But Won’t You Get Bored?

It’s over three months now since I took my redundancy and stopped being a wage slave. So how have I been spending my time? And as quite a few people asked me when they heard I was leaving – have I got bored yet? I’ll come to that – but spoiler alert – er no – why on earth would I get bored? I had a good few months to get used to the idea of leaving work. That gave me plenty of time for planning and starting to think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. To be perfectly honest the rest of my life is very much still a work in progress – but I think I can probably live with that.

I was effectively on gardening leave for a couple of months, and I knew I was leaving for a good bit before that, so there was plenty of time for planning. Being the control freak that I am I immediately set up a OneNote document with about a million tabs. I started with the money side of things making sure that I hadn’t messed up my figures and in actual fact I was about to become destitute. After about a million checks and getting one of my mathematically blessed offspring to double check my figures I was happy that the money was looking good. Tight, but good. Without downsizing I probably didn’t have enough to give up work completely, but I certainly didn’t need to get another ‘proper’ job, and I could definitely afford to take a good bit of time off completely. I’m not even thinking about it until after the summer.

I’m not quite ready to sell the house just yet. Both the kids are off at uni, but I want somewhere big enough for them to come back to as and when they want or need to. So for now I’m rattling around in a four bedroom house on my own. This seemed slightly less ridiculous when I used one of the bedrooms for working from home, but just now it does seem somewhat extravagent. Come summer time though I’m very grateful for the extra bedrooms and bathrooms. So for now I’ll stay where I am, keep having a mortgage to pay and I’ll need to pick up some sort of work at some point. Knowing that this work can be part time, perhaps just for part of the year and really doesn’t need to bring all that much in really takes the pressure off.

Once I was happy with the financial side of things then my mind turned to my environment. I found myself wanting to get my home sorted. I gave my house a really good deep clean, finished off the decorating that I hadn’t quite got around to since I moved in about eight years ago and generally had a really good sort out of things. I’m not a big one for lots of cleaning. I do enough to keep it hygienic, but if I’m doing more than that then it’s usually something going on in my life that’s worrying me. It never lasts long, and sure enough I’m long since back to doing the bare minimum.

Next my mind turned to how I will spend my time. Yet more tabs on my OneNote document. There’s loads of stuff that I love to do with my time and work always just got in the way of that. I really didn’t have any worries about getting bored, but I came up with a massive list of possible activities anyway. As so many of the things I love to do involve being active then my main worry was what I would do if I got injured and couldn’t run or walk. Luckily I also love to read, study and generally hang out listening to podcasts and watching the odd bit of Netflix.

I came up with places I wanted to visit locally and activities that I could do that would be free or low cost. I even wrote a list of activities for rainy days. Well I do live in Scotland after all! I have to say I don’t think I’ve opened that document once since I finished up work. I think I needed to put it together for my own peace of mind and to start my thought process, but my days just seem to plan themselves and I’m certainly not bored.

I was a bit worried about the social side of things. I was working from home previously, so it’s not like I had colleagues I was seeing daily, but I did have video meetings with them for a bit of social interaction. Also as a mortgage advisor I was spending a fair bit of my day talking to customers. These were long calls, so I always tried to get a bit of proper chat with them. I quite liked spending time talking with my customers. Not all of them clearly, but with most of them I was able to make a connection of some sort. The customer side is not why I ended up disliking my job so much. I had got to the point where I couldn’t even pretend to play the game any more. Office politics is just the worst. And I definitely don’t miss the working till 9 o’clock at night and the Saturday shifts.

Turns out I don’t miss my colleagues nearly as much as I thought I would. I literally never think about my old work. Things that seemed so important just a few months ago are just not even close to being on my radar. I’ve met up with someone I’ve worked with for the last ten plus years a couple of times since I’ve finished up. When she was complaining about how bad work is I totally zoned out. It’s much easier to see things clearly from the outside and see how little these things really matter.

I’m not quite sure I’ve got the social side of things sussed just yet. I’ve been with my boyfriend for a couple of years now but I’ve been very clear with him that I’m not interested in living together. We see each other every weekend and talk a couple of times a day and that’s enough for me. It’s hard when you’ve been single a long time to contemplate a full on living together scenario. And then there’s the whole financial side of things. I’ve worked very hard to get myself to semi-FIRE, but I’ve only got enough to support myself. The idea of shared finances absolutely terrifies me. I think that’s probably a whole other blog post though!

Most of the time during the week it’s me on my own. Luckily I like my own company, but I do know that I sometimes start to struggle if I don’t see people enough. For now it’s fine, but it’s definitely something for me to keep an eye on. It would be really easy to get isolated, particularly if I got injured and couldn’t run. I have three main friends locally that I run with. We do go out and do other things too, but predominantly running is our thing. They’re really good friends, but it’s easy to get out of the loop if you can’t run for a while due to injury.

My last day at work was 10^th December. This was really nice timing as it just felt like I was having a really early start to Christmas. I baked mince pies, made and decorated a Christmas cake and we’ll not even talk about the number of calories in the pre-Christmas nutella cheesecake I made with my son’s partner. I had a trip down to Newcastle to stay with my sister and nephew at the end of my first week of freedom. Rather fortuitously my nephew had a holiday job working in Fenwick department store in Newcastle as a Christmas elf. He arranged for myself and my sister to visit Santa in his grotto, decorate Christmas plates, have festive snacks and generally behave like little exited children. It was epic.

I had booked a beginner navigation course for that weekend too. It felt an apt time to learn how to navigate with a map and compass. Up until now the ultra marathons that I’ve done have all been fully marked, but really to progress to other races I need to be able to find my way around old school. I was definitely only ever going to do one ultra, but as I’ve already done three I think it’s safe to say there’s more of these in my future. The course was in Hamsterley Forest in County Durham. I did parkrun before the course started. (Fabulous, but hilly, hilly, hilly!) I met up with the course leader and the other women on the course. We were a small group and it was a fabulous day. I learned loads and have since been out and about honing my skills in my local area. There’s still lots more for me to learn so I’m going to book on to the intermediate course later in the year.

