Mustachians, introduce yourselves!

Share your story
199

Hey peeps!

I’m in the beginning of my 30s now, born and raised in Switzerland.

I get my energy and joy from the fantastic people around me and from learning in general. I get my money from working as a Web Developer and I get my knowledge from books, youtube videos, and now, hopefully, also from this forum!

I ended up with 0 bucks on my bank account one year ago and I even had to borrow 3k from mummy to cover some of the expenses. I figured, that might be a symptom of something that could get out of hand, since there was no excuse to get to 0, with a good salary, being healthy, sharing a flat and not needing a car. So I started my journey of self improvement in general and personal finance and investment in particular.

And yes, looking forward to this as well!

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200

Hi Kanel,

welcome!
I’ve planning a follow-up to the meetup in Berne in February and have finally set up a doodle:
https://terminplaner4.dfn.de/beer-and-finance-2-2019
S. this post: Beer and finance

See you!

J.

201

Hi all

I am in my thirties living in Switzerland and got introduces to FIRE by the Finanzfluss youtube chanell (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeARcCUiZg79SQQ-2_XNlXQ) going trough different Subbreddits (r/Frugal, r/financialindependence and r/EuropeFIRE/) let me to this forum post: https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mustachianism-around-the-web/mustachianism-in-switzerland/msg2251083/#msg2251083 which introduced me to the Mustachian Post. I’d like to learn more on investing and budgeting.
Apart from the beautiful landscapes in Switzerland and nature in general, I am also interested in blockchain technologies especially in Ethereum.

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202

Hi everyone,

I’m 27 years old, working in IT in Lausanne but from Wallis.

I’m a bit lost for the moment to be honest. I’m not sure I prefer to RE or to enjoy now and work longer.

However, I’ve always been careful with the money and try to save as much as I can while not refusing myself much.

My main objective here is to learn how to invest in a smart way.

Cheers

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203

Hi Everyone,

I’m a 26 y/o Dutch guy working in healthcare, currently still living in the Netherlands but planning to move to Switzerland as soon as possible to join my French girlfriend who has recently moved to Geneva to start a new job. The idea is to settle in Lausanne and for me to find a job in the general area around it.

I’ve been deep into the mustachian ways and know the general ins and outs in the Netherlands but applying the same principals in Switzerland will be a new challange for me. For that reason i’ve been lurking on the forums for a while and have already found tons of useful information.

I hope to learn more and more from you guys, and once i’m settled hopefully share some usefull information aswell.

Cheers

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204

Hi Mustachian Fellows!,

Time to introduce myself as well here.
I think my situation is pretty simple, like at any other expat’s here in Switzerland:

Middle of my 30s, Moved 5 years ago from Germany to CH. I didn’t lived before frugal, I’ve made a lot of mistakes (haven’t paid my student debt, owned a car leasing, spending over 80% my income for my dreams, started with a 3rd pillar life insurance -> see my story here).

I’m currently working as an expert at an insurance company, doing some side hassle projects in the same professional area.

But finally started to think about my finances pretty late (with 35), and figured out how good this works for me. We moved together last year with my partner.

Now I could reach a savings rate around 40-45%

Plans:

  • No plans to buy a property in CH
  • Planned to buy property outside of CH, maybe in the next 5 years for our retirement
  • Planned to stay for the next 15-17 years in CH
  • Planned to reach FIRE in 13-14 years
  • Retire definitely outside of CH

Savings:

  • 35% 3rd pillar (VIAC)
  • 42% US stocks (mainly VTI) @Interactive Brokers
  • 23% cash

I want to keep it simple, and live a happy, healthy life.
Cheers,
Mr.P

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205

Hi All !

I am not an expat but a Swiss guy who read many of the articles of this website during his vacation this summer.

I am 32, married with 1 son of 8 months. I did the error with the insurance life (which I am trying to cancel now). We already bought a house.

I’m currently working as a teacher. I already have a pretty simple life though I think I can improve my saving rate which is around 45-50%.

Plans :

  • Wedding in october.
  • Move to Viac, but I will invest mainly in CH as I do not want to be exposed to currency risk. Looking for a friend code, anyone could send me one ?
  • Open a broker account
  • Share my ideas and plan with your community. Since I am a swiss guy, I am sure I can provide you some original idea.
206

Welcome!

