1. My original plans were to make as much money as possible so I could retire as early as possible – this typically means my work/life balance is work/work.
2. I realised, or more accurately confirmed I don’t like working for a big corporation…. or working for anyone but myself for that matter.
3. I no longer want to move anywhere in the world at a moments notice for an undefined amount of time and have a company tell me so.
4. In a big company your only as good as your last job.

1. Build up a second income stream alongside my main job. This will probably mean this and my other blog will get a lot of my attention to help drive traffic and advertising to build up income.
2. Consider buying a small house. I’m not sure about this one at all. It would essentially rob me of all my cash, however, a mortgage is likely to save me £200-£300 a month on my current rent and the cash isn’t lost…. I will see it again when I sell it or rent the house out.
3. Finish my outstanding PhD.
4. Keep my financial goals set on being a millionaire by being frugal, saving, living with less and hopefully winning the lottery
5. Get all my possessions together from the two locations they are in and sell sell sell. To make money out of my goods but to also eliminate all the clutter.
6. Clear out all my massive online storage and disk systems of all the crap I have accumulated over the years.
7. When I have days off (Weekends etc) I actually need to do something/go and see things instead of sitting in. I think I will invest in some walking books and a rucksack and start to go walking when the snow has disappeared. Or get back into mountain biking.
8. Consider riding into work some days on a bike to get exercise and to reduce fuel costs.
9. Take up running to reduce my stress levels.
10. Try and live more frugally and track my spending more carefully as I started in the last month of December. More on this to follow in my next post.

As you can see there are quite a few things I am looking at doing. Hopefully these will all help me meet my goals of being free at 45

This allows me to skip the adverts and I no longer sit there watching crappy TV in between my main programs making me more productive. As an added bonus I realised that this also saves me money as I no longer have the TV on the second I walk through my door.

Double bonus! What do you do to save energy?

Over the last 3 weeks whilst getting back into driving I have been implementing fuel saving tips and changing my style of driving to improve my miles per gallon (MPG). Here are a few simple tips that will allow you to save money:

1. Don’t Idle, you get 0 MPG by idling.
2. Don’t drive aggressively, there is no need to accelerate rapidly. This can decrease your fuel efficiency by 33%. In town driving it can be 5%.
3. Don’t drive above 60MPH, efficiency decreases rapidly above 60.
4. Empty you car. Excess weight needs fuel to move it.
5. Keep the aerodynamics clear. Keep windows up, and store things like bikes and luggage in the car not on it.
6. Don’t use cruise control. It is not as efficient as a human at regulating a constant speed when inclines change.
7. Keep your tyres at the correct pressure. Doing so will increase your fuel efficiency by up to 3%.
8. Replace your air filters to increase efficiency by up to 10%.
9. Drive proactively. Watch what is happening ahead of you, if you see traffic lights are red then take your foot off the gas long in advance so that you don’t need to stop at the lights. This not only saves you fuel in the drive up to the lights but also saves you fuel when accelerating again when the lights change.

Just the other week a relative had done just this, £3.25 (~$6) for a spray bottle of weed killer and by the looks of the garden it didn’t help too much. Now, I have recently joined the ‘green bandwagon’ and hate to see chemicals poured onto the ground almost as much as I hate to see the plastics used to make the bottle and the processes used to make the chemical itself. Add this to my natural frugal ways and I was on a mission to find a cheap and natural wake to ‘nuke’ the weeds.

The solution was boiling water. Yes you read right, boiling water. How after 25 years of walking this planet did I never think of boiling water to do the job? If you poor boiling water on any living thing you will severely damage it and most likely kill it so the same must go for weeds. Well I boiled the old kettle and gave it a go.

You take the boiling water and ideally pour it on the surface of the leaves since they are the structures that produce food for the weed, killing these limits the energy of the weed to recover. Pouring a good amount around the base so it soaks into the roots is also a good idea. Some perennials (dandelions) may still re sprout as they have very deep roots. If you have the space to dig a trench around its roots to help your water get in there then you stand more of a chance of completely nuking even the hardest of weeds.