Hey, @1000000CHF, list your place on Airbnb and rent a room from time to time, that will help you optimize that
That’s quite high! …to put things in perspective, that’s the equivalent of 325 beers. If you’re a beer drinker Aldi beer is the best pilsen in Switzerland (0.45 CHF) and it’s actually produced by “feldschlösschen”
In my experience, Duolingo is very good for starting a language. However, you won’t reach a level farther than A2 using it. And is does not make you actually speak the language, which is the most important.
Now for actual german lessons, Migros School is very expensive. The best I’ve seen so far is actually in Skype lessons, on platforms like Italki or assimilate. It is possible to find something around 10-15Fr./hour.[quote=“Mr.HdLR, post:18, topic:312”]
Books 60 – I’m addicted to book collecting
Do you know “Caritas” or “RedCross” they have an amazing library, I have found some very interesting books for pennies
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+1. Do you need to own these books or just read them? In Zürich the Zentralbibliothek is outstanding and totally free. I am sure you have similar library in Zug. On other option that i particularly like is having a second hand kindle coupled with Library Genesis. I am a big reader as well and it totally smashed my reading budget.
Hey @Mr.HdLR! I’d love to, but my falt has only one bed room (and we’re occupying it). End of the year I’ll be looking for another flat, I might take a bigger one, as we’ll have a baby then. But before baby will grow up a bit, we might rent his room on Airbnb.com. I have to consider that.
Yup, this month was pretty bad in these terms. Every weekend this month we had guests from Poland and every weekend included: coffees while visiting Luzern/Zurich/Rapperswill/Interlaken + beers in pubs + dining out in restaurants + booze+food at our place in the evenings. I’m actually pretty tired of guests.
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of Doulingo, but as @Julianek mentioned, it’s good for beginners. I think that to practice speaking, one has to speak with someone who can correct you.
There’s a Zug library with English literature as far as I know. I definitely have to visit it. There’s also one with Polish books in Polish musem in Rapperswill. That’s a bit far, but we usually take our guests there anyway, because it’s a very nice town.
I prefer buying in Ldl/Aldi, but I’ll get credit cards from Migros and Coop. The one from PostFinance is too costly.
This is exactly what we do with my wife. We used to first take private lessons with a Swiss teacher (CHF120/hour), then we switched to Migros School (CHF700/month), and finally we switched to Polish teacher on Skype (CHF13/hour).
Zug is pretty smallish and thus its library is also pretty small, but as far as I know they have some English literature, so definitely I have to start using it.
Thanks for the info about Library Genesis. I’m also a heavy kindle user, so I will test that option as well.
Hey @Mobius, are you sure that CoopMobile still has that in the offer? I’ve been to local Coop City today and asked them about it and they weren’t sure about it. On the CoopMobile website, I also can’t find such info. Actually, 500MB for CHF5 is still a good deal, but I’d prefer the CHF99/year option. I guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow and ask if it’s still valid offer.
I was wondering if any of you is working part-time to have more freedom.
I was thinking about that really hard last month because I was looking for a new job. After few interviews, I’ve realised that I can either negotiate 15% salary increase or a day off with current salary.
So do you think it’s better to work a bit shorter to enjoy full FI or to enjoy 20% of FI right away? For me second option seems to be more attractive as with my current savings rate I’ll be FI in about 12 years. That’s pretty long time, so I’ve decided to make that time more enjoyable. It seems to me that 20% more free time now is more valuable than 2 or 3 years saved on the path to full FI.
I’m an IT guy. I have lots of other stuff to do in my free time - especially now when I have a baby. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to go for 80%. I was asking if anyone else is also working part-time or has plan to do so.
I was thinking about FI for some time because it’s not easy to figure out what to do once I’ll get there. I most likely will continue working 50%-80% or start a consulting business. This lead me to a conclusion - why wait 10-12 year to move to 80% if I can do it right now? And then in 12-15 years move to 50% or start a business. I’m also thinking about stop working and going for PhD once I’m FI. I haven’t decided yet.
Have you guys figured out already how to live on FI and how to get more of FI-like life before reaching FI?
