We have an annual tradition at The White Coat Investor each January of reporting on all of the wonderful things that have happened here in the last year and thanking the community (readers and sponsors) for their support. I cannot adequately express my gratitude in writing to each and every one of you for your support these last 5 1/2 years. When I began this crazy journey in 2011 I didn't know if I would still be at it 2 years later, much less that I would enjoy the sense of accomplishment, additional income, and bizarre fame that now accompanies me where ever I go. It is now routine for me to have a quick financial chat with accepting physicians when I transfer patients. One of my hospitalists had a medical student rotating with him telling him about my site. Imagine the student's surprise when the doc marched him down to the ED to meet me and admit one of my patients. It used to be when I went to do speaking engagements that 5% or less of the audience had been to the site. Now I'm frequently speaking to a “friendly crowd” where half or more of them have been on the site. It's been a lot of fun. In addition, imitation is the greatest form of flattery as discussed in a post a couple of months back.
I thought this year that I would divide this post up by the three missions of this site, which as you'll recall are:
- Help those who wear the white coat (and other high income professionals) get a “fair shake” on Wall Street
- Feed my entrepreneurial spirit
- Connect high-income professionals with the relatively few “good guys” in the financial services industry
Mission # 1 Getting A “Fair Shake” On Wall Street
The amount of business, personal finance, and investing education that physicians and other high income professionals receive during their training is ridiculously low. This site, together with the efforts of many of you, aims to fill that gap by providing accessible, “just-in-time” education 24/7/365 on topics relevant to their personal and professional lives. Topics presented on the blog, both by me and by guest posters, are primarily chosen for that purpose. By any measure, we (you, my staff, and I) have been immensely successful at this mission this year.
This year, I wrote 119 posts and guest posters contributed another 57 posts this year. The site is now composed of 973 posts and 74 pages. One of the best parts of the blog is the extremely civil engagement that happens in the comments section. This year there were 11,718 comments posted on the blog (36,718 since site inception.)
We had 1,053,874 unique visitors to the site this year and 5,299,173 total pageviews. Since inception, those numbers are 3,141,030 and 14,343,315. The most visited pages this year (aside from the homepages and “Start Here” page,) were the Doctor Mortgage Loan page and the Backdoor Roth IRA Tutorial. Of posts written this year, the most popular one was “What Should I Do With My Student Loans?” The most interesting of the top ten search terms that led people to the site was “Are Doctors Rich?”
One year ago this month, we started The White Coat Investor Forum. We have now had 1681 people register to participate and they have started 1554 threads and posted 15,148 posts. One mark of success is only four people had to be banned and moderation has been a relatively easy task. Nonetheless, we are always recruiting new moderators. Send me a PM on the forum if you are interested.
This year we had our second iteration of The White Coat Investor Scholarship. We received the 100+ applicants we were looking for in just a few days (instead of 5 months like last year.) We gave away about 28,000 in cash and prizes. If you missed them, the winning essays can be found here:
A special thanks seems appropriate here to the Platinum sponsors ($2,500+) for the 2016 scholarship:
Larry Keller (Physician Financial Services) – Disability and Life Insurance
Earnest – Student Loan Refinancing
Michael Relvas (MR Insurance) – Disability and Life Insurance
CommonBond – Student Loan Refinancing
Sandi Frith (Huntington Bank) – Doctor Mortgages
The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide to Personal Finance and Investing, continues to be a smashing success. It is currently the 2,639th most popular book on Amazon, an incredible feat for such a niche non-fiction book. It is ranked # 3 in the “Books-Mutual Funds” category and # 92 in the much larger “Books-Personal Finance” category. The Kindle version ranks # 1 in the “Physicians” category, # 3 in the “Mutual Funds” category, and # 5 in the “Books-Mutual Funds” category. (Yes, this book holds two of the top five positions in that category). Thousands of copies were again sold in this, it's third year. 87% of its 566 reviews were 5 star, and 99% of them rated the book 3 stars or higher. This Fall, it became available on Audible for the first time (We could use a few more reviews there if you don't mind.) The dozens of readers who contributed to making that book a success should be very proud of their work.
I really got into Twitter this year, and now have 2,720 followers. We have also been liked by 2,425 people and followed by 2,417 people on Facebook. The newsletter readership increased from 6,406 to 10,324. About 4,100 people currently read each blog post by RSS/email readers.
