Hey friends,

I had a couple of good name suggestions for this newsletter: 'Ali Blah Blah' (clever) and 'Ali's Insights'. I rather like them as they're clear this is personal to me and there's no promise that these are good insights. However, I have this vague idea of one day turning this into a club of sorts, a bit like the Freemasons but without the weird handshakes, so ideally the name would sound club-like.

Or perhaps it doesn't need a name? Meh, let's get on with it:

🛠️ Tool Talk Continued

I received some great replies that have really helped with my indecision over upgrading my tools that may benefit those of you at the same stage:

Graham:

On the tool front, I have also fallen deep in to the dewalt 18v rabbit hole. In general I can't say enough about cordless tools, they have absolutely transformed my work flow and are just so liberating. And of course, as you mentioned, once you start investing in any platform, it just makes so much sense to continue. The effectiveness of tools can be measured both in how well it does the job when operating and the ease of getting it to a state of operating. I've become so used to my cordless tools now that the thought of finding an extension cable and dealing with cords on some of my other tools just seems like hard work. I have plenty of corded tools that operate perfectly well, but I just find I no longer use them, so are, for me, not effective.

Stephen:

I bought my first DeWalt tool in 2012/3 and now have an extensive collection but have never had a single issue with them, I definitely agree re Brushless, not sure why you can even buy anything else, it is a bit like still having to watch SD TV channels in 2021!

Rod:

I have found that no-brand DeWalt look-alike batteries from ebay work fine at a small fraction of the cost of the genuine article.

Well I don't know about you but I'm convinced! Tools are arriving next week. I first had to do a spot of bartering capitulation with Abi along the lines of:

'Ohhh well, if you're getting all these tools then I'm definitely buying the Dyson Air Purifier'.

'Okay fine'

👷 Project - Bedroom Carpet

It's raining. You've likely noticed. So my fencing/laylandii project is on hold and I've switched to my indoor project - the bedroom. It took ages to get a plasterer in but with that done I painted, attached the window board and skirting (pre-primed MDF this time - SO much better than pine) and finally the radiator.

Next we needed some carpet so we wandered down to CarpetRight, took one look at the prices and left. Instead, based on a recommendation from a friend, we ordered some samples from OnlineCarpets and were suitably impressed. We ordered this 11mm underlay with good soundproofing and a high 'tog rating' (thermal rating - like we need another metric along with U and R-value) and this carpet.

I picked up a knee-kicker and carpet tucker and went to work. It took a while to lay and get it stretched correctly and I missed the first half of the England v Scotland game but it came out great. Another trade added to my DIY CV.

Next, I reassembled the wardrobe I'd previously renovated, added a bit of MDF to the left-hand side to give the now thicker door room to open as well as to contour the side to the skirting:

By Sunday, we were giving our clothes a proper home for the first time. All that's left to do now are the downlights, some sockets to wire up and then furnishing - bed, bedside tables, lamps, curtains, shelves and a make-up table, apparently. Nearly there.

So yeh, turns out carpet laying isn't too tricky, though I'd recommend some knee pads - ouch.

I've not filmed much of this stuff as I've got to do it all again for the next bedroom so with the experience from this room I can actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. I am thinking of doing one closing video on this room to show the finished article and to discuss how the soundproofing has worked out.

💰 Money Saving Tip

Cashback websites. You probably already know and use them but just in case: whenever you buy anything online, first check Quidco or Topcashback to see if there's cashback available for the site you want to buy from. It only takes a few additional seconds and I always do it for my click and collect Screwfix purchases (around 1% of purchase price), amongst others.

It can take a while to get paid though and occasionally things don't track so the cardinal rule is to always buy from the cheapest place without taking cashback into account - but if you do get it, great.

It's free to sign up and use and if you go through my refer a friend links (we're friends right?) you get £5 at Quidco (my preferred one) or nothing at Topcashback, but I get £5.

My ultimate hack came about a few years ago when I was working a job where I had to stay in hotels 3 or 4 nights of the week.

