Reddit mentions: The best mutual funds investing books

First off, I recommend you read Medical Student Loans by Ben White, it will answer all your questions. Like a 4-5 hour read I think all 4th year med students should read, along with White Coat Investor as you'll never have as much free time as you do now to lean a little about finances.

The thing to know about your loans in terms of the $0 payment is that your loans have a 6 month grace period after graduation, meaning no payment is due for 6 months. (If you took time off between undergrad and medical school you may have already used this up on your undergrad loans and something you should look into.) Most residents take advantage of this and then enter IDR ~6 months into residency when the grace period ends. This doesn't give you the $0 payment for a full year though, as when you enter IDR, on the form it asks if your income has substantially changed since your most recent tax return. In this case, you are legally supposed to answer yes and submit pay stubs that would then dictate your monthly payment amount. Making $55k/year means about $300/month in payments. Some residents lie and use their 4th year tax returns with $0 income and extend the $0 payment for another year. This is not legal and something I do not recommend.

The legal way to do this is actually to consolidate all your loans the day after graduation, waive the 6 month grace period on the consolidation form, and use your M4 tax return of $0 income on the IDR form before July 1st as that way you're telling the truth. This will start your payments 6 months earlier than your fellow residents, but you'll both be paying $0. Of note, for this to work, you need to file taxes this year and you should also be aware consolidating has two down sides. 1) your new interest rate becomes a weighted average of all your loans and is then rounded up to the nearest 1/8th of a percent. 2) you can not longer attack your loans with the avalanche method as you no longer have several loans with differing interest rates, but one large loan with one interest rate. In your case there would actually be a 3rd down side which is that because you have some subsidized loans where under REPAYE the feds will cover 100% of the unmet interest by the minimum payment for the first 3 years, drops the 50% as the new loan is considered unsubsidized. This strategy is typically recommended for residents pursing PSLF and not necessarily something I would recommend you pursue. I would likely recommend the typical 6-month grace period option because of these downsides and the fact that it doesn't sound like you want to do PSLF.

There are no consequences for switching out of REPAYE in terms of the interest subsidy which I think you are alluding to, but just for completeness sake, should be aware that switching from REPAYE to another IDR plan does capitalize the unpaid interest. This is essentially true when refinancing with a private company too as they are going to pay off the loans in full, including interest, and give you a new loan for that total amount, meaning all that unpaid interest accrued during residency becomes part of the principal for the new loan.

Whether you should ride out REPAYE or refinance as an attending is really going to depend on what rate you can get in 5 years from now, how much your making, and how stable your job is. Something I would revisit then and not worry about too much now.

Hope that was helpful!

If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly

Author: Bill Bernstein

> Hi All:

>I’ve come out with a starter retirement finance booklet for millennials that lays out what I think is the fundamental problem with an effective three-fund portfolio which, as we all know, is simple, but not easy.

>It’s not easy, again, as we all know, because people’s plans get hijacked by, among other things, panic during market declines, the temporary success of their neighbors during a tech or real estate bubble, and the Wall Street noise machine. (Or, as that great investment observer Mike Tyson put it, Everyone's got a plan til they get punched in the face.)

>This booklet, If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly, lays out the knowledge base that the young person needs to fortify themselves with to successfully execute a simple portfolio plan. It’s not the complete “course work,” just a road map, and prominently features Boglehead favorites. (Believing it tacky to plug my own overpriced books, I’ve intentionally left them out.)

>It’s available for download in acrobat format at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/290 ... ou_Can.pdf

>Most folks, though, would rather read it on their Kindle or mobile devices. I’d like to simply give it away, but Amazon only lets me do that 5 days per 90 day period; otherwise it’ll cost the Amazon mandated minimum Kindle price of $0.99. Here's its tentative Amazon page:

>http://www.amazon.com/If-You-Can-Millennials-Slowly-ebook/dp/B00JCC5JKI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396270561&sr=1-1&keywords=if+you+can+william+j+bernstein

>That first free period should start tomorrow or the day after. I’ll leave the free pdf up, and will announce the “promotional” windows for the free Kindle download periodically on the board (assuming I actually understand Amazon’s policy properly).

>PM me, please, if you find any typos.

>Best,

>Bill

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

Being Mortal - Atul Gawande

Better - Atul Gawande

Honestly anything by Atul Gawande

Start With Why- Simon Sinek (Just finished this one today. Phenomenal read. Not medicine related, but a great perspective on what leadership means and how you can inspire those around you)

The White Coat Investor - James Dahle (Financial literacy is always a good thing)

​

I have quite a bit more book suggestions if you're ever curious, but those should keep you busy for a while. Feel free to DM me if you want more!

