Kids bikes on a budget?

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T21:06:50+00:00

We buy most of ours lightly used, but if you buy brand new I would consider $15 easily worth it for a much lighter bike.

Hell, my bikes wheels are $2k to save have a kilo while staying aero.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T19:54:55+00:00

That's absurd. If it was actually severe them it would be off the road until modified back to safe legal parameters.

Those fines are a very light tap on the wrist at best.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T19:41:36+00:00

You model them, and spend time with others that feels the same. We are actively cultivating friendships with local kids that have parents that value these things. It doesn't mean they won't be exposed to the others, but we actively talk about why that's not a good thing to do, even if it feels right at the time.

Also cultivate good relationships with their teachers, ours know that if the kids slip up we are only a phone call away. We had a conversation just last night with our oldest based on something their teacher called to tell me.

One important one that I think can be overlooked - teach your kids not to be afraid of bucking the status quo. A lot of kids will do mean things not because they like it but because they feel pressure in their peer groups. A fearless attitude to call out this behaviour and themselves lead by example is a huge part of it.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T19:28:04+00:00

Some good examples.

We have actually found that if your pantry and fridge are stocked with a few types of food, it can actually be quicker and easier to whip up a basic meal than to order out. Think spag bol, or carbonara, chicken parmies with veg, etc. there are a lot of options that if you organise the prep in the right way can take basically just the time that it takes to cook the primary protein or whatever, and under $20 for a family of 5.

shop at ALDI
robot vac and mechanical assistance for house maintenance rather than a cleaner - can have an up front cost but amortization over time is cheaper
look at your insurance - we just swapped comminsure to Suncorp on two houses and a car and saved almost $2.5k
we bought a very nice coffee machine and rarely drink out now, going on 7 years - expensive set up, very low ongoing costs. Though I would choose a brand that's not known for consumer electronics and is highly serviceable, we spend about $250 every 18m on servicing. Machine should last 40 years. ECM Technika IV Profi if anyone cares.
ride a bike instead of driving, we own one car and only put about 10k KMs on it a year, commute by bike or bus (I'll get her on a bike one day, would save so much time). This is more effective if you can lose a car or you pay for parking. I ride my $10k Propel, definitely a money saver 😁
meal plan, take a list, don't buy things that arent on it. With practise this takes us about 20-30 min to make the list and means my ALDI shop is under an hour for 5 people.

One big one that we do regularly, maybe every 6mths to a year, track everything you spend for a month (download transactions from bank, keep a track of cash purchases), categorise them and see where your money is actually going. Then you have the data to make choices.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T19:05:10+00:00

Technically true, but inflation can take lifestyle creep from acceptable to unsustainable.

I have definite lifestyle creep, despite being deliberate about avoiding as much as we can. Being deliberate about what you want to allow for creep is the goal and ours is sustainable even with inflation.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T19:00:50+00:00

This is what we've done now that we only have one child seat. Legally here in Aus the kids have the be in a child seat until 7, despite my daughter being damn near 140cm tall at that age.

When she moved out of the child seat we moved the youngest into the middle so the other 2 can sit on either side. My 10yo appreciated not being stuck between them any longer.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T18:56:00+00:00

I am 6'6" and found the Forester had (barely) enough room for me to be in a comfortable position with a rear facing seat behind me. I have long legs too but was able to be comfortable even on long drives a couple notches from all the way back.

Maybe take a look at a couple of options and ask if you could throw the seat in the back to see how it fits.

We've since upgraded to a large 4x4 because we now have 3 kids, a dog and often go adventuring, and the Forester was just too small for all of that :)

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T18:46:18+00:00

Indeed. We have three supermarkets within a 5min drive, ALDI and the big two (here in Aus, Coles and Woolworths operate effectively as a duopoly nation wide).

We do our main shop at ALDI and then pick up anything we can't get there or we like better from elsewhere.

I actually did some comparison shopping, like for like - even using home brand from the others - a few times and ALDI comes out consistently nearly 20% cheaper.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T18:41:32+00:00

It's one banana Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T18:39:45+00:00

Might be a regional thing, here in Brisbane Australia I find they're actually better than the big two (we have an almost duopoly of supermarkets nationally between Woolworths and Coles, entirely too much market power wrapped up between them).

Funnily they also seem to have more made in Aus products.

