Planwell Blog

Essential Insights on IRR: Meaning and Calculation for investments

(IRR) is the return on an investment which takes into account the cash flows and time scale. It is the discount rate that makes the Net Present Value of all cash flows equal to zero.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 23, 2025

Essential Steps for Property Investment Analysis and Evaluating Investment Properties

Conducting a property investment analysis will help ensure you choose the right asset. Do a rigorous analysis of expected returns and cash flows and consider financing options and debt strategies.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 23, 2025

Big Tech & Early Retirement: The FAANG and FIRE Connection

FAANG employees have many advantages in achieving Financial independence but need to plan their goals, guard against lifestyle creep and invest wisely. A key priority for tech workers is managing their RSUs while ensuring asset diversification.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 04, 2025

Five Surprising (and Scary) Financial Facts

Americans save just 3.5% of their income. 42% of Americans do not have any emergency savings. The Average Credit Card Debt in 2024 was $6329. 27% of Americans Use a Financial advisor. The Median Retirement savings is $87,000 for American Families

Arundhati Sampath Mar 04, 2025

Physician FIRE: How the FIRE Movement Affects Doctors’ Careers

Physicians have the potential to achieve financial independence early, despite challenges such as a relatively late career start and high student loans. With the right plan, MD FIRE or Doctor FIRE goals become achievable without compromising patient care or personal well-being.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 03, 2025

A Doctor’s Guide to the Two-Fund Investment Strategy

The Two Funds Investment strategy involves investing your assets into just 2 mutual funds – but these funds provide all the diversification needed while also helping with asset growth.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 03, 2025

What Percentage of My Net Worth Should I Have in My Home?

The ratio of real estate to net worth depends on many factors such as age, location, existing assets and your risk appetite. A rule-of-thumb is to maintain 20% to 40% of your net worth in real estate.

Arundhati Sampath Feb 17, 2025

Shattering the Doctor Car Illusion

Depending on the stage of your medical career, buy an affordable and reliable car that helps you get to where you need to go. Buying a high status doctor’s car has significant opportunity costs and can burden you with more loans and stand in the way of achieving other financial goals.

Arundhati Sampath Mar 23, 2025

The Complete Guide to Leveraging Debt for Real Estate

Leverage in real estate is the act of borrowing money to buy property. Real estate leverage is a good strategy for building long term wealth but comes with higher risks in market downturns and lower cash flows due to mortgage expenses.

Arundhati Sampath Feb 02, 2025

How to Buy Your First Investment Property: A Step-by-Step Guide

Evaluate your readiness for real estate investing. Analyze the market and analyze ROI, cap rates and breakeven rent, and model negative market scenarios as part of your analysis.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 30, 2025

How to Consult ChatGPT on Personal Finance & Where It Falls Short

ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool for personal finance. However Planwell's fully personalized AI financial planner and advisor uses its own financial models to ensure accuracy and provides superior data visualization.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 23, 2025

Physician Side Gigs For Supplemental Income & Financial Independence

The benefits of physician side gigs include paying off student loans, financial independence and tapping into one's creativity.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 21, 2025

Disability Insurance for Physicians: Safeguarding Your Earning Power as a Doctor

It is important for doctors to get disability insurance to pay for living expenses in the event of a disability event. Disability insurance provides an income or a portion of income for you to live on if you become disabled.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 15, 2025

7 Myths: Why Whole Life Insurance Is Actually A Bad Investment

Whole life insurance is good mostly for insurance agents and not their customers. We will evaluate the common claims about whole life insurance and evaluate whether these are in fact, the benefits they are marketed to be.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 15, 2025

Physician Whole Life Insurance: Is It Worth the Cost for Doctors?

Whole life insurance is not the best insurance policy for most people due to high premiums and low rates of return. Most people will be served better with term life insurance.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 15, 2025

Financial Planning Strategies For Doctors & Medical Professionals

Financial planning for doctors requires a mix of strategies such as making the decision to pay down debt vs investing, maxing out all retirement options, buying insurance and investing.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 14, 2025

What is the Backdoor Roth IRA Process?

