# Mr RIP story: Italian expat, high income late in life, always been frugal, 50% FI **URL:** \ **Category:** Share your story\ **Created:** [October 19, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39 "2016-10-19T16:39:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/mrrip/32/26_2.png) [@MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/MrRIP)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/1 "2016-10-19T16:39:21Z")
Hi Swiss FI seekers, It seems I’m the first to share my story here 🙂 As the title says, I’m Italian, I earn a good salary as Software Engineer since end of 2012. I grew up very frugal and I saved even when I was earning an italian salary. Even when I was earning an Italian PhD salary (800 euro per month)! So this windfall salary plus my natural frugality allowed me to achieve savings rate in the range 60-80% and aim to FI in few years. My saving rate is lying though! Can’t use our friendly [shockingly simple math behind ER](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/) formula because I won’t spend as much as I’m spending these days once FI. Why? Because I’ll probably move back to Italy. Anyway, you wanna see my numbers? Here’s my publicly shared [Net Worth document](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ilL6rBdzIQ6yRotqOKLUKI7KXFxu5_cZ5FQgdYTSHJk/), with incomes, spending, savings, saving rate, forecasts. I update it monthly and post progresses on my blog, category [finances](http://retireinprogress.com/category/finances/). ---
**Author:** ![makkeboome](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ee7513/32.png) [@makkeboome](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/makkeboome)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 1:15pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/2 "2016-10-21T13:15:50Z")
Hey MrRip, thank you for sharing. I love the historical Net Worth development. You really went into overdrive in 2012! Good for you. Keep pushing, you are halfway there! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/mrrip/32/26_2.png) [@MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/MrRIP)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/3 "2016-10-21T13:33:41Z")
Thank you makkeboome 🙂 I’m pushing! I’m kind of both tired and impatient though. I’m thinking about asking 80%. ---
**Author:** ![\_MP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/_mp/32/21_2.png) [@\_MP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/_MP)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2016, 8:33pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/4 "2016-10-25T20:33:51Z")
Hey mate, Thanks for being the first to share your story and numbers in the Community! I’d kind of the same reaction as @makkeboome — i.e. thanks god for your wallet that you moved to Switzerland at Hooli in 2012 😃 Where do you plan to live when back in Italy? Sunny South? North? About your 80%, I’m thinking about the same thing although not having your Savings Rate. Did you compute how many years of work this would imply? ---
**Author:** ![MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/mrrip/32/26_2.png) [@MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/MrRIP)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/5 "2016-10-26T16:56:14Z")
Yeah, I totally need to thanks Hooli for that, but my saving rate and absolute savings (and salary) were awesome in the 2 years before Hooli too 🙂 For Italian standard, I was earning double a normal salary and spending probably half of a normal person. I didn’t track my expenses back then but I assume I was saving \>70% of my salary. Given the Simple Shocking Math it seems that with current saving rate at 67% (trending slightly down in October) I did a WRONG move, but that’s not true. Absolute savings matter, since you may choose to retire in a cheaper place. Italy. I didn’t start investigating where we would live once back in Italy. Surely not in Milan or Rome. Probably somewhere in centre-north. Maybe Marche or Abruzzo or Tuscany. Or maybe far south, like Sicily. We, the RIPs, didn’t discuss that yet. 80% of time doesn’t mean 80% of take home pay. - Stocks granted in the past would keep vesting at the same pace (and they are ~30% of my salary) - Benefits will stay the same (Health Insurance contribution, Accident insurance, other benefits) - the 20% gross loss is within the highest tax bracket, so the average tax percentage will be lower I guess in the end I’d lose something like 10% of my take home pay. Deal! Didn’t run the numbers though. Don’t know how slower would I reach FIRE. ---
**Author:** ![1000000CHF](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/1000000chf/32/700_2.png) [@1000000CHF](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/1000000CHF)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2018, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/6 "2018-11-30T09:07:30Z")
In case you’re interested of hearing @MrRIP taking about himself, here’s a podcast episode with him: [https://financial-independence.eu/podcast/fire-yourself-to-switzerland/](https://financial-independence.eu/podcast/fire-yourself-to-switzerland/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/user_avatar/forum.mustachianpost.com/mrrip/32/26_2.png) [@MrRIP](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/MrRIP)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2018, 1:17pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/7 "2018-11-30T13:17:51Z")
haha yeah, maybe more will come 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bruce](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@bruce](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/u/bruce)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/mr-rip-story-italian-expat-high-income-late-in-life-always-been-frugal-50-fi/39/8 "2019-05-04T16:50:41Z")
Hi @MrRIP! I looked at your blog today and what surprises me is that your budget in Switzerland (~63K CHF) is not much more than your budget in Italy (42000 EUR which is ~48000 CHF.) Have you written a detailed breakdown of your estimated FIRE costs in Italy somewhere? I would have expected the costs to be half compared with Switzerland.