Has it been another year already? It is a tradition here at The White Coat Investor to update the members of our community on the progress made in the last year. As usual, last year was our best year ever in nearly every respect. Thanks to all of you who have even the tiniest amount of responsibility for that. If you told even one person about the site or book, answered one question on the forum or Facebook group, or used the site to find a financial service provider you needed, THANK YOU.
Just as I have the last two years, I'm going to talk about the state of the blog in terms of the three missions of The White Coat Investor:
- 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
# 1 Getting a “Fair Shake” on Wall Street
Prior to the site re-design in 2016, the line under the title of this site and on search engine results read “Helping Those Who Wear The White Coat Get a Fair Shake on Wall Street.” I kind of miss it, but the design and SEO professionals won out.
Kind of ugly huh? If you think that was bad, check out what it looked like its first month:
It doesn't even look like I remembered to put a title on that post. We've come a long way baby! While the site may look nearly the same as last year, the amount of good The White Coat Investor community has done in the last year was dramatically increased. Let's run through some of the ways in which 2018 was better than 2017.
The Blog
Have I ever mentioned that I really love to blog? It is so much more fun than podcasting, videocasting, public speaking, writing books, selling ads, answering emails, and putting out social media fires. The blog is still the mainstay of The White Coat Investor and still probably our great reach, although it has some new competition from another part of WCI, which we'll get into later.
This year we published 211 posts written by the following people
- Me: 112
- Our paid columnist, Whitney: 1
- WCI Network Members: 47
- Guests: 56
- Sponsors (for scholarship): 5
- Podcast show notes: 52
The grand total of posts and pages on the blog portion of the site is 1,524. A typical blog post is now read by 15-22,000 people by email or on the site. The entire site had 11,125,922 page views (41% increase) by 1,968,422 unique individuals (57% increase) in 2018 and approximately 33,571,323 pageviews by 6,220,424 unique individuals since its inception in May 2011.
The most widely read post written this year was 10 Reasons Why Doctors Spend Too Much Money. The most widely read guest post was actually one of the sponsored posts for the scholarship contest this year, the one by Josh Mettle entitled This Real Estate Bubble…Likely Isn't a Bubble, ironically published at the height of national real estate prices this year. To be fair, the decline was pretty minimal in the last half of the year, about 5.9% according to the National Association of Realtors. Not exactly a popping bubble, but it does demonstrate that none of us have a working crystal ball.
The comments section of the blog is always lots of fun. Over the last 8 years, the blog has accumulated 63,547 legitimate comments, and yes, I've read every single one of them.
The Newsletter
The newsletter was the second piece of the WCI Empire. This is a FREE monthly email newsletter sent out about the first of every month. If you’re not subscribed, you’re really missing out. If you haven't been getting them, PLEASE ADD MY EMAIL ADDRESS TO YOUR CONTACT LIST. Not my fault; blame Gmail.
Besides an update on what we’re doing at WCI, we review the best financial articles for high-income professionals on the web each month, provide a market review, and have a “special tip” which is basically a super secret blog post that never shows up on the site. Our email list currently has 21,725 people, an increase of 49% from last year. Signing up also entitles you to the FREE 12 email Financial Bootcamp course.
Speaking Engagements
Something else I've been doing for years is going out and meeting you personally and trying to speak to groups of physicians, dentists, and others. It's enjoyable from the time I step off the plane until I get back on, but I'm not going to pretend traveling is my favorite part of WCI. I did my first one in 2012 for $500 plus expenses and have been raising prices ever since, mostly to try to limit the number of these I do to about a half dozen a year, usually unsuccessfully. This year I gave ten presentations all over the country. This month will be my first international appearance.I also had quite a few podcast appearances. There is a huge need out there for doctors to teach each other about personal finance and investing at medical schools, conferences, and grand rounds. I cannot possibly meet this need, so thank you to those of you who are stepping up to help. I know the pay sucks, but there are some people who can only be reached this way. I keep getting asked to share some slides so perhaps I'll come up with a standardized presentation this year that I can just give away to you.
Freelance Writing
I continue to write for ACEP NOW (6 articles published this year) and began writing for Forbes (7 articles) this year. Like the speaking engagements, the pay sucks but it's a chance to get the message out to new audiences. I probably wrote a few other articles and guest posts this year, but I have no idea where other than the 52 posts I had republished at Physician on FIRE and Passive Income MD.
Books
The White Coat Investor: A Doctor’s Guide to Personal Finance and Investing continues to sell hundreds of copies each month but it has dropped off finally. We sold 12,829 this year, a decrease from 18,939 last year. Since it was published almost 5 years ago, we’ve sold 69,301 copies. It ranks 3rd and 76th in its categories. The Kindle version still ranks 2nd and 2nd in its categories. The audiobook ranks 17th, 90th, and 100th in its categories. Overall, it is ranked 3,512 on Amazon, not too bad given the tens of millions for sale there, although that is a decrease from 2,410 last year. The book has 884 reviews, 95% of which are 4 or 5 stars.
