Great choice with Eqqq should also look at their Blockchain ETF
Hi everyone,
I discovered MP in December last year and after immersing myself into various posts and this forum I decided to start my own FIRE journey. Iām still a newbie but I hope to learn a lot from your learnings. To motivate myself and document my journey I decided to create my own blog. Feel free to check it out: https://expatfinance.ch/
Iām 26 years old and live with my wife and our two guinea pigs and two rabbits in Basel. We moved from Germany to Switzerland in September 2019. Even though I feel like I earn a fortune (at least compared to my old salary) I only managed to save ~17% of my net salary (after social security, 2nd pillar and withholding tax) last year (pre FIRE). That will change this year! My current NW is ~88.000 CHF and I plan to increase it to 115.000 CHF by the end of the first quarter of this year. Letās see if I get there.
Cheers!
3 Likes
Hey Everyone! Iām moving from Canada to Lausanne with my wife, in a few days. I have a job starting in February.
Weāre super thrilled 
to move there and discover beautiful 
Switzerland! We definitely plan to live there and settle for the long term (have a kid etc.). I feel grateful to having found this community as my goal is to understand how the Swiss system works and make sure I avoid mistakes and mismanage our finances. Iām very much looking forward to learning from everyone 
20 Likes
Hi everyone!
Iām Peter, moved to Switzerland in 2017 with my wife, and now we are raising two small kids. Being not familiar with the swiss pension system, in 2018 we were convinced by an insurance agent to get a 3a and 3b life insurance accounts for us both, and it drains ~14k CHF from us every year. Weāre still figuring out how to opt out and cut our losses. I got interested in FIRE movement only in January 2021, and at that time weāve bought our first ETFs at IB. However, considering weāre in our mid-thirties, and our net worth is less than 100k, FIRE is not an easily achievable option.
7 Likes
I start to think we should start a movement to abolish the 3a/b + insurance thingā¦
19 Likes
After being a lurker and occasional poster for quite long, itās time for a proper introduction.
Iām 30 years old and finishing my PhD in Biochemistry. Grew up un Bern, now living in Zurich. Until a couple of years ago, I was as clueless with money as the average swiss person. That was until I unexpectedly received a rather sizeable inheritance which forced me to think about money more seriously. It was then when I realized that all my money-related decisions consisted of classic errors: 3a insurance, 300.- deductible as a healthy young person, expensive, actively managed funds and so onā¦ I took me quite some time to sort all these things out!
While researching the best option to get out of the 3a insurance, I stumbled upon this forum and never left 
About my finances: Iām in the awkward position of being rather well-off (not enough to FIRE but I could coast and would be there at around 50-60) while earning 3.6k a month. While this is enough for me to live a decent life, my savigs rate rarely exceeds 10%. This will change though when Iām done with the PhD.
Looking forward learning from and contributing to this awesome community!
11 Likes
Welcome to the new joiners 
Doesnāt matter the important point is that you now have a goal and be more mindful about your spendings.
If youāre into IT, beancount would be a good alternative. Also Portfolio Performance was mentioned serveral times (not sure if thatās good for daily expense tracking tho).
The best option is to not sign up for one in the first place. The second best option is to cancel it asap.
1 Like
ā¦ after lurking around for quite a while I made an account and started posting a while back. Now Iād like to catch up with my introduction. Here we go:
- Mid thirties, married, 3 kids
- (Single) income of 150k
- NW: ~800k
ā 2nd pillar: 385k
ā 3rd pillar: 165k
ā Stocks / ETFs: 200k
ā Cash
Frankly, Iāve yet to calculate our savings rate. I guess, itās around 10-15% - what was once much higher thoughā¦
Cheers!
10 Likes
Iām aware of that. Wasnāt back then 
I had to google this one and frankly I still donāt understand what it isā¦I hope you do 
You might want to have a better look at this one, if the historical data are from the last few years then 4% is not a very good performance compared to passive investments. But it also depends on the risk profile of the fund.
