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Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too.

This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early)

 

 

As a guitar player one thing I am used to is getting callouses on my fingertips.

These callouses are the body’s response to protect against what it deems a potential harm, namely the guitar strings pressing into flesh.

Well Accidental FIRE thinks of another potential use for a callus, helping achieve FIRE, in “To Achieve Financial Independence, Callus The Mind.”

 

 

 

Being furloughed is no fun, especially if you need the money.

But what if you don’t?

Could you get a taste of early retirement because of a furlough and see if you are indeed prepared or not?

Smart Money MD seems to think so in, “Trialing FIRE during a pandemic?”

 

 

Unless you are incredibly lucky, you just don’t stumble your way into financial independence.

Nope.

For the most of us it takes planning, sacrifice, and keeping an eye on our finances.

ESI helps keep things in order with, “7 Financial Numbers You Should Keep Track Of.”

 

One of the great ironies of life is when we are young and able to enjoy life we do not have the means to do so and when we finally have to means to our older bodies often do not cooperate.

So it really is important to make the best of that transition period between the two and not have blinders on just the destination.

Retire By 40 reminds us of this important concept in, “Don’t Forget to Enjoy The Journey to Financial Independence.”

 

 

I think being a physician makes it harder to walk away and retire early.

Walking away from a high income stream is very tough to do as your income is your biggest safety net for economic uncertainty.

There also is a finality to your decision:  Once you stop practicing medicine it is incredibly hard to go back into it if you change your mind years down the road.

Often medical licenses lapse and are difficult to reinstate after a certain amount of time has passed.

You also likely have not kept pace with current medical practices and your medical knowledge base may have declined in the interim.

So you better be sure you have enough set aside and treat your decision as a permanent one when you do decide to hang up the stethoscope.

White Coat Investor shares some tidbits on this amount in, “How Big Does My Nest Egg Need to Be to Retire?”

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the reading material.

Have a great rest of the week.

 

 

Note:

If you are in search of financial help, please consider enlisting the service of any of the sponsors of this blog who I feel are part of the “good guys and gals of finance.”

Even a steadfast DIY’er can sometimes gain benefit from the occasional professional input.