After the weekend I didn’t have to rush back for work on the Monday, so I stayed on and my sister took the Monday off for us to have a day trip to Durham. I hadn’t been there for decades probably, and we had a fabulous time exploring the city. As I still didn’t have to get back for work I stopped off to stay with my folks in Northumberland and caught up with them. It was a great way to start enjoying my freedom. I eventually headed home to start the Christmas eating. My eldest came home with his partner for a week before Christmas, so I was able to spend plenty of time with them. We got some lovely walks in, cooked some great food and generally just chilled out without having to worry about work.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel after Christmas when everybody started heading back to work. Yeah, I really didn’t need to worry about that. Turns out I am perfectly suited to not working. It felt a little bit weird to begin with, but I quickly got over myself and embraced the freedom. So how have I been spending my time? I don’t have unlimited money (understatement of the century) so I can’t afford to be travelling all the time. Not to mention that I don’t think being away from home all the time would necessarily suit me. Saying that I do have a fabulous summer planned with various trips in the diary. I really like the idea of lots of shorter trips rather than one massive extended trip.

In February I took a trip to the big smoke. My eldest has moved on from Cambridge to London for his post-Grad studying. I was long overdue a visit to see his set up down there so booked tickets for a trip. Rather ridiculously it was much cheaper to fly than get the train, so I flew to Gatwick and jumped on the Thameslink and then the tube to Stratford where his halls are. I’d booked a nice and handy cheap and cheerful Travelodge for the week. I had a great time catching up with him. We saw the sights, I was like a local dodding about on the Tube, went to the National Portrait Gallery, had a fabulous time at the Van Gough Immersive Experience and my son made me his world famous macaroni cheese. He’s staying on in London to do his PHD, so he’ll be down there for a good few years now, so I’ll definitely be back to see him.

The time since I finished work has gone very quickly. A couple of trips away, a fabulous Christmas and generally just having a lovely relaxing time. It’s been great not to have to rush and get things done. I think I’m probably still getting used to a new rhythm to my life. It’s really tempting to try and dive into things and get them done as quickly as you can. Now though I have the luxury of taking my time with things and really making the most of the experiences that come along.

Winning the Redundancy Lottery and Semi-Retiring

There’s been a lot happening since I last posted. Most notably I’ve stopped working. For now anyway. Around the middle of last year there was an announcement of a very important meeting the next day that we mustn’t miss. There was a fair amount of speculation about what the subject matter might be. I was the only one who seemed to think that redundancies might be involved. Rather tellingly this made me incredibly excited. I worked out some tentative figures about how much redundancy I would get with my 24 years of service. My spreadsheets were well and truly scrutinised to see what this lump sum would mean for my FIRE journey. I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about the possibilities. I think that probably tells you all you need to know about how enthusiastic I was about my job.

The next morning I signed on before my shift was due to start ready for the meeting. It was my boss’s boss who was taking the Teams meeting, which was scheduled to last 15 minutes. She came on camera and announced that she would be reading a prepared script and wouldn’t be taking any questions. Sure enough it was redundancies being announced. Ten per cent of the mortgage advisors and managers nationwide were going to be made redundant. Voluntary redundancy wasn’t going to be offered, but rather your manager would rate you and the bottom ten per cent would be made redundant. The meeting finished and we were then supposed to immediately go back to speaking to customers.

I had a meeting with my manager and I made it very clear that I was incredibly keen to leave. She basically had to pick two of her team to get rid of so she was in a horrible position, whilst also hoping that she would keep her own job. Hopefully the fact that she had one of her team desperate to go made that slightly easier for her. There was then a period of a few months where the managers were all doing their gradings of us and we were continuing to work as normal.

Eventually announcement day came around. Honestly it felt like Christmas morning. I’d looked at my figures over and over again and knew that ideally I needed another couple of years working before the redundancy would be enough for me to be at a very frugal FIRE. I also knew that I was at the end of my tether with this particular job and organisation and it was time to go. Much better to go with a nice big redundancy payment in my pocket rather than just quitting.

I dialled in to the meeting with my boss. I couldn’t stop smiling when she told me that unfortunately I had been unsuccessful in securing my role. I would be supported in trying to find another job internally and was officially at risk of redundancy. If neither the business or me found another job within the bank then I would be made redundant. I was really nervous that I would be found another role and wouldn’t get to leave. Another meeting followed with senior management for everybody within the department at risk of redundancy. They basically said that they’d already looked for suitable roles for us all and there were none and if nothing became available within the next month then we would be made redundant. In the meantime we were to continue working as normal.

Eventually the crucial date passed and I knew that I was guaranteed redundancy. They moved us all in to new teams for everybody who was being made redundant. There were lots of people who hadn’t seen this coming, had lots of debts, no savings and needed their monthly salary to survive. They were really not in a good place. That would have been me if I hadn’t discovered FIRE.

I spent a lot of my time over the next few months planning my future. I had a really good starting point with doing my net worth every month. I knew where I was financially, but I needed to figure out what my finances looked like now that I wasn’t working until 60, but rather finishing up at 54. The penalties are so great if I take my pension before 60 that it’s really not worth doing. So I need to get myself from 54 to 60. Luckily when I looked at my spreadsheets I realised that 60 years old and onwards was sorted already. I just needed to get myself through to age 60.

There had been lots of talk about the redundancy package possibly changing at some point in the future, but luckily no changes had been made yet. I was very glad that it was still at the same level – a month for every year of service. So for me that would be around £77k – obviously with tax to come off this. I’ve basically worked out how long I can afford to live off this and how much I need to earn to survive until I’m 60 and can take my work pension. I was really happy to see that I won’t need to get a ‘proper’ job. I reckon a part time minimum wage job would probably do it. That’s not necessarily how I’m going to play it – but it’s nice to know that’s all I need to do.

I’ve got a few options. So I could try and get a job at a similar level of pay as before and work for another few years and then stop work completely. I could get some contracting work and only work part of the year. Or I could do something part time that hopefully I would quite enjoy and just keep doing that up to age 60 or even beyond. If I could do that part time work on a self-employed basis where I’m in control then all the better. There’s certainly lots to think about. Either way I’m not in any rush to get back to work. My first day of freedom was 11^th December 2024 and I’m not even thinking about work until after the summer. I really need a break and to think about what I want to do with my life. It would be far too easy to rush back into what I know, even though that’s what I’ve been desperate to escape.

So for now I’m relaxing into my new life. It still feels like early days, although it has been three months. I’m not rushing into making any big decisions, although it is now starting to feel as though the time for exploring my options in a bit more detail is starting to arrive. So have I reached FIRE? Probably not quite. But I would definitely say I’m at semi FIRE if that’s a thing. I’m definitely classing myself as semi-retired, as anything I do now will be to a certain extent optional. I refuse to feel trapped in a job again. I will work again, but it will be on my terms, and always with the knowledge that I can walk away at any time. And that’s the benefit of FIRE in a nutshell.

