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Category: Life of Finch

How to Avoid A Mental Breakdown From Working At Home

| April 13, 2012 | Comments (12)

Do you remember what happened to Jack Torrance when he tried to ‘work from home’ in The Shining?

Jack thought a little peace and quiet would be nice. What better way to finish his writing than to migrate to a remote hotel with nothing but time and his rocking shadow to fill the void? Unfortunately, that particular ‘home’ turned out to be harbouring some sinister spirits.

Believe it or not, Internet Marketers and Jack Torrance have something in common. No, not haunted mansions. But rather, we have to deal with the psychological effect of isolation. We have to win the battle that goes on inside our heads.

Disconnecting from the world and working from home is some people’s idea of paradise. Well, if you’re not careful, it could turn in to your idea of Hell. And before you know it…

Here's Johnny

Well shit, Sherlock. I guess that 9-5 doesn’t look so bad, after all.

We Are All Creatures of Habit

From the age of about 5, we are indoctrinated with a system of routines. A system that – for many people – lasts all the way through to retirement.

There are 8760 hours in a year, and not many people have the power and responsibility to decide how they spend every last one of them.

I’ve spoken to many Internet Marketers like myself, and a recurring theme is the difficulty in striking a work-life-play balance.

Even though I had less freedom, I look back on my stint working for a London agency as one of the easiest times of my life. The days and weeks were laid out for me. You turn up at 9am, leave the office at 6pm, and whatever hours left in the day are yours to spunk however you see fit. There was a beautiful simplicity to life, albeit a restricting schedule that often left me chewing a large Mocha to get through the mornings.

I won’t lie. Working from home will always be my preferred arrangement. But it comes at the price of isolation. Do you ever feel that the rest of the world is racing on by without you?

The effect was magnified during my 8 months living in Thailand. There were periods of mild depression where I felt so isolated from other 24 year olds that I lost complete direction and control over my life. I came back to London thinking it would reignite me somehow. I was excited just to be able to communicate in English with whoever was serving me coffee. It was a luxury. But now having settled back in to the suburbs, the same restlessness has returned with a vengeance.

I come from the small town of Ruislip in North West London. It’s a nice town, but it rarely sets my pulse racing. The last time I got excited was when Boris Johnson rolled up outside Budgens seeking London Mayoral votes. You know you’ve got problems when the presence of Boris makes your day.

Despite being just 40 minutes from the hub of Central London, life here is slow. It’s really slow. There are times where I forget that human life exists outside my window, until I hear the trundle of a granny mowing down the street on her scooter. Then I realise, Jesus Christ, if she doesn’t slow down, some poor sod is about to get his arse extinguished by her four wheeled killing machine. That’s when I feel alive.

From my home office window, on a particularly exciting day, I may glimpse next-door’s cat getting in to a fight with a pigeon. But that’s about it. There are times where for all of the freedom and comfort that comes from working at home, I do question my future sanity. I’m 24 years old and most of my conversation throughout the day comes from two extremely lively dogs barking at me for food. Is this really all there is to Internet Marketing?

I think a lot of want-to-be-work-at-homers underestimate how quickly total freedom can spiral in to a blur of inactivity. There are times where ‘rudderless ship’ has summed me up perfectly.

Working from home creates a huge vacancy of time. Pretending that such a void can be filled with work, television and coffee is quite possibly one of the biggest lifestyle fuck-ups you can make.

Everybody needs to feel alive socially, and much of the natural gravitation behind that pursuit is stripped away when you decide to work from home. You have to make the effort, on a personal level, to ensure that your sense of camaraderie and belonging doesn’t dissipate from the moment you leave the office for the final time. Working at home is not the answer to anybody’s true sense of paradise. It’s just a contributing factor.

When you have more hours at your disposal than everybody else, you need to find more ways to pass the idle time. You need hobbies and social routines. Activities that snap you away from your screen and inject purpose beyond making money from so-and-so.

A day built around wealth generation is completely wasted when you think about it. Why aren’t you enjoying what you already have? I’ve had to answer that question many times for myself and it represents my biggest struggle of the last 3 years.

We are all creatures of habit. For most of us, those habits are defined through systems that are implemented from childhood. But when you step outside the system, isolation and poor planning can unleash a truly ugly creature.

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Lessons Taken From My First (24) Years

| January 27, 2012 | Comments (3)

I can remember only embarrassing figments of my last few birthday celebrations, and sometimes I consider that a blessing in disguise. Between the ages of 18 and 22, I must have untagged enough photos to fill an entire hard drive with scandal.

Yesterday by comparison, my 24th birthday, was a relatively sedate affair.

Instead of scraping pizza from a beer-sodden kitchen counter, I carved steak from a pool of watercress and braised shallots. Instead of being spanked, and whipped, and publicly abused by Geordie strippers with candles not designed for cakes, I enjoyed the quiet company of my girlfriend, who thankfully, was not carrying handcuffs.

Unlike those who create New Year’s Resolutions to focus on their goals, I prefer to wait until I’m hanging up my birthday cards. I use the moment to reflect on all that I’ve achieved, or haven’t, and I redefine goals for the year ahead.

I’ve always seen New Year’s Resolutions as a shameless merry-go-round of excuses. If January 1st arrives and you’ve missed your targets, there’s little sense of failure in setting the same goals again. But there’s something much more powerful about using your age as a measurement of development.

“Before I turn 24, I want to achieve…”

As opposed to the open-ended, “My New Year’s Resolution is to…”

You could be setting the same resolution for the rest of your life, but you’ll never turn 24 again.

Most people don’t need to endure such a rigorous round of annual self-appraisals. But then, most people already have structure to their working lives. It comes in the form of a career ladder.

You aim for promotion at 25, a nice middle-management role at 30, senior responsibility at 40 and perhaps one day, with fingers crossed and wood touched, a stake in the company at 50.

Your career ladder is placed before you in granite stone. If you haven’t climbed sufficient rungs by your next birthday, you’ll choose politics or mismanagement as your justification, backed up by a hope, a prayer, and a promise from the wife that things will ‘fall in to place‘ soon.

I’m generalizing quite badly, but from a personal perspective, I never felt the same pressure to succeed as a 21 year old web developer, that I do as a 24 year old master of my own destiny. I think that’s partly down to having nobody to blame but myself.

