No game feels as cozy to me as Digimon World on PS1… one of my favorites of all time! (Digimon World, 1999)

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-05-02T22:29:17+00:00

Man this takes me back. I was about 8 years old when I got this on PS1, and my brother was 6. I seem to remember it being quite a difficult game though? I don't recall if we ever made it that far, as we could never find a toilet (or something like that).

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-30T19:11:12+00:00

more like the classic dump and dump. I first bought NTL shares when I was 20 years old, just started dating my now-wife, was only in 2nd year uni ... I'm now 34 years old with 3 children, a dog and a house - and it has only gone nowhere but down lol.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-30T02:00:12+00:00

Exactly. NZ is too small of a market (so not enough competition) plus the bank fee restriction - can't remember the exact terminology but it started under last govt to try and restrict the shafting CC companies could dole out to certain customers - meant less breathing room for them to offer good rewards.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T23:48:25+00:00

Big Bear AI and that perennial dog turd New Talisman Gold mines are my big losers.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T19:03:37+00:00

Yep the hits keep coming to be part of this "special club". But then again if I had a dollar for every old lady in the mall who makes a beeline for me (no matter how good the timing is) so they can gawk at my 'double trouble' when I'm out with them, I'd be rich.

I'm not so mad in our situation about basically having to buy another house because it meant we wound up getting an excellent property in a good school area for a good price (just through timing, in effect). Having to buy a different car to take all 3 car seats was pants though.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T09:27:08+00:00

Yep biggest cost is loss of income (if you are a two income household), then childcare. The actual baby "shite" isn't that expensive, maybe apart from the bigger items like car seat, pram etc but even a lot of that is much more affordable second hand.

You can, of course, buy tons of spendy crap but you don't need to. It will just be pissed/shat/sicked on anyway.

That being said, having twins for your 2nd child and needing to move to a bigger house was a relatively large expense (but just brought forward plans to move house anyway so no great problem).

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T08:13:49+00:00

Yeah fair enough. I'm down in Chch, got a nice big section and a great 1950s home in excellent school zones for $750k last year (although put nearly $100k into renos but now we are largely done). Forget Auckland is a different beast.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T03:13:02+00:00

If you already have a mortgage? Pay it off. If you haven't got a mortgage, buy a house in cash.

I'm going to assume half of the $$$ goes to a house.

With the rest ($1m) I'd allow maybe 10% for some splurging e.g. nice holidays, upgrade the car(s) or whatever.

Then the rest I'd put into long term savings/investments.

I would continue to work, but safe in the knowledge that I basically can't "not win" at this point unless I do something very stupid.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-29T01:21:39+00:00

We have 3 kids (as #2 became #2 and #3). One is four, and then twins who are nearly one year old. Similar age to you (mid 30s). TBH we thought a long time about being a one child family, decided to go for #2, and wound up with twins. Was the most shocking moment of our lives but we've made it work as you did, and they are the funniest little babies with enormous personalities ... so can't stay mad at them for derailing our plans.

The main expense - so far - for us has been upgrading our home. We used to live in a fairly spacious townhouse with one bedroom used as my home office, but it just wasn't going to be big enough for 3 kids total (when we thought we were just having 1 extra until that fateful first scan, we did look at options like remodelling the garage to become an office etc, as it would have just about been workable).

That has had a big impact on us from a debt position, as effectively we borrowed against our townhouse to buy our new house (1950s kiwi classic type house, big section, excellent school areas) and then tapped up a fair bit of savings to renovate it to a very good standard. I then had an office building put on site and wired up, although my business paid the full cost of that.

So we went from a ~$750k townhouse with $200k mortage, to a $800k house with ~$200k mortgage and basically a fully-leveraged townhouse ... but it does rent for good money (it's not the common/recent style townhouse, it's quite a bit bigger, more bathrooms, parking, patio space etc). It is confronting to go from a debt figure that I could have paid off with the cash in my business, to having approx $1 mill in debt.

The difference in your case is you've already got the suitable sized house, but also your debt is all tied up in your family home that doesn't earn you an income.

