A personal update: laziness and money

I thought I’d do a bit of introspection to keep the ball rolling and because everyone loves transparency nowadays.

Three reasons there’s been less blogging lately

The first reason is that I’m a bit lazy, which actually fits the theme of this blog quite well.

I know that for some FIRE people this isn’t a big emphasis. Perhaps they might be annoyed that I’m bringing it up; I’m sure they are frustrated by jibes about only lazy people wanting to quit work.

We probably agree with each other that financial independence is about personal security, and about rejecting rubbish jobs, and having more time to pursue unpaid passions. But then we part ways on the question of idleness.

I can (and will) easily provide a nice political argument for idleness by the way. Here’s one Bertrand Russell made earlier.

Politics aside though, I’m comfortable admitting that I don’t enjoy working lots and I do appreciate time to read books and potter.

I’m certainly not interested in developing a side hustle or my personal brand.

The second reason for the blog drought is a bit less existential. There’s just a fair bit going on right now. I’ve moved flat, work is fairly busy, I’ve re-kindled my love of reading fiction (no pun intended).

And then reason number three: I’ve gone down a bit of a history rabbit hole (see History on FIRE) and as per usual distracted myself from my short term aim, which was to write something interesting about domestic servants. I imagine I’ll get back to that in the next week or so.

My job is ace but I still want FIRE

And so we ramble on to the second bit of introspection for today.

I guess an interesting reflection for me is that I definitely enjoy my job, but I’m still aiming for FIRE.

That might seem obvious to many FIRE bloggers, but I had a worry that maybe all this retire early stuff was just because I hadn’t found the right job.

I’m fairly confident that’s not the case now. In my own thinking the emphasis is very much on (a) having real control over my finances instead of letting money sink into the background and (b) investing while times are good (i.e. I enjoy my job) to benefit future me.

My money situation is changing

In the third and final part of this introspective jaunter, something about money.

I’m still earning the same salary, but I’ve moved flat. This has lead to higher costs. But the cost increase is lower than I thought it’d be because we’re renting our car parking space out.

So there’s this intriguing new trickle of money coming in, and I have to say it’s quite exciting.

I appreciate that in reality it is, at best, a decent portion of the money I already had and lost. Lost due to my irresponsible choice to move home, like the careless spender that I am.

But I’m irrational and don’t view money as I should – as being essentially the same, wherever it comes from.

I get more excited about ‘extra’ money coming in from an exciting source than I would have been if the rent was just a bit lower.

Still, at least I’m self-aware.

Also, in an earlier and somewhat whiney post I mentioned that family members owe me money.

One of those has now paid back in full, and the other is paying in weekly instalments.

That makes a decent difference to the bottom line.

I don’t think you, the reader, can do much with this information. But I am at least happy to share some good personal news.

Ok that’s it for now! As per usual I welcome any thoughts in the comments below.