Financial Independence Save the Earth – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Tag: Financial Independence Save the Earth

LOL.

March 28, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I enjoy my life. Before middle school, my family did not seem to have a lot in material wealth. My father worked a lot. I don’t remember seeing him much as he was at the office building his business until 9pm most nights. At home, we lived very frugally but always seemed to have more than enough. My mother is a phenomenol home-chef so we always had nutrtious and delicious Vietnamese food, which I realize now was heavy on seafood and plants. We were in good public schools. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs, and I had cousins to play with that lived next door. My mom took us to the library anytime we asked, so I spent a lot of time as an elementary school student at the library just reading. And that was life. Filled with family squabbles with cousins and siblings, running around like mad children in the woods behind our house and having backyard chickens before they were cool. My grandparents would have garage sales frequently where they bought things at other garage sales and then sold their stuff at a markup. I thought they were brilliant.

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Dream! A days worth of coffee grounds from the HMO coffee shop.

March 27, 2021

by drplasticpicker

This was a dream. I told Nurse Lan that it was the best gift he could have every given me. I have been committed to collecting the spent coffee grounds from the HMO parking lot on Mondays and Fridays, which are the only two days I work late enough to collect the coffee grounds. But the shop closes at 430pm, and that’s like clinic crunch time. Nurse Lan was able to get them for me and sounds like the coffee shop was apologetic about some coffee waste (like tea bags and napkins mixed in). I looked at him and said, OMG fishing a few tea bags is not a big deal! Nurse Lan wanted to fish it out for me, but I told him that it not his job and I don’t want to get in trouble with the HMO. Although they should thank me for reducing their methane emissions!!! All that beautiful nitrogen from the used coffee grounds would have just caused pollution and increased greenhouse gases in the landfill. Instead I got to take home a beautiful bag of these coffee grounds with just a bit of plastic and paper waste mixed in. I brought it home, and before coming into the house – I used my old plastic salad tongs from Olive Garden and just fished out the bits of plastic waste mostly tea bags. It’s relatively “clean trash.” And then I lived my dream, I mixed the beautiful nitrogens of the HMO coffee shop in with the recent bunny straw/poop/urine and food scraps. We are hot composting, and our composter gets steamy!!!

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Granny Flat. I admit, our family is in real estate.

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.

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Gardening Pics #1

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.

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Since the car was going to a good friend who flew in from out of state, we sent her with Olaf to keep her safe. Not sure why we bought three stuffed Olaf’s several years ago? So this one was practically new! There is a glimpse of grandfather’s knee in the back, we kept him. He was doing one final clean of the car before we sent her off to her new family.

September 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Yesterday was one of those discombobulating environmental work days. My post got published on KevinMD “It’s Time To Go All In on Climate Change,” https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/09/its-time-to-go-all-in-on-climate-action.html. Yet thus far, no shares. Hmmm. Half a million subscribers but no shares. Top Social Media Blog for Physicians yet the apathy on climate change in that virtual medical sphere is deafening. I agreed to do a podcast for KevinMD as well, so we shall see. Or maybe I’m just not the right messenger for that audience? I am who I am, so I’ll find another venue where I can try to activate more people.

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August 31, 2020

by drplasticpicker

FISE stands for Financial Independence Save the Earth. I coined this phrase on New Year’s Eve 2019 https://drplasticpicker.com/fise-financial-indepedence-and-save-the-earth/. Since then I’ve written almost twenty blogs with this term. Maybe if I blog about it enough, it will become mainstream. Did you know that I am technically a Physician Personal Finance Blogger? I am included on Crispy Doc’s blogroll and the requirement is to have at least one new blog regarding personal finance every 3 months https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-financial-independence-to-save-the-earth/. This is an easy requirement for me. Since I am the daughter of an accountant and Financially Independent myself, I think of the world in terms of fiscal responsibility and dollars and cents. It’s just how I am wired.

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I have a practical car.

July 31, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s 535AM and I’ve been up since 4am, and already sent all the work emails I needed and deployed assignments to the future leaders I am helping to guide. I sent reminders to the last stragglers in our department who are committee chairs to submit their committee descriptions. One stellar pediatrician sent a one-liner and I replied back “I do insist. I want people to take credit for what they do. I think you do more than that. Can you come up with 1-2 more lines? I want you to imagine what you want to do in this role as well. It’s actually a secret self-reflective process for the department – if that makes any sense. I want us to all psychoanalyze our professional lives.” To the ones who sent complete descriptions, I sent positive notes back. And then there are the others that sent over-blown descriptions of essentially defunct committees. I’m a new kind of Assistant Boss, non-judmental. We all live in our imaginary worlds, especially me.

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CMEs, CMEs, CMEs.

July 19, 2020

by drplasticpicker

FISE stands for Financially Independent to Save the Earth. This is my lofty goal for the world. I believe most physicians, especially pediatricians, care for our earth. But physicians in general are not well known to be good at money management. If I can help my colleagues save some money here or there and more importantly save their time and their well being, than I have hope they will go out into the world and help the earth and help our society. I imagine them all leading Scouting groups on beach cleaning outings. If they have extra cash from being FISE, they can opt out of the Louis Vutton bag ($1000) and instead save 2,000 acres of Peruvian rainforest ($2000) or plant 20,000 trees ($1000).

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So many good things about this food project.

July 6, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s amazing what you can learn on the internet these days. It’s Plastic-Free July. We are using this month to really try to reduce our plastic waste. One thing that we have been buying lately is premade frozen either sweet potatoe fries or regular fries. We usually pair this with some sort of easy vegan burger. But since yesterday’s home made black bean burger project was a success, I have decided to try to make our own frozen french fries.

Again, I looked at several recipes online and mostly used this one from Frugally Blonde. Anything with the name Frugal is great. A long time ago, I used to call myself the Frugal Pediatrician but never really used that name other than to comment. That was 10 years ago. Then when I wanted to start blogging I found Dr. McFrugal who I now know in real life, and I thought better come up with something else. Mr. Plastic Picker suggested Dr. Plastic Picker, and this blog was born. But anyway, this is the link from Frugal Blonde who is a stay-at-home lifestyle blogger https://www.frugallyblonde.com/homemade-frozen-french-fries/.

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Vegan black bean burgers – work in progress!

July 4, 2020

by drplasticpicker

FISE stands for Financial Independence to Save the Earth. And today Dr. Plastic Picker was FISE. When I successfully made vegan black beans burgers – the earth, my net worth and our family’s health all won today. When I stumble upon a great project, I know I need to dive right in. I, Dr. Plastic Picker, your local litter picking and wannabe vegan pediatrician, am committed to perfecting several recipes for several different kinds of vegan burgers for my family. I made my first batch today for July 4th, and unanimously our family loved them. I just finished chatting with our culinarily-talented tween daughter. The girl has made her own brioche and can whip up her own quiche with her eyes closed. And she said “I loved them. They were delicious the softer texture compared to the store-bought ones. It went well with the toppings. And knowing how much more affordable they are made them even more delicious.”

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