We love hierarchies of order. For an Internet Marketer, there’s no hierarchy. We can only compare our fortunes with those posting screenshots of their earnings, and the forum members recounting stories of ‘how much I earned today’.

In a typical job environment, we look at ageing directors and senior managers with fading hairlines as the best representations of what we hope to become. These figureheads are reassuring to anybody with a 9-5 because they remind us that time is still on our side, or more importantly, that experience breeds power.

The same comfort does not extend to Internet Marketers, or anybody who runs a business online.

We are forced to look to the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world for our perception of what is achievable. The scale of relative achievement for online businesses is simply immense, and we formulate our own hierarchies around these vaunted young entrepreneurs. We want to be like them: rich, famous, powerful.

The fact that many of our role models rose out of nowhere to take the world by storm gives us many sleepless nights. The ambitious prodigy in his 9-5 may wish to leap up the career ladder, but it’s difficult to find examples where the road to success has been travelled at the speed of light, as it is so frequently by Internet millionaires.

The jump from office cubicle to director’s executive suite is daunting but clearly mapped. We assimilate that time, politics and good fortune will get us there someday, so we aren’t hard on ourselves for the years that go by where nothing seems to happen.

For an Internet Marketer, the years that pass without huge success can be crippling to morale.

When people like Zuckerberg transcend industries before leaving college, it scrambles our perception of the hierarchy. We no longer associate role models with those who have accumulated vast swathes of experience and paid their dues; we associate them with brilliance, innovation and the ability to rise from basement dwelling zeroes to billionaire heroes in the blinking of an eye.

The weight of expectation we shoulder by simply knowing what is possible in our industry makes it difficult to measure success in any reasonable manner.

In short, we lose access to all the excuses that justify the career ladder’s predictably slow ascent.

We’re forced to accept that any mismanagement, politics or glass ceilings are strictly of our own making.

The regular reminders that other young entrepreneurs are blowing up billion dollar empires before their 21st birthdays adds even more pressure to our lives. We compare ourselves religiously, and it’s difficult to keep success in perspective when the scale of achievement is so huge.

What kind of career allows for you to double your income on a yearly basis and still feel hopelessly at sea? I’ve tormented myself on many occasions, stargazing at the obscure wealth I know to exist, while resenting my own good progress just because some Internet Marketer somewhere is even further ahead.

These are troubles that are best kept in check by developing a sense of what success means to you as an individual, rather than as an industry average. So when I was setting my new goals yesterday, for the first time in five years, my #1 target did not involve taking over the world.

Some might call that a stain on my ambition.

“Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Well… I fucking hate that quote.

Every time I hear it, I feel like offering the dimwit a straight swap with one of the Russian Cosmonauts currently lost in space. Go and see how much they enjoyed missing the moon.

Whimsical ambition should never be favoured over realistic, achievable targets. And that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve taken from the last year.

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Buying a Yacht vs. Defaulting On Your Argos Card

| January 13, 2012 | Comments (2)

There seems to be a lot of discussion in the Internet Marketing world over how best to create a lasting business, and particularly where to reinvest your profits if you create one that works. Knowing as many affiliates as I do, this is great to hear. It’s nice that people are waking up to the reality that reinvestment is critical for long term business growth.

Unfortunately, life is rarely as simple as spend spend spend. Many of us, through starting businesses and throwing balls to the wind, have taken on large amounts of personal debt. So, when is a good time to reinvest, and when is a good time to pay back what you owe?

There’s a reason why I voted Tory in the last UK Election: spending money you don’t have is the first sign of financial insanity. There’s only so far you can kick the can down the road. I’m all for reinvesting money to build a business. But to do so at the expense of ignoring debt is delusional; as is persisting with the faith that it will go away, or that paying it back will be easier at a later date.

Everybody who ever went bankrupt once thought their debt would be easier to pay at a later date.

So let’s be honest. When you look at your earnings vs your outgoings and find an extra £100 of disposable income, do you immediately piss your pants with unbridled epileptic joy? Is the opportunity of binge consuming too good to resist? Maybe you see it as a golden opportunity to invest in a new business idea. Shit, maybe you throw your extra earnings on the stock market.

I think this is stupidity of the highest order.

Pay back what you owe. The easiest way to relieve stress while running a one man business is to minimize your outgoings, whereas carrying unnecessary debt is the stupidest way of shooting yourself in the balls if it all goes tits up.

Let’s say you’ve racked up £5000 on your Mr. Plastic Fantastic. It’s tempting to think that time will be a great healer to those debts. So when your monthly statement arrives, you wince for a moment and then toss it aside. Mmm, the sweet smell of escapism. Instead of doing the sensible thing and paying back as much money as you can afford, you stick to the minimum repayments. Yeah, that £9.57 will go a long way. You feel like the fucking gingerbread man screaming “Argos, you’ll never catch me now!” But, of course, Argos will catch you. Painfully so. And you’re not even a gingerbread man. You’re just a tosser in the red.

Next month, your new statement arrives and lo and behold, you’ve barely scraped the surface of your original debt. You are a slave to interest. Even the dude printing statements at Argos calls you his little bitch behind your back. Yes, you’ve become the picture-perfect sucker that credit companies swear by.

Why is it so tempting to turn a blind eye to debts? Worse yet, when you have money to spare, why is reinvestment – or worse, blind indulgence – more appealing than repayment? Unfortunately, we are hardwired to resist giving up what we think we already have, even when that possession is deluded. We’d rather receive £50 today than wait for £100 next year. And this attitude contrives to keep us in the pockets of the industries that exist to monetize our greed.

Well, if the large majority of us weren’t such pigeons of consumerism, we’d learn to spend what we could afford and ‘the crunch’ would be a term reserved for those living their luxury lifestyles in castles built on sand.

Whether you appreciate the implications or not, all of your debts are working against you – day by day – for as long as you allow them to accumulate interest. If you spend your disposable income on reinvestments rather than repayments, your investments better be pretty badass. Your ROI needs to be discriminately high to not only produce profit, but to pay for the money you are leaking every month through those deceptively flexible minimum repayments.

Another issue I struggle to understand is our fixation with reward schemes. Reward schemes are the sales devices used to satisfy our weakness for instant gratification, the same trait that encourages us to accept £50 today instead of £100 in a year. Generally, they are used as distractions; woven in to contracts that aim to milk every last pound of that ‘reward’ back, and so much more.

