guitar player's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
jacob
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by jacob »

These viewtopic.php?p=104784#p104784 ... and if you just want one exercise, I recommend power jumps.

For upper body, maybe Hindu pushups or dive bombers.

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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by theanimal »

You could do 6 rounds for time of 25 burpees, 25 hindu pushups, 25 squats, 25 bicycle crunches. Up to 1 min optional break between each round. The best time I know of is just under 17 min including breaks. My personal best is ~28 min. It's hard.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Great, thanks @jacob and @theanimal! Will research.

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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

I carry on doing 2 x 100 burpees every other day. I had a look at the insanity programme and figured that it is too time and space demanding i.e. I would have to be in front of a laptop while doing it, ergo probably in the house. Now I exercise quite often in the garden, having a view of the hills. Also, I like that workout now is 15min long! I might have some weights that I could wrap around the wrists, this would be an easy solution to increasing intensity. I will though probably give a try to the recommendations above sometime soon.

Yesterday and today I peeled beech nuts I had collected last season. It is quite time consuming and I might have spent 6h on obtaining an estimated 150g of them. I enjoyed the process a lot! Made me think I would be a good fruit picker (huge shortage of them in the UK atm). We made pesto from some of them, tasted great.

A word of advice: it is best to peal the husks off when fresh or after roasting the nuts with husks on. Very difficult to peel the husks when dry but not roasted!

I have chopped some willows at work and plan to make a willow dome in our backyard. Apparently one can just stick willow stems into the soil and they will take root!

I am saddened that I cannot take advantage of the market turmoil. Need to learn more!

My lovely wife sent me some links python. She did the codecademy course and tells me that I would be good at it because mathematical mind.

I wonder what is better to tackle first: skills for (slowly growing) wealth preservation i.e. about investing, or skills for wealth accumulation, like programming.

I am going to write a financial post when we get our salaries on Thursday.
Last edited by guitarplayer on Fri May 01, 2020 1:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Egg
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Egg »

Hey,

Always nice to see UK posters. Two things:

1) You mentioned a while back £8k in a LISA and £20k in standard ISA. It didn't compute for me how you managed to do both within the individual £20k annual limit. Maybe I'm just being dense, but how did that work?

2) I don't think £30k+ per year jobs are that hard to come by in the UK. I'm not saying you *should* want one, but I work in the public sector and would say £30k is achievable in very short order (maybe even straight off the bat) without any real qualifications - just good organisation, drafting and people skills. Plenty of reasons why you'd want to stay in a lower paid career, but significantly increasing earnings should be possible if desired.

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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks for popping in Egg! I read parts of your journal, and had been since wondering what was the initial undemading job that way yielding you £2000 net back when you started your journal (ofc no need to share if you don't feel like it).

1) when I write about finances I take into account me and DW as she is on board with ERE and all. Therefore the annual limit is £40k/year.

2) If I remember right, you went for one of those graduate programmes in civil service? Sometimes I look into equivalent ones in Edinburgh. Thanks for drawing it to my attention again. I like the pension scheme of posts in the public sector, but I wonder about transferability of skills. DW has a degree in biomedical engineering and I think could spot something £30k+ per annum as well. DW generally makes me biased towards getting some techy skills.

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Egg
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Egg »

Hey,

That makes sense about the shared finances thing.

My job back then was being a military officer. The catch is that it's only easy when you're not deployed (if I remember, I was already in an office job by the time I started my journal). But in staff (HQ) jobs, you could be doing basically the exact same thing as a civil servant next to you for almost twice the pay. Which I did for a while.

Also correct about what I did afterwards, yeah - civil service grad scheme - but you don't need to do what I did to get £30k+ pretty easily. In fact the grad scheme pretty much guarantees a couple of years under £30k, so it's probably not even the most efficient thing to do if that's your target (not to mention that the main qualification needed to get onto it is luck).

Scottish Govt should be pretty similar in terms of opportunities. Digital skills are in high demand and pretty much a golden ticket to fast promotion if you want it, imo. I'm ambivalent about promotion, though, and/or generally chasing higher pay. I both go out of my way to seek promotion, and also wish I didn't feel that urge and could simply enjoy life at a slower pace. With that in mind, sounds like you're a lot more balanced than me, so take any suggestions I make with a pinch of salt...!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Right! You had a great start with that career and LCOL, well done organising it in such way. Also, had a look at your recent journal entries, well done securing a £60k+ promotion and hope the baby boy and his mum are doing well.

