Intro + request advice on how to change my portfolio in my new situation

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21

Thank you, Wolverine. This was quite educational and really appreciate you taking the time.

I am coming to realise that.

This is super helpful - thanks to you and @nabalzbhf

Thank you, I’ll read up on that thread.

I only had my 401k account in 2016 and did not follow my investments much then. I really only got into investments in 2019. I struggled quite a bit with the dip in 2020 and 2022 - my portfolio was negative through most of that. So I had to dig deep to hold on as I was in it for the long term and trust that things would change in the long term. I am comfortable with a 70:30 or 80:20 ratio of equities / bonds split.

That’s a fair statement about the RSUs for sure. I am not yet confident that the alternative assets I choose will perform well - this might just be a result of not enough understanding of the various ETFs I’ve invested in & why some perform and other don’t. But longer term I do believe that its best not to have too many eggs in one basket.

The Asia ETFs on the flip side are in the same aggressive assets category. My home country’s ETF market is still new and the ETFs I am invested in are the equivalent of S&P 500. So there’s a lot of upside in my opinion & I understand the composition of those ETFs much better – hence my preference not to sell.

All that said, thank you for the thought you’ve given this - really appreciate it.

This is good advice indeed and quite logical. Even when renting in Switzerland, its quite painful to move apartments. A friend who sold in Zurich after 3 years did share all the reasons he would not advice selling in the short term in Switzerland.

Thank you. I really appreciate the empathy and understanding. This has not been easy and most days I feel like a quitter / failure for having to tap out. I’ve started therapy and hoping that moving out of the stressful environment will be a step in the right direction.

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No, I just think I read it somewhere here

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Thank you, @Mirager . I was managing it to a certain extent until my manager changed. He’s pretty much a bully and has made it impossible to sustain the little bit of motivation I still had left. Yeah, its definitely rough.

Short answer, the political situation in my home country is shaky and there’s all of the negatives you mention - corruption, over populated, lack of accountability, entitlement, dirty etc etc.
I can’t see myself having the same level of independence and safety living there. It would be a bitter pill to swallow but moving back is the last resort. I don’t have a social circle there and while I have loads of family (cousins etc) - I am just not close to them now.

Well, 60k CHF per year would put me solidly in the FATFIRE category in my home country :slight_smile:

whoa…definitely not boring for me :smiley:
CH is not perfect (which country is?) but the worst parts of it to me are the smoking & occasional implicit racism. So far the pros outweigh those two issues for me. I have a relatively good social circle here and can see myself living a more fulfilling life here than in my home country.

I do appreciate you sharing your opinion & thoughts. Its good for me to talk through my reasoning and hear differing perspectives. Thank you.

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Thanks for asking, @Abs_max. I hesitated to add more detail on this in my original post. I got on the path to FIRE (though I didn’t know what it was called back then) a long time before I was diagnosed with burnout for the first time. I was always a top performer (school, college) and chose my field out of passion. I still remember the joy I felt when I wrote my first piece of code, the thrill of solving problems. I got on the management track quite early in my career and the further away I went from hands on work, the more I lost that passion. I was still good at what I did and enjoyed making a difference - so I kept going but started looking for a way to exit. A few years later I discovered the FIRE movement.

When I first dealt with burnout I felt it had more to do with Covid and not taking any vacation during 2020 and 2021. I took quite a bit of time off in 2022 but still had to deal with burnout again towards the end of 2022. I was working towards hitting my goal and then switching to part time once I had my C permit. But the last year has been brutal with a bully for a manager and switching to part time is not an option. Dealing with his nonsense is a big stresser and my confidence is at an all time low.

I made the decision to quit about 2 weeks back. I realised I hit my target yesterday as I had procrastinated and finally got around to my monthly financial checks since April this year. Knowing I’ve hit my target is the cherry on top and makes me feel a bit more comfortable with the idea of taking a longer career break.

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Fair question. I expect I’ll start looking for jobs after 6 months of break (sometime mid-2025) but given the market situation in Switzerland, I am being pessimistic in expecting I may not find another job until 2026.

While I can do some travel, I don’t intend to be away for months. I am undergoing therapy on a weekly basis and I prefer doing that in person as much as possible.

This is a nice thought but I am barely functioning at my workplace. I frequently have panic attacks - especially when I know I have a meeting with my manager. I need to recover before I can consider anything like a remote work opportunity.

I’ll give this another think @PhilMongoose. Having owned a mortgage in the past, I feel I’ll be able to handle that. But I’ll reassess. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Thank you, @AOP

I had not considered Wetzikon - thank you, I’ll check out that area too.

