May has been a long month by all measures. Many things have come to a head and I’ve felt both directionless and demotivated at times, and extremely excited about the future at others.

Firstly, the issues with the company have made me reassess what I am doing career-wise. I think I’ve mentally checked out of the company, and although I have half-heartedly applied for new jobs, it’s only a matter of time before I do so properly. I just feel there is no point in working hard for a company that is on the brink and is being run so irresponsibly. The atmosphere in the company has become rather unstable and certain individuals are attempting a power grab (the chairman’s son-in-law). As he is a deeply unpleasant man and is unlikely to be going anywhere, it only leaves me with one choice long term. In the meantime, I will keep working and collecting the dough.

Secondly, a visit by some antipodean friends of my girlfriend gave me some great ideas. They had given up their jobs and were planning on travelling round Europe in a camper van. It will be 3-4 months of adventure and fun. Although they were not officially doing ‘FIRE’ they were certainly far more financially free than me. It goes to show that at age 28 and 26, with careful saving, they were able to undertake this great adventure. They don’t do very high paid jobs but decided this was a goal and lived a lifestyle that would allow them to reach the goal. They lived in a shared house in Melbourne and didn’t eat out much. Now they have enough money to give up work, buy a camper van and live carefree for a bit. Well done them.

The great idea was the result of a side hustle that my friend had where he ran a website and provided services to contractors making £16,000 in the process. I realised that I could do exactly the same thing with my skills albeit, providing a different service. So I plan to set up a company of sorts and do it part-time. Should it take off, I would do it full time. Watch this space…

Debt progress

I have been paying off my debts steadily. I have to confess that I didn’t mention a £700 credit card bill that I let sit since February in any of my previous posts (mainly because I was ignoring its existence). So that was disappointing, but it was there and is now paid. I also paid £300 to my other loan which got me below the £3000 mark. This was a huge achievement and the end really is in sight.

I feel like I am 2-3 months away from clearing my debt. This is slightly longer than I had anticipated but I have felt the need to splurge a bit this month. A trip to Bath for the weekend, eating out a fair bit, and a trip to Scotland to visit my mother have eaten into my balance. However, they were all needed and enjoyable. I didn’t use a credit card to pay for any of them and I still have money in my account at the end of the month AND I paid £1000 of debt off. Not bad.

I do feel I will have to reign it in a bit this month however and really get to the end of the debt, but overall I feel that my finances are under far greater control than they ever were before.