I felt the same way as you last year. I am now 25 and feeling competent with my financials by reading this book https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Can-Millennials-Slowly-ebook/dp/B00JCC5JKI and all the books it recommends.

I highly encourage you to get to a point where you feel comfortable with what all the terms are and what you can best do for yourself. It takes time to understand it all but your livelihood is worth it!

If you look up "if you can how to get rich slowly" into google, the top link will be free 16 page pdf laying out what you want to read up on and investing strategies.

I am currently a resident in my research years and finally started taking an interest in my finances. I would argue that you do not necessarily need an adviser yet. You should do some reading first. Here are some websites White Coat Investor (WCI) and Bogleheads, which has a great forum and wiki. You should definitely read these 2 books:

• The White Coat Investor. It is a little to basic for me and I pretty much had zero knowledge about finances but its a quick easy read.
  
  
• The Boglehead's Guide to Investing. I personally think this is the gold standard for personal finance/retirement investing. (Read it even though it says not to if you have large loans). It is also a quick easy read but explains things considerable better than WCI book. It also discusses adviser and types of different advisers. Going forward you should make it a habit to read at least one finance book a year (treat it like CME).
  
  I too plan on PSLF (my residency + fellowship will be 9 years so pretty easy decision). My personal opinion is to live like a resident for 2-3 more years (no lifestyle inflation) and accumulate as much money as possible. That means renting for the same amount (if possible) wherever you move for you job. No new cars and the like... After just 2-3 years of this, you will have a decent chunk of money for whatever.

> In a free market workers earn as close as possible to a fair wage for what they contribute, and capital earns a wage for what it contributes.

They earn in proportion to the amount of leverage they have and the ability to negotiate. That's it. The idea that "it's fair if you accept it" is fallacious if the alternative is to starve and earn nothing at all. By the same logic, taxation is equally applicable to them in the opposite direction.

> And the free market ensures we get the systems that provide the most value most efficiently.

Except that's untrue. The amount of waste from food production is tremendous, that owes to the fact people can't pay for it. The same goes with housing. The same goes with anything. Value here is expressed in terms of profit. What's unprofitable, doesn't get produced. That doesn't make what is profitable, efficient.

> Socialism coerces people to form contracts in a certain way that is inherently limiting>makes businesses less competitive>less efficient>worse products at higher costs>harms consumers and therefore harms workers, because all workers are consumers. Worse outcomes for everyone.

This is absolutely untrue. In fact, popular research indicates the exact opposite (here and here).

$600 for food for two people? You guys must enjoy some serious eats :)

Never having touched the IRA is great news. VTIVX is a great fund, with low expenses and index allocation that is rebalanced for you as time goes on, with the investments becoming less risky as you get closer to retirement. For folks like you who don't have the time and/or interest in learning about investing this is about as good as it gets. You don't have to do anything except keep investing as much as you can. You'll be able to retire early if you wish just by contributing ~25% of your income to the fund and letting it grow.

Keeping the 12k in cash is okay. That's enough to cover emergencies or give you an opportunity to take advantage of potential opportunities you might miss if you've got all your money stashed in illiquid investments.

I'd probably put your monthly excess cash into savings, then when your income goes up and your debt is paid off you can increase your monthly contribution to the IRA. When you're ready you can look into buying a home instead of renting if it makes financial sense to do so. If it were me I'd cut the food/transportation/rent budget a bit and work to get rid of the debt immediately, but I'm a nitpicker.

As long as you don't let your lifestyle and consumption habits inflate when your income increases you should be well on your way to financial independence, and if you choose, early retirement.

If you want to get a basic idea of the principles of investing you should buy William Bernstein's If you can. At 27 pages in length it's a quick and easy read.

Brissie Ozzie here. Sounds like you've learnt a good lesson about property investing. It's all part of the process.

My strongest recommendation is to read If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly. It's probably the best US$0.99 investment you'll ever make. Also read his other books, the Bogleheads forums and the other books recommended there.
All of those sources are aimed at US investors but you can apply most of the principles here.

I've got pretty extensive local and international experience in investing and am happy to answer questions you might have, but I'm not a financial advisor so you should not take anything I say here as financial advice.

