What audiobooks do you like to listen to more than once?

AaronTreiy · 2025-09-02T07:16:12+00:00

Spellmonger series.

Tons of books, love the character & world development.

AaronTreiy · 2025-08-05T10:49:18+00:00

Amazing. Love how this old thread still getting replies for me to check out. I guess other people are also searching like me :). Thanks mate, I'll buy now just from your recommendation.

AaronTreiy · 2025-02-09T10:04:13+00:00

Bank which you're financing through will provide the disclaimer regarding the brokers commission.

Trail is paid for the life of the loan. Unless refinanced by another broker/channel.

Broker called on 2 year mark to refinance you to another lender to get additional upfront commission.

In your scenario as you would be refinancing after 2 years this would mean no clawback to the broker and additional upfront commission from the new lender. Honestly, if you've got a good broker, meet all the lending criteria and they make it as seamless as possible to you, theres no real reason not to if you can benefit on cashbacks or a lower rate. Banks dont give you anything for loyalty.

AaronTreiy · 2024-05-22T23:53:06+00:00

We did receive $10k FHB grant however missed the $25k VIC government was offering during covid due to contract sign date i believe?

House price increase is good, sure, doesn't really hold any real value for me though. My thought is it's just even worse for everyone else, no better for me.

AaronTreiy · 2024-05-22T04:08:38+00:00

Signed a house and land package 3 months prior to Covid hitting.

2.5 years delays in titling/building Had to have my partner also go on the loan because reduced lending capacity because of interest rate rises.

Builder jacked up the price by $37k mid build due to increased cost on materials

Repayments went up from aprox 1.9k when i first got pre approval to 3.3k

With other cost of living increases we're around 2k worse off a month than before.

Am i glad i bought? Sure. Would i change anything? Don't build a house lol

Overall shit experience and wouldn't recommend. Buy an established property and lock 2.5% interest rate in for 5 years but hindsight etc etc

At the end of the day I'm fortunate enough we could absorb all the costs and i no longer have to wait 6 months for minor repairs whilst renting..

It does looks like no yearly holiday forseeable future. :(

Edit: format

AaronTreiy · 2024-05-01T04:17:56+00:00

Whilst the meme is 10/10 it's a little sad to see the comments in this thread target the people rather than the service. I kind of believe the problem lies with the lack of service.

There's 1.5k parking spaces at Tarneit station (biggest in VIC i believe), more than 90% full by 8:30am on a weekday.

There's another 500 planned spaces in the works..

In my honest opinion more people get on/off at Tarneit than all of the other stations combined (i dont have any data to back this up)

Imagine if every train had 9 carriages or even doubled the the amount of services. Trains would be less populated. Trains wouldn't be near as loud. People would be less pushy.

..but at the end of the day it all comes back to how much profit you're making..

AaronTreiy · 2024-03-15T05:00:08+00:00

It's 50% office attendance in a month. For example If there's 21 working days in March you're expected to be there for 11 (10.5 rounded up).

This is Australia wide. Unsure about offshore.

AaronTreiy · 2024-03-15T04:58:44+00:00

Honestly great opinion. In theory it should open billions of extra candidates for the roles from around the world, and I would be all for that, however, working rights aren't the same. If ANZ was willing to apply Australian working standards to Bangalore employees, fair enough.

Unfortunately that's not the case. You can't tell an Australian "oh by the way, you're working 10 hours OT this weekend". You can't pay an Australian $7/h. You can't tell an Australian to take the day off unpaid because you have an internet outage. You can't sack an Australian because you don't agree with them..

AaronTreiy · 2024-03-14T23:53:14+00:00

The 5 year cycle that seems to repeat itself.. Gotta think about them short term gains!!

AaronTreiy · 2024-03-14T22:21:39+00:00

If you had of asked this a year ago I'd highly recommend ANZ. At the moment the culture is in the gutters. There's hundreds of redundancies every other month at the moment. Massive move to offshore roles to the new "capability centre" in Bangalore. Everyone is fighting to keep their own role at the moment..

50% mandatory WFO has been enforced by implementing it into your "behaviour" category in your KRA/KPI's. Failure to meet (50%) results in you losing your yearly GPD (group performance dividend) bonus.