April 2023 and I emerge from my blogging hibernation.

It’s been a while. I’m not really sure why. I guess I got busy with life and could never quite be bothered to get round to writing a blog post. That’s not to say that I’ve not been thinking about FIRE, as I most definitely have. I’ve also been doing my net worth each month. I’ve got past the point where I sit and stare at my spreadsheets for hours on end. Just as well really. I’m not sure that was entirely healthy! So I see that I haven’t done a monthly review since July 2022. Let’s rectify that now. I’ll just leave July 22 figures in brackets below so we can see how far (or not!) I’ve come.

I’ve got my Defined Benefits Pension in there based on twenty years worth of money if I start drawing it at 60. I track how I’m doing with my mortgage balance compared to my AVC balance. The reason for this is th

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at I made a decision to mostly stop overpaying my mortgage. Instead I use that extra money to put more into my AVC fund. So hopefully I’ll start to see my AVC fund increase in value and more slowly my mortgage balance come down until they meet at some point and I have enough in my AVC fund to clear my mortgage when I retire. That’s the plan anyway.

Debts

Mortgage £82,182.25 (£86,135.23)

Assets

Cash £18,209.79 (£23,116.56)

Defined Benefits £144,537 (£137,586)

AVC’s £27,261.04 (£20.676.23)

Shares £95,774.00 (£82,838.98)

House £297,000(£278,089)

Total £582,781.83 (£542,306.77)

Net Worth including house equity

£575,830.83– £82,182.25 = £500,599.58( £456,171.54)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£ 27,261.04– £ 82,182.25= -£54,921.21 (-£65,459)

It really is slow going. The figures are definitely going in the right direction, but I don’t think I’ll be stopping work any time soon. I’m doing what I can though. I’m continuing to put as much into my AVC fund as I can afford to. This is the first month that I’ve had to stop paying into my Vanguard tracker fund. I don’t have enough spare cash now to pay into both my AVC fund and my Vanguard account. So moving forward I’m just going to be dependent on what I’ve already paid in growing. I’ll still be putting £30 a month into my work shares as they match my £30 for £45 free shares each month. That’s too good to pass up.

My cash is really as low as I’m comfortable with it being. I have £14k in savings and the rest floating about in various current accounts. I’ve simplified my budgeting massively. Instead of having set amounts for different budgets each month I now have a spreadsheet with my disposable income at the top and every time I spend anything it comes off my available balance for the month. I do squirrel money away as and when I can towards known future expenses – and yes car I am talking about you. A £1500 garage bill nearly finished me off this month, but luckily I had put some to one side for it. The perils of a 12 year old car. My plan is still just to run it into the ground.

I’d gone through a real post lockdown phase of saying yes to absolutely everything. Whilst that’s incredibly good for your social life it does somewhat kill your bank balance. Saying that I’m trying to balance reaching retirement before I’m too old to enjoy it with having a good time now.

Away from the finances things are going pretty well. The ultra that I talked about last year as being too far away to worry about is now rather disturbingly next week. 47 miles up and down hills and around Lake Windemere. It should be fantastic. I’ve done the training. It’s nearly killed me, but it’s done. I’m tapering now, which perhaps explains how I have time to sit down and write a blog post! I go from total optimism to thinking I’m completely crazy to contemplate doing such a thing. I’m going to take not getting airlifted to hospital and finishing the race as a success. We’ll see!

In other news I’ve got myself a boyfriend/partner/partner in crime, whatever you want to call him. We’re 5 months in and it’s going very well. I’ve clearly got to a certain age, as I met him at a funeral! In my defence we knew each other years ago and just hadn’t seen each other for a very long time. So I wasn’t cruising a funeral to pick up random men! It’s a bit surreal but very nice to be in a relationship after all this time. He even used to run and I’ve encouraged him back down that road with lots of trips to parkruns.

Both of the kids are now off at uni, although I think it’s likely the youngest will be back living at home next academic year due to a lack of affordable housing. It’s great to see them both making their way in the world. They’ve definitely inherited the frugal gene that’s for sure. I keep banging on at them about getting money invested as soon as they start working so compounding can do its thing and they can retire when they’re young if they want to.

All in all things are ticking along very nicely. My figures continue to go in the right direction, albeit with certain dips thanks to the turbulent markets. My cunning plan to get my AVC fund to a point where I will be able to pay off my mortgage seems to be working. I’ll be fine to retire at 60, and maybe with a prevailing wind even a year or so earlier. Fingers crossed!

July 2022

I didn’t do a June review. No excuses, I just couldn’t be bothered. It seems to be a bit of a common theme. The figures in brackets are from May.

As usual I’ve got last month’s figures in brackets for comparison. I’ve got my Defined Benefits Pension in there based on twenty years worth of money if I start drawing it at 60. I track how I’m doing with my mortgage balance compared to my AVC balance. The reason for this is that I made a decision to mostly stop overpaying my mortgage. Instead I use that extra money to put more into my AVC fund. So hopefully I’ll start to see my AVC fund increase in value and more slowly my mortgage balance come down until they meet at some point and I have enough in my AVC fund to clear my mortgage when I retire. That’s the plan anyway.

Debts

Mortgage £86,135.23 (£87,006.60)

Assets

Cash £23,116.56 (£24,780.48)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £20.676.23 (£19,912.26)

Shares £82,838.98 (£82,037.05)

House £278,089 (£278,089)

Total £542,306.77 (£542,404.79)

Net Worth including house equity

£542,306.77 – £86,135.23 = £456,171.54 (£455,398.19)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£20,676.23 – £86,135.23 = -£65,459 (-£67,094.34)

My cash seems to be dwindling month on month. I’m spending more than I should be, but I’m having a nice time doing it. I don’t think I’m being massively extravagant, but I am making sure I get out there and do things. I’ve got more cash than is really sensible anyway. My books don’t really balance just now on my incomings vs my outgoings. A terrible state of affairs really, but I’m loath to reduce the amount I’m investing each month. For now I’ll just to continue to reduce my savings slightly each month in this way. Inflation is eating away at them anyway, so I feel like I might as well have some nice experiences to show for it.

All in all things are pretty similar to what they looked like in May. Of course June was horrendous, so it’s nice to see the markets recovering a bit and my figures bouncing back. It feels like it’s going to be a long road to FIRE just now. I’m mentally adjusting my retirement age. I’m trying to persuade myself that if I need to work till 59 or 60, which is looking increasingly likely, that it won’t be the end of the world.