It seems that many people have yet to catch on that you can have the best points scheme under the sun, but if you fail to make the full repayments on your debts, the accumulated interest will annihilate any hope you had of a freebie. The same for airmiles. Fucking hell, don’t even get me started on airmiles. I will happily take whichever card attempts to blinds me with the least bullshit. And if I hear airmiles, I instantly know that I’m swimming in it.

The people who run up gigantic debts on credit cards, then fail to repay them under the pretense that it’s okay “cause I’m earning airmiles, innit bruv” should be taken back to school and either educated, or simply shot behind the bike shed. I haven’t decided yet. It’s the same irrational logic that inspires a mildly psychotic Bible-Belt housewife to spend her days extreme couponing in the name of good value.

To put it simply – before I spiral further in to the extreme couponing rabbit hole – clearing debts as soon as possible is nearly always the best way to spend your money. It may not feel good. But it’s the best value deal. Once you’re out of debt, go ahead, reinvest like there’s no tomorrow. Splurge your extra cash on drugs and prostitutes if it makes you happy. Whatever rocks your boat.

Just don’t choose to be in somebody else’s pocket. That’s pretty dumb, and very inefficient.

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My Plans For 2012: Survival, Flat Pack Disposal and America

| January 9, 2012 | Comments (11)

2011 was one of the most eventful years of my life. I started it by living the high life in downtown Bangkok (literally, on a 15th floor apartment), and ended it sloshed on the dance-floor of Shepherds Bush Walkabout, an experience that has become uncomfortably familiar over the years.

In between, I’ve travelled to Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. I’ve moved house no less than FOUR times. And I’ve singlehandedly kept the coffee economy afloat – firstly via Gloria Jeans and now Cafe Nero. If there’s any life lesson I’m eager to take in to 2012, it’s that I’d be an utter dipshit to kiss goodbye to as much deposit money as I did last year; a grand total that ended up a few notes shy of £5500. FML.

Indeed, the moment where I’m asked to commit my signature to any dotted line is now met by a ferocious growl, followed swiftly by brooding silence. The kind where you could be forgiven for anticipating that I’m about to eat said contract.

My new home is the Greater London suburbs. Greater London by name, Greater London most certainly not by nature. My stress levels have tapered off significantly since finding a semi-permanent home. But that’s not to hide the fact that the closest I get to an adrenaline rush is when an elderly neighbour trundles in to a pile of dog shit outside my driveway. Such is the pace of living in ‘Greater London’…

I think the most excited we’ve ever been was when we thought we found Hitler on a bus.

Hitler on a bus

Alas, moving house has proven, without doubt, that one of life’s greatest miseries is the struggle of relocation. If I have to accept one more flat pack from a courier, I’ll be greeting the merciless prick with my very best “Here’s Johnny…” impression. That and obviously, the point blank refusal to “sign fer it, mate“.

Christ, there’s already one room in my house dedicated to the shit I’ve yet to recycle.

Christmas recycling

That’s my dining room, believe it or not. Correction: That will be my dining room when I get hold of some recycling bags from the council.

Travel Targets in 2012

I already have some trips planned for 2012.

In May, I’ll be heading to America for a wedding, and to meet some of my partner’s friends.

New York, Chicago and Indianapolis will be our ports of call. Can you spot the odd one out? Yep, I’ve been told that Indiana’s biggest tourist attraction is the Indy 500 race, which doesn’t bode well for my souvenir hunt. I’m not a fan of motor racing at the best of times, but especially when it’s the retarded American version that takes place in a circular ring.

The only time I’ve found circular rings and cars to be compatible was in Destruction Derby on the Sega Saturn. And something tells me a Nascar event has gone badly wrong if it resembles as such.

Digs aside, I’m looking forward to visiting America again. It’s been a while since I last had my anal cavities probed at immigration. Remind me not to provoke Passport Control by smiling next time.

I’m also excited to travel back to Thailand at the end of 2012, although I’ve learnt another vital life lesson: don’t come home with a puppy. Unless you like handing over £3000 to government quarantine, as well as the puppy.

With trips to Spain, France and ‘somewhere beginning with B’ (hold hands, let’s pray it’s not Birmingham), it should be a good year.

Business Targets in 2012

Like most affiliates, my gameplan for 2012 is survival. Don’t get banned from Facebook, don’t get sued for false advertising, don’t get swallowed up by the competition.

Generally speaking, if I can succeed with just one of those targets, it’ll be a bloody good year.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to many people that I’m slowly moving my business away from affiliate marketing. As much as I love the money, the job is about as satisfying for the soul as a bicycle kick to the bollocks. The sooner I become less reliant on mindless arbitrage, the sooner I’ll be able to force myself out of bed in the morning.

My most important target for the year is to get published. I’ve always wanted to be an author, and this is the year where I’m determined to make it happen.

I’m currently writing a book that sums up the sleaze of working in the Internet Marketing business. While it could be difficult to find an agent for my profanity woven prose, I’m hoping one will take pity on me. Or read this blog and get in touch. Nudge wink ball tickle.

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One Website That Launched My Career

| October 7, 2011 | Comments (4)

A common trait you will find in many online professionals is the background of being self-taught. It’s something we seem to be very proud of, a sort of retrospective fuck you to academia.

Perhaps the single greatest appeal, and challenge, of making a living online, is the ease of which you can get started. There’s no degree necessary, no interview process, and each individual takes on full responsibility for his or her self.

We should consider ourselves lucky that money can be made with just a modem and a little common sense.

Unfortunately, modems are in heavy supply. And so is the number of would-be entrepreneurs who think they have what it takes to make a living online. It appears that some people are better at self-teaching than others.

I made the decision when I was just 16 years old that I wanted to run my own business. It didn’t happen overnight, and thank god it didn’t. I was a trainwreck through the mid 2000s. After dropping out from school, I spent the next 18 months lurching from one disasterous idea to the next – both in my personal life, and professionally.

When Facebook Timeline is released, don’t be surprised if 2004-2007 is obliterated from my records. It already has been in my head.

My only other job to that point was a 3 month stint at Wickes in Hayes. If God decided to stick the vacuum in the arse end of society, he would probably start with Hayes. It’s a genuinely ugly place.

