Thought I’d get this interim post off before the festive shenanigans are in full swing and I don’t find the time to post.
The full December update will include my progress over 2024, how I did versus my goals and if Santa continues to be mean and not generously turn up for a rally before the end of the year! I’ll then be setting some new goals for 2025.
So in brief:
Work Stuff
The work’s Christmas party was a good one and a big one – lots of people from our various offices around Europe attended.
Spent some quality time getting to know my boss (only the 3rd time we’ve in person) so that was nice. She thought I was only a few years older than her (she’s 39) so she’s my favourite boss already, haha!
I had planned to have my dancing shoes on that night, but in the end, was barely on the dancefloor as spent the evening just chatting to different people! Actually not chatting, but shouting as the music was so loud!
I had to be physically in the office the following day as boss wanted face to face catch up on work – somehow I managed to drag myself in and was minus my voice! Took the rest of the weekend to recover from those efforts, haha!
Mortgage
Received another letter from my lender advising that my mortgage interest rate will be dropping in the new year, down to 4.8%.
I’ll stick the extra in my overpayments for now.
Mortgage interest rates are never going to be as low as they were a few years ago so am happy for any small reduction I can get.
It will be interesting to see what rates will be at in a year’s time, when my current deal runs out.
Other Stuff
It’s the 23rd as I write this and I’ve already had four ‘Christmas’ lunches – I’ve tried to vary the meat so it’s not turkey every time (not my favourite meat).
Planning a gym session tonight and then back on it again at the weekend after the two big days of eating and drinking.
My wrist is pretty much healed up after the sprain, although having to still use a wrist support for certain weight training exercises; I do plan to wean myself off that though as don’t want to be reliant on the support.
However, I now don’t know if the aches I occasionally feel are from the injury, or if they’ve always been there (old age…) and I’ve just not really noticed before?
I don’t want to rush back to my old weights for fear of injury, but feel like it will be a slog getting back to where I was before. That’s if I can go back to those weights, I feel like part of my weight loss may have been due to muscle loss. Looking at my diet these past couple of weeks, I’m mostly vegetarian during the week, so I probably need to up my protein to build/ preserve muscle mass. I will make my kefir smoothies more protein-packed.
Outdoors stuff
I’ve barely ventured out into my garden since my return from my hols so am looking forward to doing a bit of winter gardening, pruning, tidying up etc. Everything just looks really sad right now.
This will get me out of the house, otherwise I will just vegetate on the sofa watching tv!
Also need to resume my local litter picking – not been able to do that in a while, as the rubbish bag would have been too heavy for my recovering wrist to handle.
Young Uns
I was round at my sister’s a few weeks ago and after our evening meal, talk turned to retirement.
Did I mention that my sister is on countdown to early retirement? Just 6-7 more months of working and she’s already told work – I’m not jealous….much!
Anyway, Sis mentioned that by the time my nephew came to retire, the state pension age would probably be at least 75 and I laughed and said he’d probably do really well for himself and retire early.
“What, you mean FIRE?” he piped up. “Financial Independence…”
“…Retire Early,” I finished for him, trying to hide a wide range of emotions from my face.
I asked him how he had heard of it and what he thought of it. He said he’d come across it while he was looking into investing (he’s 17) and that he thought it was good idea.
He’s already read ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ (picked it off my shelf when he and Sis were living with me).
I don’t think there’s any need to worry about the personal financial future of the lad, he appears to have his head screwed on right!
And on that note…
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year – eat, drink and be merry!
