Discuss Latest WCI Blog Post: 5 Things the White Coat Investor Gets Wrong

[The White Coat Investor]

In 2020, a commenter suggested we write a post about the things WCI gets wrong. We've now found someone qualified to write that very post.

The post 5 Things the White Coat Investor Gets Wrong appeared first on The White Coat Investor - Investing & Personal Finance for Doctors.



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[Larry Ragman]

From a job hopping and TaxAct using father of two with no SPIA. cause I have a pension…

Great to see WCI looking for this sort of in depth feedback and publishing it. That is not to say I agreed with all five, but each was at least thought provoking. I will say telling people to have fewer kids is unlikely to be productive financial advice.

[StateOfMyHead]

Good article. I especially appreciated how gracious the author came across. The fact is there really isn’t much to complain about with WCIs advice. Special props for addressing the lack of a 1 kid recommendation which is worth considering for several reasons but most certainly from a financial perspective. And it would be interesting to read about experiences with SPIA.

[MPMD]

i like it.

obviously he's reaching and he admits it b/c i think Jim is a pretty careful writer and curator of info.

i don't think it's "wrong" per se but i do think that WCI community still treats discussing the financial impact of giving huge amounts of money to churches and having large numbers of kids as almost verboten to discuss.

[Lithium]

You could probably add pets (particularly dogs) to children, though obviously kids take far more time and money. Not that big a deal for an attending, but usually a dumb decision for a resident. How much do dogs cost every year? I understand why, regardless of his views, Jim hasn’t written about this, I could see such a post generating a lot of fury from pet lovers without much upside.

I’d include his views on the pros/cons of marriage vs. unmarried cohabitation but that debate is as much moral/cultural as financial and has been deeply tread in the blog and forum already.

The SPIA comment brings up an “issue” with the whole WCI community in general. I started a thread last year asking how many posters here in retirement were using a systematic withdrawal strategy (4%, VPW, CAPE based, etc). From what I remember, the responders all said something like they all had more money than they could spend, they were just living off dividends, they were just doing Roth dividends in early retirement etc. - basically they didn’t have a strategy because they weren’t really worried about ever running out of money. Most of us have no need for SPIAs, but I would love to see more posts about complex estate planning topics.

[zlandar]

I don't think most Bogleheads or WCI readers would consider a single premium immediate annuity (SPIA). If you have managed your own index funds over decades why would you pay a large upfront premium to an insurance company for a low guaranteed return?

[VagabondMD]

You could probably add pets (particularly dogs) to children, though obviously kids take far more time and money. Not that big a deal for an attending, but usually a dumb decision for a resident. How much do dogs cost every year? I understand why, regardless of his views, Jim hasn’t written about this, I could see such a post generating a lot of fury from pet lovers without much upside.

Dogs are very costly, and this seems to go up every year, vet bills especially. My dogs “require” more annual screening tests and labs than I apparently do. We pay cash for those of course. And yearly teeth cleaning under general anesthesia. It goes on and on. While we are away for an 11-day vacation, the dogs also get a vacation, for north of $1000. Dogs are a luxury, but of the discretionary spending in my life, this might be the one that I would least want to do without.

[Hatton]

Pets and children are expensive. Most have them before they really delve deeply into personal finance. You have to spend your money on something.

[VagabondMD]

i like it.

obviously he's reaching and he admits it b/c i think Jim is a pretty careful writer and curator of info.

i don't think it's "wrong" per se but i do think that WCI community still treats discussing the financial impact of giving huge amounts of money to churches and having large numbers of kids as almost verboten to discuss.

I view these as personal choices based on deeply held beliefs with financial implications, rather than something viewed primarily through a financial prism. Of course, you could say that you worship Elon Musk, and your Tesla is a personal choice… Kids and religion seem to transcend the money talk though. You manage your finances around them.

There is no doubt that kids, yes or no and number, have a significant impact on a Doctor’s financial well-being. I remember a few years ago occasionally reading a FIRE blog of a professional couple in the Bay Area. They had no kids and retired in their early 40’s, IIRC. At the time, I was saving for college for two, paying for car insurance for new drivers, recently bought a car for a teen, paying private school tuition, voice lessons, arts camps, vacations for four, etc. When I looked at the bloggers’ lifestyle and financial situation, it was as if they were living on a different planet.

[jacoavlu]

turbotax one is a reach. it’s not like jim shills for turbotax. it’s a $50 product and the alternative is basically do it yourself on paper or go to a the pop up shop where a non cpa uses basically the same software or go to a cpa who will charge 10x bc their time is valuable

sure the company is profit motivated. so is everyone else. including WCI. it wouldn’t exist otherwise.

[uksho]

Easy way to become FI
stay single , no relationships
no kids
eat rice and beans
no vacations
single room apartment

what a great life it would be !

[dennis]

I agree the SPIA is not a product needed by the vast number of denizens of this forum but there is a small number of Docs who could benefit and they are those whom WCI is addressing as he desires to educate them. As I am a retiree I get a lot of invites to dinners by annuity sellers and have attended a few because I like the restaurant and those in attendance are not in the financial situation of those on this forum. I've never thought to ask for a testimonial by anyone who bought the product as to how it's performing.

[StarTrekDoc]

It's hard to lose when one has a big shovel.

Most docs have a big shovel and that even when one starts with huge debt, most can do quite well within a short period of time. It's when docs start in debt, buy nice shiny things, live in VHCOL, want multiple kids and send them to private school and want to FIRE -- that gets into a serious pickle. Math is math.

We mostly all acknowledge kids are the single most financial drain on high income earners. Most accept this and many a threads on optimizing the costs of these money pits. The guest writer should take a look at our forum dog threads perhaps!

Kind of hard to look at Turbotax as evil. As a purist, yes a free form would be better as Intuit does dance with the devil and lobbies complexity while selling the elixir to manage the issue, but really is Turbotax = Oxycontin and Intuit = Purdue? I would think H+R and others need to take that headliner way before Intuit. I'd think Intuit more like Tramadol and people suggesting hey; go use tyl #3 or tyl+whiskey+alleve.

SPIA - just probably the wrong audience. A lot of do-it-yourself index managing mentality - hard to counter argue to simply index and pull out to self-fund. For those comfortable with pensions and dividend mentalities, you'll find a much wider audience, but not right now. As we feel the impacts of SECURE, I'm sure SPIA interest will start to rise.

CRUTs - same as SPIA- SECURE management tool. Really the cousin -- DAF is widely supported as a management tool.


-A good read and tip of the hat to Jim to allow for this - most do not.

[wideopenspaces]

I think because of the target audience, there's not much emphasis on family planning on the WCI and that is fine. But when discussing personal finance with people who make closer to a normal American income, or who are living near or below the poverty line it's discussed openly. Not in the sense of chastising people for having too many kids, but asking about birth control and making a plan around that. Because despite what one commenter on the blog said, having money has a great deal to do with a good life for a child. It ensures adequate nutrition, safe shelter, health care, parents who are less likely to be overwhelmed, depressed, neglectful, etc. So if the audience were different I could see the need for a different message/content.

[MPMD]

I view these as personal choices based on deeply held beliefs with financial implications, rather than something viewed primarily through a financial prism. Of course, you could say that you worship Elon Musk, and your Tesla is a personal choice… Kids and religion seem to transcend the money talk though. You manage your finances around them.

i think that's right

we've just seem some crazy posts over the years from people who are in trouble and say the 10% haircut is non-negotiable.

it's a very clever move to mandate such a large amount of money and then encourage people to believe it's not even about the money. "good work," my grandma used to say, "if you can get it."