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Thanks for sharing.
If i can tell you anything, it would be that now you have wealth, please focus on

  • mental health
  • social life & relationships

you are on right path. All the best

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Any chance for lateral move within the firm? Freelance work? Actually screw it, if I was in your shoes I’d say “yeah hi, all good, I quit, cya”. Pity is nowadays with most of us working from home you can’t walk into the office and do that live :smiley:

Can’t the money be a shield from dealing with the third world shithole scheisse around you? How could corruption and lack of accountability touch you? You have nobody to compete with, just living low profile and giving no target. When most people around struggle with the incompetence, nepotism and corruption you’re flying under the radar.

I know a handful of rich people in Greece quite well. On one hand I wonder how they cope with having to exist in what’s definitely in second world category, on the other they have massive MASSIVE advantages due to having a ton more money than the average person. They are probably better off there than here, in the US or other richer places. Things like…paying people do things for them so they don’t have to (like…standing in line in public service offices, going shopping, driving them around), living in near palaces, having more or less 24/7 servants. Then they get to make (more) connections - say by sending their kids to ultra expensive schools costing 2000+ per month - when the base salary of the country is around 700 euros this means just by being there they get to be included in more exclusive circles, more doors open that were invisible before. And then in a way money begets more money and generational wealth as their kids will hobnob with other rich assholes’ asshole kids, more doors will open for them in the future etc. Not advocating for getting into this cesspool, just saying that there are ways to shield oneself.

Safety could indeed be an issue if the place is poor and you have a big FatFIRE target over your head, but you need to modulate that, just keeping a low profile. I know a couple in a very poor country who live in a shitty block of flats, in a shitty town, their car is old and dirty, even their front door is dirty…but when it opens you see a flat that Elon Musk could be jealous of. They don’t say a word to anyone - it’s all perfectly legal and being clever with investing at the right time, right asset (real estate) - their kids go to public schools, their clothes are normal. They are extremely comfortable, just can’t show it because it could be unsafe. Of course this could in and of itself be a source of weight upon one’s shoulders, having to regulate your enjoying of your success, but what can you do, it’s all a balance!

Having your money safe over here and being over there you’re also protected from bonkers politics - they can’t get to it. Politicians never, ever go for the rich since the French Revolution and communism.

My own plan is to eff off to my village and plant tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, read, perhaps do some freelance/outreach/volunteering, further education - basically give zero target and be invisible to anyone I don’t care to spend any time with. “Last in the city, first in the village”, as we say, or in fact “last in the city, invisible in the village”!

Fair enough, it has a ton of positives but it’s not won’t be my home :slight_smile:

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I had burned out during covid too and still recovering. I almost quit but solidered though. I’m surviving based on this:

  • I navigated myself into a niche in the organisation where I was less visible and had reduced workload
  • I did the minimum required and focussed on my health with the idea “the worst they can do is fire me” - with your FI situation, setting boundaries is a win-win, either you succeed or they fire you and you are free
    • As a former perfectionist/workaholic, I know this is not easy so here are some tips:
    • Learn the word “no”. This should be your default answer to requests
    • Ignore E-mails. It is amazing how many problems fix themselves when ignored. Real issues are usually followed-up with phone calls
    • If you can’t say no try the strategies of: delegate, deflect, defer, delay. If none of those works, set-up a meeting with multiple people to discuss the topic, apportion out different follow-ups and set a follow-up meeting in 3 months time. Repeat if necessary, but often, nobody else has the appetite for this either, so happy to let the issue die
    • Define the minimum you need to do and focus only on that
  • Be careful of mental health, you need to do something with your mind when the job becomes easy (I can now manage my job responsibilities with an average of 2 hours per day)
  • If you’re in FAANG, maybe you can get a tech job in a bank or something similar where you can coast (see here: I’ve been employed in tech for years, but I’ve almost never worked - Emmanuel Maggiori )
  • I think quiet quitting is also bad for mental health, but if you’re in a bullying situation, then it is still better and you can take a couple of quiet years to recover
  • 4 million is enough to retire as a single. Esp. if your outgoings is just 60k per year. So you have a big safety net to say “FU” to your boss.
  • Maybe re-watch Office Space for inspiration :wink:
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29

A good read. In consulting we have more work than can be done and done well within the assigned time, however a few times I did use the scrum, sprint, stand-up and agile methodology when we had to deliver something in a REALLY short timeframe. It worked very well!