I hadn’t set myself any goals as I wanted to concentrate on the Ultra that I had in July. I’m happy to report that I successfully completed the 55km race comfortably within the cut off time. I think it’s safe to say I’m now hooked on ultras, and have already signed up for a mammoth 47 miler around Lake Windemere in May next year. I’m trying not to think too much about that as it’s crazily scary. Mind you I’ve been scaring the pants off myself this year with big races, so I might as well continue down that route. I’m blaming The Lionesses. I had seen about this race but dismissed it as too much for me. Then I watched the football and was so inspired I wanted to do something amazing. I woke up the next morning and remembered that I’d signed up. Plenty of time to worry about that though. Think I need to get a bit more serious about training though, as I don’t think this is something I will be able to wing.

It’s been a great summer with lots of trips away to do parkruns and see friends and family. I made it up to Gairloch in the Highlands for our annual camping trip. We had a great time and it was perfect for lots of walking and chilling out looking out to sea. Covid tried to ruin my 2 week holiday, but it didn’t stop me having a good time. I was supposed to be going to stay with a friend in Sheffield, but he got Covid, and then my friend and her daughter who were coming over to visit from Germany also got Covid and so had to delay their trip. We still managed to catch up though, albeit just for a flying visit.

I managed a daytrip to climb Ben Nevis with my brother and sister, which was lots of fun. So much so that my eldest and I are going back up to Fort William later in the month for a camping weekend. I’ll be able to tick off Fort William parkrun and we’ll do Ben Nevis together. It’s great to live in such a fabulous place with some many beautiful destinations not too far away from me. Hope everybody is having a great summer and has been enjoying this brilliant sunny spell that we’ve been enjoying.

May 2022

I’ve been a bit lazy and didn’t do an April review. With the markets as they were I just couldn’t be bothered. I did update my spreadsheets, but never quite found the motivation to put out a post. I’m just going to skip straight to May’s review and take it from there. The figures in brackets are from March.

Debts

Mortgage £87,006.60 (£87,933.02)

Assets

Cash £24,780.48 (£27,468.16)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £19,912.26 (£19,416.17)

Shares £82,037.05 (£79,431.87)

House £278,089 (£278,089)

Total £542,404.79 (£541,991.20)

Net Worth including house equity

£542,404.79 – £87,006.60 = £455,398.19 (£454,058.18)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£19,912.26 – £87,006.60 = -£67,094.34 (-£68,516.85)

It’s all a bit depressing really. I’m trying to tell myself the markets are just on sale, but I’m not sure I’m really managing to convince myself. My cash amount is down a bit as I got some dividends from my work shares. I took this as cash and added some money from my savings to put into my index trackers. I hit £50k in my Vanguard account at the end of May for the first time. Of course it’s since ducked under again, but it was still nice to hit that figure. Considering it doesn’t seem that long ago that I stuck £600 in of dividend money just to test the waters. My plan is still to get rid of more of my work shares, but I’ll do it gradually.

So my overall figures are up, but considering this covers a two month period and I’m putting in as much as I can it’s not the most heartening of reads. It’s not impacting my strategy though. And in fact I have just increased my AVC pension contributions again. I’ll keep plugging away and hope that by the time I come to retire I’ll have squirrelled enough away to have a fun retirement, and hopefully be able to go a bit earlier than I would have if I hadn’t discovered FIRE. I need to remember that I’m looking at a worse case scenario of retiring at 60 on more disposable income than I’m living on now. Before I’m not sure I could have ever really fully retired. So that has to be a win.

I’ve got my five year fixed rate mortgage up and running now. I was sad to say goodbye to my staff base rate tracker mortgage, but the time was right for some peace of mind with rates as they are at the moment. It was the right decision for me, no matter what happens to interest rates. You can’t put a price on a good night’s sleep.

I seem to have become a bit of a spendy pants recently. I seem to be saying yes to everything that’s suggested. I’ve barely got a weekend with nothing happening between now and the end of the summer. That’s unheard of for me, but I’m really enjoying making up for lost time. Saying that, I’m still trying to do things as cheaply as possible and I still haven’t ventured abroad. I’ve even slightly curtailed my parkrun tourism. It’s difficult to justify a 2 hour plus round trip for a 30 minute run when there’s one a mile from my house. I am however getting very good at combining trips to fit in multiple activities to make the most of the astronomical petrol costs.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

It seems like a long time ago, but here are the goals I was working for in March.

Finish Duolingo Unit 6 of the Spanish tree. PASS. Delighted to get this one done and I’m working my way through unit 7 now, which I should hopefully get done by the end of the year.
Read the Spanish Intermediate short stories book that I’ve bought FAIL I’ve not even picked this up. I think it’s a bit too difficult for me which is putting me off. Must do better.
Watch 16 episodes of Betty en NY PASS. I am about 75 episodes into this. It’s total trash, but it’s pretty much my go to if I have a spare 45 minutes and fancy watching a bit of telly.
Reach 100 parkruns. PASS. I’m so happy about this one. I’m wearing my 100 tshirt with pride
Book a trip to Alton Towers for the summer PASS. This is all booked and we’re off there next week.

I’ve managed to tick off a few things from my 60 for 60 list as well. (I did say I was saying yes to things!) I’ll do a post on that later in the summer as I’ve got a couple more things coming up soon that are on my list. The main one is the marathon I’ve just recently completed. I’m so chuffed with that, even though it was incredibly tough. And there’s not long till my ultra marathon, so I just need to get my legs sufficiently recovered to be able to manage those 34 miles.

As I have so much going on running wise just now I’m not going to set myself any goals for June. I need to get myself to the start line of the ultra fully recovered from the marathon, injury free and believing that I can complete the route. I know what I need to do, I just need to put my big girls pants on and get it done.

March 2022. Warning, there was lots of running and not much else.

Debts

Mortgage £87,933.02 (£88,443,23)

Assets

Cash £27,468.16 (£26,496.43)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £19,416.17 (£17,360.11)

Shares £79,431.87 (£75,798.37)

House £278,089 (£278,089)

Total £541,991.20 (£535,329.91)

Net Worth including house equity

£541,991.20 – £87,933.02 = £454,058.18 (£446,886.68)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£19,416.17 – £87,933.02 = -£68,516.85 (-£-71,083.12)

The figures are pretty consistently better than last month. It’s nice to see a bit of a bounce back in the markets. I’ve got a bit more cash as a result of my annual bonus, although I’ve spent that already on car expenses this month. Not very exciting, but at least I didn’t have to dip into my savings to cover the cost. It’s great to see my AVC’s doing a bit better. I’m putting a decent chunk of my salary into those, so it’s good to start to see them grow a bit. It will be nice to get my net worth including the house to half a million. I imagine I’ve got a while to go with that depending on what happens to house prices. It’s a bit of an arbitrary one as I’ve no intention of selling my house any time soon.