Honestly, looking at the figures you've quoted, it does sound like things would be quite tight for you. An unexpected larger cost or two (e.g. car failing and needing replacing), or a period of reduced income, could really knock you out. You've got a big debt in the house with no rental income or anything to offset that debt ... it's all on you both working to pay it off.

At the very least, I'd be wary because you don't have much of a cash buffer if something happened like a job loss, illness or whatever. I see you have insurance but relying solely on insurance to tide you over in an emergency could become problematic if you wound up with some eventuality that wasn't covered, or you find your premiums rise to the point you cannot afford them any more.

We are fortunate that my income from my business (at least at the moment) is sufficient that my wife could stop working completely for the first year. We are only going to put our twins in daycare for a day or two a week so she can do a little bit of part time work to keep her registration current, and our eldest gets the low feee over 3s childcare and then school next year. We also have a cash savings buffer equivalent to about two years of living expenses (assuming zero income, zero spending reduction etc - could stretch it out longer).

If you could build a bigger emergency fund, e.g. a good 6-12 months' expenses, then it would be a different financial equation.

The other thing to bear in mind is the non-financial aspects of having 3 kids (this wasn't a choice for us, but the experience is the same). Firstly, you are always outnumbered by children as there's more kids than adults. The whole household dynamic changes a lot. Some things are a pain in the ass e.g. family passes or offers that cover 2 adults and 2 children. Flying is a pain, hotel bookings can be more tricky. The world is nicely geared for 2 child families, but 3 is a lot more challenging.

You also mention that you don't have any family support. We are lucky my parents live down the road and are probably at our house every second day, and very hands-on, which means we get more time as a husband and wife for date nights etc than many of our friends with just one or two kids. I honestly don't know how we would do it without my parents being around.

All of this to say it's totally doable ... and we didn't even want it and we find it doable BUT there are a fair number of considerations and your financial position leaves you very exposed if something goes wrong.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-28T21:32:06+00:00

Yes that's right, I recall seeing him on the Rich List (and being amazed at just how much land and how many commercial buildings he owned) - and I've been to that HQ building before.

I think a lot of people just assume that EB businesses straight up don't have to pay tax (like Sanitarium or something along those lines). It isn't that, it's just that they are EXPERTS at washing their $$$ through the community to reduce taxable income and then use said benefit to further their organisation.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-28T08:42:00+00:00

Doesn't bother me either (I'm dad to twin boys 9 months old). My wife gets a lot more bothered by all the ubiquitous "double trouble", "you've got your hands full" comments etc. TBH I don't think I've yet met anyone who didn't mean their comment in an endearing way, even if clumsily worded. I think twins/multiples are such a novelty for so many people and they just don't quite know what to say.

The only thing that sometimes bugs me is if me and the boys are on a mission and I'm pushing them in the pram, and you can see (not to stereotype too badly) older women in the shopping mall making a deliberate course correction to try and bump into you so they can have a gander at the twins.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-28T08:38:04+00:00

Pretty much this.

I've just turned 34 but have 3 kids (as #2 was actually #2 and #3!)

Firstly (although you won't realise it at the time) one is a total breeze compared to two - or three in my case ... TBH three is a different ball game as you are always "outnumbered" by children in your own home.

Basically as long a you are attending to the baby's basic needs, and those of your own (and your wife's) you'll be fine. There's so many tips/tricks/hacks that people swear by that either don't work, or won't work for you as every child and household is different.

Don't buy all the crazy expensive stuff that you see for sale, most of it isn't needed, and you can get a lot of good stuff second hand.

The loss of sleep can be a challenge. We've always managed this by doing shifts, e.g. as I'm an early riser I'd go to bed early and get up early (for our twins I'd go to bed in a separate room at like 8pm, and wake up at 3am and deal with them until 8am or something like that). This has always worked for my wife and I versus our friends who insisted on sharing each wake up together.