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Some thoughts:

  • If you haven’t yet, consider getting a medical diagnosis and (a possibly long) sick leave. If you need 6 months off, you might be able to get them as paid time off (and quit afterwards).
  • Consider just staying in the low-tax canton. With your net worth, you will still benefit from wealth tax savings, make sure to account for these when comparing your current rent with the new places you’re considering moving to.
  • RE renting an apartment with too high of an income: I’ve got my current apartment (which I consider cheap) without even disclosing my actual income. I stated that I “earn more than X” and got a letter from my employer confirming only that exact statement.
  • RE getting an apartment without a job
    • An acquaintance of mine got an apartment in Zurich while being unemployed, by offering the landlord to pay a deposit of 6 months. You can always try to offer a deposit of 6-12 months and say paying rent 3 months in advance.
    • Consider getting a long-term sublet using flatfox. These are usually cheaper then equivalent apartments on the market and easier to get (the current tenant is the decision maker). If you want to just save on rent, you can also just get a sublet and then sublet your main place for that duration.
    • I feel you might be over estimating the difficulty of getting a place without a job. With a bit of flexibility (i.e. outside of the City) this should be doable. I wouldn’t be buying a place just to avoid having to search for an appartement, without even having tried doing it once.
  • RE appartement search: in my experience, there is a big difference when looking for an appartement after having just arrived in CH vs. after having being here for a while and having a C permit. The latter is easier.
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Thanks to the ongoing layoffs & last quarter of the year, there are very few open roles. There might be more options in the new year but…

this is how I feel too :slight_smile:
I’d much rather recover, find a job that does not require working outside the EMEA timezones and rediscover the joy of enjoying my job.

:laughing:

I don’t disagree with what you say, but its not a lifestyle I would enjoy. I prefer to do things for myself rather than hire others to do that job. I have friends who moved back to my home country from US and Switzerland. They’ve pretty much shifted into the lifestyle you describe - through a combination of a massive gig economy where you can order groceries on an app & receive them within 4 hours with almost no additional fees and hiring maids / drivers etc. They live in massive communities with people who can live in similar style and rarely venture outside their bubble. Even listening to it is claustrophobic for me. I am an outdoors person - I love going hiking in the open nature in Switzerland. There’s nothing like that in my home country. Given the traffic conditions, it would literally take half a day to drive 30kms to visit a friend and return back home. Entertainment for my friends & their family is to spend an entire day in the mall - shop, eat, watch a movie and return home. Not my cup of tea :slight_smile:

What you describe is one issue. The safety I am more concerned about is security for women. I can walk in Zurich past midnight on an empty street and not feel threatened. I can get on an overnight train in Europe and sleep peacefully without having to worry what might happen. I can stay overnight as a solo traveler in a hotel in the middle of nowhere without having men bang down the door in the middle of the night. I am not in the delusion that something like this will never happen in a developed country – but the probabilities are lower. Sure, I can hire a personal bodyguard in my home country and still do all these things. But that’s not the life I want to choose if I have an alternative option. I do love my home country and wish I could live there. There are a lot of things I love about my home country. But unfortunately its one where the cons outweigh the pros.

I am glad though that you have the option and are looking forward to moving back to Greece :slight_smile:

Love the quote!

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Thank you for sharing your experience, @PhilMongoose!

I feel & hope this is possible in a smaller organisation than the behemoth I am currently part of. Mainly I would need to down level significantly to switch back to any sort of IC role and that’s something my organisation is not open to. I did try…but was told its not possible, that policy does not allow for it. Max would be one level down and that doesn’t help much.

My role specifically is focused on cross team & cross product collaborations. This means I am working across time zones and with a lot of teams in California. In fact, I am currently on two major collaborations - one has me working across California, Japan, UK and Switzerland. The other has me working with Brazil, California and the UK. There’s just a lot of hierarchy & red tape. I spend 25-30 hours a week in meetings and the rest of the time doing other work. Most of the other work is unnecessary in my opinion but I’ve not had much luck saying No or pushing back against the asks of executives.

It didn’t used to be like this when I was starting off in my career. Maybe I am deluding myself that I can rediscover that joy by finding a less senior role? I guess time will tell.

My manager’s biggest complaint is that I say No and that I do not give enough priority to things he asks for. His feedback to me is that I should be “more chirpy”. At this point, the worst for me is getting put on a performance plan and that’s an insult. According to my HR, I am so burnt out that I can’t rationally process the feedback and once I get better, I will see the wisdom in his feedback. I disagree and I’ve given up enough self respect by staying this past year.

Wow. Not sure that’s the kind of job I want either, lol. But yes, I can see that’s an opportunity to recover when going to burnout.

:joy:

I hope you continue your recovering and are able to fully recover :slight_smile:
I am glad you were able to find a niche where you could recover and still continue working as that’s your preference.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, @the_p!

My therapist and lot of friends / colleagues have suggested the same. I’ve been on the fence as it makes me worry if future employers would consider that a red flag.

I had not thought about the wealth tax - I’ll do the math. Thank you for pointing this out!

Damn, this is a great idea! Was your X=3 times the rent? I’ll definitely pursue this option.

I am glad to hear this, makes me feel less stressed. Thanks for sharing!