I do worry a bit that I’m spending more than I should be. I’m putting a good amount in investments each month, but that doesn’t leave an awful lot over for fun stuff. Nevetheless I do seem to be having plenty of trips away. I’m working on the assumption that I should say yes to things as none of us know how long we’ve got on this planet. It’s all well and good saving for the future you, but you also have to take care of current you as well. I guess if that means I’m using up some of my savings then I can probably live with that. I still have far too much cash sitting there anyway, so using it for trips down to Cambridge to drop my son off and visiting far flung parkruns is probably a pretty good use for it.

Let’s have a look at the goals I set myself for March now.

Follow marathon training plan PASS This is most definitely my priority just now. The rest of my life is having to fit around my training plan.
Follow ultra training plan PASS I still can’t quite imagine how I’m going to make it around 55km, but I’m following the plan and there’s still plenty of time to go.
Complete half marathon race I did the Alloa half marathon which was a gorgeous one. The villages we ran through were a bit on the scruffy side, but the views of the hills more than made up for it. I was chuffed with my time too. 2.08 hours and I felt pretty strong. I didn’t even totally hate the killer hill at 11 miles.
Trip to Ipswich to do parkrun (sorry I mean to collect my son from university, even if Ipswich is 50 miles in the wrong direction. That is absolutely nothing to do with needing an I for the parkrun alphabet challenge!) PASS Dad and I had a lovely trip to Ipswich, bagged an I for our challenge and spent some quality dad and daughter time. We even remembered to go and collect my son. Result.
Watch 16 episodes of Betty en NY PASS I’m still enjoying this, understanding a fair amount and not finding it a chore to watch it. The only problem is making the time with all this running that I’m doing.
Set up retire at 55 spreadsheet FAIL As this was a goal for February too then I think it’s safe to say I’m not all that fussed about getting this done. And let’s be honest there’s no great rush. Chances of my retiring at 55 are slim to non existent. No doubt one rainy afternoon I’ll get around to setting this up, but for now I’m going to stop setting it as a goal.

A pretty good month one way and another. I’m doing absolutely loads of running and walking. I’m managing to get the miles in one way or another. Really it’s finding the time that’s the most difficult thing. This working for a living really gets in the way of my training. I can just about manage it if there’s not too much else going on, but try and fit in a bit of a social life and it gets pretty difficult. So this weekend dad came to stay for a night for yet another parkrun related adventure. Not long after he arrived I finished work and then promptly had to go out for a 9 mile run. And next week I need to do a 14 mile run before driving to Newcastle for yet another parkrun/uni dropping off road trip. We’ll not even talk about the day after the Alloa half marathon where I’d booked a day off work to recover and realised that was the only day that week I would have time for my long run, so had to go out and run 18 miles.

The training period for the marathon has had to be extended as well. I was due to do the Stirling Marathon in May, but they’ve just cancelled it. They’re saying it’s because there weren’t sufficient numbers signed up, but that doesn’t seem all that likely. They postponed back in October too, so this is the second time I’ve been training for this marathon that’s not going ahead. There’s no way I wanted to have to start afresh for another race later in the year, so I’ve signed up for another marathon a month later than the original one. It’s in Perthshire and should be beautiful, if somewhat hilly with 1500 ft of ascent. I’d better get hill training!

Time to set some goals for April then. It goes without saying that I need to keep plugging away at my marathon and ultra training plans. Keeping that in mind I’m not going to set myself much else to do. I’ve got to be realistic about how much time I’ve got.

Finish Duolingo Unit 6 of the Spanish tree. As long as I’m consistent on this one then I should be fine. I’ve worked out what I need to do every day, so I just need to stick to that
Read the Spanish Intermediate short stories book that I’ve bought. I’ve already read the Beginners one, so hopefully I’ll cope with this one just as well
Watch 16 episodes of Betty en NY
Reach 100 parkruns. I’m very excited about this one. I’m almost there. Helped by the fact that I’ve gone on a secondment and so am not working Saturdays for the next few months.
Book a trip to Alton Towers for the summer. I really want to book some family time in whilst my offspring are still happy to spend time with me

That’s plenty to be getting on with along with all the running that I need to be doing. All in all it’s not been a bad March, and it’s great to be seeing the signs of the summer to come. We’ll just have to ignore the snow and hailstorms that randomly keep appearing between the sunny spells!

February Review

Debts

Mortgage £88,443,23 (£88,933.02)

Assets

Cash £26,496.43 (£26,841.91)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £17,360.11 (£18,132.06)

Shares £75,798.37 (£82,111.70)

House £278,089 (£269,000)

Total £535,329.91 (£533,671.67)

Net Worth including house equity

£535,329.91 – £88,443.23 = £446,886.68 (£444,738.65)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£17,360.11 – £88,443.23 = -£-71,083.12 (-£70,800.96)

We all know the markets are down. The world is going to hell in a handcart and there’s not much we can do about it. Apart from some minor adjustment to my strategy, which I’ll talk about in a moment, I’m just carrying on the same as always. Yes my shares are down, but then that’s the same for everybody. I’m still putting money in each month to investments, so no change there. The one good thing about the state of the markets is that it seems to have cured me of my daily habit of checking my Vanguard account. It used to be my treat to myself after work. It’s more trick than treat now, so funnily enough I’ve not checked it for weeks!

Based on recent Bank of England base rate increases, including yet another one yesterday, I was starting to get a bit jittering being on a tracker mortgage. Yes, it tracks the base rate exactly, so for a long time I was only paying 0.1% It’s hard to argue with that. We now have an alternative staff mortgage which is a discounted fixed rate. If you go over to that you can never revert back to the base rate tracker. I absolutely love my tracker mortgage, but this month I bit the bullet and moved over to the discounted fixed rate. I’ve tied in to a 5 year fixed rate at 1.49% Considering the base rate is already up to 0.75% I’m more and more convinced I’ve done the right thing. There’s no way I’ll be in a position to pay my mortgage off before the five years is up (I wish!) so I reckon it’s a good call. I feel like I’ve future proofed my mortgage nicely there and it will help me sleep at night without worrying about future rate rises.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

As a result of that application I found out the index valuation for my property rather than relying on the Zoopla estimates that I’ve been using up till now. Not that an index val is necessarily all that accurate, but I’m happy to go with the higher figure. As my plan is to use the cash lump sum from my AVC fund to repay my mortgage when I retire I have slightly increased the amount of AVC’s I’m putting in each month. I can’t really afford an increase, but I’m sure I’ll manage somehow, I always do!

