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!

Slow and steady wins the race, but building and selling a business puts you on another track entirely. From the Gen Y Finance Guy, Q4 2022 – Detailed Financial Report #88 – Net Worth $10,245,337.

I’ve been saying this for years. To retire is something you do, perhaps several times; it’s not who you are. Jonathan Clements with Humble Dollar states a misunderstood fact. Retire is a Verb.

Who cares about what others think, anyway? Not many retired people. Partners in FIRE ponder, Why Did We Care? 10 Things We Let Go of As We Age.

For those who don’t care to track multiple credit cards but want valuable travel rewards and airport lounge perks, this one card will do. The Best Single Credit Card Solution?

It’s been nearly seven years since I published Happiness is an Early Retirement, and it still rings true. The Financial Samurai concurs. The Best Reason To Retire Early: Years Of Greater Happiness.

I guess there is some benefit to working when you’re 50 and up. The White Coat Investor highlights Retirement Catch Up Contributions — It’s Not Too Late.

The Darwinian Doctor ditched desirable SoCal and now finds himself Walking in Memphis. How’s that working out for him and his family? 5 Discoveries from Our Memphis Geoarbitrage Experiment.

David Scherer, co-CEO of Origin Investments made predictions involving the multifamily real estate market a year ago. How did he do? Scoring Our Top 10 Multifamily Real Estate Predictions for 2022.

What can we expect in 2023? Again, from David Scherer and Origin Investments, Our Top 10 Multifamily Investing Predictions for 2023.

What can you expect when you invest in a portfolio of diversified multifamily real estate projects from these two companies in their latest funds? Comparing Real Estate Funds: Trion Properties & 37th Parallel. There are many similarities and some key differences.

Partners reap the rewards of selling a practice to private equity. Employees, including those on a “partnership track” often get the shaft. Investing Doc shares How To Avoid Being Rug Pulled By Private Equity.

The pandemic has been a lesson in unintended consequences. From Young Money, 11 Things That 0% Interest Rates Caused and we may never see again.

Surprisingly, there was no mention of inflation, but Chris with Heavy Metal Money has had it with the headbangingly-high prices. It Costs How Much Now?

Travel Freely

You may know how I feel about claims of “free travel,” but I clearly do believe that there’s a benefit to maximizing credit card rewards, and it can get rather complex pretty quickly.

That’s why Zac Hood created Travel Freely, a free app designed to help you organize your travel rewards strategy, choose the best cards to pick up, and redeem those points and miles in awesome ways.

I try to do this with blog posts and spreadsheets — and we did pick up my favorite one-card solution for my wife the other day — but the Travel Freely app is a slick way to stay organized, set travel goals, and ensure you’re on track to meet them.

Zac tells users to expect $2,000 in “free” travel in their first year (or $3,000 for couples). I expect most of my readers, who typically have little trouble meeting minimum spending requirement for welcome bonuses, could easily eclipse those numbers, especially when picking up small business credit cards (which most people can easily qualify for even if they think they cannot).

The app costs nothing and there are no subscription fees. Like this blog, Travel Freely makes money by making credit card referrals, and if you download the app from this site, some of those profits will be shared with PoF. Again, it costs you, the user, nothing at all.

Download the app (for IOS or Android) or visit the Travel Freely site to learn more!

But wait… there’s more!

Zac realizes that travel is not universally appealing, but there’s something that pretty much is, and that’s cash.

Hence, Cash Freely.

It’s the same idea as Travel Freely, but instead of racking up points and miles, Cash Freely is designed to help you maximize the cash back on all purchases and earn cash back via welcome bonuses on new cards.

Download the Cash Freely app or visit the Cash Freely FAQ and website to learn more.

Twitter Fun

Someone on the internet had a little fun lampooning those “Top Places to Live” type posts. I couldn’t help but share this one. I love the people who argued that these couldn’t possibly be the “top” states. Silly bottom-staters.

Factual. pic.twitter.com/BK1sONWspU

— 🅿🅷🆈🆂🅸🅲🅸🅰🅽 𝚘𝚗 𝙵𝙸𝚁𝙴 (@PhysicianOnFIRE) February 4, 2023

Understanding Multifamily Investing

Please join me and 37th Parallel’s managing partner Chad Doty for an educational webinar on Monday, February 13th at 8 p.m. Eastern / 5 p.m. Pacific time.

The focus will not be on their specific fund or investment offerings, but rather on the topic of Using Multifamily Investing to Accelerate Wealth.

In this webinar you’ll learn:

• Why multifamily has such a long-term positive track record uncorrelated to the stock/bond market

• How to use direct multifamily investing to add inflation protection, recession resistance, and tax-advantages to your investment portfolio

• How understanding demographics, market selection, and sponsor selection can improve your investment results

Register for the webinar here. If you can’t make it live, a recording will be sent to you as long as you’ve registered beforehand.

Road Tripping

My family and I are a week and a half into our Ski the East adventure, and no 2,000-mile road trip comes without a hiccup or two.

Mother Nature did her part by delivering an arctic blast the last couple of days that closed down Jay Peak completely on Friday, which was scheduled to be our second day of skiing there. I’m grateful that we got one day in. That was a spectacular hill with terrain to suit all abilities, and the place averages 25 to 30 feet of snow per year.

Our vehicle didn’t love the cold anymore than the management at Jay Peak (and other resorts that shut down due to frigid temps and windchill). I think it’s too smart for its own good.

Apparently, in some newer vehicles — we’re driving a 2017 Nissan Armada — when the battery only has so much “juice,” it selectively shuts down certain functions. When I tried to start it, it would crank a few times, the engine would fire, and it would almost immediately die. Pressing on the accelerator did nothing, and the car wouldn’t do its usual high-RPM revving that it normally does when it starts. I started it at least a dozen times, expecting a different result like an insane person, and every time it would start up and shut down right after.

I got a jump start from David at the Jay Village Inn and I was amazed when the car continued to run. We let it idle for a good 10 to 15 minutes while we loaded up our gear, and when I tried to leave, the dumb vehicle wouldn’t go more than 5 miles an hour. I couldn’t rev the engine. It maxed out at about 1500 rpm, even with the pedal to the metal.

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After a three-minute drive across the street to Jay Auto, I bugged Doug, the manager there, and explained the situation. He was aware of our initial troubles, as it was his “jump box” that David used to get our car started 20 minutes earlier. He explained that the car just needed to understand that it now has a charged battery, and all should be well. All we had to do was turn off the ignition and restart it.

To say I was hesitant to shut ‘er down when it was 10 below zero and we had already had so much trouble is an understatement, but I gave it a shot. Doug was right. It operated beautifully after starting right back up for us.

Apparently, the car is too smart for its own good. Apparently, the battery would only power what was needed to start the car, but not what was needed to keep it running. Without that system, I believe the car would have started and run just fine if it wasn’t being selective about what to power and what to shut down. I called it AI — Artificial Idiocy.

We took advantage of the day off the mountain to tour Ben & Jerry’s, stop by a Cabot Creamery outlet, and sample beers from the source at Alchemy Brewery with friends.

Four ski hills down, two to go. This Indy Pass is quite the deal, and our cost to ski this season will be under $10 per lift ticket before this trip ends. Of course, that metric disregards the thousands we’re spending on lodging and the thousands of miles traveled, but we’re having an excellent time!

One last thing — we still plan on hitting up Mule Bar in Winooski (across the river from Burlington), Vermont this evening at 7 pm. If you happen to be in the area, come by and say Hi. The deep freeze will have lifted by then, I promise!

 

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Have an outstanding week!

-Physician on FIRE