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!

 

 

 

Clipping Chains celebrates the two-year anniversary of his resignation. In the interim, they sold their house, spent time in Sicily, traveled in an RV, and found a new city to call home. Oh, and of course, there’s been this coronavirus hanging around the entire time. Seven Lessons from Two Years of Financial Independence.

 

I’ve never been a fan of “when you’ve won the game, stop playing” as it’s applied to investing, especially for those of us who may have oversaved. That attitude is likely to leave much less for heirs or charity or even yourself in old age. I was thrilled to see Dr. Bill Bernstein finish that sentence in his recent essay at Humble Dollar. In A Day to Remember, he quips, “I often tell people that, when you’ve won the game, stop playing with the money you really need.” That, I completely agree with.

 

Fritz from Retirement Manifesto is grading his own paper as he evaluates his approach to his investments and cashflow over the last few years. I give him an A+ for increasing his allocation to stocks in 2020. Revisiting Our Drawdown Strategy After 3 Years of Retirement.

 

As Fritz reminded us recently, money takes a back seat after we retire. My friend from Life Outside the Maze, an early retiree who happens to be from my home state, is about my age, and has kids about the same age as mine, and with whom I’ve had beer and tacos, has more pressing issues than money. Um… I Have Cancer.

• See also: His Bucket List

 

We’ve been exploring the relationship between spending and happiness recently, and our dentist friend behind Debt Free Dr. decided to weigh in. What If Money CAN Buy Happiness?

 

Here’s a dentist who seems exceptionally happy with the money he’s now making. He’s got roughly triple his original FI number and is more than happy to keep doing what he’s been doing. FIRE Crossroads 018: Grossing 7 Figures Annually as a Dentist.

 

Dr. Peter Kim of Passive Income MD, an anesthesiologist and real estate investor, looks at happiness and performance from a different angle. In podcast episode #90, he shares his hypothesis. Would Working Part-time Make You a Better Doctor?

 

 

You may have noticed that the stock market had about as good a January as Aaron Rodgers. At A Wealth of Common Sense, Ben Carlson asks Is This the End of the Go-Go Years? We’d love to give you the definitive answer, but our lips are sealed.

[See what I did there?]

 

It doesn’t matter what they say. What matters is how you respond to a market like this, and I like to do what I can to take advantage of any losses in my portfolio. This maneuver saves me at least $1,000 and sometimes tens of thousands at tax time (when I’ve realized significant capital gains).

• Tax Loss Harvesting with Fidelity: A Step by Step Guide
• Top 5 Tax Loss Harvesting Tips
• Tax Loss Harvesting with Vanguard: A Step by Step Guide

 

If you think Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Market had a rough start to the year, let me introduce you to our friend Mr. Crypto. Better yet, let’s let The White Coat Investor make the introduction with his new primer on the asset class. What You Need to Know About Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin.

 

Artem Milinchuk, the founder and CEO of FarmTogether gets real about inflation, and no, he doesn’t recommend Bitcoin as a hedge.  Inflation and the Case for Real Assets.

 

Our friends at Semi-Retired MD own plenty of real assets and they took advantage of last year’s hot housing market, selling two properties and taking advantage of a 1031 exchange. They share the details in Real Estate Year in Review 2021 Part. 1: Properties We Sold.

 

They were also busy buying, acquiring a 42-unit apartment complex after taking advantage of soaring valuations on three other properties with cash-out refinancing. Real Estate Year in Review 2021: Part 2 Refinances and Purchases.

 

Twice a year, Drs. Kenji Asakura & Letizia Alto, the physician duo behind Semi-Retired MD, open up their real estate investing course to a new cohort, and the cart is now open for Zero to Freedom Through Cashflowing Real Estate.

More than a thousand students have launched or grown their real estate investment portfolio with the knowledge, networking, connections, and coaching that comes as a package deal. Learn more about Zero to Freedom Through Cashflowing Real Estate here. If you choose to enroll and remain in the course (and Physician on FIRE is credited as your referral source), I’ll send you two real estate books of your choosing for a total value of up to $50. The first three will also get a signed copy of Dr. Bonnie Koo’s Defining Wealth for Women!

 

The Darwinian Doctor, a successful ENT physician, real estate investor, and blogger makes a case for something that has helped him step up his game. How Physician Coaching Changed My Life [Review of the Alpha Coaching Experience].

 

The Alpha Coaching Experience from The Physician Philosopher is open for enrollment now through Thursday, 2/3!

Here’s what you can expect when you enroll. You’ll have two weeks to evaluate the program with a money-back guarantee.

• A 12-week long program which starts on February 15

• Weekly One-on-One Coaching Sessions with an Alpha Mindset Coach

• Six Group Coaching Sessions w/ Dr. James Turner

• Three Pillar Model to Physician Freedom – Mindset, Money, & Ideal Life

• Lifetime Access to over 30 Coaching Concept Videos

• eBook – Victim to Victor: Self Coaching Tools for Physicians

• Messenger Support with Coaches & Peers Between Sessions.

• A community of like-minded physicians who are facing the same struggles you do each day.

• A 14-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.

 

I’ll make the same offer that I did above for Z2FF — 2 books of your choice from Amazon, up to a total of $50 for those of you who enroll in ACE and decline Dr. Turner’s money-back guarantee by sticking with the program.

 

Learn More / Join the Waitlist

 

When in Rome

 

We’ve been doing as the Romans do for a solid week. We’ve eaten too much pasta, tasty cheeses, and of course, pizza. Unlike the typical Roman, we’ve opted for beer over wine, but Italy actually has a fairly active craft beer, or birra artigianale, scene.

