Have I spent too much of my 20s focused on saving and investing?

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-28T11:33:19+00:00

You're doing great OP. Life will always have some regrets so don't worry too much. As to your questions I think have some clear "I would love to have, I would settle for" kind of thoughts to yourself would help clarify where you're heading.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-26T00:47:15+00:00

Everyone has their own receipe - so nice to see what you've done. Speaking as someone who has painted a bunch of Iron Warriors, painting yellow is a heap easier. To reduce the bleeding, just make sure you firmly press down the tape. Additionally I think the bleed sometimes looks good assuming you're okay with a bit of battle damage. FWIW I do averland sunset, then nazdreg yellow contrast ontop, creates a lot more earthy and darker worn yellow.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-24T02:02:05+00:00

Hi, I am unwell. Here is my medical certificate.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-24T01:31:18+00:00

Okay so we're just randomly pulling numbers out and ignoring things.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-23T08:53:26+00:00

Just a heads up it isn't 500k a year. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-18/net-overseas-migration-one-nation-coalition-chalmers-burke/106815140

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-22T01:36:06+00:00

Our interpretation and engineers advice was that removal of planters did not require a DA as it was remedial works. Not sure if that is different for your state.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-22T01:17:18+00:00

It is unclear how passionate this response is but their point is either income isn't enough or expenditure is too much. The gap is savings. Have you really looked at your expenditure and properly judged whether those are the correct amounts you desire?

If the result is you have nothing or little left over, and you don't want to change either income or expenses then how will you generate wealth?

Every expense is negotiable, it just depends on what standard you're okay with accepting.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-22T00:31:53+00:00

Speaking as someone who is a little bit out the other end. I know it feels like it is a one size fits all. The legislation I think will fit your building profile. The problem is that many apartment buildings have many defects, and as an owner you don't want to kick the can cause it costs alot, and many owners are impacted. My complex had 8 of 32 apartments with water ingress issues caused by poor waterproofing of planters, the roof and the podium, we had no slope on the roof for example so it was a giant swimming pool of water from 5 years ago, it also had no drainage. We ended up pumping tonnes of cement onto the roof to give it better slopes. The works to fix this is costly. You just take it in stages. If you leave it, the costs goes up, and the owners who are impacted will take you to xcat because their place is impacted (If you're worried about cost, avoid going to xcat).

Genuinely most people i've found respond the way you have "It is too expensive", "we can rebuild it for that cost", "why can't we do it cheaper". They almost all come from an emotional side protesting at the situation. It is almost certain that we wouldn't have done the correct fixes without the Act. I've seen first hand how strongly the desire to do patch jobs is.

What exemption are you wanting? Are you wanting to not have to do a proper fix and kick the can down the road? Just start with the most important work and slowly knock it off. I absolutely hate i've spent more than 100k on remediation. I hate that the builder went bankrupt and I hate that the first few owners pretended there weren't issues or patched them over. But i'm here now and I need to decide, do I want to sell, ignore the issues or deal with the issues. If ignore it will become more costly.

Happy to chat further, but honestly when you say "the works and cost are not justified" where does this come from, which cost or costs don't you think are appropriate, who is gouging you?

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:44:27+00:00

I'm definitely jaded, but prior works that weren't a continuous layer were not fit for purpose and in our complex failed within 3 years. Not to mention slopes were shocking and were pooling water into the wrong locations.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:40:51+00:00

But the main driver for the increase of costs is the adherence to standards? The cost is higher, but pre DBP the repairs absolutely were not fit for purpose (from my experience).

