquisitive kid in How Rich Are You.

• I particularly liked this post by Financial Samurai cause it’s a question that all doctors wrestle with – Where’s the balance between saving like crazy and enjoying life a little? We can’t take our money with us when we go, so at what point should we try to reap some of the rewards of years of school and training? Check out When is it ok to forsake stealth wealth and spend up?

Well it’s the first full day of office for the new president. Depending on what side you’re on, you’re either filled with hope or impending doom about the economy or society at large. It has a lot of people thinking like my friend Future Proof MD here. It just doesn’t seem like there are too many people indifferent or in the middle.

Personally I try to hope for the best no matter the situation while being prepared for what might come. That's why I have emergency earthquake packs all over my house. (That’s what we have to think about in SoCal.) I don’t sit here worrying all the time about a huge natural disaster (“The Big One”) that is predicted to hit in my lifetime. I prepare for it and go on enjoying life. Financially I do the same, I prepare for the economy to go either way and set up some hedges.

The only certainty I know is that the financial outlook for physicians is headed in the wrong direction, so I’m definitely preparing for that.

What are you preparing for in the new term?

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