I would read If you can, how Millenials Can Get Rich Slowly. Its short (like twenty pages) and gives you the basics of investing, and has a reading list of other books. The electronic version is free, so don't pay for it.

The market as a whole tends to go up because people keep getting better at doing things (productivity increasing), although it is definitely not monotonically increasing. And since corporate profits will inflate right along with currency, they tend to keep their value in the face of inflation.

The other thing to realize is, what else are you going to put your money into? In a savings account, inflation will slowly evaporate it. Real estate prices also fluctuate.

If you you're looking for help learning yourself, I'd recommend starting with the following books:

• Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs -- learn how to deal with the numbers and evaluate if a company is doing well
  
• The Beginner's Guide to Saving & Investing for Canadians -- learn the basics of investing with specifics for Canadians
  
• How to Win at the Sport of Business -- more inspirational but a good read
  
  From there look for topics in the specific type of business you are looking to run or the type of markets you're interested in.

There are lots of good ones, and they all say the same thing - max out your retirement plans and own total market index funds at Vanguard. The Bogleheads Guide is good if you don't mind paying. Some good free ebooks, too, for example Investing In Four Hours will be free Aug 5.

Ok, great, start educating yourself on financial management. Even if you hire someone to do it, don’t trust them blindly. Shady people love to take advantage of high-income doctors, because most doctors are incapable of managing their money responsibility.

Start reading some of the content over on White Coat Investor. It will change your life.

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com

Also, the book:

https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Can I make a couple of suggestions? First, read "If You Can: How Millenials Can Get Rich Slowly" If you don't want to pay the .99 for it on kindle then you can also find it as a PDF online (the author wrote it to be free.). It's very well reviewed by just about everyone (including the NYT and Forbes).

https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Can-Millennials-Slowly-ebook/dp/B00JCC5JKI

Second: Start an IRA. Yes it's harder to get money out, but it will mean you don't have to use that money for college.

Third: Think about what will make your life easier in the next five to ten years and save towards those goals.

1st priority needs to be the match next month.

2nd, she needs to focus her attention on her training/residency. (Please don't buy a house. Please, please, please!)

3rd, paying off those loans. She's has more than average (average med school debt is ~$200k), but still manageable if you guys are smart about it.

Read The White Coat Investor. It will help you a ton!

Somewhere around 9th or 10th priority is playing the churning game.

​

I know this isn't the advice you were asking for, but please listen to old Dr. highway22.

Actually, that's probably the best answer here.

If you really want to know why gold is priced the way it is, you need to know about why the futures market exsits and the relative value of money due to central bank rates .... (which is probably a years worth of studing)

Here's a good start ...
Read the first chapter of: http://www.amazon.com/Forbes-Guide-Markets-Becoming-Investor/dp/0470463384/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255133811&sr=8-1 and watch then watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8

You are currently invested in super high fee funds that will end up costing you $1000s upon $1000s over the life of your investment. You are losing almost 3% of your returns to Expense Ratios/Load Fees on every single fund you are invested in. You need to get out these now. Edward Jones is robbing you blind.

Current Portfolio

Investment|Ticker|Expense Ratio|Deferred Load|

--|:--|--:|--:|
Invesco High Yield Municipal Fund Class C|ACTFX|1.59%|1.00%|
Natixis Funds Trust I Oakmark International Fund Class C|NOICX|2.09%|1.00%|
American Funds SMALLCAP World Fund® Class C|SCWCX|1.90%|1.00%|
American Funds New World Fund® Class C|NEWCX|1.88%|1.00%|
John Hancock Fundamental Large Cap Core Fund Class C|JHLVX|1.81%|1.00%|


Use a fund analyzer tool such as this (may not work in Chrome) to determine the difference in fund costs in expense ratios.

For example, let's compare your SMALLCAP fund (SCWCX) against Vanguards SMALLCAP fund (NAESX).

http://imgur.com/a/XxXSy

If you made a $10,000 investment and held it for 20 years @ 5% returns, the Vanguard fund comes out significantly ahead by $5,855.94 due to an additional $3,367.21 in fees from SCWCX

Let's also talk about the deferred load fee (sales fee) of your funds. This means that your Edward Jones advisor is going to get 1% of your funds value every time you sell a share. At this time, with an initial investment of $22,000 this means you're going to lose $220 the instant you sell.

Financial Advisors

You are currently using a non-Fiduciary advisor from Edward Jones.