I wanted my own business, and I wanted to work online. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days surfing double decker buses straight out of a stabbing scene on the Uxbridge Road.

There aren’t many IT companies that would take on an 18 year old who dropped out of school, and the IT industry was where I saw my future. So I had to develop experience and knowledge on my lonesome.

Private classes were expensive (Baker Street, London…ouch) and they still left me short on opportunities. I went to a couple of job interviews but was finding myself squeezed out of the reckoning. Too young, not enough drive, bad haircut, whatever. I think the most I had going for myself was a strange immunity to taking it personally.

That’s when I stumbled across VTC, a plain looking site that may have just saved my career when it was threatening to flatline.

If you’re going to get a headstart on the kids attending university, you really need information and training materials for your chosen profession. And lots of them.

Back then, when I discovered VTC, it was like hitting the jackpot.

VTC has over 98000 tutorials covering almost every programming language, application or software you’re ever likely to use. For anybody with web development tingling their taste buds, it’s an excellent one stop resource where you can learn as many basics as you can put your mind to.

Eventually my crazy self-teaching binge paid off and I was able to capture a junior web developer job on the back of my portfolio (and probably my desire to learn).

Two years later and I was hired by an agency in Central London, again as the youngest employee in the company. I stayed there for 15 months before quitting to go full-time with my affiliate business. It wasn’t a particularly researched decision. I woke up one morning, checked my affiliate stats, saw my first day of £1000 profit and that was that. Au revoir, mon petit 9 to 5.

I was 21 when I made that jump, right in the middle of the recession. While many of my friends were still labouring through University, I felt an enormous weight of gratitude towards that one site – VTC – which gave me the tools to burst in to an industry that I was a complete virgin to.

If you have the right attitude, the Internet typically has the right resources to launch your career. Remember though, self-teaching is only an option if you have the discipline to execute a kick to your own balls when you deserve one.

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10 Best Countries To Live In For The Online Professional

| August 23, 2011 | Comments (33)

One of my targets for the next couple of years is to sample life on every continent in the world, including a (very) brief taster of Antarctica.

I spent the last 8 months living in Bangkok which made a great base to explore South East Asia. Now that I’m back in Europe and the novelty of catching up with friends and family has passed, I’m already daydreaming about new adventures. Guybrush Threepwood eat your heart out, I’m ready to conquer the seas.

Expats regularly discuss the sensation of returning home after an extended period of traveling. It’s a strange feeling.

If you’ve spent your entire lifetime in a single city or state, only to one day decide to go traveling, it’s amazing how so little seems to have changed when you finally return home. The uncertainty and adventure is replaced with familiarity and a grinding restlessness. There must be more to life than life as you know it.

Thailand was my first taste of settling in a foreign country. As much as I enjoyed my time, there are things I would have done differently and efforts I would have made if I could go back and do it again. The temptation, of course, as a guy who makes his money from the Internet, is to do exactly that. Go back and do it all again.

I thought I’d draw up a list of countries I’ve considered moving to, for anybody else out there with the restless desire to travel and dump themselves in to the unknown. Let me know if you have any other destinations that I’ve missed. I’m no expert in the field, just a guy who spends too long pissing around on Wikipedia and Google Images.

The 10 Best Countries To Live In

Moving to Argentina

Argentina – The next country on my hit-list, and regularly touted as the Mecca for expats seeking the best standard of living at the lowest price. Everybody I know who has experienced Argentina, has loved it and wanted to go back for more.

Buenos Aires, the capital and gateway, regularly tops polls as the most popular destination for expats. Simmering subtropical weather, luscious food and a vibrant atmosphere are just a few of the descriptions I hear thrown around. Sounds like the perfect remedy for British autumn and winter.

By all accounts, learning Spanish seems like a pretty good idea before planning a move to Argentina. As I learnt in Thailand, language is often the decisive factor between loving a culture, or respecting it from afar, and between making close friends, or merely lots of smiling acquaintances.

Moving to Thailand

Thailand – I spent 8 months living in Bangkok and it’s pretty hard not to fall in love with the Land of Smiles. Thais are incredibly friendly, gracious and welcoming… even if like me, your control over the native language is somewhat sketchy. Thailand is not as cheap as I was expecting, but considering I wedged myself in a luxury apartment in downtown Bangkok, the standard of living to the dollar was immense.

Certain products are dirt cheap (DVDs, electronics, clothes), but replicating your western way of living will rack up the expenses. It’s a country where immersing yourself in the language will reap the benefits of avoiding a tourist economy. Admittedly, hiring a maid for £80/month to do your grocery shopping is a good alternative.

The economy is corrupt and you will undoubtedly find – for better or worse – that money will buy you just about anything in Thailand. Herpes included, so don’t be a dumbarse!

The many beaches scattered around Thailand are simply out of this world. I’ll have the pure white sand and crystal clear waters burnt in to my retinas for the rest of my time on this planet. Little else can compare.

Moving to Canada

Canada – A friend of mine is moving to Canada next year. I’ve never been, but I deal with a lot of account managers based in Canada who seem a whole lot more cheerful than their American counterparts – so there must be something uplifting about the world’s second largest country! What really strikes me about Canada is the balance between urban familiarity and untouched natural beauty.

Canada always scores highly on standard of living polls, and it probably helps my attraction that most Canadians I’ve spoken to, I’ve gotten on with very well. Let’s not forget how much easier it is to move there as opposed to the draconian measures necessary to enter the USA without getting your arsehole cross-examined for a visa.

Moving to Czech Republic

Czech Republic – If you fancy a slice of bohemia, grab a plane to the Czech Republic. Prague has a reputation for offering all the charm of Berlin and Paris at a fraction of the cost. It’s one of the cheapest places to settle in Europe, and rapidly becoming one of the most popular. Known as the City of a Hundred Spires, you’ll find history dripping from every street. Students and tourists flock here, along with a growing number of expats.

I have to stress that for anybody visiting Europe from afar, prices are not cheap across the continent. The further north you go, the deeper in to your wallet you can expect to reach. The Czech Republic has the benefit of being nicely located if you want to jump on a train and see the rest of Europe. Small countries, huge diversity…one of the great attractions of moving to this part of the world.

