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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!
“The real challenge in life is family vs productivity vs health vs romance vs friendship vs money vs. fun” – Accidentally Retired, the former CEO striving to do it all in Family vs Work: The Everlasting Struggle for Balance.
Our friends across the pond have found balance in financial freedom. Their story in two parts at Millennial Revolution.
We feature a lot of successful people on this site, but success comes in many flavors, and I love how One Frugal Girl frames success. What Does Success Look Like and How Does It Feel? How does your definition compare to hers?
Some people define success as always getting the best deal and saving as much as possible. Late Starter FIRE finds comfort in no longer having to do so. The Joy of Spending My Money Guilt Free.
As Jonathan Clements with Humble Dollar nears the Big 6-0, he identifies 7 lessons he’s learned about Retiring Right that he’s taking to heart.
Don’t wait until you’re retire to set yourself up for a low-tax retirement. Here are the Top 5 Ways to Keep Taxes Low in Retirement.
Charitable giving is one way to keep your taxes low, and assets with massive appreciation are the best to donate. Stephen Kump, the CEO of Charitvest, explains How Donating IPO Stock to Charity Can Result in Big Tax Benefits. I hope to do this someday! IMPACT
“After you hit your number, your need to take risk goes down, while, conversely, your ability to take risk often goes up!” –The White Coat Investor on How to Stop Playing the Game for those wishing to dial back their risk once reaching FI.
I don’t love that turn of phrase; you’re never really out of the investing game, but it can be a good idea to take a more defensive position at times. Passive Income MD focuses on defense in How to Build a Safety Net for Your Life.
With two bear markets in the first three years of the 2020s, it’s appropriate to wonder. Could We See Another Lost Decade in the U.S. Stock Market? Ben Carlson with A Wealth of Common Sense keeps an optimistic outlook based on the data.
When you do have losses in the stock market, tax loss harvesting can be advantageous, but is it being oversold? Michael Kitces looks at the roboadvisors and their dubious claims.
Did you know that you can rent out your home for up to two weeks without paying a dime in taxes? Rent it for 15 days, and all of that income becomes taxable. The Debt Free Dr explains the “Augusta Rule.”
REIT income is taxable, but it doesn’t require you to vacate your home for stangers. Larry Swedroe with Evidence Investor challenges the conventional wisdom that says REITs suffer in times of rising interest rates. How Do Interest Rates Impact on REIT Returns?
Mission Accomplished
On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush announced to a crowd gathered upon the USS Lincoln that the U.S. had accomplished its mission in Iraq and that major combat was over. That “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background turned out to be pretty far from the truth.
What is true, though, is the G. Dubya was an avid runner, and 10 years prior to that fateful date, at the age of 46 (which happens to be my current age), he ran the Houston Marathon in a respectable 3 hours, 44 minutes, and 52 seconds.
I only recently learned of this fact when checking out the “celebrity pacers” at the Grand Rapids marathon who would run at the pace of some famous marathon finishers, holding up signs with their likenesses.
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My hope while running my first marathon last weekend, was to keep up with the Will Ferrell crew and finish a few minutes under 4 hours (he ran 3 marathons with his best time being 3:56). My race took place last Sunday, and I started out running with the “Anchormen,” but quickly realized that I didn’t like running in a cluster and that 9-minute miles felt a bit slow, even if that was my goal pace.
I ended up keeping the G.W. crew within sight for pretty much the entire 26.2, and although I didn’t finish with them, I actually beat the former President’s marathon by 14 seconds with a time I did not think was remotely possible.
Mission accomplished.
For real.
Accelerate Your Wealth by $10,000 to $20,000
If you’ve got a federal student loan balance of zero, skip to the next section to learn a different to accelerate your wealth.
If you do have a non-zero balance with qualifying federal student loans, you can now submit an application here to have $10,000 to $20,000 potentially forgiven. Pell Grant recipients can qualify for $20,000; it’s $10,000 for everyone else with qualifying loans.
There are pending legal challenges, so it’s not guaranteed, and if you’re going for PSLF and are in one of a few states where this $10,000 to $20,000 in forgiveness could be subject to state income tax, you might not even want it. Most, however, would be wise to put an application in now. Money could start flowing soon.
