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

Progress on my goals

Boat plan

We’ve been given a completion timeline of second week in July for our boat to have finished her repairs and repainting in the boatyard. Exciting times!

We’re currently living in the Channel Islands and renting a room from my mother-in-law. She’s nice, but I’m pretty keen for our own space at this point, even if that space is a floating fibreglass box with wind catchers on it.

Payday!

Payday officially happened on Monday and my automated deposits into the Wealthify went as planned.

I’m still maintaining a savings rate of a little over 50%, which I’m happy with. That includes replacing the laptop with an iPad this week. This might get topped up at the end of the month, but it depends on how much money we spend picking up the boat.

Distractions and detours

Started “meditating”. Oh boy.

Last week I admitted to having a bit of a wobble with my mental health, not helped by having a night of drinking. Look, I’m not perfect, I don’t always do things in my own best interest.

Well, I decided to try out that Headspace app, on the recommendations of several people over the years that until now I’d completely ignored. We’ll see how that goes.

I replaced my dying laptop with an iPad

We don’t pay VAT here, so this was a lot cheaper than it could have been in the UK. Still, I wasn’t super happy to spend the money, even though this is actually a pretty sweet setup for me.

I’m typing this blog post in bed without the risk of overheating the device. That’s exactly the kind of setup I was hoping for!

There was a lot of internal debate about replacing a laptop with what is basically an oversized smartphone. I’m not sure it works in every situation, but given that I mostly use it for the internet, reading and signing electronic documents, blogging and the odd YouTube video in the background while I do chores, it works for me.

It also helps that we can use software and the GPS to act as a navigation aid for the boat. I’ll take as much navigational redundancy as I can get.

Non-FIRE goals

I have hit a temporary plateau in my guitar playing, which is quite normal given that I’ve been playing for four months. Not worried about it, just need to play a bit more.

The swimming pool that I use during the workday is shut for a couple of weeks. I’ll have to find some other cardio to do in that time. No biggie.

Archery has barely happened as work has been mental. The usual club members will be at the Island Games this month though, so I’m probably not going to pick this back up in earnest until August. C’est la vie.

My financial independence campaign continues!