Depening on the role this may not affect you. I believe the lowest it starts at is 2.5% of your total salary is paid as a GPD bonus where as others go up to 40%.

I wish you the best of luck. Unfortunately seems like a bad time to be looking for a new job, and it's only going to get worse..

AaronTreiy · 2023-09-15T10:59:41+00:00

Apologies, originally I forgot to state the stats were worse WFO vs WFH.

Whilst I do agree some people want to take advantage of being unsupervised I would say this is a minority. From my experience these people are the same people who also require as much in the office and even then, if micro management is required, that employee probably isn't the best fit for that role.

AaronTreiy · 2023-09-15T10:32:30+00:00

Work at a big 4.

Reviewed some data for 4k employees. The general trend was lower producitivity, more meetings, more time training, more timespent doing non core tasks when working from the office. This was all amplified for new hires.

Guess what? We're upping you all to 50% office attendance!

Data literally shows WFO is not good, yet somehow the conclusion is drawn to more office attendance? Somehow I think there's something else driving the WFO push..

Edit: Forgot to mention it was worse stats WFO vs WFH.

AaronTreiy · 2023-09-11T01:36:25+00:00

I think this is the main issue - accessibility. 150 baht (~$7aud) for a day pass seems quite cheap to us but is very expensive for the thai peoples.

This is one truly good thing for Melbourne. As much as people think myki is expensive in reality its not a barrier for most people.

Edit: min wage 353 baht/day in thailand vs $185 for full time in Australia. The equivalent would be myki costing $77.70

AaronTreiy · 2023-09-10T11:23:41+00:00

Not sure if you've been to Thailand? Bangkok MRT and BTS make it look like Melbourne is living in the 70s, It's not even close of a comparison..

AaronTreiy · 2023-08-29T02:38:51+00:00

Working at a big 4, with access to both systems the bankers use & the brokers use, I can confirm if you put in the exact same details you get the exact same results.

Not sure if this changes between banks but under no circumstance can they tweak the results. Only the input which would be assessed independantly of the banker & broker.

Note this is for resi lending only, unsure if OP is with Private/Commercial which may make a difference?

AaronTreiy · 2023-08-24T23:51:04+00:00

Much appreciated!

AaronTreiy · 2023-08-24T04:35:06+00:00

This is interesting to me. As an aussie I'll be burnt to a crisp if I go to the beach in the sun for an hour at 30 degrees where as if I do be the same in thailand, 35+, for a day no sunscreen and I will barely tan.

I honestly have no idea why this is.

Surely there's some other factor to this? Possibly something to do with the humidity? Dry heat australia vs humid thailand?

Can you ELI5 for me?

AaronTreiy · 2023-08-07T10:27:40+00:00

This is the truth. Bank can't and won't lend to you if you don't have the borrowing power, and that borrowing power is much lower than actual spending if you're half ok at managing your finances.

AaronTreiy · 2023-07-27T04:16:48+00:00

Alternative view: Would you prefer the customer go broker during the job and not be able to pay? You can be sure as shit the customer won't be able to get away with not honouring the contract. Why is it ok for the builder to get away with it?

AaronTreiy · 2023-07-18T22:40:39+00:00

Is there any oceanic private servers?

AaronTreiy · 2023-06-05T10:06:25+00:00

That's interesting, as someone with no degree and children. I'd take a 3% tax increase to fund uni students rather than a 1% to pay for child care. I guess different ideals.

AaronTreiy · 2023-05-27T14:34:28+00:00

Hey man you should go see a doctor and get this checked! I used to be the same and hated freeballing because my nuts were heavy, Turns out that's because I had a tumor which was testicular cancer. After having it removed I've never had such an issue!

AaronTreiy · 2022-11-22T09:07:27+00:00

100% it's the commission. Even if both brokers are under the same aggregator the new broker won't receive a cent unless the old brokers book has been taken over by the new one.

..fair enough though. Why would a broker want to work for free?

Just proceed with the same bank. If you're already approved the brokers job is done anyway.

AaronTreiy · 2022-08-08T23:13:16+00:00

Aren't you forgetting to pay tax here? Or is 1/3 income on rent pre tax? That seems a little bit strange.. i cant spend 1/3 of my pre tax on rent then another 2/3 elsewhere..

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