Red Alert

As any Trekkie will surely be aware, the term ‘red alert‘ is synonymous with critical or imminent danger. Yellow (amber) alert is a slightly more mellow affair – if you’ve ever seen a traffic light then you get the drift. In what is presumably a sort of frequency illusion, I’ve been seeing alerts everywhere recently.

Flight distance: a P2P story

We’ve all seen seaside holidaymakers strolling along the boardwalk, proudly (naively) sporting their paper cone of chips. In swoops a seagull – chips are lost, pride is wounded. The daring seagull has demonstrated a fairly short flight distance – how close it will get to a human before retreating (NB flight distance is not the

Exam Hustling

In the MedFI household, in-between the exuberant frivolity of the summer season and the joyous festivity of the Christmas season, lies sandwiched a season without joy, exuberance, frivolity or festivity – exam season. Burning holes Doctors are not unique in their requirement to sit postgraduate exams. What seems different to other professions is that medical

Crypto Commentary II

The first part of this series took a broad look at the arguments for and against crypto-assets. Building on that, this second part covers a variety of other considerations when it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies. If you can’t beat them… Despite being lauded as free from government interference, the sale of Bitcoin has not

Welcomes and wiltings

August is a transitional month in the medical world. For many it represents the end of their time in one locale as they start anew in a fresh place of work. New hospital. New people. New systems. New responsibilities. The metaphorical leaf has been turned. This is most apparent for the new doctors, many of

Crypto Commentary I

Cryptocurrency is an exquisitely divisive topic. Its ‘marmite effect’ generates a vacuum of reasoned discourse, which is problematic for uninformed investors. Understanding the balance of risk/benefit is important in deciding whether cryptocurrencies might form part of your portfolio. Investing without due diligence, based on the opinions of those who fawn over its ‘world-changing potential’, might

SIPPs and NHS Pension

This post builds on our existing NHS Pension series. Throughout the post we’ve put links, where relevant, to the appropriate prior material. We do, however, suggest refreshing your understanding of the NHS Pension prior to reading on. One method of saving money for retirement is to use a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). How does a SIPP

Pay rise half-truths

The government this week announced a pay rise for a swathe of public sector employees, among them doctors. If you thought this would bring about high fives, congratulatory back slaps and the medical community celebrating a Covid-induced financial reward you’d be very much mistaken. The announcement contains an (un)healthy dose of spin, papers over cracks

Emergency Fund 2.0

What’s this? A personal finance blog post about Emergency Funds? How unorthodox! What a novelty! Such a trailblazer! Sarcasm aside, we appreciate that the Emergency Fund is a topic done to near-death; it’s perhaps the quintessential personal finance trope. So we’ll try to concisely cut through the usual waffle that you’ve probably read before and

Ethical Investing; Fifty Shades of Green

Key points:• Socially responsible investing (SRI) is increasingly popular and prominent.• Investing using an SRI strategy may not compromise risk-adjusted returns. • Care must be taken to examine the credentials of SRI funds, rather than taking the label at face value. Ethical investing is just one of the many monikers of an investment strategy that