1. Go to Quidco and click through to Hotels.com (it was around 10% cashback at the time. Just checked, still is)
2. On Hotels.com get rewards nights (1 free night for every 10 nights stayed)
3. Get points for whichever hotel I stayed at (Hilton, Club Carlson etc)
4. Pay with a cashback credit card
5. Expense full price to the company

It was a well run operation but the hotel chains and Hotels.com got wise to it and I think Amex is the only one left standing for credit card cashback (which has just got worse) so it can't be done quite so well now. You can still take the shampoo though.

🏝️ Holidays (Thought Piece)

🚨Long read alert

Story time: Around early March 2020, covid was very much on the news but to most people it was over there, not here. I stopped by Screwfix to pick up a few bits donning a face mask (we DIYers really were well prepared for a pandemic weren't we?) and the guy behind the counter immediately began taking great pleasure ridiculing me, giving his expert opinion on how face masks make it more likely I'll catch it and anyhow, it's only a cold.

Fast forward a few months and the preventative nature of face masks in reducing infection and spreading has been proven and it's now mandatory in most shops. While I abide by the rules and think them wise, I'm a bit more relaxed about the virus itself as we now know what the disease is (variants included), who is most at risk and how best to treat it. But at the beginning, we didn't have a clue and I'll be damned if I'm to believe what the Chinese government had to say on the matter.

You might be noticing a theme of contrarianism which will no doubt repeat as we go on.

So despite my fear index coming down a few notches, one Pfizer jab, and as much as Abi and I would like a change of scenery, I don't fancy sitting on a plane just yet. So we're giving the summer holiday a miss this year and besides, I have a ton of DIY I need to tackle while the weather is good.

However we are hopeful of getting away for some winter sun and we have a window of opportunity to do something pretty cool:

💻 Digital Nomadism

If you consult Instagram on the topic, you'll be under the impression it's a cult of people taking photos of laptops against backdrops of beaches and palms.

In actuality, it's a community of people running internet ventures or working remotely in a location of their choosing.

This is slow-travel: stopping in a place for a few months and rather than beach days and sight-seeing, instead immersing yourself in the culture and lifestyle. Some even exploit geo-arbitrage: earning first-world wages while spending in developing countries' economies.

It sounds pretty great to me and it's a path that may be opening up to more people. When I mentioned in a video a few years ago that I'd landed 'a home-based job' it was such a foreign concept that most people seem to think I meant a 'Homebase job'. Makes sense, given the subject matter! But now working from home is commonplace, for a while at least, and it makes anyone wonder: Hey, I can do this from anywhere...

So with me working remotely and Abi on maternity leave, now is our chance. Ideally we'd get a cheeky villa for a month, have each set of parents come out for a week to baby-sit give them a holiday. And the cat would remain here and flip-flop between them.

Right now we're thinking of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Not cheap, but close-ish and warm. If it does happen and any of you are there at the same time and fancy a cerveza, that would be pretty cool.

🙌 My Ideal Life

I don't like winter.

I can take the cold but the dark and wet makes my favourite thing - messing about in the garden - no fun.

Summer in the UK is pretty grand though. The south gets a few beach-worthy days each year and the further north and west you live, the longer the evenings are (Happy Solstice btw). There's a sort of hazy, dream-like feeling that you don't tend to get on the continent where the sun sets more abruptly.

I'm happy here in summer. I enjoy the Autumn colours and can hold out for the buzz and booze of Christmas/New Year. But January to March can sod off. I'll add April to that too which can be hit or miss weather wise and it's when I get the worst of my tree-pollen induced hay-fever.

So ideally we'd skip this winter lull each year by practising some digital nomadism and I don't want to wait until I'm retired or financially independent (more on these topics in future) to do it.

