June Update, Goal Setting and an Epic Road Trip

The weeks and months are flying by. I’m long overdue a bit of a catch up on how I did on my June goals. I’ll not bother making excuses about why I haven’t updated how I got on or set goals for July. Suffice it to say I spent a fair chunk of July on holiday, spending time with the kids and having lots of lovely family time, rather than worrying too much about what I needed to achieve. So here’s a quick reminder on what my June goals were, along with how I did with them.

• Get 7 hours sleep a night for at least 15 nights. PASS. I managed to do this 18 nights in June. I seem to be getting in to a bit of a better sleeping pattern. Honestly I’m still feeling quite tired most of the time, so I’m not entirely convinced seven hours a night is enough for me, but at least it’s a start.
• Have 5 portions of fruit or veg a day for at least 15 days. PASS. Seventeen days in June I managed my five a day. I seem to be much more focussed on this now. I’m still eating a lot of rubbish, but at least I’m getting some vitamins now.
• Do 15 days of Spanish on Duolingo. PASS. I’m going great guns on this one. I’m on a 70 day streak now and hopeful that this will just keep on going. I’ve also introduced German into the mix now which is messing with my mind. I’m definitely loving the language learning, so this is one I want to continue to plug away at.
• Get promoted to the gold league on Duolingo. PASS. I totally smashed this one. The gold league is far away in my rear view mirror. I’ve been in the Ruby league for a good few weeks now, which is the top league.
• Earn £100 on Matched Betting. FAIL. Oh well, it’s always good to leave something to work on for next month. Shame it was this one, but it really just wasn’t a focus for me in June. I made £43.73 profit once I’d covered the cost of my Oddsmonkey subscription. So it’s better than nothing, but it’s hardly going to get me to FIRE at this rate. I’m not too downhearted though as it seems to me that it’s quite likely matched betting will be something that I can dip in and out of as my mood and free time allows. I don’t mind spending time on it, and I am definitely still learning how to make the most of this income stream, so hopefully moving forward it is something I can improve on.

So overall not too bad a result for June. I’d kept my goals pretty basic. I realised that I needed to get the eating and sleeping stuff right to have energy for everything else that I want to do. I still wouldn’t say I’m quite where I need to be on that yet, but I’m definitely moving in the right direction.

August Goals

Now comes the tricky bit. Goal setting for August. I’ve got the Great North Run at the start of September, so I really need to start getting some miles in my legs. Unfortunately I’ve picked up another injury, so I’ve had to rest and am nowhere near where I want to be mileage wise.

My supposedly good knee gave up on me, so I was hobbling about with a decided lack of mobility. This happened right before our road trip, so the timing couldn’t have been worse. Any time I had to bend my knee I had a real problem. So stairs and changing gear were real issues. Just what you need on a road trip where you need to do all the driving! Luckily I was managing to walk about ok, and it gave me a small insight into what it must be like for people with a real disability. I was looking at the world slightly differently, searching for alternatives that wouldn’t mean me having to use stairs.

So for now I just have to be a bit careful. I’ve run through an injury before and have learned my lesson the hard way that continuing to run only extends your recovery time. So I’m being good and have rested and am now building the miles back up very gradually. I really need to make sure I do my physio exercises. They’re so boring, but so necessary. I have a race towards the end of August and two half marathons in September, so fingers crossed that I’m fit enough by then. It’s so frustrating that I had only just done my first long run training for the Great North Run when I got injured. But such is life. I maybe need to get myself a back-up hobby in case this body of mine doesn’t hold up to the rigours of running indefinitely.

So goal wise for August things are going to revolve around health and running.

• Lose half a stone. This will help with my running no end, and it’s something I want to get really serious about.
• Get 8 hours of sleep 2 nights a week and 7 hours a night 3 nights a week. The other 2 nights I’m not too worried about. I’ve got loads of sleep whilst I’ve been on holiday, and I’m definitely feeling better for it. This will be a tough one for me once I get back to work, but I really need to keep to this.
• Do my physio exercises 5 days a week. This one is vital, so I need to stick to it.
• Do cross training once a week – swimming, yoga or walking. This one should hopefully be ok to achieve, I just need to find a slot for it in my schedule.
• Decide on where I’m going to put my dividend money when it gets paid next month. I’ve stopped them being automatically reinvested, and instead am going to put them in to index trackers. I just need to figure out the specifics on this.

