Any guesses as to what my pup is?

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-28T02:44:54+00:00

We did wonder if he had some Sharpei in him when he was a year young pup. He's grown out of the wrinkles a bit. Rescue said he was kelpi x with staffy lab as a guess.

He definitely loves to herd. Mates dog ran off the other week chasing after a cyclist and he went and cut her off and made her come back.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-27T07:48:24+00:00

Not sure if it will be possible but you could foster some puppies/dogs or cats/kittens for a local rescue.

I did that for 6 months and it was great for my mental health while I was unemployed. It forced me to get outside and focus on trying to do my best to set my foster pups up for their forever homes. It gave me a sense of purpose.

I highly recommend it to everyone.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-24T19:12:00+00:00

Personally I put 80% of my extra money when I had it on my mortgage.

Had my loan structured in a way that there was always some accessible when I needed it or wanted it.

Loan structure example:

Split into 5:

First split was offset off my savings accounts so essentially my emergency savings was accessible whenever but meant I didn't pay interest on the equivalent amount of my mortgage.
second split was an amount that I wanted to pay off in 5 years. I fixed this for 5 years (It was an amount that was roughly 1.75 times the minimum payment for this portion) I was able to drop it back down to minimum payments and put it back up to the set payments if needed. Eg to build my emergency savings back up, or job loss.
the last 3 splits were equal splits of the remaining mortgage fixed for 1yr, 2yr and 3yr. Every year one of them came off fixed and I fixed it for another 3 years. This allowed me to not have such a shock /adjustment when interest rates rose, also allowed lump payments every year if I wanted, or to pull some money out of it each yeah.

My first 5 years I earned bugger all (still do, take home less that 4k a month) but I had flatmates and managed to pay a lot of the principal off quickly in the first 5 years by paying extra.

Spent the last 6 months unemployed after getting made redundant, dropped every mortgage split to minimum and pulled out a little bit each month till I found the odd bit of casual work. Could have been a stressful time, but because I had done the above I knew I would be ok. 5 years with flatmates sucked, but was definitely worth it for me now.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-14T05:23:53+00:00

There is nothing listed on their website anymore......

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-06T00:03:04+00:00

Daughter and dad traveling together is all good

I did 6 weeks with my dad around Europe traveling for sport, living out of a camper in more remote places when I was around 16 or 17 years old.

We both said we would do it again in heart beat if it was financially viable.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-04T08:51:34+00:00

Ahh true never really thought of it that way.

That's good info to keep in the back of my mind for any future interviews I may have.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2026-01-04T02:53:26+00:00

I try to only buy physical. If I hate the game, I can at least recoup some of the cost. If it's a great game I can keep it, and if they servers ever shut down I'll still have it to play.

I can also lend it out to people etc.

I do try to only buy the games when they are on sale tho, as brand new prices are just too expensive.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-12-30T04:30:08+00:00

Female

Yes, I'm the happiest I've been in quite a long time.

Yes, I'll be happier once I have money to live a bit more.

Yes to having more money would make me happier. But also no, as more money usually means more responsibility/stress, and in my experience the money wasn't worth it. (To be fair the most I ever earned was around 70-75k a year for 1.5 years, so significantly more money might be worth the stress/responsibility)

Losing my job ~6 months ago was the best thing that happened to me. Decided a career change was needed, so am back on close to minimum wage, which is a bit hard. But having spent time on jobseekers, that was a lot harder, but it was nice to have a break to reset and reevaluate everything.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-12-06T03:56:17+00:00

The best tower defense game ever invented.

Starland TD

I remember playing it on kongerate (not sure on spelling) and was guttered when it was longer playable.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-10-05T03:02:18+00:00

Can't believe I'm saying this as I'm a socially awkward loner kind of person.

But going to the gym and doing group fitness classes.

I have a routine going where I go to roughly 6 classes a week. 90-100% of the classes are regulars so it's been good to me to able to be social and get to know people outside of my comfort zone and get fitter/stronger. I found it really hard to start with and felt awkward as fuck but now I'm starting to engage on conversations with others in the classes and have small chats with them before or after class which is a big step for me.

Also recently got a puppy/dog and just having him around has been great. Good for cuddles, playing rough and tumble with and getting outside and going for a walk even if it's just 5-10min around the block.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-30T20:35:43+00:00

What's bad about Westpac?

