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

Progress on my goals

Boat life

Well, the sun disappeared as quickly as it came and we have another dreary weekend.

Things are pretty comfortable, though. No big chores to do, although like I said last week I might try stripping the aft cabin and converting it to a storage area that airs out easily.

We’re also still sat on the winter canopy that we haven’t sewn back together since the November storms. Lady SierraWhiskyMike keeps insisting that she wants to be the one to learn how to use the sewing machine and fix it, but she also works full time and her weekends are already pretty full with other things.

Eh, it’s not super important.

It’s that time of year when our mooring fees were due again. £8,700(ish) was paid out for the next year. This came out of our joint account, which leaves the emergency fund in there. That’s looking a little light but workable. Psychologically, I like having £10k in the emergency pot, and we’re temporarily on about £7,500. Even that’s a bit of an over-provision for normal living but there’s something psychologically comforting about having a round £10k in there because it’s like having a whole year’s mooring fees in reserve, even if they increased 10%.

Start-up work

Flew to London this week to pitch to insurance underwriters. That was intense.

We also formally submitted the regulatory application. This is intended to get us to approval-in-principle for the business, and thereafter we have to sign all the contracts and build it.

For now though, things are temporarily a bit calmer.

We’re going to switch our efforts to the consultancy business for a week or so. Enquiries are coming in thick and fast and we could do WiFi the short-term cash in our pockets.

Distractions and detours

Knees

Results of the MRI are back and it’s good news!

Well, I think it is. I didn’t quite understand it, but the short version is that I have two minor injuries that are likely to be recurring in some form but they’re manageable in between.

The first is easy: it’s an inflammation (impact injury I think) to the fat pad at the top of the kneecap. Basically, I’ve locked my knee out at some point and this needs a few weeks to heal.

The second is what was described as a “pothole” in the thigh bone that is caused by loading. That will partially heal, at least for pain management, but I’m going to be susceptible to that basically forever.

Sounds bad, but the advice was “don’t do squats, avoid crawling, avoid impact or heavy loading for a few weeks”.

Over the next couple of weeks the physio is going to do some basic treatments and show me some alternative strength exercises in their in-house gym area.

But thankfully it’s not early arthritis or anything that requires surgery, which is excellent news. Just need to rest up and do some maintenance, maybe not do running and switch to swimming and cycling for a while.

Phew!

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

The guitar sounds seriously good!

Shielding and the new potentiometers totally worked. There isn’t any hiss at all when the tone is turned off, as it often is for heavier music, and barely anything above baseline when it’s cranked all the way up.

I think she sounds really clear and bright, and obviously new strings is responsible for a bit of that, too. Overall I’m really happy with how my £240 guitar sounds and plays, and it certainly doesn’t sound like a cheap guitar anymore.

My guitar teacher loved it! He’s now asking when I think I’ll replace the pickups. Apparently modifying your guitar is a pro guitarist move.

I mean I still think I suck at playing but the instrument sounds pretty sweet.

I’ve been playing 3 years this month! That flew by. If you’re thinking about learning, my advice is to definitely pay for lessons. I know you can teach yourself and there are lots of free resources, cheap digital tools and similar, but lessons keeps you at a minimum level of discipline.

One thing I thought I’d be better at is remembering whole songs. I’m terrible at it. That’s definitely something to practice, but usually I’m playing a song a bit slower than the recorded version and then I forget or screw up a bunch of transitions between sections. It’s probably something I need to pay more attention to in my own time: learning whole songs so that I have stuff I know all the way through.

At the moment if you ask me to play a song, I’m like “err… what do I actually know?”. Kind of weird, I didn’t ready have that back when I played drums, but then again I taught myself drums from backing music, magazines and videos.

Fitness

Completely neglected fitness this week. I’m a lazy bugger. I managed to get a session at the Fort in with the rings but that’s about it!

Seriously though, I’ve been walking everywhere. That takes up time. I even walked up to the swimming pool… to find out it was closed for a couple of days for maintenance and I’d read the timetable incorrectly.

I’ve been doing dips and things in the boat but I don’t know that this is anything other than playing around. There’s a fitness element to it but no intensity.

As it’s a dreary weekend I may take myself to the gym and have a mini-blast. Could do with getting back into habits.

Miss running. I don’t actually enjoy cardio, but getting an intense cardio exercise in 30-40 minutes starting and ending at the boat is helpful. I don’t think my knees are up to it just yet so I’m waiting to speak to the physio on Monday to work things out.

Upping NEAT

I spent Saturday morning servicing my bike. Well, user maintenance servicing.

I thought I’d train a lot more now I’m effectively self-employed but it turns out that most of the time I just feel guilty about not working on the two businesses.

At first I thought that the friction was just a discipline thing, or because the gym was too far away and I’d gotten used to having one next to my workplace. Nope. It’s definitely the fact that when I think about leaving the laptop I suddenly remember the mountains of work I should be doing, then I chisel away at a task… then it’s dinner time, or bed time.

So the plan is to have a non-routine training routine, obviously!

I’m looking at doing the following:

  • Walking the dog twice a day, totalling 60-90 minutes on average at his slow pace.
  • Cycling 1-2 times per week into town for appointments and using the showers in the co-working space., adding 2 x 25 minute cycles each time.
  • 1-2 swimming sessions per week.
  • 0-1 strength training sessions, either in the gym or at the Fort.

The idea here is that I probably won’t make mad gainz, but I’ll keep active and healthy even if I don’t necessarily see athletic improvements. It should be a decent baseline.

The idea is that I’m not going to beat myself up if I miss training sessions but I’m keeping a high Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) level to keep the weight down. Which, you know, is important when you work at a laptop 5-7 days per week.

Calorie balancing

I’ve decided to go back to wearing my FitBit temporarily to track my NEAT calorie requirements.

Final thoughts

The big ticket item was the regulatory application. I’m not saying too much about it on here, but suffice to say the start-up work dominated my days and evenings.

Guitar was a huge success and I will make some time to play this weekend while things are temporarily calm. I’ve got some work to do, but it’s minor and I need to find leisure time somewhere.

Fitness and health are my big worries. I know I’ve been neglecting the fitness a bit. Was it worth putting it on the backburner temporarily to get the regulatory work done? Absolutely. Can I tolerate this level of neglect for the long term? Absolutely not! I think my plan will overcome this without the stress of beating myself up over missed sessions.

My financial independence campaign continues!