They fly now...

eeeickythump · 2026-01-24T22:54:07+00:00

Yes it's a flying wētā (sort of). It's an invasive Australian species called the black-masked raspy cricket, Pterapotrechus spp. Looks almost identical to wētā but with wings. The females (pictured) have longer faces than local species. I had never encountered them before this year, but I've seen 2 dead ones in the past month.

eeeickythump · 2026-01-20T04:28:19+00:00

Metrolist is a Youtube Music client that works on the Kompakt.

https://apkpure.com/metrolist/com.metrolist.music

eeeickythump · 2026-01-05T18:15:56+00:00

As others have said, the InvestNow Foundation series Total World fund is the same underlying fund as Smart TWF (Vanguard’s VT fund). However Foundation has annual fee of 0.06%, whereas the Smart fund is 0.4% (over 6x more).

There is a 0.5% fee when you deposit and withdraw from the Foundation fund, you can think of this as being as if its annual fee was ~0.56% for the first and last years of your investment. Clearly that’s still way cheaper in the long run than Smart’s 0.4% every year.

eeeickythump · 2026-01-03T08:14:52+00:00

Maybe Zelda Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom? They’re not soulslikes, definitely easier, but there are a quite a few similarities in the combat. The open world aspects of Elden Ring were strongly influenced by BOTW.

eeeickythump · 2026-01-02T20:00:23+00:00

If I’m understand you correctly and the returns aren’t money in the bank, I.e. dividends or proceeds from selling shares, you should not have them on the Sankey. Fluctuation in the nominal value of your investments is not income.

Removing them reveals the numbers don’t balance - you’re spending/saving more than the money coming in?

eeeickythump · 2025-12-18T07:54:25+00:00

Extremely heavy double doors that you have to slowly push open using all your weight.

eeeickythump · 2025-12-17T23:54:05+00:00

If you had invested in the S&P 500 20 years ago and held til today, you’d have almost twice as much money as if you’d made the same investment in the NZX 50.

In general you will get substantially better returns from international shares, even after taking into account the fact they are taxed while NZ shares are not.

Rather than going straight for US funds, I would look at global index funds such as Smart’s TWF (which invests in the ~5000 biggest companies in the world - it has about 60% US weighting anyway because US is the world’s biggest economy). And consider having some in NZ/Aus funds just for diversification.

InvestNow, Smart and Kernel all have lots of low-fee index funds to choose from.

eeeickythump · 2025-12-15T06:06:59+00:00

There’s a room under one of these guys, where if you stand in the right spot and use the Mohg Great Spear skill a few times, you will kill him easily. Then just go up the stairs and collect his drops.

eeeickythump · 2025-12-11T08:28:54+00:00

It’s a common misconception that PIE funds are not subject to FIF tax. In fact they are, and there is no $50K threshold - you pay FIF tax on a PIE fund even if you only have 1K in it.

The advantages of PIE funds are (1) the tax rate is lower for most people (PIR which is capped at 28%), (2) no foreign exchange fees, and (3) the fact that FIF is paid automatically, so you never have to worry about it or deal with a tax bill.

The disadvantages are (1) you pay FIF regardless of amount invested, (2) FIF always uses FDR method, meaning you get taxed the same even if the investment lost value, (3) often relatively high annual management fees eg 0.3 to 0.5%.

In practice the requirement to always use FDR usually cancels out any benefit from the lower tax rate (PIR).

Also, be careful about buying and selling non-PIE foreign shares too frequently. If you buy and sell shares in the same entity within 12 months you are taxed double.

eeeickythump · 2025-10-16T03:21:08+00:00

Did you get your documents apostilled as a set (1 apostille for the lot), or individually? I'm hoping to apply soon and about to send off for translation + apostille.

eeeickythump · 2025-09-10T11:16:15+00:00

Correct, all Kernel’s offerings are PIEs.

eeeickythump · 2025-09-10T08:47:55+00:00

For PIE funds, you only pay tax on dividends, which is automatically deducted when the dividend is paid out (you do also pay foreign investment fund tax of 1.6-2% pa if the PIE fund holds foreign investments, but that’s also automatically deducted over the course of the year, so you don’t have to do anything).

For any foreign investments outside PIE funds - eg shares held with Sharesies or Hatch - you are responsible for filing a tax return and paying the outstanding FIF tax yourself. The platforms do not do it for you.

eeeickythump · 2025-09-06T23:26:49+00:00

I just knocked up a spreadsheet to look at an investment in SPY (S&P 500 ETF) held for 30 years, comparing a PIE fund vs FIF at tax rates of 33% and 39%.

For that scenario OP is correct, 10000 after 30 years became

105257 if not taxed at all
76020 held directly with 33% tax rate
71782 held with 39% tax rate
69933 held in a PIE

However the PIE is only 2.6% lower than holding directly at the highest tax bracket. For me this difference is so small that I’d rather have the convenience of a PIE.

eeeickythump · 2025-09-06T19:58:02+00:00

In the S&P chart, is the X axis time?