  • Consider getting a long-term sublet using flatfox. These are usually cheaper then equivalent apartments on the market and easier to get (the current tenant is the decision maker). If you want to just save on rent, you can also just get a sublet and then sublet your main place for that duration.
    I’ve noticed this too…even temporary furnished housing is cheaper than unfurnished permanent housing :slight_smile:

Fair point. I would need to be really sure about a place for the long term before considering a purchase, I’ll definitely not impulse buy or rush into something. But its definitely a stress reliever to know its possible to find a rental apartment without employment.

That’s true - I do have a C now versus back in 2019 when I was new in the country. Thanks @the_p

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One thing I think matters in investing and isn’t directly related to finance (but affects the way we can hold our ground when things turn bad) is minimizing regrets.

The “problem” with big tech and startup stocks is that they have the potential to underperform (and loose some of their grandeur) but they also have the potential to spike up. Will you feel worse:

A) If you sell all your RSUs, get decent market returns but see that your company stock went x10 in the mean time and you didn’t participate in that?

B) If you keep your RSUs, other sectors outperform your company stock and it goes down 40%-60% while the rest of your porftolio goes up 10%-20%?

Worst case is some change of leadership, scandal or regulator intervention breaks the company and the stock goes to 0.

The 2020 and 2022 drawdowns have been relatively short and, while the pain was sharp, there are more nerve wrecking crashes out there. I like this chart from Visual Capitalist to envision that (for the S&P500 but the rough behavior can be the same for global all cap stocks - click on the link below it for the full size as well as a description of the crashes displayed):

Major-Crashes
Major-Crashes1200×1928 159 KB

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp-500-market-crashes

Your current 70/30 is with the 500k cash you have set aside. If you don’t use it for a real estate purchase, a good chunk of it should stay in cash or bonds in order to keep you at max 80/20.

For tax reasons, bonds are normally better suited in retirement accounts but if you segregate them in your mind, as it seems you do, a potential heavy drawdown affecting your IBKR portfolio has the potential to hurt psychologically even though its actual effect would be lessened by retirement assets. It may be worth pondering keeping a decent chunk of cash/bonds in taxable for peace of mind purposes.

Options to do that as a Swiss investor can be found in this thread, the contributors to which I thank deeply: Short guide to CHF fixed income options

Everything you are writing here projects “person who understands what’s happening to them, knows her way forward and is capable of executing on it”. You are not a quitter or a failure, you are drained. When a car is out of fuel, we bring it to the gas/power station for a refill, we don’t punch on the steering wheel calling it a quitter for not going further. Humans have mechanical and mental processes that require care too.

You are living a temporary situation but your overall processes are working and impressive. The same qualities that got you to build a 4M net worth at 38 and move to two different countries, where you have been welcomed and built social networks, are still there but they’re currently crushed under the weight of an environment and manager that are draining your energy. You’ll get them back if you allow them space for recovery. You still have to walk the walk and it is not at all an easy road to walk, but it sounds like you’ve got this.

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35

You need to make him say no. He asks you to do X and Y, you tell him you can do X or Y - which one has priority? If you try to do both, then the quality will not be good. He has to say do X and drop Y. Complain that he is unable to set clear priorities if he doesn’t. When he choses X, you make sure that it is documented that you will do only X and if Y and Z needs to be done, it will have to wait until completion of X or he has to find alternative resources to do it.

Not sure what an IC role is, but the solution is not to level down. When you level down you end up with idiot managers. The best strategy is to climb up to a level where you can delegate tasks to be done, but don’t have so much visibility and objectives that you’re under constant scrutiny and pressure to deliver.

I think bigger profitable organisations or those that are privately owned are best. These are rife with inefficiency, over-staffing and lack of targets/accountability.

Also, look after yourself. I was burned out but carried on burning which made things a lot worse. With 4M at 38, you are in a good position. Many people never reach that or take another decade to do so. You can afford to take a few years out and still be ahead.

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IC means non managerial role (individual contributor). In bigtech you can have pretty high level/salary as an IC (but right now given the amount of open role/ongoing layoffs, any kind of internal move is really hard, the higher the level the harder it is, so downleveling is one way to make it happen – but from what I know I think it might be restricted to people whose roles were eliminated).

I was a bit in this situation and I’m really happy I made the switch back to IC (luckily was possible for me), all the managerial stuff started being pretty toxic in recent years, at least I don’t have to deal with that.

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I’ve been told by a medical professional, that whether you took sick leave is medical information and it would be illegal for an ex-employer to share that information.

I would directly ask your doctor or therapist, what their experience with this is (Did they have patients on a long sick leave, were they able to find a job afterwards?)

I just said more than 120k. This was the average salary in IT, didn’t seem too high to me and neither too low (i.e. no doubt I could actually pay the rent). I’ve noticed, that on some application forms, the salary field was not freeform, but multiple choice, with salary ranges, the highest range being > 10k / month. This gave me the idea of saying >120k.

I’ve also had my exact title removed from the confirmation letter, it stated just the job family.