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!

 

 

I executed a non-hostile takeover of the White Coat Investor podcast as part FIRE week at WCI. I talked about the 3 things that left me disillusioned with medicine as a career and answered a wide range of reader questions. Physician on FIRE Q&A

 

With inflation trending up, is FIRE trending down? Millennial Revolution looks at the history of the stock market during inflationary times. Does High Inflation Destroy the 4% Rule?

 

With stocks and bonds off to a rough start to 2022 and inflation chugging along, November of 2021 is looking like a suboptimal time to have retired. Eat Sleep Breathe FI asks Did We Retire at the Worst Possible Time?

 

The Monevator remains pleased with his decision to retire in 2021, even if he hasn’t become the “ripped FIRE-Warrior-Monk” that he once envisioned. A status and spending checkup in FIRE Update: One Year Anniversary.

 

Fritz Gilbert from Retirement Manifesto has been enjoying his freedom immensely. 4 Lessons From 4 Years of Retirement.

 

Dr. David Graham, the FI Physician, is only a couple of months into retirement. Yet, he’s got stories to tell, including a 457(b) screw-up and a move into cryptoassets. Real Stories from a Recent DIY Retirement.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, a social media expert and her husband, a soon-to-be orthopedic surgery resident, paint us a picture of their finances, plans, and conundrums. FIRE Starter 013: Just Starting Out in Residency.

 

Do you ever see some financial dogma and think it’s for the dogs? Or maybe not for dogs, but not for you, either. Here is some Common Financial Advice that Makes No Sense for Physicians.

 

What about the finances of “normal people”? Would you believe they’ve been reporting continual improvement year after year? Maybe they’re finally reading our blog posts! J.D. Roth with Get Rich Slowly shares pearls from a recent Federal Reserve Report. The Economic Well-Being of Average Americans.

 

This career path could make you a millionaire with a great lifetime pension as an early retiree in your forties. It’s not without sacrifice, though. Millionaire Before 50 runs the numbers. Can You Retire from the U.S. Military as a Millionaire?

 

Richard Quinn with Humble Dollar is impressed with how little he spent on his most recent surgical procedure. Hidden in this piece is an example of how poorly Medicare reimburses anesthesia services. My $233 Surgery.

 

Physician Finance Basics wants to help you bootstrap a private practice with one day’s pay. How I Started Private Practice for $1200.

 

With inflation on the rise, investors are looking for ways to protect their portfolio against market volatility. Alternative asset classes –particularly commercial real estate — are one of the best ways to hedge against volatility. Learn how to build a healthy, diversified portfolio through investing in commercial real estate funds or individual deals with Cadre.

 

Passive Income MD wants to help you ensure your real estate investments are as passive as possible. 5 Reasons You Should Not Self-Manage Rental Properties.

 

Coach Carson has made his dozens of doors as passive as possible. He explains how he’s able to travel (he’ll be spending the next year with his family in Spain) while owning so many properties. How do you manage rentals while traveling [Ask Coach].

 

 

Save Some Trees (and get the AMA off your back)

 

If you’re a physician and are as appalled as I was at the sheer volume of mail you receive from the American Medical Association, there is something you can do about it.

I posted the solution in our Physicians on FIRE Facebook group and got a ton of positive feedback.

I got started down this path when trying to discontinue my free subscription to the Anesthesiology News magazine. They had a website for me to visit, and when I entered my info to unsubscribe and clicked “confirm,” I received confirmation of my subscription renewal. Grrrr…

I then sent an email to the supplied address on the postcard I had received from Anesthesiology News asking me to reconfirm my interest in receiving their free mag, and I heard back from a real, live human.

Rob not only said he’d get me off the list, but he also gave me a number to call to get off of the AMA’s list. Apparently, his employer “rents” the addresses of doctors from the AMA. I can’t say that I was surprised to learn that the AMA is selling my personal information.

To take your name off the list, simply call the AMA at 1-800-262-3211. I got through to a human in a minute or two. I believe I pressed 2 to say that I was a physician or med student, and 3 for wanting help with something else.

Be sure to ask to be removed from the AMA mailing list and to be excluded from having your personal information lent or sold to third parties.

I hope this blurb saves a few trees, and I have a feeling it will. Again, the number to call is 1-800-262-3211.

 

Medical Survey Bonus Pay

 

If you receive actual mail from these companies, it’s usually a good thing. Like a check or a gift certificate, and they can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per year.

Several of our survey referral partners will pay you just for signing up. After that, they’ll continue to pay you for surveys completed, and I’ve even been paid (by InCrowd) for answering the screening questions, even though my answers weren’t what they were looking for.  A list:

💰All Global Circle [$50 Registration Bonus]

💰Curizon [1 new registrant per month (from this site) gets $250 bonus]

💰MD For Lives [$20 Registration Bonus]

💰Incrowd

💰ZoomRx

 

 

Summer is [Almost] Here!

 

We’re still officially two weeks away from Summer, and in northern Michigan, the weather abides by the seasons. There’s a frost advisory for this evening as I type this, and high temperatures for the next week are expected to be mostly in the upper 60s.

We’ll be spending the week with family in northern Minnesota, which, unsurprisingly, is expecting similar chilly late spring weather. That’s fine by me. We hit 91 in Alpena last Monday and Tuesday, and I’ll take 60s over 90s any day.

We will need to warm up eventually, though. After all, we did buy a new (to us) boat last week, and I want this lake to warm up!

 

A Recommended Insurance Agent

 

Policygenius

Policygenius is America’s leading online insurance marketplace. Policygenius helps you get life insurance right by making it easy to understand your options, compare quotes, and buy a policy, all in one place. Start by calculating personalized quotes from top insurers using their straightforward online tools.

When you’re ready to apply for a policy, the Policygenius team of licensed, unbiased experts handle all the paperwork and red tape – for free. From life insurance to homeowners insurance and even disability insurance, Policygenius is a one-stop shop for all your financial protection needs.

 

Visit Policy Genius

 

 

Have an outstanding week!

-Physician on FIRE