It’s slightly more complicated, but in a nutshell:
If you’re married and your spouse works at least 50%, you won’t have to pay AHV.
If you’re not married or if your spouse works less than 50%, you’ll have to pay AHV depending on your wealth.
This is a more detailed summary (in German) including a table indicating how much AHV contribution is due depending on your wealth: https://www.ahv-iv.ch/p/2.03.d
ONE YEAR UPDATE
It has been quite some 12 months since my original posting. Meanwhile, our NW grew from 3.2M to 4.3M. So reasonably optimistic that we will even surpass the end-2022 goal of 4.5M CHF this year.
How could we increase by 1.1 M in 12 months? Well, kept saving and investing, no windfall, just staying the course. A high household income helps but now start to really feel the tailwind of a sizable market account - 350k unrealized gains from that alone YTD.
First of all congratulations @finalcountdown It is very motivating to see these accomplishments and really inspire me to push forward in order to get this security in life.
I would like to ask you about the foreign pension funds which you mentioned a year ago. In particular, why you chose to get those instead of more stash on ETF/3a pillar and if they are company or country related (which country?)
Thanks
@lerojan, thanks.
We have the foreign pension funds as we moved to Switzerland mid-career and had already started contributing to that in our former country of residence. Now, those are tax deferred and locked until retirement, so liquidating them would cause a massive tax penalty. We just leave them be and do not contribute further, they will have 15-20 years more to grow, maybe longer. The good news is that 1) Extremely low expense ratio, 2) Has now grown to 485k CHF 
We may convert some to annuity when time comes but more likely get out in yearly installments over 10 years
Regards maxing your Swiss 2nd & 3rd pillar. You mentioned your plan was to withdraw that upon moving abroad. Depending on the respective dual tax agreement you may have to pay more tax in the destination country than you saved in Switzerland. In the Europe area UK is an exception, no tax payable in UK only withdrawal tax in CH
Did you think about adapting your plans on the back of that development? Specifically, do you plan to retire earlier (whenever you hit the target), or do you increase your target (because achieving the figure is thanks to very high valuations)? Or do you just ride it out anyway until the mid-2023 bonus round?
@1742, we will keep the mid-2023 as FIRE date, it takes some preparation to FIRE (not the least mentally). So yes, we will likely overshoot our target, curious to see by how much, in 24 months we know the answer.
@finalcountdown, congratulations and thanks for updating us. It’s great inspiration and guidance.
I wanted to ask about the ETF part. Do you use multiple brokers or only one? In the forum we debated in other posts that after a certain threshold (half mil or a mil) is also better to diversify broker.
Is something that you did / plan to do?
If so, are using a mix of Swiss / international?
Personally I have one international (IB) and one Swiss. Planning to add one Swiss when getting above 1mil ETF
Thanks!
Have just one broker, but not cost optimized (yet). Thinking of switching to Saxo bank, is solid, 20 years in business and registered as Swiss bank, have operations in many countries. Once above 1 mil, is quite cost competitive. Anyone with Saxo experiences here?
Have a 6-7 ETFs diversified along currency usd/eur/chf in 40:40:20 split. Further diversified in small vs large cap and finally markets World/US/Euro/EM/SMI). Plus 4-5 pct NW in a couple of individual stocks. No bonds, use pillar 2a instead bonds
Thank you.
If you haven’t come cross. Pls see this article from Poor Swiss website.
Saxo has high inactivity fee. A family member works at Saxo but not in Switzerland. Prices are not great but true that after a certain amount looks better. They stayed in business when the SBN unpegged. It was Armageddon day for many Fx brokers. Saxo got some losses but didn’t go under. They now reinforced margin requirements and etc. in general they focus on quality rather than lowest price.
Disclaimer. I don’t have Saxo. Less choice than other brokers for certain ETF / instrument. And higher costs before hitting a certain amount.