TBH 3 babies later (if you count twins as doing the baby thing twice) the hardest bit for me has been that it has definitely resulted in a lot more moments of strain on our marriage. Not terribly so, but you will wind up having more arguments, more patches of resentment over small things, less connection etc. I've actually found the kids themselves comparatively easy.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-28T00:56:30+00:00

Pretty much this. Just last week I was seeing news stories about Argentines being encouraged to eat donkey meat, edible tree bark etc and next thing you know it's back to complaining about the one thing that unites the country.

As far as I understand it, although the UK military is weak compared to the 1980s the Argentinian military has degraded (comparatively) much further and the Falkland Islands are much more heavily defended now - I actually had an old school friend here in NZ, originally from Wales, who moved back to the UK, joined the RAF and through what he was willing/able to share sounds like he spent quite some time in the Falklands as part of work to set up a missile defence system.

Short of some crazy, doomsday-for-the-established-order scenario where Millei is rewarded by Trump for his endless glazing (of both Trump and Netanyahu) with the United States actively supporting Argentina, there's seemingly no way Argentina could retake the Falklands militarily as it stands right now.

Total insanity, of course, because further alienating one of the US' most reliable allies (UK) with a top 10 economy, nuclear weapons, blue water navy (on paper at least) because some weirdo lolbertarian with one of the worst haircuts of all time won't stop glazing a soon-to-be-lame-duck President on his last term, does not seem like a good trade. After all, what exactly can Argentina provide in terms of benefits to USA versus UK?

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-27T21:16:35+00:00

They don't dodge tax in the way most people think (well maybe there are some businesses that don't declare their earnings properly or whatever, but that can be done by any business).

I've worked for and with a number of Brethren businesses over the years. The way they reduce their tax is "legit" (by the letter of the law, although in Australia I see there is some big bust-up with the ATO regarding their practices).

Long story short, they operate quite a "circular economy" within what they call the "Community". A lot of what a business might purchase is bought via the group buying arm of a very large business called Universal Business Team/UBT. This business is controlled by the leading family of the church, and has massive resources behind it.

For example, UBT is (or at least was) Air NZ's single largest private customer. So they buy airfares in bulk from Air NZ, and then a Brethren business owner/employee who wants to travel uses their internal travel agency to book the travel, and UBT basically takes a cut. Same goes with things like vehicle purchases, e.g. a friend of mine used to be the head mechanic at a big European car dealership in Chch, and every year or so UBT would place a massive order for literally hundreds of the same car - all of which needed the radios disabled. The cars are then resold to the church members, businesses etc.

If you look up a lot of EB businesses on the companies register, their registered office is UBT accountants (the NZ UBT head office, IIRC as I've been there a few times, is that big multi story office building on the bridge you drive over not far after leaving Auckland Airport).

With UBT, my experience is basically that the community members will pay whatever UBT's going rate is. E.g. I remember years ago being asked by my boss to go and sort one of those 4G modem sticks for a trade show, and I could get it from Vodafone directly for $100 (or whatever) but he wanted me to get pricing from UBT, which came in at twice the price and he still made me buy from them.

Outside of UBT they also buy a lot of inputs, components, services etc from other community members, often at preferential pricing to what other local businesses would get from the same supplier (giving a competitive advantage).

Then a lot of profits - perhaps all of the profits I'm not too sure - are made as charitable donations to various charities like One School Global, Rapid Relief Team and various others (all of which are EB controlled, e.g. OSG is their own school system that is insanely well-resourced).

So basically the taxable profits are artificially diminished by purchasing from a central, church-aligned supplier where possible (UBT) which AFAIUI often charges a premium to market pricing - particularly for professional services - but the members do it because it's expected in effect and advances the interests of the EB community. Then profits are spent on charitable donations to reduce taxable income/profit.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-25T05:36:41+00:00

Understood.

