Introducing Passive Income MD
Earlier this year, I introduced readers to Physician on Fire (POF), the second member of The WCI Network. We have recently added a third member, Passive Income M.D. (PIMD) that I'd like to introduce to readers today. Passive Income MD is a lot of things that neither WCI nor PoF is nor can ever be. While he is relatively young, married with children, and in a shift-work specialty (anesthesia) like we are, he lives in a high cost of living area, spends more than we do, comes from a family of physicians, and is married to another high-earner, a physician. While he recently became financially independent, at least of medicine, he has no plans to stop working anytime soon.
PIMD is an entrepreneur of the first order. He's just six years out of training and seems to have started a new business for every one of those six years. Even his wife has gotten in on the act with her own multi-level marketing business she can do from home to supplement her part-time clinical work. In his blogging, he talks about those businesses, the passive income they provide (obviously some streams of income are more passive than others), and perhaps most importantly, how having that income has changed his marriage, his practice, and indeed his life.
The Writing of PIMD
When you meet him in person he exudes happiness and optimism and I think that comes across in his writing. Here are some examples:
From “For a Long, Happy Career, Be More Than Just A Doctor”
I’ve spoken with numerous other people in the field (basically every physician I come into contact with), and the opinions I’ve received all seem to have a common thread: The key to a long, happy career is having other passions to balance it out. As physicians, we’ve been so focused on practicing medicine for 10 to 15 years that a good number of us have lost touch with our other passions.
So when regulations and administrators tell you how you can and cannot practice, it’s easy to feel like your motivation for going into the field in the first place has been stripped away, and people are often left with very little else. So, it is my firm belief that the key is to have other passions and pursuits that challenge us.
Physicians like Kevin Pho, MD, for example, have found a way to merge medicine and social media. Others, like the White Coat Investor and Physician on Fire, have found a way to help others in the field of finance. Heck, a group of plastic surgeons formed a band called Help the Doctor, and they’ve played all over some big-time Hollywood hotspots. Art, writing, music, sports — just about anything you can think of — physicians have a passion for and excel at something other than just medicine.
For our purposes, income is mainly from rent paid for by your tenants. Expenses include the mortgage, interest, taxes, maintenance, vacancy, and a whole host of other things.
With all that in mind, let’s use an example. Imagine there’s a man looking to find out how many rental properties he needs in order to retire. We’ll call him Ronald Drump. In order to Make Retirement Great Again, he needs $8,000 per month to safely retire and have everything covered. He’s been buying up a few rental properties and notices that he averages $400 per month in cash flow per rental unit. How many properties, then, does he need to retire?$8,000 ÷ $400 (per rental unit) = 20 unitsThere you have it: a nice, concrete number to shoot for.
From “I am Financially Free From Medicine”
I present the blueprint to how we’ve achieved financial independence from medicine:
- Both of us have decent paying jobs. Sometimes, it does take a little money to make a little money. Admittedly, both being physicians helps with that.
- We’ve maxed out our tax-advantaged retirement savings accounts. Saving as much as physically possible and beginning early are the keys to achieving financial freedom later in life.
- Bought a house and didn’t overextend for it. Paying more for a house we couldn’t afford would have greatly increased the time it took to reach this point.
- Aggressively worked on acquiring other sources of income outside of medicine. We’ve utilized real estate in the form of rental properties, real estate crowdfunding, and through syndications. We’ve also started our own business through a multi-level marketing company, and of course, this blog. Whatever your preferred source of income, there’s no denying that passive sources are the best.
Another very popular post is the ongoing list of Physician Side Hustles. PIMD also does regular “passive income reports“.
Entering the WCI Network
The big test case of The WCI Network was adding Physician on Fire earlier this year. We predicted that would be a win-win-win-win-win for everyone involved, and indeed it has turned out to be. It has been a great investment for me and is a significant source of traffic referrals to the main WCI site. PoF, LLC has grown by leaps and bounds this year and at this rate will soon cover all of his living expenses without even touching his portfolio. He's testing out early retirement now by slow traveling (I think he's in Mexico as I write this with plans to head for Hawaii soon). We've been able to provide some wonderful content and new perspectives to our readers and connect more readers in need of financial professionals with the good guys in the industry. By the way, here are his thoughts on our new addition.
We expect Passive Income M.D. to also be a big win for everyone. WCI and PoF readers will get to learn more about entrepreneurship, real estate, multi-level marketing, and business in general and together we'll help doctors and other high-income professionals be smart with money so they can focus on what matters most. Like with PoF, you'll see some Saturday posts from PIMD, a more prominent position on the forum, and a lot of synergy in the background. You'll also be hearing more from PIMD on the podcast and in the newsletter.
