Category: Personal Finance Blog – Financially Free to Save the Earth (FISE)

February 26, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I admit it. My family has been involved in the real estate business since the 1970s. But then so have many people in our region. There are a lot of “real estate” families like ours. Just like anyone who has worked and thought about things through many times, real estate is a skill set. And like anything, when you first look at it – it appears daunting, then easy, then really difficult and then in the end simple again.

A really smart HMO resident called me yesterday to ask me real estate advice about buying their first home. They have a small downpayment and are approved for a 30 year fixed at 3.1%. But there is some uncertainty about their lives in terms of where they will be in a year, and where in San Diego they could eventually settle if the graduate gets a job here. No children yet. Smart young doctor that is usually good with money.

(more…)

February 2, 2021

by drplasticpicker

Who knew saving the earth would include discovering new foods and making them? I was already Financially Independent https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-financial-independence-to-save-the-earth/, as I was born super frugal. But now with my culinary adventures and misadventures, I’m having a super fun time in the kitchen trying new fancy recipes. I thought I wasn’t a “foodie” and our tween daughter actually hates that term, as she thinks it’s very elitist. But I do love good food, and truly good food can lead to a good earth for all of us. Maybe if I end up writing my first book, I’ll just call it Good Food Good Earth???? I’ve thought about a book on and off, but honestly I’m having too much blogging to myself in the mornings.

(more…)

January 25, 2021

by drplasticpicker

It’s 542am and the wind is howling. It’s raining in Southern California, and it’s much needed but unusual for us. Having lived through multiple droughts in our sunny state, I’m always grateful for whatever rain we can get. I spent last night updating our finances and refining our goals. I thought I had neglected things of late, but everything was fine. We are in tip-top shape financially and have some medium sized investments that we will make soon. It’s funny how the hard-work and foundation we laid out fifteen years ago are paying generous dividends. Personal finance is easy now. I had mentioned on the KevinMD podcast that it helps to be financially independent, and I wanted to check if that was true for our numbers. And it actually is. I could stop working now completely, and we would be fine without my income. But that has never been the point of financial independence, it was more freedom from someone else or some other entity being able to control me.

(more…)

January 11, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I’m definitely more in tune with my feelings and my body. Last night I did 12 minutes of yoga before going to bed, and I was stretching my arms and reaching for the sky – I could hear cracking of joints and popping. I’m sure I’ve been moving my arms and body for over 40 years, but I never heard the sounds of my body movement. I guess I had never been quiet enough to really listen.

Despite being more in tune with my body, nature, the world and shifting my personality type (I kid you not) – I still have similar thought processess. I find many people annoying but without the blaming anymore. And I know there are many false gods and false people out there. Yes, they are still out there. Actually becoming Dr. Plastic Picker has helped me see some of those false gods more clearly especially false finance gods.

It’s no use pointing them out. In generaly it doesn’t do well to be unkind. We need so much kindness these days.

I cleaned up 4 bags of plastic pollution near Hornblend and Mission Blvd. I had seen the VANS store signage in the background of the news coverage of the riots. When I saw the VANS store sign in the background I was upset because that is where I sometimes walk in our neighborhood and my sister is named VAN and she used to buy VANS shoes a lot. I know it sounds silly, but seeing riot police in front of the VANS store triggered something. So I went yesterday and picked up four bags of trash there. I won’t post the picture again because I already put it on Dr Plastic Picker’s instagram page.

(more…)

January 1, 20202

by drplasticpicker

To the financially confused or spiritually financially seeking internet. I really have no clue what people read on this blog. In general, there is a good amount of traffic. A lot of it seems to be directed to my Star Trek Fan Fiction post of Trip and T’Pol from the Star Trek Enterprise, and the other hot post is one I wrote about Living Will and Trusts.

As I have explained before, I trust very few people with my money. I trust myself. We have a family member as our accountant. We have a very good trust and estates attorney. Otherwise, I have been our household’s financial CFO since 2009. This coincided with both Mr. Plastic Picker and I having attending level jobs with attending level salaries. The combination of my taking over at CFO, and finally making MD attending incomes contributed to that year being the year we started growing our financial muscle. For us financial independence has never really been about retiring early, it has to do with intellectual and professional freedom.

