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 Sunday Best
I followed Mr. Firestation back when he was a marketing executive in St. Paul. That was more than five years ago, apparently, as he realizes while heading out to EPCOT Center on a Wednesday. Suddenly … Five Years.
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett of Prescription for Financial Success worked one year longer, retiring from a surgical career in his mid-fifties. Although like me, he runs a blog and remains quite active, he tells us that his life feels a lot like retirement. I concur. After Four Years of Retirement, All is Well.
She’s only halfway to her mid-fifties, but she’s in great financial shape. Clearly, the Financial Mechanic didn’t choose medicine. How I Saved $580,000 By The Age of 27.
There’s a good chance she’ll be a millionaire by 30. $1 Million is a lot of money, but becoming a millionaire doesn’t carry the cachet it once did. The Millionaire Definition Hasn’t Changed, But Its Meaning Has.
JL Collins is known for The Simple Path to Wealth and an affinity for VTSAX, but he didn’t always embrace simplicity with his investments. This one mistake cost him $1 Million alone. Mariah International: All that glitters…
Given some of the stock market mania we’ve seen in recent weeks, Fritz at Retirement Manifesto asks (and answers) a fair question. Are We in a Stock Market Bubble?
Whether you believe we are or not, I wouldn’t hesitate to put $6,000 into a Roth IRA. If your income puts you over the limit, see Your Money Geek‘s Backdoor Roth IRA 2021: A Step by Step Guide with Fidelity.
If you’re not comfortable investing in this stock market, perhaps real estate is for you? It’s not for Jim at Route to Retire. Not anymore, anyway. Owning Rental Properties Is Smart, but I’m Out, Jack!
Devon Kennard, Arizona Cardinals Linebacker, speaks to a former Clemson linebacker about his real estate investments. How an NFL Athlete Used Real Estate Investing to Create $300,000 per year of Passive Cash Flow on Coach Carson.
Owning a beach home is a common dream. Can you do so while getting paid as a real estate investor? Tyler Weaver runs some realistic numbers at Relentless Finance. Investing in a Beach House Airbnb.
Will time at a beach house cure your career burnout? It couldn’t hurt, but The Physician Philosopher has a different idea. I am a Doctor, and I Hate My Job: The Cure for Burnout.
The White Coat Investor, who, like me, does not directly own any cryptocurrency, counts down the Top 7 Uses for Bitcoin. Click for the content, stay for the comments. Things get contentious!
How many uses does Dogecoin have? Beats me, but this story from Government Worker FI is awfully entertaining. I tried to get rich off Dogecoin and all I got was this lousy blog post.
Updates & Upgrades, CME, and a Sale
The White Coat Investor has updated, expanded, and completely revamped his FIRE Your Financial Advisor course. Additionally, there’s a new CME component, so you may be able to use CME funds for this if employed, and it can be a business deduction for the self-employed and partners.
Now through President’s Day, take $100 off either FYFA or the bundle that included both FYFA and an 8-CME physician wellness program with code WELLNESS100.
If you’ve previously purchased FYFA, you will be granted access to the upgraded course and the CME Component can be purchased separately.
If you’re looking for additional CME, don’t forget the WCI Physician Wellness & Financial Literacy Virtual Conference is coming up in about 3 weeks from 3/4 to 3/6. I’ll be flying out to Salt Lake City to participate in several live broadcasts as a part of the educational festivities. I’ll see you “there,” wherever you happen to be, watching from the comfort of your own home or call room. If you can’t make it live, fear not. Everything will be recorded and available indefinitely for paid registrants.
A Valentine’s Day Poem
Roses are red
Violets are blue*
Not feeling so hot
After Moderna dose 2
*Since when are violets blue? I’d say they’re a shade of purple. More specifically, violet. I mean, there’s a color named after the flower, for Pete’s sake.
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The flow of vaccine to our neck of the woods has slowed significantly, but my wife and I have each been able to staff a half dozen mass vaccination clinics apiece over the last month. One of the benefits of providing an essential service as a front-line worker / volunteer is becoming eligible to be vaccinated. Often, there are leftover doses that need to be administered or wasted at the end of the clinic day, and I got mine.
I received my second dose of Moderna early Thursday afternoon. I didn’t sleep all that well that next night, but I woke up in the morning feeling pretty decent 18 hours post-jab. My arm was sore, but I got my daily pushups and other exercises in without issue.
By late morning, though, I was feeling a bit sluggish and feverish. I slept it off with a nap, but the rest of the day, I had waves of fatigue and an elevated temp that didn’t quite reach 100 F and a heart rate that barely dropped below 100 all day. A small price to pay for excellent immunity.
