What I’ve been up to in the last week.
Progress toward my goals
My savings rate was pretty awesome again
I’m pleased to announce that it’s payday and once again (despite a festival) I managed to maintain a 50%+ savings rate this month.
Notable costs included attending Download festival and going out for dinner quite a few times.
I ended the month with a fair bit in my current account but my laptop fans are basically no longer working (they’ve already been replaced previously) and it’s time to replace her with a different device. She’s had a hard life. The surplus from last month and my discretionary budget this month will take care of that.
Boat plan update
We also received an update from the boatyard that our boat has been fibreglass repaired and is now in the painting bay. That’s pretty awesome.
Mid-year review
I’ve written my 2023 mid-year campaign plan review, which publishes this week. Things have really changed direction in the last six months, I didn’t think I would make so many big adjustments this year.
Distractions and detours
So this week I had a pretty big mental health fuck up.
There’s actually no better way of addressing it than swearing, because it was pretty bad.
It’s no surprise to regular readers that I work in a high stress field. That’s primarily because I wanted to generate a big ol’ savings rate for my FI campaign.
Well, there’s a cost to that: stress levels are high when we get busy. And we’ve definitely been busy at work.
What’s a really bad idea when you’re stressed? Too many beers.
Unfortunately, what does every “professional” event centre around? Yup. Beers. So we rushed all week to free up Friday afternoon for enforced drinking.
I’m proud to say that I made it mostly home before the effects took over. No loss of face in public, at least. However, a hangover with added mood swings is a terrible thing. Not ideal. Saturday was a complete write-off and although I’m recovered from the alcohol the meat computer in my head is now just sad.
Even having spent Sunday at the beach, I’m now sat here with completely irrational anxiety.
Mental health is no joke. I’m going to abstain from beers for a few weeks and try to get my head back in order, but this isn’t healthy. If this situation repeats then I might rethink down my career option. There are other ways to make money.
Ugh. Bit personal for me, but the great thing about an anonymous blog is that I can say whatever I want with limited repercussions.
I don’t know if any of you guys are prone to mood swings when you’re stressed, but you’ll probably relate to beer being A Bad Idea on those times.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar teacher showed me a basic technique for working out chord progressions by ear. It’s obvious when you think about it, but when you’re new to an instrument the obvious isn’t always that obvious.
I’m also reading Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography.
My partner and I had a play around with ChatGPT this week. Worth a look if you haven’t seen it. I don’t rate its accuracy too highly but for bulk copywriting tasks it’s brilliant. I’m really keen to see if I can build some kind of side hustle off it, but that’s for when I have a bit more time on my hands. Right now? Not so much!
My financial independence campaign continues…
