Thoughts and reflections from the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Boat plan
The Eberspacher diesel heater is sort of working and yet, somehow, sort of not.
I’ve gotten the fan blowing. It’s definitely turning on. That’s technically a function, so it is sort of working.
We haven’t managed to get heat to go with the fan though, so it’s also sort of not working.
The Schrodinger’s Cat of diesel heaters!
I’ll have more of a play with it and see how I get on.
If the Eberspacher works, we’ll have cheaper heating for the cold of winter than last year, and because it’s hard routed into the boat it will heat up and dry out all cabins when in use. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll still be using electric radiators like we did last year and fighting condensation with a dehumidifier.
Fingers crossed!
Quitting and getting a new job
Lady SierraWhiskyMike and I checked the combined investment pots this weekend and we’re comfortably over £200k.
To be fair, Bitcoin has massively boosted that. Love it or hate it, it’s been a portfolio booster.
Around 75% of that is in liquid assets that we could access – albeit with a bit of notice – when we need to, so that’s cool.
This reinforces our assessment that we’re at CoastFi because we still have like 30 years of expected growth before actual pension age.
So my plan to save up a bit of cash and take a month off is completely fine. More than fine, even. I’m in no rush to take a job that I don’t think I’ll get some satisfaction from.
On that note:
- A few people at my current work have floated the idea of offering me consultancy work.
- There’s a potential consultancy lead with one of our existing clients that my bosses would be happy for me to pursue if it comes up, because they would in turn get a cut of that action.
- Remember that Firefighter job I applied for? There’s a rumour that I might be asked to express my interest again – which, to be fair, would be pretty cool.
- I have some interesting business meetings being lined up with a view to potentially starting something up on the island.
If all else fails, I’ll probably look for a pub job or barista work around February time, then work things out from there.
I’ve also been thinking of other potential micro-business ideas, but all of those are hypothetical and I’ll give them more thought after my contract ends.
There are some lawyer jobs going in my specialist field. I’m tempted to apply and see how things go, because law is well paid and that really would fund the eventual boat travel easily, but my initial feeling is that this would be a safe-looking trap. I’m obviously not cool with the job, moving somewhere else might simply prolong my time in the field and stop me trying to do something that’s more fun or satisfying.
Distractions and detours
I’m an uncle! (Again!)
I missed last update because I was travelling around England.
First: for a work thing. Whatever, boring.
Second: to go and see my sister, who has not long given birth to a healthy baby boy whom, to my enduring delight, has been asleep in my arms and twice sick in Lady SierraWhiskyMike’s.
Don’t fret for Lady SierraWhiskyMike: if this had been the other way around there would have been a lot of cheering.
I’m technically already an uncle by marriage due to the way Lady SierraWhiskyMike’s family tree works. My niece and nephew on that side are basically my age though so it’s not quite the same thing.
Anyway, mum and baby are doing great and our parents aren’t letting my sister and her husband raise this boy without constant input. I suspect that might eventually see some corrective action from my sister in the near future, but for now she’s just happy to have rest breaks.
Podcast
We’ve recorded two episodes of a sort-of podcast thing. I need to do some very basic editing because we do dumb stuff like use our first names in a couple of places and I want to cut those parts out while we’re still employed or otherwise relying on getting employed for money.
I don’t really care if someone goes hell for leather and finds out who I am, it’s not that big an issue, but I think it’s a bit mean to rub an employer’s nose in the fact that your goal is to stop needing them. It’s not a great look, not particularly endearing. So yeah, I need to edit them.
Unsure if I want to record a whole bunch of them so we have a mini-series to release or if I’m just going to post stuff as and when the edits are done. I’ve kind of got a few things going on right now, so it’s probably going to be the first one because I don’t think I can commit to a publishing schedule. I’m barely keeping a blog together!
Friend’s wedding
This week we turned down an invitation to attend a friend’s wedding.
There were quite a few reasons for this, but mainly it boiled down to cost and logistics. This was going to cost over £1,000 and it would be a four-day thrash of travel to attend an event for six hours. We can’t find a dogsitter for the weekend, it’s in a rural county of England, and the fast boats from the Channel Islands to the UK have been suspended, so putting the dog on a boat and bringing him with us isn’t really an option.