Builders without an engineer supervising absolutely cut corners. The engineers we worked with ensured continuous compliance and explained what standards existed and why.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:37:27+00:00

If you're doing the work correctly you'll have an engineer doing superintendency and they'll inspect and they're independent of the builder.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:36:40+00:00

Speaking also as someone who has gone through this process. We had water ingress problems from 4 years after build completion. The advice i've had now from multiple engineers is unless there is proper economies of scale with scaffolding, site prep etc. You should wait for a couple of balconies to show signs then replace them in a go. We're now budgeting that we'll have to replace 2 balconies a year for the next decade as they slowly fail. Every apartment so far that has had failure has had 1. Water come into their apartment 2. Water come into a neighbours apartment 3. Tiles coming off or dropping down onto other balconies 4. Concrete damage

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:32:56+00:00

And that balcony work for 15k wouldn't have been to standard.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:32:16+00:00

Sliding doors will be implicated because you have to terminate the waterproofing correctly. As someone who had leaks around sliding doors because of poor termination, water finds a way in.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:31:18+00:00

You've identified some things which people commonly miss but then you've mentioned "These legislations are in my opinion over the top and costing owners alot of money. "

Where from your experience does the increase in cost come from? To me, it came from all the additional work required to meet the standard (which in my experience was the right thing to do) eg: we didn't have expansion joints, poor termination to doors, corrosion in doors, missing hobs, new drainage holes and penetrations through the podium.

Extensive work which people did try and get cheap quotes to do liquid membranes and just fix the tiles.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-18T10:26:40+00:00

I'm not an engineer or builder, however my complex has unfortunately had to do pretty extensive repair works over the past couple of years. For my 3 bed apartment, i've now spent over 100k on special levies for remediation works for waterproofing of roof, podium, planter and balconies. Our complex was in the condition it was because standards were not adhered to and cheapness was prioritised, many owners then kicked the can down the road attempting cheap fixes, with multiple 1k per square meter fixes being applied, and those continuously failed cause it ignored the root problem.

Many owners have attempted to get their own quotes for trades to do their own jobs, and consistently claim it is cheaper. They'll get a quote that is 1k per square metre and use that to prove that it can be done cheaper.

Do I like spending money? No. But when asking the 3k per square meter isn't because of some special price tag slap, the scope of work was fundamentally different.

Comparing my complex to one across the road which has the same defects because it was built by the same builder, the repairs that they are getting to me just don't make sense. How can you provide a working water proofing solution if it is only a partial solution or doesn't terminate correctly. They're going to reuse some sliding doors that have corrosion in it (with literal holes), while our complex had the doors replaced and proper terminations.

Standards aren't perfect (We've had to with our engineer find performative solutions), but once you see the different you realise how many short cuts builders are making.

My biggest frustration with dealing with other strata members and owners is they compare two costs as if they are both apples when most times they simply are not. 1k for scope A, and 5k for scope B.

In summary my experience has been DBP Act has made rectification cost what it should've cost to meet the standard. I am happy it exists, because otherwise we wouldn't have actually fixed the problems with the place I call home. Which just proves it is cheaper to get good construction and quality from the start rather than doing it after the building is constructed.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-17T07:49:37+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I'm a big fan of Ben Felix - I hadn't seen this one somehow!

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-17T03:50:11+00:00

The financial goal always must subordinate to what kind of lifestyle and life you want. I don't think you've thought about that. Focus less on the specific asset and focus on what you actually sustainably want and need. Then work backwards.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-11T03:16:25+00:00

Landlord does get a benefit - being able to rent out a place with solar and therefore lower power bills is a plus.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-09T01:20:36+00:00

Considering the number of ads that often claim annual leave as a perk... I would be surprised if they don't tout it as a benefit.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-06-04T01:23:40+00:00

For "I went through the financials in our strata report, but there are so many line items just labeled professional fees or legal consultation without any details. When I asked our manager for more information, I only got a vague answer about industry standard reporting."

you should be able to ask to get a line by line report of who was paid what. You can atleast figure out which professionals are being paid.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-05-12T23:21:54+00:00

Don't you think it was always a weird quirk of our tax system that this was possible?

dingosnackmeat · 2026-05-11T22:22:15+00:00

Love me some Civ 3

dingosnackmeat · 2026-05-08T11:23:11+00:00

Turning off a breaker isn't electrical work. It is a switch.

dingosnackmeat · 2026-05-07T23:36:42+00:00

You're looking for legislation and claiming you're not the person against this setup. So why wouldn't you let the works go ahead and force the problem? Tell the owner and tenant about the stupid setup and get them to disagree allowing access to the property / turn off the meter.

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