Yup life is quite well balanced at the moment. Still, I always welcome suggestions, even more so from UK based folk!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

OK, I have crunched the numbers, the results below. This is for a couple of people. I am actually lobbying to get DW on the forum, hehe.

April 2020

Net income:

£3178.90

Expenses:

Accommodation: £311.44
Bills + food: £131.50
Council tax: £78.34
Phones: £12
Gardening: £54.79
Other: £31.45

Total: £633.52

Savings rate: 80.07%

Assets:

ISAs*** (Dogs of the FTSE100 shares): £31574
Cash: £13300
LISAs*: £10000
Foreign cash/investments**: £14000
Retirement accounts: £4408

Total: £73282

We have no debt. Quite happy looking at the numbers actually!

But yes, if not the market slump, it would have been around £83k. Out of the ten companies whose shares we own, two cut their dividend to 0 and two reduced the dividends. The industries are: financial (3), mining (2), oil (2), tobacco (1), utilities (1) and real estate development (1). I am going to hold on to all of them until Feb 2021 unless I learn something meaningful before that.

*retirement savings account, but can be used as a deposit for first property; topped up 25% by the UK GOV with max annual limit of £8000 between the two of us. 5% penalty at withdrawal other than for first property or retirement.
** in the EU and South America. Most of it is in relation to real estate, some of it just foreign currency. An estimate due to currency risk and property valuation
***tax sheltered saving accounts

On a side note, I finished the courses about mushrooms and some of the 'gardening' expenditure was spawn for inoculating logs and sawdust. Also some nets to win the fight against pheasants pinching on the broad beans! Tonight and tomorrow I plan to work on the vocational qualification I do for the job. When that is done I hope to start learning python!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

On self reliance projects:

* We were too stingy to buy lots spawn for our mushroom project, so DW researched a method of multiplying spawn. We bought tiny bits of spawn of Lion's Mane, Oysters and Wine Cap Mushrooms (paid £2.25) and have some more brewing on brown rice in a drawer now. All the credit goes to DW.

* We have lots of rhubarb growing now and I have made some juice recently. I am thinking about producing rhubarb wine. There is an easy way in Pedal2Petal's journal.

* I am experimenting with sourdough bread, I have made a sourdough banana bread and it seemed to be a great success among folk. I tried baking a sweet potato bread and it turned a bit funny, but was very tasty.

* we get milk from an organic (biodynamic actually) farm located 200m away. By law, they have to pasteurise it but they just heat the milk up to 62 degrees C which is the legal minimum. We get it fresh from the day, and chilled already. So I figured that I will give it a try and try to make sour milk. The milk is now by my heater, will see in a day or two.

On buying a real estate:

I have been looking at properties next to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. It is one of the biggest hospitals in Europe, I think I would not have much problems finding a lodger or renting the place out. I am a bit obsessed with this 25% gov bonus for the first property. Honestly, I would not be thinking about buying a property if not the bonus. Yesterday I have spotted a £110k house in good shape with 3/4 bedrooms in an area of Glasgow with low crime. Quite unseen in the UK!

On professional development:

I am ploughing through the vocational qualification I am trying to finish perhaps even this month.

On gardening:

There was some gorgeous weather these days and plants are growing well! Tomorrow's night is going to bring -2 degrees C so making sure that potatoes and chickpeas are covered.

We are going to experiment and try growing tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelons (!) outdoors in Scotland.

On exercise

I have settled on 150 classic (with a pushup) burpees everyday now, ideally in the morning instead of coffee.

On health

I have not had coffee in over a month I think. I really like the high but get dependent and suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms, like bigato if I remember. Thet being said, I normally go through cycles with the max without coffee being a bit over one year. Now I have settled for yerba mate, I like it as it is less acidic.