I had about 30 speaking engagements and podcast appearances this year. Thankfully, 5 of those engagements were local, so that reduced my time away quite a bit. In addition to the stuff published on my blog, I also wrote 25-30 other articles, blog posts, book chapters etc. for others.
This year we also revamped the archives page, making it much easier to read old posts by date or subject matter.
We have lots of great plans for this year to help reach even more high-income professionals. Probably the biggest announcement is the podcast. We are almost done with the first five episodes which should be available this month. I'm not sure how often we'll do updates. Certainly no more often than once a week, but probably more like once or twice a month. It still needs some polishing, but hopefully you find it useful during those long commutes, and if it is like most of the stuff associated with this site, it gets a lot better the more of you that participate in it. Like with anything, reviews can be very helpful, so I'd appreciate you leaving us a kind one. Even better, shoot me an email with some constructive criticism, the best kind of feedback.
We also have a new feature coming out on the newsletter list. We're tentatively calling this the WCI 12 Step Program. This is designed to help busy professionals to rapidly get the information and motivation they need to clean up their financial messes. When you sign up for the newsletter, you will get an email once a week for 12 weeks. Each email will include not only information critical to your success, but also a “homework” task for you to perform that week. Eventually, I'll improve, expand, and compile those emails into another book. Those of you who are already signed up for the email list will also get the 12 Step Program, all for free like everything else on the site (except the books.)
We also have two books in the works that will hopefully hit the market this year.
Mission # 2 Feeding My Inner Entrepreneur
This website has been a for-profit enterprise from day one. Sure, it didn't make much money those first two or three years, but eventually all of that hard work started to pay off, for which my family and I will forever be grateful to you and the site's sponsors. Don't get me wrong. We were on track to be very financially successful long before starting the site. In fact, we were millionaires before the site ever made any money. That first million, 7 years out of training, was all due to medicine, discipline, and good financial decision making. However, the financial success of this business is certainly helping us to reach our financial goals faster by allowing us to save, give, and spend more each year than we had ever planned. You may have noticed a few changes in tone and content in some posts as my personal financial focus moves away from managing money in a way that leads to financial success and toward managing money in a way that maximizes happiness once financial success occurs. One advantage I have in writing for trainees and high-income professionals of all kinds of different incomes is that I have been in every tax bracket at some point in the last 15 years. While initially it was difficult for me to relate to doctors making more than the average physician (our gross income the year I started the blog was $177K–the most we had ever made in a year up until that time,) I can now relate to many of the financial issues and struggles that highly paid specialists, two-physician couples, and successful entrepreneurs deal with. Hopefully, I will always remember what it was like to be living on a fraction of that income.
It was obvious to me from the beginning that most students, residents, physicians, and other high-income professionals were not going to pay for the information that I had and they needed to learn, no matter how valuable it would eventually be to them. I'm just as cheap as you are. So I knew that, for the most part, the information could not be the product of the business because doctors weren't going to be the customers. So what's the product? Well, you are, specifically your eyeballs. And who are the customers? Well, that's the advertisers. Obviously the book is a little different, but for the most part, that's the business model here.
Thanks to this crazy crew of WCI employees for their support this year!
It's important that the site be money-generating, and not just because it helps us buy nicer cars, go on nicer vacations, pay off our house earlier, save up more for our kids' college educations, and give more money away to our favorite causes, including the WCI Scholarship. The reason why is it keeps me engaged. I mean, I'm a relatively self-less guy; 20% of my patients don't pay me, my wife and I give large quantities to charity each year, and we each spend a lot of time volunteering for community organizations. But there is no way I'm doing 30 speaking engagements, writing 30 articles, posting 120 blog posts, editing another 50 blog posts, sorting through 100+ scholarship essays, maintaining lists of recommended financial professionals, moderating 10,000 comments, keeping a website running, and engaging with thousands of readers via email, forum posts, and comments for nothing. I'm sorry, I might be altruistic, but I'm also a capitalist.
All of that activity takes time away from my practice, my family, and my recreational pursuits. There has got to be something in it for me in order to keep me engaged and interested, and something in it for my wife for her to provide the ridiculous level of support she has given me the last few years as I've embarked on this mission. I'm not surprised to see that almost all of those who have decided to join me (compete with me?) in helping high-income professionals become financially literate have also chosen to establish for-profit businesses. On a sad note, one of those bloggers, radiology resident Amanda Liu, died late last year, so this is a great opportunity to recognize her accomplishments. She accomplished more for the cause of physician financial literacy in a couple of years as a busy resident than many of us have in our entire lives.
