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

Progress on my goals

I spent this week being distracted by going to a festival. It’s fair to say that progress was quite minimal this week.

My buddies and I spoke about FIRE back at the camp site. It turns out that two out of the five of us are on the financial independence campaign, but approaching it from different angles.

You know all about what I’m doing, so that’s one of the two approaches.

Meanwhile, B [real name redacted, obviously] told me about his own plan. His long-term partner is talking seriously about having kids, so his plan centres around CoastFIRE too – but mainly via his pension.

As far as I can tell, B doesn’t intend to give up his career when he reaches CoastFIRE. He didn’t have a “FI number”. Instead, he just wants to maximise investment now so that when they decide to have a baby he can pretty much dedicate his wages to his family without worrying so much about the future.

Our approaches are quite similar in that we’re going for CoastFIRE as our main objective, but the difference is that B will continue to develop his career while I plan to travel and earn what I need to sustain that instead. It was pretty cool to hang out with someone who has similar goals and to bounce ideas around.

Distractions and detours

I went to Download Festival at Donington Park this week. Two main observations:

  • Metal music and hard rock fans make for the best festival atmosphere; but
  • Prices at festivals in the UK are ludicrous.

It’s a sad fact of the festival scene that most experiences are monetised. Heavily.

Good examples include “premium showers and toilets” and water in a can priced at £2.60 a go.

However, I had been saving up towards this with small amounts each month and this has allowed me to keep my investments mainly on track. You have to live a little sometimes.

The festival was great this year!

Non-FIRE goals

We closed a major deal at work so the pressure seems to be off me at work for now. Which is important, because I could do with more guitar practice.

I think I sort-of have the Grade 5 version of Sweet Child O’ Mine down now, but it’s shaky and there are tons of mistakes.

My partner set up an Instagram account for the boat, which is doing ridiculously well for how little stress it was. We might try and do something with it, who knows?

My financial independence campaign continues!