The second of the three sub-parts of my End of Campaign Year 2023 review.

How wisely did I spend my money this year?

I completely messed up my objectives

For the sake of publicly embarrassing myself on my own website, I guess I’ll recap what I thought I was going to go out and spend money on.

  • Buy a house and deliberately furnish it
  • Not go on any big holidays
  • Do more socialising by inviting people over instead of going out

At best, I sort of achieved one of those.

That’s right: I didn’t go on a big holiday

Don’t cry for me, Argentina. The truth is, I never visited you – but I still did an RYA Day Skipper course and attended Download Festival and sailed across the English Channel.

Big holiday? Not really. Adventures? Yes.

OK, so I bought a boat instead of a house

Buuuut if it (finally) works out, I could be debt free forever.

Being debt free is awesome. It’s exactly as freeing as it sounds.

I know, I know – BuT LeVerAGe… bUT OtHer pEOple’S MoNeY – I’ve seen those YouTubers and read those books, too. On the whole though, I’m not on Team Debt. In fact, I’m working on another feature post about it, because in contrast to other writers I’m generally against using debt outside of business loans.

For now: it’s just cool not to owe any faceless bank, lending or credit company a single penny.

Aaand I spent more time going out than I wanted to

The plan was to then use the house as a venue for meeting people so that I wouldn’t spend lots of money in pubs and bars, which are pretty much the only venues adults seem to meet in the twenty-first century.

Well, cafes and coffee shops too I suppose, but it’s not the same vibe here. Those are kind of a business thing.

Well, anyway, with the house not being on the cards and not wanting to bring guests to a lodging room, I ended up still going out quite a bit.

For the most part, this didn’t damage my financial independence campaign. I dodge most major obstacles by automating my investments. However, I probably could have added £100-200 each month into investments by not going out as often.

Then again, my cost of accommodation would have trebled, so there’s that.

Overall, it’s a forgivable position, but it’s still miles away from where I thought I would be at the start of the year.

Best uses of money this year

Despite all the deviation, I generally stuck to the principle of spending intentionally. Here are my top intentional spends from this year.

Swimming lessons

Remedial swimming lessons came to something like £80 for ten weeks.

I did extend this to “intermediate” lessons, which were a diminishing return, but the first course of remedial front crawl lessons was worth every penny.

I got fitter, became much more confident in the water, and now I don’t embarrass myself in the pool or the sea by sticking rigidly to a lame breast stroke.

Highly recommended.

Guitar and lessons

I think this may have been my biggest expense this year. I’ve spent the following on guitar:

  • £250ish on the guitar itself – a Jackson Dinky strat
  • £40 on a Blackstar Fly 3 amp, which I then sold for £5… so £35
  • £10 on strings, picks etc.
  • £190ish on a Positive Grid Spark Mini amp that replaced the Blackstar Fly 3
  • £40 per week on lessons since mid-March, with about 3 weeks of breaks – so around £1,500
  • Maybe £10 on supporting materials
  • £40 on an app that lets me play guitar tabs from an extensive tab library

That’s a rough figure of £2,000 for the year.

Damn that’s pricey.

On the other hand, I get a lot out of guitar lessons, and I play it usually 5 days a week minimum. So, even though it ain’t cheap overall, the per hour costs are smaller than they appear.

I get a kick out of music that I don’t get from anything else. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like true self-actualisation when I’m playing guitar (or, before that, drums) that can’t be replicated in video games, gym training, or any amount of reading and Netflix.

There are cheaper ways to learn guitar, but I really enjoy my lessons and they give me something to look forward to every week, so I can suck up the cost of them.

Worst uses of money this year

I’ve been fairly happy with the things I’ve spent money on, so I’m not going to complain too loudly. Take this section with a healthy pinch of salt.

A full gym subscription

I upgraded my “swimming only” gym membership for a full gym membership, doubling the cost to £500, because I wanted to do some barbell lifting at lunchtimes.

Pretty much straight away I found that getting to the gym for any meaningful weight training was really difficult to achieve over lunchtimes.

It’s about time efficiency. If I go for a run when the weather is good, I can get a full 5 mile run and a meal achieved within an hour. Easy.

If I walk to the leisure centre for a swim, a 30 minute swim and a rushed dinner can be fit into an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes. Still quite achievable, I just need to make up the time elsewhere if I faff around in the changing room.

Whereas weight training takes time. If I walk to the leisure centre to use the gym, I can get maybe a short warm up and three sets (two of 5×5 compound lifts, plus a 3×5 pull-up or supporting exercise) on a good day, and my lunch break still takes 1 hour 30.

This means that if I want to do bigger lifts, I need to go before or after work. Which is OK, but the leisure centre I’m a member of isn’t near the boat, it’s a short walk in the opposite direction from work, so it’s pretty inconvenient.

I should’ve waited to see my pattern of life on the boat and picked a gym that suited this, opted for the slightly more expensive monthly membership, or stuck with just swimming.

Wooden steps for a dog to get on the boat

I’ve spent maybe £300 in B&Q on various saws and bits of wood, plus another £100 in swaging tools and a hydraulic metal crimper, purely to get the dog to board the side of the boat.

He hasn’t achieved this once.

We’ve since managed to simply swap moorings and can now board the boat from the stern, using a simple gangplank.

While I can’t blame myself for trying, and the decision was still right even if the reality didn’t work out that way, that’s a good £400 spent on essentially nothing.

Eurgh.

Final thoughts on my spending for the year

My year didn’t go anything like the way I expected it to.

I didn’t put the boat on here, even though we bought it this year. We were bound to spend something on accommodation anyway, and it remains to be seen whether this was an inspired purchase or a ropey one. Time will tell.

There have been a couple of obvious blunders, but on the whole I think I’ve taken on the “intentional spending” mindset. It seems to be pretty well ingrained at this point, and I’m glad about that.