The good news is there is another book coming, which will be published in just a few weeks. The White Coat Investor's Financial Bootcamp began as an email series, but has been dramatically updated, expanded, and improved with the addition of numerous anecdotes from readers. I hope it sees as much success as the first book.
I know I keep talking about the tax book I plan to write. Obviously, I didn't pull it off in 2018, and chances are it won't be published in 2019 either. Each year as we make strategic plans we have to decide where to spend my limited time and effort. Some things just can't be outsourced. Maybe by this time next year.
Social Media
We made a big effort here this year. We now have 13,200 Twitter followers (107% increase) and 8,974 Facebook followers. (84% increase). We also started a Pinterest page (31 followers) and Instagram (760 followers.) The most important accomplishment this year was that I beat Physician on FIRE to 10,000 Twitter followers. I guess I shouldn't be too proud of that since Rogue Dad, MD pretty much did that with one tweet.
Thank you for following/liking/pinning/sharing WCI on social media. It really does help spread the message.
We started a r/whitecoatinvestor subreddit over on Reddit. It wasn't the most successful thing we've ever done, but there are 910 subscribers and 22,326 pageviews by 4,323 people.
White Coat Investors Facebook Group
On the other hand, the private Facebook Group started in August was a smashing success. We now have 11,841 members who made 33,976 comments and 46,550 reactions (likes etc) on 2,069 posts. While the depth of interaction there isn't quite as impressive as on the WCI forum, the fact that it concentrates so many white coat investors in one place makes for some pretty awesome results. Like any Facebook group, there is an occasional bit of drama but with a little moderation and the 99.9% of participants who are just trying to help each other, there is a lot of good being done there. One of these days my advertisers will figure out that sponsoring that group is the best advertising deal we offer.
The Scholarship
The WCI Scholarship is something we’re very proud of around here. The WCI community, including readers, sponsors, and staff all pitched in to give over $60,000 in cash and prizes away to deserving professional students. 10 winners were selected from over 740 students by 76 volunteer judges. The winner took home $28,887 and the WCI Online Course to teach her what to do with it. It was a particularly diverse group of winners this year by profession, race, gender, and life circumstances and for the first time ever we had a winner (fourth place) from my medical school. If you missed the winning essays, you can catch them again here.
- Grand Prize Winner- Jaclyn Mauch
- 2nd Place- Yidan Xu
- 3rd Place- Carlos Garcia
- 4th Place- Nate Alder
- 5th Place- Brent Wright
We’d also like to give a special thank you to the Platinum sponsors for this year’s WCI scholarship (contributions of $5,000+)
- Larry Keller (Physician Financial Services) – Disability and Life Insurance
- CommonBond – Student Loan Refinancing
- Laurel Road – Student Loan Refinancing
- Bob Bhayani (Dr Disability Quotes) -Disability and Life Insurances
- Physician Home Loans at Fairway Mortgage – Doctor Mortgage Loans
Thank you for supporting those who support us in our efforts. Also, please don't start emailing me in March asking about the 2019 scholarship. Just subscribe to the newsletter. The announcement won't be subtle and you'll have all summer to get your application in.
The Forum
We just completed our third year of the WCI Forum. It hit a significant milestone this year when the front page of the forum surpassed the front page of the entire site in page views for the year. There are now 8,361 threads (97% increase) and 100,324 posts (104% increase) written by 5,831 forum members (56% increase). I love the community that has developed there. Like any financial forum, the regulars tend to be hobbyists, experts, and maybe even fanatics. Nevertheless, crowdsourcing advice like that will surely keep you from making any of the usual financial mistakes. A special thank you to our most active volunteer moderators this year: Hank, Jacoavlu, jfoxcpacfp, DMFA, and Doc Spouse.
The Podcast
We had a goal last year to put out a podcast episode every week all year and are proud to have achieved that. Cindy, in particular, put in a ton of work here to really improve both the consistency and the quality of the product we're putting out. Her work has been amply rewarded. The podcast is now giving the blog serious competition for reach and impact. A typical blog post is now downloaded by 15,000-20,000. We have now put out a total of 86 podcasts, 52 this year. Total downloads for the podcast are now 1,534.057 (326% increase) and an average of 17,432 per episode (58% increase.) There are around 11,100 subscribers. The show is ranked #136 in its category (Business) by iTunes. That's ahead of things like the NPR Morning Report and behind things like Bigger Pockets and way behind things like Dave Ramsey, How I Built This, and Planet Money. No other physician financial podcasts are in the top 200 as far as I know. It has 630 rankings, 598 of which were 5 stars. Next to the Facebook Group, this may be the best advertising value available at WCI these days.