36 month sprint became 18 months - hit 5.0 in Nov, up 1.2M for the year. Still plan to keep going to mid-2023 though, and who knows where we will be at then, somewhere between 5 & 7 hopefully!
Congrats again on the milestone!
2 questions:
A) are you going to change portfolio allocation (e.g. less equity) now that you have reached the goal?
B) as you will be retiring before pension age or time in which you can redeem 2nd pillar. Are you planning to change 2nd pillar from bond like return to equities (e.g. VIAC or other provider)
Basically both questions related to portfolio allocation / risk profile.
Thanks!
We have now 1/3 of net worth in pillar 2a, which we have funded rather massively past couple of years to lower our exposure to stocks and to lower taxes. Plan is to leave Switzerland at some point and get the money out in a low/no taxed geography. Once the pillar 2a becomes liquid, we will likely stay 80 pct in stocks with a 3 year cash cushion.
We are accumulating also a nice bunch of dividend stocks, so by mid-2023 we should have 50k chf/year in dividends, half our projected RE spend. Of course, dividends taxes are high in Switzerland but again not planning to stay here indefinitely.
life does not stop if you are financially indipendent. You can start your own business, you can stop working, you can do stuff that impacts people life.
This topic has been dormant for almost a year.
Care to maybe post an update, @finalcountdown ? 
For all the case study followers and FIREophiles, you knoooow.
For example, have you moved to Zug as planned?
Have you and your wife quit, to be ready to enjoy Summer 2023 fully? 
**** 36 months are up: An update ****
Time flies, hard to believe the 3 year FIRE deadline I gave myself has now arrived. In the end, we did not move to Zug, too much hassle and the tax savings were offset by skyrocketing Zug rental prices, especially since covid. My spouse early-retired a couple of years ago, and enjoys not working. It has made things a lot easier for me as well.
So financially how did we do? The goal post was 5M CHF, I remind you that we had already 3.2M CHF net worth in June 2020. Despite all the market turmoil, we now have 6.2M CHF in net worth, so a solid million added per year on average! So now we are solidly FI, as we likely will have a less than 2% SWR… which in any kind of FIRE simulation means we should end up with no less that what we have today, even if we would not add anything more to our nest egg. Ever.
I have decided to keep working a bit longer, taking it 6 months at a time. First, I mostly enjoy my job, but also have managed to take most of the pain out of work. The balance of working very reasonable hours, WFH and work from vacation spots with a generous pay, means that this equation for now favors me to continue. If my job would start to suck, I’d simply pull the plug, but for now I am quite content like this. Meanwhile, we add good money to the nest egg. If there is a restructure (read - when the next one comes, as they always do), I will try to catch a severance package, as walking away from my current salary and unvested RSUs just like that pains me 
Huge congratulations @finalcountdown. I’m about 15 years and CHF 5 million behind you 
I’m also in megacorp pharma in Basel - in the towers - I’m 41, in middle management (TC c. CHF 230K) in a group function and wanted to ask if you’d be willing to share your background/specialism?
I have a corporate affairs/strategy/Corp comms/consulting background and I’m looking at next opportunities and the step from middle to upper management. Any thoughts and watch outs from someone who has clearly navigated that move successfully would be much appreciated!
If you feel like, would be great to know how you managed to add 1M/year to your NW. Was it mainly work income? Mainly well-picked investments? In any case, congratulations on the performance.
10K is not insane in Switzerland. Just for childcare we were paying 6K per month. Add rent on top and you’re already at 10K without considering, food, utilities, insurance etc.
Well. Basic fixed cost is more than 5 k, between rent. Health care and insurance. Easy to get to 10,15k. Not very mmm, I know I know. … but FI, saving 80pct and I dont answer to anyone, I stopped caring whatever the fuck people think a loong time ago. Could I reduce spending to 8 k? Yeah, but whats the point, I have double the money I will ever need. And, if I want to keep working just because, my choice