Rachael McKelvey

• My 2022 finance wrapped
• Being out of routine
• What’s in a digital pound anyway?
• Where next for the weekly food shop?
• Have podcasts had their day?

My 2022 finance wrapped
This was a January job I just kept moving on each week, but this week I finalised my January accounts so why not have a look at how 2022 turned out and have a stab at what 2023 might bring.

I blew up my accounts in 2022, quite literally, losing 20 years of spend data. I also changed jobs and was made redundant shortly after and I enjoyed a short sabbatical so last year has been unlike any other.

I know various banks tag, and allowing you to tag, spending and even give you a wrapped but you know I find them creepy and a weird and all spend is not created equal…the food shop is a great example, because how much of my annual supermarket(s) spend is actually staying alive vs catering for something social vs too lazy to make lunch that week and that’s only detail I can add.

It also allows me to pull out things that I want to look at, hi vending machine spend in the late 2010’s I’m looking at you, and that helps me be mindful. It’s also helped me work out what I need to earn vs what I want to earn coming back onto the job market this year…the numbers are quite different, and the choices associated with following either are also very different.

Being out of routine
The easy stuff is easy right? You have it absolutely nailed when everything goes your way, but when things don’t how quickly does it all fall apart? Well, the answer to that question for me this week was very quickly, some perceived habits absolutely not habits at all.

I’ve skipped yoga and a gym slot this week because I want to hang out with the foster dog, I thought would be gone this week, who is still very much here and I’ve used the no kitchen excuse to eat biscuits for breakfast, lunch and dinner.While chaos and I are rarely far apart this week it was the unexpected pit shops on the already complicated journey that just took me further away from that single word intention I set at the start of the year.So this coming week I am going to be moving around some of the bigger stuff to leave some room for the smaller stuff that might just come along, because chaos and I are such good friends.

What’s in a digital pound anyway?
The joint consultation opened this week on the digital pound, the Treasury and the Bank of England are keen to emphasis that it would not replace cash and that cash will always exist, but with the decline in cash usage a digital pound is “likely to be needed”.

But what would it be and how would it work? It would work in a similar way to crypto, it will be held in a digital wallet and accessed either by smartphone or by card. A digital pound would always equal a physical pound, like a stablecoin but would be a central bank digital currency so not in private sector ownership. Operators would have access to the Bank of England’s infrastructure to monitor movements and the responsibility of knowing their customer.

So, what is the point? Who knows what the landscape will look like in 2030, the proposed launch date so it is important to futureproof the access to money but what gap is it trying to fill? Not everyone has a smart phone or a fixed address to help them be “known” and those of us that do have both a smart phone and a fixed address might not be keen on adding location to our spending data.

2025 will be the go/no deadline for the Treasury and Bank of England to make their decision, lets see how consumers react.

Where next for the weekly food shop?
The innovation in food shopping has been quite astounding, from in store only to online delivery and click and collect, to scan and shop to apps on our phone.

This week I ventured out of home and into the wild to hunter gather because we mostly have no kitchen and I still don’t ever think that the small shop would meet the click and collect or home delivery. Wrong it would have exceeded both, quite comfortably.

I used my phone to scan items and place them in my own bags, I point blank refuse to shop anywhere that requires me to lift items off shelves and put them into a trolley, to lift them back out to a conveyor belt to lift them back into a bag. This is a waste of life. I know this is a very privileged position because I can value my time more than money, but as a chronically ill person I also don’t have the energy to waste.

But as I was wandering around the supermarket, a little overstimulated, I was wondering where things will go next, what’s the next innovation and where will it take us? I have no idea if the choice was mine.

Have podcasts had their day?
While podcasts boomed in 2020, but Edison Research shows that listener numbers down and the numbers of adults who had listened to a podcast in the last month was down to 38%. The podcasts stats from Listen Notes show quite a stark trend across the numbers of new podcasts, the amount of new episodes and the amount of shows coming to an end.

It’s been rumbling around the zeitgeist in the end of year reviews and has been picked up by two of my favourite not the mainstream news feeds, Chartr and The Week Unwrapped.

I still love a podcast, but I do find there are more podcasts than I have time for, and they have typically taken the place of TV and radio listening in my life, do I consume the news everyday anymore? No. I listen to a few curated podcasts around the topics I am interested in and some that I am not, just to be sure.

I think podcasts are probably just at the end of their covid boost, when we all had time and nothing else to do but fill our life with stuff and consume media, that’s exactly what we did. Now we have the opportunity for experience we are taking it, why listen to a podcast when you can go see the film or the person talk, or visit the exhibition. I don’t think for a minute this is the end of days for podcasting.

Current watch:  Our Flag Means Death – A bit like Bridgerton (Period drama) meets The Pirates (because silly Pirates) meets Flight of the Concords (because Rhys Darby). A romantic period comedy about the life and misadventures of Stede Bonnet. In 1717, Stede Bonnet went full on midlife crisis, giving up his comfortable life as landed gentry in Barbados to go and do some pirating. What a wonderful series so far, the characters, the chemistry and just how they act together. Just wonderful, good for the soul tv.

Current read: Untold Resilience – Future Women – 19 stories from 19 ordinary women who have survived extraordinary things. A collection of experiences collected from women of all ages in lockdown about their experiences of life’s truly hard things, famine, poverty, war, discrimination, and violence, sharing their wisdom, perspective and hope in their own words.

This was an immediate purchase on publication for me in 2020, a reminder that unprecedented times weren’t just a Covid-19 thing and sometimes when life is hard and the news if full of tragedy its nice to pick this book up, read a story and find comfort and see hope for the future.

Most Impactful Listen: How They Train – Andrew Messick – Ironman CEO: The Episode Everyone is Talking About – The Ironman brand is huge, have a friend who’s into triathlon? They probably have done or want to do an Ironman branded event, but in recent years the company has come under some scrutiny from its purpose and intention to its pricing strategy amplified by Covid-19 and the halt on racing.

Jack Kelly managed to get a chat with the CEO of Ironman and well…it’s an uncomfortable listen. Jack asks the big questions and Andrew spectacularly fails to deliver on answers that matter to athletes, from the structure changes for the World Championship, to revenue share for Pro Athletes. The episode is heated and unprofessional on Andrews part and is textbook in how not to try to get your point across. My interest in Triathlon is not past but has waned since my 70.3 days, but Ironman has a brand is still fascinating and a rare opportunity for some clarification was not to be missed.