Moving to New Zealand

New Zealand – My reasons for moving to New Zealand hinge on the fact that it looks fucking awesome. There’s not much more to it. New Zealand is a hot destination for students here in the UK, which probably has something to do with it being the adrenaline junkie’s capital of the world. My friends who’ve travelled there tell me that Wellington and Christchurch are better choices than Auckland for settling down. But the country seems to attract expats all over.

The cost of living is rising in New Zealand, but unlike many other popular expat spots, moving here requires very little adjustment. The language is the same, the people are friendly and there’s already a strong presence of other nationalities. New Zealand and Australia are seen as the traditional landing ports for pissed off Brits seeking a better quality of life.

Moving to Costa Rica

Costa Rica – In many expat eyes, this is the gem of Central America. Costa Rica is the oldest democracy in Latin America, and generally accepted as the safest country in the region. It’s a peaceful, friendly country with a tropical climate and the kind of scenery that takes your breath away. Volcanoes, rainforests and natural fauna… you name it, Costa Rica has it.

Living in Costa Rica can be very cheap if you limit yourself to the bare essentials. But in keeping with many expat hotspots, you will pay a noticeable premium to retain your western way of living. Expect your diet to improve with a rich invasion of fresh fruit and veg, although I would suspect getting a pizza delivered could be difficult if you choose to immerse yourself in the secluded paradise spots.

Costa Rica has been hit by a swarm of North American expats in recent time, making it proportionately, the most heavily populated country by US citizens outside of America itself. What does this mean? Starbucks…coming to a rainforest near you.

Moving to South Africa

South Africa – A stunning country with the strongest economy in Africa, you probably remember clips of natural sublimity from last years Football World Cup. I’ve always had a soft spot for South Africa, being drawn to the incredible safari experiences that are available throughout the country. Obviously living somewhere is about more than encountering lions in the wild, but some of the landscapes look unmissable to me. When it comes to crossing off Africa from my continents to experience, I’m pretty sure it’ll be here that I decide to base myself.

South Africa comes with a few risks attached. Safety issues on the streets are well documented and there are some places where you simply cannot risk walking around on your own at night. There are plenty of tourist horror stories to shit your pants over but ultimately, being sensible and acknowledging the risks should be enough to avoid them altogether. Housing is cheap, food is priced reasonably, but don’t be fooled in to believing that costs are low across the board in the major cities. One look at the forum posts reveals that they’re not, and they’re rising.

Moving to Singapore

Singapore – Seriously Singaporeans, how do you do it? I only spent 5 days in this buzzing metropolis, and I managed to spunk my way through close to £1000 on some pretty standard expenses. Okay, admittedly, Andrew Wee inflated my bill by coaxing me in to buying a shit ton of imported chocolate on the last night, much of which I ended up eating to be able to get back through customs unscathed. But let me put it out there… Singapore is not cheap.

It’s certainly no retirement destination for the old hack making tuppence on his state pension.

That said, Singapore is spotlessly perfect. It really is one of the tidiest and most attractive looking countries you’re likely to find. This is made much easier by the fact that it’s so small. Imagine Wales, with civilization thrown in for good measure.

If you’re a city dweller who likes to be in the thick of fast moving urban life, Singapore will definitely appeal. It has a thriving economy, excellent infrastructure and the comfort of the English language. Just be prepared to sell multiple body components to pay your rent.

Moving to Panama

Panama – Were you not paying attention during Prison Break? Panama is the perfect paradise for criminals on the run. So as an affiliate marketer, I should fit in just fine.

Wedged in the heart of Central America, Panama brings the freedom of two different oceans on your doorstep. It’s a destination that is exploding in popularity for the tourism industry. Many Americans and Europeans alike are drawn to the country for the higher standard of living and feisty climate. You should tackle Spanish before committing to a Panama move. Once conquering the language, you’ll find a passionate and friendly population that is known for being very welcoming towards expats.

Crime is always something you want to consider before relocating to this part of the world. Historically, Panama has developed a reputation as one of the safer countries in Central America – if you don’t take up employment in the drugs trade, you should be fine.

I don’t like to get bogged down in what some biddy in her rocking chair misconceives to be a violent nation on the other side of the world (It’s a bit like the argument, “Thailand? Don’t the women there have dicks?“), but I know it’s a sore spot stereotype for many people looking to move.

Moving to France

France – I’ve been told that the south of France would be the perfect match for my personality. Whether there’s any truth to that remains to be seen. I’ve never been. Paris has never appealed to me. Londoners and Parisians couldn’t be further apart, despite their geo proximity. But the south of France looks to be a different story. Glorious food, regular t-shirt weather and a lackadaisical attitude in getting from A to B. On second thoughts… where’s my passport?

So what of London? Having moved back here in July, would I recommend the city to other individuals looking to sample life abroad?

Yes and no.

London is a brilliant place to visit. Full of things to do, sights to see and with the cultural back-catalogue of history nestled in to every bustling corner. The spontaneous individual with a sufficiently fat wallet can never get bored in London.

But as a home, it can be overwhelming and underwhelming in equal measures. I have obvious ties to the city. Most of my friends and family live here. It’s always felt like home to me, but that’s only because I can’t afford to uproot my loved ones and bung them in the back of the plane to be relocated to the destinations above.

I like to mock the state of Britain (and it’s pretty easy given our recent riots), but as far as sense of humour goes, the Brits are the best in the world. No matter where I travel, I always miss the laughs that come with some self-deprecating banter over a beer and a burger.

Of course, Brits are good at traveling – even better at burning themselves to shit in the process – so it’s not hard to track them down abroad. But as the old adage goes, there’s no place like home. Or is there? I want to collect enough passport stamps to see for myself.

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Retire At 21, Feel Like An Idiot At 22

| August 17, 2011 | Comments (7)

Dear Trusty Employees,

It is with great sadness that I announce my impending departure from our Company. I have decided to retire from all business so that I can put my feet up in the leafy suburbs, desperately attempting to convince myself that there’s more to life than work.

I’m sure you will have many questions. Why now? Why so young?

Please accept my decision. It shows that I’ve achieved more than you in a shorter space of time.

I am greatly looking forward to tackling the next challenge in my life: puberty.