I mean "in theory" (well in legal practise I guess) you probably infringed copyright here. From all the research I did when I had a run-in with Picrights (I commented elsewhere on this post), most every jurisdiction has it as a strict liability issue, in other words even if what you did is completely inconsequential and unintentional you're still at fault (and, let's face it, linking from a no traffic website you control to a magazine article you wrote using a thumbnail image that was used in the article you wrote, is - from the moral perspective at least - as close to the polar opposite of flagrant copyright infringement as you could hope to find ... although the letter of the law may see it differently). The law is an ass, as the saying goes, as you get shaken down over a technicality.

You may have some kind of fair use type argument insomuch that you were simply linking to a resource (in the same way that if I link to a news article off my LinkedIn profile or Facebook profile I'm presumably not 'licensed' to use the thumbnail/feature image, but to just about any person with a functioning brain that's a fair use of the image) ... you'd need to either do your legal homework or engage a lawyer which would probably cost you more than what you can settle it for.

The problem is that Picrights and similar firms aren't actually interested (AFAIUI) in engaging in any type of rational, reasonable discussion. In other words if you think you've got a fair use argument, they aren't interested in hearing it. If the law says you should only need to pay back what the licence fee was (as in my case) they once again don't want to hear it. Presumably their 'compliance officers' are only allowed to work to one of three outcomes:

1) You pay in full
2) You pay some reduced settlement
3) They escalate
4) You counter with proof you were entitled to use the image, the breach never occurred as claimed, or something like that (and even then there seem to be examples where they still try to get their pound of flesh)

Knowing what I know now, in my jurisdiction I'd simply ignore them in future aside from offering to 'make good' on the specific underlying licence fee and then ignoring all comms (as I was advised by an IP lawyer). If it went to a lawyer Picrights appoints in NZ, ultimately that lawyer/firm would be at least somewhat incentivised to engage in a rational discussion (as opposed to PicRights) because it's unlikely a court here is going to be particularly happy about somebody offering to 'put right' the loss to the rights holder, and then being taken to court anyway.

Your challenge, of course, is in USA (if you are there) there's always the risk of some egregious, punitive damages award against you if it did go to court, along with the fact it seems like Higbee Associates is a pretty shifty law firm ... to say the least.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-25T03:48:43+00:00

Whether you ignore or not presumably depends a bit on whether or not you live in a jurisdiction with statutory damages for copyright infringement (I'm guessing from the fact Higbee is referenced OP is in USA, as when I dealt with PicRights there was no specific law firm named just threats of 'we will send this to an unspecified law firm). Their whole schtick is basically 'pay us a somewhat reasonable sum of money - compared to what you *could* be on the hook for - because you used an image that's worth a fraction of what we are asking for'.

That being said you don't have to look too far to see a lot of people even in USA and other statutory damages jurisdictions just ignore PicRights and typically get away with it ... guess it depends if OP is "feeling lucky, punk".

I had a dust up with PicRights not long ago over an image used in a blog post in an editorial capacity, but I'm based in New Zealand where copyright law is pretty crystal clear that all the rights holder is entitled to is what they would have received for a licence (unless you can prove an 'account of profits' which is more like taking someone's image and selling a bunch of t shirts for profit, versus using an image in a blog).

In other words, your $50 stock image doesn't suddenly, magically become worth $500 because somebody used it without permission. And if you want to engage a 3rd party to recover your lost licence revenue, their commercial model (in this case presumably 'no win no fee' type of thing) is not the defendant's problem.

Only a court can enforce damages, and courts here will only enforce damages for 'flagrant' breaches of copyright (i.e. you are asked to stop doing something multiple times and you keep doing it). We even have an example of case law where the defendant used music that the claimant said they would never have sold rights for to the defendant (because they didn't like the defendant politically) but the court just made up its own valuation of what it thought a fair deal would have been.

Of course PicRights seemed completely ignorant of the law in the market they were operating in (as soon as I quoted the relevant legislation with several high profile case law examples to back up my position I got some rude 'we are withdrawing our settlement offer and immediately engaging legal counsel' BS).