(more…)

December 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Okay. I wasn’t sure what to blog about today or whether to blog at all. I enjoy the process of writing and it helps to order my brain. I edited a few of my past blogpost. Thanks for having patience with my grammatical errors. I reread old posts often and correct things as I go along. I was going to write a treatise about why one shouldn’t pay for financial advice, as I’ve never paid for financial advice. I would usually ask the person trying to give me financial advice, “What is your savings rate? What is your networth? If it’s better than mine, than maybe I’ll consider it.” Well, to be honest – I never said those EXACT words but I did say the essence of them. But I figured that blogpost was not kind and might alienate people, and honestly if people want to give other people money to give them advice about money – it’s actually not any of my business. It’s actually a carbon-free transaction assuming neither party starts flying everywhere around the world with their new found savings. But that was probably the reason they were in financial distress in the first place right? Hyperconsumption of prepackaged experiences. Hyperconsumption of things. Hyperconsumption of plastic experiences. Don’t even get me started on the wastefulness of the entire plastic surgery and beauty industry which is personified by the Kardashians.

(more…)

November 26, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m nominally a Physician Personal Finance Blogger. I’m on Crispydoc’s blogroll. Let me check to make sure I’m still there. https://www.crispydoc.com/physician-finance-bloggers/ Yep, still there. I like how CrispyDoc describes me, ” Dr. Plastic Picker is a self-described ‘wannabe financial blogger’ aiming to FISE (Financial Independence, Save the Earth). Written by a pediatrician and mom, this half of a west coast dual MD household is passionate about saving money and the planet.” That’s me. I’m actually a wannabe financial blogger because I don’t think physicians are the best equipped people to give other physicians financial advice. Did I just say that? Yes I did! You can listen to Dr. McFrugal. He gives solid advice. https://www.drmcfrugal.com/ I don’t like the travel hacking part of his blog, because this encourages folks to spew carbon into the air. But the minimalism and plant-based eating is point on. No one is perfect, not even Dr. McFrugal. His family is pretty adorable though.

(more…)

November 22, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Isn’t that picture above pretty? It’s a collection of my container gardening project. The picture at the end of the post is the 2nd picture of my container gardening project. My mother-in-law and mother are avid gardeners, and I have never been able to grow anything in my life. But these new adventures through blogging have made me excited to try new things. I realized that I could learn new things, and I ventured into gardening. My sister is a very insightful and a thoughtful person, and she said that this is common for accomplished people. You reach a point in your career where you reach mastery, and embracing a new venture or trying to acquire a new skillset is important for that personal renewal. I think this is why I became Dr. Plastic Picker in my 40s.

(more…)

November 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

One of my favorite posts from Mr. Money Mustache is his “Pizza Delivery is for Millionaires.” https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/11/18/pizza-delivery-is-for-millionaires/ If you don’t know Mr. Money Mustache, he is one of the most popular FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) bloggers out there. He has a cult-like following and I used to read him semi-religiously. But life moves on and we reached our FI (Financial Indepedence) Number and decided not to retire. I will always appreciate the years of entertainment and inspiration his blog gave me. I sometimes check in on his blog, but he doesn’t actively blog much anymore. His blog is still generating probably hundreds of thousdands of dollars of revenue, but he lives a ridiculously simple life so doesn’t really need the money. What I do admire about him, is his closet environmentalism of his blog. The cult following I could do without. It’s a very masculine testosterone drive part of the internet, so I had to find somewhere else to go. But definitely check his blog out because the way he thinks about sustainable living and money is really interesting.

(more…)

November 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Something dawned upon me yesterday while I was prepping my fourth 5 lb bag of potatoes. We had grabbed the bag on one of our grocery runs. I think this was from Vons, our local grocer. I had never purchased an entire 5 lb bag of potatoes in bulk before. It would spoil too quickly for me to be able to use it all. My mother-in-law and father-in-law often buy food in bulk including large sacks of onions and carrots, and seem to be always working with basic food ingredients. But for me, I had eaten plenty of potatoe containing foods but they were packaged in plastic and blasted with artificial flavors. The preservatives were likely palm-oil based and likely killed a poor orangatang due to displacement from palm oil plantations. Those packaged “potato” foods likely had the fiber processed out of it.

(more…)