Thoughts and reflections from the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Boat plan
Cold weather is definitely here and we’re now using the dehumidifier daily.
The most effective way to dry the boat out is to just out on a jumper, open the hatches and run the fans, but when it’s raining obviously that isn’t an option.
As I type this: the power has gone out on our pontoon again. Not a big deal for us, we’re super energy frugal, but minority inconvenient.
Self-employment
As mentioned in prior updates, I’m joining a start-up.
No biggie, totally cool (and exciting!).
Because it’s a start-up and we’re still pre-revenue without big investors, we’re all basically consultants rather than employees.
That causes me a legal issue because I’m an English lawyer living in the Channel Islands: I’m not allowed to practice local law – or write contracts – for other people.
This means that I could be in-house counsel as an employee, because I wouldn’t be doing law for other people: I would be the company, therefore we could take commercial risk that what I created was accurate.
However, I can’t be in-house counsel for local law issues as a consultant, because then I’m doing legal services as a self-employed person and selling them to the company. Doing that has an actual prison time offence associated with it, so I’m not even considering trying to be cute about that.
The work-around is:
- I will be a consultant solicitor for English law issues only;
- If we need local legal documents, I’m allowed to consult to a locally qualified advocate (I.e. I can bring in a local law firm to check my work and supervise) – which is expressly allowed in the local laws;
- For working with our customers, I’m going to be a risk and regulatory consultant: so I can advise on how to work within the local regulator’s guidance, but I can’t give assessments on the law or represent that I’m a local lawyer.
I’m still going to retain my practicing certificate as an English solicitor and will try to do some freelancing online for English law documents. That’s fine. By doing so, I’ll be improving my earning potential if I ever go back into law.
Seriously. Lawyers value seniority within their ranks on a time served on the register of solicitors basis. So even if the start-up fails, I’ll have increased from 3 years’ Post Qualification Experience (called “3PQE”) to 4 or 5 years’ PQE, with experience working in start-ups.
The cost of doing this comes to £395 to renew my practicing certificate, and a local fee of £875 (what the actual f-) just to tell the local authorities I’m alive and non-locally qualified. I’ll probably also look at getting some professional indemnity insurance, albeit I don’t need to cover the £2m full SRA level because there are certain activities – like going to court – that I can’t do anyway from here. I’m also going to rent a hot desk in a co-working space for £600 per year, which seems like a strong move. Power and WiFi, and maybe not being quite so lonely. They also put on free networking events and have bookable meeting rooms, which the start-up will probably need.
Distractions and detours
Sourdough starter update
Attempt one of the sourdough loaf was… dense. I think the internet recipe put in too much flour and not enough water, and I definitely didn’t leave it to prove long enough when you factor in how cold the boat is compared to a centrally heated house.
No biggie. Kept feeding the starter.
We had sourdough pancakes for breakfast again (YAY!) and I’ve got the over heating for Loaf Attempt 2.
Loaf Attempt 2 has been sat overnight, and the starter is a little punchier than it was before. Dough seems to have risen a bit more. Fingers crossed!
Sourdough is a bit of a time investment, but my bread price drops to like 75p-£1 per loaf and the quality should hopefully be better once I get this right. Economically, the time commitment makes it a little unviable, but that’s OK because I’m already interested in the process. It’s like a hobby that maybe saves you a few pennies and improves your food quality.
EDIT: it totally worked! Boat bread!
Holiday planning
Malaysia turns out to be super expensive over that time window, because it’s peak travel season. A week later and the flights are half the price. No joke.
So that might be on the back burner.
We’re still going away, but it might be Lanzarote or something instead.
We totally have the money, but I don’t want to burn through my cash savings pot that I will need to sustain me through the first few months of self-employment. If I do that, I have to tap into my investments, which I really don’t want to do if I can help it.
Actually, if I start tapping into investments then I’m going to probably take on some bar shifts anyway, but it would be nice if I could just put my shoulder down and lean into this new business without too many money worries.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
My teacher loved my Papa Roach playing. It’s not perfect, but he’s encouraging me to keep that one as a project because I was close to nailing it in a week.
We started Even Flow by Pearl Jam this week. It’s a lot harder. The timing is the issue with it: there’s some unusual rhythmic ideas to the verse that are hard to get at speed. My fingers have The Dumb.
Fitness
My expensive gym membership expired this week. I’m down to gym rings, running, and calisthenics.
Oh, wait – I have a kettlebell that I should be getting back from the person I lent it to at the end of the month. They’re emigrating to Australia mid-month so they won’t have a need for it., I can pick this up and store it in the car I guess.
I’ve been following the skateboarding rabbit hole on YouTube that I mentioned before and stumbled upon parkour videos.
Basically, I was tempted to give skateboarding a go, but I didn’t want to drop £200+ on kit that I might never use. So after reflection I realised that actually what I wanted was something that felt a bit like play, but wasn’t strictly tied to a sports club routine that I’ll probably never have time to commit to.
I don’t for even a second believe that I’m going to seriously get in parkour, but I’m thinking that maybe I could start to incorporate some of that style of play into my calisthenics routine to just add a bit more fun and functional skills into things. I reckon that my Napoleonic fort gym is probably a good playground to start learning a couple of vaults or practice a few small jumps, at least at the very beginner level I’ll be starting from. I’ll be training there anyway, might as well.
The challenge will be keeping this up during winter. There’s something about living on the boat that’s so restful you don’t feel compelled to go outside and do hard stuff (other than sailing…) and I just need to make sure I don’t stagnate because of it.
Final thoughts
A few early issues to overcome before starting start-up life, but I reckon they’re all manageable, y’know?
While power’s off (I wrote this on the iPad, so no massive deal) I guess I’ll do some training and guitar playing. Seems sensible. I want to do some work on the start-up, but I did that on the Linux laptop and I can’t charge the battery right now. Might be a midweek job.
Starting to get a grip of my costs again ready to be a start-up broke bum. Actually, that should keep me hungry enough to chase down clients and make sales pitches, so maybe it’s not a bad thing that I’m trying to work to budgets.
OK: Loaf Attempt 2 is in the oven. Fingers crossed that this time is the charm…
My financial independence campaign continues!