However, the problem with being for-profit while also trying to provide unbiased financial information is that making money introduces conflicts of interest. I try to manage these conflicts by disclosing them at every possible opportunity. Now that I have lots of other businesses competing with me, I have to be a little bit careful in exactly how I do that so as not to give away the trade secrets I worked out over years. But I intend to continue to give a financial report of some type each year, so here is that report.
[Update January 2019: I decided to remove the financial reports from the State of the Blog posts for the last three years. You can read the reasoning on the January 2019 post.]
Conflicts of Interest
So, what are our main conflicts of interest? They are surprisingly few and they haven't really changed from last year, where I discussed many of my ethical dilemmas as a blogger in detail. I work very hard to minimize or eliminate these effects as much as I can, but I'm sure there is at least a subconscious effect on what happens here. Here are all the ones I can think of:
- I am incentivized to run content that relates to my advertisers' businesses (and especially those with whom I have an affiliate marketing relationship) more frequently than other content.
- I am incentivized to accept guest posts from high income professionals who advertise with me more frequently than those who do not, although the only “sponsored posts” this site has ever run are those by the five platinum scholarship sponsors last year (and 100% of that revenue went to the scholarship recipients.)
- I am incentivized to recommend you refinance your student loans when perhaps it would not be a good move for you (which is awfully rare if you're not going for PSLF.)
- I am incentivized to recommend you seek out professional help with insurance, financial planning, investment management, student loan advice, purchasing and selling real estate, negotiating contracts, and preparing your taxes when perhaps you may be able to do that on your own.
- I am incentivized to recommend alternative investments such as real estate and Peer to Peer Loans over boring index funds at Vanguard.
- I am incentivized to accept advertisers who do not meet my high standards for recommendation to friends and family.
- I am incentivized to recommend you use a physician mortgage loan over a conventional one, although I don't recall ever doing that.
- I am incentivized to recommend you read financial books, including and especially my own.
- I am incentivized against recommending content by others who have the same affiliate marketing partners or who compete for the same advertisers.
Mission # 3 Connecting With “The Good Guys”
When I first started The White Coat Investor, I had to wonder if there were any good people in the financial services industry. My general attitude toward them was best explained by William Bernstein, MD:
“You are engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the financial services industry. … If you act on the assumption that every broker, insurance salesman … and financial advisor you encounter is a hardened criminal, you will do just fine.”
I've been pleased to discover over the years that not every financial professional is a hardened criminal, and I am honored to recommend the services of those you see advertised on the site (with the exception of ads provided by ad-serving software such as Google Adsense, who knows what will pop up there. Blame your own browsing habits if it is something crazy.)
I am frequently asked for recommendations for books, websites, student loan refinancers, doctor mortgage lenders, financial advisors, insurance agents, contract reviewers, student loan pros, realtors, and tax strategists. I wish I had more to recommend in many of those categories. You can find all of those recommended firms under the “Recommended” tab on every page of the blog. Yes, they are all paid advertisers on the blog (see mission # 2) but that is beneficial in that it connects professionals looking for clients with clients looking for professionals. I am occasionally saddened to have to remove a great financial advisor from the list as his practice fills and he no longer has a need to advertise. But it seems silly (and certainly not very profitable) to send you to someone who cannot meet your needs, no matter how good they are. Rest assured that I have done some initial vetting and due diligence on each of these firms (I am rejecting about 2 out of 3 financial advisors lately) and that WCI readers continue to do due diligence as they use their services. If I get multiple complaints about them, they are removed from the list. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
At any rate, when you have a need for a financial services professional, I hope you would consider using the services of one who supports this site. In some instances, that earns you a “special WCI-negotiated deal,” but in all instances it keeps you from being connected to an incompetent or unfairly priced professional. Of course, please continue to send me feedback, both good and bad, about your experience with these professionals.
In conclusion, thank you so much for reading the blog and/or sponsoring the site and especially for telling everyone you know about it. If you are here, you know just as well as I do how important it is to get this information out to other high-income professionals so they can optimize their finances and focus their time on their practice, family, and health instead.
What do you think? What did you like most this last year? What year did you start reading the blog? What attracted you here and what has kept you reading? What improvements would you like to see? Comment below!
