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

Progress on my goals

Boat life

Solar system

We’re unsure if the Bimini is going to be the way forward. The actual frame is perfect for what we want to do, but it’s a little unclear if we need to build something using the frame and detachable brackets or if we can use the flexible panels as originally proposed.

It might be that we have to simply buy some panels and work it out.

Merino wool clothing trials

I’m calling the merino wool trial a success. I’ve added one more polo shirt and one more t-shirt from the same brand, but it’s been two weeks now and these things smell as fresh as the day I bought them.

We’ve definitely reduced one wash per week between us, easily.

I probably wouldn’t bother if I still lived in a house or in a flat of some kind. Ironing isn’t that big a deal for shirts, and t-shirts are like £8-10 unless you want something a bit cool.

Merino polo shirts have come in at £40 each, and t-shirts at £30. That’s not unreasonable, but it’s not cheap for what is basically plain clothing.

So it’s cost-effective for me to wear this stuff because of the savings at the laundrette and the time saving of ironing, but the cost-benefit balance might not work if you own a washing machine already.

Fabric repairs

I’m conscious that a lot of the minor repairs on our boat for just general wear-and-tear are basically a sewing task. The Bimini is worn out and needs either patching or replacing, the winter cockpit tent that we use has been (lovingly) patched already, our lazy jack/sail bag is basically a net at this point… and then we’d also like to have things such as cushions for when we’re chilling on the cockpit seats, which we do a lot.

So I’m thinking about getting a sewing machine and giving it a go myself. Sunbrella material is about £40 per metre, so it’s fairly affordable to buy, but getting anything like a bag for our lazy jacks/sail is going to cost us £1,500-£2,000 as an estimate. If we were to do it ourselves and screw it up several times we’d still be quids in.

We could take apart the bag we have and use that as a template, so it’s not like we need to learn a new design or create patterns.

Lady SierraWhiskyMike has been asking around and it turns out that a lot of our fellow sailors are doing the same thing. We don’t have a big enough marine industry here where we can just go to the chandlery and find these soft furnishings pre-made, so you need to be a bit self-sufficient.

We’re going to check eBay over the coming weeks for a suitable machine.

Distractions and detours

The Glory of Rome!

A developer called the Feral Assembly has spent some serious time taking the Total War games from my childhood and putting them onto the Apple Store for my iPad.

I can confirm that Rome: Total War is still fantastic after all these years. There’s just something about the combination of grand strategy and tactical gaming that ticks the dopamine box for me.

So I’ve been wasting my time chilling out with that this week. I think I paid a tenner for the game and its expansion.

Video games might be seen as a bad habit, but they’re also cost-efficient entertainment and I generally prefer them to watching Netflix or something passive like that. I don’t find that they ever distract from my reading time and I tend to find it easy to prioritise my more constructive uses of time over them, so I haven’t found them harmful to my quality of life or anything. As consumption goes, not the worst.

Reading this week

Lady SierraWhiskyMike finally reciprocated and shared her Kindle library with me a couple of weeks ago. After all these years of marriage, she’s finally learning to share!

That’s not actually fair. She thought she’d shared everything with me, but hadn’t clicked the right buttons on her account so it only shared the new stuff with me and not anything she’d bought before agreeing to content sharing.

Anyway, this week I’ve started reading Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives series. So far, so good. There’s a lot of random world-building thrown into the first two chapters and that was a bit of a turn-off, but after persevering with the opening chapters the narrative is starting to come through and I’m pretty confident that I’ll at least finish reading the first book.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

The second week of You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC.

I’m not far off where I need to be for this guitar teacher adaptation. My task this week has been to practice playing it along to the backing music supplied. It’s… fast.

Or at least it feels fast, because I’m not a particularly advanced guitarist.

More practice time required I think.

Fitness

Running is still off the menu so it’s now official that I’m not going to do this marathon.

Well, I could just moan about it, or I could try to do what I can do. Given the option, I’m going for the latter.

This week I’ve been to the gym twice (not as many times as I’d like) and made a point of getting more steps in to build up my weak knees. I’ve switched to training core and upper body while my legs are on recovery (and they’ll probably be out of action another couple of weeks).

In and around doing pull-ups, dips, bench press and curls, I’ve added in a few minor calisthenics exercises like frog sits (where you basically rest your knees on your elbows and support yourself on just your hands) and planche leans (which is a beginners progression towards a planche, i.e. a plank but where you just use your arms to support yourself body).

I’m not setting a goal of it, but I’d like to progress towards handstands and actual planche, purely as party tricks and something to do that’s a bit of fun in an otherwise repetitive gym routine.

I think being able to do a few calisthenics tricks would be cool. I have no visions of becoming a gymnast at age 37, but there’s an element of play involved in doing weird body weight movements so I’d like to do that.

Final thoughts

I think with the solar rig I’m just going to have to do a bit of trail and error. Might order half the set up, trial that, then expand after a successful trial.

Lady SierraWhiskyMike and I know that sewing and fabric repairs will be in our future. Whether that’s me doing it, her doing it, or a combination of both of us, I think it’s a much better option than paying £2,000 for a replacement sail bag and however-much-it-will-cost to replace a Bimini and/or cockpit tent. Plus, you know, new skills.

I’ve rebounded from my running injury and at least kept up some fitness. It’s not where I want to be – knee injuries significantly restrict cardio – but I can start incorporating things like the elliptical trainer and walking over the next couple of weeks and then build back up to distance running again over summer.

My financial independence campaign continues!