Thoughts and reflections from the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.

Progress on my goals

Boat plan

We’re ploughing through the to-do list of jobs we have to do before moving aboard.

This week, we:

  • fitted a few more teak bungs as part of the maintenance on our teak deck
  • attached the gas oven and booked an engineer to get it gas safety certified
  • ordered in replacement top hatches
  • cut out the broken anchor pin so that we can actually lower the anchor
  • ordered a load of caulk and anti-bonding strip tape to re-caulk the teak deck
  • measured up and ordered the bungee elastic and paracord to make cargo/storage nets for the saloon.

That’s kind of a nerdy list, but it’s a fair bit to achieve. There’s still lots more, but the essential jobs are now starting to get done and we can move aboard with a few minor things outstanding.

I reckon we’ll be in mid-November, ready for winter.

We’re looking at cars again

I’ve been proud to not need a car and be car-free since 2020. Unfortunately, given that my dog is now ageing and we’re taking the decision to live in a remote marina with few transport options, we’re looking at picking up a car again.

Sadness.

We’ve set quite a low budget and will be looking for a vehicle that’s just about good enough to move dog and materials around the island. Nothing showy for us, in the hopes of keeping costs down. Maintenance is likely to be neglected, so there’s very little point in getting anything that would solve all problems for travelling home to the UK and the like. Our target budget is sub-£4,000.

Being car free for around 3 years has been a huge win for our finances. We’re now making a decent savings rate that can carry the costs of a small, affordable vehicle, so it’s not going to be too damaging for our FI campaign, but we’re not keen on spending a lot of money on something that’s a necessary evil.

If the Channel Islands were more friendly to bicycles we’d be looking for cargo trailers instead. Sadly, they’re not fun to cycle around and the locals aren’t exactly considerate of cyclists.

Distractions and detours

“Free” booze season!

The corporate social season has started in the Channel Islands, and I’ve been making the most out of the opportunities for “networking”.

A weird twist in the Channel Islands: because the community is so small your “networking events” that suck so hard in the UK are actually a decent opportunity to make friends here.

Free beer is also generally better than £6-a-pint beer.

So, I’ve been getting some time out on the town without dipping into my wallet. The island isn’t that big, we’ve only been to much the same places I would’ve frequented anyway.

It’s a distraction but it’s actually good for my social life and my wallet at the same time, which is a nice synergy.

Book reading

Finished What does this button do?, the autobiography of Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson.

Not sure if it’s inspirational reading, but there are some funny stories in it. As autobiographies go, I’d give it a 6 out of 10 – worth a read, but probably a library read or picking up in a sale.

Doubled down on a VC investment

Some FI campaigners will describe higher risk investments as “speculation” and proudly recite the Boglehead approach to investing as the only possible way to invest. If you’re one of those people, this section probably isn’t for you.

As kind of a hobby investment I’ve been using Crowdcube to directly invest in private equities and venture capital investments. I’ve been doing this on-and-off with odd bits of money outside of my automated investments, so the money spent here only really affects any discretionary spending. I’ve probably invested about £3,000 over three or four years across all companies I’ve taken a risk with.

One of my investments is a Cornish lithium project that offered the opportunity to increase the number of shares in the company. Obviously, I pay very little into each company, so in the big scheme of things I’m always going to be a heavily diluted minority investor who get pushed further out whenever bigger investors come knocking, but I was encouraged by the progress of the company and added £100 in this round.

If this particular investment pays out, the returns should be quite big. It’s a strategic asset for the UK if it can reach production, which is still some way off. I’d expect a private equity firm or a larger resource conglomerate to offer to purchase the Crowdcube investors’ shares if the projects succeed, but I wouldn’t expect results for easily five years yet.

There’s a reason this is in the distractions and detours section.

Quick note on the Crowdcube side

I work in law, have worked in the private equity industry as part of the legal advisory team, and had already invested in and exited from Brewdog before I signed up to Crowdcube. I was able to justify my status as a sophisticated investor, but I wouldn’t encourage people to invest this way.

If something goes wrong with a company – which has happened to two of mine – you don’t get anything back. It’s gone.

I pretty much think of this as a hobby, and I do this more because I get a kick out of it than because I rely on it for financial independence (although Brewdog did phenomenally well). Less than 2% of my investments into anything ever are in this. My investments into public equities alone are about 20 times the size of this, and I also have things like gold and crypto plus a decent emergency fund. I’d say even the crypto is less of a problem, since I can sell that at pretty much any time.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

We went back to the earlier grade books this week and I’m now learning Supersonic by Oasis.

It’s a very 90s-boredom song, but that’s not the point. Generally speaking, we’ve been learning parts of songs to get an idea of technique; the aim with this lesson is to learn in a shorter space of time the intro, theme riff, verse, chorus, bridge and solo of a song, ready for rehearsal. It’s about breaking the music into parts then trying to rehearse the whole piece.

Fitness

I sucked at fitness this week. I did a bit of archery, one five-mile run and one long walk (three or four hours) on the weekend.

Not quite where I should be or want to be, but not exactly nothing either. Probably best labelled as “mediocre”.

Back to the archery butts

I managed to fit in another archery session, now that we’re back in the indoor range closer to work. Transport is a lot easier when you’re not reliant on the bus timetable synchronising with the office.

My technique isn’t great. I’m getting better, but not good. The other club members have dropped several hints to me about replacing or adding to my kit, which I may do at some point, but I don’t want to be pressured into spending really. That’s not cool in my book.

One of the hints was dropped as “I don’t know how committed you are to archery, but…”. The guy meant well, but I think he was a little hurt that I’m happy to treat it as a once-a-week hobby rather than turning it into a lifelong obsession. I’ve got enough going on, dude! Let me chill out!

Final thoughts

We made progress towards the boat, we made some decisions about lifestyle and I managed to get some activities in without spending too much money.

Until I wrote this post, I had thought I’d let my fitness regime really drop. On reflection, it hasn’t been as bad as I’d thought. I’ve still gotten some stuff in, even if it didn’t feel like a big push. I’m not likely to keel over from cardiac arrest any time soon.

The archery thing is worth reflecting on. Social pressure to spend is very real. Obviously, archery is a hobby, so I don’t necessarily mind spending a few pennies and might take some of the advice on board; but the risk is with any group that I could have gone out and spent money essentially to impress the other archers and without being deliberate about it.

It’s all too easy to simply spend money because your peers (or superiors I guess, given that I’m a beginner!) encourage you to. It’s often well-meaning, but giving in to satisfy some urge to belong without being deliberate about spending decisions is foolish.

Ultimately, whether I upgrade my finger tabs or add more adapters to my riser won’t make me more or less welcome at practice. After an initial period where the change is noticeable, it will just be another thing that I have bought. Which is cool if I want this stuff and will use it, but I want to make sure that it’s something I actually want to do first.

My financial independence campaign continues!