Our top three episodes were: # 55 (Basics of Investing), # 67 (Physician on FIRE and Passive Income MD), and # 56 (Mike Piper) with over 20,000 downloads each.
We settled on doing interviews on every other episode. The other episodes mostly consist of me ranting and/or answering questions from readers. We implemented Speakpipe this year, which is a way for you to ask a question on the podcast by recording your voice and submitting it to us. If you'd like your question answered on the podcast, leave it here.
My goal for next year is to put more time and preparation into each episode. We also plan to make the podcast notes even more useful and to book even more interesting and prestigious guests on the show.
The YouTube Channel
We're making progress on the YouTube channel as well. We produced 42 videos this year and now have 1,340 subscribers (402% increase.) We've had 28,709 views (193% increase) for a total of 3,137 hours of viewing in the last year. Apparently, when we hit 4,000 hours in the last year we can actually start putting ads on the videos and make something from this thing. I don't think I'm ever going to be a YouTube star. We're still trying to figure out the best way to use this videocast. It's great for tutorials, but I'm going to try to produce a little more content exclusively for video this year. Stay tuned for details. Thanks for subscribing, liking, and sharing.
The WCI Network
The WCI Network of blogs is a group of bloggers that are working together to further the mission of The White Coat Investor. Both Physician on Fire and Passive Income M.D. have had fantastic years both growing their audience and their income. I'll let them share the details, but from my point of view, the results are very impressive as they both really had a break out year. We have been searching far and wide for new members of the network, but it has become a little bit harder to select new members just because so many bloggers came into the niche all at once in the last couple of years. It's hard to monitor them all and tough to choose between them. The fact that there are now so many, dilutes the numbers a bit and makes it harder for any given blog to stand out from its peers, and grow its readership and income enough that it makes sense to bring them into the network. Your suggestions are always welcome.
I offered both PoF and PIMD the opportunity to submit something for this post.
Physician on FIRE
Physician on FIRE was started about three years ago on January 9, 2016. Fifteen months later, we joined forces in forming the WCI Network. Passive Income MD joined us as the third member site later that year in November. I've published nearly 550 posts and 50 pages on physicianonfire.com. There is some overlap in the topics we discuss, but I focus a bit more on the benefits of financial independence and retiring early.
Over 1 million unique visitors have visited the site about 2.3 Million times for a total of 4.2 Million pageviews and counting, with 2.3 Million of them coming in 2018. My reach includes 13,000 Twitter followers, 3,000 likes on my Facebook page, nearly 10,000 docs in my Physicians on FIRE Facebook group (for MD/DO physicians only) and 4,000 in my fatFIRE group (for all interested in high-budget FIRE). I've also got a growing Instagram following of about 1,000 awesome people. My main email list consists of roughly 6,000 subscribers.
I only disclose my revenue data with email subscribers in a quarterly progress note, and I have pledged to donate 50% of my operating profits. To date, I've actually donated closer to 90% of what I've earned, a six-figure sum that's doing good around our nation and the world.
Passive Income MD
Passive Income M.D. was created less than three years ago to help others achieve financial freedom through additional streams of income, focusing heavily on real estate investing and entrepreneurship. We joined the WCI Network at the very end of 2017, and in 2018, we hit the huge milestone of having over one million page views in a calendar year. Other things we accomplished in 2018 including publishing over 150 posts, getting our Facebook Group, Passive Income Docs, up and running with over 5,000 physicians helping each other achieve their passive income goal, and increasing the blog revenue 7x over the previous year thanks to new partnerships and the WCI Network.
Personally, I’ve achieved financial independence from medicine, and if you’re interested in how I now spend my time, join me on Instagram. If you’d also like more specifics in terms of blog income and analytics, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter; we’ll be sharing that information in a few days.
I can’t help but feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for my partners in the WCI Network (White Coat Investor and Physician on Fire), loyal readers, and ambassadors of the site. Thank you for continuing to spread the word and helping us make an impact one reader at a time.
Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference
WCICON18 was another huge success for 2018. Nothing I've done with WCI has caused me as many sleepless nights (including evaluating buy out offers) as this conference. Despite all the stress of hosting a 300 person party where they all paid hundreds of dollars to attend, it was really fun for 2 1/2 solid days. I was so grateful to the speakers, sponsors, and attendees who took a chance on me. Apparently, almost everyone had a great time, as 99% of attendees recommended it to their peers. We recorded it and you can still attend virtually if you would like. 13 hours of great content from smart folks like Jonathan Clements, William Bernstein, and Mike Piper for just $299. Not sure if you'll like it? It comes with a money back guarantee in the first week if you've watched less than 25% of it. But come on. NINETY-NINE PERCENT of attendees recommend it to their peers. 496 of you attended virtually this year; that's more than attended the live version!
