Greetings fellow Dubstachians, as expected a fine evening's discourse was had by all. I've a couple of notes and leads below but due to the notorious 'hitting-close-before-hitting-save' and 'stoopid-low-battery' situations, I'm definitely missing out on some info so please add, elaborate and otherwise comment. Mainly this is to serve as reference point for myself for when I get distracted by something shiny for a couple of weeks and forget what I was supposed to follow up on.
Food is a great way to save on money, as all the best stuff isn't processed and therefore cheaper. Especially if you haul it out of your own container garden/raised bed allotment/rolling acreage. If your primary focus is to save money, then grow things that are expensive to buy, like herbs and salads (lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers etc). With a greenhouse/polytunnel you can grow more exotic things, and extend the growing season for native things. I get regularly inspired by this
https://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Book-Self-Sufficiency-Realists/dp/0751364428. But I then couple that with the meticulous accounting of Charles Dowding (
http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/) who doesn't waste time with incorrect common knowledge, such as digging over a bed in the first place. I also read this blog (
https://oldworldgardenfarms.com/) but need to adjust the location-specific information. Actually, occasionally I get irritated by this one, but I think that's mostly because I get jealous of what they've got and how they did it. They don't refer to FI directly, but are living that way anyway by growing almost all their own food, pursuing a simpler and happier existence, and having just downsized to a comfortable house on the same land. Lots of DIY, recipes, ideas and philosophy. But it also makes me feel inadequate as a human. Oh well, I can hardly blame them for that part!!
Related to the above,
http://cabinpeople.com/ was mentioned, including their YouTubes starting here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OGUP_302bY . Also for further investigation is to be done on
http://croninsyard.com/facilities-pods/One of my other favourite blogs is
http://www.1500days.com/. Admittedly, they do START with half a million in the bank, but I find the writing very
real and easy to relate to. The 1500 Days to Freedom are up, they achieved their goal, but are keeping the blog going anyway.
I was diverted from trying to electrify a fold-up bike to squeeze onto the trams, as at commuter o'clock I'd have small hope of fitting in there. The investigation continues.
Likely in the next 2-5 years one of the diesel cars will become electric, especially with our Dear Leaders planning on increasing the tax on that fuel. I may tie this in with installing solar PV; I'll need to do some GreenMohawkian calcs to fine-tune the details.
I need to follow up with Revenue on the medical claims I didn't know I was entitled to.
There was a mention also of a place in BallySomewhere which sells off display models of electrical appliances. Unfortunately, this is around the point I was showing off my GoogleForms on my phone to input data for car mileage and utilities usage and forgot to save the notes thus far. Can someone else chip in here?
My plans for actually trying to buy funds/shares etc have now been pushed out from this year to at least 5 years or more from now. The pension is maxxed out and instead we will push any surplus money into the mortgage, and investing in 'real' things such as refurbing the house including a rentable-outable space, roof insulation, windows, solar PV, an electric car, rainwater harvesting (
http://www.sturdyproducts.ie/products/rainwater-harvesting-system/rainwater-harvesting-system/hydro-store-rainwater-harvesting-system), and whatever else I can think of to make our living as sustainable as possible. Actually, there could be closer to a decade of money and effort going in to that list so I might just forget about stocks etc for a long time.
The next decision I have to make is whether to continue cruising in my current employment, where the money is OK but the work not that interesting and opportunities for progress unclear, or to retrain with an industry cert, probably take a pay-cut for a year or two while I learn the ropes but hopefully with a view to doing something I'm more interested in and with a big organisation with scope for advancement.
I have concerns around the ethics of the companies we could be invested in in a generic fund. Yes, we get to maximise our money because other people are stupid with theirs, but I still don't necessarily want to support the marketing campaigns of oil/tobacco/processed foods companies to sell to those silly people. The whole point is to improve the world and reduce waste, so I'd rather be involved with businesses hat promote that. So the (financial) returns aren't as good, but the real world returns would be, and we can sleep easier knowing we're not exploiting the uninitiated. To do that we probably need to hand-pick the companies we like rather than buy an ETF which is a lot more work but there we are.
OK, soap-box rant over, and that last paragraph is mostly academic anyway while we put all the other bits mentioned above into practice. Until next time....