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Egg
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Egg »

guitarplayer wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 2:44 pm
I have been looking at properties next to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. It is one of the biggest hospitals in Europe, I think I would not have much problems finding a lodger or renting the place out. I am a bit obsessed with this 25% gov bonus for the first property. Honestly, I would not be thinking about buying a property if not the bonus. Yesterday I have spotted a £110k house in good shape with 3/4 bedrooms in an area of Glasgow with low crime. Quite unseen in the UK!
Glasgow is a fantastic place to invest in property imo. Most of UK is quite expensive when compared with local wages, as you allude to, whereas Glasgow is quite reasonable. Also, as a city, loads going for it - used to live nearby myself and loved it. I'd have no hesitation jumping in. Doubly so if coronavirus depresses house prices significantly. Also, tax considerations quite often make owner-occupation preferable to renting in the UK unless you're actively intending to move in <5 years (the size of that benefit being very much tied to your personal tax bracket).

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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks for the comment Egg!
Egg wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 3:07 pm
Also, tax considerations quite often make owner-occupation preferable to renting in the UK unless you're actively intending to move in <5 years (the size of that benefit being very much tied to your personal tax bracket).
Could you please expand on the above? Always happy to learn more about matters related to buying/having/selling property in the UK.

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Egg
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Egg »

guitarplayer wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 12:27 pm
Thanks for the comment Egg!

Could you please expand on the above? Always happy to learn more about matters related to buying/having/selling property in the UK.
Sure - although I'm almost certainly making a less nuanced point than I may have implied. The main rationale behind what I'm saying is:

1a) A pound that doesn't have to be spent (from net income) is more valuable than a pound earnt (in gross income). The difference between the two depends on your earnings/tax bracket, but to be simplistic, Glasgow city average gross is about £30k gross:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... nings/2019

At that sort of level, we're talking 20% income tax and 12% National Insurance conts applying to all of the rent money you'd be likely to spend, if nothing else.

1b) Sort of the same point, but if you can either earn £1, keep 60p and use that to pay rent, or earn £1 and put £1.20 in a SIPP (getting 20% tax relief) because you don't need to use it for rent, that starts to look quite appealing.

2) Capital Gains Tax exemption for main residence

Mostly 1a) though. In case ambiguous, I'm not saying that the right answer is always to buy, even when tackled purely on the base financials (it also feels quite nice to paint the walls whatever the fuck colour you like, or to be able to use your home for low-interest loan collateral, for instance). But in a city like Glasgow with low-ish purchase prices relative to rents, I'd imagine it would make sense for a lot of people to buy if able to do so - especially those in high tax brackets.

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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

No Egg, this is a bit of an eye opener, I have never thought of it this way. Thanks for this! We are not going to be owner occupiers now because of our living arrangement (living-in on the estate where we work and it is quite remote), but following the logic above I presume the best solution from the financial standpoint would be to:

1. spot a property large enough for ourselves and two lodgers in an area such as Glasgow where property is not overvalued,
2. bid for it and if successful, buy with a mortgage of max 80% LTV, with the deposit coming from LISAs (25% bonus),
2a. I wonder re paying the mortgage off asap (5years or sooner) vs having a long mortgage to benefit from low interest rates,
3. move in,
3a. paint the walls whatever the f colour we like,
4. get two lodgers and harvest £7.5k per annum of tax free rent from them within the rent-a-room scheme.
5. sell it when we no longer need it, hopefully recover the initial price and some (in real terms)

Inspired by your previous post, I checked indeed jobs paying £30k+ in Glasgow. I can see:
* an army officer which I don't qualify for as a non UK/commonwealth/ROI national.
* child poverty coordinator - this could hypothetically work out for me, however have a gut feeling that it might be stressful
* trainee healthcare scientist - no expertise
* B1 strategy officer at the department of international development - what do these guys do?
* prison officer (residential) - this came as a surprise actually. In Scotland it starts at over £25k going up to £35k within 4 years. It seems like a job similar to what I do now, just that it is with inmates. Definitely more money and possibly progression. I wonder what are the risks! Strangely enough, this job description does not get me stressed at all.

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Egg
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by Egg »

Glad to be of service. Your plan certainly sounds sensible to me but, as with everything, it comes down to "do your own sums". Also, I'd not make a decision assuming the rent-a-room scheme will last for ever, but it is a fabulous scheme if the lodger arrangement works for your family life. It means that lodgers can be more lucrative after tax than renting the whole property, and you get to keep some space for yourself, as well as more control over ending the arrangement if you want to.