Not much else to say really. The figures are rubbish, but in the grand scheme of things there’s more important things happening in the world. At least I’m not getting bombed, so I’m counting my blessings. I’m readjusting my mindset to a potentially slighter later retirement age. I was thinking 58 was definitely possible, with 57 being potentially achievable with a following wind. I’m now thinking that maybe I should pace myself for retiring at 60, and if I can go earlier then fantastic. I think if I have the expectation of going at 57 and then I have to work an extra 3 years then that will feel awful. Much better to over achieve I think rather than grumping my way through an extra three years of work that I didn’t think I was going to have to do.

Without further ado let’s move on to how I did in February against the goals that I set myself.

Continue to follow my marathon training plan PASS I’m now half way through the plan and although I’m slow as anything I’ve done all the miles that I’m supposed to up to this point
Find an ultra training plan and figure out how to combine this with the marathon plan PASS I’ve found a plan with the best name in the history of the world. It’s the couch to 50k plan. My race is 55k, so I need to tweak it slightly, but I’ve started already and so far am managing to combine the marathon and ultra training
Walk at least once a week PASS I’m doing twice a week. Once for 90 minutes and one for just under an hour. This is not a chore, I absolutely love it. Particularly nice now the nights are getting a bit lighter
Do 2 lessons a day on Duolingo Spanish PASS I’m doing great with this. I’m really enjoying it and feel that I’m definitely making some progress
Watch at least 4 episodes a week of Betty en NY in Spanish PASS I actually watched more than this. This has become my go to boxset. Crucially I don’t have an English language boxset on the go, so if I fancy some down time watching telly I just stick this on.
Finish setting up spreadsheets with alternative retirement dates and how much I need to have in investments (Finally a FIRE goal, yay!) ALMOST! I’ve done up to retiring at 56. I’ve still got the retire at 55 spreadsheet to do, but quite honestly that is such a fantasy spreadsheet that it’s barely worth doing. I’ll get around to it at some point, but honestly there’s no rush
Go to the cinema and watch The Godfather (It’s always good to have a fun goal, and considering how much I love this film I have to take advantage of it being on the big screen for an anniversary showing) PASS And I even saw the second one at the cinema too. I didn’t manage to make it there for the third one, but it was fabulous to be back at the cinema

Reading that back I’m pretty chuffed with myself. I’ve worked hard this month. I do feel that I’ve pretty much just worked, run, done Spanish and slept. My house is chaotic, I’m constantly chasing my tail and despite getting to bed early I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m doing it though. I’m on track with my training plans and as long as I can stay injury free I should be good to go with both the marathon and ultra.

There’s not much time in my life for much except work and running just now. My goals for March are going to reflect that, so they’ll be very similar to last month’s

Follow marathon training plan
Follow ultra training plan
Complete half marathon race
Trip to Ipswich to do parkrun (sorry I mean to collect my son from university, even if Ipswich is 50 miles in the wrong direction. That is absolutely nothing to do with needing an I for the parkrun alphabet challenge!)
Watch 16 episodes of Betty en NY
Set up retire at 55 spreadsheet

That’s more than enough to be getting on with. There are only so many hours in the day after all. 2022 seems to be turning into the year for running. I’ll focus on that, get some of my 60 for 60 goals ticked off and then turn my attention to other things next year. I probably need to stop entering so many races though. It’s starting to get beyond ridiculous. I’m sure there’s worse hobbies to have though.

January 2022. Running, Eating, Spanish and some FIRE Stuff

Debts

Mortgage £88,933.02 (£89,423.23)

Assets

Cash £26,841.91 (£27,620.56)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £18,132.06 (£18,246.40)

Shares £82,111.70 (£82,183.43)

House £269,000 (£269,000)

Total £533,671.67 (£534,636.39)

Net Worth including house equity

£533,671.67 – £88.933.02 = £444,738.65 (£445,213.16)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£18,132.06 – £88,933.02 = -£70,800.96 (-£71,176.83)

Cash is down a bit yet again. Life seems to be very expensive at the minute. Car repairs, insurances, trips away, lots of petrol for yet another big long trip to Cambridge to drop off uni boy. You know what though? Life is for living. The car repairs I could do without, but the trip to Cambridge was brilliant and the more things like that I can do the better. I’m not frittering money away on nonsense. I’m spending money on things that I need or experiences that I want. I’m not breaking the bank and I still have plenty in savings, so I’m not going to worry too much. Not very FIRE of me, but what the hell!

Photo by Aleksandr Neplokhov on Pexels.com

Considering the state of the markets just now I’m fairly happy with my investment figures. Down very slightly despite me having paid another month’s worth of money in, but it could be a lot worse. Given the recent Bank of England base rate announcements I’m slightly jittery about the amount of mortgage debt I have. I’m sticking with my decision to barely overpay my mortgage and stick the money into my AVC fund instead. Unless interest rates get ridiculous I’m happy this is the right route for me. Time will tell I guess.

January has gone fairly well. Mum and dad came up to stay for a week which was lovely but quite full on. I was working, but we managed to get plenty of walks and talks in. I’ve lived on my own (well with the kids) for so long I find it quite exhausting having other people in the house. It’s made me realise how much I value my own company and time to myself. Saying that we did have a great time and it was lovely to spend time with them.

I’m well in the swing of half and full marathon training now. In terms of the number of weeks I need to complete on my marathon training plan I am now a quarter of the way through. Of course the miles really ramp up the further you get through the plan. In a moment of rash confidence I have signed up for an ultra marathon in the summer. An ultra is anything longer than a marathon, in this case 55km or 34 miles. Having said last year that I thought I should stop doing the longer races as I kept getting injured, I now have 2 halves, 1 full and 1 ultra marathon race this year.

Doing a full marathon and an ultra is on my 60 for 60 list, so it’s not completely come from nowhere. My thinking was if I was training for a marathon then I might as well combine that with training for an ultra. Having signed up I’m not quite sure how compatible the training is going to be. In an ultra the idea is that you cover the miles as efficiently as possible. So you walk the hills and run the flats and downhills. You also eat as you go, so I need to practice fuelling on the go. How bad can it be??? I go from complete and utter exhilaration at the thought to total terror at getting lost in the woods and never being seen again.