No, there won't be a WCICON19, but we're in the preliminary stages of planning for WCICON20 the first half of March 2020 in Las Vegas, NV. We'll get you dates as soon as we lock them down, but expect to open it up for registration by mid-summer. Be sure you're subscribed to the newsletter to get all the latest.
Financial Bootcamp
This is our “freebie” to entice you to sign-up for the free email newsletter (as if the newsletter isn't enough?) The goal was to help people catch up to the long-term WCI readers as quickly as possible. Obviously, it's been expanded and placed into book form (on sale soon), but the free version is still available just by signing up here. You'll get one email a week for 12 weeks. If you follow the directions in each email, 3 months from now you'll have your financial ducks in a row.
A total of 10,998 people have started the course and 8,074 have finished it. Did you miss a few emails in the series? You can find them at the bottom of this page.
Sign-up today!
Fire Your Financial Advisor – The Online Course
This was another smashing success for 2018. We even had a semi-successful affiliate program where other bloggers made some money by selling the course to their readers. This 7-8 hour course consists of videos, screencasts, handouts, quizzes, and tests that will help you develop your own financial plan that you believe in. Even if you decide not to “Fire Your Financial Advisor“, the first module will help you choose a good advisor and get the most out of your advisory relationship. You can be 100% positive you're getting good advice at a fair price. Reviews were consistently excellent. We had a grand total of 1,237 students go through the course.
If you'd like to be our next student, enroll today! $499 might seem expensive, but considering the thousands of dollars that even a low-cost advisor would charge to educate you and put together a financial plan for you, it's a bargain at twice the price. We consider this price to be the resident/military price, we just give it to everyone! There's also a no-questions-asked, 7 days, 100% money back guarantee on this course. Only 1-2% of students took us up on it. That's how good the course is.
Enroll in Fire Your Financial Advisor today!
Future Efforts
Our big projects for 2019 include the publication of The White Coat Investor's Financial Bootcamp book and another online course aimed at residencies. It will be sold only in bulk and be designed to be the equivalent of one week (5 hours) worth of didactics. While it can't include EVERYTHING in Fire Your Financial Advisor (given it will be 3 hours shorter), for those whose residencies purchase it, it'll be the most significant financial education you'll receive during med school or residency. By selling it only in bulk, we'll be able to get the price point to a place where it makes sense for us to make it and for programs to buy it. Stay tuned for details. We hope to have it ready for the 2019-2020 year. If this goes well, the next step will be a course aimed at medical/dental schools.
Word of Mouth
One of the most important things the White Coat Investor community does is share this information from one colleague to another in hospitals, clinics, schools, and residency programs. Attendings share with residents, who share with interns, who share with students, who in turn share with attendings. I hear about more and more of you all the time who are starting Finance Interest Groups at your schools and even trying to put a finance curriculum into place. Others give lectures to trainees and colleagues once or twice a year. Every little bit counts and perhaps within a few more years doctors will no longer be viewed as marks, whales, and suckers by the financial services industry. You have been and will continue to be a huge part of our growth simply by sharing something that has impacted your life in a meaningful way with others that you care about. Thank you!
Mission # 2 Feed My Entrepreneurial Spirit
The White Coat Investor, LLC continues to feed my entrepreneurial spirit. It continues to make more money than I ever thought I would make in my life. Katie and I really feel like we became financially independent this year, about 9 years earlier than our original financial plan called for, thanks to the income from WCI. The income has allowed us to be ridiculously generous as well. While it seems inappropriate to brag about how much we give away these days, the WCI scholarship should give you an inkling of what we've been doing behind the scenes.
It has been fun to learn how the business world works, to have my own successes and failures in developing and marketing products, and to attempt to manage and inspire others. However, the most rewarding part for me has been to create jobs for others, and not just any jobs, but jobs that many of you would prefer to your own! High pay, work on your own time from home, and plenty of purpose, autonomy, and mastery. Our new staff member this year is Michelle, who took over social media duties from Jill, who is now focusing entirely on editing and especially search engine optimization. Everyone in the organization learned new skills this year, but the learning curve has been steepest for Michelle. Those in the Facebook Group know her well from her duties there. Perhaps the most fun part of watching her come into the company has been to observe her struggle with exactly the same things you all struggle with as she sets up her individual 401(k), chooses an asset allocation, and gets her own financial ducks in a row.
Where's the Financial Report?