The Backdoor Roth IRA allows high income people to indirectly make contributions by converting a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA.

Arundhati Sampath Dec 26, 2024

How to Calculate Rental Income: The Complete Guide for New Landlords

When considering buying rental properties, calculate the net operating income, Return on Investment (ROI) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). You should also compare the investment to the opportunity costs, such as stock returns.

Arundhati Sampath Dec 20, 2024

Chubby FIRE: The Balanced Approach to FIRE

Chubby FIRE involves retiring with a net worth of $2.5M to $5M and enjoying a comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle. Maintain a healthy balance between enjoying a good lifestyle while ensuring disciplined saving and budgeting.

Arundhati Sampath Dec 13, 2024

The Fat FIRE Approach to Financial Independence

The Fat FIRE approach involves working very hard early in your career to save up a fat nest egg, retire early and enjoying a very affluent lifestyle in retirement.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 23, 2024

Nominal vs Real Interest Rate

The nominal interest rate is the interest rate that is stated on a loan or mortgage and has not been adjusted for inflation. In investing, the nominal rate is the return on an investment before adjusting for inflation, fees or taxes.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 23, 2024

The Boglehead Investment Approach

The Boglehead investment approach emphasizes passive investing in low cost index funds, asset diversification, effective risk management and investing early and often for the long term.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 17, 2024

What Is LeanFIRE? A Guide To The Ultimate Minimalist FIRE Lifestyle

Lean FIRE is the variation of the Financial independence/ Retire early (FIRE) movement that involves extreme frugality and minimalism both before and during retirement.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 19, 2024

The Complete Guide to House Hacking

House hacking is the act of generating income from your real estate property while living in it by renting out a part of the home you live in, or renting out units of a multi-family unit while living in one of them.

Arundhati Sampath Jan 18, 2025

What is Barista FIRE? How to Achieve Early Retirement While Working Part-time

Barista FIRE refers to an early retirement approach in which you work part-time after retirement to fund some of your expenses. You will thereby require a lower net worth for retiring, and you may be able to retire earlier.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 12, 2024

What Is Liquid Net Worth And Why Does it Matter?

Liquid net worth refers to all your assets that are readily convertible to cash minus debt and liabilities such as loans.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 04, 2024

Top FIRE Books: Financial independence retire early resources

If you want to know how to get started with FIRE and what it will take to achieve financial independence and retire early, we recommend these 5 books to help you along on your FIRE journey.

Arundhati Sampath Nov 02, 2024

What is Coast FIRE? How to Coast Your Way to Financial Independence

The Coast FIRE approach focuses on saving aggressively early in your career and accumulating assets and then working on a job that is less stressful or something you are passionate about.

Arundhati Sampath Oct 27, 2024

How much house can I afford with $60,000 salary?

A person with a salary of $60,000 can be eligible for a home value between $180,000 and $262,000.

Arundhati Sampath Oct 27, 2024

How much house can I afford with $80,000 salary?

A person with a salary of $80,000 can be eligible for a home value between $233,000 and $340,000.

Arundhati Sampath Oct 27, 2024

How much house can I afford with a $100,000 salary?

A person with a salary of $100,000 can be eligible for a home value between $288,000 and $420,000. The exact home value depends on your lifestyle, interest rates, credit scrore and down payment.

Arundhati Sampath Oct 26, 2024

How much house can I afford on a $200,000 salary?

A person with a salary of $200,000 can be eligible for a home value between $550,000 and $800,000. However, it is important to understand your full financial situation before deciding how much house to buy.

Arundhati Sampath Oct 22, 2024

How much house can I afford with my salary?

While thinking about how much house you can afford, consider factors such as debt-to-income ratios, down payment, interest rates, property tax and your lifestyle and expenses.