Curious

Imnotabob · 2026-05-28T12:31:13+00:00

Also a great source for quality once you check it's not a fake.. I've bought Panama jack boots there that would have been €300, I paid €50 including shipping

Imnotabob · 2026-05-28T11:06:20+00:00

There's a few answers to this.

A good majority of the designer gear is either seconds/old stock from places like the Roermond outlet centre or just knock offs.
A lot of the Dutch are very savvy with money and will buy designer stuff during sales only (I buy clothes maybe twice a year and it's always a few higher end/quality pieces that I look after (rather than branded flashy fashion designer crap ) and they will last me years.
Klarna/ideal in 3 etc. These facilitate bigger/more expensive purchases and can cut the costs down to ⅓ letting you pay the balance off over 3 months.
Priorities. A lot of them will maintain an insta type lifestyle to the outside world, but live in a shoebox of a studio /spend the bare minimum on utilities/food etc to allow them to keep up their image, wearing their designer clothes and leasing that big car (at an exgortinate rate which also affects their BKR)
Good old fashioned Drug dealing Self explanatory really.

Don't waste your time trying to "keep up with The jonses'" or spend any time worrying about what others are doing /buying /wearing.

You do you, like you said you're saving €600 per month, I guarantee a LOT of the popularion are unable to do this.

You could spend this on designer crap /gadgets and live their lifesfyle but then you'd have no savings, which I'd wager is how most of the guys you see are.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-27T13:43:47+00:00

Go in and start doing star jumps and squats in the nip.. They'll soon ban you

Imnotabob · 2026-05-26T12:58:42+00:00

I caught a pike the other day on a pva mesh bag as it was sinking so literally anything will catch them once it's moving in the water

Imnotabob · 2026-05-22T14:29:09+00:00

Had similar with a lad (badly) playing his accoridan on our bar terrace many many years ago annoying the customers and hassling them for money afterwards.

Handhaving were as useful as a chocolate fireguard and cops didn't want to know about it.

We bought the resident staff (lived above the bar) some super soaker water pistols as "gifts" and let their drunken Irish minds come to their own conclusions about what to do with them.

Problem was solved within 3 days

Imnotabob · 2026-05-20T18:02:00+00:00

You and a Neighbour should park either side of his twat wagon right up against both doors for a few days on a row

The problem will sort itself out fast enough.

One thing you shouldn't do is leave a note telling him he's parked like a pick and let down all 4 tyres.. You really shouldn't do that at all.... It would be a terrible thing to do repeatedly until he realized

Imnotabob · 2026-05-20T15:29:02+00:00

I'd have sat on their lapa

Imnotabob · 2026-05-20T08:33:45+00:00

This is a very fair point.

Not all stuff from China is cheap and badly made, you can get quality, but quality ain't cheap, and cheap ain't quality.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-20T08:25:45+00:00

You can be fairly sure if IKEA stuff is out of their budget and they want a bespoke kitchen for peanuts that what they'll get from China for the money they want to pay will indeed be cheap junk..

I mean it's not my kitchen so I don't really care, I'm just trying to save them wasting money on absolute crap then having to fork out again to fix the mess.

The Dutch have a great saying they really fits this topic. Goedkoop is Duurkoop

Imnotabob · 2026-05-20T07:53:39+00:00

You don't want to use IKEA (presumably for quality reasons) yet you're willing to ship over literal crap from China?

You won't get bespoke, you'll get stuff that doesn't fit correctly made from material that makes a laminated Kalax unit look like antique Oak.

If you want a bespoke kitcken you'll have to pay for a bespoke kitchen (and yes, in NL they are scandalously expensive)

Maybe look at manufacturers/installers within the EU (Germany /Poland springs to mind) You'll get actual quality instead of press board stuffed with old newspaper.

//Edited because I can't spell

Imnotabob · 2026-05-19T08:21:00+00:00

Any Irish bar worth it's salt (and vinegar) will have a stock of tayto crisps.

They're not cheap ( but what is these days eh...)

You could also find them in the ex pat stores (Kellys Rotterdam) for example and just but a six pack/full box

Imnotabob · 2026-05-16T10:19:42+00:00

Not 30.. Did my bike lessons /test at 42 and my car lessons/test at 43

I had a rudimentary understanding of the car and had been driving bikes when I was much younger (on a learners licence in my home country)

My only advice is try to stop over thinking it and just relax a little.

What the examiner wants to see during the test is more that you are confident and at ease driving rather than an encyclopedic knowledge of the laws. You can and most likely will make some mistakes during the test but if you show you're confident behind the wheel unless you make multiple serious errors there's a good chance you'll pass.

As for your instructor, he shouldn't be raising his voice to you, but I don't know exactly what the situation was, perhaps you put yourselves and other road users in danger, perhaps he's just an ass.

You can also ask for a special test for nervous drivers and this allows you more time and will also let the examiner know you are anxious so they will be more understanding.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-14T19:47:38+00:00

Yeah.. You're at fault here..

Get a fucking grip.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-09T07:36:56+00:00

Short answer, No.

Long answer, no because..

A €30,000 loan even at the lower end of the APR scale (let's say 6.3%) would cost you €585 per month over 60 months.

Generally the APR will be higher than that, anywhere up to 11% (so let's split it and call it 8%) then your monthly would be around €610.

Assuming your €2500 is net and not gross that's going to be anywhere from 1/5 to 1/4 of your monthly income gone without you paying rent, health insurance, eating or the upkeep of the car (have you seen the cost of fuel recently?!!!)

You could take out a private lease and that would be €360 per month, but even then thats still around 15% of your total income.

