First and foremost, Happy New Year to you all! Hopefully 2022 brings you health, happiness and prosperity. It’s time for my 2021 Personal Review – so much has happened this year!
Unfortunately, the blog has taken a back seat because we’ve had so much going on in our lives. Fingers crossed we’ll have more free time to spend on the blog soon, because of the decisions we’ve taken throughout 2020 – keep reading to see what I’m referring to!
Mr & Mrs
My 2021 Personal Review starts with the biggest part of our year – in many ways!
We got married on 24th July 2021 and it was a fantastic day. Because of the pandemic, we had doubted whether it would ever go ahead. Thankfully, restrictions changed just in time for us to have an almost normal, if cautious, wedding!
As an introvert, the cautious nature of our guests was honestly quite nice and it meant we could spend the day focussing more on each other!
So much of our time before July went into planning the wedding that it felt like such a relief when it all finally fell into place.
We still haven’t managed to sell everything we bought for the wedding, but we’re getting there! When this is complete, we’re hoping to write a comprehensive post on how much our big day cost us.
Work
Next up for my 2021 Personal Review is the area which has seen the most change – my professional life.
Back to the Office
Continuing from my 2020 Personal Review, I started 2021 still working at home. I really enjoyed this period because it allowed me to spend much more time with Baby Way. I’ve developed a really close bond with him this year which I would never want to change.
However, my employer soon insisted we all returned to the office. I resisted as long as possible, but finally returned to the office in September.
The way my company dealt with the pandemic in general was embarrassing. They really showed their true colours, putting their profits ahead of the wellbeing of staff and their families.
Throughout the course of the pandemic I finally took the decision to look for a new job, having been with this employer since my graduation over 9 years ago!
Part Time
Starting in September, I went down to a 3 day work week. This was mostly due to childcare, to allow Miss Way to return to work after her maternity leave. The fact I really wasn’t enjoying my job was a big factor though!
My company really resisted letting me go down to 3 days, particularly since my recent promotion. Apparently, you can’t possibly be in management and work less than 5 days a week! I basically gave them the choice of 3 days or none, so they ended up giving it a go. The power of FU money!
Clearly the move to part time work has had a significant impact on our savings rates and FI progress this year, but that’s a sacrifice we’re more than happy to make before Baby Way starts school. We want to maximise our time with him while we can!
New Horizons
The next decision was a big one.
An increasingly frustrated Miss Way had made me promise to apply for a new job every time my boss annoyed me. This happened quite regularly!
I ended up in a position where I was choosing between 2 good offers.
One was nearby, with an employer quite similar to my own (although hopefully more progressive in nature!).
The other, however, was a slightly different option.
One such period of frustration coincided with a very interesting looking job advert – Structural Engineer in the Caribbean with tax free income and year-round sunshine!
I duly sent through a CV, expecting not to hear anything back. The next day, the company contacted me and arranged an interview. Shortly after that, I had a formal offer on the table and a HUGE decision to make.
As discussed here and here, we decided to give it a go and uproot our lives!
We’ve been wanting to work abroad for quite a few years now. We didn’t really know when the right opportunity would arise, but this one seems far too good to turn down.
At the moment it looks like we will be moving in late February. From a professional perspective, I’m really hoping this move will rekindle my love for my profession. The company and role I’m moving into certainly sound much more interesting and enjoyable.
A significant aspect of the move is that I’ll be back to full time hours. This will be a difficult step for me to take, having enjoyed my time with Baby Way so much. Fingers crossed the outdoor lifestyle will mean that I can spend much more quality time with him outside of work, meaning the impact is lessened. Only time will tell!
Miss Way will also be working when we make the move to the Caribbean. She has a role lined up in a local Primary School, which sounds fantastic. They can also look after Baby Way when she’s working, which we think will be great for him as well as her.
Baby Way
As I’ve touched on above, this year has seen me spend a lot of time and energy on Baby Way.
I’ve loved seeing him grow and learn so many new things and can’t believe how much he has changed since this time last year!
The difference in his relationship with me since going down to 3 days has been significant. He trusts me a lot more and enjoys spending days with me while Mama works. This is something I’m really proud of and I’m glad we had the opportunity to work things this way.
He has been central to all the decisions discussed above. We really hope the big move is going to benefit him, with the many positives outweighing the downsides of such a significant move.
He will continue to be at the centre of all our decisions, as we’re determined to do the best by him.
Tennis
As was evident on the blog, tennis was a huge part of my life in recent years. Unfortunately, 2021 has seen me play almost no tennis due to an ongoing wrist injury. I first injured my wrist in early 2020 and have been seeing various consultants, physios and others since.
Unfortunately, so far, I’ve got no solution. The latest idea is that it could be a nerve issue, but I’m still waiting for testing to investigate this. Fingers crossed this can happen before we move in late February, otherwise I’ll be a bit stuck!
The process of trying to determine a diagnosis has been incredibly frustrating through the NHS. Everything takes forever and I haven’t felt like the quality of care has been great either.
It’s pretty devastating not to be able to play, especially considering I was playing 3 or 4 times a week previously.
Alongside my work situation, this has certainly impacted my mental health over the last year.
Mental Health
For the first time in my life, I would say the last year has seen me succumb to mild spells of depression.
A combination of my work situation, lack of sleep, and the inability to play the sport I was enjoying so much led to a dip in my enjoyment of life in general. Throwing a global pandemic in there didn’t help!
This had a significant impact on 2020 but was also part of the motivation for making a drastic change.
I had already lost my biggest social activity (tennis), was going to change my job anyway, and we were also ready to move house. It’s never easy to move continents, but this seemed like the ideal opportunity!
2022
That’s it for my 2021 Personal Review! There are so many reasons to be excited looking ahead at 2022. We hope you all feel the same!
In the coming days, we’re intending to post a few other updates, including:
- 2021 Financial Review (tracking progress towards our FIRE goals, current savings amounts etc)
- Our usual monthly spending post for December
- Annual spending review – a summary of all of our spending in 2021
Let us know how your 2021 went and what you’re excited about for 2022 in the comments!
Hope you had a great Christmas period and all the best for 2022.
Mr Way
I skied into a tree fifteen years ago and sprained my wrist to the point that I could barely brush my teeth with that hand. My tennis game went from decent to terrible for the better part of a year. I had to switch to only trying to hit winners with my two handed backhand, which was a lower percentage shot for me. One bright spot was it greatly improved my backhand game! Eventually the wrist came back to nearly 100% and so did my tennis. However several weeks ago I was filling in for a lady in my wife’s team practice and was “simulating” a lady by not hitting the big topspin forehands I usually hit and on a slow ball I did a forehand slice and my wrist exploded in pain. It was a soft shot, I don’t know how it could have damaged anything, but I was back almost to square one. I started wearing one of those wrist braces that forces you to keep your hand bent up slightly and after a few weeks its almost OK again. I now do think it is a nerve thing, likely carpal tunnel. I have tiny wrists and Trump hands and I think the nerves just get compressed. Anyway, you can buy the wrist brace for ten bucks on Amazon and it might be worth a try. I also found that if you can stand the pain, tennis doesn’t make the injury get any worse, and might even help it heal. Note, you can’t wear the brace while playing, or I couldn’t, just the rest of the time. I’m a licensed professional engineer, which is unusual for chemical engineers, but for engineers in your line of work licensing is often mandatory. How is that handled in the Caribbean?