Make sure to read a bit more about what currency risks entails. Thought exercise: which companies represents 50% of the CH stock market. To which currency are they mainly exposed (how much value do they lose if USD or EUR or GBP drop by 20%).

I think that unless you invest in fixed income securities, it makes little sense to limit the stock exposure to the companies headquartered in a given currency zone (esp. if it’s a very small zone, like CH).

207

Thanks for the hint ! I will have a look on the Viac documentation, if any, to have a more precise idea on their CH investment focus.

208

Hi guys! I´m a 30 year old IT freelancer from Germany currently living near Zurich. I moved about 4 years ago as a step on my journey to FIRE. :slight_smile: I already read a lot in this forum and decided to join today.

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209

Hello everyone, I am glad to see a great and diverse community united by the inner drive to learn and develop a life that is right for them. Finances of course plays a huge role in this “right life development” so I am really happy to have stumbled across MP.

I am a little late to the game but I am happy to be here. I am a 30y/o Canadian guy, married to a French girl, working in publishing, currently living in Vaud. I hope to converse and learn from you all and hopefully bring something to the table that you can take.

I will be more transparent about my plans and current situation in the “Share your story” thread.

Overall, excited to get this journey going.
-Sheriff

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210

Hello everyone,

I have been following the FIRE movement for quite some time now and following the principles for longer.

I would like to retire by 40 and live off my passive income. Any help, comment, piece of advice is welcome! Please be gentle as I am not used to speaking or writing about myself.

I love reading all of your stories on this forum (and others) so I decided share my own. Hopefully some of you can get something out of it.

By getting more active in the community and sharing my experience, one of the goals/hopes is to set clear objectives for myself, be able to write them “in stone”, and reflect on them. Ideally I will track and update my progress here every once in a while.

My life

I am French and was born abroad. I have just turned 27 and currently decided to move to Switzerland 2.5 years ago for work. Although I have a girlfriend I live with 2 colleagues/friends from work (saving on rent). On my spare time I enjoy riding my motorcycle, skiing, photography and hikes. My main interests revolve around Tech, Finance (both personal finance and markets), and more recently about Real Estate.

My job

I am a financial analyst from a big institution. Currently making 108k/year 2 years after graduating from university. Other benefits include 75% of my health insurance paid for by the firm and a solid 2nd pillar (Swiss equivalent of the 401k) whereby my company puts in 15% of my income.

I am currently in the process of accepting an offer at a different firm that should bump my annual income to 138k (excluding EOY bonus). I am making about approx. 5k/year on the side mainly from photography.

Expenses/Savings

With my current job I am able to save about +4k/month after all expenditures, taxes, and 2nd pillar contribution. I should be automatically be able to save at least 1.5k more with my new job.

I reckon I have a pretty decent savings rate for the city I live in and compared to my colleagues. My main expenses are:

· Rent (1.1k including utilities): I save money by living with other people. It is a relatively small rent for the region I live in.

· Party: Although I try not to spend too much when I go out, Switzerland is very expensive so partying is my 2nd biggest expense…

· Groceries: I save by cooking my lunches every other day and by going to French supermarkets.

· Travels.

My objectives

I have always been all about saving as much money as possible. While I still focus on keeping and increasing my savings rate, 2019 is really the year when I am starting to be serious about generating passive income. My goal is to use a bit of photography to generate passive income via royalties but my 3 main passive income sources will be:

  1. REAL ESTATE
  2. REAL ESTATE
  3. REAL ESTATE

You guessed it, I love Real Estate right now. I am in the process of buying (to let) my first property. My goal is acquire 5-10 more in the next 12 months. I am mostly looking at the French market. Rates are very low in Euro and banks are willing to lend me about 100% of the property value for my investments. The result is that I can acquire pretty easily cash-flow generating asset (net rents received > monthly repayments of interest and principal). I am looking to start scaling up aggressively.

My more long-term goal is to write a personal investing book.

My wealth (May 2019)

I am privileged because my parents paid for my education. I received about 50k from my grand-mother when she sold her apartment. I do not carry liabilities (for now) and am aware of the luck that I have had so far.

