2018 Year in Review

This is one of those writings that might end up a little opaque to the outside world as it serves to be a reminder and log for future-brennan to look back on, and may not necessarily be widely interesting.

Work

Freelancing is starting to really churn on its own momentum. This was year 3 and the compounding gains of networking and cold outreach have really started bringing gig requests to me rather than me always pounding the pavement when a job ends in order to find another one.

Remember to never stop on the outreach though, it might dry up if left truly alone?

This is the year / summer I started taking on Critical Mass gigs, and that's still going well as of the time of this writing in january - I suspect they'd give me more work than I could even take on if I let them, and I'm feeling glad of the arms-length relationship as a contractor to straight up refuse new gigs in order to carve out my own space for vacations or other gigs in a way that being a real employee wouldn't afford. This small-seeming paradigm shift might be the ultimate method of employment? See that Medium post I wrote called Poly Remote Work from a few years back thinking about / predicting exactly this.

This was also the year we did the Obama Project, which was super cool for a variety of reasons - great little team working on a fun little project reminded me a lot of why I'm here and what purposes I can enjoy helping with, who I want to work beside, how I want to live while doing it.

By the end of the year, and now moving into 2019, my new problem to solve / thing to learn is how to deal with too many offers at once - choosing who to go with and how to spend the time. In previous years it's been conveniently self balancing: you do what comes up and it comes up with a fairly steady easy regularity that it builds in gaps and breaks between work cycles - great!

Now, when I want a break, I actively have to say 'no' to people, and that'll be new / possibly difficult.

Also, the hours are simply higher. I'm working up to 40 hour weeks now, which actually feels like a lot.

Money

Financially really solid main income, future-brennan has all the money records in other spreadsheet places so I won't comment too much on that here. I made almost exactly this year what I did in years 1 + 2 together, so that's sort of a fun coincidence. I wonder how long we can Fibonacci my income.

The income really accelerated at summer when the heavier hitting gigs started - my hourly / weekly rate has been roughly the same the whole year, but they as a big company just have so much work that the net result is much longer boosts of income instead of working for a few weeks and then maybe waiting a month for another one. It's just full boost now, which, again, we'll see about as it goes on.

Side incomes are still low:

2018 I started Arille to sell 3D printed jewelry that I design on the side. 2019 I hope to really boost the brand's existence into something of a passive-ish income stream. It's profitable so far, in that I've sold a handful of pieces to friends and a few internet strangers, but nothing staggering and the profit is put right back into paying for Shopify's monthly fee. I feel better about it as an on-demand service, the whole Asgard Gear thing was a good experiment, but required our own humans to cut, assemble, hold inventory and ship everything which was sort of unsustainable as an automated passive hustle.

Society6 is still trucking along, haha, making that sweet sweet ~$15 a month which I continue to use to buy Steam games and Humble Bundles.

Bank interest including Tangerine's promotions are about $40 a month, which is still not really anything but is sort of pleasing just as its own thing: non-investment cash with non-zero returns is still nice.

Investments tanked a lot at the end of the year, just because of the whole Trump / China tradewar thing, everyone lost but the market seems to be clawing back up now a few months later. Really resets the yearly gains made, though, so the effective outcome numbers are abysmal.

I also bought a handful of cannabis stocks with a couple grand of experimental money. In 2018 they mostly dropped, let's be honest, but here in january 2019 they're doing pretty great. Such is the volatility of fringe market plays. I'm betting on the longer term (couple years) as the overall demand and legalization continues to bloom around the world, and these new bigger greenhouses come online.

Moved out of Empire Life at a loss + fees, but good riddance. What an awful investment platform.

Wealthsimple holds a lions share still (and the Empire money sits there now) so that's okay but moving forward all new money will probably just go to Questrade and VGRO or other personally held ETFs, both for the slight fee decrease and also just for flexibility. I appreciate Wealthsimple a ton for being a lovely site with dead simple procedure, but I think I outgrew it within these few years.

Life

I sold the Mini and bought a 2009 Volvo C30 T5 R-design, which has been just great so far. I think I'm really going to love this car for years to come, even if it's a little more boring and mature than the Mini was; maybe that's a reflection of myself. I miss the exhaust note though, the pops and crackles and playful punk aggression of the shorter gearbox. The Mini was a teen pyromaniac with itchy fingers.

Bought a Shark tuner at great USD converted expense, which brings it up to ~270 HP and 300 torque, plus a much nicer throttle response which feels a little Mini-ish and revs higher per less throttle position nicely.

Still want a raucous exhaust, they're hard to find for that car.

Dated Chelsea the entire year, first anniversary. Went to Vancouver together in spring.

Still live in Cranston, this is year 3 into 4 of that. Still threatening to move, still haven't. So it goes.

We replaced all the toilets in the house. Fun news, I know. Also got an eye exam, prescription unchanged.

Starting working out in the summer, and continued to do that for the rest of the year - my body is slowly but definitely changing, I've gained about 5 pounds of muscle so far and a few friends have commented that I'm filling out shirts with a bit more shoulder and chest, so that's exciting for purely vanity reasons. It feels good to look good, and the rhythm of going every few days is really nice for its own work break sake.

Went to Japan in february, which was super cool. Trying to devote more time and money to trips exactly like that more often, they're great investments into myself.

Bought a Cricut, and started making all sorts of random ideas. Started allowing myself to spend money on tools, which sounds funny for someone who is surrounded by tools: I've always been a bit too frugal on those things, trying to open myself up more to giving myself the ability to make stuff faster and better.

Outlook

This is the real juice of a year in review, right? The part where we take a snapshot of our mood and try to feel the winds of change.

The truth is, no news is good news.

Things are good: I have upward momentum, I have energy, I have friends and family and love. I have money and an immense savings rate. The gym brings vitality. I'm not throwing cash at the money pit that was the BMW dealership anymore.

I want to learn to spend more money. It's dumb to say, but I'm bad at it. I'm stingy and cheap and it's limiting me in places. My efforts to be as efficient as possible also carry an opportunity cost, and sometimes it's penny wise, pound foolish.

That's a silly expression for a country that doesn't have either pennies nor pounds sterling.

Things like travel: I'm pretty happy to wait for good flight deals, but also, maybe sometimes you just have to pay more to go to the place sooner, or during a better season or whatever. Sometimes that's just what travel involves, not taking the scrap flights simply because they're cheapest for the year.

Things like buying a printer. I bought a 2D inkjet printer which is something I haven't owned for like 7 years and it really sort of killed me. It was like $50, a sum of money I'm privileged to barely care about, but now it's this thing I have to own and keep on the desk and deal with. It feels so wildly expensive for no reason. I hate it, but irrationally. It's a useful tool, I needed a printer to print things. It also has a scanner, maybe that's useful for something, maybe something really cool. But still. Ugh.

In the end, I don't know. Things will keep moving, I'll keep playing the game as best as I can. That's all we can ever do. I don't really have or make goals, this is an infinite game.

I did think of one thing, though. I think I'd like a sporty car. Despite being a car guy for my whole life, I sort of eschewed the idea of ever actually owning one: they're a pain, right? you can never really drive them fast or park them anywhere, they're expensive to maintain and depreciate and insure.

But I think like, for lack of any other goals, I think having an arbitrary one is at least something to aim towards, and maybe that's just enough meaning to define certain choices and priorities. Not sure yet.

If I could choose, it'd be one of the older generation R8 hardtops, with the curves and the side blades.

But anyway. Here's to a yet bigger year.