December quick recap
December went past quite fast, I had a quite a few great dinner parties with friends where we ate good traditional Norwegian christmas food. Then I spent the new years in Playa Flamenca next to Alicante, Spain. It was a great trip with old and new friends!
January quick recap
In January I started doing group training at the gym, that’s pretty fun and it’s a big differene from my usual casual weight lifting. Lifting 10 sets in the time I usually do 2-3 sets is quite exhausting, but good for my endurance.
I also went to a few classical concerts, which I like a lot.
And I we have had two weeks with snow in Bergen! That’s something I haven’t seen in like 12 years or so.
2023 Recap and review
Here is my 2023 recap, it’s a bit late, but better late than never. I’ll blame it on my desire for getting correct financial data, and then I procrastinated on downloading and categorising all the transactions. So I should probably build some automation for that.
Another year has passed, let’s take a look:
How did I spend my days?
| Activity | 2022 | 2023 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friends | 212 | 246 | 34 |
| Work | 206 | 217 | 11 |
| Sun | 187 | 190 | 3 |
| Relaxing | 118 | 139 | 21 |
| Beer | 23 | 115 | 92 |
| Good food | 131 | 104 | -27 |
| Rain | 76 | 98 | 22 |
| TV Series/Movies | 103 | 87 | -16 |
| Family | 78 | 82 | 4 |
| Tired | 62 | 71 | 9 |
| Programming | 67 | 65 | -2 |
| Cloudy | 70 | 63 | -7 |
| Weight lifting | 54 | 62 | 8 |
| Party | 93 | 60 | -33 |
| YouTube | 19 | 41 | 22 |
| Practical work | 17 | 39 | 22 |
| Snow | 15 | 28 | 13 |
| Travel | No data | 26 | No data |
| Cabin | 29 | 22 | -7 |
| Bath in the ocean | 26 | 18 | -8 |
| New experiences | 23 | 16 | -7 |
| Disc Golf | 9 | 13 | 4 |
| Dates | 28 | 11 | -17 |
| Bouldering | 49 | 10 | -39 |
| Hiking | 9 | 7 | -2 |
| Skiing | 10 | 6 | -4 |
| Sick | 7 | 6 | -1 |
| Gaming | 4 | 3 | -1 |
I can see a pattern here, I spend time with friends, work, drink beer, eat good food, watch TV series and in the weekends I go partying.
I am a bit surprised that I have been tired 71 days, that is almost 20% of the year. In the first month of January I have focused on getting enough sleep, I can already see improvements in number of days I report being tired.
Overall I am happy with the year, I have had a lot of fun and I have learned a lot.
For the next year I want to do more bouldering, go on more dates, be less tired and finish some hobby programming projects.
Finances 💰
2023 has been a good year financially, even though property prices for my apartment has gone down around 5%, my networth still increased by around 33%! Most of the increase comes from left over salary being invested and increase in crypto value.
The decision of buying currency secured index fund has so far been a good decision, giving me a couple of percent higher return than “not-secured” index funds. This is due to Norges Bank increasing the interest rate, while the rest of the world decreased their interest, which has increased the value of the norwegian currency.
Spendings
Here is a selection of my spendings, I have lots more categories, but these are the most interesting ones.
| Category | 2022 | 2023 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | 27035 | 33545 | +6510 |
| Food | 19306 | 33626 | +14320 |
| Fast food and restaurants | 14200 | 27291 | +13091 |
| Electricity | 22508 | 10462 | -12046 |
| Clothes | 5560 | 10590 | +5030 |
| Vacations | 30100 | 29000 | -1100 |
| Bus, flights, train, ebikes | 12945 | 12114 | -830 |
| Mortgage (interest + payment) | 143055 | 232681 | +89626 |
In general I have spent more money on going out with friends and buying good food. Last year had exceptionally high electricity costs, this year has been more normal. But on the other hand the interest rate on the mortgage has doubled, leading to a large increase in mortgage costs.
Overall I am neutral to the spendings, I have had a good year and the amount of money going to investments has been roughly the same as last year (10% less).
Some random consumption statistics
| Category | 2022 | 2023 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trekronerene sausages | 15 | 42 | +27 |
| Beers at Akademiske Kvarter approximately | 75 | 120 | +45 |
| Kebab | 41 | 34 | -4 |
- I have eaten less kebabs this year, but a lot more at Trekroneren sausage shop. Sadly they have been closed for maintenance in january 🥲.
Career
2023 have been a good year in my career, I have learned a lot about leadership. I ran the employment process for three new junior developers, which went very well. Now I’m responsible for accelerating their developer careers, which is a fun challenge, I really enjoy watching other people develop themself!
This was a short one, life is good, I’m happy and I’m looking forward to 2024! 🎉