Thank you for all you do… highly appreciated! Any thoughts of doing a day long or weekend conference? Many folks learn better in that environment with q/a on different financial topics.. you can throw in a ER topic for fun… I’m sure sponsors would jump on that as well and it’s a nice write-off for the business owner to combine a business and pleasure trip assuming we’re skiing the other half of the day?
Yes. Thinking about a “ski conference” in about a year. 2-3 hours of lectures before the lifts open, 2-3 after they close. Maybe two days long.
A conference is an absolutely splendid idea; needs to be at least an hour of CME so that I could deduct it (preferably an hour each day).
Congratulations to your success on the side gig.
That’s easy. Most of my talks qualify for CME. Throw in a little stuff on burnout and practice management and you’re good.
I’m in! Here is an idea: Ski with WCI for charity….auction off ski time with you to discuss any financial topic while on the lifts and skiing. You could do half days or days. Boom. Which mountain?
I actually thought about that too. It’s kind of embarrassing to ask someone to pay to ski with me though. But I guess it’s true that an hour with me could be worth hundreds of thousands to the right person.
I’m in too, but Jim would hate the time on the bunny slope with me.
I have a different idea of bunny slopes, just ask my kids. I’ve got my 7 year competently doing blue squares in any condition and my 12 year on black diamonds in any condition. The 18 month old had her first day today. It went pretty well.
Still looking forward to this! I know we have talked about it before, glad to hear it’s only a year away now!
And congrats on the blog. I was wondering if you would put the dollars down this time, and I’m glad you did. It’s also so good to see everyone happy for you and not upset that you are making “so much!” You earned it!
I can’t wait for the ski conference. Meeting other WCI readers (do we have a name for us yet?) would be great also.
Also so happy to see that you put the numbers out there again and that everyone is happy for you. You’ve earned every penny of it!
How about white coat investors?
Shoot, I guess if you want to be logical…guess that’s why you get the big bucks!
Thanks WCI. It is great to see one of the “Good Guys” have so much success. You deserve it!
Thanks WCI for the great content and all of the effort you clearly put into the site each week and the value that has accrued over the years. I’m a relatively new reader since mid-2016 and not an MD myself, but a highly-paid professional. Great stuff! I’m looking forward to continued reading in 2017!
Congrats on your success and thanks for all you!
Outstanding! I continue to be blown away by all that you do.
Your transparency is much appreciated, as is your tendency to ignore some of those incentives described in the “Conflicts of Interest.” You’ve been good to me, and while there’s little I can offer to you in return, I do what I can to help the other “others” who are newer to the game than me. I am hopeful that we are seeing a tide that will raise all the boats, wakeboats included.
Cheers to another wildly successful year for WCI!
-PoF
Definitely a huge thank you. I started reading the site about 4 years ago and bought the book when it first came out (one of only 2 financial books I have asked my wife to read). The content you provide is stellar and I find myself referring physicians to this site all the time. I have hooked my cousin onto it (a anesthesia resident) and recently my brother (a orthopod), so you are making our families futures brighter.
It took me another 3.5 years to start my own site and thanks to you and PoF it is slowly creeping along. As for competition, I think any of the newbies are a long long way from reaching your level. The transparency has always been great too. At my old job, me and one of my colleagues would always discuss your year end review and be blown away by the income you were making. It is deserved though. Good content = Increased worth.
Keep it up and look forward to the podcast.
– EJ
I recommend your site and book to every dentist I meet
Education is obviously the key to getting everyone on board to invest in the most prudent matter
We can only thank you as I keep learning daily from your site and others you recommend
For those approaching SS age read Social Security Made Simple by Mike Piper
It has been amazing to see your “popularity” grow. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the site shortly after you started and am one of those readers that reads every post. I have been recommending your site to all attendings, residents and medical students that cross my path. Initially, no one knew about the site, now I would say that most of the people I recommend the site to already know about it. Good job!
Love the site, it has helped me immensely, and congratulations on all your personal success as we are all benefitting from your hours of hard work. My only comment and request is some focus on “lower high income” professionals and issues related to HCOL areas. I am a Family Doc in New Jersey x 16 years and just saw my salary finally hit 190K a few years ago. I wince a bit every time I read the assumption on this site or other physician finance sites that we all “start” at 250-300K or instantly quintuple our residency salary in our first year out. And yes, I understand geographic arbitrage, but that does not work for all of us for a number of reasons. WCI mentioned last year that he was working on some articles related to us poor sucker primary care docs, I look forward to reading them! Best wishes in 2017!
