It’s about that time of year where I recap how my financial independence campaign plan is going.
So, first up –
The 2023 FIRE Campaign Plan died pretty quickly
The 2023 campaign plan has been basically rewritten!
What was it I planned to do, again?
Investing in myself
I said I would:
- Accept as many networking and hospitality events as possible
- Continue with sports
- Read more fiction
Check me out – this has all been going to plan!
The only change is that I ditched swimming lessons but I’ve kept up swimming twice a week over lunches. That’s pretty cool.
I also took up guitar in February and that’s been brilliant. My head just relaxes after playing guitar.
Spending intentionally
So here’s the first thing that went out the window, but in a good way(!).
I said I would:
- Buy a house and be deliberate about furnishing it
- Not go on any big holidays
- Do more socialising by inviting people over instead of going out
Yeah… no. Two out of three of those have failed already. Fortunately, not in a bad way.
Obviously the house purchase fell down, then got kicked in the nuts while it was on the floor. We’ve bought a boat instead.
On the plus side, it’s really hard to fill a boat with furniture. If anything we’re deliberately becoming more minimalist and mindful of our crap. That’s a positive!
We’re also going to be debt free. Completely. No mortgage interest for us, just mooring fees.
As a consequence of not having moved aboard yet, we’re still going out quite a lot. That’s not ideal, it’s not where I want to be really, but the damage it does to our FI campaign is a lot lower than if we were going out and paying a mortgage.
Investing money
I’m way ahead here, thanks to the change in plan.
I said I would:
- Double-pay a mortgage
- Maximise my employer pension
- Automate my investments and aim for £10,000 this year
- Use budget surplus for bitcoin and gold
The pension is running to plan. ‘Nuff said.
Mortgage went away – so quids in there.
I actually have automated my investments into my robo-investor, which is working out great! However, I smashed the £10,000 already. Aww yis!
Thanks to my reduced costs, I’m on track to hit £20k in non-pension investments this year.
Actually, that’s something I’ve been thinking about… but I’m going to keep that secret for now. I haven’t worked out my own thoughts on it yet.
I’ve been putting bits of my budget surpluses into bitcoin, gold sovereigns (lots of limited runs this year without a limited edition premium attached) and Crowdcube. Small amounts, not life-changing. Maybe it will help, maybe I’ll just have fun playing with it all. Who knows?
Moving forward
If I keep on track…
Then I could FIRE within 10 years, based on my 60-70% savings rate.
But I’m starting to get distracted
A constant theme of my FI Campaign so far is reliance on a career change to a fairly safe, traditional and lucrative career path.
I’m a lawyer. Law pays pretty well.
However, I can’t quite shake the following:
- Law is long hours of grind
- I currently have zero control over my time and that sucks
- Long term, I want to work for myself anyway
- I’m debt free, so how big of a risk is self-employment for me really?
Like I said earlier, I’m not exactly sure how I feel here. The grass really is always greener on the other side. But, all the same, I’m toying with the idea of setting up as a freelancer or as some online business so that I could control my time a little bit and maybe start travelling sooner.
I spend 12-14 hours per day on someone else’s dream. If I spent that on my own projects, would I get better results?
Alternatively, I might take advantage of my financial security and look for part-time work while I try out my own projects.
This is all still up in the air and I’m probably going to take most of the rest of this year to think about it.
Investing plan
Assuming nothing changes on the job front this year, the investment plans seem to be working well for me, so I’ll stick with them.
I’m investing in myself a bit more with some local AI courses. I had a play with ChatGPT recently and it would be cool to know a bit more. A local digital startup programme is offering a specialised course on it aimed at startups and supporting small businesses, so I’ve put my name down as an interested party.
Can’t hurt.
I’m also booked in for an RYA Day Skipper course to uplift my sailing skills with an international qualification (the ICC can be awarded off the back of Day Skipper). That might be a qualification that I can leverage in the future, but even if not it’s a sure way to keep the boat insurance low. Insurers love badges.
That’s all for now – my financial independence campaign continues!
