Re: vexed's ERE journey from the very beginning!
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:31 am
Mid November Update;
There is not a lot going on in the garden any more, I lost the motivation to try grow through the winter so the patch has been manured and is covered over with mulch for the winter. I'll start again early spring, I promise! SO and I have discussed our dreams of buying our first house, and given the wedding expenses faced recently, we are contemplating staying in our current residence for another year, on the bright side, I think I'll be prepared to invest a little more in the garden next year, also the extra savings will mean smaller mortage, win win.
Food expenses have dropped markedly since earlier in the year, we are consistently spending £75 per head per month now rather than £150. Baking our own bread almost daily, eating more rice and staples and beans has helped loads, and SO hasn't even noticed the difference in 'quality' of meals. SO used to say cutting back on food was never going to happen, she should not have let me take over the shopping then should she .
My savings rate technically dropped through the floor this month, in fact I spent slightly more than I earned. I'm chalking this down mostly to wedding expenses:
£30 each to give notice to our respective local council of our intent to marry (day light robbery!)
£200 for a musician
£200 for my wedding shoes - although these are Goodyear Welt soles and apparently can be resoled for life just like the infamous Hanwag boots, an investment in future office/smart wear.
£796 for SOs ring
£400 for mine - both are gold, hers with diamonds.
Technically, I could add the rings to my precious metals portfolio, but SO tells me under no circumstances am I to try and time market with our bands.
That pretty much cleared my savings out this month, technically the shoes and rings were investments, those purchases aside, my savings rate would have been 75%. Damn! Also in other news, I didn't mention it in my last post but I bought my first gold bullion coin. It's purdy . I'm a fan of the permanent portfolio, so it was an exciting moment, although the novelty has worn off now, and I have stopped taking out of the safe to look at it.
In other news, the boredom of my day job has set back in. I don't think I can use stoic principles to melt away the boredom, I need a new challenge.
I think I mentioned it before, but I've always dreamed of a career in freelance programming, so up to now I have haphazardly worked on building up a rudimentary knowledge of my first programming language, Python. Besides some simple programmes, I haven't accomplished a lot, but I'm dedicating a lot of my free time to reading about it and developing as much as I can in my spare time. I already have a good handle on the basics of HTML5 and CSS3, so I've recently decided to take a sideways step and I started learning the Javascript language instead , which feels much more like a natural progression. I'm not much the arty type, so I'm not sure how long front end web development could hold my interest, I'll probably get back to Python eventually.
I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment to gain more practical experience, I'm updating my Dad's website which is stuck in the early 00's with flashing gifs and non-responsive layout. also I'm working on an RSVP app for my wedding invitation website. After that I'll start a portfolio website to show off my work. It's hard to get excited about my day job anymore... most quite moments in the office are now spent learning more JS or reading about freelancing. I read a blog about some guy who have made the transition from their day job to entry level jobs in web development, 6-8 months after starting learning in their spare time. If I did this, I would take a slight pay cut, but nothing major, the alternative is to go straight to freelance which is a bit more intimidating for a newbie, we'll see. Not sure I can cope that long in my current job. But hey, I have savings now, so could quit at any time!
Plans over the comming months are to learn some more basics so I know enough to get an entry level job or take on basic dev work:
PHP5
MySQL
AJAX
GIT
There is not a lot going on in the garden any more, I lost the motivation to try grow through the winter so the patch has been manured and is covered over with mulch for the winter. I'll start again early spring, I promise! SO and I have discussed our dreams of buying our first house, and given the wedding expenses faced recently, we are contemplating staying in our current residence for another year, on the bright side, I think I'll be prepared to invest a little more in the garden next year, also the extra savings will mean smaller mortage, win win.
Food expenses have dropped markedly since earlier in the year, we are consistently spending £75 per head per month now rather than £150. Baking our own bread almost daily, eating more rice and staples and beans has helped loads, and SO hasn't even noticed the difference in 'quality' of meals. SO used to say cutting back on food was never going to happen, she should not have let me take over the shopping then should she .
My savings rate technically dropped through the floor this month, in fact I spent slightly more than I earned. I'm chalking this down mostly to wedding expenses:
£30 each to give notice to our respective local council of our intent to marry (day light robbery!)
£200 for a musician
£200 for my wedding shoes - although these are Goodyear Welt soles and apparently can be resoled for life just like the infamous Hanwag boots, an investment in future office/smart wear.
£796 for SOs ring
£400 for mine - both are gold, hers with diamonds.
Technically, I could add the rings to my precious metals portfolio, but SO tells me under no circumstances am I to try and time market with our bands.
That pretty much cleared my savings out this month, technically the shoes and rings were investments, those purchases aside, my savings rate would have been 75%. Damn! Also in other news, I didn't mention it in my last post but I bought my first gold bullion coin. It's purdy . I'm a fan of the permanent portfolio, so it was an exciting moment, although the novelty has worn off now, and I have stopped taking out of the safe to look at it.
In other news, the boredom of my day job has set back in. I don't think I can use stoic principles to melt away the boredom, I need a new challenge.
I think I mentioned it before, but I've always dreamed of a career in freelance programming, so up to now I have haphazardly worked on building up a rudimentary knowledge of my first programming language, Python. Besides some simple programmes, I haven't accomplished a lot, but I'm dedicating a lot of my free time to reading about it and developing as much as I can in my spare time. I already have a good handle on the basics of HTML5 and CSS3, so I've recently decided to take a sideways step and I started learning the Javascript language instead , which feels much more like a natural progression. I'm not much the arty type, so I'm not sure how long front end web development could hold my interest, I'll probably get back to Python eventually.
I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment to gain more practical experience, I'm updating my Dad's website which is stuck in the early 00's with flashing gifs and non-responsive layout. also I'm working on an RSVP app for my wedding invitation website. After that I'll start a portfolio website to show off my work. It's hard to get excited about my day job anymore... most quite moments in the office are now spent learning more JS or reading about freelancing. I read a blog about some guy who have made the transition from their day job to entry level jobs in web development, 6-8 months after starting learning in their spare time. If I did this, I would take a slight pay cut, but nothing major, the alternative is to go straight to freelance which is a bit more intimidating for a newbie, we'll see. Not sure I can cope that long in my current job. But hey, I have savings now, so could quit at any time!
Plans over the comming months are to learn some more basics so I know enough to get an entry level job or take on basic dev work:
PHP5
MySQL
AJAX
GIT