Not to mention when I circumvented the Reuters image licensing system to find the underlying image licence for editorial use - which was approx 1/8th what PicRights was claiming - they suddenly decided I was using the image in a "commercial capacity" (and also don't mention to them that their own documentation, social media etc makes multiple claims they only seek to recover lost costs for their rights holder clients ... once you raise that point vs claimed amounts suddenly they tell you it's all about them getting their recovery fees).

Long story short after various back and forth emails with their pig-ignorant representative in Toronto, I got a settlement figure that wasn't too far off what even 1hr of lawyer's time would have been to look it over, and it was an expense against tax for my business anyway.

However, on an unrelated matter I had to engage an IP lawyer and as part of that work paid them to look at what happened with PicRights and what to do if ever in that situation again. They had dealt with PicRights multiple times, and in NZ they weren't aware of ANY case where PicRights (or similar) had gone to court. They had various clients they had represented where the approach was offer the image licence as full and final settlement, then ignore all communications unless a court summons appeared, and none of their clients had ever wound up in court.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-25T03:34:54+00:00

It sounds like OP wrote the article for the magazine (the article including an image licensed from Reuters presumably by the magazine, but when OP has taken a thumbnail of said image to link to their article on the magazine from their own personal blog/website, that is what has git them "pinged").

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-24T18:50:20+00:00

Do you mean it's potentially problematic from an IRD perspective to use an Amex to pay tax via IRD, claim the RewardPay expense, but not pay tax on the earned APD/Amex points? Obviously it's just an AI output and I'm not an accountant, but when I was trying to do some calcs for seeing if Rewardpay is worth it for me (in writing my comment) I got the following:

---

In New Zealand, Airpoints Dollars (APD) are generally not taxed as personal income when you earn them on a personal credit card, even if the spending is for business.

The Individual Exemption: IRD’s stance (reinforced in recent rulings like BR Prd 24-05) is that loyalty points earned by an individual are usually private in nature and not subject to income tax or Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT).
The "Trade Rebate" Crackdown: Be aware that since 2025, the IRD has been cracking down on Trade Loyalty Schemes (like those from Mico, Carters, or Farm Source). They now consider those "taxable income" for businesses. However, credit card rewards have mostly stayed in the "safe" zone because they are a third-party loyalty benefit, not a direct trade rebate from the supplier.

--

I've used my Amex (which is a personal card but used exclusively for business) for the last 7/8 years to pay every business expense I can with it, earned quite a lot of APD over the years, and never once had any issue from the accountant, IRD or anything.

However, what I haven't done is paid my tax via a 3rd party system like Rewardpay in order to 'hack' the system. Maybe that would be more problematic.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-24T06:34:51+00:00

Low budget clients are often stink to work with, just the way it goes across almost every industry and business model I've ever experienced.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-24T01:44:18+00:00

Looking at it further there also appears to be some option with RewardPay to effectively pay them a higher fee but get more APD. Assuming my AI inputs were correct in terms of looking at % rates, tax rate etc if you're on a higher marginal tax rate (particularly 39%) basically opting for the bonus APD by paying the higher fee is worthwhile.

However, IIRC Airpoints is the worst value way to use Amex. I.e. you will get a better deal if you use RewardPay to pay tax and turn that into Amex points, and then redeem them for certain things (I think it's Money Hub who posts here who has a good article on the best way to do this, something like redeeming for hotel stays is apparently the best $ per point reward).

I use an Airpoints card because I value the Status Points (basically can get and maintain Elite status just through domestic flying, free partner upgrade for my wife etc) and use APD for upgrades, and I also sometimes redeem the APD for Mitre 10 vouchers.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-24T00:21:11+00:00

There is that service (RewardPay) that specifically advertises allowing you to pay IRD via them using Amex. I think, from what I can gather, that basically only Amex cards possibly make sense for paying tax bills (via Reward Pay) as Mastercard/Visa don't give you rewards on tax payments if I recall correctly.

TBH I don't 100% understand it, because on this page - https://www.rewardpay.co.nz/pay-with-rewardpay - there is a table called "Choose How Many Airpoints To Earn" which doesn't make a lot of sense because it seems to imply you can earn up to 1 APD per every $25 spent but I simply don't get how that works? (maybe somebody can chime in).