So I think that’s probably enough to be working on. There’s no reason why I can’t achieve these. I’ve piled the weight on over the holidays, so I need to do something about that pronto. It’s got to the point where I can’t ignore it anymore. There are other things I’ll continue to work on, such as studying Spanish, but that’s pretty much a habit I’ve got established now, so doesn’t need too much thinking about. I’ll keep plugging away at the Matched Betting. July was a bit better for that, but I’m not too concerned about setting a specific goal around that. I’m happy to do as much as my free time dictates and that I have the inclination for.

Holidays are the Best

It’s been great being on holiday. I had a week off where the kids were away and I was just home alone. That gave me plenty of reflection time, which is always useful. The road trip around England and Wales was a lot of fun. We returned to places that we’d enjoyed before, and put some new places in the mix too. We had a chance for some culture, seeing Hamlet in a pop up theatre in York and some more Shakespeare in Stratford upon Avon. The weather was great too, which always helps. I even managed to fit in a catch up with a friend who lives down south.

I couldn’t help thinking whilst I was away that this could be how my life will look like once I reach FIRE. Taking time to visit places, see old friends, make time for some studying and generally just enjoying life. Saying that, I was glad to get home and sleep in my own bed again. I’m not sure I’d necessarily be wanting to travel all the time. Maybe slow travel would work for me so I had a chance to settle in to a place. As we were staying in budget hotels we didn’t have any cooking facilities, so we had to eat out a fair bit. I have to say it’s nice to be back to home cooked meals again, although we did have a couple of cracking meals out.

Time to Ponder

Being away definitely gave me time to think about changes that I want to make in my life. I’ve not really come to any definite conclusions, but I’m pretty sure I want to rejig things a little bit. I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut, and I need to mix things up a bit. I did that thing last year where you say yes to everything (within reason, I wouldn’t be doing anything illegal or morally ambiguous) and that worked pretty well for me. I think I’ll instigate that again. I’ve already started to say yes to some fun things. I’m going to see a couple of things at the festival. It’s ridiculous how close I live to Edinburgh and how little I take advantage of the fringe being on. I’m climbing a Munro next weekend too, which looks like a good (If quite long and tiring) day out.

So hopefully I’ll start to have a bit more fun in my life. I’ve been pleasantly surprised about the amount of experiences that we managed to have on our road trip without spending a fortune. We visited York, Cardiff, Stratford and Sheffield. We shared a family room which kept the costs down, but we also ate out every day. We had a couple of theatre visits and a live streaming of a concert at a lovely Picture House in Stratford. There were also plenty of free things on offer. So we walked the city walls in York, went to the (free and excellent) National Museum in Cardiff, saw some outdoor improvised Shakespeare, did some geocaching in Cardiff, with a phenomenal multi-cache that took us a return visit the next day to finish off and had  some lovely walks in Stratford.

I’m not Broke Yet

Despite the expense of the trip, the budgets are all still balancing, and the finances look ok. So maybe it’s time to loosen the purse strings just a little bit. It’s been lovely having some new experiences, and there’s no reason why that can’t continue now that we’re back home. I’m well and truly coming to the conclusion that you’re a long time dead, and you have to make the most of your time on this earth. I’m clearly a slow learner, as you’d have thought I’d have figured this out by now.

I’m also continuing to explore side hustles, trying to bring extra income in to my life to get me ever closer to my FIRE goal. I feel that I just need to open my mind a bit more to the possibilities that are out there. I guess that’s the good thing about going away and distancing yourself from your normal life. It really gives you the chance to examine your life and think about how differently you could have it set up. I honestly think that a portfolio career is the way to go. Not being too dependent on any one source of income has got to be a sound philosophy. If work goes belly up then you’ve got other income streams that could pick up the slack. I’m definitely nowhere near there yet, but my dividends are starting to grow, my Matched Betting is bringing a bit in (with the possibility of more I’m sure) and my mind is swirling with thoughts of what else I could do.

So all in all going away has been a really positive experience. We’ve had some lovely family time, it’s given me a chance to catch up on some sleep and most importantly it’s given me the space and time to start to see the possibilities that are all around me. As ever the challenge is going to be to keep the momentum going once I get back to work and the holiday is over.