Each year since 2012 we have provided a rather detailed financial report of the revenue, expenses, and profit that The White Coat Investor, LLC has made. My goal in doing this has been to provide transparency about my own financial conflicts of interest, especially when I have been so vocal and critical of those in the financial services industry. I suppose I was also inspired by other bloggers who have done the same thing, particularly Pat Flynn (who has been very successful blogging about blogging at Smart Passive Income.) This year Pat stopped giving detailed monthly reports of all of his sources of income for reasons he details in a video.Each year my own reports have become a little more vague, although I have always been very careful about disclosing all of my conflicts of interest quite candidly. There are a few reasons for the decreasing detail.
First, when I started doing this there wasn't really anyone else actually trying to make a buck blogging about finances for doctors. But as more and more other docs entered the space (80+ and counting) they were using these annual income reports as blueprints to copy my business. While I applaud their efforts to promote financial literacy among docs, I was not so fond of having to start competing with them for revenue sources. Now, nobody was doing everything we were doing, but I had to compete against some people in book sales, against others in affiliate marketing, others in podcasting, others in Facebook Groups etc. Were any of them giving detailed financial reports? Very few.
Second, after starting The WCI Blogging Network, I was essentially charging other bloggers for my expertise about how to grow and monetize a physician financial blog along with contacts and relationships developed over years. It wasn't fair for me to be giving this information away for free after my network partners sold me part of their business in order to get it. By limiting the information given out, I am increasing the value of their businesses right along with mine.
Third, when you're making $1,500 from your blog, reporting the income and expenses in excruciating detail is kind of cute. It's fun. “Ha ha, this doctor who makes hundreds of thousands a year seeing patients has a little side hustle, isn't that sweet?” However, as the income from the enterprise exceeded that of my clinical income (and that of my readers), it wasn't quite so cute. While there was some benefit inspiring docs to follow their entrepreneurial dreams, it seems that the main dream I inspired people to follow was to blog about physician finances! Sometimes it inspired jealousy and rude comments. My goal was never to blog about how to make money blogging, but that's what some people were most interested in.

The 2018 budget was similar, except the blue slice was smaller and the orange and gray slices were bigger
Most importantly, the blog has become well-known. I have become internet famous. My family members who share my last name go to the doctor and they're asked if they know me. My children at school are asked by their new teachers if their father is The White Coat Investor. Young kids in the neighborhood are starting to make comments about how I'm rich at the bus stop. If my patients Google my name, guess what the first 100 hits are? A quick search by plaintiff's attorneys will quickly reveal deep pockets. But my biggest fear? That my kids will be kidnapped and held for ransom.
So there won't be any more financial reports in the State of the Blog post each year (and I've removed it from the last three.) Suffice to say we had another great year with a similar rate of growth of revenue, expenses, and profits to prior years. I keep thinking it will level off eventually (and I really think that this year). For the last five years, Katie and I have asked each other “What will we do if this thing doubles again?” The answer always seems to be the same. We'll spend a little, save a bunch for a rainy day, pay a ton of taxes, and become increasingly generous each year. We still feel very passionately about our first mission and as long as we mostly concentrate on that, the second mission seems to take care of itself.
Our Financial Conflicts of Interest
These haven't really changed that much over the years, but it is good for both you and me to review them periodically. We try to be cognizant of them when making business decisions, but since we’re not willing to do this for free, there’s no way to eliminate them completely. Each of these really is a conflict, so don't just skip through them haphazardly. Recognize that in these matters, my recommendations are less trustworthy than they would be without the conflict.
- 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 financial 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 each year (and 100% of that revenue goes 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, borrowing a practice loan, 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 over boring index funds.
- I am incentivized to accept advertisers who do not meet my high standards for recommendation to friends and family.
- I am incentivized to recommend a fee-only advisor who charges AUM fees when a flat fee advisor may be less expensive.
- I am incentivized to recommend you use a physician mortgage loan over a conventional one.
- I am incentivized to recommend you read financial books, including and especially my own.
- I am incentivized to recommend you take my financial course and those of my affiliate partners.
- I am incentivized to recommend you attend WCICON either in person, virtually, or preferably both!
- I am incentivized against recommending content by others who have the same affiliate marketing partners or who compete for the same advertisers unless I am a partial owner of their site.
- I am incentivized to recommend the content of Physician on FIRE and Passive Income MD.
- I am incentivized to recommend you use the WCI Forum over the Bogleheads and other forums and the White Coat Investors Facebook Group over others.
Mission # 3 Connect You With The Good Guys
Our partnerships and relationships continue to grow. Although many doctors wish they never had to interact with a financial professional, the truth is that all of us will multiple times during our life. It might just be a transactional thing like drafting a will, refinancing student loans, getting a mortgage, or purchasing insurance, or it might be a long-term relationship with an attorney, financial planner, or investment manager. The good news is that there are some good guys (and gals) out there who offer good advice at a fair price. Every time I run into them my faith in humanity is restored a little bit.