I have like 3-4 projects in my mind/HD (I’m a software engineer). I’d like to be able to see one or two of my pet projects to go live. Maybe I can then go 80% or less.
I’d love consulting, but I have no idea how to start it and what exactly I could offer. What people need from a consultant?
What kind of projects? Software? I was thinking about creating an open source web app being an FI/Mustachian dashboard/interface to IB (or other brokers) and other financial services. Something like these new fancy fintech companies are creating these days.
I have to ideas in mind - one is related to my profession, and other to my hobby. As my profession I’m already doing IT infrastructure automation (something often called “DevOps”) and I could create a business to work on the technology that I like for comapnies that would be interested in paying me for it.
On the other hand, in my free time I’m translator/journalist/researcher in one of the Polish economic/libertarian think tanks. They already offered me before some money for writing articles and I like that - the reason I don’t do it full time is that in IT I can get 10x bigger salary. After FI I could pursue a mix of academic work and journalist/researcher work in this think tank.
My third idea is for FI is creating an organization for promoting FI lifestyle - something that would spread the ideas and help people start (establish broker account, create a portfolio, teach them about the process and principles). I was even thinking about calling it something like “FI Nation” or “Mustachian Nation”. It could be a non-profit organization or cooperative operating at cost (like Vanguard) or a low-cost company that would replicate the FinTech idea, but with price structure that would make it accessible to everyone.
It looks like you want to switch career more than be FIRE.
Yes, software projects. None related to early retirement or finance.
For FI, it would be nice to have a more structured site (wiki). The only website I’d use would be something like justetf but more complete. I have some ideas, but not enough time/energy.
That’s the thing, being FIRE is not a goal in itself. What would you do once you don’t need to work? Sit down and drink martinis? You have to have something to wake up in the morning - it might be travelling, taking care of family, volunteer work or just work - but it has to be something. FIRE is just a tool to achieve something that is more difficult or impossible when we work full time.
Michael Kitces is making that point in Mad Fientist podcast:
Thanks for the link, but I read enough theoretical stuff. I wonder how they manage to stay motivated in writing/talking since there isn’t much to say at some point.
To me being FIRE means that there is something safe/sure that pays the bills (and any unexpected expenses) while I decide what to do It might be working on another project or just traveling or posting on this forum…
I never had a more than an 80% contract and I enjoyed the long weekends and the extra weeks of vacation a lot. As I work in a similar field as you do, I would say that you should be able to have an easy and comfortable ride to FI with 20% less salary.
As my savings rate well over 50% with a part time job it does not really hurt me to trade time for money. But if your current savings rate is 30%, then you will have a hard time to advance.
I personally prefere to slowly phase out of pursuing a job and pursue other interest along the way instead of doing a hard cut. Working part time enables me to do so.
Awesome @ElMago ! So I’m not the only (crazy) one.
I figured out that I’m on the upper level of salary range in my field and the only institution that could pay me more in Switzerland is Google. So basically I get a full “median” IT salary, even though I’ll work only 80%.
I think that the whole point of reaching FI is the free time, safety and flexibility of being salary-independent - so if I can have a little bit more of that here and now, I prefer to have it rather then postponing everything in 10 years. Especially, that I could choose either 15% more money or 20% more free time and it seems to me a better bargain to have more time (with my family and for my hobbies).
My saving rate is 50% currently (and I will earn the same salary in new 80% job). Most likely it will even rise next year to 60-70% as my wife will start working. So I think it makes sense in my case to trade some time for money.
Absolutely agree. I think it’s also psychologically easier. One of the biggest problems of people who reached FI is that they’re too scared of changing their entire life/career and leave the comfort zone. So they have the infamous “one more year” syndrome, which irrational fear-fuelled turns into “few more years”.
I also plan to step by step change my work equivalent to 10% less every few years. Hopefully, there are still job opportunities for 70% or 60%.
We are both working 80%. Our salaries are high enough that this is possible together. When I got my job I was asked how many % I wanted to work and as I was unsure I said 80%. That was the best decision ever. It allowed my to have a second job (which I have left by now), now it allows us to go grocery shopping during the week and do other household-related tasks then. So no need to do everything on the weekend.
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