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, this week’s Sunday Best:
Here’s a sad truth: most docs are bad with money. But not you, right? The White Coat Investor has made it his mission to ensure you’re not like Most Docs.
The Investing Doc highlights a humungous hypocrisy with numbers that can’t possibly be true, but are, of course. My Congressman Takes Money from Drug Reps. I Can’t. [Not that we should.]
Entitled children can be almost as bad as our friends in congress when it comes to taking money. The Chief Mom Officer is here to help you avoid such a situation. Economic Outpatient Care – Enabling, Not Disabling, Your Kids.
Dr. Amanda Liu is gone, but not forgotten. In fact, I thought of her during Dr. Nisha Mehta‘s talks in Park City last weekend. Dr. Liu’s site, Dr. Wise Money, lives on as her sister shares some heartfelt thoughts with us in Better To Do.
Jonathan Mendonsa of ChooseFI was a pharmacist for a while. He paid down $168,000 in debt in four years and is now living life on his own terms, which unsurprisingly, does not involve working in a drug store. Listen to Jonathan as he tells you to Get Off the Hamster Wheel and Pay Off Your Student Loans Fast! Note: The Student Loan Resource Page can help.
When you’re debt-free, as Rob is after paying off his mortgage, you’re in a better position to take on more risk or simply free up more time. Passive Income MD encourages us to Focus Less on Net Income and More on Net Time.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is my top pick for your first rewards card. Welcome bonus of 60,000 points worth at least $1,000 when used to book travel (after a $4,000 spend in 3 mo) and other great perks you can learn about here.
Taxes are tough to avoid in your working years, but it’s not tough to eliminate many of them as a retiree. From Jonathan Clements‘Â The Humble Dollar, Adam Grossman shares his insight on Six Figures, Tiny Taxes.
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Let Alex & Cassie, a.k.a. The Thrifty Couple show you the way. Retire a Millionaire With These Nine Simple Financial Life Principles.
Making Up For Missed Time
I’ve said before that this part-time gig I’ve got now is essentially an early retirement trial. The experiment is now in its sixth month, and this month, I’m performing double duty, working like a 1.2 FTE employee after taking all of last month off.
I work with some wonderful people, help patients get through a difficult day, and I’m paid pretty well to do it. On the other hand, I love waking up naturally (sans alarm clock), having the freedom to be location independent, and being the boss who decides how I’ll spend my day.
Having financial independence has afforded me the opportunity to decide what I actually want the rest of my life to look like. When I envision the perfect day, week or month, if I’m truly being honest with myself, no hospital rooms, endotracheal tubes, electronic medical records, or pager beeps enter that picture.
What does your perfect day, week, or month look like? Does it include the work you do today?
Have a first-rate week!
-Physician on FIRE
I miss it not at all. When I was your age I had many aspects of our future yet to fund so I hung in there. We home schooled and that gave us freedom to travel several times per year since my group had 10 weeks of vaca per year built in to the schedule, and we could go anytime, we got a big chunk of that wanderlust out of our system. We got very good at traveling as a family. All we needed was internet to maintain connection to the academy we used. It was a fun life. I think you’re kind of in that bag now.
52 weeks off is better by far. It took me 2 FIRES to finally get the job done as interesting opportunities kept showing up. Once we closed the practice and I became an employee of Sheridan, I realized medicine was no longer for me. Sheridan is good people but the BS is suffocating. Now I spend my time loving my wife and kids, trying to figure out the optimum Roth conversion schedule (I think it’s $300K per year), and I got a fascinating gig with a communications concern out in Austin designing radio’s with some of the smartest engineers I ever met in my life. 2 of the radios are flying on the space station providing location and logistics to ships at sea. You never step in the same river twice!
Taking my usual Sunday stroll through your page. Working toward my ideal work week. Would like to work a little less at nights, they can be brutal. Thanks for the mention!
Perfect day… I think the big part of it is a leasurely wake up , a sense of accomplishment, and travel. I actually get this from my job a large portion of the time, except the sleep. If my kids would learn to sleep past 7am ever I’d have nothing more to ask for.
7am I can live with. It’s the 0515 alarm every workday and the much earlier (or later, depending on your perspective) pager beeps that I can live without.
Cheers!
-PoF
Office space!
Love the movie – thanks for sharing the articles !
Nailed it.
What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Great article list as usual. I had read the Chief Mom Officer post earlier. It is truly awesome. My parents did this without really thinking about it I think.
Thanks for the share, POF! I think that post on Steve is a really important lesson we all need to learn.
Also, thanks for pointing out that Amanda’s sister is starting to write on Dr. Wise Money. I’d looked at the site a few months back and it was in hibernation mode at the time. I think it’s really important that we help support her as she gets the courage back to write again on the site.
As for the perfect day, or week…My wife and I just had a get away weekend without the three kids. We had nothing on the agenda, beautiful creation to look at in the mountains, and time to just relax and talk. That’s my idea no matter where it is. I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of it all sometimes. Going away to a place like this helps my mind relax and come back to center. There is something to say about having autonomy over your own schedule that brings happiness to your life.
I hope this month work isn’t too brutal for you. My days are so much better since I’m no longer sitting in a cubicle.
Great list as always!
While your ideal day sounds fantastic, what percentage of your early retirement life will mimic that day while you have small kids? 🙂 These short hiatuses you have had have allowed you that time but while you are working, your wife is working too.
Unless you commit to home schooling kids, those days of waking up when you want won’t be your reality. Or be completely location independent if one or both boys decide he wants to do soccer or taekwondo.
I am in between jobs and envisioned all these home projects I would do, but the reality of it all is that what I have accomplished the most is be a mom. It’s fine, because my son and I are working on building this solar car I bought him a year ago, built hundred piece puzzles I could never commit to, and I actually help them with homework instead of just checking it’s done. But I haven’t organized my office yet, or refinished a single piece of furniture. This phase of my life has been awesome but very different than how I pictured it.
Love the Office Space quote. The printer beat down scene is one of my all time favorites!
Another great list!
Physicians and pharmacists, Register with Incrowd for the opportunity to earn easy money with quick "microsurveys" tailored to your specialty.
I think you are ready to fully retire!?