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

Progress on my goals

Boat life

The sun shines again and life is good!

Drinking beers on the deck in the sun is one of the finer things in life. It’s just fantastic.

The season is now starting and we want to be sailing in May for our first shakedown sail of the year.

Time to get those sails back up.

Start-up work

We spent this week upgrading our business risk assessment and writing an intricately-detailed IT manual that we’ll need to impress both the regulator and later an ISO 27001 auditor.

Being a tech startup, we basically need ISO 27001 audits to prove that we’ve created enough internal bureaucracy to prevent any of us going rogue with company information.

I wasn’t expecting to need this yet. We are applying for a scheme with the regulator whereby we develop a project under their watch, but they’re treating us as if we’re basically a bank and have been operating in other countries for years already. It’s weird.

We’re not sure if that means that they want to fast-track us through to fuller licensing or if they really don’t want us to do this. You never can tell with regulators.

Well, it’s looking awesome, it should pass through an audit, and we’re going to drop it on their desks over the bank holiday ready for Tuesday.

Changes to the portfolio

I sold out of my Wealthify tiny-advisor and built a dividend-focused portfolio out of my normal investment account.

There’s more to come on that but the post I’d drafted looks… meh.

The short version: pensions staying long term in a global market index, but while I’m doing startup stuff I wanted to be able to draw some income off the portfolio without selling stuff so that my overheads for my personal services company are covered.

Is this the strongest investment play? Well, no. Not as a pure FIRE portfolio anyway. But it does take some of the psychological pressure off me and allows me to get on building these businesses, which have way more upside than an investment portfolio has if things work out.

This is a different way of approaching investment to the normal FIRE route and if I still worked full-time in a law firm I probably wouldn’t bother. The logic works in my specific circumstances and in the context of my wider assets.

Distractions and detours

Python coding

This week I started a free coding course called Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.

The long-term objective is to use it in my business to build automation and reporting dashboards. I also figured that I could use it to make little software applications for stuff, like monitoring Bitcoin wallets and things like that. Maybe create little tide timers that suit out boat, make navigation easier or something.

Turns out that python is quite a simple coding language. I’ve only done two chapters so far, but the course has had me create little programs and introduced logic engines straight away, so I can see how I can start to build things with it already even though my programs are obviously micro-projects from the book.

It’s free to learn, by the way. The book is online here at automatetheboringstuff.com. I don’t think you need any real computer skills to follow the chapters; they’re very detailed and the python coding language is fairly easy to follow after a very quick introduction.

One of the chapters I’m looking forward to is setting SMS and e-mail alerts. I could use that kind of thing in my business and if it’s in the book then it shouldn’t be too hard to code and compile.

Reading: The Digital Republic by Jamie Susskind

I recently had the chore of reading The Digital Republic, a book that’s been sitting on our bookshelf in hard copy and therefore one I wanted to read so that we can get rid of it somehow and free up some of our limited shelving space.

The whole book can be summed up like this:

  • “Tech giants” (unspecified) control the world by algorithms and platforms
  • We should decentralise power by making “laws” (unclearly set out).

Thanks, Jamie. How profound. Could’ve been a Twitter (X ?) post.

If, like me, you work in a startup hub and a copy of this has been pretentiously sitting in your “future reading” pile, don’t be troubled. A third of the book is footnotes for the thirty-odd three-page chapters of half-arsed ideas. There isn’t any real depth to it and you’d get most of the value from simply watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix while vaguely suggesting that governments should write laws about this sort of thing.

It’s going to a charity bookshop as soon as I can be bothered to go into town.

Joking aside, it’s a book that might have been profound… ish… in 2022 when it was released, but is just another book that doesn’t need to be read in 2026. Your average YouTube scroll will introduce you to the much more direct techno-feudalism idea that Yanis Varoufakis has been pushing for two or three years now. If you are aware of that concept then The Digital Republic is like a softcore noncommittal version of that.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

Sultans of Swing is… going. Not well, not badly. We’re going to work on it a bit more.

I’ve also been trying to teach myself Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It’s a recognisable song and if I can tighten things up with a few more weeks of playing I could have a semi-decent version to play. I tested out the intro and verse chords for my teacher and he seemed to appreciate it, so that’s something… right..?

Fitness

Made use of the sun and got some rings training in outside. My steps count was very high at the start of the week (12-20k a day) which tailed off on Friday-Saturday with the gross rain we’ve been getting.

Cardio suffered while I was sat at my desk typing frantically for the IT manual. I probably need to pick that back up this week, I’ve been slacking and it’s starting to make me feel sluggish.

Also… it’s Easter and I may have scoffed choccy instead of exercising, like a fatty.

Final thoughts

Itching to get back out sailing again. We’re booked up with appointments for the next few weekends but the season is definitely upon us and both Lady SierraWhiskyMike and me are missing having wind in the sails.

Startup work is going OK, lots to do and we’re making good progress.

I’ve been sprinting to get stuff done but managed to find time for some side projects and my guitar – just about!

Going to enjoy the beer on the deck this weekend then get back into exercise. Needs a bit more cardio to burn off this Easter egg.

My financial independence campaign continues!