+1 for a focus on HCOL areas. Not everyone has the flexibility to move to the boonies as so many people recommend as a solution.
Also a huge fan of the site. Congratulations on your success!
I’ve done a few posts about HCOL areas and had some guest posts about them. Not sure what else can be said on the subject, although I suppose I could adjust the assumptions I use sometimes.
Just wanted to make sure you saw this:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-advice-for-low-income-doctors/
I’ll try to write some more.
Congrats and thanks for running a great site. Yours is one of the ones I started reading long before I began my blog. I also really appreciate seeing the numbers, its always interesting. Onward and upward in 2017!
You do 30 speaking gigs a year, write other article, etc and you only make $35,000?!!!
That means you are making less than $1000 a lecture and all but 5 you are doing traveling.
That is you might fly out the night before, lecture in the morning, then fly home that night, for less than a grand.
A lot of time away from the family and a lot of mileage on the body for that little.
Seems like you should raise your speaking fee or maybe quit this part. Considering it is only about 4% of your income. Unless you are using this to get more traffic to the site.
Love the blog and appreciate you,
john
I think you made a jump there. I did about 30 speaking gigs and podcast appearances. I generally do the podcasts for free. I did two speaking gigs for free last year (both local) and generally charge much less for the local ones (since I don’t miss two days of work while traveling.)
But you’re right. As far as trading time for money, the speaking gigs are the dumbest thing I do. I’d be better off doing almost anything else (including working shifts in the ED) than doing speaking gigs. But I enjoy meeting people and introducing my ideas to new audiences. If I could just figure out how to teleport there instantaneously…
And I do raise the fees every year. Which becomes problematic when I do repeat appearances for the same organization. “You did it for $2K last year and now you want $4K?” What I may do eventually is just speak for free but carefully choose who I speak to.
The quality of your blog is first-rate – much higher than most of the other blogs I read. I’m an engineer in my late 60’s, and fairly sophisticated financially, heavily invested in rental homes and real estate notes. Your blog entries usually give me new ideas to think about, and are most enjoyable to read. Your success is well-earned – congratulations!!
Nice Post. Started in 3rd year of Med School and now will finish Residency in 6 months. Can’t believe it’s been that long. Now, hopefully the stuff I’ve learned will come into play with a little more money at my disposal. Thanks again.
Congratulations on another great year! It’s refreshing to read a blog with so much transparency. I hope 2017 only continues to get better and I look forward to reading more great posts. Happy New Year WCI
Congratulations for sure. Although the amount of money listed is certainly eye-opening you definitely deserve it as you have helped a ton of people in the process.
My big question is, with such a lucrative “side business” which as you have mentioned previously now surpasses the money you achieve from your primary medical practice, why would you continue to even maintain a medical practice? By continuing to practice medicine you have to consider the risk of getting hit with a malpractice lawsuit, etc and other financial risks that I would assume would be nearly non-existent for a blogger.
I do get that practicing medicine does have an enriching aspect to it but as rules and regulations change and hoops become smaller and smaller to jump through for insurance companies to approve payments it certainly has lost its appeal.
Obviously I could step away from medicine at this point. I could almost step away from the blog too. At that point, you start asking yourself, “Self, what do you want to do with your life?” Over the last 1-2 years I’ve been doing what I want to do with my life. For now, that includes practicing medicine.
Is there risk of me being sued above my policy limits and losing my taxable savings and house? Absolutely. I calculate it at 1 in 10,000. I probably ran more risk of an avalanche this morning while out ski touring by myself.
Congrats on all of your success – it’s incredibly well deserved. I used to search frequently during medical school for financial advice for medical students, residents, and physicians and never found much that was helpful. One day during my intern year (2011), this site popped up. I’ve been reading ever since, and recommending the site and book to everyone I can. Usually they had never heard of it. This year, about half of the time they already had, and I’ve actually now had others recommend the site to me. I’m finishing fellowship this year, and I’m confident that our financial footing is much more solid than it would have been without your guidance. Thanks so much for all that you do.
I love this site. I am a long term reader and commenter. I love that physician finance nerds have found a place to congregate online. I never discuss my net worth with hospital colleagues. I work less than most docs that I know because I can. Personal finance decisions allowed me to do that. I think I know a fair amount but I always learn new things here. I also like the forum. I never dreamed that I would exchange comments and emails with Phil Demuth and Bill Bernstein. Thanks for all you do Jim.
