A year and a half between posts is a long time. It started with trying to return my writing focus to fiction after a long hiatus that lasted through undergrad, medical school, and most of residency. There was a brief start in winter of 2019-2020 and then dormancy again with the onset of the COVID19 pandemic and frantically trying to relearn my non-specialty medical knowledge in case of redeployment. Transition to staffhood was busy, plus some other to-dos (*cough* renos *cough*), but things actually settled down a little bit in late spring/early summer 2023. Creative writing slowly started a ..read more

Hello hello! It’s been a while since the last blog post. It would be easy to say that it was due to the “busy life of a physician” but, since I found time to watch many TV shows in the interim, it really was at least partly due to prioritization XD Another truth is that, I’m busier now than I ever was as a resident, and after coming home from work, there’s often very little creative energy left. The (non-call) weekends provide a better opportunity for creativity, and gets split between different projects. I started writing a ¾ Staff Life Update, but never finished it. And now it’s a few mont ..read more

Wow, it has been a while! And there have been a lot of changes. When I first started writing this blog, I was a resident. Time has passed, exams have passed, I have passed those exams, and now I’m in my first (and hopefully last) staff physician position. Woohoo! …Woohoo…I think? So many mixed feelings. Many times, over the last couple of months, I thought about writing this post, and discarded the idea. Staff life – how often have my co-residents and I bandied that term about – seemed like this glorious light at the end of tunnel of residency. I think the reality can be a bit more mixed. Dr ..read more

*Note: there are no affiliate links in this post. All links are for reader convenience only. Hi! It has been a while since the last post. For any who are curious, the reason behind this is that I am dipping my toes back into fiction writing, which took up all of my creative bandwidth these past few months. Listening to a ChooseFI podcast earlier (Stages and Checkpoints of FI), it occurred to me that it would be fun to find out how close or not I am to CoastFI. The ChooseFI Milestones of FI episode was the inspiration behind this post. For a new and updated Milestones of FI ladder, I would pro ..read more

The Seed of Possibility Debt aversion has been a part of my psyche since a very young age. I learned that all debt was bad. The only debt that could possibly be a good debt was a mortgage (and that was only a “maybe”).  After racking up a $100,000 in debt during medical school, I set about to pay it down during residency. I loved watching that LOC number shrink with every paycheque. It never occurred to me to dip back into the LoC. In my mind, the LoC was my emergency fund. I had also heard, vaguely in passing, that during the transition-to-practice period, you might potentially not g ..read more

What is the basic concept of Lifecycle investing? In a nutshell: Borrow money (leverage) to invest early on Pay off the borrowed money bit by bit over time The idea is to do this instead of putting money into the market bit by bit over time. …Why? If you think of your future portfolio like you would think of a home, this course of action is like taking out a mortgage on your future portfolio. “Borrow a large amount early and slowly pay it off in order to have the same amount invested every year.” – Ed Rempel, fee-only financial advisor who is well known in the Canadian FI/RE circles. It ac ..read more

With rising COVID cases, changing over of rotations, and all sorts of future-employment related emotional rollercoastering (mostly for Mr. Sparks with me along for the ride, and some for me), I had left my monthly net worth evaluations till mid-month. And was pleasantly surprised. I had reached another milestone of FI! To review quickly, here are the Milestones of FI, and where I found myself this blustery Sunday afternoon: Zero net worth: late 2018 – net worth of $5000 in January 2019 1 year of annual expenses saved: April 2019 when discounting 0% student loans, August 2019 by net worth ..read more

Despite living in Canada, where we have universal healthcare, it is still worth considering what costs might need to be footed out of pocket. Because there is a fair amount that is not covered by our “universal” healthcare, despite what the terminology might initially lead you to think. The unsexy bottom line is…you need health insurance. What each person will want to have covered will vary depending on your level of caution and personal/family history. But get health insurance. In More Depth… It can be strange as a healthcare provider to consider healthcare from the other perspective. Some ..read more

Ahhh Royal College/CCFP year. I hope to never go through this again, having just recently finished my RC exam. Welcome to Part 2 of the How to Survive and Thrive During Certification Year. Last time, we talked about the pillar of Studying. Today, we will explore the pillar of Self-Care. Self-Care “This a marathon, not a sprint.” I heard that lots this year – doesn’t make it any less true. To make it to your desired finish line, you need to keep yourself – mind, body and soul – in peak condition. Sometimes, the demands of residency make this near-impossible. But, in applying at least a portion ..read more

* As always, there are no affiliate links in this post. All links included are for ease of use for readers.  Ahhh Royal College/CCFP year. That span of long, long months where you have the privilege of paying $5,000 to take a harrowing two-part exam that feels like it will determine your future forever. Yeesh. I’d like to think that, despite the attendant stress of certification year – with a pandemic thrown in on top, in my certification year – I have managed to a degree I’m happy with. I will share some of my thoughts on how to survive this awful year and thrive. Along the way, we’ll t ..read more