What do you think? What is your favorite Passive Income M.D. post and why? What's your take on passive income in general? Comment below!
Congratulations to WCI and PIMD on the new partnership!
My favorite articles are actually more of the introspective articles, such as I’ll Be Set Once (http://passiveincomemd.com/ill-be-set-once/), 40 is the new 60 (http://passiveincomemd.com/40-new-60/) and How Many Summers Do You Have Left? (http://passiveincomemd.com/many-summers-left/).e
-WSP
I’ve really enjoyed many of the articles from passive MD. From the True Doctor Stories to the physician side hustle.
I will say the physician side hustle article is really what led me to start a blog of my own, work on an invention, and consider other passive income alternatives.
Really great add to the WCI network!
Congratulations to you both! I think both sites will flourish and take things to another level.
Congratulations WCI, POF, and PIMD. You guys are on to something for sure. I like your business savoir-faire.
Is this network exclusive to doctors only?
About your question, I’m a champion of having multiple sources of income. You cannot put all your eggs in one basket.
Though we don’t have passive income except for dividends, we do have side businesses such as a consulting business, a product, tax prep business…and hope to continue adding more every year.
No, not necessarily exclusive.
You’ll notice that some aspects of your businesses are passive and others are active. There’s really a spectrum.
Hearty congratulations – it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. Looking forward to reading what you guys cook up in the future!
Any more you can share about the multi-level marketing aspect that Passive MD alludes to? I am interested in forming a passive income stream but really am not looking into Crowdfunding, or being a Landlord for rental properties. Mainly looking at either large group commercial investments or something like the multi-level marketing company or something like it. Can you or passive income MD offer and direction or assistance in getting involved?
Congrats. I love that all 3 of you easily acronym WCI, PoF, and PIMD. I look forward to more posts. I have visited PIMDs site on occasion as well. I think it is interesting how many docs are interested in financial topics. I felt like I was in the wilderness for years.
After stumbling upon all of these individual blogs about one year ago, it’s incredible to witness them come together. I can’t wait to see what the next few years have in store
Awesome news! Many more doctors will be empowered by this trio.
You can’t go wrong with PIMD…. great guy and important message he brings to weary physicians on a treadmill.
Would someone try to convince me what MLM is and that it is MORAL? I’m one of those purists who think if you are a doc, and you hire 5 other docs and/or midlevels, the amount you should ‘earn’ by having hired them should equal the value (a negotiable figure of course) of the supervision and admin and probably real estate and equipment support you offer them, with some value for you already having the patients and the connections. In other words I really hate admin and CEOs who earn more than the higher paid docs in an outfit, especially if they work less hours.
So if I get several someones to get several someones to get several someones to sell a bar of soap, let’s say, that costs me $1, for $20, and keep $10 for myself per soap bar and give $1 each to the someones along the way to the customer, how can I look myself in the mirror?
I also believe car salesmen should be paid per hour as consultants rather than bonuses for getting a higher price out of suckers… just so you know I live in a dream world…
Whoa nellie. Settle down. It’s just a business structure. In the business world products are priced at the price the market will bear, not at the price it takes to produce them. The larger the margin between what it takes to produce, market, and deliver the product, the better the business does. That doesn’t mean the business is amoral. Let’s take my book for example. I sell it for about $20. Ignoring the initial time developing the product, it costs perhaps $3 to produce it. I pay someone else (Amazon, perhaps you’ve heard of them) about $5 to market and deliver it. I keep the rest. I hardly find it amoral and actually consider it a steal at $20 considering the value of the information in it.
If someone finds $20 for a bar of soap to be a fair price, it really shouldn’t matter to them how that $20 gets split by the business- how much to make the product, who gets paid to market the product and how that is paid, how much for shipping and how much for profit.
The reason MLMs get that scammy reputation is because lots of people sign-up to join thinking it is some easy road to riches when in reality it is a job in sales with some ownership aspects. It doesn’t do anyone any good to bring someone in thinking it is easy. They don’t last, they don’t sell anything, and you just wasted your time. I guess another reason some people don’t like it is they feel pressured to buy because the person selling is a friend or family member, but that’s what sales is all about and besides, if the product is crummy or too pricey, there’s never more than one sale and the business quickly crumbles as the seller runs out of friends and family. So, the secrets to success are a good product, a reasonable structure, and a desire to work in sales and marketing. Not my favorite business structure for sure, but there are apparently lots of docs and family members out there working in those businesses, so I think it’s worth learning about if you’re interested in being an entrepreneur.
Great.