I didn’t get away scot-free like I thought I might, but my symptoms weren’t too bad, and I’m thrilled to be twice-vaccinated! I’ll take that over a heart-shaped anything any Valentine’s Day. Unless we’re talking Reeses. That’d be a conundrum.
Nah. Vaccine wins.
Get Coached
How does a team with three transfer students who’ve never played with one another or the incumbent starters manage to knock off 5 ranked opponents at home? Luck may play a role, but I’d say coaching has played a bigger role in the Golden Gophers’ success on the hardwood this year. Rick Pitino learned from one of the masters — his father.
Can coaching play a role in helping you become the best physician / parent / person you can be? Dr. James Turner, a.k.a. The Physician Philosopher says “absolutely.”
Learn more about the Alpha Coaching Experience from the good doctor and the physicians he’s served in this powerful video. The doors are now open.
Have an outstanding week!
-Physician on FIRE
I have been helping out down at our vaccine clinic quite regularly. We often run into the “leftover” issue at the end of the day as well. We usually call in employees/volunteers who have changed their minds on the vaccine since the first go around. They are considered part of group ‘1a’ in my state.
First snowstorm tomorrow since the clinic opened, it will be interesting to see the impact on volume.
I had almost the same experience as you with my second Pfizer shot and would generally agree, a Reeses will trump almost everything in my life.
Max
I got the 2nd Moderna shot, was hoping I would avoid the pain of the first shot but I didn’t.
A friend recommended rubbing Voltaren on injection site which I did. It did help some.
I’m kind of disappointed that I may have to repeat this process on an annual basis. Hope the 1 injection offerings are effective and hope they are less painful.
The Johnson and Johnson one-dose shot with no crazy refrigeration requirements could be a game-changer. It’s not as good as the others, but it’s very good at keeping people out of the hospital, and more effective than the annual flu vaccine at preventing disease.
If you had no constitutional symptoms with Moderna, I’d say you got off pretty easy, even with the arm soreness.
Cheers!
-PoF
Congrats on getting vaccinated twice already! My dad got his first shot a couple of weeks ago, and my mom has an appointment next week. I wonder how long it’ll be until regular ole folks like me start getting one?
Anyway, I particularly like the post this week “Are we in a stock market bubble”. It’s something I think a lot about, so it’s always good to hear different perspectives on the subject.
Actually, most people argue that stocks are overvalued right now, but I’d like to hear an argument that says they could be surprisingly cheap! What would that argument look like?
Thanks for another great Sunday Best!
Glad to hear your parents are getting theirs. My parents have had shot 1, and will get shot 2 soon. The same is true for some of my aunts and uncles.
The “general population” could be eligible late spring or summer, but it will easily be well into fall or winter before everyone who wants one gets one, I think. We need both vaccine supply and mass vaccination clinics to actually administer it to ramp up.
Most arguments for a continued bull market start with the economy’s post-pandemic resurgence (see the roaring 20s of the 20th century — but that was also post-World War). One could argue that the presumed recovery has already been priced in.
Another consideration is that a smoothed CAPE ratio appears to have been steadily rising for decades, and that we shouldn’t necessarily expect mean reversion back to 15 or so. 20 to 30 could be the new normal.
We’ll find out!
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks for the mention!
Also, that shirt is great.
Leif,
What a nice Valentine’s Day present. Wake up to find myself on the Sunday Best.
Happy Valantine’s Day and Thanks for including me,
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Financial Success MD
Had the same experience after my second Moderna shot. Arm soreness within a couple hours, and a night of tossing and turning. Finally took a dose of Tylenol the next day and was home free. With an unvacccinated little one at home, still a bit leery of indoor dining/Brewery visits. Other than not stressing as much over patients improperly wearing masks, I can’t say we’re doing anything different yet. It’s hard to let your foot off the gas pedal of precautions
Glad you didn’t have it too bad, either. It’s interesting to see how variable people’s reactions are. I’m hearing that, in general, younger people are feeling more symptoms of the immune response.
Michigan opened up indoor dining at 25% capacity at the beginning of the month. This was our first time eating indoors at a restaurant since things went into lockdown last March!
It’s a risk, but that risk is minuscule compared to the exposure to thousands of people indoors at the vaccination clinics we’ve been a part of. We practice hand hygiene and wear masks, but I’d say my exposure over the last month is more than 10x what my potential exposure has been over the last 10 months combined. I am grateful to be building some strong immunity now after that second dose!
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks for the call-out among these great reads on Valentine’s Day!
Congrats on 5 years post-FIRE. My, how time flies!