Thoughts and reflections form the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Started a new business scheme at work
I’ve been getting pretty down about my job, but I’m well paid, so I figured that I should take some decisive action to at least improve my situation and make work more enjoyable.
This week one of the partners in the firm and I made our first steps into repositioning our corporate team into a tech and start-up practice.
We figured that by offering my services out cheap/ pro bono to start-ups we’d raise our brand and maybe help some fledgling businesses on the Channel Islands get a little extra help at a time when they just can’t afford to get that kind of professional assistance.
What do I get out of it?
Well, I get to use my evil corporate lawyer powers for good. Which, you know, makes a change. I’m also likely to get a lot of autonomy and the chance to meet some really cool people doing weird and wonderful new things.
Since I don’t have a business of my own, I can use this initiative to start to maybe get some ideas and if nothing else get involved with some of the super-sexy tech start-up businesses that other people are already doing. All this knowledge and experience that I can benefit from through the medium of a job I’m already paid to do.
Could be an awesome opportunity.
So we took our first decisive steps
We reached out to a local government initiative that’s basically a start-up hub and offered to help.
The set-up is brilliant there, and the woman who runs it had this great energy about her. Needless to say, they were keen. Free legal advice is a pretty hot commodity.
We’ve got some further meetings with different parties working in the same space this month. After that, I just need to sell it as a business plan. Fortunately, having a junior partner on side already boosts my chances of success.
I’m keen to get this off the ground, and perhaps making my day job a bit more energising will stop me getting so stressed with it.
Distractions and detours
Time for new shoes
This week I replaced my running trainers as I’ve almost worn through the soles. They’re barefoot trainers, so that’s not as odd as it sounds.
I’ve had flat feet my whole life, but I find that the Vivobarefoot brand fits well and forces me to walk and run differently. I was used to getting knee pains when I was still serving, but after switching to barefoot trainers I’m glad to say that this isn’t an issue for me anymore.
I bought these refurbished from the company’s refurbished shoes website, revivo.com. (That’s not an affiliate link, I’m not being paid to write it, I just really like the product.). It’s still £70 for engineered plimsolls, which seems steep, but it’s a lot cheaper than buying new ones at £120 and I get good results out of the Primus Lite series shoes.
Reconnected with Logan of Topia fame
I met Logan Leckie, the creator of the Topia financial independence app, through r/FIREUK. For those of you who are new to my blog, check out the last article I wrote on Topia for further details.
This week I reconnected by e-mail. He’d asked way back in the year if I could be a guest on a podcast he was looking at doing but things had been hectic and I’d left him hanging. That didn’t sit well, so I reached back out to explain how things were going with the boat plan.
Obviously, I’m not going to reveal all of my personal correspondence on this blog. I’m entitled to privacy, like everyone else. However, he revealed to my that he had also bought a boat – sort of. He’d teamed up with a friend to buy a RIB that they are hiring out in sunnier climes to holiday makers.
That’s an impressively niche side hustle idea!
Logan’s whole entrepreneurial spirit is quite inspiring and the RIB is just one of the four or five entrepreneurial project he’s got going on right at this moment. I believe that he’s basically financially independent by way of these income streams now, so good on him.
Anyway, I thought that this was a cool thing to bring to your attention. Maybe that little story will inspire you, too.
ChatGPT talked me into getting back into coding
I was messing around with ChatGPT before bed (not a great time to do it, but I was restless). During the conversation and experimentation, I asked it about coding with Python, since I know I can use it to automate tasks and maybe I could add some more functionality to this site.
Now that I basically use an iPad as a home laptop, I didn’t think learning to code on it was an option to me. Turns out I’m very wrong!
So I’m now back on freecodecamp.
I’m not sure if I’m necessarily going to commit to coding or if it’s a small hobby, but learning HTML and CSS on The Odin Project helped me out with customising this blog, so if it’s just a passing hobby at least I’ll learn a little bit. Can’t hurt!
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
Guitar this week is Space Oddity by David Bowie. What a great song! My teacher is trying to get me to change different styles and variations of playing chords, so that I can get used to different chord voices and start to learn different positions on the fretboard for the same notes.
Fitness
Squeezed another two swimming sessions into work lunch breaks.
I’m really happy with the consistency I’m maintaining around this basic training schedule, although I’m starting to miss barbell training and the weather has sucked this week so I haven’t done any archery or kettlebells.
My partner and I are going to a yoga class tomorrow. I’ve never done yoga before, I’m a little suspicious that this is going to be all patchouli and spiritual, but desk life is crippling my flexibility and I really don’t want that to be a problem when we finally move aboard the boat.
It’s also quite a cheap date, so that’s cool.
Final thoughts
I may never get to the point of starting up a business. I talk about it a lot, but maybe I just want to be steering the ship in my work. Hopefully the new scheme will benefit the firm and give me some outlet for my interests, with a few opportunities coming my way.
“Your network is your net worth” – a really naff thing certain kinds of influencers say, perhaps. I’ve been putting effort into meeting new and interesting people (per my Campaign Plan for 2023!) and while it hasn’t exactly done anything to my financial worth I’m happy to report that meeting cool people doing cool things has given me all sorts of other benefits, such as a sense inspiration and personal fulfilment. It’s definitely the way forward and will probably feature on the next Campaign Plan.
My financial independence campaign continues!
