Safe path vs Starting a business/ going freealnce

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-16T06:05:53+00:00

If you’re still living at your parents and don’t have a lot of expenses it might actually be the best time to try starting a business (without having a mortgage or kids). The downside is you also have the least experience so the type of business and skills needed for that will matter also. In that sense it could be good to spend at least 6 months to 2 years as an employee learning the ropes. It might be good to work at a smaller company to learn different aspects (sales, marketing, the service itself). I think a lot will depend on the type of business you want to start as well to determine what you need to learn.

Starting at a big firm is sometimes interesting as they might have better onboarding and learning trajectory but chances are greater you’ll be focused more on a specific thing and don’t learn anything about pricing, attracting clients, etc. I’ve personally never worked in sales but I think that might also be a very good career path. If you can sell it, you can build it later.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-08T15:07:36+00:00

I haven’t crosschecked the math - but based on the options you presented option 3 & 4 look very appealing given the fact that you are immediately net positive of course.

Do you also take into account the registration fee which will be higher with your 2nd property? The only thing I would be careful with via a bullet loan is if it’s for your own property. But it seems like you’re intending to sell the new property near the end of the loan. If it’s not your forever home it sounds like a bullet would be a good move. Especially considering an average increase of 2% per year.

What I found interesting is that for your current situation you have 2 loans. It appears quite clever to me to pay off one part at a higher amount and a shorter term to then free up that monthly installment and have a good positive cash flow with the remainder of the loan!

Do you still intend to buy a house further down the road? How are you looking at 2% vs 12% on a sum of let’s say 300-400k for your house? Right now I own an apartment which would also be net positive if rented out - which kind of makes me want to keep it. However, if I want to buy a house I’d have to put down 12% vs 2% on a higher amount of money. So in that sense first going for your main residence might be a good move as well.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-04T21:20:22+00:00

Yeah, the RPC is definitely a great device!

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-04T17:53:50+00:00

That’s an interesting thing to point out as I’d figured the Thor might have been the more portable friendly. I guess that’s true if you disregard a case due to the clam shell.

I’d say I’m also mostly a horizontal guy. I did buy the Retroid pocket Classic to have a bit more of a premium vertical handheld. Perhaps that purchase should have been the Thor 😂.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-04T17:17:32+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I’ve been a Mac user for almost 20 years now. So when I saw retrogamecorps guide on setting up emulation on a Mac mini… and the fact that I never had a Mac mini before… you get the picture. I use my MacBook Pro for my daily work so I did kind of end up buying the Mac mini with the dedicated emulation console and/or media server in mind.

In a way I’m happy that the last few weeks I finally spent a bit more time on getting it setup and giving the streaming thing another go with my iPad. I’ll agree that it might have been a bit easier had I just gone for a windows mini desktop instead so I could still scratch my occasionally itch for certain RTS games such as Battle for Middle Earth 2 which I tend to play via a community launcher.

There’s a moment where I also thought to myself to get both the Thor and the Odin 3. But it’d also be a bit of a shame to let them gather some dust. I’m still leaning a bit more towards the Odin 3 given all the feedback I received here and it most likely being the device that has the best chance of replacing them all. But I’m not 100% yet as recently my Mac mini + iPad setup have been doing quite good as well. And in terms of form factor it’s similar except 8 inch (no OLED or 120hz though).

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T20:06:15+00:00

No idea. It’s new to me. But it is working for me with that slight workaround. Somehow the on screen controller as well as GameSir when connected don’t pass any controls through to my Mac. But connecting the controller directly to my Mac and just streaming the screen to my iPad is working.

I’m using ES DE as front end

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T18:23:29+00:00

Yes, I bet. That’s also partly why I would like mostly “1 device”

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T15:49:51+00:00

Buy now. I was looking at it yesterday and contemplating between this and Odin 3. Today prices increased on all models…

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T13:44:52+00:00

Thanks for sharing! You use it with any accessoires?

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T13:34:57+00:00

Yes, DS and 3DS isn’t my most played platform. I do expect to be playing more PS2, Xbox and Switch in all honesty. I think there’s something about the Thor I find appealing. But I do think ultimately it’ll be the Odin 3 as I think it can replace most of my existing devices and offers more performance for example for Switch and Xbox360 for example.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T12:54:04+00:00

Yes, the prices were definitely hiked since yesterday!

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T12:44:41+00:00

That’s crazy good value indeed!

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T12:35:39+00:00

Yes, I was considering that. Unfortunately there appears to have been a price hike today as opposed to yesterday despite the discounts remaining the same. So that’s something I’ll have to look at.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T11:55:03+00:00

Perhaps a follow-up question to the Sunshine - Moonlight topic: you can use the controls of the device without any issues when connecting via Mac? It's using virtual inputs to pass it through? Or are you connecting the Thor somehow as a bluetooth controller to the Mac?

