All right here it comes - my first post in the community!
Hey guys and girls! Nice meeting you all =)
I am 25 years old, married, no kids just yet. Born and raised in Russia. Moved to Switzerland in 2008. Lived In Geneva for 6 years then moved to Lausanne and later to Gland. In 12 years around here somehow did not learn French, which I know is a huge shame, so for me finding community fully managed in English is a massive relief. Can’t be happier.
For the past 4 years, I work in the Private Aviation industry - which is the complete opposite of the Frugal type of life ahahah (I have seen a lot of weird stuff at work). I managed to save up around 100k in cash with my moderate spending habits and quite a good salary, and always felt uneasy about it just sleeping in my saving account in UBS vaults. I always wanted to put it at work but did not know-how. Thanks to @_MP, other active participants of the community, and of course Corona Virus I have learned about FIRE movement and its aspects and got hooked to it. (now have to convince my wife to follow it as well - which is challenging) Especially the idea that every dollar should be working for you. Now I can not wait to read side hustle in Switzerland series, as I always thought that ideas from Millionaire kids on Youtube from the US, can not apply to the Swiss environment and laws.
Well, that is pretty much it,
See you on other topic discussions! Take care and be healthy!
I’m 27, and from the french speaking part of switzerland, Neuchâtel to be accurate, but
Recently moved to Bern.
I work in a watch-making business, as an IT guy.
Heard about FIRE a while ago, but wasn’t much interessted, till I discovered @_MP’s blog.
I learned a lot there that, the way I was living till now (Optimizing credit card, spend as little as possible,…) has a name, and that was called frugalism. Then I read more and more, and eventually came here, to meet fellow mustachians.
I was extremely delighted to find this blog/forum among some other great Swiss financial blogs and I’ve been devouring this site for the last week or two.
My profile might differ a bit from the average FIRE enthusiast; I’m already over 40 and the RE part is out of question for me. That’s ok because I really like my job in IT within the healthcare branch and I feel fortunate to be able to do something which has a positive contribution.
I have a family which throws most frugality tactics out of the window. At the moment my main goal is to be more secure financially and to plan for the normal retirement. Gaining some independence along the way doesn’t hurt.
I started dabbling with stocks 10+ years ago after the 2008 crash. After evaluating my performance, I’ve recently re-hauled my investment strategy from buying and holding value stocks to mostly index tracking ETFs. Due to this and my past my portfolio includes brokers in two different EU countries as well as the pension contributions in Switzerland.
28 years old Italian who moved to Switzerland at the age of 21 for a short adventure at CERN.
6 and half years later, I’m still here and decided to make my money worth, hoping to retire a bit earlier to enjoy this beautiful country and its mountains, any day of the week.
I was always scared and skeptical about this topic, I was never sure when and how to buy a house to invest my money, until i came across thepoorswiss, Mr Rip and MustachianPost blogs and decided to give it a try.
And now few months later I’ve invested 90% of my NW. It’s a bit scary still, and perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed myself to invest 20% in stock to play a bit, but I learnt my lesson, and patiently wait (guess few months or years) due to some silly bet in the aviation market… and just stick to ETF
I’ve been reading this forum for quite some time now and decided it was time to sign up. I’m based in Lausanne and it is also where I grew up and studied.
While I do not consider myself a real FIRE practicant, I started reading about it to optimize my finances when I started working a few years ago.
I defined my budget, maxed my 3a pillar, optimized my expenses (cashback CC, reduced bills, etc.), built my emergency fund and I now invest my monthly savings in stocks. My next objective is to pass the first CFA exam to have a better understanding of the companies I invest in.
EDIT suggested by @OogieBoogie: I’m looking for a study partner for the CFA level I. See my post here.
I’ve heard about mustachians before, but I’ve started reading intensively in the last couple of weeks in order to start my investment journey.
35, married, living in Switzerland for the last 8 years and looking forward as a first step to optimize my savings, build a 3a pillar and an investment portofolio (3-4 ETFs strategy).
Already created an account in IBKR, transferred funds and ready to start…
As a total amateur at this point in time I might have several “stupid” questions… my apologies in advance.
Also I will be looking forward hearing about some resources (e.g sites) that we can free & comfortably see shares / ETFs data and perform simple comparisons…
It’s really nice to find so many people with the same perspective!
I arrived to Switzerland (more specifically Schaffhausen) on September 1st and so far I am loving this country!
I am 26, from Portugal and came for a new job, hoping to stay for the long term!
Long time lurker of this forum, the quality of the discussions is excellent and has been very informative, thank you all for contributing .