Accelerating Wealth: $200 Off Today & a PoF-Exclusive Bonus Course
This one applies to everyone. The Short Term Rental Course from Drs. Leti Alto and Kenji Asakura, Accelerating Wealth: Short-Term Rental Blueprint, officially opens tomorrow, but I’m able to give you early access and $200 savings if you register before the end of the day today, Sunday 10/23. The first 100 to register for will be invited to join Leti and Kenji for an exclusive in-person Dallas event next spring!
A bonus exclusively for Physician on FIRE Readers: Enroll this weekend in Accelerating Wealth and RRR’s Remote Airbnb Management Course for a discounted $249, and I’ll fully reimburse that $249 as long as you remain enrolled in both courses rather than take advantage of the money-back guarantees. Either way, this bonus course won’t cost you a thing. For the economics to make sense, I’ll need credit for the referrals, so please use links on this page (like here and here) to enroll in both courses. That’s just how these referral relationships work.
The first 100 to register for Accelerating Wealth will also be invited to join Leti and Kenji for an exclusive in-person Dallas event next spring!
Curious to see if investing in vacation rentals could accelerate your journey to both time and financial freedom?
More doctors and high income professionals are realizing that their earning potential is limited by the hours they can work each week, so they’re turning to real estate investing as a way to achieve greater financial flexibility and freedom. You could buy a few books, and attempt it on your own, but real estate mistakes are very expensive, so investing in a course to learn proven investing techniques can ultimately save you a LOT down the road.
Accelerating Wealth is a 5-week course that will teach you how to buy short-term (vacation) rentals, optimize your properties for rental success, and even automate the entire rental process if you choose. The short-term rental loophole can provide an outstanding tax deduction, and this course will teach you how to take full advantage.
Learn all about Accelerating Wealth, and save $200 when you sign up HERE!
Our Heritage Trip Has Begun!
Eleven months ago, we used some canceled cruise credit and booked a one-way transatlantic cruise that would take us from England to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with stops in France, Spain, Portugal and its Azores islands before trekking across the wide open sea.
We knew we had to get over to Europe no later than the first week of November, and we knew we’d be building a house, so we didn’t want to be gone for more than about 4-6 weeks.
Watching the Scott’s Cheap Flights emails, we were able to score one-way tickets to Madrid for $310. Since we’d already spent a couple of weeks in Madrid and a couple of months in Spain back in 2020, we decided we’d move on from there.
As we did with our early 2022 trip to Europe, we checked out Ryan Air to see where they could take us. My wife is Polish, and I’m Swedish (and Norwegian and a few other things), so it was high on our list to take our kids to the lands where there ancestors came from.
We ended up with an itinerary that will take us from Madrid to Krakow to Stockholm to London over the course of the next two and a half weeks. With all taxes, fees, and baggage charges accounted for, the first leg set us back $70 apiece, the second flight $25 apiece, and the final stretch just $14 per person. Everyone gets a 20l backpack, and my wife and I are paying to bring a 2nd 40l backpack on the flights. Gotta love discount airlines! Packing light has its privileges.
Have an outstanding week!
-Physician on FIRE
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4 thoughts on “The Sunday Best (10/23/2022)”
Congrats on your excellent marathon time PoF! Very impressive!
And thanks once again for a wonderful Sunday Best! All the articles were enjoyable as always, but I particularily liked Ben Carlson’s “Could We See Another Lost Decade?” post.
Will we see another lost decade? Despite Carlson’s optimism, I believe that depends entirely on what happens with inflation over the next few years. If inflation suddenly moderates back to the 2% range, the stock market should do just fine. If inflation remains over 5% for an extended period of time (years), simple math says we’re in for a tough decade.
G. Dub ran the Houston Marathon; a little flatter, a little faster, and has more people to run with/against. You ran a tougher course and still beat the president!
El Presidente Leif!
Amazing splits on that race!! I remember trying to beat W’s times in the mid-aughts. I never did (marathon PR 3:48) but I came close 🙂
BQ is not that far for you . . would be a fun next goal!
That’s really impressive, SHU.
BQ? That’s a sub-3:20 at my age. About a mile per minute faster than I ran this one. Never say never, but I don’t see that happening. I appreciate the encouragement, though!
-PoF