I live in the canton of Vaud but I don’t think that it made any difference.
Personally I do my groceries once a week (often on Saturday) but my groceries are really basics: fruits, vegetables, eggs (10x), bread, natural yogurts (few of 400 gr), milk, fish, tofu, cereal and that’s it. As you can see, the only purchase I made are raw products (well except cereal and yogurts). With all of that I spend between 80-100 CHF. Of course sometimes it a bit higher because I need to refill some product like toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc.
Where I made a lot of economy is by not purchasing bottle of water (I use tape water only), soda (coke and ice tea), alcohol (not a fan of beer or wine during dining time or at home; it’s more something that I consume outside) and meat.
You’re not a chocolate addicted so that’s cheaper for you
I have to say that I also included some meals that I pay for my lunch, when I don’t take from home. It also depends on the motivation I have to cook.
As said above, I think I have pretty good numbers and plan to higher them with a pay raise so I’m okay with spending that much. By the way, wish me luck, I have an appointment on Monday for a new position
Well I think that we are all different and maybe I eat less than you? Personally, as a crossfitter I am eating approximately 2500-2700 calories per day and my girlfriend (2000-2200). But I always managed to have between 80-100 CHF of groceries, I don’t know how to give you other advice than just buying what you will cook during the week and to avoid bottle drink or cooked meal.
However we are all different and we all have different need so if you are happy with your groceries why try to change your habit?
I also spend around 200CHF/month, but now I’m really curious to understand where the big differences come from…
I’d love the Migros app to let us export the list of groceries consolidated by categories to compare
@Yanikuza interesting. I do the same method once a week, no bottles and cook evertyhing. As you said every one is different. I do eat meat though, almost no red, but I do eat poultry.
@Kirby Same here ^^. Personally I couldn’t go for less otherwise I would not be eating enough and its fine I am happy with my number. If I have to save I’d rather do it on something else.
@s-g that’s great, but it’s also really interesting to me 200CHF and at Migros. I go to Aldi and will really be unable to go close to that number. Good for you man
What I always wanted to build is an app to scan receipts and create lists. The best application would also help build a database of prices in CH. Only reading the sites isn’t enough, especially for Aldi/Lidl.
It would also allow an easy to browse list of shared groceries or some sort of top 10 of stuff.
I use Splitwise (free version, for splitting & calculating expenses in a group) and see the ads for Splitwise Pro which say “Just take a picture of your receipt, and Splitwise will automatically scan its contents.” I don’t know what I’d do knowing that “groceries” included 6 eggs, toothpaste & milk though. It’d be data overload for me.
Sure, try.
The ML way might give you some results. I am not an expert there. I did try with some library and the results I get are not good enough (mostly because it doesn’t understand rows and separation of information)
That it’s just for the main part though.
Personally, I believe an emergency fund should be 6-12 months of living expenses available at your main bank. That’s perhaps conservative, but it could allow you to tolerate a lot more risk on the invested part of your net worth.
The important point is that this money should be available to use if everything goes wrong. If you held it at DEGIRO, even uninvested, you could imagine withdrawals being halted in case of a market crash or other big events (i.e. exactly when you’d need it).
I’d ask myself what the purpose of this emergency fund is.
I like to keep minimal money safe at home as a failsafe for not being able to withdraw money for whatever reason (of course, it’s then exposed to burglary or relatives finding and spending it, hence why it’s minimal).
I like to keep a month of expenses on my checking account for liquidity.
I’m keeping some amount of money on a checking account for short term expenses. How much we “need” there depends on several factors. If you’re at the start of your investing career, your ability to take risk may be higher because you don’t have much to loose. If you don’t have any money left, well, maybe you’re not worse off than when you started, recently? If you already have a bunch of assets invested, maybe taking a loan or selling 36k of them even at a 50% discount wouldn’t be a big deal?
If you don’t know the reason why you’re specifically holding 12 months of expenses as an emergency fund, I’d ask myself the question. Maybe this amount is warranted and shouldn’t be invested, maybe it’s too much and you could invest some of it.
All in all and even if CHF 36,000 / 2,520 seems like a good amount of money now, it’s probably not going to move the needle much on the long run. The savings rate is what is important at the start, and since your expenses are low, yours should be good.
Thank you! I do keep one month’s expenses in checking account and probably should have a sizeble 1-2k in cash somewhere.
If i understand this, the emergency fund is there for short-urgent expenses, such as medical or car/travel related.
Everything else can be dealt with credit card or waiting to cash-out from some blue chip Degiro positions.
Speaking for myself but 30 years is a long time: what happens by then will be mainly defined by the habits I’ll have built before and during that time. Saving diligently, I can build a nest egg that wouldn’t make 156k life changing money (nice to have, sure, but not lifestyle defining).
I don’t mean to say that it’s change or insignificant money. In fact, right now, 36k could pay for a few months away from my job if/when it becomes too unbearable and in a few years, those 50-80k could make rising my children more comfortable and less stressful so that money gives @alex_adc options they would not have without.
I’m of the opinion, however, that thinking about those options and building habits wil make a greater difference than having that amount. I may have been too generalizing and could have sounded condescending in my message (I’m speaking from the point of view of someone starting his investment career and assessing whether a few years or a bigger starting amount would make a meaningful difference).
The idea of a 3-6 months emergency fund comes from the U.S., where they have way less good social coverage than we do. In Switzerland, most emergencies are covered through insurance: medical, unemployment, disability, death, …
The extra mandatory insurances that may be worth including, for me, are:
personal liability (RC in french)
extra medical coverage, depending on your personal situation/needs - I’d especially check what happens relative to travels
legal protection coverage, depending on your personal situation
life insurance if you have dependants and the coverage provided by the 1st and 2nd pillars isn’t enough.
Self-employed people have additional needs that warrant meeting with an advisor in my opinion.
Past that, I think the biggest risk we’re exposed to is administrative delays: if I’m unemployed, there may be a few months going by before the coverage kicks in, so up to three months of expenses makes sense to me. I want that to be very liquid and easily accessible. The less steps I have to do to retrieve it, the better.
More than that is past emergency fund and inside willingness to take risk territory to me. Cars can be financed if needs be, if you own your home and are not mortgaged to your ears, getting a loan to finance repairs should be doable.
In Switzerland, salary is king. That’s what is assessed to determine whether you can access financing or not so that’s what I’d try to protect the most. A bigger emergency fund isn’t a bad thing if you can afford it (that is, it’s a very low part of your assets), in case you can’t access financing due to unemployment and really need something, for example. I’d not focus on it at the early stages of our careers: job mobility is still high, our need for risk and our ability to take it - due to few to loose - are higher too. I’d be more conservative if I had dependants to take care of (children and/or spouse).
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