Hey friends,

Well look at that, I underpromised and over delivered: there is a newsletter this week after all.

The truth is that if I stopped I probably wouldn't start again. Exercising the writing muscle weekly and having a firm deadline of a Wednesday morning has proved a winning combination for consistency. It's something I've tried to implement for videos on a number of occasions but am yet to succeed. I'll keep trying.

Anyway, we've touched down! It's been a long and stressful day but on the upside the boy was impeccably behaved on the plane. Small mercies.

₿ Crypto

Oh yes, I can sense the cheers, the groans, but probably from the majority of you, a blank stare.

However a number of you have asked me my thoughts on the crypto space, and my answer has always been some variation of 'I don't know'. And that's not a very good answer; not for you, and not for me either. So I thought I'd ask someone who does know, or at least has put in a considerable amount of research into the space: Barney Whiter aka The Escape Artist. He's a pretty big deal in the personal finance space and has featured on the BBC among other respectable places and I really like his writing style and attitude to life.

In one of his recent newsletters he asked if anyone had youtube experience because he wanted to put his thoughts into video and to do so in a Q&A style to bring out the nuance in the topic.

So I offered to help and have just released a video where I do my best to pull out of him where the value in crypto is, where the space is heading as well as trying to challenge him here and there:

For the crypto sceptics among you you'll hear that Barney himself was, until recently, one of you and still considers himself somewhat of an agnostic on crypto. it's that nuance that I like and why I felt it was worth making this video in the ocean of youtube crypto videos and channels.

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Since releasing it about half an hour ago it's got around 10 dislikes to 5 likes. I was fully expecting it but it still doesn't feel great. I think the video delivers a ton of value but it may be in the wrong place. To those of you who read this newsletter it probably makes sense why I'd delve into this topic but for most subscribers it likely feels totally out of the blue and perhaps looks like I'm trying to capitalise on a trend. My fault for not communicating better. I'll see what happens over the next day or so as Barney's readers are alerted to the video.

The super annoying thing about this space are the spammers who comment and have bots replying trying to lead people to text a number or follow a particular person. So I'm furiously deleting them but am kinda surprised YT isn't more on top of it. Fortunately DIY content gets far less of that nonsense.

🔨 DIY Fail

I was all set to have completed the insulated plasterboard before we left but when it came to it both my cans of InstaStik foam had ceased up.

After having lost a foam gun to gunking up I'm now super diligent to spray the gun and my cans with the cleaner fluid and of course run the liquid through the gun. But no luck getting it to flow and it was out of stock everywhere so it will have to wait till I get back. The old elbow is causing me quite some trouble so a break from DIY is welcome.

👋

Oh, you know the pension thing I mentioned last week? Well the government took that option away that very same day so unless you started a transfer before midnight last Wednesday to somewhere like Fidelity, you're stuck with 57 as the pension access age. Unfortunately I didn't 🤦.

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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P.p.s. You can find all previous newsletters here.