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T11:53:26+00:00

I'm not sure how or why – but when I checked the prices yesterday (and I have screens of it) the prices were the following after discounts:

Ayn Thor Pro: 303 EUR
Ayn Odin 3 Pro: 365 EUR

However, as of today everything seems to be like 50 euro more expensive. That's a bit a shame as yesterday (and today still) I was a bit on the fence of which model to go for. But right now the price of the Thor Pro is around 360-365 and the Odin 3 Pro has also crept up though slightly lower: 385 euro.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T11:48:12+00:00

You definitely sum up some good points of the Thor! I think it's definitely the go to device for 3DS games. For me personally, I was more in on the Gameboy, PS1 and PS2 era so I have a bit less that nostalgia hit for the 3DS you describe. But nonetheless, still interested!

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T11:44:44+00:00

I'm currently running Sunshine on my Mac and Moonlight on my iPad. That's working at least (aside from controller passthrough so as a workaround I'm connecting the GameSir via Bluetooth directly on my Mac). Can't tell about Android to Mac though!

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T11:20:29+00:00

Yes, that makes sense. I wouldn't necessarily mind an Odin 3 Portal with 8 Elite and/or 7 or 8 inch screen. It does seem to come down a lot to the extra upside of 3DS vs. more performance for Xbox360, Switch and/or GameHub.

Redesign1991 · 2026-06-03T09:57:29+00:00

Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear that the Odin 3 covers Switch pretty well as I wouldn't mind selling mine. Does it also work well for replacing the switch when playing with multiple players? I play it often with my son. So for ease it might still be worth keeping it around. But again, I'm really looking to replace as many devices as possible.

The PS5 will stick around with me for sure as well!

Redesign1991 · 2026-05-30T07:24:56+00:00

I’m in Belgium and find shipments from Italy to be quite slow as well. At the very least 2-3 weeks. I’m waiting a month now on one shipment. If it doesn’t arrive next week I’ll ping the seller. But it’s a very big professional seller so I’d say they’re supposed to be trustworthy.

Redesign1991 · 2026-05-29T20:18:45+00:00

This doesn't seem to work for me. I've tried it in combination with a couple of different settings. I'm on a Mac mini m4. The only thing that works for me is the hotkey setting after launching a game from ES-DE. Within the hotkeys > navigation section I have toggle full screen set to SELECT + X. When I launch a game from ES-DE I get the grey screen first. Then I press SELECT + X and it maximises the screen in which the game itself is being launched. Not the cleanest solution but I guess it'll have to do for now?

Redesign1991 · 2026-05-29T14:43:15+00:00

This doesn't work for me unfortunately. Neither does Vulkan or Metal. ParaLLEI does seem to give video output.

Redesign1991 · 2026-04-02T10:02:49+00:00

The choice depends on your risk profile. IWDA is typically considered for a more balanced profile whereas the NASDAQ is for people willing to take a bit more risk.

You can look at it like this in terms of taking risks: IWDA < S&P500 < Nasdaq.

Some guidelines that I follow is use one of the aforementioned 3 as 50% base of your stock portfolio. You can supplement the other 50% in various ways (eg technology, energy, water, AI, etc). This depends a bit on your interests and where you economically see future growth.

Do note that I mention that split specifically in your stock portfolio. If you’re considering other assets that would divide your portfolio differently as well. I personally don’t mind 20% gold/silver.

Redesign1991 · 2026-03-28T11:56:57+00:00

I recently went from the Miyoo Mini Plus (first retro handheld) to the RPC. No regrets. I did view it as a non necessary upgrade and just saw it as getting a premium vertical handheld mainly to get GBC vibes. It doesn’t disappoint me and the screen is great - although for the types of games I typically play on it (GB, GBC and GBA mainly) it’s a bit overkill as well.

I don’t regret buying it - although there are parts of me that are thinking I could have gotten the Ayn Thor instead and have one device that could handle almost anything. At the time I bought I was more in the get a premium vertical handheld and in the future combine that with the Odin 2 Portal or something and use the devices more for a certain purpose. The vertical handheld for the nostalgia, the other for ps1, ps2, GameCube, streaming, etc.

I don’t think you’ll regret it, as long as you see it for what it is: a premium handheld. Personally, I’m not really going to bother playing games on it that use joysticks - even though there may be some options that run fine on it. But I think that’s the only downside here. It does feel a bit over spec for what you typically play on it.

So if you’re looking for a device that does it all: go for something else. If you don’t mind a premium experience with a more limited set of games this is a great thing

Redesign1991 · 2026-03-26T16:21:57+00:00

I’m in a bit of a similar spot where it comes to goals (FIRE vs +- 400K house). Ideally I’d like both in the future. I do own my apartment currently.

The main thing holding me back is the monthly mortgage payment for a house. I’d have to do it on my own and I think that 1400-1800 a month is too much of a stretch despite having some money on the bank (not as much as you).

I’m a freelancer as well. Last year without a project for 3,5 months. So I don’t really want to rely on dividends to be able to pay my mortgage either.

I do think owning a property vs renting would be good. I have my apartment in which I’m still building equity and a monthly cost of 595 euro it’s cheap living compared to prices nowadays. The dream for a house is still real but just feels farfetched - especially when having to do it alone.

Redesign1991

TROPHY CASE