[COFFEE] Gear acquisition syndrome among FIRE people?

[Neville]

I’m an amateur photographer and oftentimes feel this strange urge to buy more equipment: Lenses, backup cameras, filters, batteries, all sorts of stuff. That’s commonly called Gear acquisition syndrome (GAS) and is afaik common in many other fields.

I see people here who seem to almost “collect” accounts at different banks or have more credit cards than they’ll probably ever use. Seems like GAS is a thing with people around here, too?

Personally, I try to keep things simple, but was wondering: How often do you order a financial product just for the fun of it?

[Dr.PI]

@Neville

How often do you order a financial product just for the fun of it?

Never. For testing in a search of better conditions, yes.

[Patron]

@Neville

Personally, I try to keep things simple, but was wondering: How often do you order a financial product just for the fun of it?

I try to keep things simple too.

But I like to test products when they come out and seem appealing.

But most of them I close sooner or later again. For example, from all the digital bank accounts you can currently have, I closed all of them again except CSX.

I currently have UBS because it’s free because I thought it might be worth having everything there but I wasn’t impressed by the opening process and also not how they deal with customer inquiries. There are still some things ongoing there but I plan to close it soon.

I tried many free Credit Cards but gave them up eventually. Probably will stick with just 1.

So in the end, I’ll have a main account & a few savings accounts, 2 brokers, Finpension, and 1 credit card. Not that much, is it?

[Neville]

Actually, I still remember this post by @San_Francisco!

Experience with ZAK (Rant)

Usual suspects: Zak, Neon, Yuh, CSX, UBS, Swisscard (and Sonect). Also counting finpension, VIAC and frankly for 3a among these apps. Foreign E-Money services: Revolut, DiPocket, Paysera and Wise. Foreign banks/brokerage: DKB, comdirect, Consors, smartbroker, Fundsmith.

[Burningstone]

I try to keep it simple as well, also to make it easier for my wife in the case of my (knock on wood) sudden death. I imagine it will be a nightmare to deal with 10s of institutions regarding finances.

I have a Cumulus credit card, four 3a accounts with VIAC, one 3a account with our cantonal bank, one service account with our cantonal bank and one account with IB.

I rarely try new financial products, only if there are relatively high cost savings compared to my current solution, which was the reason why I recently switched from Swissquote to IB.