A non-Fiduciary Advisor's entire job is to talk new investors into buying funds with load fees (Front/Deferred). This is how they make all of their money. While it's completely legal for them to benefit off your lack of knowledge, and recommend sub-par funds to invest in for their profit, it is super scummy. In the future, you'll want to look for No-Load mutual funds to avoid paying the advisor a sales fee.

While most people can do just fine without an adviser, with just a little bit of research, if you absolutely WANT to have a financial advisor, you need to find a Fee-Only Fiduciary. Fee-Only Fiduciaries are not allowed to make any type of commission off your investments and will give you unbiased advice. You can go here to find fee-only fiduciaries in your area. If you go this route, I would recommend speaking to a few different fiduciaries. While all of their advice will be unbiased, it doesn't mean it is all the same quality of advice.

Here is a great infographic about what a Fiduciary is.

Where To Go From Here

1. Transfer all money from Edward Jones to a low-cost provider such Vanguard, Fidelity, or Schwab.
2. Decide on whether you want to manage your allocations manually (go to step 3-4) or let a target retirement fund (skip to step 5) do it for you.
3. Read the 3-fund portfolio wiki on Bogleheads
4. Read If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly. The Kindle edition is $0.99 without PRIME and free with PRIME.
5. Take your research from 3/4 and Invest in low-cost index funds to build good portfolio diversification OR select the target date fund at Fidelity/Vanguard/Schwab that meets your retirement age (set it and forget it)

If you are unsure how to do step 5, even after reading the information in 2/3, post a new topic for help and tell us which low-cost provider you selected.



Side Note: Dave Ramsey is fantastic for getting people out of debt, but his investment advise is notoriously bad. Get investment knowledge elsewhere.

I'd highly recommend The White Coat Investor. Doctor's have a unique situation with a high debt-burden and a (more or less) guaranteed steady high income. This book is highly specific to that situation, is inexpensive ($10), and is a pretty quick (161 pages) yet informative read. I read it before M1 year and thought it was a fantastic primer on how to handle finances, but it's just as useful to read right before residency.

For you, a crash is fantastic. The temporary loss of net worth barely hurts you, so mostly it's an opportunity to buy cheaper stock. Over the long run a crash now pays off big. Keep dollar-cost-averaging and celebrate your good luck.

To see the math on why it's great for you, read If You Can by William Bernstein.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

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amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

Officer here.

1. Only 17% make it to retirement.
   
   
2. Roth TSP. It’s a thing. If you ever get in a pinch, you can get a loan on it that you can pay back without penalty (you pay yourself interest) instead of mandatory withdrawal.
   
   
3. A good read for you might be Military Millionaire . It’s dedicated to our unique situation as military members.

On that note read this book: https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Small things that she will appreciate:

Black out curtains. Her hours are going to be irregular and after a night shift there is nothing better than coming home to completely dark room in the bright morning to sleep.

A nice pair of trauma shears like Leatherman Raptors.

I recently came across the book "The White Coat Investor." Haven't started reading it yet, but it seems well reviewed. Book is meant for students in addition to residents and attendings.

http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Coat-Investor-Investing/dp/0991433106

The author also has a blog in case you want to validate his content and advice first:
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/new-to-the-blog-start-here

I would definitely recommend having disability insurance for your wife. Specifically make sure to have own occupation disability. This means if she practice her specific specialty anymore, even if she can still work, she will still get compensation. Basically all of your life planning is going to be based on her having an excellent income. Long term disability could be devastating if she isn't able to work as a physician anymore. $375 /month seems high.

For reference, I have a disability policy (own occupation) with Standard Insurance that pays around $8-10k per month (cant remember exact amount) and my YEARLY premium is $1050. For life insurance, 2 million 30 yr term for me plus 1 million 20yr term for spouse is about $2800 per year. If that $375/mo includes term life insurance for both of you plus disability insurance, then that may be reasonable. Also, getting insurance earlier allows locking in lower rates. As she progresses in her career, the premiums for disability insurance will go up.

Someone else linked white coat investor. Cannot recommend this enough. Really wish I would have read it in med school. It's a really quick read and is nicely broken up into stages of training.

The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-K1MDbBH237KB

Read this short (27 pg) booklet with some adivce If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly

Shows some basics to saving. Its simple, but not easy. I think its free on his website too. Just a quick guide of how to

I think behavior risk may be the greatest hurdle in one's quest for FI. People want your money really badly and they'll do things like try to convince you to finance a car or mortgage a house thats 30 minutes from work, and those just aren't good strategies for someone who is striving for FI.