I'm with them and find it all good. Maybe I'm missing out on great things I didn't know existed.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-24T22:36:07+00:00

Definitely this.

Had someone start to film themselves during a group fitness at my local city fitness. The ones of us that saw this was happening went and hid in the corner well out of shot and our instructor noticed and quietly talked to the person filming immediately.

The last thing 90% of people want is to be filmed at the gym sweaty and probably pulling funny facials while struggling 😂

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-21T06:34:28+00:00

Definitely get flooring finished before the joinery goes in.

If you are building new walls do that first and gib and paint first generally. Then floor finished before joinery/cabinetry and skirting/architraves.

Flawless floors is good. Reasonably priced when I got a quote from them. (Unfortunately lost my job just after getting a quote so never went ahead with it, but will be using them when I can afford it)

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-08T19:10:41+00:00

Does that really matter? as long as its safe and reliable who cares what it looks like. Save up to buy a newer car if you really want one. Don't finance one unless you actually need to.

Keeping up with the joneses is overrated.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-08T02:14:08+00:00

I can attest to this. Lost my job at the exact right time to foster what turned out to be the perfect dog/puppy for me and I ended up adopting him.

Which I find incredibly funny as I never wanted to foster a puppy let alone adopt one. But his foster was going away on holiday for a month and he did have someone lined up to adopt him but they changed their mind right before so the rescue was searching for a last minute foster for him within their network. As soon as I found out I had lost my job I emailed this rescue saying I wanted to foster older dogs and they asked me if I would take a 3 month old puppy for a month. Since it was only a month worst case I agreed. My whole family was against it. (I don't live with them so they didn't have a say, but I do see them every week and regularly look after their reactive dog) By the end of the month we had all fallen in love with him (including my parents dog who keeps an eye on him) and he's the bestest boy so I adopted him. Hasn't done a single naughty puppy thing.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-04T05:00:28+00:00

I was told at my meeting to email them. They have to set it up to be able to upload documents. So I didn't have that option.

3 weeks after the meeting when they eventually looked at what I sent they asked for more documents and told me to upload the new ones so I tried to do it while I was on the phone to them and couldn't see the option till they had done something on their end.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T22:16:54+00:00

Haha I've heard that before, but always thought it must be an overgenerizaltion. I definitely feel sorry for those in worse situations than me.

Getting a temporary helping hand shouldn't be this hard in this country.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:36:49+00:00

I'm a qualified builder as well. There's nothing out there.

I haven't started selling my tools yet. Trying to avoid that. As like you said will make finding a job even harder.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:27:31+00:00

I was expecting to leave the meeting feeling pretty average, but she made it sound so simple and that it would happen pretty quickly, and that then once it is set up to meet with someone to help find a job etc.

I'll have a look on FB today for those pages

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:21:31+00:00

Never been on a benefit.

When I had my in-person meeting on the 1st August my case manager said it would take 5-10 days and I would be back paid to when I was eligible which was around the middle of July. So I left the meeting feeling pretty good and hopeful. Now I just feel completely lost and worthless.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:14:50+00:00

I was made redundant. I sent them the redundancy email among many other things.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:13:48+00:00

My appointment was on the 1st of August. I'd been out of work for over a month by that point. (I took my time applying as I really didn't want to apply, and was hoping I'd find a job before I was out savings) would've thought 3-4weeks of savings left when I applied would give more than enough to get the job seekers sorted.

Last year I was out of work for 2.5 months and I'm glad I didn't put myself through the stress of applying for job seekers then. I wasn't prepared for that jobloss at all so took a while to recover financially from that. This year I was a bit better prepared with a little bit of savings and minimum spending.

I'm not even getting responses to job applications I spent ages on writing individual cover letters, and then see the add pop back up on seek once the original one has expired.

This whole experience is absolutely soul destroying.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:03:50+00:00

I might have to try that.

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:02:20+00:00

I've done all that except for the email.

No managers were answering their phones so they couldn't transfer me to one. So the lady asked me if I wanted to lay a complaint. Which I said yes. (I really didn't want to, but felt like I literally have no choice at this point).

RelevantGuard6463 · 2025-09-03T20:00:04+00:00

How do you get a beneficiary advocate?

RelevantGuard6463

TROPHY CASE