Ref mortgages, you may be interested in this recent article on fixed rates. Just a possible pitfall of UK fixed rate mortgages to be aware of, which otherwise look rather appealing:
https://www.finumus.com/blog/beds-are-burning

Finally, your £30k+ jobs search. Having always been public sector, I don't really know what's out there. What I can say, though, is that there's plenty of civil service jobs in and around Glasgow. To name a few places that have offices round those parts: Ofgem, HM Revenue and Customs, Office of Road and Rail, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice. Quite a few of the jobs at those places will only be open to existing civil servants, so there's a degree of "foot in the door" with that, but plenty will be £30k+ and require fairly limited experience. I think the civil service is trying to open that up though, as having an internal-first jobs market must be locking out a lot of talent.

Department for International Development is almost certainly not quite Glasgow but rather East Kilbride, which is a bit of a shithole imo (having been there quite recently). The main thing they do as a department is administer overseas aid. Quite interesting work if you ask me, but that's just my opinion.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Thanks for the link, this is good to know. Ideally I would like a mortgage as small as possible and mainly to harvest the LISA bonus. I was thinking along the lines of getting as low a fixed rate interest as possible, and after the time's up, paying off the rest with cash without a penalty. Saddening that the bonus can be obtained only while taking on a mortgage, as if there was no hope people could just save up and buy outright!

Speaking of mortgages, another hurdle we have to jump over is that DW is from South American and oh my life is so much more difficult for third country nationals. Somehow, where we live the addresses are not that very well recognized plus we don't have bills coming on our names. So DW's score on ClearScore is below 300 and she cannot even log in on Experian. This is despite having a bank account and a credit card (obv cannot get on the electoral roll). Then she gets those awkward letters when applying for financial instruments, where she is asked to go to a professional of public trust like a doctor, pharmacist or social worker, and ask for a signature and professional details to testify that the copy of her passport etc. are genuine. I am more stoic about it but she gets quite pissed, oh well maybe I would too if it involved me personally.

Rethinking the +£30k jobs, if we went the route of getting a property, I would likely not need such a salary to maintain the current saving rate. Still, why not earn more, if possible? Thanks for the reference to what offices are to be found in Glasgow.

So glad I joined the forum and started the journal, great advises!

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Woah a good night's sleep can make a difference in well being!

Today wife and I have been chatting and came up with three ideas:

1. me starting studying studying Mathematics and Statistics BSc with Open University in October 2020. It sounds cool. I watched the talk about covid-19 given by Prof Whitty (UK's chief scientific advisor) linked by Bankai - I would like to be a bit like this guy. The degree is part time and takes 6 years to complete, however I don't feel pressured to complete it. I earn below £25k/year* so it is going to be sponsored by the taxpayer. In the UK, you can stop 1/3 of the way earning a 'certificate', 2/3 of the way earning a 'diploma' and then finally BSc. It is online so there is no commute. I feel that it is like learning stuff off of the internet, just that you end up with an official recognition from a well respected institution.

*by the way, striving for a higher income is probably the biggest challenge in my quest of FI. I have always struggled to be competitive and have been much more of an ERE person. Always remember fondly summers at the countryside with my granny who is my ultimate ERE archetype. Going to the forest foraging, tending a garden, bartering with neighbours. Somehow I always manage to go sideways and avoid earning more money, like when I quit a market research analyst job. I have though tackled it systematically and moved to the UK where I do earn more than back then doing a less 'high profile' job.

2. We are going to set up a tent for the next few months on a little campsite on a hill by the garden where we grow stuff. There is also lots of firewood on the estate and a fireplace on the campsite. It is so beautiful there and a place of solitude. By the way, I will try to post some photos perhaps of the surroundings here, it is a bit of a magical place!

3. DW suggested we run a marathon in about two weeks, so we are going to have a short term project. We have ran two marathons in the last year, mostly posing a challenge to DW. I had ran 4 marathons in 2010-11 when collecting data for my MA about typology of marathoners regarding motivation to run.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

Enjoying the good weather today after a couple of days of 50mph gales and rain.

On mushrooms

Yesterday afternoon we made a setup for stropharia mushrooms according to this https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cor ... 1lckcx.pdf method.

Today or tomorrow we are likely to 'plant' lion's mane and this way sort out all our mushroom experiments. So far we grow shiitake on beech logs, oysters on sterilised straw and stropharia on sawdust and straw/wood chips beds.

