Mustachians, introduce yourselves!

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.

Hi guys! IĀ“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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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 ā€œright life developmentā€ 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 ā€œShare your storyā€ thread.

Overall, excited to get this journey going.
-Sheriff

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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 ā€œin stoneā€, 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:

Ā· 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.

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

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

Ā· 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:

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

Ā· 60k in various brokerage accounts

Ā· 30k in my long term life insurance plan

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

Ā· 15k in 2nd pillard (401k)

Ā· 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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You should read other posts about thisā€¦

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

ā€¦ and welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

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 ā€œlife insuranceā€, it is just a regular 2nd pillar

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Hey folks. Nice to meet you all. Iā€™m a 33yr old working in IT. long time lurker who just subscribed. Moved to Switzerland in Jan with my wife and Iā€™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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Hello Everyone,

Just subscribed to this awesome forum that I wished I had known earlier, but itā€™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 wonā€™t wait until Iā€™m 65 years old to retire, so thatā€™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 Iā€™m a developer and itā€™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 Iā€™m not the first one to do this, so I will dig this forum a bit more for information.

Cheers!

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

Savings side:
Iā€™am already looking for ETFs. Iā€™ve invested in 3a for tax reason.

My recommandation as I canā€™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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Hi you all. Iā€™m not sure I qualify as a true Mustachian because I donā€™t earn an above-average salary and because I did it all in reverse. I was ā€œretiredā€ 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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Welcome Daniel.
5 kids + 20% savings + very average incomeā€¦ something doesnā€™t add up :slight_smile:

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Doesnā€™t add up? Positively or negatively? Iā€™ll take it as a compliment in the sense that 20% savings is pretty good considering my responsibilities :).

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Yeah! I donā€™t have kids, but I suppose thatā€™s not so easy to raise 5 of them with an average income (single) and still save 20%. Good job.

:). I used to save 50% to 70% of my income before I had kids. Iā€™m aiming to optimize at 30%-40% savings within the next 6 months. Will see how that plays out.

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Hello :slight_smile: New mustachian hereā€¦

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Dear all,

Thanks for the forum and its high information content. I learned a lot here already and finally took the leap to register.

Some info:
-Chemical Engineer working in the Environmental Sector (Wastewater treatment, soon sales of chemicals used in the environmental sector)
-Have been living in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, India and Bahrain, permit B holder in CH
-Newly wed with an Indian, no kids
-Combined gross income of about 117.6k, soon to change to 146k (change of job on my side, wife still in a rip-off, but mandatory for architects ā€œPraktikumā€.
-Starting a side business for import of textiles and Indian culture (dance/cooking class, import and sales of cashmere products at not rip-off prices) with my wife
-Currently injured rugby player

Networth:
-about 120k in IBKR, 50% VTI, 50% VXUS, where I invest the full leftover every month.
-about 38k in VIAC, fully invested
-now 38k in savings account, but includes provisions for 3a (1x) and health insurance (2x). I pay it yearly. Goal is to have it at 25k (already overshot a bit this year)

Goal, becoming FI in 5-7y.

This year has been busy with the wedding, integration of my wife into Swiss culture (language classes, new life etc.), but we are getting into a more routine path now. after my jobchange soon we would be at about 70% savings rate.

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Congratulations and welcome to the community! You set yourself a very ambitious target. Are you counting on your import business blowing up or on very low expense needs during FIRE?

Best,

mmm

Thanks,

So I donā€™t count on anything, I just typed the numbers on networthify (after my soon to be jobchange) and this is what it gave me.

Basically the axis is:
-low overall living costs right now (between 35 and 40k, still figuring it out exactly)
-once wife passes from Praktikum to real job, savings rate will be blowing through the roof (not yet accounted)
-The side gig will be nice, but we donā€™t think it will be substantial. The good part is the products are wanted, and no need for much capital to do some sidemoney.
-And FIRE means for me getting independant at a low working rate. Thinking about a community bar with homebrewed beer open twice a week or something, and making educational stuff, so still some income which reduces the risks greatly.

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Hi all, I am new to Mustachian Forum. I have been following the blog for a while so am delighted to be here and to have found this blog and the forum. I am forty something and want to find independent financial advice. I have been using YNAB for a while now. I really like it but am not 100% sure I am using it to its full potential. Anywho, delighted to be here and chat with all of you guys. :smiley:

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Bonjour Nicolas, pourrions nous entrer en contact directement`? je fais un travail de recherche sur le frugalisme et je serais intĆ©ressĆ©e de vous parler? Mille merci dā€™avance
Corinne

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