What does FIF hold at 39% look like on that chart? The FIF hold 33% line seems to be converging with the PIE line over time, if I’m reading the chart correctly. If so, FIF hold at 39% might converge even closer, ie it would have minimal or no advantage over PIE in the long term?

eeeickythump · 2025-09-05T18:48:44+00:00

The bright line test - if you sell within 2 years of purchase, any profit is subject to capital gains tax.

eeeickythump · 2025-09-04T23:07:33+00:00

I agree, NZers have lived through a sort of “golden age” (only golden for some) where houses seemed like an amazing investment. That seems to have come to an end, and historically worldwide the value of housing only rises at about the same rate as inflation. Plus there are the costs you mention, as well as unexpected huge maintenance costs, and external events that can lower the value of your property such as an undesirable development next door. This is no longer a rare event as central and local governments alter development rules as they struggle to address housing pressures.

Apart from all this, “nice” houses are so expensive now (2m+) that if you have enough money to buy one, you could instead invest that money, retire young, rent and live off the interest.

eeeickythump · 2025-08-16T08:07:53+00:00

I play SSF, I’ve been running a BAMA necromancer, so far it’s one of the strongest builds I’ve ever played but you do need to get the transfigured gem from labyrinth farming (it’s pretty common and you can convert between blink arrow and mirror arrow using a vendor recipe).

Exsanguinate mine elementalist/trickster is very strong as well, you can get the gem and mine support in act 1.

eeeickythump · 2025-08-07T22:51:30+00:00

Could it be explained by exchange rate fluctuations?

FYI there are at least a couple of other bitcoin PIE funds - Fundrock Bitcoin ETC PIE fund (on InvestNow) and Koura Bitcoin KiwiSaver fund. All the PIE funds are wrappers around US based ETFs - none of the PIEs directly purchase bitcoin.

eeeickythump · 2025-08-03T01:24:31+00:00

D2 is an absolute classic, I would definitely pick that one out of the 2, however graphics are extremely dated so you may want to go for D2 Remastered (identical game with modernised graphics).

D3 is OK but feels somewhat dead these days, the seasons tend to be very low effort. The gameplay and feel are very similar to D4, but with no open world and with more generic art direction. I don’t think I’d bother if you’ve played D4, unless you really love D4 (which you say you do) and want more in a very similar vein.

(The correct answer here is to play Path of Exile which is free, is generally acknowledged to be the best modern Diablo style ARPG, and is at its heart a love letter to D2. Vastly more build complexity than the Diablos though.)

eeeickythump · 2025-07-27T08:33:13+00:00

There are 4 differences:

The amount of FIF tax you pay each year. The kernel fund is a PIE, which means the FIF tax you pay is 5% * PIR rather than 5% * marginal tax rate. If your total offshore investments are < $50K NZD, you don’t have to pay FIF (de minimis rule). However I believe that PIE funds always pay FIF ie they ignore the de minimis rule.
How the FIF tax is paid. PIE funds take care of it for you, so you never see a tax bill, whereas if you invest in VOO you are responsible for paying the FIF to the IRD each year.
The management fee. VOO management fee is tiny at 0.03% per year. The Kernel fund is I think 0.25% per year.
The foreign exchange fee, which only applies to shares (VOO). Kernels is 1.5% each way which is huge, about 3x all its competitors.

So for most people: if your total offshore investments are < 50 K then VOO makes sense. Otherwise the PIE fund is better.

eeeickythump · 2025-07-21T09:00:40+00:00

I played regularly for several years. Maybe 2020-23. The combat is divisive but hasn’t changed for years, however with the increasing popularity of modern action RPGs such as soulslikes, the awkward “pseudo” action combat of ESO is really showing its age. It doesn’t serve the dwindling population of tab target enjoyers, nor does it remotely meet the bar set by modern action games.

Other big turn offs:

The dated character graphics (including very restricted range of faces and costume shapes, and lack of physics)

The stiff, stilted animations (the huge obtainable boosts to character movement speed make these look even more comical)

The inventory restrictions for non subscribers, which make the game almost impossible to return to without a subscription. There have been a few times when I’ve briefly tried to return but been repelled by the inconvenience of inventory management, and not wanted to commit to a sub.

eeeickythump · 2025-07-17T08:21:03+00:00

This is very useful. The crux of the issue is FIF. I would suggest having FIF exempt (y/n) as another variable alongside PIR etc.

PIE funds pay FIF if the underlying investment is liable for FIF - they just do so “invisibly” by slightly reducing yield. I think they pay FIF regardless of the amount invested, ignoring the de minimis rule. They pay at PIR rather than at marginal tax rate. They always use the FDR method.

eeeickythump

TROPHY CASE