I currently have 200k in total net wealth with the following breakdown:

· 70k in savings account (about to be used to acquire Real Estate)

· 60k in various brokerage accounts

· 30k in my long term life insurance plan

· 20k market value in real assets (watches, motorcycle)

· 15k in 2nd pillard (401k)

· 5k in cryptocurrency

Please note this breakdown is simplified as I have assets in USD, EUR, and CHF.

PS : Also anyone from the FIRE community living in Geneva?

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211

You should read other posts about this…

Can you explaint it a bit more? How do you do that?

… and welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

212

Thanks!!

What should I read about exactly? I cannot touch my second pillar and I am in the process of transferring my 3rd pillar to VIAC.

I do drone photography and videography.

EDIT: Actually I do not know what I called it “life insurance”, it is just a regular 2nd pillar

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213

Hey folks. Nice to meet you all. I’m a 33yr old working in IT. long time lurker who just subscribed. Moved to Switzerland in Jan with my wife and I’m still figuring things out.

Plans:

  • No plans to buy a property in CH
  • Planned to buy property outside of CH, maybe in the next 6 years
  • Planned to reach FIRE in 10 yrs
  • Retire definitely outside of CH

Savings:

  • 90% Etf portfolio
  • 10% Cash
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214

Hello Everyone,

Just subscribed to this awesome forum that I wished I had known earlier, but it’s never too late!

I am a french Software Engineer, in my late 20s, living in Lausanne since 2012, where I moved for my first job. I have spent a lot of years accumulating my net worth and decided this year to settle all of this and see how much passive income I could get. I definetly won’t wait until I’m 65 years old to retire, so that’s my goal.

My savings repartition right now is as follows:

  • 15% Cash
  • 25% Managed Funds (UBS)
  • 25% P2P Lending
  • 10% 3rd Pilar
  • 10% Real Estate Crowdfunding
  • 10% Stocks
  • 5% Cryptocurrencies

My plan right now is to rebalance these proportions with more stocks and real estate - I mean real real estate. I want to:

  • Create a lazy portfolio with an automatic rebalancing based on ETFs and Interactive Brokers Platform (because I’m a developer and it’s fun)
  • Buy Real Estate to let (France)

The latter is the hardest for me, as the perspective of spending time to search, chose and deal with all the paperwork is unbearable for me. Hence I will be very happy to learn and share tips on how to go through this with the less pain as possible.
I am also in the process of learning how to construct and chose ETFs for my lazy portfolio. I guess I’m not the first one to do this, so I will dig this forum a bit more for information.

Cheers!

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215

Hey everybody,
Read a lot from this forum, and this website. I’ve decided to subscribe as I will be able to start investing soon.
Middle 30, Freelancer in IT who was able to have 200’000 chf but as debt :frowning: . Bad family decision from my father that impacted me … So the frugal part of fire is already in place :slight_smile:.
I’ve been “forced” to track my expense to spend as little as possible and still enjoying my life. As I’m closing some of my debts, I still put the same amount of money aside but for investing. I’m at 40% theorical saving rates.

Savings side:
I’am already looking for ETFs. I’ve invested in 3a for tax reason.

My recommandation as I can’t on investing :):
If you want an activty that is really fire compatible, I recommend sport climbing. For 300-500.- CHF equipment you are good for a few years :). The community of climber is also well known to spend as less as possible. Less money = more time = more climbing!
Cheers

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216

Hi you all. I’m not sure I qualify as a true Mustachian because I don’t earn an above-average salary and because I did it all in reverse. I was “retired” for the first 30 years of my life in that I worked for myself doing things I loved and only around 50%, with the rest of the time going to my kids and hobbies. I only started working for bosses after moving to Switzerland, but see it as another interesting stage of my life rather than something I want to get behind me. I have 5 kids, am a single earner, and save around 20% of my very average income. Not exactly Mustachian, but not bad considering my responsibilities. I run a blog on avoiding everyday rip-offs in Switzerland: http://swiss-blog.com/

I am a keen follower of this forum, and also enjoy thepoorswiss blog for balance. Glad to be able to share and learn from you all.

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217

Welcome Daniel.
5 kids + 20% savings + very average income… something doesn’t add up :slight_smile:

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218

Doesn’t add up? Positively or negatively? I’ll take it as a compliment in the sense that 20% savings is pretty good considering my responsibilities :).

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