The Sunday Best (12/24/2017)

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, the Christmas Eve Sunday Best:

 

Another personal finance blogger opens a Donor Advised Fund after careful deliberation. Which brokerage did the Chief Mom Officer choose? Giving on FIRE – Vanguard vs. Fidelity Donor Advised Funds. 7 days to lock in a deduction at 2017 rates!

 

Are you a saver? A spender? Sarah @ Smile & Conquer is somewhere in between. How one personal finance blogger manages Balancing The Splurges With the Scrimps.

 

Sometimes, a splurge can seem worth it, regardless of circumstances. The Ninja Budgeter splurged and lived to tell this tale: I Spent $11,000 On A Pilot License While I Was Still In Debt (And I’d Do It Again).

 

Are you sensing a theme here? Me, too. From Millennial Money Man, Confession: I’m Not as Frugal as I Used to Be…and I Like It.

 

Did you hear? A couple of Californians managed to retire early after something like two and a half years of writing about this very thing. Our Next Life begins their next life with an announcement: We Retired Early! // Our Next Life Begins. Congrats Mark & Tanja!

 

They haven’t retired early yet, but The Green Swan, who is a decade my junior, has set a date. As I tweeted last week, I would have been better off financially as healthcare banker than a lowly healthcare worker. The millionaire talks Setting My Retirement Date.

 

How do these people plan to spend their time, anyway? Well, unlike money, we are all granted the same amount of time every day we wake up alive. Great perspectives from The First Habit. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.

 

Of course, early retirement is only one option for those who attain financial independence as I like to preach. Adam @ Minafi would say I’m singing to the choir. Why I’m Going for FIO – Financial Independence with Options.

 

When I published a post on tax reform and the impact on physicians and the self-employed, it garnered more views on day one than anything that has graced this site before. I take that to mean you want to know more about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and how it might affect you. Here you go!

• Tax Reform and the Early Retiree | Go Curry Cracker
• Pass-thru Income Deduction: Top 12 Things Every Business Must Know | Evergreen Small Business
• Fewer Households Will Face the Alternative Minimum Tax | Tax Foundation
• The New Tax Law and How It Impacts Your Early Retirement | Mad Fientist
• How The New Tax Plan Will Ruin Your Life If You’re Not Careful | Financial Samurai
• 2017 Tax Reform — Implications for Early Retirees | Future Proof MD

 

We can’t skip the “This Week in Bitcoin” section of The Sunday Best, can we?

• Funny Friday — Bitcoin Edition | Halt Catch FIRE
• What I Dislike About Cryptocurrencies (3/2017) | How I Grow My Wealth
• What I Like About Cryptocurrencies (4/2017)| How I Grow My Wealth

 

Teaching Kids to Give

 

While the adults are busy making year-end donations and doing their best to take full advantage of deductions at the 2017 tax rates, we’re also showing our kids what it means to give.

A third of our boys’ three-dollar weekly allowance goes to the “give” jar. We emptied them last week and had each child choose a charity to be the recipient of the stack of ones. After rounding up to the minimum grant Fidelity Charitable will dish out (and pocketing the dollar bills), we sent $50 each to Ocean Conservancy and our local arboretum.

Yesterday, as temperatures struggled to climb out of the single digits, our boys took turns joining me for an hour each at our neighborhood drug store to ring the Salvation Army bell. If it were just me standing there annoying people with a bell, I probably would have collected 23 cents.

 

 

With my little guys all bundled up, wearing the red apron and ringing the bell, we saw at least a couple hundred dollars drop in the red bucket. One man had the gall to walk by twice without so much as acknowledging us, once on the way in and again on the way out, only to return from his truck with a $100 bill. It was all I could do to not proselytize about a donor advised fund or at least write up an impromptu receipt. His generosity really put a smile on our faces.

One more act of giving this week came from my cephalic vein. My boys aren’t quite big enough to donate blood yet, but I was sure to make a show of removing the Coban™ and bandage that evening. I tell them it’s only right that I give blood. If I continue to give regularly for a few more decades, there’s a small chance I will have donated enough to make up for all the transfusions I will have hung in my anesthesia career.

 

 

Have a Merry Christmas Eve! 

-Physician on FIRE