Reading MMM, ERE, BogleHeads, and Raptitude helps keep me focused and motivated. Also, books by William J. Bernstein. They're really booklets more than books as they're concise but chock-full of information relevant to younger people on their path to FI. He has one specifically for millenials: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JCC5JKI/ref=docs-os-doi_0

Read If You Can. The PDF is free online and it will only take you an hour or so to get through. Then read the books that are recommended at the end of each section. You will then know more about investing than 95% of people.

If you want to really understand ETFs i can highly recommend this book

Read this cheap ebook and the books it assigns you. The books it assigns are all very highly recommended here.

Oh I wouldn't call Dr. Dahle random - he's a well known and financial expert (and physician). Here's his book on Amazon.

As a fellow EM Doctor that had $300K+ in debt, you should find a higher paying job.

$230K/Yr is a pittance for what you do. I make (almost) twice that in a major metro area, had 8 interviews fresh out of residency that paid from $185-235/hr, from rural areas, to midsized town, to 1,000,000+ cities. You should be able to find a job at $200/hr easy. $200hr x 144hrs/mo x 12 months = $345K/yr. That's like $80K extra post tax per year that you can put towards loans / savings / vacations / whatever. Every 80K you miss our on early in your career stacks up over time, on missed savings, missed loan payments, etc.

You're getting screwed at $230K/yr. Get a higher paying job, and get an accountant that works with other doctors (will save you so much money!). Also read White Coat Investor.

https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Buy it and put it in the bathroom, and read it 5 minutes at a time until you're done.

Docs earn outsized incomes. Here's a link to that discussion. I'm not saying it's undeserved, just that it's outside the sphere of mere mortals here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/5sr1ix/30_year_old_resident_doctor_with_310000_in/

>Thankfully, I just accepted an offer as an emergency physician with a starting salary of $230,000.

Peeps scolded him for accepting such a low ball.

>As a fellow EM Doctor that had $300K+ in debt, you should find a higher paying job.
$230K/Yr is a pittance for what you do. I make (almost) twice that in a major metro area, had 8 interviews fresh out of residency that paid from $185-235/hr, from rural areas, to midsized town, to 1,000,000+ cities. You should be able to find a job at $200/hr easy. $200hr x 144hrs/mo x 12 months = $345K/yr. That's like $80K extra post tax per year that you can put towards loans / savings / vacations / whatever. Every 80K you miss our on early in your career stacks up over time, on missed savings, missed loan payments, etc.
You're getting screwed at $230K/yr. Get a higher paying job, and get an accountant that works with other doctors (will save you so much money!). Also read White Coat Investor.
https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106
Buy it and put it in the bathroom, and read it 5 minutes at a time until you're done.


The more you know.

White Coat Investor

The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XVDSzbYQSN1G4

Check out The White Coat Investor: https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Chapter 10 of Invisible Hands

Check out The WhitE Cost Investor. It's a blog (http://whitecoatinvestor.com) and book (The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_US-Hxb3G7PXVG).

The website looks sketchy to say the least? Do you have a direct link to the book?

​

Is it https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DBW9T5Y/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1527516228&sr=8-7&keywords=craig+israelsen ?

First Med school is 4 years, not 8-10.

After School you will go into residency making about ~40k/ year.

And for any more advice read the book white coat investor.

>I know I want to be a Doctor.

OK, so take not going to med school off the table.

>I finally got into a medical school after working at getting in for the past 4 years... should I re-apply and hope to get into a cheaper school?

IMO, hell no. Getting in, as you know, is very difficult. The risk of gambling to get in again later at a cheaper school (if you've already decided you absolutely will go to med school) is not worth it.

In response to others who say you should get a military scholarship to pay for school, I'd say that is not a decision to make from a financial standpoint. You join the military to serve your country, not for financial reasons. If you don't believe me, read The White Coat Investor. According to the author's math, he would have made more money in the long term by paying for his own schooling and taking a higher paying job (military docs don't make as much as civilians, at least not for several years).

$70k/year for tuition alone is expensive, no doubt about it. You should really take the debt you're incurring into account when you decide which specialty to pursue (i.e. stay the hell away from peds and family practice). But hell, you've discovered /r/personalfinance before even starting the journey. I would kill to have discovered this place at the same place in my life.

Source: Emergency Medicine attending (1 year post-residency). Around $360k in student loans at the moment.