Another FI Seeker

Share your story
1

Hoi Zäme !

First of all, thanks for _MP for creating this Swiss forum.

Here is my story:
I am French expat working in Zürich as an IT Engineer.
I had a kid this year and found out that time is the most precious thing I hold.

This led me to the conclusion that I can:

  • neither wait till a government decides when I am allowed to retire
  • or be at the mercy of a single employer for my income.

So earlier this year, I started binge reading:

  • Financial Independence/Retire Early Blogs & Books
  • Personal Finance/Investments books

I am now exploring information about Tax & more advanced investments topics.

I plan to live in France on the Atlantic coast once I reach Financial Independence
which is planned to be in 5-15 years based on my current savings (45% saving rate)
for a planned passive income of 1500-3000 EUR per month.

Numbers are not engraved and I keep tuning them as I learn more in this field :slight_smile:

I’m planning for my Kid as well with the goal that he can live on passive income when he turns 30/40years old if he wants to.

Once living off the passive income, I’d like to develop my knowledge/skills on everything I’ve left aside:

  • Learn to build/repair homes, gardening, wood management and other profession
  • Learn to play multiple musical instruments
  • Practice sports daily (Surf, Triathlon, whatever keeps me healthy)
  • Enjoy more time with family and friends

Looking forward to exchange ideas on how to get there with 100% success rate and the least effort :-).

Cheers !

2 Likes
2

Hi @T78a,

Thank you for your message into the Community.

I can’t be more aligned with you on what we’ve most precious is our time.

Which investing strategy are you using: dividend or growth? As you will retire in Euro (if it still exist :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:), which broker and portfolio type do you use?

3

Hi T78a,
Out of all the FIRE books and Personal finance and investment books that you binge read, which would you recommend?
cheers

4

Dear fellow Mustachians,

My personal top-5 favourites are:

Early Retirement Extreme (Jacob Lund Fisker)
Your Money or your Life (Vicki Robin)
The Simple Path to Wealth (JL Collins)
The Millionaire Next Door (Thomas J. Stanley)
Building Wealth One House at a Time (John W. Schaub)

Looking forward to more suggestions as well!

Cheerio!

2 Likes
5

This does not leave much choice ;-), here’s my plan:

I want to make full use of the exemption of capital gain tax in Switzerland and don’t need any income from my assets for the next 5<->15 years. So the plan so far is to aim at growth.
Once I decide to live off my assets, I would progressively switch to income generating ones (dividends being one possibility) while trying to keep income tax at a fair level.

All of them as I’ve learnt something in each of them but if you don’t have time:
Level1 - Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Level2 - Simple Path to Wealth
Level3 - Early Retirement Extreme

I don’t know what Level4 could be, so let me know if you know :slight_smile:

I have added some comments below.

As shared by Financial_Imagineer:
“Early Retirement Extreme” proposes higher level life strategies rather than tactical hacks for Financial Independence.
There’s no story telling and the author sees the reader as a real adult. Best book I’ve read so far.

“The Simple Path to Wealth (JL Collins)” I’ve read the blog and then the book (read the book first instead) and it helped me understand the basics about stocks and bonds. The author writes with simple with a non financial semantic field that makes it easy to read.

“The Millionaire Next Door (Thomas J. Stanley)” I skipped many pages and don’t recommend it. +90% of US millionaires are 1st generation ones who saved a larger chunk of their income than the layman, invested it early and spend money like a non-millionaire.

Other books I’ve read recently:
“Know how to invest (Gerald Autier)” written in French. He goes over the fundamentals of investments mediums and the questions to ask yourself when evaluating one. The book is well structured and I’ve discovered concepts such as risk-free rates which can serve as basis to evaluate riskier investments.

“The only investment guide you’ll ever need (Andrew Tobias)” covers a lot of examples of what not to do/not to do.

“The intelligent investor (Benjamin Graham)” (still reading) tells you in details why buying discounted (value) stocks is worth over the long term.

“Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Kyosaki)” easy to read story telling that can ring a bell in you to invest your savings and learn new business skills to leave the rat race.

1 Like