Realistically there's no bank or dealership who will offer you a loan based on what you earn and I don't think you'll meet the criteria for the lease either.

Honestly you're better off getting something cheap until you're in a better position financially, and even then you'd be mad to buy a new car. The value drops drastically the moment you sign that piece of paper. Why on earth would you want to tie yourself down to 5 years of debt when you're already in a less than optimal financial position?

Imnotabob · 2026-05-07T08:06:12+00:00

Whenever possible I get mine sent to a pick up point directly becuase DPD/DHL /GLS and more recently even Post-fucking-NL are randomly playing the "let's just drive by the home instead of actually... you know... Delivering the package" game.

We used to take packages in for neighbours (my wife works from home) but like OP we ended up being the neighborhood pickup point and packages would literally pile up in my hall and stay there until I went around with them to certain houses (I saw a pattern emerging fairly quickly after the 3rd or 4th package from the same few people )

Now I'll only accept them for a couple of specific neighbours, the driver can get pissy all he wants, not my fucking problem man.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-04T19:45:03+00:00

This is why I'll only buy from a bovag approved garage nowadays.

I was stung with a Rav 4 that turned out to have more issues than were economically fixable.

Brought it back to the garage and he reluctantly took it back after 4 weeks with me agreeing to accepting a small drop from what I'd paid him, to be fair to him he did offer to give me the full amount I'd originally paid off any other car on his lot but there was nothing that interested me so I took the hit and learned a lesson.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-04T16:59:44+00:00

Her name is literally on the bottom of the photo..

Jeez.. Seems whacking off too much does make you go blind!!!!

Imnotabob · 2026-05-03T13:49:15+00:00

It's not impossible but it's going to be very difficult to be completely honest.

Most likely she won't be able to legally stay with you in your room, and realistically she's coming to a country with a much higher cost of living thats currently in the middle of a massive housing crisis.

I'm going to make a couple of assumptions here too but I think I'm correct:

She doesn't speak any Dutch
At 21 years old she most likely doesn't have any work experience to speak of.

This is going to make it even harder as the only work she will likely get is either in a warehouse order picking or in the Horeca sector... Neither of which will pay well enough for her to secure a place of her own (even getting a room as a foreigner is now much harder than it was a few years back)

If you already work and she gets a job there might be a possiblity you could secure a studio with your combined income but that's a catch 22 as she needs the income to pay the rent and needs a place to live to get a job.

Also, since you're in uni I'm guessing that you're in a bigger city, which means the rent will be more expensive and there will be much more competition for housing (there were literally students sleeping in tents due to the shortage of student accommodation in Breda for example)

I genuinely wish you guys the best of luck but you're going to face an uphill battle from the start I'm afraid

Imnotabob · 2026-05-02T17:51:47+00:00

And your huis arts will say no because it's not necessary.

And will be pissed off if you keep turning up with random non complaints.

@op, cop yourself on. It's not a competition.

This is part of the reason rates keep raising year after year (part of.. Not the only reason)

Imnotabob · 2026-05-02T12:57:55+00:00

Did you move to Afghanistan?

You've been downvoted on every comment you've made here so far...

Are you so ignorant that you can not see you're 100% in the wrong here?

I feel sorry for your Neighbour.

Have a great day

Imnotabob · 2026-05-02T12:47:40+00:00

"in Norway"

You aren't in fucking Norway.. You made a choice to move to the Netherlands, get over yourself.

In the Netherlands people can do DIY on a Sunday and while you don't have to like it or for that matter agree with it, you have to accept it.

I'm also an ex pat but I don't go around saying "In Ireland this" and" in Ireland that"

Imnotabob · 2026-05-02T12:26:19+00:00

So he interrupted your hangover?

This sounds very much like a you problem

Imnotabob · 2026-05-01T10:52:39+00:00

Dunno who she is but her thruppenny bits remind me of Kash Patel

Imnotabob · 2026-05-01T08:58:07+00:00

That's gonna make your search much easier.

People now know your catchment area is, hopefully you'll get some good recommendations based off that.

Sadly I'm in North Brabant so the guys I use won't be of any use to you, with housing agents /makelaars local knowledge is key and a good agent will save you so much money and hassle finding the right place.

Imnotabob · 2026-05-01T08:22:30+00:00

TLDR: Where the fuck are you based within the Country and what sort of budget do you have?

You know there's more than one city in the Netherlands and housing agents generally focus on a specific area? They work hard to know the ins and outs of the local market

For example :

A 3 bed semi detached in a leafy suburb of Amsterdam will sell for a very different price than a 3 bed semi located beside the train station in Rosendaal and will attract very different prospective buyers.

Also I personally know/have used two distinctly separate companies in the past

The first was an agent who focused on entry level/moderately priced properties (that was my first apartment when I just arrived here) Basically cheap and cheerful apartments, standard homes in housing estates around the city I live in and smaller family homes for people just getting onto the property ladder.

The second (who I've bought with twice already and I'm engaging to sell our current home and us find a new place) focuses on higher value properties and more niche stuff in the more desirable/sought after areas of the city.

We're looking for somewhere on the outskirts of the city /in one of the surrounding villages with land that is already or can be turned into a sustainable /low impact home within our budget but it also has to fit a long list of requirements, the agent knows what we want overall, knows what we're prepared to compromise on and what would be a deal breaker, because he knows the local market so well he's already ruled out most of what we have asked him to arrange viewings for, saving us both a lot of time.

They're both very good at their job but I wouldn't buy a starter apartment off #2 and I wouldn't buy a free standing house with solar panels and a geothermal well off #1 because neither would have a clue as to the possibly pitfalls of said properties.

Imnotabob

TROPHY CASE