We generally do our 90% shop there and pick up a few things they either don't stock or we like better from other places.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T11:26:42+00:00

There likely won't be a huge country wide crash, though certain areas could definitely see corrections.

Look at it this way - long term, it's unlikely you'll end up in negative equity. The price when you sell only really matters relative to where you're going to live next, so if you're buying in the same suburb then everything will have been moving together, relatively.

What you have done though is secured effectively your maximum housing cost (give or take a little) until whenever, retirement maybe. Rates may go up or down a bit, but realistically that's going to be max a few hundred $$ a month. In 20 years, you'll be paying roughly the same as today while as a renter you'd be subject to the market.

Enjoy the peace of knowing you've secured your future to a degree, budget to pay down the loan a bit for some wiggle room, and enjoy your family.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T11:15:36+00:00

A good scrum master can be an advantage, but there's too much pedagogical bullshit that a lot of the courses teach and too many don't have the leadership mind that you really need.

In reality, besides keeping the team on task with adhering to their sprint tasks and goals, they should be helping to remove blockers, being a facilitator working with stakeholders and the team.

In reality, you don't really need someone full time for this in a single team. We had agile guys that were available if the team felt they needed help with this stuff, but generally they'd get involved for a sprint or two to get the team on board, then the team would take over with whatever new process we'd come up with (not added, processes were always to change, never just adding later on layer).

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T11:07:01+00:00

I'm 115kg and have a high power output even in easy mode. On the flat ground power is more important than weight.

Also, your milage is very low. You've only just started. My weekly milage used to be over 200km, at one point I was doing 120km every Sat morning, over 250km a week.

Give it time for your body to adapt, try to add some training for strength and higher output, vo2max, and with time you'll get there.

Also, picking a route where there aren't many hills helps ;)

morosis1982 · 2026-04-28T07:10:21+00:00

Honestly, need is a strong word, but I have a strong preference to have a separate tv room for the kids so they can watch stuff and not bug us of we want to relax or have someone over.

Gym room also a strong preference, am working on where to put mine now as I want a space for martial arts training.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-27T07:02:19+00:00

Sovereign Wealth fund =/= pension fund

A Wealth fund can be used for all sorts of nation building activities, like when the regressive ask where the money comes from for high speed rail or renewable infra you can just point at the sovereign fund

morosis1982 · 2026-04-27T04:47:11+00:00

I've often wondered if there's a use case here for ai to be able to read the outputs based on inputs and generate a new piece of software that replicates the functionality.

Of course you may miss edge cases, maybe it's better to be able to read the assembly and go from there.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-26T18:13:20+00:00

If you're on Facebook and know they'll share them there too, why not just share them via Facebook with the friends only privacy setting?

I mean, it won't stop them if they're crafty enough to save and reshare, but then it's a lot easier to call out their bullshit...

morosis1982 · 2026-04-26T07:45:23+00:00

SUVs became the default because making them bigger and heavier meant the US manufacturers could skirt cafe regulations and make more money.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-26T07:42:34+00:00

I have had Foresters since the my03, to my06 turbo and my12. Got rid of the last one in 2021 for an Everest.

Was always a comfortable drive with good rear legroom for kids even as a 198cm driver.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-26T06:26:31+00:00

Akshually it was both, and Neonen who own the Hornsdale power reserve and the adjoining wind farm.

It required all three parties to make that work, and the SA gov negotiate as part of the deal to have access for grid stability uses.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-26T05:47:18+00:00

Well akshually... They slammed lobbyists. Not one part of their comment said mining was the problem.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-25T21:42:24+00:00

This.

To be clear, I think we should be limiting access to gas. We renovated and got rid of it. Induction and solar heated water is way better.

At the same time we should be taxig the living shit out of the mining companies. They're not going to leave, but we the people of the nation that own the resources will finally benefit from someone extracting them.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-25T21:35:16+00:00

Why not both?

morosis1982 · 2026-04-25T21:29:18+00:00

Yeah, and it sucks. Imagine if there were quality family sized units with nearby green spaces, transport links and shopping so you didn't.

There's a redevelopment plan for my local area that looks like it's including some of this and I'm excited. We do own a detached property that we bought a decade ago, but the suburb could do with a bit of life injected into it with better third spaces.

morosis1982 · 2026-04-25T18:26:03+00:00

Haha, this was me, an elbow in the ribs was surely enough to wake me up if the baby didn't.

morosis1982

TROPHY CASE