Trying to have more control of my financial situation and hoping to set up well for the future. Advice welcome

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Hello everyone! I became more financially aware a little later in my life, for better or for worse. I am in my 30s and for the past two years I have been reading up and slowly trying to implement ways to improve my financial situation. I have roughly CHF100k and I would like to set it up well for the future. I am hoping to get some advice here, check on what I’ve been doing so far and where I should be focusing next.

Bank
I am currently in UBS and am transitioning onto a different different due to the expensive monthly costs. I am interested and thought to move to Neon but I notice in this forum that many posts talk about using Neon only has a side thing, putting a small amount just for payments abroad but having a main bank elsewhere. Can anyone explain this? What are the problems for using it as a main bank?
Currently 50% of my money is here. Is there a better place to park it? Invest most of it? (see IBKR below)

Pillars 2 and 3a
I am contributing the maximum each year to pillar 3a. Pillar 2, I am not sure if I should look into it. I saw somewhere people can “maximize” their contribution?

Tracking
I do not track my net worth, but I have been keeping track of expenses in an excel sheet.

IBKR
From reading Mustachian Post and PoorSwiss, I have started investing in ETFs. 40% of the pie is here, mostly allocated to VT (rest are bit of AVUV and AVDV). I have a monthly deposit here, again mainly going to VT. To be honest I am not sure how to see it’s progress, in the past year and a half I think it’s been pretty flat (and maybe decreased a bit). Haven’t sold anything so far. Thoughts on the allocation and should I keep going?
There is an interest to get into real estate, but even getting my own house is a challenge.

Family
Currently with my partner we do splitwise. We are thinking of a joint account but mainly for the regular bills. I am wondering how to go about saving for our next big purchase.

Housing
We are currently renting, eventually we would like to get a house someday. How should we be going about towards this goal?

So, I mustache you, how does it look so far? Anything I need to change, or focus more on? Any advice will be much appreciated!

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That’s many questions but you obviously already made many thoughts on the topic. As they say, best time to start is at birth, next best time is today - I don think there are too many of us having completely started at 21 - there are other things at that age to think about!

Hello everyone! I became more financially aware a little later in my life, for better or for worse. I am in my 30s and for the past two years I have been reading up and slowly trying to implement ways to improve my financial situation. I have roughly CHF100k and I would like to set it up well for the future. I am hoping to get some advice here, check on what I’ve been doing so far and where I should be focusing next.

First thing might be a liquid (bank account) emergency fund, of a few months of expenses, and to define your risk profile.

Bank
I am currently in UBS and am transitioning onto a different different due to the expensive monthly costs. I am interested and thought to move to Neon but I notice in this forum that many posts talk about using Neon only has a side thing, putting a small amount just for payments abroad but having a main bank elsewhere. Can anyone explain this? What are the problems for using it as a main bank?

Currently 50% of my money is here. Is there a better place to park it? Invest most of it? (see IBKR below)

I can only give my own opinion, but I find it hard to work with only Neo-banks, and have at least one old-school one. That is where my emergency fund is, but none of my investments. Investment costs are too high at any bank in Switzerland.
I minimize my banking costs by using a Certo credit card and a Wise debit card, but you might want to have a bank debit card too at least.

Pillars 2 and 3a
I am contributing the maximum each year to pillar 3a. Pillar 2, I am not sure if I should look into it. I saw somewhere people can “maximize” their contribution?

You might be able to have ‘space’ to add voluntary contributions, which can be tax deducted - depending on your tax situation it might be a good idea or not.
If you change employer, you can take a few days ‘unemployed’ in between and put your Pillar two in a Freizügigkeitskonto, where you can decide how to invest it (more aggressively).

Tracking
I do not track my net worth, but I have been keeping track of expenses in an excel sheet.

IBKR
From reading Mustachian Post and PoorSwiss, I have started investing in ETFs. 40% of the pie is here, mostly allocated to VT (rest are bit of AVUV and AVDV). I have a monthly deposit here, again mainly going to VT. To be honest I am not sure how to see it’s progress, in the past year and a half I think it’s been pretty flat (and maybe decreased a bit). Haven’t sold anything so far. Thoughts on the allocation and should I keep going?

The biggest challenge in the whole story (at least for me, but I think for many others) is to resist the urge to change things. Changing things is costly, result wise.

There is an interest to get into real estate, but even getting my own house is a challenge.

Family
Currently with my partner we do splitwise. We are thinking of a joint account but mainly for the regular bills. I am wondering how to go about saving for our next big purchase.

That seems to be a very personal thing, we use a joint account which we pay all joint costs from, out of convenience. We also have a joint savings account for next big purchases.

Housing
We are currently renting, eventually we would like to get a house someday. How should we be going about towards this goal?

So, I mustache you, how does it look so far? Anything I need to change, or focus more on? Any advice will be much appreciated!

Keep your patience :slight_smile:

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My basic thought about your investing set up: Keep your allocation, as it’s simple and empirically sound.

Other than @SwissMousse’s contribution, which is very comprehensive, I’d like to focus on your housing.
If you are going for owning property, calculate the 20 % downpayment you will have to make for a home to your liking (200k-300k or even more). If you can set a timeframe, just divvy up the savings over the number of months until you’ll need the money and put those funds into interest bearing stuff that has no downside risk, like special savings accounts or Certificates of Deposit. You’ll lose to inflation after taxes, but it still makes your money grow compared to keeping it in a standard yccount.

Your 2nd and 3rd pillars can also be used for buying property, but best do the math well before going down that route. Maybe talk to a financial adviser.

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:smiley:
nice one

and welcome

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None for me. Have been using Neon it as my main account in Switzerland for a few years now.

I don’t need handholding from their support or talk to an investment advisor salesman. I don’t deposit cheques, I don‘t make or receive international bank transfers in exotic currencies/countries that I couldn’t do with Wise, I don’t require my proper credit card to be from the same bank, and I don‘t need desktop online banking. Oh, and I haven’t needed a joint account.

Would I put all eggs in one basket, rely on a single account with one bank? No. I keep alternatives.

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@SwissMousse Thanks for taking the time to go through it! Just going through your comments
-So at the moment I do have roughly 50k sitting in the bank. Probably 20-30k could be left as an emergency deposit. The rest I can place elsewhere.
-I cannot freely move where I want pillar 2, only when I change employers? I will look more into these voluntary contributions you mention

@yetanothername Thank you for your input. Thanks for affirming the allocation. As it’s a difficult topic for me I really went for something solid where I do not have to check up on and just keep putting money in.
I have extra sitting in the bank that I can place elsewhere. Any recommendations? I think I saw some banks have special interest accounts for a certain time period but those need 100k minimum I believe. And Certificates of Deposits, I’ll have to read up more on them.

@ma0 Thanks, glad someone noticed!

@bowtiesarecool Yes for my usage of banks, I do not use much other than their basic services, which is why I’m also moving away from UBS.

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Don’t bother with that at this point in your life (30ies). Not worth it to bind your capital in this way at that age.
This is for a few years (max. 8-10) before retirement (early or normal age).

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If you’re sure you’re going to buy real estate in 5-10y, it might also make sense (depending on your marginal tax rate).

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Sorry which part makes sense?

@oslasho Thanks for the link. Looks like I got some studying to do!

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To buy into pillar2 regardless of the return (because you get the tax savings and it’s short term so return shouldn’t matter as much to you).