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:
A couple weeks ago, I hit the bike trails and enjoyed a nice lunch with a convicted felon. Bill from Wealth Well Done shared his story of a decade in prison and more @ Budgets are Sexy in How I Survived Prison And Accidentally Found My Path to Wealth.
- Introduction of Cryptocurrency
- Let’s Gamble with Cryptocurrency
- No Bitcoin for Hawaii
- Cryptocurrency Volatility
We have a conflicted cardiologist. EJ @ Dads Dollars Debts ponders Wanna Work Part Time Starting Now or Get My Butt on FIRE and Retire at 48? I’m not sure there’s a right answer.
Brad Brown, medical student, isn’t afraid to work his butt off. In a post @ KevinMD, he links to both this site and WCI while sharing The Key to Financial Freedom: Live and Work Like a Resident.
I asked my wife to marry me the day we met. Miss Bonnie MD would not approve, sharing six reasons Why You Should Consider Delaying Legal Marriage.
Should you consider taxes when choosing your retirement locale? Dr. Curious of My Curiosity Lab makes an excellent case in State of Confusion: Does Location Matter for Retirement Taxes?
You never know where your FIRE inspiration might come from. For the man behind I Dream of FIRE, it came from a coworker named Chuck. RIP Chuck (Why FIRE is Worth the Pursuit).
Do you understand Sequence of Returns Risk? The Actuary on FIRE gives an excellent overview and strategies to mitigate the damage if you are among the unlucky. Mathtastic Advice on Sequence of Returns Risk.
How much do you save? More much as the average American? As much as they do in China (47%)? How the U.S. Compares to the World With Savings Rates from Mustard Seed Money.
Last Week of Full Time Work
Over five months ago, I published a post entitled So Long,Full Time Employment. I’ve been looking forward to a lighter schedule ever since, and I’m happy to know that this week will be my last as a full time employee for the forseeable future.*
The time passed quickly. The summer was hectic as usual. Being a Dad, keeping up with this site, and managing a busy clinical schedule didn’t leave me with a lot of time to count down the days. But I’m glad they are mostly behind me.
Starting in October, I’ll be working a lot less. I’ve got plans for my newfound freetime this fall. I’ll be attending the ASA annual meeting in Boston in October followed immediately by the FinCon conference in Dallas.
In November, our family departs on a three week Spanish immersion adventure. In December, I’ll be free to celebrate both Christmas and New Years without working a single day in between for probably the first time since I was 15.
It’s high time I take advantage of my financial independence status. What would you do with financial independence?
Have a great week!
-Physician on FIRE
*I may return to full time for a spell to cover a potential military obligation of a partner, but that won’t happen for at least a year.
You’re living the dream life and you definitely deserve it! Thanks for sharing amazing tips as well.
It’s very motivating to see that your FIRE money is put where your mouth is and youre actually cutting back!
Big congrats!
Welcome to the ranks! In my pain practice I would ask some of my patients “how long did it take” The answer was “about 6 months” For me it was like taking an off ramp. Decelerating and no longer part of the high energy hustle. My early goal was to not be able to remember what the day was. My week was geared first around call then around weekend all driven by the concept of “work week”, “work day” etc. Now a nod is as good as a wink to a dead horse, my days are indifferent, blessedly indifferent, so my attention is on what I am attending to and not on the time associated. It’s very Zen and very integrating.
Early retirement is about understanding the moving parts, but then your blog is all about understanding the moving parts. After that life is a Gas, so go Gasem!
Definitely a Sunday Best!
Congrats
A belated and heartfelt congratulations to you! I’m sure your family is thrilled to have all that extra PoF time. I hope to join you in the part-time realm in the the next few years.
Thanks for the generous mention this week as well!
Dr. C
Great Sunday Best PoF! Some fantastic posts this week!
Congrats on your final week PoF! Sounds like you’ll have plenty on your plate to keep you busy. Don’t forget to relax here and there.
You continue to be an inspiration!
Enjoy!
Hooray for part-time! And Spanish immersion! And FinCon!
Bring on the fall.
All good things, indeed.
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks for the link love, friend! I’ll be publishing my story about riding mountain bikes with you on Thursday! Anyone who loves what the @POF has to say, stop over to Wealth Well Done on Thursday to check our behind the scenes adventure on Thursday!
I look forward to reading that one, as well. And perhaps to another outing before the snow falls.
Cheers!
-PoF
Cool, and I look forward to hearing more about your spanish immersion trip. Speaking spanish was a hobby of mine with all my latino friends in the clink. Surprisingly, my Spanish is still pretty good. I’m not perfectly fluent with the nuance of the language, and I struggle hearing it perfectly, but I can communicate just about anything concept I need to with the Spanish I know. If your kids pick it up, I’d be happy to Speak Spanish with them so they can practice when I stop by.
Thanks for the mention and congrats on part time work! A true winter break sounds amazing…ah the life of FI.
Thanks, Triple D. We’re planning another 3-week family trip in February, which will include either a week of medical volunteerism or a week of a medical conference. I’m not sure which one will work out, but both options will be someplace warm.
Cheers!
-PoF
Sounds perfect to me. 3 weeks at a time is a dream. In a few years I can likely pull off 2 weeks, but that eats into my vacation significantly. Enjoy my friend…enjoy.
Physician on Fire
Congratulations on taking advantage of your financial independence to cut back from full time work. It is a great feeling. When I cut back to part time, almost four years ago now, I enjoyed so much more free time and doing other fun things.