Yours truly,
Young Retired Dipshit

Many people consider retirement the reward for a lifetime of turmoil. It’s the bucket of gold at the end of the rainbow. The day of reckoning when we can say “I’ve done my bit“, and stop worrying about surviving from one pay cheque to the next.

The Internet age has spawned a generation of online entrepreneurs who are capable of retiring in their 20s. Does Mark Zuckerberg need to worry about his financial future? I suppose he does if he likes to keep track of his billions.

Even though Zuckerberg can retire, I’m positive he won’t. And there’s good reason for that sentiment.

The next step after retirement is death.

Who would want to retire in their 20s? The idea gets bounced around with prestige and glamour. There are websites dedicated to the ambition of retiring young, but I shudder to imagine how somebody capable of assembling the finances so young would react to the transition of pottering around a garden and writing Christmas cards in September.

It’s a paradox if ever I heard one.

When you have nothing left to work for, you have nothing left to live for. Anybody who believes otherwise might as well go hang out with Macaulay Culkin. Smoke some pot, watch Home Alone 2 and revel in your own waste of potential.

Time and time again, I have friends cross-examining me on the nature of my work. In their eyes, I’m retired. I make money online, which is as good as twatting around on Facebook while the dollar bills grow in my fridge, right? They’re wrong.

Even though I work in comfort, there’s rarely a second in the day where work isn’t close to my thoughts. It follows me around like an infection that just won’t shake, so why don’t I learn to forget about work and switch off? It’s simple. I don’t see work as a bad thing.

If you take a human being and strip him of his desire to work towards a goal, what do you have left? An empty shell that’s retired and ready for death. There isn’t much of the person left over.

Work doesn’t have to be employment as you and I know it. It can be charity-based volunteering, or even just a commitment to stay busy. However, the retirement yearned for at unhappy office cubicles is no more than a desire to believe the grass is greener on the other side. It rarely is, and retirement is seldom the experience you crave.

What you really desire is work that you can believe in. You want to spend energy completing tasks where you give half a shit about the end result. Who doesn’t? This is the great illusion of retirement. Giving up a mundane chore isn’t going to fill the void in your life. That void exists because you haven’t felt the passion to get out of bed at 8am out of choice.

If financial independence was all we longed for, millionaires would be happy and averagely paid employees would be jumping from office blocks. Happiness is not a flexible hours agreement, or retirement altogether. It’s the desire to get out of bed. To do something with your plain existence and convince yourself that retirement would only get in the way of all the things you have left to prove.

If that means changing career, go right ahead. We spend a third of our lifetimes at work, or thinking about it, so it makes zero sense to be working for the wrong reasons. The day you wake up and don’t feel an urge to work towards a goal, that’s when you have problems. That’s when retirement will become the death of you.

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Man, Laptop And World: How To Travel Efficiently

| June 21, 2011 | Comments (4)

Over the last seven months, I feel like I’ve spent more time logging in to hotel Wifi systems than I have in my own office. When you make the decision to travel, whilst working on the move, efficiency becomes a major issue. How can you get the most out of your time, while severing many of those hours in pursuit of greater thrills?

I recommend travelling to anybody who has the chance. If your business is self-managed, it makes little sense to constrain your time and freedom to a single city, especially if you already know that city inside out. Many people cite the influence of outside factors for not being able to travel.

“The wife won’t let me…”
“The kids are too much work…”
“I’m tied in to a rental contract…”

Admittedly, those with less ties than myself have more problems to solve before they can take off around the world, but none of the factors are hammer blows to the idea. They just take a greater leap of faith and/or commitment to overcome.

If you’re stuck between indecision and lack of information, here are a few pointers I’ve picked up along the way:

1. Travel as lightly as possible.

If you are a notorious hoarder of junk, traveling is an excellent excuse to throw out the crap that’s being cluttering your garage for so long. When I moved to Thailand, I completely overestimated how many clothes I would need, and indeed what type of clothes I would need. Sticky heat-trapping shirts barely cool enough for the English winter? Definitely not going to be needed in Bangkok. Did I bring them anyway? Of course I did.

It’s tempting to fit a lifetime’s accumulation of crap in to your suitcase, but ask yourself one question. Is this so important that I can’t buy a replacement while I’m away? The answer to most items will be no. Traveling light makes moving around much easier, not to mention saving you many many pesos in excess baggage charges.

2. Hotel Wifi has a recurring tendency to suck balls.

I’ve learnt that if I don’t do research beforehand, fate will typically conspire to hand me a shitty hotel Internet connection. Working from a laptop instead of a dual screen Mac took some adjusting. Working from a laptop on 56K dial-up speeds merited a full blooded sucker punch to the balls. If you’re staying in a hotel, make sure the Wifi is good and included free of charge. Or risk paying £30 for a few hours of patchy usage at somewhere like Novotel Rim Pae. Screw you, Novotel.

3. Don’t stay in flash, rich, luxurious hotels.

Wifi is worth investing in if you’re running a business from your laptop. But I’ve never understood the craze behind booking hotels for $500/night. Ultimately, a bed is a bed. Unless you plan on doing something other than sleeping in it, why pay through the nose for something that rarely gives you a true taste of the place you’re visiting? Overpaying is considered by many to be a macho display of ballin’. Invariably, traveling with set requirements of the pampered existence you need to get to sleep at night defeats the bloody purpose of traveling at all.

4. Learn the language.

My biggest regret as I move on from Thailand. It’s difficult to truly appreciate a culture if the standard conversation leaves you scratching your head and whipping up Rosetta Stone on the smartphone. Learning a few basic phrases is a must, while learning conversational basics will give you a much better understanding of what’s happening around you. Not to mention, a whole new world of local prices become accessible once you display a better grasp of the native vocab than a regular tourist.

5. Dropbox.

Dropbox is the new rage. Okay, to most people, it’s yesterday’s new rage. I was slow to jump on the bandwagon, but I’m glad that I did. By using Dropbox, you can afford to pull a Tim Ferriss. Sod off the face of the Earth completely, leave your laptop behind and restrict work to bursts of activity in an Internet Cafe just outside the Angolan Jungle. Dropbox gives you access to your important files anywhere, synchronizing them across devices and affording you the title of Digital Nomad.