Where are the details about this on PIMD site ? For someone touting passive income shouldn’t there be actual details ?
Will await a post on it otherwise this is just more show and o substance
Give it time man, give it time. High quality content takes work.
WCI,
I respect your work in helping physicians. Certainly my intro to index investing was through this site, but you know that I am not afraid to criticize (unlike many on this site) but your explaination about about MLM was more thorough than any post on that website. And yours was just a comment!
Anyways I have thoughts about it but not worth posting here in comments.
I find it amazing how people glom on to one phrase, one word, even just three letters in a post and miss the forest for the trees. Apparently MLM is huge in some physician Facebook groups. I’m sure PIMD will write about their experience at some point; why not shoot him an email and ask for it?
With all due respect I am not losing forest or looking at the trees or care much about MLM
I am merely pointing that the website whose domain is passive income and claims to make majority of it using MLM is skimpy on details. That’s like you saying invest in index funds and full stop without any details. That tells me it’s a click bait ? Hiding something ? Lazy writing ?
Content takes time and hence the ad revenue, not free work. I guess not every blog can be WCI or better yet PoF. Can’t be expecting users to email bloggers about their claim to fame if not already on display.
I thought you were referring to MLM not passive income.
Thanks for caring enough to comment. You’re right, out of the 130 posts I’ve written, only a few have been on the subject of MLMs. It has benefitted us for sure, but I didn’t want it to be the main focus of the blog. However, I wanted to be honest with my income report and so it’s mentioned.
I’ll keep working to make it a great resource for knowledge when it comes to all forms of passive income (including MLMs). Unfortunately, it does take a little time in blog format to get all the content that you want up on the site. I doubt WCI had everything he wanted to say on the site in 14-15 months. So thanks for your patience. Definitely nothing to hide, sometimes I just get sidetracked writing about happiness, medicine, and the value of your time.
Also working to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Drop me an email, I’ll personally update you when it makes its way onto the site.
Thanks WCI! That is a great explanation and defense. I’m not going to be a car salesman, and better not try MLM either, but I’ll stop cringing when I get a tupper ware party invitation. (The only reason I avoid Pampered Chef parties- I love their stuff- is there is no more room or need in the kitchen.) BTW not to scorch your or other’s pure ears, but in England I was invited to a female only sex toy party. Forgot what the outfit was called; and no comment on who attended or whether anyone bought anything.
See, with a good product it isn’t nearly as offensive to get the invitation. And some products are better sold from close friend to close friend than others!
This is a great collaboration and I look forward to the additional dimension PIMD brings to WCI.
Cheers to all!
That’s great news. I follow all three blogs and I’m looking forward to reading more great stuff!
Congrats man! Seems likes the business is growing. Here is to years of fruitful publishing and growth!
Congrats to PIMD and the growing WCI network!
Thanks for the well wishes everyone! Looking forward to this new partnership.
I appreciate WCI and POF. I don’t know PIMD, so hope will learn to appreciate him. But WCI, although in theory your description of the MLM is spot on, that really isn’t what happens in 99% of them. So it really isn’t just about getting hung-up on 3 letters. It is terrible industry practices that are repeated, over and over. There is a lot that could be said. I’m sure others have/will. There are a number of comments on the forum, as well.
That thing really touched a nerve. I’m sure one of us will do a post on it soon.
I’m sure both bloggers are wonderful people, but I don’t really understand why blogging about personal finance is done anonymously. It’s not like the government is going to throw people in jail for advocating a coup. For me, it definitely lends a certain degree of distrust and credibility issues when someone isn’t wiling to disclose their name, but is (seemingly) willing to share every aspect of their financial life along with advice for others.
That disconnect has always bothered me and it seems pretty common in this particular slice of the blogosphere.
Obviously, WCI decided against anonymity at some point in the past few years and it’s served him well.
Well, they’ll both be at the conference if you really want to know who they are. I’ve let them decide how and when they wish to lift the veil of anonymity.
I agree that using your real name online builds trust and anonymity. However, it also invites additional attention, not only online but also at the hospital and in the offices of plaintiff’s attorneys.
I’ve been following your blog since your early days of getting started. At the time I was a CPA and partner in a large regional firm and my “specialty” I was physicians and health care. I referred my clients to your blog. I also referred our asset management partners to you. They are DFA fund advisors; consistent with your advice to your readers. I retired last year, early and on a plan that mirrors many of your recommendations. I have seen your blog grow into the network and an important source of income for you. My question is: do you have a blueprint that I can use to do something similar for CPAs?
No, there is no blueprint. We’re making it up as we go along like most entrepreneurs.