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

Progress on my goals

Boat life

Solar system / Sewing machine

Some of the parts for the solar set-up have arrived, so that’s pretty cool. I was hoping to play around with it this weekend but it looks like we’re going to the in-laws to do “family things” instead. All night, with an overnight stay. I probably don’t have the energy to do both!

Well, at least they have beer. There are worse days to sit outside with a cold one.

Nah, screw it. I might to a cheeky pre-fit in a minute, see how far I get with connecting the solar controller.

We bought the sewing machine from eBay at a princely £382. Ouch! On the other hand, when our neighbours found out about it the first things they said were “Absolutely the right thing to do” and “If you get good at that, you’ll pay your way around the world!”. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so timid about pulling the trigger on it?

I reckon that it’ll take us a few more weekends to get this stuff fitted. We’re not in any rush and there’s the possibility that we go sailing soon now that the weather is picking up. Gotta actually sail the damn boat..!

Payday!

I got paid! Hooray!

My payday is the 26th of the month and my broker doesn’t automate until the first. I’m not sure how I feel about this, it’s less than ideal trying to manage my money when the investments don’t automate for a few days. I might remove the automation for the deposits because it makes me antsy when I don’t have all my money allocated so that I’m just left with the slush fund/ in-use budget.

Didn’t think that was in my psychology, but there you go. Maybe I just like the dopamine hit of manually moving the investments into the account.

I’m conscious that with inflation I’m not actually saving that much, despite a pay rise. It’s getting harder and harder to put aside my investment budget each month. Vet bills, car repairs, increases in mooring fees, food costs… it’s adding up. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still OK, we’re in absolutely no real danger, but it’s irritating to watch as running costs eat into my savings rate. I was hoping that with a pay rise I’d be able to increase the savings by inflation, too, but no such luck.

Distractions and detours

Reading this week

I’m about 30% through The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. It took me a long time to get into this book, but I can confirm that the pace of development improves after the first, er, 20%.

That’s quite a lot of investment time and I don’t know for sure if I’ll read too many of his books. Maybe it gets better with the later ones, though?

So if you’re looking at reading that kind of book, definitely persevere. There’s a lot of novel world-building stuff hidden in there and it’s like a more accessible Dune.

That first Dune book was great. I couldn’t get through the second one but the first is worth a read.

Non-FIRE goals

My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)

This week we’re moving onto Lonely Boy by The Black Keys. I really like the song but it turned out that my guitar teacher had never heard of it.

I teased him about that for a good five minutes.

Anyway, the point of it is that it’s staccato, so it should make for a good timing exercise. The grade 3 version we’re working through isn’t technically complex but you have to be spot on with the rests to make the sound pop like it should.

My Positive Grid Spark Mini amp is having a bit of a shocker. The firmware needs updating, but that’s a faff for me to do so I haven’t done it. Now it’s throwing a tantrum and won’t connect to the app that allows me to configure the sounds. Gah, fine, I’ll get on it.

Fitness

My knee has recovered enough that I can cycle to work, provided that I don’t try to do too much standing to absorb shocks in the road. Basically, I can cycle like an old woman. Improvement but not sorted yet and I haven’t tried running on it.

I got a couple of 30-minute sessions on the elliptical trainer and it seemed OK on those as long as I don’t go too hard on it.

I’ve pushed on with the heavyweight calisthenics theory. It seems to be working for me. I’ll press on for the next couple of weeks and take stock, but I’m definitely getting stronger with it.

Actually, about results: it’s now been a month of no running and mainly upper body calisthenics work. I’ve been using the Bodytrax machine at my gym each month to see progress, and looking at my trends I saw very little evidence that the marathon training was working out for me after the first month. Conversely, this month, it reckons I’ve gained a lot of muscle in my core and dropped about 1% body fat. I was given the best overall score I’ve had in seven months, by a long way.

So I’m heavier, but more of it is useful weight.

It’s a little early to tell if that’s a blip, but it looks like my body is responding better to heavy calisthenics and just being a bit active on the weekends than it was to running four times per week including a 12+ mile weekend run. If that’s true, it’s mental. Train less, get better results?!

I’ve also been disciplined over the last two weeks with making packed lunches for work. That seems to be working out for me, it’s making the calorie control a bit easier (my two sandwiches come to around 600-700kcal depending on the toppings) and I actually feel fuller than eating Fridge Sandwich Variation no.3 from the shop.

Let’s hope this is the start of a trend of improvement!

Final thoughts

Progress is slow, but it’s clearly being made. The fitness improvement was an unexpected bit of good news this week and I’m hoping that’s not just a blip in the system or something.

I’m enjoying the calisthenics anyway. Maybe I’ll actually get to handstand press-ups by the end of the year?

Anyway, enough typing. If I’m quick I might get some work done on that solar charger…

My financial independence campaign continues!