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
Have you decided on a number yet? Will you Retire Before Dad? Determine your Financial Independence Number: Definition and How to Customize.
The FI Heroes joined me and Go Curry Cracker in the million dollar loss club this spring. How quickly did that happen? How did it feel? What changes did they make as a result? They lay it all out there in Poof and One Million Gone.
You won’t recover a million dollars by completing medical surveys, but they are good for beer money — you can easily earn enough to buy the good beers! Medical Surveys that Pay Cash: Earn 1099 Income in Your Spare Time.
I’ll just let Vagabond MD pay for my beers — he does kind of offer to buy the first round the next time we get together as he explains why he’s Sitting on One Million Dollars in Cash.
Vagabond MD is a generous person, after all. Like me, he gives to numerous charitable causes via a donor advised fund. Paula Pant tells us all about the wonderful tax-advantaged giving vehicle at Afford Anything. PSA Thursdays — Your Complete Guide to Donor Advised Funds.
On the opposite end of the greed / giving spectrum are certain unscrupulous insurance agents that are only looking out for numero uno (i.e. not the client). The White Coat Investor describes the 6 Greatest Sins of Insurance Agents.
I know Dr. Dahle still feels the pain of being burned by an agent selling him an inappropriate life insurance policy. Pivot Points MD nearly burned himself out going all in on FIRE. If You Play With FIRE, Don’t Get Burned [Out].
Joel at Budgets are Sexy has some advice for those who take things a step too far when pursuing financial freedom. Slow Down … FIRE is Not a Race.
If you choose to FIRE, don’t let your money run out! Dr. Tarang Patel of Doctor Money Matters interviews a physician from Minnesota who transitioned to a career as a CFP and wealth manager. Episode 59. Joel Greenwald, MD CFP — Retirement Withdrawal Strategies.
Your withdrawal strategy will vary depending on what strategy you use to pursue financial independence. What are the 2 main options? MMM #24: The Two Paths to Financial Independence on the Money Meets Medicine podcast.
Which of the two paths do you suppose Passive Income MD has taken? I’ll give you one guess. He explains how Not All Income is Created Equal (and how you can use that fact to your advantage).
Here’s an interesting trick if you’re ready to put your kids to work. Dr. Cory S. Fawcett writes a Prescription for Financial Success for Your Kids. How to Fund a Million Dollar Roth IRA for Your Child with Government Money.
If your parents forgot to set you up with a million dollar Roth IRA, you’re going to need a backup plan. The same is true if you leave your law career behind after five years like the Financial Panther did. The Importance Of Having Backup Plans – Taking A Look At My Plan B and Plan C.
Celebrate. Good Times. C’mon!
So much to celebrate this weekend. Juneteenth. The first official day of Summer. My brother’s birthday. My brother-in-law’s birthday. Father’s Day.
And after talking about it for years, we finally bought ourselves a bunkhouse travel trailer yesterday. Good times, indeed!
I pretty much never record myself on video because it just hasn’t been my thing, but I recorded a quick Father’s Day message this weekend and posted it to Facebook. The best part is my wife’s voice in the background — “who are you talking to?” You can view that here.
After months of sad and bad news on many fronts, it’s been nice to have a weekend of celebrations. In fact, it’s been more of a week of celebrations as we celebrated our neighbor’s 4th birthday earlier this week.
I’m also celebrating more than 2 months of doing 100 pushups and situps every day without fail, and we’re a few weeks into half-marathon training. I don’t anticipate having an official one to sign up for, but my wife and a handful of our friends will run our own at the end of the summer.
I hope you have found something worth celebrating during these otherwise challenging times.
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.
Alpha Investing Fund I Closing Soon
If you’ve been interested in passive real estate investing but haven’t wanted to limit yourself to one specific deal, a real estate fund is an excellent way for the accredited investor to invest in numerous deals at a lower cost as compared to investing into each deal individually.
Alpha Investing is a minority-led crowdfunding platform that offers such a fund with a relatively low minimum investment of $50,000. In CEO Fark Tari’s words:
“In Q1 2020, we began accepting subscriptions to Alpha Investing Fund I (“Alpha Fund I”), a private real estate investment fund that will provide Alpha Investors with the opportunity to participate in a diversified portfolio of real estate transactions across multiple asset classes, geographies, and sponsors.