Scotland is relatively rainy and cold so it might well be that we will be starting to harvest chanterelles and porcini from the wild soon, also because the lockdown might get slightly lifted in a few days.

On exercise

Exercise wise, I improved the burpees I am doing so that the push-up is a proper one rather than just laying on the floor and pulling myself up. It is therefore more plank-like and more difficult. I do sets of 13 until 200 and it takes 15min, I manage to do it most days.

We still plan to run a marathon on Wednesday next week, but I am thinking that maybe I should just cycle and support DW with snacks etc. because I would manage to run it in 5h with no issue anyway. I wrote the last two weeks of a 'marathon preparation' plan for her in her calendar, she tells me that with that she is much more motivated.

On finances

We barely spend money on anything rather than the usual accommodation+bills+food of £520 total. I had a £100 voucher for M&S due to changing banks and we purchased some items of clothing for it. Bras are so expensive! Anyway, I got some socks and one pair had a hole so complained - we got a refund voucher, DW got herself socks as well.

Finally after years of being a financially untrusted individual in this country, I have now been safely approved for an AmEx credit card. I plan to be using it for work purchases (and then later be reimbursed). I also plan to loan some money to someone on a British equivalent of Kiva (0% loan to enterepreneurs in poorer countries). After £3000 spent I will unlock free flights for DW and I.

DW is of course still an untrusted individual, being from South America, she queried Experian and Equifax.

We got a pay raise equivalent to some £430/year for both of us so a total of £860 per year. We will also be paying a bit more for accommodation and bills/food, but less for council tax.

On Information

I am reading so much of the ERE forum, particularly in the evenings and then get a shorter nights' sleep! But there is lots of value in here. I have been reading Gin+Juice journal recently an the discussion on semi-ERE.

Otherwise, I am limiting my reading of the Guardian and other websites of such.

On working part time

Actually, I wonder how much part time my current job is in 'real terms.' In the contract I have it as 40h/week. However:

* meals are included and eating count as work. An unpaid 2.5h/week would otherwise go towards lunch break (37.5 or even 35h/week contract are the norm).
* there are often leftovers which I am free to take for after work; I live on site so no need of packing them, I just go to the kitchen and help myself. Lets say that my cooking time is reduced by 2h/week
* there is no need to do grocery shopping as the food is ordered by our cook. I would pay myself 1.5h for weekly shopping (commute and actual shopping. I am a slow and picky shopper).
* there is no commute to work. I assume, in a city I would live a 15min commute from my workplace. This makes it 2.5h/week
* there is no hustle of paying rent, food, council tax or bills as it gets deducted from my salary. This can be done by direct debit etc. but knowing me I would still be looking at the bills making sure that I pay what I am meant to. For convenience 0.1h/week.

Due to the specifics of the job I am in then, I have 2.5+2+1.5+2.5+0.1=8.6h for pursuing activities of my choice. So in a way, this would make my current job being 31.4h/week in 'real terms.' The logic might be a bit stretched, but hey it feels good to think about it!

On professional development

My occupational training has not gone forward much, so I thought I would tackle it one finished with writing this post. But then our gardener asked me to pull out the purple sprouting broccoli we have planted last season so that he can plant something new. So I will do that instead.

On music

I am currently learning:

On guitar: Asturias by Isaac Albeniz
On piano: COMPTINE D'UN AUTRE ÉTÉ by Yann Tiersen


On holidays

I am looking forward to 4 weeks on holiday I will have in June. We had booked it for a cycling trip along Rhine but then the lockdown etc. We should still have a good time, so much time to myself!

Also, there is one staff member in my team who will second my deputy manager post while I am away. This is great news, because I have a possibility to take a 1 month unpaid leave at some point and it will be much much easier to get it if there is someone who can replace me in my duties. I am thinking, maybe in January or February we could fly to Australia or New Zealand to get a month of summer. Or Canary Islands. Or finally visit South America.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

On finances

May 2020

Net income:

£3184.57

Expenses:

Accommodation: £365.11
Bills + food: £135.14
Council tax: £56.68
Other: £263.64

Total: £820.57

Savings rate: 74.24%

Assets:

ISAs (Dogs of the FTSE100 shares): £31535
Cash: £15849
LISAs: £10000
Foreign cash/investments: £15208
Retirement accounts: £4881

Total: £77473

The above is in some way an approximation. In particular, we now have three credit cards between ourselves and are using them to build/maintain credit score. We have direct debits set up but I think there is some lag there so that last months purchases are paid off this month at least in part. For example, I have purchased two bicycle panniers for £145 a few days ago but this is not reflected in the numbers above yet.

