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:
$100,000 is the average retirement savings for people aged 65. Dozens more surprising stats from Mr. Firestation in Numbers to Put Your FIRE Journey in Perspective.
A physician looking to boost income will love this guest post and how-to from Wealthy Doc on The White Coat Investor: A Side Hustle to Consider — Medicolegal or Insurance Consulting.
She retired early. And felt lost. Kinda like our friend Dr. Segan. How did JP of The Money Habit find her way out of the funk? Work and Meaning in Retirement — One Year Out.
Aaron at Wealth Psychology has no doubt early retirement will be worth it. He’s compiled a list of rebuttals to the common complaints and misunderstandings: Notes to Those That Don’t Get It.
Retire Before Dad doesn’t need $10 Million. He’s traveled the world on much less. In this post, he discusses four types of people and which is the best to be in The Holy Grail of Travel.
Speaking of traveling the world, the FIREcracker couple from Millennial Revolution wrote a four part series on their trip around the globe.
- Cost of Travelling the World for 1 Year
- Cost of Travelling the World for 1 Year, Part 2: Packing
- Cost of Travelling the World for 1 Year, Part 3: Accomodations and Transportation
- Cost of Travelling the World for 1 Year, Part 4: Travel Insurance
- Bonus: Travelling or Traveling: What’s the Difference?
Dr. Tom of High Income Parents has FIVE kids. Dr. Tom would like them to be financially responsible. Dr. Tom would appreciate it if y’all would Please Stop Telling Me My Kids’ Money Habits are Formed by Age 7.
Learn how to better manage your student loan debt, and explore refinancing to a lower rate with cash back offers up to $1,000!
Teach Your Children Well
There is so much a child needs to learn, and I agree that money habits are an important one. But they need the ability to walk before they learn to run.
My boys are now 6 and 8, and they can both walk and run. Last week, I went on a couple of two mile jogs with them. They are also learning some money basics, and we discuss money in plain and simple terms when it comes up. They’ve got a small allowance, with $1 going into each of the Spend, Save, and Give jars.
They’re both enrolled in public schools now, but we started giving them an education long before they got there. I started reading to our oldest when he was in the womb. He had The Very Hungry Caterpillar down pat by the time he was born. So did I.
Our second born got 60 to 90 minutes of stories per day before he was born, as we often read for 30 minutes before his older brother’s naps and bedtime. The at least twice-daily trend continued until they were in pre-school and beyond.
They developed a love of books and a curiosity in words. Noticing their piqued interest, we took advantage of the opportunity to teach them about words when the time seemed right.
When they were age 3 1/2 (two years apart), each of them was enrolled in the Mommy & Daddy School of Phonics. I was able to do most of the lessons the first time around, and about half for our younger son. My wife had found this amazing book that enabled the two of us to teach them how to read in 100 consecutive days. I don’t believe we missed a day, or if we did, I’ve since forgotten.
With gold stars (and red, blue, and green) as incentives, we worked through the lessons until they could read books independently in a little over three months. The lessons were anywhere from 10 minutes at the beginning to maybe 40 minutes when they were reading full pages later on.
For parents out there, I highly recommend the book and the experience of giving your child a gift that will last a lifetime.
I’m away from my family for a couple weeks at the moment and I’m starting to miss them.
Can you tell?
Have a great week!
-Physician on FIRE
This is very nice .
Thanking for sharing this .
This is our link related to travelling.
Great Sunday Best PoF! I particularly liked the post from the Wealthy Accountant.
My kids are just now getting to reading age, so we might have to check out that book. Thanks for the recommendation!
Thanks, Mr. Tako. I wholeheartedly recommend it — $15 and you can use it for both kids. One of the better Amazon purchses we’ve ever made.
Cheers!
-PoF
I’m taking the fine wine approach to child-rearing: leave them in a cool, dry place for 18 years and hope for the best 🙂
Seriously, though, it’s pretty incredible your children learned to read that young and that quickly. My mother is trained as speech pathologist and has worked her whole life in early intervention, and always touts the importance of phonics in my brothers’ and my education.
Kudos on your two smarties!
That’s cool about your Mom. I’m pretty proud of those little guys for all they’re able to accomplish. Yesterday, they both ran an “inflatable” 5k (actually 3.4 miles with 10 or 11 inflatable obstacles). They both ran the entire way. I don’t think I ran a single mile at once until I was in 7th grade.
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks for the mention and the other great links! We have read to our kid for a very long time and at 26 months (his current age) he loves books, words, letters, and all things nerdy (or maybe he will be a dork). We could not be prouder. Hope you see your family soon.
Thanks, Triple D!
There’s nothing dorky about a good reader. In another 12 to 18 months, I’ll be he’ll take to the 100 Steps book quite well.
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks for the mention/link – an interesting collection of links (as always). Good for you on landing a highly relevant sponsor!
Thank you kindly, Mr. Fire Station. I found the statistics you shared to be quite fascinating.
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks PoF for the feature. It looks like you’re getting the boys off to a great start.
We used a program called Spell to Write and Read. It’s a little more phonics based than Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. From what I hear both work pretty darn well depending on the teacher and how the kiddos learn. That’s another one your readers could look at if they are so inclined.
Tom @ HIP
Here’s a link to Spell to Write and Read for those interested. At $87, it’s a bit too rich for my blood, but when you’ve got five kids, that’s less than 20 a head. 🙂
Cheers!
-PoF
PoF,
Thanks for the feature today and last week. Always nice to see one of the archived pieces get shared. FI remains the Holy Grail of Travel!
-RBD
I agree, RBD. FI for the win!
Best,
-PoF
Wow great list! Thank you so much for sharing!
It’s great to know that your kids love books. I’m trying to read to teach Baby FAF the basics as well, but his interest and attention span is unpredictable. I think I need to check out the book you mentioned. Hopefully it will help.
It is a great book and you’ll find out within two weeks whether or not your child is ready. If he starts stringing the sounds together, keep on going. If not, you can take a breather for a few months and reintroduce it.
Cheers!
-PoF
We used the above mentioned book with both our kids and taught them to read before kindergarten. It was a little different with each kid as my youngest needed a little more effort/time but it does work.
There are so many different things to teach little kids but I feel teaching reading is the best investment of time overall.
I would also add that if you start using the book and it is not working just put it away for a month or two then try again. The introduction tips in the book should be followed closely, the little tips make a huge difference. Finally if you look at the reviews on amazon people document their own experiences which I found very helpful.
That’s great to hear, Jim.
It’s amazing when those little ones start stringing sounds together into words. Your recommendation of taking a break if it’s not working is a great one.
We did that with potty training, too. Tried it with our younger son at 18 months and it didn’t take. Three months later, he was ready.
Cheers!
-PoF
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What an incredible list of posts. Thanks for the info on teaching your kids to read. I recently found out my daughter is expecting so I’ve added the book to my list for her. Love the pictures 🙂
That’s great, Amy. Congratulations on the coming Grandbaby!
Thank you PoF!
Thanks for the book recommendation, PoF. My son is almost 3.5; I didn’t realize he was supposed to be learning to read already! I’m going to check that book out.
Every child will learn at a different pace, but we had success with ours at that age. Giving them the ability to read and an early love of books is a wonderful gift, and it’s a wonderful bonding experience to spend that time with them daily. I highly recommend it.
Cheers!
-PoF