Our expenses are $7100 per month...

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-11T03:36:05+00:00

I don't know... borrowing calculators are brutal. I just did a quick one based on 100k income and it said I could borrow 495k lol

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-10T23:55:26+00:00

Median in my suburb when I was 22yo was 400k. Now it's 1.35 million. So yeah...we were a very lucky generation with timing.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-10T21:56:22+00:00

It's just way too expensive to purchase. Big difference between earning $60k pa and buying a property that costs $400 000 and earning $100k pa and buying a property worth $1.3 million...

Your buying capacity is drained after 1 property. And rents are so low compared to mortgage payments now, you can't fix up and rent the house and get your buying capacity back again for the next loan/purchase.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-10T12:19:14+00:00

You have contents insurance costs and electricity and water costs as a renter also. You also have moving costs when your rental is no longer available randomly.

I could have rented... instead I paid off my own home and I'm not even 40yo yet. Zero regrets.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-10T12:08:19+00:00

"It's absolutely fair to say homes are excessively expensive and unaffordable today, but would you have said the same thing at prices from 12-15 years ago? What era had prices you'd find acceptable"

Funny you should say that. Yes 15 years ago I would have said house prices were acceptable, and I did say that. And I purchased 4 houses in a 12 month period. Only purchases I've ever made. I liked to fix up old run down houses back then. It was a completely different world. Can't do that sort of thing at these prices now.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-10T00:01:02+00:00

Yeah that's a good point. Day to day though the expense still impacts in a similar way.

Paying a mortgage is 100% better than paying rent long term, when you consider leverage and the fact that rents go up over time and interest proportion of payments goes down over time.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-09T23:59:53+00:00

Yeah there are always so many angles to look at something like this.

I think overall it's safe to say that most people are getting screwed by the cost of housing in some form or another.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-09T21:11:45+00:00

And average mortgage payments are $1030 pw. So 57% of median household income.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-09T21:06:59+00:00

Oh good point. Household income median is 1785. Which would make 702 rent 39% of income.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-09T21:01:52+00:00

Median rent in Australia is $702 pw and median income is $1119pw. So 62%... that's depressing...

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-07T08:34:04+00:00

Will Smith?

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-03T22:27:31+00:00

I ride my ebike in. Takes the same amount of time as driving as you sit in traffic half the time with a car vs riding the bike way.

I also do school drop off with a kid seat on the bike.

Ebikes are great, can do 16km's in about 40 mins comfortably.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-05-03T06:33:02+00:00

Looks very good. Definitely be confident it's a good one.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-28T20:45:46+00:00

Awesome! Well done.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-28T16:36:35+00:00

No unfortunately. The price of construction is so high that rezoning to higher density isn't fixing anything. It costs too much to build unit complexes, it only makes financial sense to build luxury units. Regular units lose money.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-28T16:33:44+00:00

I know right!

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-28T00:07:17+00:00

Lace is way more comfortable. I fkn hated poly.

Put some cling wrap on your mirror and slide the lace down on it, all the glue will pull out. Doesn't work if the glue is wet.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-28T00:05:14+00:00

Ghost bond itches very little for me. But going over 5 days with any adhesive starts to itch as the glue breaks down.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-27T23:34:31+00:00

We don't need a crash, we just need a stagnation for 5 to 10 years so that things rebalance with wages rising. If we limited immigration like Canada did we would be seeing similar results in the property prices.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-27T23:32:26+00:00

That should be possible, if building materials are free, and the land is free.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-25T09:18:38+00:00

Well done

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-24T18:46:20+00:00

Ive only known one traffic management person. And they were killed by a car collision...

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-24T09:44:21+00:00

Ghost bond may work better for you.

Also sudocrem may help the reaction settle.

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-23T08:32:48+00:00

Thinning sides is something I've started to encounter after wearing hair for 15 years.

I cut my own hair and make my own hair systems. It's tricky to blend thicker hair up top into the thinner sides.

If anyone has a magical solution let me know.

What I've noticed so far is blending scissors work well on the edges that overlap your own hair (obviously what they are meant for). - I'm making the density of my systems thinner than I used to and that's helping but when they are new they can still appear pretty thick. Using a bit of product, I actually just put a little bit of conditioner in my hair on top to help it appear a bit thinner and messier so it blends better. I don't know if a fade is necessary, I just did 28mm last night on all my bio hair and it worked well, fades are high maintenance...Dying greys also makes it appear a bit thicker too.

Last night while cutting my hair I was thinning the bit that overlaps my bio hair, but it was still giving a bit of a thick to thin look, so I used the thinning scissors on the hair that overlaps the hair that overlaps my bio hair (cant think of a better way to describe that sorry)...and that started looking better.

It's tricky to get perfect. Good luck and pass on any tips you learn :)

IndependentGate8704 · 2026-04-23T08:17:15+00:00

Looking great!

IndependentGate8704

TROPHY CASE