6. Use time differences to your advantage.

Initially, I was concerned about the time difference when I first moved to Asia. Companies and reps based in the UK, Canada and America would still be asleep while I was busy with work. What if I needed to talk to them? It didn’t take long for me to figure that this was a great blessing in disguise. Zero distractions and zero interruptions. By the time those in America had woken up and replied to my emails, I would be happily relaxing and unwinding in the sun.

7. Have back-up support in place.

When you’re traveling, even with laptop in tow, it brings peace of mind to have somebody ready and waiting to act on any emergencies. I hired a Virtual Assistant from EasyOutsource.com, which is by far my favourite place to recruit cheap but talented labour.

You can have all your mundane tasks handled by a full-time VA for as little as $250/month, although I would recommend you invest a little more for quality’s sake. It’s also better to hire a combined workforce rather than a single employee. An individual is just as prone to “sick days” at inconvenient times as you were back in the day job. Hiring a team removes this worry.

8. Reduce any unwanted papermail before leaving.

In the UK, I use the Royal Mail’s redirection service to have my post sent to family while I’m away. If it’s important, I’ll have them send it on for me. This costs £8/month for domestic redirection and up to £30/month to have mail routed overseas. It’s a good idea to deselect paper statements from your online credit and store card accounts. Who needs to be reminded of yesterday’s vanity purchases, anyway?

For tax purposes, I have any important documents from HRMC sent to my Thai based address. This is easy to do by updating your current profile after receiving the Government Gateway ID. For everything else, I don’t stress. If it’s important, I’m sure the sender will find a better way of contacting me.

9. Tell your bank and credit card issuers where you’re traveling.

Very important and the source of much frustration while I’ve been attempting to use ATMs overseas. Fraud detectors are sent in to a frenzy if you withdraw £500 from a Cambodian street market. Your bank will routinely cancel payments and refuse to process ATM withdrawals if you don’t make it clear over the phone that you will be traveling to a particular region on a certain date.

For this reason alone, I chose to open an HSBC Advance account before moving to Asia. They have a strong presence abroad and it’s reassuring to be able to walk in to a branch that knows your name if you have any problems.

Recommended This Week:

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Make More Money… By Not Being An Unhealthy Bastard

| June 6, 2011 | Comments (6)

As far as case studies go, this probably isn’t going to win any awards for innovation.

A few weeks ago, I decided to change my life for the better. I knew that it was time to look myself in the mirror, face up to the truth and ask “Finch, you unhealthy bastard, do you want to be a stud muffin or just a slob who ate all the muffins?”

By saying adios to junk food, crappy eating and lack of sleep, I theorized I could create a lifestyle change that would snowball in to something resembling vitality and full health. This, in turn, would allow me to thrive in the workplace with optimal levels of concentration and focus.

The ultimate goal was an improvement in mind, body and spirit. It was time to say “kiss my balls” to the unhealthy bastard in the mirror, Michael Jackson-style, minus the unhealthy interest in kids.

The Challenge

I spent days, literally days, hunched over a laptop in Cambodia researching the best possible diet to give my body a healing rest from it’s regular abuse. Detoxing is a controversial subject. It’s very hard to strike a balance between listening to the raw food psychopaths who’ll give you dirty scowls for even glancing at a cow in the wrong way, and the All-American Americans who believe eating an entire livestock of chickens isn’t just a delicious choice, but what the chickens wanted.

I decided on a 4 day fruit detox, followed by a slightly more lenient diet that would be more sustainable for my non-commital ass in the long run. Minimal processed foods, minimal caffeine, no added salts and sugars.

I haven’t tasted alcohol for over 6 weeks now, so that was never a problem. No doubt my tolerance will be tested when I return to London, however.

Surviving The Detox

For those of you who haven’t tried a fruit detox, the first effects are typically a raging headache and the growing despair that life is not worth living. “How am I to survive if I don’t find a kitten to kill soon?”

Detox symptoms vary from person to person. The heavier the symptoms, the more toxins you’ve accumulated in your body that are struggling to come out.

What follows is a detoxing process known as “retracing”. This is where your body undergoes the strange sensation of re-experiencing recent illnesses and weaknesses. If you didn’t know any better, you’d assume that the detox is adding to your woes rather than working for the greater good. But it’s all part of the recovery so don’t go quitting while the going is tough.

Your body is actually flushing harmful toxins in to your bloodstream at a rapid rate, much faster than the body can dispose of. The toxin-filled blood rushes to the brain and creates a surreal sensation where you experience many different pains and illness symptoms in short bursts.

The symptoms were always there. But it’s only when your body is in “recovery mode” that the organs can actually deal with them. Of course, this triggers the instinctive “I feel worse than when I started. Somebody get me a burger. Cheeseburger. Shit, it’s getting worse. Get me some extra cheese with that…”

This period of headaches, fatigue, volatile stomach reactions and irritability lasted for a couple of days on my detox. Caffeine withdrawals can lead to massive headaches, and if you like your sugar – which I don’t – you’re also going to suffer. My longing for food with meaty texture almost lead to the butchering of a gecko outside my hotel room. It’s not easy to fight your cravings under a barrage of physical aches and pains.

But when the symptoms begin to pass, and here’s the big incentive, you truly do feel a million times better than you did before. Your body begins to accept and use the nutrients of the fruit to your advantage, unleashing enormous swirls of energy and a sense of clarity the likes of which I’m still wondering how I ever did without before.

It probably helped that my detox was aided by an endless supply of fresh coconut and grapefruit juice, two of the most renowned superfruits in the world. I have since re-introduced lean meats in to my diet, but never at the expense of leafy greens and an overcompensation of fruits. I’ve replaced alcohol with smoothies, diet coke with water, and coffee with green tea. The effects are here for me to see, and I’m very happy with them.

33% Diet, 33% Exercise, 33% Rest

No healthy lifestyle can be sustained by simply eating the right foods. It’s just as important to exercise and get a sufficient amount of sleep. Even though I have a gym and swimming pool downstairs, I’ve often found my work “too pressing” to find time to exercise as much as I should have. That is changing by simply forcing a work-out in to my daily schedule, no matter how many servers are crashing and burning around me at the time.

My sleeping habits, ironically, were fixed when I started my detox. The overwhelming fatigue that I felt after a few days of eating only fruit was enough to get my body clock back on track. The sensation of waking up naturally at 8am, fresh, energised and blessed with clarity is a million miles from how I felt just two months ago. Then I would slip out of the bedroom at 1pm, feeling just as lethargic as I had when my body finally passed out the night before.