Love the site and love the transparency. You deserve every dollar for the years where you were bashing your head against the Internet building up this readership. I think your podcasts are going to be successful as well and can’t wait to hear them. Happy New Year and looking forward to WCI in 2017!
It’s refreshing to read a frank list of conflicts. Kudos.
I understand your concern about “competitors,” but I think it is misplaced. (Easy for me to write.) New bloggers likely expand the market.
Given that your year-over-year revenue is up big, the anecdotal evidence seems to support this. (At the very least, it doesn’t support the converse.)
You’re probably right about the market expansion. As I wrote in my “Other Guys” post, blogging is primarily collaborative.
Thank you for the blog and all your efforts. Your blog reimbursement is well deserved. I could only imagine the amount of money that you have saved me as well as the 1000s of others that have been rewarded by your teachings.
Good for you! I’m not even a doctor (I’m a soon-to-be-retired BigLaw partner who has written an anonymous guest post that you have posted regarding an estate planning subject), but I join many doctors and other high income professionals in appreciating what you’ve brought to this site. I have been a reader for a long time – and I probably was one of the first purchasers of your book. I appreciate the transparency, as well.
As a total aside, I must say that, as many talks as you give, it is hard for me to understand how your travel expenses can be only about $2,400. Perhaps some of the fees you get are after they pay your travel expense. I travel a lot, and my clients have gotten used to the fact that I will charge them for first class every time. That makes the not-fun travel a bit less onerous. I might spend $2,400 on the airfare for one trip for a client (and I stay at nice hotels), I’m not an outdoors guy like you are. For my wife and me in retirement, nice (and relatively expensive) travel will be a big chunk of our budget. As you have said, spend money on what brings you happiness.
Most of the time they just cover it. Those are the ones I paid and was later reimbursed for. If I added in all the ones that were covered it would probably be closer to $10K.
Please don’t get burnt out from blogging!
Such a baller!
WCI if you don’t mind, how do you manage “staff” and how do you recruit them? Reason is I am thinking about a venture that will need secretary and somebody to handle general emails etc.
1. So question is re: Staff handles regular day type of work(bills, emails etc)
2. Staff expansion, in your case for podcast/new books <- looking for this sort of quality person is difficult I believe. 3. How do you get motivation to sit down and write a new book?? Please share for my own motivation. Thanks and congrats!!
1) Hired someone I trust and paid her very well for a job that can be one on her own time from anywhere in the world but really isn’t all that many hours.
2) I outsource a lot. I think the guy who read the audioversion of my book cost me $600-800 or so.
3) Why do you think it’s been so long since the first was published? It would be a lot easier if we weren’t having such an awesome snow year.
🙂
This is a general question for any one but would love to hear from you (in a blog post?). Any efficiency measures/tools you use to control chaos? I mean WordPress kinda gives great CMS tools, and there is gmail ofcourse but any other app/tool/yoga? you do to build massive efficiencies? (guess outsourcing is one)
Anyways…back to night shift 🙁
I’m really not an expert on blogging professionally. I tried to learn as much as I could, worked hard, got into a profitable niche early, and had some luck. If you really want to learn how to blog professionally, my two favorite blogs are problogger.com and smartpassiveincome.com.
Loved this post. I have no idea how you do so much! Your wife must do an awesome job running the show at home. I imagine you two make a great team. Congrats on the success you’ve achieved. Thanks for creating this site- I absolutely LOVE having a place to talk finance.
It’s quite a show with these yeahoos. We had a serious Nintendo Wii Mariocart 8 competition tonight while mom was doing a ladies night out at a friend’s cabin. The only thing better than having a cabin is having a friend with a cabin.
James, while I write for a military audience, your blog continues to be an inspiration to me. I know that you served in the military as a doctor. Your insights into military finances on the Bogleheads forums and your general approach to personal finance partially inspired me to start my site.
I have learned a lot from your writing over the past 5 years, so I wanted to say thank you! I wish you continued success with your endeavors in 2017.
Thank you for your kind words. Military folks certainly need all the financial help they can get!
It’s near-impossible to thank you enough for the positive impact this site has had on my life. In an effort to pay it forward, I’ve shared some high-yield financial wisdom (garnered mostly from this blog) with friends and colleagues who have expressed interest in improving their finances. It’s fun to see someone’s mind blown, for example, when told about backdoor Roths and stealth IRAs (HSAs). Congrats on your success and on creating your (darn close to) ideal life!