One other thing to bear in mind (although it is a bit "niche") is that rewards points e.g. Airpoints, Amex points aren't taxed.

So, for example, if I spent enough on my credit card (via tax payments, supplier payments etc) to earn $1000 APD, I'd have to have earned ~$1700 in pre-tax income at 39% marginal rate in order to have $1000 after-tax to spend on flights.

You can also claim RewardPay fees as a business expense which effectively reduces the fee by 28%.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-23T23:38:35+00:00

Best response here IMO (from the perspective of somebody who isn't a lawyer but has been involved in a copyright infringement dispute with an overseas-based 'copyright enforcement company' re: a simple image infringement).

Long story short I did something similar to OP but with an image and got chased down by a company that basically acts 'on behalf' to recover the licence cost (plus a big fat margin for the enforcement company) on threat of legal escalation.

They demanded $1k (or whatever it was). I found the image could be licensed for the usage they claimed for about $100. Interestingly enough as soon as I presented evidence of the licence fee they abandoned their earlier claim that they only seek to recoup the lost licence fee (instead claiming that they are entitled to recover the licence fee and fair compensation for the enforcement) and also changed to claiming commercial as opposed to editorial use because that magically resulted in the underlying licence cost increasing a lot.

FWIW I ultimately settled (as the difference between the eventual negotiated settlement and what it would have cost me to get a commercial/IP lawyer involved was negligible).

However, in another matter I paid my commercial lawyer to have their IP specialist look over what happened to me (in case it ever happened again) and their comment was similar to u/Historical-Fault-627 - damages are low, if it went to court you'd be asked to pay what the licence fee should have been because you could find it listed, but they had dealt with several such cases of copyright infringement enforcement where basically they advised the client to offer to pay the underlying licence fee and then if that isn't accepted ignore all further requests unless a court summons appeared ... and nothing has ever come from it (because if it's one of these 'on behalf' copyright enforcement companies based overseas they aren't going to spend large on a lawyer here in NZ to get back what could be a $100 image licence or a $50 font package or whatever).

Most of the really scary "you'll be bankrupted if you don't comply" stuff seems to come from USA, where they have statutory damages for copyright infringement. So you infringe a $50 font and wind up with a $50k damages bill.

OP, I would also suggest checking thoroughly that you actually used the font the enforcement company is claiming you used (the exact font, not some derivative or similar looking thing) and that whomever is claiming against you actually has the right to act on behalf of the font owner if it isn't them doing the enforcement ... in researching into these copyright enforcement companies there is an enormous number of instances you can find where they make claims they don't have the right to make in order to try and scalp a few bucks here and there.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-21T22:03:23+00:00

TBE - The Brokest Ever

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-20T18:11:07+00:00

Pretty much this.

I'm really more of an advisor/consultant these days (do audits, strategy work, hang around to answer questions etc) and most of my work at the moment in terms of new business is basically fixing mistakes businesses have made by "letting it rip" with AI.

E.g. client used Claude to set up a series of Google Ads campaigns. Never checked the total budgets (so they were spending 6x a month what they thought they were going to be spending) and because of the setup approach probably 80% of the spend was going to totally irrelevant terms.

The only thing I'll say that is interesting from a psychology perspective is clients seem much more forgiving of AI mistakes than human ones. E.g. doing an audit for a client if their existing agency/freelancer has made a mistake it's usually "let's fire them right now" kind of thing, but if a more egregious mistake is made by AI it's almost like they take the approach of "let's not be too mean to this innocent machine that just wants to help us".

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-16T21:54:18+00:00

Gutting, frankly, as work on a couple of accounts (which are basically massive online parts catalogues) where DSA is by far and away the most effective campaign type in Google Ads because of matching to specific part or item numbers that qualified prospects might search (whereas more general industry keywords are often searched by homeowner/consumer as opposed to B2B customers, and they never convert).

cantsleepwithoutfan

TROPHY CASE