What if you could go back in time and hang out with your younger self? I listened to myself on the ExploreFI Canada podcast this week which was a bizarro, surreal time travel to 1 year ago. At that time, I was 8 months into my FI journey.
What did I gain from listening to 2019 me blab almost 1 year ago?
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There’s a fair number of good things I did then but I’m not doing now.
Challenging my expenses. I’m dragging my feet. Why haven’t I called my unnamed large ISP who is yet again raising rates for my internet connection? Why haven’t I shopped around for better home insurance rates this year? Why am I still paying a bit of bank fees here and there at “nameless big 5 bank”? Honestly calling around and getting the paperwork done is super-annoying and I’ve let things go a bit too long as a result.
Being funny. I’m not being funny enough anymore. Pandemics and systemic racism are too depressing.
Posting my journey on the blog. There hasn’t been a month with ZERO posts, but I’ve let life get in the way far too much. April – 2 posts. May – 1 post! June – 2 posts so far (this makes 3). In July of 2019, I wrote 7 posts. Come on, T!!
Reading “Your Money or Your Life”. I had read a good portion of it, but then I put it down due to being busy and never picked it up again. Also, I wanted to develop and execute a solid action plan to get me to my goal. I have picked the book up again this week! I have a new blog series in the works around this to motivate myself to keep going, so stay tuned!
Going on internet fasts. I did this once in April of 2019, and stated on the podcast that I would do it again to help boost productivity in my life. I’m going to revisit the idea and possibly look at doing this now that the “new normal” is slightly less isolating and boring. i.e. there’s potentially something more interesting to do now than binging the interwebs for hours.
2. Things I said I was going to do, but now I think I changed my mind.
Make a spreadsheet to replace my YNAB subscription. In the interview, I said I might use YNAB for 2 years, and then create a spreadsheet that could simulate the YNAB experience. Well, turns out I’m so addicted to YNAB and it has saved me so much money and time that I don’t even want to think about dumping it in October. All that said, it’s still on the back-burner of my brain, I just have to put the effort to come up with an alternative solution. I think I’ll revise my timeline to 3 years instead of 2. Maybe 4. Please click on one of the many YNAB links in this paragraph to give me (and you) a free month of YNAB!
Keep getting expensive hair styles. 2019 me stated that this was very important to me and it was a luxury I wasn’t giving up. WELL I’m proud to say I finally stopped with the highlights, lowlights, undertoning, balyaging, melting, and fancy cuts, and now my hair maintenance costs are about one quarter of what they were. Hubs says he likes the new, natural me, soooo I guess we’ll go with it.
2. There’s some good stuff I’ve done SINCE then that I didn’t talk about doing.
Paid off my debts for the first time everrrrr. Boo-Yah.
Increased my mortgage payments.
Did a $500 challenge and a $1000 challenge to boost side hustle income. This isn’t something I EVER would have done without inspiration from other great bloggers in the FI/RE realm.
Started DIY investing. This is where I surprised myself the most. I. Never. Thought. This. Could. Be. A. Thing.
Opened a TFSA. Why did this take so long? IDK. Anyway, BAM!
There is probably a bunch of other things I cannot recall at this time, but I am happy with this list!
I feel like this time travel journey was an excellent way to reflect on my progress, and identify my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to “sticking to it” for the long term. Historically, long term plans have been the most challenging for me to execute. I will often begin an initiative and then either abandon it soon after or three quarters of the way through because I’m distracted by something else. This would be a great exercise to complete on an annual basis – perhaps I could record myself and listen to it just for extra torture next year. OR, perhaps I could just refer back to this blog post.
If you could talk to younger you, what would you learn? Happy FI/REing!
Isn’t it crazy that it’s been almost a year since we interviewed you, and that we launched the podcast? We had a great time chatting, and should definitely plan to have you on again!
I love this lookback and review. We should all do this once in a while.
I’d been following your story all this time, so I basically knew the threat to drop YNAB was an empty one, LOL. But, being a huge fangirl myself, I totally get it. I think we’re YNAB lifers, T!
So happy to hear about your hair expenses being cut to 1/4 of what they were. That’s huge! Au naturel is also better for your and the stylists health and the environment anyway. It’s a win all around.
It IS crazy. I cannot believe it! Thank you for your kind words. I did find it helpful to look back, albeit painful. I’m so glad to see how far you have come with your blog and exposure in the FI world since then as well. Happy writing! May you get sunny weather soon 🙂
You paid off your debts and started DIY investing!! That is light years ahead of so many people. I’d consider the year a success right there. Cheers!!
Thank you for your excellent perspective. Sometimes we don’t fully recognize our accomplishments. Cheers!!