Living in downtown Utrecht has a lot of advantages. I'm close to bars, restaurants, all the big shops and public transport. I live in a reasonably quiet street, but it's still busy enough for you to feel the vibe of a city. Driving a car in downtown Utrecht is frustrating at best and only advised when you really know the city very well. With all the construction works going on lately roads can suddenly be closed, so you need inside information on any alternative routes.

Satellite navigation will not help you in any way!

Unfortunately, It's been a while since my last post. It was actually just a month and a half ago, but I was very keen on posting an article every 2 weeks. It just wasn't possible right now.

I've been quite busy lately with all sorts of activities and I'm loving it. Well, apart from the fact that I can't travel to see my friends.

I still work from home and besides my job I fill my days doing all sorts of things. I work out, educate myself through Udemy and entertain myself on Youtube.

Here are some highlights of how I used my time during the Corona smart lockdown.

It's often difficult to write an article. Especially when I want it to be engaging and fun to read, but like most people I'm also stuck in the house because of the pandemic and since nothing much is happening it becomes challenging to find an interesting subject to write about. One off the main things I've noticed about being in an "intelligent lockdown" is that I lost my sense of rhythm. I still work, but instead of going to the office I work from home and I no longer work 9 to 5.

Writing can be very difficult sometimes. Really!! I've been trying to write a new post for days now and I just can't seem to get an engaging story going on here. Granted, I'm not a writer, but an IT engineer, so having a "writers block" seems to be a very silly statement to make here. I'm trying to become financially free and I write about miscellaneous things I come across hoping to catch your interest. I've been struggling with writing a new post about Mother Nature supposedly getting back at us humans.

Today is the 15th of March, meaning it is my 'peildatum', the day I check all the places where I have some money or investments and record them in my spreadsheet. I also make a little graph to make my "progress" visible. I usually like doing this, but this time I dreaded the moment I actually had to look at the numbers and see what damage the corona virus did to my investments. So, far I lost quite a bit on my investments, but not as much as I expected. However, the end is not in sight so I expect more losses in the coming months.

The corona virus, a.k.a. Sars-Cov2, has spread around the world rapidly causing a lot of problems. Sadly many people lost their lives, many more are sick and it caused a global financial crisis. Even though I think there are too many people in the world I still think it's sad that many people died. Imagine loosing a loved one to this virus. Markets were already struggling a bit with the situation, but in the last week the global markets crashed, big time! I even received an email from my broker about it.

A couple of days ago I went to the grocery store to do some shopping. There was insufficient food in our refrigerator and we felt like eating curry that night. It was just another ordinary typical Dutch day in Utrecht. It was februari, so it was a cold, grey and slightly depressing. When I was almost at the store I noticed a middle-aged man standing outside on the sidewalk talking on his phone. It sounded like he was in difficult discussion with someone on the other end, possibly business related.

I've got my basic plan in place already. Make money, invest, quit my job. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, but you get the idea. But what to do when I reach this glorious day of being able to quit my current job? I do have a lot of idea's, but no global plan. That means that there will be an enormous void after I no longer need to go to work. That's pretty scary, I can tell you.

For well over 6 years now, I've been reading books and blogs on financial independence, because I wanted to escape my current office job and do something that actually makes me happy. It was my believe I needed a plan, enough financial backup and courage. These books and blogs help me get (and keep) motivated on reaching this goal. They offer tips and information on how to change your lifestyle and take the step, which always turns out easier than first believed. An office-less lifestyle comes in many forms and everybody has his/her own way of doing this.

Like many other people I also really like Youtube. Almost every day I spend at least some time watching all kinds of video's. Music video's, food- and travel vlogs, DIY instructions, places I want (or going) to visit, and reviews on products I'd like to buy. And even though there seems to be a lot of advertising going on lately I still like it. I really don't like the interrupting commercials before or even during the video's, but since Youtube is a 'free' service, I just deal with it. I even subscribed to a few channels, because I found myself going back there on a regular basis.