 

 

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We’ve enjoyed gelato, too, of course.

 

 

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Food and drink have not been the highlight of this leg of our month-long trip. No, it’s the sites, and there are so many to see. Better yet, at times, it feels like we’re the only people seeing them!

We got up bright and early on our first day to visit St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican. Even though it’s among the largest churches in the world, I’d heard that the place can get really crowded and the lines can be long.

We were the only tourists there when we arrived. With the exception of some staffers and a worshiper or two, we had the place to ourselves for a good 20 to 30 minutes when the place opened at 0700.

I have proof.

 

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We also toured the Vatican Museums and attended an hour-long audience with Pope Francis and a few hundred of his closest friends. The tickets were free; you just have to approach the Swiss Guards and ask for them.

Of course, we toured the Colosseum and the nearby Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. We followed Rick Steves’ free audioguides through these sites and others, including the Jewish Ghetto, Trastevere, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, and the “Heart of Rome” that includes many well-known fountains, plazas, and monuments.

We’re really enjoying this city, even more than I expected we would. There is so much history on display. You almost become numb to the ruins and magnificent architecture; both are everywhere you turn.

Even in a pandemic January, there’s a lively vibe with people in the piazzas, tons of sidewalk and plaza dining, and the people have been friendly. Their English is way better than my Italian which consists of me using Spanish phrases and hoping the Italian version is similar. Hey, they’re both Romance languages, right?

I had heard that Rome can be dirty and there’s lots of graffiti, but honestly, I’d say these are less of an issue here than in Athens or Sicily, two places where we’ve also spent a week this year. The cleanliness factor is on par with Malta, but Rome has a much more open feel to it. Malta is beautiful, but where the half-a-million people work and live, everything feels squeezed together to fit on a small island, leaving scant room for outdoor dining, parks, or plazas.

Tomorrow, we head back to Athens for a few days before making our way home to cold, snowy Michigan later in the week. I suspect the snow will have melted in Athens by then, and the U.S. eastern seaboard will have cleaned up pretty well by then.

Lucky for me, I get to escape to Phoenix for WCICON22 shortly after returning home! See you there?

Oh, and I’ll be in sunny Florida next month, too, arriving a few weeks ahead of the next DLP Prosperity Meeting being held in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (near St. Augustine) 3/17 to 3/20. No word yet on whether or not there will be green beer. I may just have to pack some food coloring.

 

DLP Online & In-Person Events

 

This week, on Wednesday, February 3 at 5pm Eastern time, you’ll have an opportunity to join in online for the DLP Capital Webinar. CEO Don Wenner and his team will be updating the 4th quarter results from their active funds along with an overview of their purpose-driven mission and the five real estate investment funds they offer to accredited investors.

 

 

I’ve been invested in their Lending Fund (via an access fund that lowered the minimum investment at a time when it was much higher) since 2019. After all fees (some of which can be avoided by directly with DLP), my annualized return has been just over 10% per year, as measured by IRR.

I mentioned above that I’ll be attending DLP’s upcoming Prosperity Event in northeast Florida starting on St. Patricks’ Day. These events are top-notch with excellent speakers, entertainment, food, drink, venues, etc… you can read my review of my first event here.

 

The breakdown for the March 17 – 20, 2022 event in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL is as follows:

Regular Price: $2495 for the first-person & $995 each additional person

Prosperity Member Price: $995 for all (Code 995PROSP)

Inner Circle Member Price: $795 for the first person and $495 for each additional person (Inner Circle member is anyone investing $2 Million+)

Current Investor Bringing an Accredited Investor Referral: FREE (for a current DLP investor bringing someone who is accredited, the fee is waived for both)

 

You can check out the itinerary and speaker lineup here. Three square meals, snacks, and beverages (including craft beer that may or may not be green) are all provided.

 

 

Snowpocalypse 2022

 

For those of you out east, I hope you’re able to dig your way out of what’s expected to be a massive snowfall event with heavy winds to boot. I grew up in Minnesota, and I now live in northern Michigan, so I know what it’s like.

I’m beginning to wonder if leaving our vehicle uncovered at the airport for the month of January was a good idea. We’ll find out in a few days!

Here in southern Europe, we did have temperatures below freezing one morning in Rome, but we managed to miss the “snowpocalypse” that shut Athens, Greece down for a couple of days earlier this week. We head back there tomorrow, but I’m guessing most or all of the white stuff will have melted by then.

I’m a bit bummed about that, to be honest. I would have loved to have gotten some photos of snow covering the Acropolis, Agora, and more. Fortunately, others captured the event for us.

Stay safe, stay warm, and have some fun in the snow if you can!

 

 

A Recommended Financial Advisor

FPL Capital Management

FPL Capital Management Vetting Application

 

FPL Capital Management is a Fee-Only RIA that offers a unique fee structure, which is based on charging clients a flat annual fee for services provided. Fees range from $1,000 to $10,000 per year for Portfolio Management. They utilize low-cost funds from Vanguard, Dimensional, iShares, WisdomTree, and AQR. They have custodial relationships with Schwab, Fidelity, and TD Ameritrade.

They offer an Institutional Platform that provides clients access to private debt and private equity funds. FPL also offers Wealth Management and ERISA Fiduciary services. Their focus is medical practices with fewer than 100 employees. They offer this service utilizing DC Platforms of Vanguard and Employee Fiduciary.

Fees:

Annual Advisory Fees range between $1,000 and $10,000, depending on the level of service selected.

Contact Info:
3525 North Causeway Blvd.
Suite 633
Metairie, LA 70002
800-835-1969
Info@fplcapital.com

Visit FPL

 

 

Have an outstanding week!

-Physician on FIRE