A major part of our mission is connecting you with these people when you need them. We create value for them, by sending them great clients, and we create value for you, by making sure you’re not getting ripped off. Meanwhile, we’re slowly doing what we can to run the bad guys out of business and to bring costs down. I turn down lots of advertisers. I had one financial advisor with hundreds of doctor clients whose application was nearly perfect, right up until I got to the fee section. The AUM charges started too high and came down too slowly with increasing assets. They were just too high for my standards, although well within the range of what is typically charged in the industry. I turned him down, explaining the reason why as I usually do. That decision likely cost me thousands of dollars, some of which would go to great causes like my staff, the WCI Scholarship, and my favorite charities. Certainly, if I could steer a lot of business their way, there would be plenty of money there for both of us to become very wealthy. But it just wasn't the right thing to do. Maybe that feedback will change how the firm does business, maybe it won't, but at least I'll be able to sleep at night.
I'm proud to have not only built up The White Coat Investor, LLC but also to have had a major impact on the business of a fair number of my advertisers/partners. We are the major source of referrals for many of them and are proud to be helping them to feed their kids and send them to college.
At any rate, when you do have need of these services, I would appreciate it if you would at least consider using those who advertise on the site. They’ve had some preliminary vetting by me and some ongoing vetting by your fellow readers. You can find most of them under the recommended tabs at the top of the site.
- Student Loan Refinancing
- Mortgage Lenders
- Independent Insurance agents
- Financial Planners and Asset Managers
- Real Estate Crowdfunding Sites
- Realtors
- Student Loan Advice
- Contract Negotiation/Review
- Practice Loans
- Tax Strategists
Although we have plenty of service providers in most of these categories, we could use a few more in some of them. So if you’ve had a particularly good experience with someone that we’re not currently partnering with, please send them our way. Or, if you can provide some of these services, feel free to get in touch with Cindy (at) whitecoatinvestor.com to start the process.
We had a wonderful time serving you in 2018 and look forward to doing so for many years to come. We hope your life has been enriched by our hard work. May The White Coat Investor continue to help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street, feed my entrepreneurial spirit, and connect our community with the good guys in the financial services industry.
What do you think? What did you enjoy most about WCI in 2018? What are you looking forward to in 2019? How can we improve? Comment below!
Your growth continues to be astonishing. Though I am one of the 80+ physician finance bloggers out there, I can say that the rising tide truly raises all boats. I’ve been extremely thankful to get the help that I’ve received from this community.
The speed at which you are able to scale has been incredible to watch given the support that you have.
Keep up the good work.
TPP
It truly is amazing what you have accomplished Jim.
Even though it is great that the site has, deservedly so, brought in great financial rewards for you, I think what you should be most proud of is the legacy you have created and leave behind of really changing the mindset of thousands and thousands of physicians financially.
Coming upon this site early on (and the Bogleheads) after my divorce was the main reason I even decided to make the huge financial turnaround I did from being way in debt to now hitting numbers in net worth I didn’t think was possible.
In terms of what you have done with white coat and the white coat investor network, it is truly amazing. The numbers you have shared, pageviews, etc are mind-blowing. Starting my blog this year I realize how much effort it takes to put out a post you can be proud of. And for you to do it consistently year over year is a testament to your skills. Most people advise trying to concentrate on only 1 or 2 social media platforms because it will drive you crazy trying to keep track of them all and maintain each one individually to promote it. So more praise to you for hitting successful numbers on a multitude of media platforms. It is hard work for me just trying to keep up with my 2, so it is a true Herculean effort to be successful with that many.
I do hope you continue to consider expanding the WCI network as that would be the ultimate sign I am on to something with my blog if I could enter such hallowed grounds as you and your partners.
Keep up the great work, hope 2019 continues the upward trend for everyone. And even though it is super stressful planning a conference, hope that remains in the works for 2020.
a phenomenal website and making docs and others financially literate one day at a time
as someone who runs a personal finance club in fla, much of your material is what I refer to
sadly most seniors down here are not very financially astute; still in the generation of trading stocks
stay well and keep up the great work
Great post. I am one of the 80 bloggers. I know it is hard. I am glad you are delegating some of the work because I think it will increase your longevity. I met your staff members (family) at the WCIcon and I was impressed with them. I understand why you do not want to publish your financial numbers. I have always thought that made you vulnerable to plaintiff attorneys. Really sad about jealousy and rude comments from physicians. I really like the forum and will continue to comment there. Keep up the good work.
Congrats on your continued success!
I get exhausted just reading a summary of all you do.
There were some bets placed a while back about when you would stop posting your financials. You made it a lot longer than I thought so I lost that bet.
I am surprised that you are surprised by the downside of putting your affluence online. The reasons you listed are a few of the reasons many of us prefer anonymity.
