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 had a great chat with Joe and Denis on the Retirement Wisdom podcast. At 1.5x speed, you can take in How to Retire Early and Live Your Life Fully – Leif Dahleen in just over 20 minutes. Have a listen!
I’m now the only member of the WCI Network without a podcast, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. It’s much easier to be a guest than the guy in charge. Passive Income MD introduces The Passive Income MD Podcast!
How much is the average American saving each year? What are they saving for (retirement is not #1!)? The Fioneers dig into the numbers. Saving Money: Run Your Own Race. Coincidentally, I ran a half-marathon with 23,000 others this morning. I would have rather run my own race. That’s a lot of people to run with!
How many Americans are invested in the stock market in some way, shape, or form? Not nearly as many as I would have guessed. Nearly half of our nation failed to benefit from last year’s 30% rise. Wallet Hacks explores this and more intriguing statistics. Who Owns Stock in America? The Answer May Surprise You. Those clickbait titles get me every time!
“In two years a machine will be doing my job,” a quote from 1959. How about this one from 1890? “The rich have grown richer and the poor have grown poorer… this problem must be solved or there will come a cataclysm which will destroy modern society.” Full Time Finance hits 88 mph in the Delorean in This Time It’s Different. Is it, though?
My 0.5 year quitiversary came and went this week, and I didn’t even notice. I guess it was Wednesday. ESI Money doesn’t miss the half-year celebrations, though. How’s the early retired life in Colorado? Retirement Update: 3.5 Years.
I do know that charitable giving plays a prominent role in ESI Money‘s life these days. His readers are also finding ways to give back. How ESI Money Readers are Giving and Volunteering.
Generosity can help an early retiree deal with any guilt from leaving the workforce early. I’ve donated over $220,000 from this website, for example. People will say you owe something to society, your spouse, and try to take you down in other ways. The White Coat Investor and I respond to these allegations in Dealing With the Guilt of Early Retirement.
Maybe your normal, busy working life is leaving you guilt-laden as your children grow up way too fast. Joe & Kristen of Play Louder did a hard reset at the same age I did. From L.A. to Austin to Florida, they left behind lucrative careers for a new adventure. In a guest post at Making Sense of Cents, they share The Ups and Downs of Reinventing Your Life At 43 With Kids.
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If you make good money, but aren’t making much progress towards financial independence, you may be a HENRY, says Kevin of Just Start Investing. Don’t be a HENRY. High Earner Not Rich Yet – How to Avoid Becoming a HENRY.
Trust me, you’ll that money later on. Max from Max Out of Pocket ties together some of our biggest dreams and fears in The 4% Rule, HSAs, and Healthcare Costs in Retirement.
Wash your hands often. Don’t touch your face. The Great Wall will have to wait for a later date. What else should you be doing to stay healthy? Do you know what the stock markets have performed during previous viral epidemics or pandemics? Cut the Crap Investing digs into the data and offers some advice. How to Prepare Your Portfolio for the Coronavirus Outbreak.
We’re slated to take a slow boat to Shanghai this fall. We’ve got more than eight months before setting sail, and I’ll be keeping an eye on the evolving situation. Last fall, we took the family to Mexico for two months, and it was everything we hoped it would be. Slow Travel in Mexico: A Family FIRE Adventure, Part II. If you missed Part I, find it here.
The Fiology Workbook: $15.99 to buy. Free to Download!
David Baughier has made the companion workbook to his Financial Independence resource website absolutely free.
Fiology has now compiled top articles to help you learn all you need to know about 53 individual topics related to all things FIRE. That’s enough for one lesson per week with a bonus lesson, and he’s conveniently set up an email subscription that will deliver one lesson per week.
You can jump right in and view all of the lessons right here right now.
If you would like the companion workbook, subscribe to the email list and you’ll have a chance to download it on the web page you’re sent to, as well as in the first email, Lesson 0.
You can always purchase your own paperback copy of The Fiology Workbook here. But I’d take a free digital copy any day!
Fun fact: David is the identical twin brother of Camp FI founder Stephen Baughier. I met them at the same time in the same place and confused them for one another all weekend long!
I might as well have called them Daven or Stevid as I had no idea which one I was talking to until someone told me to look at their shoes. Then, they probably switched shoes.
Half Marathon Day!
