Thoughts and reflections form the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Boat plan
Tinkering with the electrics has revealed that:
- My wiring is actually on point!
- More than one of the switches/circuit breakers is just mechanically failing from being too damn old.
A lot of the reason these fail is because the breakers are also just the regular switches used most weeks. Dual use devices get dual use wear. They were fitted 22 years ago, I can’t really be upset that they need changing out.
So good news and bad news. It’s easily fixed and I’ve got an interim solution in place for everything, but I’ve also just spent £200 on new electrical replacement components because if some of the 22-year-old breakers are failing then it’s just a matter of time before the rest fail. Can’t trust them, need to switch those switches out.
Distractions and detours
AIM investment funds
This week I learned that several investment funds based in the Channel Islands are listed on AIM at a share price that’s substantially below their net asset value. I can’t reveal specifics because I learned this as inside information, but some of the companies appear to have cash on account that would allow them to completely redeem all their shares in cash before liquidating their investments. Which, if true, means that it would be a totally legitimate strategy to simply buy these shares and wait for the fund to be liquidated at the end of its life cycle for an essentially safe upside.
Obviously due to insider trading laws I can’t buy into my clients, but there’s no reason I can’t look at the publicly available information on their competitors and see if this is the same there. For a 10 year buy-and-hold strategy this might actually be a strong value play.
In case you’re wondering: most indices don’t include AIM, so you probably won’t get any exposure to them from a standard global index tracker.
Job applications
I have a not-interview-but-actually-an-interview coffee tomorrow with another law firm, and I’ve also had a not-interview and now submitted a formal application for a government job.
I’m more interested in the government one. It’s about catching white-collar criminals. That’s a cause I can get behind! It’s also a return to a leadership role and more operational than legal, so I’m hoping it will shake me out of the doldrums of working in my current firm and reduce (even if it can’t remove) the “Sunday Scaries” I get every weekend.
Plus, you know, government workers actually finish by 1800hrs most days. I’d probably enjoy having my evenings back, especially given that the pay is basically the same.
Writing club
My written assignment was super short this time, the story just seemed to come to a natural conclusion. I’d written it in second person (“You did [x]…”) so it’s hard to go on for very long!
We’ve added two new members to the group, who were obviously – being new – trying to suss us out and see what they could expect from us. I’m pretty confident that at least one of them will come back.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
Didn’t play guitar much last week and had to apologise to my tutor. He’s cool with it, I’m paying him after all, but something about not getting the practice in feels disrespectful. I don’t want to be that guy.
The reason was basically that I spent last weekend doing the essentials to settle back in to boat life, so it’s understandable and I can’t beat myself up over it.
We’re pressing on with Kansas for now. Need to get more practice in and speed up a bit so I can play along to the backing track. There’s a time signature change in the song so metronomes are going to be difficult to play to. Which is good, because I think metronomes are a total fun sponge, whereas backing tracks are way cool.
Fitness
Two decent training sessions in this week.
Not sure if I’m plateauing a little bit with the calisthenics. The workouts are designed with rings in mind and my gym has too low a ceiling to bring that kind of kit into play, but whatever. Maybe I’m just looking at the wrong metrics there?
In the second session, I did weighted pull-ups and dips, then some handstands. I’ve gotten to adding 15kg on my pull-us and dips, but that keeps me in the 3-6 rep range so it’s more of a strength builder than anything.
I’m still doing handstands facing the wall, but I can now do them for 10-20 seconds at a time. My technique is still a little crap and I think that’s an issue with my core strength which should improve with practice. Some of it might also be because I’m a little anxious about kicking up handstands in the gym and looking like a prat if I collapse onto the deck.
Anxiety doesn’t help!
Plan for today is to go for a long walk and maybe a sea swim now that it’s a bit warmer in the day. We’re going to take a picnic and make it a relaxing activity rather than a die-hard physical one, but I figure that being active generally is good for mobility and fat burning.
I also used the Bodytrax machine this week and it got my age exactly right. I’m not firmly in the “good” range (according to the machine) for body composition, but that’s still around 20-21% body fat and I can totally drop that fat percentage by sticking to my plan of strength training, being active on the weekends and eating a more veggie-heavy diet. It’s working for me, no need to change what’s working.
The thing that’s working for me is protein shakes as a breakfast supplement. I realised I needed something like 100-120g of protein a day to build muscle and stick to a calorie deficit. I’d used them briefly before when I was serving but never really liked the whey protein bloat that almost always came with them. This time though I’m using a vegan blend and now I feel a lot less hungry for sugars during the day. I think this has been a key contributor to the progress I’ve made in the last month or so, and because it’s basically rice and peas with some stevia added I don’t feel particularly bad if it’s just a big fat placebo.
Final thoughts
Boat life is going well, we’re on track even if we’re not sailing yet.
Soon… soon…
I don’t think I’ve made much direct progress on my FI plan this week., but indirectly I’m taking action to look for other jobs that either (a) pay better or (b) are more sustainable for me in the medium term. A change is as good as a rest, and I think I’ve been riding on the level of tolerance with my current job for several months now. If I’m not going to jump into self-employment just yet, I can at least try to change something up at work.
I’ll do a regain on guitar this week now that the immediate boat chores are out of the way and we can get back to normal life again. Well, our normal.
Fitness is going well at least – that’s important. Healthy people cost less and can do more, it’s vital that you take basic fitness at least semi-seriously. There’s no need to train like I do, but if you can’t walk (or wheel a wheelchair) for, say, five miles then you’re precluding yourself from a lot of post-FI adventures. If I can’t crank a winch, I can’t sail my boat, and the more physically capable I am the better I can withstand the demands of sailing.
My financial independence campaign continues!