Congratulations. I started reading mid-2015 and haven’t stopped. I am a financial professional (not on the selling side), and every time I get money questions (usually from physician colleagues of my spouse), your site is the place I point them at.
Your work makes the important point that finances are not rocket science (or, indeed, medicine). Everyone can do it. Professionals are simply folks who get more practice with it. My hope is as financial hygiene spreads fully to the medical community, it continues to the wider populace. It will solve a lot of long-term threats, as well as create tremendous opportunities. Whoever feel threatened from this movement needs to re-evaluate themselves.
While it is great to witness your success, it it sad to see the side effects of your fame. I hope you recapture peace of mind as your success grows.
What a nice comment! I couldn’t agree more.
Congrats on all your success. I started reading from nearly day 1 as a medical student and continue reading now as an attending. All my senior partners are very impressed with my financial knowledge and business acumen that WCI helped me obtain over the years!
In the past 5-6 years that I’ve read your blog you’ve been clear that your aim was to create a profitable business, and I’ve always appreciated that candor.
Your blog and now podcasts (and the transcripts) continue to be good sources for financial information/inspiration. I learn a lot from reading the comments also. It has inspired me to volunteer with a financial literacy group.
Good (and chilling) reminder of the virtue of stealth wealth in this post. I’m not particularly wealthy or noteworthy, but I have enough and am okay with it.
Congrats on all the success
I am mostly bummed about the lack of focus on tax book. All that means – for me – is that I’m currently spending time to sift through books, articles and trial and error and will come out knowledgable about business taxes but I’m lazy so silver spoon would’ve been nice.
I was also looking forward to the seminar you mentioned last time with residents and fellows that would’ve been affordable, but looks like that was scrapped for some other efforts ? I ask because I refer residents to this site and most wanted to have a seminar of sort (and seemed like that was planned this year but never happened ). I personally think that while that is not a money maker, it will have the greatest impact (the course you are planning is good and all but not the same thing as in person). My 2 cents.
I still want to do the tax book and plan to do lots of tax posts this year that will eventually form the nucleus of it, so stay tuned. It was a business decision I’m sure you’ll understand (i.e. books don’t pay that well.)
The funding for the seminar didn’t happen. A conference is primarily funded by the attendees and students/residents/fellows don’t have any money. So a conference for residents is a terrible business move. The sponsor was interested and was willing to partially fund, but the numbers just didn’t work. I mean, it was basically choose between funding the conference and funding the scholarship, both of which would be huge expenses and not profit centers and one of which requires a ton more time and effort.
I kissed tax books goodbye when I started using a tax software program. I like H+R Block because I’m used to it, but Turbotax is probably a little more user friendly.
Yea I use turbo tax as well and have learnt a ton. I’m not struggling or anything but just like to know about the subject matter. As it is I’m well versed in QBI re: my businesses . A condensed book is still nice so that was my point.
Appreciate the summary. You have saved my clients a ton of money. In many cases I can point toward some of your posts rather than educate a client on an important topic. I frequently refer to your favorite mutual fund post (Vanguard Total U.S. Stock Market Index Fund). I wanted to throw out a suggestion about your upcoming book. Can you be the narrator, versus hiring someone else to narrate the audio portion? I am an avid and voracious consumer of audio books. There is nothing I like more than having the author read the book to me. There is a nuance and passion that cannot be replicated. I have a saying in my small business. It is “this strategy is a WCI approved methodology. ” That brand goes a long way to inspire confidence in the recommendations. Don’t sell the business. Hire more people to make your life easier. Also, have you considered flying first class to alleviate some of the hassle factor? Surf around on the Net Jets website. Your time might some day be more valuable than the time spent in an airport. It is time to start thinking big, Jim.
I dunno, first class doesn’t get you there any faster and I actually prefer being the last one on the plane rather than the first as long as I’ve got a seat in the terminal.
Congrats on doing great work and creating a lot of valuable content for physicians!
I will echo this comment. I love audiobooks and strongly prefer to have them read by the author.
Congrats on your accomplishments and accolades, Jim. You deserve them all.
I’m in continual amazement at all you are able to accomplish via The White Coat Investor, and I know what goes into it. It’s an incredible amount of work, focus, and dedication.
Wishing you many more years of success, or as many as you’d like to have.
Cheers!
-PoF
Great to hear when good people like you are succeeding! I use your blog constantly when teaching residents about finances.
Hope you do keep doubling whether you “need” to or not.
Great job!
Congratulations WCI, very impressive. I’m very happy for your continued success. You are providing a very valuable service. My daughter is a 3rd year med student and has read your book and I have told a few of her classmates about your site. Good luck this next year!