We had a 3.33% pay rise, the accommodation, food and bills got more expensive as well. We pay less council tax because there are more people living on the estate now.

Holidays!

Today is my first day of 4 weeks of holidays! We are not going to cycle down the Rhine river as planned, but hopefully will explore the pentland hills i.e. our surroundings. It will also be a good idea to relax for a bit as work became quite stressful with covid preventative measures. Plans to do some gardening (yesterday transplanting tomatoes and cucumbers), read and yeah just relax.

On accommodation

Funny as it sounds, I might be moving in with my wife sometime soon, haha. So far we had two bedrooms in two houses, which actually works pretty well. However, due to various circumstances I have been asked to possibly move in with DW. It is not as simple as it sounds as someone who now lives with DW would need to agree to swap with me. I am fine both ways, so let's see how this unfolds.

On property

I had a deep dive in online resources concerning crofting a few days ago. Crofting has been mentioned on this forum a few times, it is a way of living off the land in Scotland. I often thought about buying a bit of land and getting a van or a Cube (read more about it e.g. here https://tinyhouseblog.com/tiny-house-vi ... e-project/). Now we have so many mushroom projects going on and if we had a bit of a forest and a possibility of living there as well, I think we could set up a side business. It is possible to buy a bit of forest in Scotland and apply for creating a 'woodland croft' out of it, but it feels quite complicated. Also, feels like a lot of responsibility!

And in any case I don't think I would be able to use our LISAs for it! So if anything, this would be a side project, parallel to purchasing a small cheap flat somewhere in order to liquidate the 25% bov deposit top up bonus for the first property. I still have my doubts about it because generally it feels like getting a property is such a hassle. Then again, it is very likely that at some point within the next decade we will choose to buy a flat/house.

guitarplayer
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Re: guitar player's journal

Post by guitarplayer »

On holidays

Enjoying the holidays. In fact, they are a bliss! We ended up not going anywhere because lockdown. And it turns out to work perfectly for us. Where we are staying is absolutely stunning, we get all the regular benefits i.e. food just magically popping up in the storage cupboard, baker baking fresh bread and cakes, organic milk from around the corner, tasty leftovers occasionally (today pizza day). Like staying in a B&B for 4 weeks, just that it does not cost anything :) I will be definitely having a conversation with DW about repeating it next summer for maybe 2-3 weeks (if we are still around).

On mushrooms

Our Golden oyster mushrooms are fruiting, most of the credit goes to DW. Today on a cycle we found St. Georges mushrooms which is great cause we have been looking for them for a good while. We also found some very old and overgrown Pheasant's backs, but just left them. A couple of weeks ago we found young ones, ended up in our stew and were delicious.

On sports

Last Wednesday we wanted to run a marathon, but ended up doing 28km instead. Still, it was a nice run.

Today we did a 81km cycle. DW struggles to tackle uphills and in Scotland there are barely any flats. I keep on telling her to start doing burpees to gain some power for these. I have two more 101km and 103km (with a nearly 1km climb) day trips through glens and along lochs, hope she will be up for it!

On education

I sat down for a couple of days last week and finished my professional qualification for working in care as a (senior) care staff/supervisor/manager. I still need to have the tutor observe me at work, but the writing bit is done. I don't think I will work in care for many years (indeed, I plan to start studying Maths and Stats with Open University in October!), but with this qualification it will be a profession to fall back on anytime. With the current demographics in the developed world, there should always be a job waiting.

On books and learning

I started reading "Overshoot" by Catton, good read definitely, will finish maybe tomorrow or the day after. Those who like Harari's work should enjoy this one.

Some time ago I started the 'Intelligent Investor' and did not find it particularly captivating. Which brings me to...

I might try one of the textbooks Jacob was mentioning in his get-a-DIY-bachelor-in-economics-and-business-administration blog post. But then I also wanted to read Rothbards 'Man, Economy and State' for such a long time. Which one would you all recommend me to tackle first?

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