The initial closing occurred on March 2, 2020. Per the PPM, the final closing will occur on July 1, 2020.”
You can Request Access to learn more about the components of the fund and the other investments Alpha Investing has to offer.
Last Chance to See the Invest & Grow Rich Summit for Free!
My talk is one of about 30 that was released last week and made available to the public for 48 hours. Although my talk was taken down Thursday morning, it’s back up this weekend for a final viewing before it goes behind a paywall.
In fact, all of the talks are available for free today. Take advantage and register to view my talk and others while you still can!
A Featured Financial Advisor
For those of you who would rather not DIY, I maintain a short list of recommended financial advisors. Among the good guys and gals who work frequently with physicians, only the lowest cost, fee-only fiduciary advisors were invited to be on this short list. Among them is Aptus FInancial.
Aptus Financial
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Have an outstanding week!
-Physician on FIRE
Thanks for sharing PoF! I especially liked the article posted on Budgets Are Sexy. Coast FIRE is a concept I’ve been seeing floating around more and more. I think it’s extremely applicable to physicians. I think it’s important to recognize that financial independence doesn’t have to come all at once. Taking some time to recognize how far we have come financially TODAY can really give us a new perspective and a sense of gratitude for everything we have already accomplished. Thanks for sharing!!
– Investing Resident
That’s some impressively long hair you are sporting in the pic, PoF.
Do I see a manbun in your future?
Ha! I seriously hope not. I’ll sport a mullet before a man-bun.
I have come to realize that not cutting my hair is equally cost-effective as cutting it myself. I used to keep it short mainly because it didn’t feel good under a skull cap as it started to grow out, so I never let it grow much more than a half an inch or so.
I’ve also learned that my hair is curlier than I realized. Not Crispy Doc curly, but I’ve got some good waves going back there.
Cheers!
-PoF
Benign neglect for the win!
And if you do ever grow a mullet, may I gently insist on your photographing it from the driver’s seat of a 1980’s era Chevy Camaro while wearing mirrored sunglasses? (Extra points if it’s up on cinder blocks in a driveway. Ah, the memories of walking my childhood neighborhood in LA are flooding back.)
Haha, I was thinking the same thing. I just watched your father’s day beer toast and also noted that you somehow have more hair and look younger than last I saw you. Could it be that FIRE has somehow reversed your aging process? Clinical study n=1?
I’ve been doing the 100 pushups as well — today is day 97.
Question: Do you do yours all at once (with short rests in between) but within a confined time period or do you give yourself all day to complete 100.
I’ve heard of people who do both and just wondering what you do and why…
I read that you’re getting them done in like 7 minutes!
So my routine is to do one Duolingo lesson (20 questions), then do a set of 34 pushups, 34 situps, and 15 “furniture-assisted dips.”
Then another Spanish lesson, 33, 33, and 15. Repeat the lesson/33/33/15, and do one more lesson.
At the end of the routine, which is usually about 45 minutes, give or take a few depending on how much random web surfing I did in between sets and lessons, I’ve completed one Duolingo crown, 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 45 dips.
I almost always get it done in the morning, but had to do it in the afternoon as it was a travel day — visiting my brother-in-law in your old stomping grounds (Grand Rapids, MI).
Cheers!
-PoF
Haha! Yes, I started doing them all at once (down to under 6 minutes now — first round was at 14 minutes) until I read something that said people were doing them over the course of a day. Whoops!
I was just wondering if there was benefit to one method over another physically. Guess I should ask a doctor about that. LOL!
Hope GR treated you right. I would like to get back there if the world ever gets back to normal.
Hope you are well!
Thanks for the feature. I love free money!
Dr. Cory S. Fawcett
Financial Success MD
It’s my favorite kind of money.
Happy Father’s Day!
-PoF
How are you doing your pushups and sit-ups? All at once or in blocks of some set number? Measurable signs of progress yet?
As always, thank for the resources.
Happy Father’s Day
See my response to ESI Money below.
I would say it’s gotten easier. I worked my way up to 4 sets of 25 and those last 5 were tough. Now I breeze past 25 and it starts getting difficult in the 30s.
I could maybe do up to 50 in one set, but I haven’t tried yet. Maybe that’s the next level up to try.
Cheers!
-PoF