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

Progress on my goals

Back to the Ship!

We returned to Storm Goretti and temperatures that Apple Weather said “feels like -5 degrees celsius“. Brisk!

While I fully confess that we hid in the mother-in-law’s spare room during the storm, I delightedly confirm that we got through unscathed.

Preparing for 100mph winds on a sailing boat means:

  • Adding extra lines (ropes) to secure her to the pontoon
  • Taking down all sails, even if they’re nicely wrapped around things and normally OK to leave in place
  • Removing all canopies, dodgers and cockpit canvas features
  • Swearing at each other while trying to pack away sails at 0600hrs in light rain

Suffice to say our plans totally worked!

Our winter canopy needs some sewing before we can put it back up and enjoy our pseudo-conservatory outside, so Lady SierraWhiskyMike plans to test the heavy duty sewing machine we bought this month,

Not all the boats in our marina came out fine. There were a lot of canopies that got shredded and thrown around. We have a hard – I.e. a working area where boats get hauled out of the water so you can work on the hull – and three vessels came off their mounts, so they’re probably no longer serviceable. One boat’s headsail obviously had a tiny bit of flap left unstowed and the winds pulled the sail out, turning it into a string of expensive flags.

Fortunately though most of my neighbours came through with minimal if any damage.

Start-up work

January has hit hard and we have several engagement letters out with clients for signature.

It seems that while we are super popular, companies don’t actually want to pay us. This is common for start-ups: established firms take advantage of your weaker negotiating position at basically every opportunity.

That said, we have a lot of quotes out and interest in what we do and it’s only the first week of the year. Hopefully we’ll be turning profits by 2027?

On the side of that, I’ve applied for a non-executive director training scheme on the island. I have a services company so there’s no reason I can’t be a non-executive director as a side project here. The placement year is essentially working for free, but I’ve spoken to a lot of the people from previous years and they all seem to be in demand as a result of it.

It’s a bit nerve-wracking to be pre-revenue but that’s just the way things go. I’ve spoken to self-employed people in all walks of life and they all told me that the first six months to two years are just living hand-to-mouth at best, trying to make your savings stretch until there’s a steady pipeline of work coming in.

So I guess it’s going well?

Writing

Hmm. I said I’d try to make money writing this year, so I’d better start trying really.

I fully confess that I haven’t yet made any progress on this. I guess I’ll procrastinate for a bit and then start putting stuff together.

Technically, my old Kindle books have brought in like £10 this year already. That counts, right?

I’ve been procrastinating, but realistically I need to start setting some kind of goal for words and hold myself accountable. Damn. What if I don’t want to be accountable? That’s not fun!

It’s the right thing to do though so I’ll have a think.

In case you’re wondering: I don’t make money from this blog. Seriously.

There are one or two affiliate links, I get asked to write puff pieces for some dubious financial services and people ask me to pay them for guest posts, but blogging on your own site is not a good way to make money – especially if you write about saving money!

Whatever. That’s not why I do these things.

Distractions and detours

Tenerife new year

We welcomed New Year in from Candellaria, which had a cool street party in the main car park of the town. That place has a great local vibe, and if I was going to live in the Canary Islands it would be on my preferred locations list along with Puerto de la Cruz.

Not that I’m actually planning to live in the Canary Islands, mind you.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

Actually, I didn’t suck!

We rehearsed some stuff and looked at major scales formatted to three notes per string. The idea is to get some pattern recognition so that I can play runs of notes faster, which is important for the heavier music I want to play.

Today it’s raining and miserable outside. I’m going to do a bit of writing and then practice guitar (he says…).

Fitness

Lady SierraWhiskyMike’s FitBit showed us as having averaged around 15,000 steps for the two week holiday. However, our home life is comparatively sedentary in winter, barely getting into the 10,000 steps range (and even lower when it’s wet outside).

I set up my gym rings in the Napoleonic Fort yesterday. My upper body isn’t happy that I basically got a single calisthenics session in over New Year and some basic push-ups/ dips in on the first week back. Performance had dropped, which is to be expected, albeit not as badly as it could have been.

We bought a small set of food scales to start weighing portion sizes for meals. I’m not hardcore calorie counting (yet), just weighing out what a portion of different foods should look like before I cook it, and I can instantly see that I’ve been overeating.

Well, I haven’t really gotten fatter, so I guess it’s more a case that I’ve been eating to sustain calorie burn and that’s why I haven’t been getting any leaner, rather than strictly overeating.

Critics would say that I should have done this years ago. In my defence: I work in law, and legal work drains your brainpower over the course of a day. It’s hard to bring yourself to make even the most basic decisions after a full day of professional legal practice.

If you don’t believe me: try and get a visit into any law firm and you’ll see a disproportionate mix of people who are overweight or, conversely, malnourished, compared to a healthy population.

Training plans

I can’t really justify the cost of an expensive gym when I’m pre-income this year, so my plan is to bring my kettlebell back from our storage locker and leave it in the footwell of our car. There’s a half-considered concrete picnic area next to the car park that no-one uses. It’s lit up at night and outside of the prevailing wind direction, so I can train there when it’s too dark to exercise in the Napoleonic Fort gym.

If I actually make some money, I plan to pay for a swimming pool membership at around £250 for the year.

I’ve been put off from long-distance running after that marathon injury last year. My knees are feeling a lot better, but I don’t really trust them with endurance running just yet because of the high impact nature of it. 5 miles maybe, but I’m not pushing to hit 10 miles and beyond anymore. That hurt. If I lose some weight I might try again but as I’m over 90kg it’s not an experience I want to repeat.

Between calisthenics, kettlebells and potentially swimming when it’s too grim to train outside, I think that’s a pretty good mixture of activities at low cost.

The steps thing is also pretty cool. I’m not sure how much walking on its own contributes to fitness. However, I think better when I’m walking, I get to spend some time with Lady SierraWhiskyMike, and it’s essentially free. I’d like to keep this up over the year on days when it’s reasonably good enough weather.

Final thoughts

Straight in with new business ventures, as we thought I would be.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Being without earned income feels precarious, even though realistically the worst that happens to me is that I will need to get a different job.

This is kind of a learned feeling of helplessness, though. Reflecting on that: if I have enough invested to be financially independent, would this feel any different?

This week I met up with a former colleague who has moved to another law firm. He told me in no uncertain terms to call him if things don’t work out with the start-up. That’s a pretty big vote of confidence in my ability to find work if things don’t go to plan.

Right. Need to put some time into actual writing that might stand a chance of paying the bills. Talk to you guys next week.

My financial independence campaign continues!