Thoughts and reflections from the past weeks from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Boat life
We’re probably off the boat for a while.
I keep dropping by to visit it and it just makes me sad. She’s my home and I’m camping out in someone else’s guest room.
I really want to go home, but when I do it will be without my dog.
Now, I’ll confess to you that I’m having doubts about the whole plan, and especially about the present boat. I have no idea how long my poor dog will continue for, and we’re paying both mooring fees and lodgings while this situation persists.
Which would be fine – except that I’m not really earning right now.
There’s a bit more to that, I’m not writing it on the blog though because some of that is personal and this isn’t the space for it.
Where it boils down to though: why keep a boat if you don’t get to sail it?
All the negatives aside, we knew this time would come and we also knew that this time wouldn’t be representative of our time living aboard. It’s a transitory rough patch.
So, logically, the answer is suck it up, Buttercup – it’s just at odds with the emotional doubts.
Don’t worry, I won’t become a sad sack on you. I’m sharing this so you know that my life isn’t all instagram-and-sunshine. I ain’t perfect.
I don’t even have an instagram – it just never clicked with me!
Start-up work
This is going pretty damn well.
We got licensed this week (sprint finish!) and already have a bunch of customer leads, at least two of which are serious projects.
Have managed to build portals and interfaces for clients that work. Will need them penetration tested and we need to get some other IT certifications but the framework product is there.
I’ve also turned a bunch of local tools we had into a first draft employee interface, so we can basically get employees to manage the business as-and-when we hire them with us directors just countersigning using the off-the-shelf backend tech.
My next jobs are to tidy up the employee interface and add some compliance automation so we have 24/7 compliance cover.
I’m growing in confidence as a builder. Look, I’m a crap dev – I can’t replace a real web dev – but with a bit of LLM assistance I’m able to design mini-software packages, review what the AI has produced as Python code using my growing Python skills, and deploy it to Azure WebApp or Function App “serverless” hosting. Not going to change the world making little FastAPI applications, but it’s not *nothing* and it’s good enough to connect up the software my business has bought into simple aggregated user interfaces.
Someone told me that Claude is better than ChatGPT for coding, and I also have OpenAI’s Codex. It’s probably true, but I prefer to build in Python modular scripts one at a time so that I know exactly how my code works and how to edit it. I like to make sure it’s as robust and basic as possible, so that if the various AI companies go bust (non-zero chance, that!) I can do the maintenance and editing myself.
If you’re going to try vibe coding: get some knowledge first. If I hadn’t done that Automate the Boring Stuff course I’d be relying on LLMs and that’s no bueno. They make a lot of tiny errors and add mess to Python scripts, and I’d be absolutely screwed if things broke and I didn’t have connectivity to the AI if I hadn’t done the background reading.
Distractions and detours
World Cup
Ah, poor England… if only we’d been more aggressive against Argentina, we might not have gotten 3rd place.
Argentina is the team I drew in the co-working space’s sweepstakes so I could at least get a consolation prize out of this.
The Odyssey
Lady SierraWhiskyMike and I went to go and see the new Christopher Nolan epic for date night this week.
We don’t have good cinemas in the Channel Islands, so it was an Iron Butt test on old, hard seating.
The film is worth a watch. You probably do need to know a bit about the story before you go in, there’s a lot of assumed knowledge, but overall was worth a go.
I thought the acting was fairly consistent. The script was, in parts, a bit weak. There were surprisingly emotional and introspective moments from Odysseus in scenes that probably should have been more action-focussed and there were some scenes where our hero probably should have shown some emotion but was all-business. Character was a little inconsistent.
We also learned that Matt Damon doesn’t know how to shoot a bow and arrow.
Wedding
Took an arduous journey to Halifax for an old friend’s wedding.
Great time had by all: good to catch up with uni mates, was cool to meet up with the other guys from the stag do, bride and groom loved it, really nice venue in scenic countryside.
Returning to England was interesting. People talk mad shit about England getting somehow worse, and maybe it is, but coming back from the Channel Islands I realised how good things actually are in Britain. Not that Channel Islands are bad at all, it’s more like coming home and appreciating the bits that I’d taken for granted when I lived there.
Getting home however was a catastrophe. My flight was cancelled because one of the passengers – get this – was in the emergency exit seat and decided to pull the release despite the cabin crew telling him not to. So that flight was delayed almost 24 hours and we got a free night in Manchester Airport.
I’d love to say that the individual was some kid or someone who didn’t know better, but it was the consultant cardiologist at the private hospital. If that’s not an advert for keeping on top of cardio health I don’t know what is! “Keep in shape or THIS GUY will be your doctor!” is a pretty good threat.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
This week’s learning is the eponymous Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden.
The idea is that we’re practising two-guitar harmonies. The intro riff in particular is two guitars playing fairly different parts simultaneously, the second guitar coming in as a round.
Fitness
I’ve been slowly increasing my fitness activity after months of coding sprinting. My time is still pretty valuable and committed to the new business so it’s mostly short-burst, high intensity stuff like kettlebells, hill running and burpees.
My performance is a little pitiful! How the mighty have fallen…
Not to worry. The back of the coding work has been done for the new business so I can take my time now and squeeze more exercise in… in theory…
I’m a little conscious that I haven’t been to the gym for a properly structured session in months. My punchcard for CrossFit is also about to expire and I barely used it after my injury – and, having really hurt my knee doing stuff like this, I probably won’t be using it again; it’s just not as much fun as I’d hoped and the enjoyment doesn’t outweigh the injury risk.
I noticed that I’d put on a bit of weight with all this coding for hours. In the last couple of weeks the fitness regain and “intermittent fasting” (i.e. skipping the odd breakfast) has already made a start on reversing this trend. It’s almost like the lesson is and has always been: diet and exercise.
Final thoughts
Loads has happened but because I can’t really tell much about it on this blog I’m giving you a really boring update!
Business seems to be going well, we’re funded and regulated so we can crack on.
Actually, my skills in the business have grown a lot. I’m enjoying making things and I’m getting better at it. I might invest more time into doing stuff like this, even though I understand it’s a terrible time to get into tech and I’m way too inexperienced to get any paid work out of it. It’s fun to make things that solve problems I actually have.
Fitness is slowly being regained. Slowly… but it’ll happen. Probably needs more conscious effort. For now, I’m content to be kind to myself and just make sure I’m getting in a few activities and trying not to over-indulge on the food.
My financial independence campaign continues!