I didn’t set specific goals for January, but this is what I wanted to work on.

‘A trip to Cambridge, start my marathon training plan and get my eating sorted and my weight back to where it usually is. I also want to finish unit 6 of the Spanish Duolingo course.’

I had a great trip to Cambridge and I am well in the swing of my marathon training. The eating is a little bit all over the place. I’m doing a bit better now, but it’s not been great. My weight has fluctuated quite a bit. I started HRT this month, so I’m going to go with that’s the reason. I’m not quite sure it is, but it’s possible I guess. Either way we’re mid February now and I’m less than half a stone from my ideal weight. I’m trying not to focus on that too much. I want to eat for my health and not for my weight. Saying that I really don’t want to be dragging excess weight around with me when I’m running long distances. I’m working hard on my Duolingo Spanish. I don’t know what I was thinking saying I could finish unit 6. Getting unit 6 and 7 is realistic by the end of the year, so unit 6 is going to take me a while. I’m enjoying it though and still feel that I’m making some steady progress.

For February I don’t think it’s going to be a massive surprise that running features quite a lot. Here’s what I want to work on

Continue to follow my marathon training plan
Find an ultra training plan and figure out how to combine this with the marathon plan
Walk at least once a week
Do 2 lessons a day on Duolingo Spanish
Watch at least 4 episodes a week of Betty en NY in Spanish.
Finish setting up spreadsheets with alternative retirement dates and how much I need to have in investments (Finally a FIRE goal, yay!)
Go to the cinema and watch The Godfather (It’s always good to have a fun goal, and considering how much I love this film I have to take advantage of it being on the big screen for an anniversary showing)

That’s plenty for me to get cracking with in February. Work is busy with lots of new things for me to learn there. Managing work, getting my runs in, not eating too much rubbish and getting plenty of sleep . If I manage all of that then I’ll be happy.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

A Quick December Review

I didn’t do an update for November. My laptop had finally died a death that even my home grown tech support couldn’t fix. I can’t complain too much as he managed to eek an extra year out of it for me before it gave up the ghost. I have finally got around to getting myself a new laptop so I am good to go again. I won’t bother doing my figures for November, but instead will just jump straight to December with October’s figures in brackets for comparison. Quite frankly as 2021 is done and dusted now it seems a bit pointless to do a double month update.

Debts

Mortgage £89,423.23 (£90,408.16)

Assets

Cash £27,620.56 (£28,252.00)

Defined Benefits £137,586 (£137,586)

AVC’s £18,246.40 (£16,754.95)

Shares £82,183.43 (£80,026.26)

House £269,000 (£269,000)

Total £534,636.39 (£531,619.21)

Net Worth including house equity

£534,636.39 – £89,423.23 = £445,213.16 (£441,211.05)

AVC Fund vs Mortgage Balance

£18,246.40 – £89,423.23 = -£71,176.83 (-£73,653.21)

I’m happy with those figures. My shares and AVC fund combined have gone over the £100k mark for the first time, which is lovely to see. The next step is to get the shares alone to £100k as the AVC fund is allocated to pay off my mortgage when I stop working.

My cash amount has gone down a little, but not nearly as much as I expected it to. Two years after a flood from the ensuite into the kitchen I finally have a working ensuite bathroom again. It is absolutely fabulous, and I am so happy that I got it done. I had allocated money from my savings for the work, but at the last minute my parents transferred a chunk of money over to me to pay for the majority of the work. I was really surprised and absolutely delighted. Their thinking is I might as well have some money from my inheritance now rather than waiting until they kick the bucket, hopefully many years down the line. I also bought a new laptop, but didn’t spend a fortune on that.

Having dropped quite a bit last month, my share figures are looking nice and healthy again. I’m definitely going in the right direction. On paper my budgets don’t really work, so I’m not quite sure how I’m managing to keep investing the amount that I do. I guess Covid can have some financial advantages as I’m still not doing all that much that involves spending money. I’m not sure quite how sustainable my investing level is longer term, but I’ll keep going as long as I can.

I have booked a weekend away to York for myself and my folks for later in the year, which was expensive, but should be a great trip away and worth the money. I’ve also booked a ticket to go and see the Scotland’s Strongest Man competition in the summer. Again I’m trying to have some events in the diary so I have things to look forward to. Crucial in these continued strange times.

In terms of how I got on in the latter part of the year, it was probably a bit of a mixed bag. I got back on the phone at work speaking to customers again and remembered that there’s lots of parts of my job that I do actually like. Although I’d much rather be at FIRE and able to fill my days with activities of my choice, actually what I’m doing in my day job can actually be quite fun at times. I’ve managed to deal with my anxiety and start actually living my life again, rather than just surviving. That’s been a bit of an adjustment after purely focussing on my mental health for a good few months there. It’s good to get a bit more balance in my life even if it sometimes feels a little overwhelming getting back in the thick of things.

I just read back my October review and saw that my running was going really badly and my eating was in a great place. I have to say that’s totally reversed now. I’m loving my running and am doing plenty of it. My eating on the other hand is not in quite such a good place. You know though, Christmas!! I’ll really need to get back to a place of healthy eating again, but as I have my folks here for a week on holiday it’s not really happening just now.

In January I want to continue to focus on my running. I have a half marathon in March and a full marathon in May. The half is easy enough, but I’ve only done one full marathon before and it was a bit of a disaster. I’m determined to do better this time. I’ve found a training plan that I’m happy with and I start it next week. In the meantime I’m running plenty and building a really solid base of fitness. I just need to stay injury free, get plenty of sleep and sort out my diet again.

Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom on Pexels.com

I’ve got another trip to Cambridge this month to deposit the eldest back to uni. That will allow dad and I to do the final parkrun in Cambridge itself. I’ve got a bit of a plan put together for parkruns this year. I should hit 100 parkruns in total around easter time and am going to almost be there with the A-Z challenge. You have to go abroad for a Z, but I should have the UK ones done this year. The fact that I have got my parents a trip to York with me as their Christmas present is completely coincidental. And the fact that we will be there on a Saturday morning and dad and I will be able to collect a Y parkrun is neither here nor there!

I think that will be enough for January. A trip to Cambridge, start my marathon training plan and get my eating sorted and my weight back to where it usually is. I also want to finish unit 6 of the Spanish Duolingo course. That should be enough to keep my out of mischief for now.

