Thoughts and reflections about the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Boat life
In fun news, I learned this week that Lady SierraWhiskyMike didn’t pay the insurance renewal, which means technically we’re in breach of our mooring agreement. And practically if we crash the boat we’ll become homeless for a long time.
As a consequence we’re temporarily not sailing anywhere until this gets sorted. Helpfully, she’s away this weekend, and I don’t think it’s been done yet.
I may need to take matters into my own hands…
In other news, it’s just me and the dog on the boat this weekend. Blissful. Might even crack open a beer soon! I have some Leffe in the fridge, could chill out and watch some cartoons or something. The dream!
Distractions and detours
Job stuff
For my regular readers: I had that discussion at work on Monday. You know, the one to discuss retaining me in the company now that I’m working my notice period.
I was expecting a negotiation, but what I got instead was “OK, how do we keep you?”.
Frankly, I’d just like to be leaving at 1700hrs so that I can have a social life, and I told my boss as much.
Turns out that this is potentially an option for me and he’s going to report back. I guess I may not be leaving work after all if they can sort something out. We’ll see.
Lesson learned from this is: do a good job, then tell people what you honestly want.
Part of me wants to kick myself for not asking for more money. That’s the You Could Retire X Months Earlier! part. To be honest, there’s nothing wrong with where I am in my earnings, I’m just tired and want more time to pursue my interests. Taking back my time is worth more than any potential increase in money.
Dumbphone test
My Nokia 2720 turned up this weekend.
I’d picked this particular dumbphone because it has WhatsApp pre-installed on it. What I didn’t know is that KaiOS – like a semi-dumbphone Android or iOS system – no longer supports WhatsApp.
Not a problem, but I could’ve saved some pennies and bought an even cheaper phone if I’d known!
Plan for the dumbphone trial
I’m going to carry the Nokia to work rather than my iPhone to see if this avoids distractions throughout my day.
I’m presuming that the distractions are significant because my usage tracker says that I’m using the phone for 2hrs 50 mins on average. That would be cool if I actually called people! Given that I generally don’t, I’ve got to assume this is mostly wasted time that I don’t get any real value from.
For the first couple of days the iPhone will sit in my work bag. That’s mainly because I haven’t solved the issue of playing Spotify on my walk to work and partially because I have an authentication app on my work laptop that currently talks to the iPhone and I haven’t tested it with the Nokia yet.
I’m not getting rid of my iPhone because I live in the Channel Islands and we don’t count as being in the UK for calls home. My family and friends are mainly in England, so it’s not like I can go without WhatsApp or Signal right now. If I did, I’d probably lose touch with people, and the loss of those connections isn’t worth the minor chore of keeping the iPhone running.
My next move is to work out how to put more songs onto my ancient iPod Nano now that I use an iPad instead of a full laptop. I’m sure it’s possible, but how do I do it..?
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
This week’s learning is The Pretender by the Foo Fighters. We’re trying to get used to playing arpeggios with a changing bass note.
Still haven’t mastered, well, any of the other songs I suppose. My playing is definitely getting better but it’s a long, slow process.
Starting to use a few different scale shapes to make improvising more interesting for the listener. I still sound like a child picking random notes, but every so often there’s a good bit that comes out of it. A massive improvement!
Fitness
My tattoo is looking fairly well on its way to being healed, so I reckon I can start exercising again on Monday.
Good! I’m going stir crazy, here!
My barefoot sandals are expected this week, too. I’ll take those for a few dog walks before I try running in them. Really hoping this works out, don’t want to keep paying top dollar for running shoes that don’t make it past 6 months.
Actually, I really miss running. You don’t know you miss something until you can’t do it anymore. I was thinking I might sign up to some races next year and give myself something to train for, but that could just be the withdrawal talking.
Final thoughts
It’s been a week where a lot of things have happened to me but I haven’t really done much.
I think the best thing to do now though is enjoy my free weekend. I’m going to get me a beer, play some video games and break out the guitar. You know, just chill out and enjoy being aimless.
Sorted.
My financial independence campaign continues!
