The Sunday Best (04/02/2017)

the sunday best
The Sunday Best is a collection of articles I’ve curated for your reading pleasure.

Expect most of the writing to be from recent weeks and consistent with the themes presented on this website: investing & taxes, financial independence, early retirement, and physician issues.

 

Presenting, this week’s Sunday Best:

 

“What kind of a car do you drive?” It’s a line from Swingers, the subject of a long-standing WCI forum thread, and the subject of this Rockstar Finance article from Mustachian Post. The Cars of Personal Finance Bloggers (including mine).

 

Radiologist Walter Nguyen of Hawaii, a.k.a. the Senior Resident, would like to talk. He points out the challenges of a career transition in Let’s Talk About Leaving Medicine.

 

Have your New Year resolutions fallen by the wayside? Tips from another radiologist @ The First Habit: When Willpower is Not Enough — 7 Strategies to Build Strong Habits.

 

Surgery is expensive! The Investing Doc found out firsthand just how expensive when his mother was presented a bill for a surgery that insurance would supposedly cover. A $79,000 Bill for an Elective Hernia Repair.

 

In an oldie but goodie, James & Stef of The Fit RV share some of their full-time RV-ing adventures in last summer’s With GNR in the Rear View Mirror. Lots of pictures, but sadly, no Guns ‘n Roses.

 

A majority of my invested dollars reside in a “taxable” account. Live Free MD gives a great overview of what a taxable account is and why A Taxable Account Isn’t Actually That Bad.

 

I’ve admitted to being Frugal Without a Cause. The topic of day-to-day saving was a recent topic of discussion on the WCI forum, and Smart Money MD tackled the issue in Building Wealth — Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff Unless You Should.

 

It’s Spring Break time. Time to spend a decadent week in Mexico! The Resumé Gap did better than that. How Much Does a Month in Mexico Cost?

 

Some big-time bloggers were interviewed for a megapost on early retirement. I was, too. Check out how seven famous, successful bloggers and I answered targeted questions in this post coordinated by Ben Davis of From Cents to Retirement: Early Retirement Roundup With 8 Top Bloggers.

 

 

Spring has Sprung!

 

While the northeast is digging out from a major snow storm (or was that just an April Fool’s joke?), we enjoyed a beautiful spring weekend in the upper midwest. Sixty degrees, sun shining, campfires burning, and a few good beers.

 

 

I host a rare beer share that normally happens on fifth Thursdays, which occur four times most years. This month, I happened to be on call on the rare fifth Thursday, so I bumped it back to Friday. A group of us enjoyed everything you see above, which includes a wild rice porter, an Iceland Imperial Stout, and two “milkshake” IPAs (one coconut, the other boysenberry).

The favorite of the night was a Brunch Stout.

We’ve got company for the weekend. A college friend of mine happened to have two boys, each within a few months of my two boys. When our families get together, everyone has a blast.

The last time we hosted them, I took my buddy mountain biking. This time, we took the road bikes out for a spin. Having biked very little this year (I started biking for the season this week after a story about me biking to work was published), the 18 mile trek was a long one.

 

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Fortunately, our destination was a small town that just happened to have a couple breweries. We enjoyed a sample or two on the patios of each of them, and started to make our way back home.

Somehow… and I can’t imagine how… we lost track of time. Our wives wanted to go out to dinner and if we biked all the way back, we would have arrived too late for them to get the early bird BOGO special!

Fortunately, my wife loves a bargain as much or more than I do, so she met us partway and ferried us and our bikes the last 11 miles home. It was fortunate because I had her bike and the seat isn’t much better than the one on my old school Schwinn Predator. My butt and I thanked her for saving us.

We had a great afternoon, the gals made it to the restaurant in time, the six boys made naan bread pizzas, and a good time was had by all.

How was your weekend?

 



 

Have a great week!

-Physician on FIRE

 

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16 thoughts on “The Sunday Best (04/02/2017)”

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  6. Sweet HHR, PoF! I used to drive a Chrysler PT Cruiser, which Chevy ripped off with the HHR design. I enjoyed the manual transmission and flexibility of the rear lift gate, but wasn’t so pleased by its repeated (and expensive) attempts to die.

    I’m now rocking a 10 year old Civic, which looks great in the physician parking lot!

    Reply

    • Thanks, Dr. P!

      And congrats on leaving the 5,000th comment on this site! Bonus points have been awarded.

      I really liked the look of the HHR when it came out. It obviously shares some styling with the PT cruiser, but has a much larger rear cargo space, so you can get more junk in the trunk. Chevy says the design is based on a 1947 Chevy Suburban, but apparently the same guy designed both the cruiser and HHR. It’s not a great car, but it gets me where I need to go.

      Cheers!
      -PoF

      Reply

  7. We’ve been doing slow retirement! It’s been sunny and in the 70s. Mr. G has been experimenting with his garbage picker-upper tool during our walks. We’re getting small things done around home in preparation for an eventual move and we’ve been catching up on Netflix movies.

    Reply

  9. Not sure where in the north east you meant. After three days of rain here in Delaware it’s in the 60s and sunny today. Ive been on kids duty most of the weekend as Mrs. FTF is recovering from minor surgery (nothing serious). During the rain I took the kids to a trampoline park for an hour. As a result last night the beer was more to help me sleep through the muscle pain then the enjoyment. Man I feel old…

    Reply

  10. We’re getting more of your nice weather today! Good thing – it’s been gray, rainy and cold all week! Got our taxes done and we’ll be sending off some big money to Uncle Sam next week too…

    Reply

  11. Sounds like a fantastic weekend. How were those “milkshake” IPAs?

    Ugh, a month in Mexico sounds like a dream (if you budget correctly for it, of course). My weekend’s been pretty hectic. I have a few job interviews that I’ve been trying to prepare for, in addition to all of the typical Picky Pinchers insanity. Hopefully we can make time to catch a movie and relax today.

    Reply

  12. Nice roundup, PoF. As a fellow Midwesterner, I enjoyed the great weather this weekend as well. Of course, I spent it going to the local museum for free using the Bank of America Museums on Us promotion, but we’ll get outside today.

    Reply

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