These are the obstacles:

• The working remote issue - If employed there are bunch of hurdles. The most tricky is that small and medium sized companies find the tax situation too complicated to have employees working abroad and so expect you to work in the UK. You could try to fly under the radar and use a VPN to hide your location though - not a recommendation mind.
• Pets - you can't just leave Fido. This is partly why we opted for a cat rather than a dog which would have been my preference. As it so happens the cat's turned out to be a complete champ.
• The terrible twos (and threes) - I'm told kids make travelling very difficult but for short-haul flights like to the Canary Islands, it can't be too bad, right? 🙏
• School - This one is annoying. Apparently you get fined for taking your kid out even for a short holiday! I have to say I'm not really that enamoured with the idea of school as while I appreciate it gives a kiddo structure and socialisation, for actual learning I'm not sure there's much that I can't teach him myself, at least up to GCSE level, plus a bunch more life skills that are completely neglected such as DIY, managing finances, problem solving and you know, how the world actually works. I'm not proposing full time homeschooling but surely living abroad for a few months will add more life experience than sitting in a classroom. Anyway, this is a tricky one for parents and perhaps I'm being naive thinking there's a way around it.
• Timezones - if you have to attend Zoom meetings and be online at the same time as the rest of the workforce then going too far east or west can be problematic. However if your body clock has never synced up well with UK living this might be a good thing for the larks and owls amongst you. For example, in Crete you could finish work by 3p.m, then hit the beach.
• Visas - Obviously a mega-topic and will differ for each country, even within Europe. Again, you might be able to fly under the radar without a work permit for up to 90 days in the EU as a tourist. Some might be able to get a second passport. I believe Irish and Italian citizenship can be passed down the generations, even skipping a few. One set of my great-grandparents came over from Italy so that might be our ticket for longer stays.
• Money - Accommodation, it's expensive. If you're renting here then you can just hand in your notice and find somewhere else when you get back (renting does have a lot of upsides). For homeowners it's harder. I think either you have to just suck it up and double up on rent and mortgage or possibly short-let/AirBnB your house. Alternatively, with the skills to build a garden room under your belt you could build one on wheels and take it all over or maybe buy a boat and spend the winter on the med. Still costly though.

So it's not easy but doing something out of the ordinary never is. We're far from achieving it, if we ever will, but a month this winter might give us a flavour of the lifestyle.

Besides the weather there is another reason I'm so keen on this idea...

⏱️ Slowing Down Time

By adding in novel experiences, even if it's just waking up somewhere different or shopping in a foreign supermarket, you'll notice things. The way the morning light spills across the room; the terracotta tiled floor; the strange fruit on offer or just having to figure out the currency in order to pay.

You're off autopilot and now you're taking everything in. This has two magical effects:

1. Time slows down. Have you ever had a really busy day going from place to place and at the end of it when you think back to the morning it almost feels like it was days ago? That's what adding in novelty can do. There are a lot of different theories on why a summer felt like it went on forever as a kid but as we get older the years feel like they fly by ever faster. The most compelling to me is that everything is new when you're young, but when you get older everything becomes so...expected.
2. You'll remember it. When you think back on periods of your life, you remember them as just that: periods. That office job you had for 5 years - one block of time sat at a particular desk. So which will be more memorable? That November we stayed at home or the month we spent in Gran Canaria as a young family? We'd probably take more photos too.

📩 Email Antics

I'd been emailing back and forth with a chap about his garden room build when a new email popped up from his partner explaining how she and his sister tease him about how much he talks about his build and my videos and would I make a quick video to say happy expectant father's day to surprise him, as they were doing a gender reveal party with family.

Highly amused, I made the video so if you fancy a gander at my desk setup for what will become what I'm calling my Youtube Studio here's the vid.

I hear it went down well.

🎥️ Good Viewing

Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime: If you find Jez amusing, you'll like this. You get to follow him around as he gets to grips with farming his land in Oxfordshire. There's a very capable and funny lad and an old boy who's completely unintelligible. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a thing or two as well. I reckon if I'd have been born into a farming life, it would have suited me very well, except for the early mornings of course.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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