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:
It just so happens that Erin joined is joining us at Camp this coming weekend, as are many other people with lives more exciting than mine. Like Miss Mazuma who shares her trippy experience from a month-long adventure in a modiified van. Road Trip Finances, Factoids, & #VanLife Wisdoms.
If a month is good, a year is great, right? Noah of Money Metagame fame, who, like everyone else featured today, will be at Camp, is on a Gap Year Adventure, a journey he also refers to as The $1,000,000 Road Trip.
Replace your job income with rental income and you can embark on adventures of indeterminate or indefinite length! Coach Carson, who is back from a year and a half with his family in Ecuador, profiles Anthony Petz, who is now in a position to afford a similar lifestyle. How a 38-Year-Old Replaced His Job Income With Rentals (After Almost Giving Up).
Tanja from Our Next Life doesn’t need to work anymore, but she and her husband still earn a bit of money. I can relate to this concept of Saving for Retirement… In Retirement.
Gwen is one of those Fiery Millennials who wasn’t interested in holding down a day job until she had reached or surpassed her FI number. Instead, the twenty-something with military experience left her “career job” and is building a business while expanding her skillset, gradually Transitioning into FI.
You may have read about some month-long and even year-long shopping bans. Cait Flanders, the author of The Year of Less, actually had two years of less. What It’s Like to Shop After Not Shopping for Two Years.
Cait doesn’t need Anthony’s advice, but many would-be minimalists could certainly use these 10 Minimalism Tips To Kickstart Your Decluttering from Break the Twitch.
I’ll bet Gandhi would be down with this recent trend towards minimalism. The Young FIRE Knight explores the renowned pacifist’s money sense in Financial Wisdom with Mohandas Gandhi.
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Minnesota Meetups This Thursday
I can now confirm the following get-togethers for seekers of FI on 8/23.
1. The MN State Fair (the highest rated fair in all the land). It happens to be opening day at the fair, and I’ll be there throughout the day, along with a handful of bloggers (including Budget-on-a-Stick, appropriately), Camp FI attendees and others. Planning on a 5:00 pm happy hour at the Ball Park Cafe, a block east of the giant yellow slide.
Join us for one-of-a-kind beers, amazing food both on-a-stick and off-a-stick, and good conversation. If you’re not willing to fork over the $11 or $12 entry fee or have a healthy fear of prized livestock, you many want to check out Our Next Life’s alternative meetup at…
2. Minnehaha Falls. Skip the Great Minnesota Get-Together and meet up with Tanja Hester & friends at the most scenic waterfall in the Twin Cities. It’s a big park, but I read to meet on the picnic lawn at 6:00 pm. It’s the N spot on this map, I am told — just a skosh northwest of the G spot.
Later in the evening, the St. Paul and Minneapolis meetups will merge, reconvening at…
3. Brit’s Pub around 8:30 pm. The meetups converge in the downtown Minneapolis theater district. There’s a great rooftop patio with lawn bowling. I’ll see you there!
Summer is Almost Over!
The back to school sales have been in full swing since June, and I’ve already see the transition at our neighborhood drug store to Halloween candy. What?!?
I can deal with Oktoberfest beers in August, but I’m still trying to enjoy the last couple weeks of summer before Labor Day arrives and the kids go back to school.
Of course, for some of you, school has already started for your little ones and you’re settling into those fall-like routines despite the beautiful summer weather. Football’s back on television and people are returning from their final summer vacations; I guess it’s time to accept the inevitable.
This has been my first summer as a part-timer, and it was outstanding. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t spend any time apart from my family. In past years, my wife and kids would spend at least half the summer at our cabin near her family, and I’d commute back and forth as best as I could while working full-time two states over.
This time around, we went back and forth a couple times as a family, spending five weeks at the cabin in two multi-week stretches. While I’ll be going back to full-time work for most of the winter, I will be back to working a lovely part-time schedule next spring and summer. And my schedule only gets better after that. 😉
How was your summer? Ready for it to be over?Â
Minnesota locals and end-of-summer visitors, are you able to join us for a meetup? Talk to me in the comments.