I was excited to see how much $ you had made in the blog this year… But I completely understand your decision and fully support it (as, I prefer to keep my privacy for me and my family and don’t even use social media for that reason).
Also, my least favorite thing about the 80+ new physician financial bloggers is that now whenever I read the comments section in your posts, it seems to be chock full of fluffy self-promoting, barely contributing comments from people just trying to bring traffic to their own blogs. It’s kind of killed my desire to ever read or contribute to the comments section over the past year. Nothing you can do about it, but alas it still has changed the content of the comments.
In any case, I’m grateful for your blog and book. I’ve shared it with countless med students, many co-residents, and a handful of attendings. It has undoubtedly allowed me to structure my future in a way that money will never be a stress or concern again in my life. Thanks again for being excellent and devoting so much energy to our financial wellbeing!
I second your sentiments regarding the self-promotion in the comments section.
You’re welcome.
I agree there has been a change in content of comments over the last year or so. The first ten every day do seem to be other bloggers. It’s a well known way to promote a blog (I have done and even still occasionally do the same). That said, comments trickle in on posts for years afterward so no big deal. I wonder if total comments are down because I occasionally I write a post that I think I’ll get 100 comments and I get 20, but I think it’s more every year. Hard to say if it’s more per post though. Part of that might be the presence of the forum and FB Group too sucking some of that socializing away that previously occurred in the comments section. Dunno.
Some bloggers (like Mike Piper) turned off the comments section years ago and don’t miss it. It’s one of my favorite parts though to see what people think about what I write.
I may be partially to blame. I’ve recommended that strategy to newer bloggers because it can work. Well, by “that strategy,” I mean writing comments with substance that actually add to the conversation.
Posting fluff for the sake of a link is tacky and it’s usually pretty obvious.
Of course, there is something Jim can do about it. He could delete those comments, but that would just build ill will, and there’s no need for that. I may try posting “Great post!” on each of the next ten posts to see what happens, though. I could probably hire a guy of Fiverr or Upwork on the other side of the world to do it for me as soon as the posts go live. Hmmm….
Also agree with comment quality diminishing. The solution here would be to allow “upvote” and “downvote” like Reddit. If a reminder is set to “downvote” self-promoting material, I think it would stop immediately.
Yea, not going to institute a voting system, but it’s probably a good reminder to the bloggers out there who frequently comment on my posts that they need to be contributing to the conversation. I think they do most of the time. One was getting really bad so I deleted his last comment and the links in a bunch of previous ones. I think he took the hint.
WCI,
I am glad your hard work continues to bring you success. You deserve each and every drop of it. You have improved my financial literacy and saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars. The information I have gained and continue to gain is then spread to the people around me saving them thousands if not hundreds of thousands more. I would not be surprised they trickle down their knowledge helping the people they know. You can call it trickle down WCI-nomics.
Thanks from all of us,
-EI
Congratulations on another great year! Thank you for all you do to educate doctors on their finances. I agree with you that a physician who is less stressed financially is probably less prone to burn out and will probably be a happier (and possibly better) physician. I think you are wise to stop publishing the income from WCI. It was fun to read about the great growth you had in previous years, but you are at the point where you need some privacy too.
Awesome job Doc! Yours was one of the first blogs that got me interested in personal finance while I was in optometry school and I follow it to this day and beyond.
Thanks for all you do! I was actually surprised over the years that you did have such transparency on your income and/or net worth. i’ve done some anonymous stuff, but otherwise I just skirt around it when discussing actual numbers. My family doesn’t even know (which i highly recommend). Have another great year!
I really am not all that interested in the state of the blog. 🙂 as long as the posts keep coming. I just clicked to see the cute family holiday photo. The kids are getting so big. I can’t believe those are the same kids from the video where you all discussed how it felt to be debt-free after paying off the mortgage. (My goal this year btw). Happy New Year!
Fantastic work as always, and thanks for the shout out!
But to clarify, my viral tweet got me to 7100 followers. I’m at 9100 now (9 months later), but expect I will break 10k at some point this year.
When will the 2019 scholarship application be posted to the website?
There is no application. It’s simply an essay emailed to [email protected] after June 1.
I really enjoy these State of the Blog posts. I find it interesting that the blog is a core part, and one you like the best. Read sequentially, it makes an amazing business story. It is interesting to see the up step in quality from the initial posts to the current posts. I tend to favor the blog too over all of the other outlets, perhaps because it is what you started with. Someday, you will write a business book on the WCI. These state of the blog articles can serve as chapters in that book. It reminds me of reading the Berkshire Hathaway letters starting in 1977. Read in order, it creates a fascinating story of business. I never would have predicted or guessed the enterprise could get to this level, but it shows if you do something you enjoy the world truly is your oyster. What could be next? Something like Suze Orman with a TV appearance? An educational video on the Vanguard website?