Snapshot: mid-30s, originally from an EU country, moved around a bit before landing in Switzerland about 4 years ago, working in IT consulting for a multi like many others here ( there’s definitely some mutual attraction between IT and FIRE ).
Oddly enough, I started my investment journey some 6 years ago with a (single) bank-recommended fund that eventually outperformed the market, small amount invested but very positive return. What I really disliked was the outdated and analog banking process, the endless papers, the in-person signatures, etc.
So, while researching frictionless alternatives I stumbled upon the FIRE world and everything that goes with it, eye opener.
Current portfolio is a mix of small amounts in legacy funds with a traditional bank, and IB in two VT ETFs and a bunch of individual stocks for educational purpose. Overexposed to US, so I’m looking to add some home bias and in general to clean-up.
I’m very skeptical on being able to RE, depending mostly on where, but I’m certainly looking for FI in order to lessen the dependency on the current soul-sucking job. Probably @MrRIP is right though, first get rid of the soul-sucking part and don’t make it dependent on FI
I have been reading for a few weeks this great community, and learning a lot. Starting from scratch with a review of my (only cash mostly) Assets, a very bad pilar 3 a insurance contract that I need to review asap, and then I will focus on my investment strategy.
Planning to stay in CH long term and from CH.
Not planning to be extremely frugal (I am already very reasonable I think in my expenses), but a lot of opportunity in quite a lot of cash that is sleeping for nothing…
Spaniard living in Switzerland since 2007, but started investing in 2012.
I like investing in diversified assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, gold…), my strategy is buy-and-hold and I like dividends
I am more interested in “stable performances” than in risked/high-return. For example, I like strategies like the permanent portfolio (Harry Browne) and the all-seasons portfolio (Ray Dalio)
I am a almost 30, italian and i have been living in switzerland for 4 years now.
Started my jorney in ETF investing in Jan and we all know what went down, not a big investor yet as i don’t currently feel confident in this “high” market but looking forward to get my money out there for my family future.
I have been reading this forum for 2 years already and it’s great, it actually helped me a lot to make most of my decision in the past, sorry i didn’t present my self back than, i usually don’t like to engage in online conversation.
I’m a 20-something woman living in Geneva and I’m working as a developer in a digital agency. I discovered this blog in 2019, around the same time I signed my first permanent contract. I saw my future : it will be work employment during the next 40 years… No way ! So I decided to start my journey to FI and thanks to this blog, I learned a lot and I started to invest in my first ETF during October.
See you on other topic discussions or maybe at meetups around Geneva
I am currently 15 years old, live in the canton of Zurich, and I am doing an apprenticeship as a software developer at a big international insurance company. I have been lurking in many FIRE forums for a couple of months now and have just been gathering knowledge. For now, I am just trying to save at least 10k CHF until my 18th birthday to invest. Until then, I will also try to help my father with investing his capital. Because he is not very interested in learning about investing I feel like it’s my job to make sure that he will be able to enjoy a nice retirement.
I of course also want to be able to inherit something and not just let him use up all of his money. I would be lying if I said that I only do it for my parents.
Hopefully I will be able to bring some new perspectives into the discussions here!
Be very careful with this, it has chances of backfireing and ruining your relationship.
Unless he has asked you for your help on it, your father’s money is your father’s money, it is 100% his business and we, as humans, tend to get protective when other people meddle around our business. If he thinks you are either showing signs that he doesn’t know what he’s doing and you, his 15 years old, knows better or are somehow treating his money as your money, this could get ugly.
The worst is if he accepts your offer, your investment ideas show a crash and he looses money on your advice. There are a bazillion scenarii that can take you there and make your relationship with your father difficult. Of course, there are also good scenarii but in this case, the consequences of the bad outcomes outweight the potential for good that the good outcomes have.
At most, I’d offer my father to go with him to an appointment with a retirement advisor and weigh his options with him, but getting the third party involved is paramount in anything I’d do regarding my parents money while they’re alive.
I’d also be very wary to treat any potential inheritance as my money while my parents are alive. It’s their money, they’ve earned it and can spend every bit of it if they so like. Leaving an inheritance probably is on the list of what most parents want to do but it’s 100% their call.
I am extremely aware of this problem, and I simply offer my dad help. If he doesn’t accept it that’s just how it is and I cannot change that. At the moment he often just wants to spend money for the sake of spending money, and I think that if he really wants to buy something he should rather buy assets than expensive toys.
However, I know that it could easily destroy our relationship. But having over 1 million CHF in cash isn’t a very good solution either in my opinion.
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and in general to clean-up.
! So I decided to start my journey to FI and thanks to this blog, I learned a lot and I started to invest in my first ETF during October.