A good sleeping pattern makes such a huge difference to what I feel capable of achieving in a day, and certainly to my attention span while I’m trying to achieve it.

Many entrepreneurs argue that they’re “not morning people” and work most efficiently at night. While this may be true for some, I would bet that the majority are simply closet insomniacs making the best out of a bad situation.

Finch’s Sickly Generic Final Thoughts

Striving for a healthy lifestyle isn’t something that should be born out of wanting to make more money. There’s no point in stacking towers of dollar bills if you don’t have the health and peace of mind to enjoy them. This is something I have struggled and grappled with for a while.

I see it as a common trait of young entrepreneurs. We have so much money, and such little sense of value. If your work ethic is harming your health, the only future you’re contributing to is your own self-destruction.

While I can say that the changes definitely did improve my focus, concentration and work productivity, these are secondary to the satisfaction that came from looking after myself and actually feeling a sense of working with my body, rather than dragging it kicking and screaming through the night against it’s will.

Western society, particularly America, is riddled with quick fix cures for conditions that can’t possibly heal with the popping of a pill. Papering over cracks is the term that springs to mind. But that doesn’t stop people from trying. Many of us will find any excuse, or quick fix, to continue living unhealthily, until it becomes impossible through the damage we’ve already inflicted to ourselves.

If you’re going to try a detox followed by a change in lifestyle, be prepared for several days of complete and utter Hell. It gets a lot worse before it starts to get better.

Be truthful with yourself, get educated, and find ways to cut out the crap that’s holding you back. Your mind and body will reward you by working at their full potential. And if you’ve been operating “half-arsed” for as long as I had, this can feel like an incredible burden lifted.

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Why I’m Trading Thailand For London

| May 24, 2011 | Comments (7)

Last year I wrote what turned out to be one of my most popular blog posts when I announced why I was trading London for Thailand. It’s time for Part 2, the part where I explain why I’m heading back home in July.

Now, there are many reasons why I could be looking to leave Thailand, aren’t there? I know what you want me to say. The supply of ladyboys could never last forever. Shockingly enough, it goes deeper than that.

The last seven months have been a hugely fun and unforgettable learning experience for me. I’ve had to embrace a culture that I have about as much in common with as a fish out of water. For anybody who has dabbled with the idea of visiting Thailand, I say do it. It’s a friendly and vibrant country, with some of the best damn beaches you’re ever going to see in your lifetime.

One of the reasons I left London was to chase full value for my money. When you’ve spent your entire life in the Greater London suburbs, it’s not difficult to put a high price on a tropical climate and a diet of fresh coconuts. These were things that appealed to me immensely, and they still do. But in leaving London, I’m sure I underestimated all the comforts and relationships I’d be leaving behind.

When I ask myself whether I could spend six months holidaying in Thailand every year, the answer is a resounding “show me the booking form“. But it’s difficult to settle here, and it feels like a temporary home.

Traveling alone is much different to traveling as a couple. My girlfriend works in fashion and if you know anything about the fashion world, you’ll be aware that it revolves around the major cities of New York, London, Paris and Milan. Her work almost demands that she be in the thick of her industry, and as much as we both love Thailand, Bangkok Fashion Week left a little to be desired in the prestige stakes.

We also have two puppies. I’d like to point this out to anybody who gets suckered in to the cute fluffy pet markets of Bangkok. Do not buy pets unless you’ve researched the quarantine regulations in your country. I wouldn’t give up my dogs for the world, but getting stiffed with a quarantine import bill for £5000 ($8000) was a major shock when I made their travel arrangements back to England.

There’s a misconception that Thailand is cheap. I guess it is, for certain commodities. But you have to understand that the tourist economy is vastly different to the local economy. And unless you know more than Hello and Goodbye in Thai, you’re going to find it pretty difficult to escape the tourist traps. My outgoings in London were roughly £1000/month ($1600). After noting down my expenses last week, I worked out that I’m spending on average £4200/month ($6700) in Thailand.

Those costs are inflated by living on the cusp of Downtown Bangkok, in one of the city’s prime locations, with an expansive 4 bedroom apartment. It also hits the wallet when you have to renew your visa every 60 days. I’ve already ticked off trips to Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia with other adventures planned for my last two months here.

So in response to those who say Thailand is a cheap recluse for oddballs who can’t survive in the west, I would have to say try it for yourself. Going by the prices I’ve experienced on my travels, America is one of the cheapest places I’ve ever visited. And Singapore is definitely the most expensive, although luxurious from coast to coast.

It could be as luxurious as my balls, I’m still going to refuse to pay $5 for a small pack of Oreos.

The weather here is hot and humid all year round. I don’t recommend heading to Thailand in April or May, unless you’re prepared to get down and dirty in your own sweat. I would also advice you not to make the schoolboy error of venturing in to a Bangkok thunderstorm under the assumption of “Eh, fuck it, I’m used to London showers, what’s the worst that could happen?” The worst that could happen is a monsoon in your face.

I’m definitely going to miss having a wardrobe full of shorts and summer shirts when I head back to London. Yet there are changes I’m looking forward to that have made the move a necessity. Seeing friends and family is obviously uplifting. Just being able to communicate freely, in my own language, is something I’ve learnt to appreciate. I find it quite difficult to express myself in broken Thai, and expression is a fundamental quality in all of our lives.

Looking further ahead, I’ve definitely caught the travel bug. I could never be one of the single state gremlins who knows little about what’s outside his city, let alone what goes on in a different country. By the end of 2012, I aim to have visited every continent (including Antarctica!). Until then, I think I’m going to enjoy the sun for a little while longer.

Seven months in Thailand and I’ve almost turned a shade of “slightly brownish white”!

Recommended This Week:

  • If you’re not already registered on PPV Playbook, you are missing a beat sunshine. Easily the BEST place to learn from marketers who are actually making money. It has some awesome case studies. The catch is that you will need to pay some of your hard earned pesos to access it. I swear from the bottom of my black heart, joining is worth every penny

  • Help a virginal Finch. Subscribe to my new FinchBlogs RSS feed. And if you don’t already follow me, add FinchSells to your Twitter.
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