I read many blog posts each day. They mostly focus on personal finance, but also on minimalism and travel . Here are some of my favorite posts I read in July.
Over at Humble Dollar, Mark Crothers tries making lemonade out of lemons in an upbeat piece, Inflation, Through a Glass Half Full. I found it amusing, and thought-provoking.
Also thought provoking was this column from The White Coat Investor, by Dr. Joshua White. It’s called, Performing a Personal Financial Health Audit, and goes through a number of the usual metrics (savings rate, net worth, progress to financial independence). However, several other metrics are included, which really made me think (are you using your wealth to…?).
Over at Burning Desire for Fire, Frogdancer Jones reflects on family engagement rings and the conclusion that We are the luckiest people ever to have lived (so far).
I do really love the posts at The Woke Salaryman. This month they explained Why no one is truly self-made: I found it touching.
Dealing with clutter remains a big drain on my attention at home. I found myself nodding along as I read The Hidden Costs of Clutter from No Sidebar.
In the past few years, I have been dealing with, or seeing others deal with, the passing of friends and relatives. I really appreciated this guest post at Becoming Minimalist: 3 Things My Aunt Did That Made Saying Goodbye a Little Easier.
I am thinking more and more about retiring these days–possibly feeling the winds of mortality brush by is making it feel more urgent–so the following posts really caught my eye this month.
In Spend Like You’re Wealthy, Wealthy Doc makes some suggestions of how to appropriately loosen the purse strings as you are doing better financially. This might result in me spending more than I prefer, while working, but it does make me feel better about splurging as I work for a salary I don’t fully need now.
One of my big questions when I retire is going to be dealing with legacy stock holdings. I am lucky enough to have some big winners with low basis, meaning that I will save a ton on taxes if I sell shares when my income is low. On the other hand, I have a 403(b) account of goodly size, so I should think about Roth conversions. Over at The Best Interest, there’s a nice post which reviews the decision on which to prioritize. I plan to return to this post as I get closer to actually retiring: 0% Capital Gains vs. Roth Conversions: How to Optimize in Your Financial Plan?
I assume that I will just stop practicing medicine when I retire; however, it’s always nice to have options, and maybe I will want to practice a bit longer elsewhere (locums? international assignments?). I plan to bookmark this post by Dr. Margaret Curtis from The White Coat Investor, with a reminder of Stuff You Should Take with You When You Leave Your Job. The comments are great too.
Dave at Accidental FIRE retired this month (congrats!), and The Accumulator (from Monevator) retired again. Their updates are here and here.
Do you have any favorite posts from July?