On creating a better version of me in 2020

As the old year was coming to an end a few weeks ago, once again I realised just how tired I was. Why do I always get to the end of the year exhausted? All the very good reasons I can think of taste like sweet and sour excuses… yet it happens regularly.

Thinking this over during the holidays there are things I can easily improve.

Holidays

We spent a marvellous and relaxing week at Center Parcs in June with some good friends. The best holiday in a long time. I need more of this type of holiday, I came back energised and full of ideas.

I found my tribe at FIWE in Budapest and attended an inspiring WordCamp in Berlin.

Besides these, all my annual leave was used up to care for an occasionally sick child and for visiting family and relatives – Germany, Cornwall, Italy, Germany again. Don’t get me wrong, they were great trips, but the balance was not sufficiently in favour of holidays. Time to make my holidays my own again.

With a small child in the coming years we will definitely choose family friendly destinations close by that we can drive to. And some shorter trips with the girls and the FIRE community!

Work

My husband makes jokes about how often I change jobs. I remind him it’s because he doesn’t change often enough. He has a point, I suspect. By choice or by redundancy, I have moved around a lot. Great for salary increases and redundancy payouts, bad for a (lack of) sense of stability.

Maybe my current workplace is not perfect – and what is? – for now I have decided to stay put and focus my energy on other things like this blog, my family and myself.

Contracting was interesting, but the commute became too much. I know enjoy a much shorter commute, mainly cycling, and save over £200 / month in train fares I don’t have to pay.

I’m not as close to retirement as A Purple Life is, but I completely get her feeling of DGAF. Let’s see what happens next.

More books, less TV

Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer – they produce some truly amazing shows which make help you understand the world better. But they also have a lot of programmes that you can just as well live without.

I realised last month that instead of reading, lately watching TV had become my default. 

I aim to change this.

Since this realisation, last month I read This is going to hurt, by Adam Kay, and am currently reading a book a received for Christmas, The lying life of adults, by Elena Ferrante of My brilliant friend fame. She is my favourite living author, who unsurprisingly was named among the Time most influential people in 2016.

My aim for the new year is to read up to 2 books a month, a mix of personal finance and other topics. I have found a few reliable sources for interesting books:

• My FIRE friends of course 🙂 Do you have any recommendations for my? Please drop me a line in the comments.
• I love going to Foyles in Waterloo as they always have a great selection of books, especially novels and popular non-fiction
• Bill Gates – I don’t read all the books he recommends, but the ones I do are genuinely amazing.

When plans don’t go as planned

We had decided to take two and a half weeks off over the Christmas period this year. I really needed it, and the plan was to visit family in two different places in Germany. The result was 9 days away staying over in 4 different places, while taking two flights and two train journeys of 8 and 2 hours respectively. We knew it would be a lot, but then we would have a week at home just the three of us relaxing and recharging.

As you can guess, things turned out differently.

We got back to a freezing home – 12 degrees. Even extreme FIRE frugalists would probably find it somewhat chilly. 

We turned the heating on and headed out to friends who had invited us to a new year’s eve party and sleep over, returning home cheerfully around midday the following day. Our home’s temperature has risen to… 17 degrees!

After checking the boiler’s pressure (it was fine) that afternoon we realised only one floor was affected. Some rooms in the flat were warm, but doors remained closed and the various layers of clothes stayed on.

The electrician’s verdict – a broken fuse. £2 for a pack of three, and £170 for his time.

No, it didn’t make a dent in our emergency fund. No, our plants didn’t freeze to death. Yes, annoyingly I think we could have fixed it ourselves had we not been too busy protecting us against the cold so we wouldn’t get sick, had my daughter decided to take her nap, and had a sudden deadline not materialised for my husband simply because someone had not taken time off during the holidays. Also, my husband was even more grumpy as he owns the same tool the electrician used to identify the broken fuse. 

On the bright side, we now know what to do if our home turns into a fridge freezer again.

Did you say DIY?

I’m a good cook, but I do not like baking. I know how to hang a picture and paint a wall, anything more tends to bore me. I don’t enjoy maintenance too much, like Jacob Lund Fisker.

Then again that £2 fuse that cost me £172… it sucks!

In 2020 I want to continue learning more about finance as well as other skills that can help one navigate life and fix things yourself along the way. Become a Renaissance woman. Or focus more on lifelong learning, if you will. 

From what I observed in over 4 decades of life, I have a huge all round need for independence, more than most people around me, and I’m unmistakably (annoyingly?) curious.

Which new rabbit whole will 2020 take me down? Do you have any suggestions?