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.

(more…)

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!!!

(more…)

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…)

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 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…)

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 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…)