Have a fair week!
-Physician on FIRE
Wish I could make the events but I have other commitments on Thursday. Also, after hearing about Camp FI Midwest, I really wanted to attend this but something else was slotted in for some time and I couldn’t break that commitment after finding out about the event. Sounds like there is a good list of people attending and hopefully I can make it next time.
Are the meet ups strictly for FIRE bloggers? I have been following your blog, and some others, for sometime and I’m interested to meet and talk to people who are so involved with FIRE (as I am, but I don’t blog about FIRE).
All are welcome to join us!
Thanks!
Another, possibly “silly”, question: How would I find you guys at Brits? I’ve been there before and it’s a large space ….and I don’t know what you look like ..
Wondering the same but I’m here! Currently at the bar, far end. Black jeans, plaid shirt, Short beard.
Found you. Glad you made it out!
Don’t think I can make the Fair meetup, but at the very least I’ll try to be at Brit’s Pub.. Look forward to seeing you all there!
See you there! I inquired about renting the green but the earliest time slot was 11pm to midnight, and that’s past my bedtime. It’ll have to be a spectator sport for us.
Cheers!
-PoF
I won’t be making camp FI Midwest this time. I’m headed to Colorado to get my FI house (my new (to me) 5er)! We’re planning on domestic (in the RV) and international travel as a family when I leave my current job at the end of ’19.
Although I won’t make the camp, I’m only working until noon on Thursday, so I’ll plan on heading up to the cities for the Meetup. I’ll plan on joining Tanya at the beautiful park and meet the rest of you guys at the pub. I used to grab lunch at the park when I did my VA rotations…
Well, I’m glad you’ll be able to make it out on Thursday. I didn’t realize you were local to MN.
I look forward to meeting you on Thursday and even more so to our upcoming cruise!
Cheers!
-PoF
Glad you enjoyed your “summer off” PoF! We’re in “back to school” mode here too. My oldest is going to be starting school this fall, so it’s a pretty big schedule change for us.
Over the past three years I’ve been a full-time SAHD and part-time blogger. Most of my waking hours have been taking care of the kids, so it’s going to be a big change having extra time!
School! That’s a big deal for everyone — your older child, the younger child, and of course you as the SAHD. Hope the transition goes well!
Cheers!
-PoF
Seriously… is no one going to pick the low hanging fruit in this post?? Or do they need a map to figure it out??? Anyone?? 😉
Thanks for the shout out and looking forward to seeing everyone!!
Gee whiz, I wonder what on earth you could be talking about?
Having lived of off Loring in internship and near Minnehaha in residency, loved those pictures. Just returned from a medical meeting in Mpls. I love Brits, and the whole of downtown has really blossomed. Enjoy the great MN get together et al.
Cheers,
MDS
Your old stomping grounds — very cool. I spent 8 good years next to the University of Minnesota campus in Stadium Village, Dinkytown, and Seven Corners.
I’m a couple hours away now, but I make it to campus a handful of times each fall.
Cheers!
-PoF
Good article by Tanja Hester. Yes I think saving will continue in retirement.
I have discussed with my daughter my net worth when she was around 11.
She wasn’t as shocked as 1500 days was because we do have some items of wealth in our day to day lives (a tesla being one of the more obvious ones).
I feel teaching her finance at an early age will give her a headstart that I never had.
I have used the commute to school drop off (about 25 min) to sometimes instill financial lessons which she seems to grasp.
We have touched on passive income and its importance to financial independence and how often people who appear wealthy are often not because they could be highly leveraged.
I try to do this to break the cycle of generational wealth being lost by the 2nd generation.
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Looking forward to seeing you this week! I don’t think I’ll make it to Thursdays meet ups but super excited for camp!! 🙂