Overall youāre already in a very enviable position for someone just starting his professional life 
2 Likes
Thanks alot 
I was thinking about changing the fund (the TC is about 1.5% 
)
Y. I made most of my fortune with cryptocurrencies - basically youāre acting like an exchange while holding bouth trading pairs. Iām only participating in pools in which bouth trading pairs are trustworthy Stable coins versions of USD so i have a very small risk of impermanent loss through arbitrage.
But i would not recommend investing in it, if you havent been into cryptocurrency for a while and understand its āecosystemā.
Hey there! Iām a 21 yo student at the University of Basel but Iām coming from canton Tessin. I find this community so inspiring and Iām thrilled about learning new ways to manage and invest my (for the time being) little money.
I have been investing small amounts in ETFs for a few months now and I am continuing to learn and study. At the moment, besides going to the university, I am working on opening my first online business and I hope to share my experiences with you soon!
In this journey I am finding myself quite alone, my peers do not understand how important it is to know how to manage their money and they absolutely have no long-term vision for their future. I have been following The Mustachians Post for quite some time now and I find great inspiration from you guys :))
Any suggestions about my situation is greatly appreciated 
8 Likes
E-commerce ? Interestingā¦this is also part of my goals for 2021.
Hey Guys
42 Year old system Engineer Here living in ZĆ¼rich. Born here but with Spanish Passport. So technically Iām a Immigrant.
Iām Father of a Boy and married to a lovely Wife . To be honest I have no clue about saving and investing and probably Iām a little late for early retirement. I know a little about Stocks and how to recognize Potential since i read a few Books but i never really invested and never had no Depot. With Demo Depots i did pretty good though. 
We always had a good life and never really cared about Money since there was always enough around. There is still enough but what comes in goes out.
We both got our Pensionskasse from working but thatās almost all. Ahh yes i got a 3a SƤule Account at my Homebank where i got 0.125% interest. What seems to be allot but since we donāt really packed much money in there we donāt get much out.
So my Goal is not really FI since i never felt that I wasnāt FI but I would like to not have to worry about getting older with no Money around to enjoy. Does that sound like reasonable Reason?
So my first Step was to open up a VIAC account and set a permanent monthly Payment to it to get it started.
I plan in buying some Stocks so i will need a broker and that is what made me discover this Forum here. I donāt have a Broker yet but that will follow once a decided which one to choose.
So Iām a complete Noob and i hope i can learn allot and ask just in Case.
12 Likes
Hello Everyone, another programmer here, 42, portuguese living in Sankt Gallen. I have been following the FIRE community for some years, I have frugal and saving for even more, but only 2 years ago I got the corage to finally start investiment in the stock market, so I lost a lot of opportunity, but here I am :). But I cant complain, because of the good saving (around 45% of netto salary) Im around 40% from my retirement objective, which might come in 5 years. Thank you everyone , especially @MP and all contributors for sharing great info that motivates and helps people to become independant .
8 Likes
Hey everybody, thanks for creating a great community here.
Iām 30 and moved to Zurich last year to work in tech after a few years in Silicon Valley. I love maths and enjoyed learning about the nerdier parts of finance for ~ 5 years. I guess I learned enough that most of my savings went into boring ETFs.
My new job doesnāt allow the side gigs that I was doing before (freelancing, public speaking, etcā¦), so I have more time to learn about finance now
In case anybody is interested, I can share some code to make recurring IB hands-off investments and pull the data into beancount (and in general, an unhealthy fascination for automating things).
See you around!
8 Likes
Hello there!
Iām a 35y old UX designer from Italy working at Hooli (yes, that same Hooli which @MrRIP used to work for), living in Zurich since late 2018.
Always been a minimalist by nature, Iāve only very recently discovered the concept of FIRE and get completely absorbed by it. Iām also an assidue reader of the Mustachian post and bought MPās book My plan is to become financially independent ASAP and hit the F**K YOU button before burning out.
Iām an absolute beginner for everything regarding personal finance but Iām also a fast learner. Be ready to see this forum flooded with some silly questions Looking forward to being inspired by the wisdom of this great community! Thanks a lot in advance for all your support!
10 Likes
5 years at Hooli should suffice. 
(For the former, hopefully not the latter)
Welcome!
4 Likes
Ahah thanks, dbu! I should be halfway there, then Cheers!