Back in August 2019, my blissful bachelorette living situation was turned upside down when my sister and nephew moved in with me following their relocation back to the UK.
I’d been happily living on my own for around 12 years so it was a big change to my life and lifestyle.
Actually, it was a big change for everyone, since the last time us siblings had lived under the same roof, we had been squabbling teenagers.
Anyway, all will be quiet again for me as by the beginning of next month, they will have moved out as my sis has bought a house and I will be all on my own again.
I have mixed feelings about this.
All Change Again
It’s all very well me thinking that I would have been alright during lockdown had I been on my own but the reality is that I’ve been extremely grateful that I had some family around me during the worst of the pandemic, particularly as I’ve been unable to travel to see other members of the family (I last saw my parents and my Gran in summer 2018…).
I believe the COVID situation was made a lot more bearable having others in the house – a couple of my friends who are on their own have really struggled with coping with isolation and are a lot more desperate for things to return to normal.
Anyway, in the same way that I had to prepare myself mentally to live with other people again back in 2019, I will need to prepare myself for living on my own again.
Yes, of course I will miss them and their company, but in a way, I’m also looking forward to being back on my own again, with my own quiet space, doing my own thing.
My sister’s new home is less than 15 mins away in the car so not so far that I can’t just pop round to see them (or vice versa).
I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with, to get to know and to see my nephew mutate from a little boy into a gruff-voiced (though still very chatty) teenager.
I’ll miss my sister’s cooking (I’ll be going round to theirs for the odd Sunday roast!) but also relish going back to cooking for myself again – I have a few more recipes in my personal cookbook now compared to before!
I think the first few nights after they have moved out will feel rather weird.
The Psychology of Money
On an unrelated topic to the above (I’m squashing two draft posts into one), one of my goals this year is to read four non-fiction books – easy for some but not for me as I far prefer to spend my spare time getting lost in fiction.
Anyway, 1 book down, 3 more to go, as I recently read ‘The Psychology of Money‘ by Morgan Hounsel (it was on my Christmas wishlist and a member of my family kindly obliged!).
I thought this book was easy to read and digest, full of interesting stories, anecdotes, wisdom and great advice.
It’s not often that I enjoy reading educational/informative books but I did enjoy this one.
Not all of the stuff was new to me but it was nice to be reminded of it and to re-learn.
I won’t give any spoilers as I’d recommend that people pick it up to read but the chapters intriguingly include:
- Luck & Risk: nothing is as good or as bad as it seems
- Never Enough: when rich people do crazy things
- Confounding Compounding: $81.5 billion of Warren Buffett’s $84.5 billion net worth came after his 65th birthday
The book reminded me that all this FIRE stuff goes far beyond just numbers on my spreadsheets, because us humans are such complex creatures with complicated relationships with money.
Despite these lessons however, I’ll probably continue to make some mistakes with my money – the key is just to not so many mistakes!
A book to keep and re-read.