I’m a bit bummed out to let a friend down, but having just quit my job without a plan in place I’m probably going to need that money to cover my month off. I’m also feeling a little guilty that we’re considering travelling over the Christmas-January period, which is a little extravagant and probably also a financially daft idea.
Ultimately though, paying £1,000 to spend 6 hours with an a friend whose fiancée we’ve never met and without knowing anyone else in attendance is just not a good idea right now. We’re friends from school who just somehow kept in touch and we don’t have other friends in common. I think I need to sort my head out as a bigger priority.
Put on your own mask before helping others with theirs, as airline cabin crews tell you.
Burnout recovery
I’m pretty sure now that what happened to me was burnout.
Despite now being in my notice period until mid-December, the stress hasn’t really gone away. I’d say I care about 20% less, leaving me with about 80% of the stressors I’d already had and replacing that 20% with intrusive thoughts, like:
Aren’t you just being a big pussy?
No plan in place? What a moron!
You’re going to regret this.
Having confessed this to a couple of people – one of whom is Lady SierraWhiskyMike – the overwhelming recommendation has been to take a big chunk of time off to let the meat computer in my head stop spiralling and calm down.
Obviously I can’t do that right now, so I’m just crawling my way to the finish line in December and then crashing out at the end of the year.
We’re thinking of doing some travelling in early January. I’m not sure I can bring myself to plan this without getting tension headaches yet but it’s a good idea. Other people who have had similar experiences have been quite clear than a week or two won’t cut it and that a reset takes a good six weeks.
Knowing me, I’ll tee some stuff up before then. In principle though a good chunk of time to have a break in seems necessary.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
Black Sabbath went well, so we’ve moved on quite quickly.
I barely got down half the solo, but my teacher seemed happy with it. He can be a little hard to read and he doesn’t always tell me what the expected standard is that he’s trying to get me to reach in any lesson, so sometimes I go there thinking he’s going to kick my arse for not practicing enough! and instead he tells me that I’m making good progress and sounding a lot better, and that the aim of the exercise was always improvement rather than perfection.
At first this was quite hard to deal with. I’m very much a “get it done!” kind of guy. Over time though, I’ve started to see the wisdom in this approach. I’m still coming to lessons after nearly two years, my playing isn’t Steve Vai good but I’m now sounding like I know what I’m doing, sort of, on a good day. And, most importantly, it doesn’t stress me out to practice.
This week we’re looking at Photograph by Def Leppard. I think the idea is for me to get more of the parts down and learn an appreciation for composing with two overlapping guitars.
Fitness
It’s been a fortnight but I can confirm that even though I totally let the side down with blog reporting (sorry!) I’ve been a good little boy on the fitness front.
Last week, I got in my gym routine and – while stuck in London waiting for a plane home – I went to a bouldering wall in Canary Wharf for an hour to tire myself out.
This week, I’ve hit the gym twice for my calisthenics routine, then got in a short jog and a separate cross-trainer cardio session.
My injuries from the failed marathon attempt have largely healed but I’m getting Achilles tendon problems each time I try to run on a treadmill. I’d thought this was entirely due to spending too much time sat on my bum behind a desk, but I don’t seem to have the same problems when I run outside in the real world.
This means that I’m probably doing something weird with my gait on the treadmill.
If so, that might explain why I’d been able to run 20 miles reasonably well in my marathon build-up only to get injured on a treadmill recovery jog.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have been injured if I’d stuck to my usual beach runs and coastal routes?
My actual gym membership notice period ends this month so if I have been adapting my running technique to a treadmill and seeing myself off then it won’t matter soon anyway.
Final thoughts
It looks like I’m going to be busy and freaking out until my contract ends in December. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to hang in there and survive a ton of intrusive thoughts. Yay, fun!
Despite all that, I need to remember that I’ve got a lot going for me:
- I’m CoastFI, so I’m in no pressure to accept a hard job or chase the money – or at least, not yet.
- I’m an uncle now and my family are doing pretty great!
- Fitness is going OK, guitar is going well, and from December I’m going to have some time to explore things. I’m in a privileged position.
- People around me are supportive of my life choices – that’s a rare good thing.
- Lady SierraWhiskyMike has found a comfortable rhythm and work-life balance that she enjoys.
So yeah. I’m going through a weird time in my life and I’m finding it pretty hard, but there are lots of good reasons to be optimistic about what my future holds and I’m grateful to be in the privileged position I’m in.
My financial independence campaign continues!