Goals Vs Habits

First up I need to declare a bit of a vested interest. I absolutely love goals. I love everything about them. The thinking about what you want to change, deciding to make a fresh start, working towards your goals and then that wonderful buzz that you get when you achieve them. Goals are kind of my thing. I’m not quite sure how people get out of bed in the morning without knowing that they have goals they’re working towards. One of my favourite books is “Goals! How To Get Everything You Want – Faster Than You Ever Though Possible” by Brian Tracy. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve read that book. It inspires me every time I even think about reading it again.

I used to work in sales and I loved having targets. If I didn’t know what I was supposed to achieve then I didn’t feel like I had a reason to go to work. Working in financial services things changed a bit and you were no longer allowed to have targets. Rightly so you should be providing what’s right for the customer. The thing is though that if sales is done right the customer gets what’s right for them and you hit your quota. If I wasn’t given a target then I would just set one for myself.

As well as targets at work I’ve always set myself goals to work on in my private life. I’m constantly working on my weight, exercise, sleep, studying languages, you name it really. I’m good at achieving goals if I really set my mind to it. My problem has never really been around not being able to hit goals, but rather in deciding what I wanted to work towards. Once I had something in mind then I would do everything in my power to achieve that goal.

There’s been a number of times in my life where I’ve had some pretty audacious goals. When I was in my early twenties I decided that I wanted to go and live and work in Spain. I had just graduated, had a load of debt, no idea how to earn a living over there and I didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Within two years I’d paid all my debts off, had been to night classes to learn enough Spanish to get by and I had been on a two week course to learn how to teach English as a foreign language. Next thing I knew I was over in Spain living my dream.

Another goal that I set myself was around the house that I lived in. After getting divorced I found myself having to start again financially with a two and three year old in tow. The family home got sold and I had to downsize to what I could afford on part time wages with child care thrown into the mix. I made a lovely home for the three of us, and we lived in that house for eleven years. I always knew I wanted something better though. I overpaid my mortgage, scrimped and saved and invested money that was to be allocated for the next home. Four years ago I managed to move us to a much bigger house, with plenty of room for the kids to come back to stay after they’ve flown the nest. It also gives me the option to have my folks come to live with me if needs be in the future. This was a really important goal for me, but not one that could be achieved quickly or easily. I learnt the value of patience whilst working towards this goal.

Whilst researching financial planning I discovered the FIRE movement which then gave me my biggest goal ever to shoot for. On the face of it I wasn’t the ideal candidate for FIRE. I was in my late forties by the time I discovered it. I was in a position where I honestly thought I could never retire. All my planning had been around surviving month to month and trying to improve our living situation. Every time I thought about retirement and pensions I would feel incredibly stressed and that there was nothing I could do about my situation. In just a few years I’ve gone from that point to knowing that I can definitely retire at sixty, probably on more disposable income than I’ve ever had before, and with it looking pretty likely that I’ll be able to afford to go part time in four years time when I hit 55. That’s quite a turnaround.

The way I’ve been able to work my way towards FIRE is with goal setting. I’ve looked at how much I need to have invested to be able to stop working. As time has gone on I’ve adjusted these goals, and decided that I wanted to have a bit more money in retirement to be able to travel when I want to. My goals have changed as a result and I’m definitely on track to achieve everything that I want to. No doubt there will be plenty more adjustments to make over the next nine years, but staying flexible in the face of new information is one of the things I love about goal setting.

As I’m such a big fan of goal setting I’m not sure why I’d need any other way to work towards change. Then I read James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones”. That was a bit of a game changer for me. I am all about habits and routines, probably more than is good for me, but this showed me the benefits of the way that I have naturally organised my life. I already have so many habits that have developed naturally over time, lots of them good, but plenty of them not quite so beneficial.

I tried to think about all of the habits that I have. I’m sure I have missed a lot, but some of them include

Weighing myself every day
Doing physio exercises for my neck in the shower daily
Making my bed every morning
Having the same porridge with raisins and chia seeds breakfast
Strength exercises to help with my running
Meditating
Having a fruit and yoghurt morning snack
Drying down the shower to stop mould developing
Studying Spanish on Duolingo (900 days and counting)
Running
Eating a bowl of branflakes after work
Taking part in parkrun every Saturday that I’m not working
Speaking to my folks every Sunday

Quite frankly the list could go on and on. I am clearly a creature of habit. If I’m brutally honest I’ve always thought that this is a bad thing about myself. I’m stuck in my ways, I’m not good with change and I don’t like to deviate from my norm. After reading James Clear though I’ve started to view things a little bit differently. I’ve realised that a lot of the habits I have in place are really good ones. As I do the same things at the same time every day I don’t have to think about them. I’ve been doing my physio exercises for my neck for about fifteen years since I had a trapped nerve. I don’t give it any thought. I’m in the shower and I do my exercises. I’m pretty sure if I had to make myself do those exercises it wouldn’t happen, but as it is no will power whatsoever is requited. Similarly if it’s 9.30 on a Saturday (9am in England) and I’m not at work I’ll be in a park somewhere lining up to run 5k. No needing to make myself go out for a run. It’s a non negotiable in my life. Saturdays are parkrun days.

I’ve realised that a lot of the things I do in my life are because of how I view myself. I don’t run for exercise or because it’s good for me, I run because I’m a runner (and I like to eat). I realised recently that I’d stopped viewing myself as a healthy person, and as a result my eating habits had got pretty bad. I’d put on weight and I was generally eating a pretty poor diet. I had a word with myself, remembered that I’m health conscious and started to buy more healthy tasty food. As a result I’ve dropped half a stone without really trying. My new mantra is that I’m eating for health not for weight. It’s all about making consistently healthy lifestyle choices. And a lot of that is all about automating my choices. Not having chocolate in the house, but instead plenty of fruit and veg.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

I think for me probably a combination of goals and habits works quite well. I really enjoy the whole thing of setting goals and seeing myself making progress towards them. In all honesty though every time I achieve a goal it’s because I’ve implemented good habits. My most recent habit I’ve introduced is meditation. I’ve always thought it wasn’t really active enough for me and that it wouldn’t suit me. After my recent mental health struggles though I was willing to give anything a go. Of course I set myself a goal around this of completing all the Headspace beginner courses. I’m well on track to achieve that, but I think that’s probably because I’ve instigated a habit of meditating every morning after breakfast and before I start work. So for me I think I probably need the dopamine hit of ticking things off my To Do list whilst working towards my goals, but it’s the habits that I implement that are going to get me to where I want to be.