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

Progress on my goals

Boat life

Nothing significant to report here, we’re basically hunkering up for winter.

Today’s task is to check the specs we’ve been sent by the replacement water tank manufacturer against the tank we removed before confirming the order.

When that’s done, we’re probably looking at February-March time to get the new tank here so we can plumb it in.

Kind of keen to move back to a fitted water situation after weeks of jerry cans, but I reckon spring 2025 could be Our Year(!).

Distractions and detours

End-of-year work sprint!

As happens at this time every year, corporate law has been a sprint to finish before Christmas.

This week has been long days, night times and waaay too much coffee, but it’s basically done now. A few more items to clear before New Year, but basically done.

This means that I haven’t had many distractions, although I did get time for…

Writing club

On Tuesday we met again for our writer’s group, all four of us!

Our stories are definitely getting better. We’re giving each other homework and writing prompts, so we’re actually getting serious practice in that we probably wouldn’t do without a bit of pressure. It’s also, you know, fun!

Last month’s writing prompts (i.e. this session’s homework) led me to write a steampunk/magic-realism short story. Not something I’d have done without the prompts, but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. The gang seemed to enjoy it and I practiced a few techniques and styles that I probably wouldn’t have played with previously.

If I get a bit of time this weekend, I’ll type it up and upload it here.

But yeah, the winner was one guy who’s writing a high fantasy story. I don’t want to ruin it in case he ever actually publishes it, but his writing is now getting really good and some of the plot devices he’s sneaking in are definitely intriguing.

Plus, you know, we’re writing regularly now. We’re actually writers instead of people who say they’ve got an idea for a story. So that feels cool.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

So guitar this week sucked.

Or, rather, I sucked. There was nothing wrong with the lesson, the difficulty of the piece or my teacher. It was all me.

We were trying to play the Dio song, Rainbow in the Dark, which is an awesome song that I really wanted to learn. I was looking forward to it!

With the last-minute pre-Christmas sprint at work came a shit ton of caffeine and late nights, so I hadn’t been practicing and I was over-stressed going into the lesson.

It felt like I was playing with someone else’s hands. I knew what I wanted to do but I couldn’t get even the most basic riff right.

My teacher got it, though, and we ended the day with a deliberately relaxing jam session over the top of a four chord backing track.

Fitness

Last week ended with a nine-mile run at sub-8 minute miles, because I was feeling fresh and it was a great Sunday to go running along the coast.

However, might have overdone it.

I’ve definitely done something to my plantar fascia – the weird tendon that’s at the bottom of your foot and goes to the big toe. It’s sore. That means I’ve got to work on flexibility for my calves and hamstrings a bit more because their tightness is putting pressure on the tendon.

This week I did a cycle followed by bodyweight exercises (pull ups/dips) and an elliptical trainer session followed by a lot of lower-body stretches.

It’s not the end of the world. I’ll just need to rest from running for a bit and do more low impact stuff (like that elliptical trainer). Not ideal, but I might be OK to get back out running in a few more days. Rest from running and a bit more stretching should sort things out.

My bigger concern is that I’m going to wean off caffeine for a few days to recover from my week of hard abuse. That hurts, dude!

Final thoughts

Well, sprint to finish of the year I guess!

This has come at an obvious cost to my fitness, health and wellbeing. It’s really obvious when I’m over-stressed at work, because everything measurable just becomes a bit crappy.

For the short-term it’s manageable.

This is however building up my FIRE investments pot, so I can’t exactly complain. The high stress of the job is the trade-off for the big financial rewards, and it’s those rewards that give me the surplus I need to generate the investment pot.

Well, over the worst of it now. Time to enjoy a cheeky mulled wine over the next week, which is the true meaning of Christmas.

To those of you who celebrate it: have a Merry Christmas!

To the rest of you: have a great holiday!

My financial independence campaign continues!