Now that I have repurposed my career to a much less stressful job, writing, speaking and coaching, I get a lot more sleep. I leave today on a 6 week journey across the country in my Motorhome. We will be taking historic route 66 during the journey. If anyone wants to follow along on the journey, I will be posting it on my Facebook Author Page. Go like my page and you can see what life is like after clinical medicine.
Route 66 was on my bucket list. Since I repurposed, my bucket list has begun a process of dwindling. Before, when I worked in clinical medicine, I was tied to being close to the hospital. Now I’m tied to being close to a cell tower. Not a particular cell tower, but any cell tower in the world. That opens up so many possibilities.
Best of luck on your new journey. Looking forward to meeting you at FINCON17, which just happens to fall on my motorhome path. Funny how that works.
Sounds fun. I could not find you on Facebook. Is the page up yet?
hatton1
Not sure why it isn’t showing up for you.
Here is the link to my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Dr-Cory-S-Fawcett-651607084977083/
I’ll bet you’re crossing items off that bucket list at a much faster pace with your newfound freedom, Dr. Fawcett. How fantastic that your chosen route happens to bring you to Dallas in October. See you there!
-PoF
Bye bye full time work, I can’t believe it is already here. Good for you! Can’t wait to hear about your adventures now that you will have so much more time. See you at FinCon (Newbie here, its my first time going, but I am really looking forward to it).
This will be my first FinCon, too. Should be a great time — see you there!
-PoF
Congrats, man! Hititng FI is awesome and well-deserved. We’ll have to grab a pint sometime in the near future to celebrate!
That would be great — I was down a couple times last week (Gophers game, Gorillaz show), but both were quick trips. Hope to have more free time in future excursions.
Cheers!
-PoF
Congrats! It’ll be cool to meet in person in Fincon!
Three weeks in Spanish immersion sounds like a blast. We visited friends for a month in England this past summer and the kids loved it. As a kid, I remember having friends who would go abroad for the summer (summering in XYZ) and being slightly jealous, only now realizing it’s just about resource allocation. If you pay a ton for your car, don’t expect trips like that!
Enjoy the time!
It goes back to that line that says you can afford anything, but you can’t afford everything. There are some people that can do both, but it’s not you or me.
I don’t have friends in Europe, but we do plan to explore the home sitting / home swap options. I think we’d be great candidates for both.
See you next month!
-PoF
You need to make EU friends! 🙂
Wow congrats on dialing it down to part time and having Christmas and New Years and all the time in between off! Your wife and children must also be so excited!
A Spanish immersion trip sounds wonderful!
Looking forward to all of that, and maybe even more time getting some exercise at the GYM.
Cheers!
-PoF
Congrats!
October is finally here!
A lot of us live vicariously through your adventures, so be sure to keep us updated on how things go.
Thanks — and I most certainly will.
Cheers!
-PoF
Woohoo sounds like a great fall for you! Congrats on getting to this point. Hope to see you at FinCon.
We’ll be doing some traveling as well once we hit FI. Thanks for another great round-up of posts.
I imagine our paths will cross next month, and I look forward to meeting you and many other online friends in person.
Cheers!
-PoF
It’s awesome that you will be getting out of the full-time work mode soon! We just finished our first trip since I retired. It was amazing. We enjoyed every minute and I realized at the end that I wasn’t having the anxiety or “blues” that come with going back to work after vacation! Looking forward to meeting you in Dallas!
I like ending vacations on Saturdays to have that one day off to get somewhat settled before a busy workweek. I imagine it’s great to come home to an open calendar.
I look forward to meeting you, as well, Vicki.
Cheers!
-PoF
“I asked my wife to marry me the day we met.”
This is so romantic! It sounds like something that would happen in a movie! I’m so glad you will get to have some time off during Christmas and New Year’s. I can’t believe you’ve been working every single day since you were 15! You’re so hard-working. It’s time to let FIRE kick in and do its job! 😀
Well, it did take me another year and a half to make it official with a ring and more sober proposal, and another year and a half to tie the knot, but it is a true story.
Oh, and I definitely haven’t worked every day — not even close. But I don’t know that I’ve been off work completely from before Christmas until after New Years at any point in the last 25 years. I usually work one holiday or the other and if not, the days in between.
Best,
-PoF
Thanks for the mention and more importantly congrats on scaling back from work. That has to be a wonderful feeling and it sounds like you are going to really enjoy your time!!! Can’t wait to read how it goes.
I’m happy to feature an insightful post like yours any time. Our high standard of living in this nation seems less impressive when you consider most of us spend nearly all that we earn.
I’ll definitely be sharing stories of our travels and other benefits from my new part time status.
Cheers!
-PoF
Congrats on becoming another part-timer! I think you will enjoy the additional sleep and lack of beeper noise. You might also find that doing mundane things like renewing your drivers license will be less irritating since you will have more week days off.
Starting in October, I’ll only turn the pager on once a month, and will turn it off about 73 hours later. That will be sweet.
Cheers!
-PoF
You are in for some great times! Congrats. You’ve earned it.
Thank you, ESI M!
The whole family is excited. Let the adventures begin!
-PoF
Congrats on dialling it back to part time PoF!
For me that was probably the point when the whole FI/RE thing shifted from a numbers based theoretical exercise into a tangible lifestyle choice that granted me loads more time to devote to whatever I wanted.
It was heartening to see the plan in action, demonstrably proving my approach and numbers.
Stopping work altogether was nice too when it happened, but the impact of the mind shift was not as big.
Enjoy all that time, it is the currency that wealth is truly measured in!
Congrats to you for taking advantage of your FI. Additional kudos for selling your site / domain name — an interesting story there.
Cheers!
-PoF