The Sunday Best is a collection of articles I’ve curated from the furthest reaches of the internet for your reading pleasure.

Every week, I scan hundreds of headlines, read dozens of posts, and bring you the best of the best to save you time and mental energy.

Financial Independence (FI) is a primary focus, but it’s an awfully broad topic. I tend to approach FI and early retirement from a fatFIRE perspective and through the lens of a physician, so expect to see those biases in the selected articles.

Related topics that have become recurrent themes include early retirement, selective frugality, tax issues, travel, physician issues, and of course, investing.

For more great articles, take a peek at The Sunday Best Archives. Now let’s get to the best… The Sunday Best!

 

 

The Sunday Best

 

I’ve bought a lot of crap on Ebay, but never a waterfall that comes with its very own doctor’s home. That’s what XRAYVSN did, believe it or not! I Owe My Accelerated Path To Financial Independence To A Leap of Faith And…….Ebay??!??!?!?!

 

I find their words to be borderline irreverent, but some of the points they make are relevant. The dual physician couple behind Love, Success, and the Sock Drawer explain how they’ve come to a time in their lives. When Financial Independence is Irrelevant.

 

Practitioners of Stealth Wealth tend not to tell you what’s behind their success (or that they’ve achieved success at all). The College Investor shares 5 Things Your Millionaire Neighbor Isn’t Telling You while busting 3 myths about said millionaires.

 

The pandemic is raging once again, and that’s no myth. I think we’ve learned a lot about the disease, ourselves, and each other over the last 8 or 9 months. The Cents of Money has picked up some financial lessons, too. 8 Financial Lessons Learned During The Pandemic.

 

For a lot of us (and/or our kids), the pandemic has also meant virtual schooling, and that has both direct and indirect financial impacts. Women Who Money explain. What are the Financial Impacts of Distance Learning?

 

 

I’ve used this downtime to get myself in better shape, and part of that was shaking off some stubborn fat that I’ve carried for a few years. There are some solid money lessons in the principles I used to drop weight. How I Lost 10 Pounds in 24 Days (and What That Has To Do With Personal Finance).

 

Coming into the pandemic, Mr. Money Mustache had no health insurance or health care coverage of any kind. He’s since discovered Direct Primary Care and other new alternatives to employer-provided insurance. Two Years Without Health Insurance (and What I’m Doing Now).

 

Robert from Stop Ironing Shirts has gone through a few different options for healthcare coverage in a year and a half. That was covered in a post recently featured here. Today, he talks about productivity, the best sleep of his life, and risk management in 2020. Reflections Eighteen Months Into FIRE.

 

Robert, by virtue of retiring in his 30s, is unlikely to have an RMD problem. What if he were to have worked another 30 years? The odds of a true “problem” remain slight, says The White Coat Investor. Your “RMD Problem” That Isn’t: Understanding Required Minimum Distributions.

 

If you own nothing but real estate in your (self-directed) IRA, that could create an RMD problem, or at least an RMD headache. Fortunately, there are many other ways to own real estate. Passive Income MD along with Crowdstreet describes Four Ways to Look at Real Estate Investing.

 

Given the ubiquitous real estate talk in most personal finance circles, the optional asset class can feel almost mandatory. Smart Money MD ponders a related question. Can you achieve financial independence without real estate? 

 

Can you achieve financial independence if your partner isn’t on the same page (and hiding spending from you)? It can’t help! Dr. Brent Lacey at the Scope of Practice talks about How to Deal With Financial Infidelity.

 

 

Stay Safe!

 

What a difference a week or two makes. In short order, we’ve gone from about 100,000 newly diagnosed cases a day in the U.S. to nearly 200,000 daily. My doctor friends from all over the country are sounding the alarms and pleading with anyone who will listen to stay home as much as possible and wear a mask when you can’t.

For better or worse, the increase in prevalence seems to be somewhat uniform and widespread, whereas in the past, there have been serious hot spots that had it much worse than other locales.

If the trend continues, the entire continental U.S. could be one big hot spot (some would argue it is already), so I pray we can reverse the rapid rise in illness that we’ve seen in the last week or so. The death rate tends to lag by 2 to 3 weeks, and we’re starting to see a consistent 1,000 to 2,000 deaths a day and I fear we may see numbers similar to the peak of about 2,500 a day in the spring (or worse) as the holidays roll around.

We don’t know what plans, if any, we’ll make for the holidays. The same is true for any in-person education and school-related activities. Like you, we will take it one week or one day at a time.

Here’s hoping that Pfizer’s vaccine and others are as effective as early data suggest, and that they can be manufactured, stored, distributed, and administered widely over the next 6 to 12 months. I don’t want to be having a similar conversation at this time of year in 2021!

 

psssst… keep your eyes out for information on WCICon21, a virtual event coming to you this coming March. Details will be released and early bird registration will begin tomorrow!

 

$750 or 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points. Your call!

 

The trifecta of Chase Ink Business credit cards have the best welcome offers I’ve ever seen right now.

A $750 welcome bonus (after spending $7,500 in total over the first 3 months) is unheard of for a card with no annual fee.

Chase actually offers two cards with this newly increased bonus. See below for details on both the Chase Ink Business Cash and Chase Ink Business Unlimited cards.

 

 

If you prefer points over cash, Chase Ultimate Rewards are some of the most flexible and valuable points in the travel rewards realm, and they can also be redeemed for cash. The Chase Ink Business Preferred now has a ginormous 100,000 point welcome bonus for big spenders who put $15,000 on the card in the first 3 months.

That’s enough for $1,250 in travel booked through the Chase portal or $1,500 when paired with a Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

 

 

Don’t have a business? Look into top cards for cash back, travel rewards, or whatever your heart desires on my page dedicated to finding the best credit card to suit your needs.

 

 

Have an outstanding week!

-Physician on FIRE