I took the last week off completely from running to give my legs and joints a chance to rest and heal up after a pretty intense training regimen to get my wife and I ready for today’s race. Some right knee pain I had went away, but I developed some new left foot pain after a run last weekend.
The good news: I finished the race! I was about a minute off my training half marathon time from two weeks ago. I felt like Muhammad Ali out there, bobbing and weaving through people, and resisting to urge to throw punches to save some energy for the later rounds.
I must say the organizers did a good job to get 23,000 people through the course in a reasonable time, though. There was a lot of energy all around. People cheering us on, bands playing along the route, and my kids hollering for me as I passed the 5k mark and again near the finish line.
The not-so-good news: I’m pretty much non-weight-bearing on my left foot now. To say that I’m walking with a gangsta lean would be a gross understatement. Those lovely endorphins got me through the race, but within five minutes of finishing, I could barely put any weight on it, especially on the ball of my foot.
Looking at some Netter drawings, I’m self-diagnosing it (like any bad doctor would) as a 4th metatarsal or cuboid bone issue. I don’t want to use the F-word; I’m hoping it’s not something that rhymes with dress rapture. It’s tender to the touch, there’s a small purplish discoloration over it, and it hurts like hell when I try to amble down the hall.
I’ll be recuperating with the RICEBIC (prounounced ry-see-bic) method.
- Rest
- Ice
- Compression
- Elevation
- Beer
- Ibuprofen (or acetaminophen)
- Complain
My wife’s aunt, a school nurse, is with us for the week. She’s already hooked me up with Ice, Elevation, and she tolerates my Complaining. Thanks, Shell! Can you get me a beer, by any chance?
Congratulations to my wife, who also finished the race — the first offical half marathon for both of us. Way to go, love!
Here’s my official time. I’m very happy with the way it went, especially considering the congestion along the route and the bum foot.
I’ve got about 14 weeks to heal up before I’m scheduled to run another half marathon in northern Michigan. Plenty of time to heal up, but I’ve got a lot of sightseeing I’d like to do here yet in Barcelona and Madrid, so I hope this foot thing gets better sooner than later. Wish me luck!
Have an outstanding week!
-Physician on FIRE
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I enjoyed your interview with Retirement Wisdom.
I found it interesting as you shared that you didn’t find being a physician a big part of your identity.
I was the same. And it wasn’t hard for me to give that up. It made me wonder if that is common among early retirees?
I find my identity much more tied up in my values and profiles, which came right along with me into retirement.
As I told my patients when the stated I was too young to retire, ‘ I’m too young to have to retire, but I don’t golf or watch tv. I will have vocation, I just don’t know if I will get paid for it.’
That’s a great response, Stephen.
I think anyone who has their vocation as a big part of their identity will have a tough time with retirement, whether early or not.
Best to be more of a Renaissance man and identify with much more than your job.
Cheers!
-PoF
Great collection of posts this week PoF! Some very enjoyable reads this week!
Congrats on finishing the half-marathon. Sorry to hear about your foot! Hope everything heals up OK!
Congratulations to both of you on the finish! Good luck with your healing. Remember to heal for the long term not the short term.
Sage advice.
Congrats on the half! That is an excellent first time time. 🙂
Thanks, Vagabond!
I trained pretty hard — a little too hard — but for the most part, it paid off.
Hoping to heal up relatively quickly and I’ll have the opportunity to improve on that time late May.
Cheers!
-PoF
Congrats on the half!
Best,
Joe Casey
Get some crutches and go sight seeing. Congratulations on your accomplishment.
Thanks!
I’ll take it one day at a time. Today, it’s lots of ice, a little beer, and I’m guessing a good night’s rest.
I’ve got the ice pack on, foot elevated, and gearing up to watch a little Gophers basketball.
Cheers!
-PoF
Your foot issue sounds quite painful. I learned, when back in my 20s, that I am just not built for running, and gave it up completely. Cycling is my thing (not counting horseback riding, but that is more leisure than exercise these days). My next door neighbor, a family practice MD (retired one month now!) has been a runner for decades, and finally had to ease up on that and do way more cycling due to foot/knee issues.
I enjoy biking, too, but running was going really well. I’ve accepted the fact that it’s probably a stress fracture. Huge bummer, but I pushed it when I should have scaled back.
Best,
-PoF