I'm new here but have been reading up on reddit and elsewhere for some time and have started taking small steps toward Financial Independence and possibly ERE in due time. I'm into systems, spreadsheets, chess, programming and similar ventures so you won't be surprised when I tell you that I like bullet points too
- I’m 29 years old and I only just got my first fulltime just less than 2 years ago after deciding not to finish my masters degree in computer science (BA in Maths)
- I live with my girlfriend and we are planning our wedding for easter next year. We live between Aalborg and Aarhus Denmark in a smaller town of around 10,000 inhabitants (housing prices are great here)
- We just bought a house in July 2016 and most of our spending is associated to that. Furniture, maintenance, gardening tools etc. Hopefully those expenses will be a lot lower in a year or two. We bought much more house than we need, but that is unfortunately one of the compromises I had to make for my girlfriend - on the upside she let's me handle most of our financials so whether she cares or not we are moving towards fi
- We bought on a 20-year fixed mortgage. Am not sure that is that I’d recommend it for others, but it made the most sense for us; reasons not entirely financial. We just saw yesterday that a 10 year mortgage would be affordable for us while still maxing out retirement accounts and saving a bit in taxable so we might actually consider that even if it won't earn us market growth. Still going from 2% to 0.5% interest on the principal of around USD 190k would be pretty neat, and it would free up a lot of cash flow for us in 10 years.
- We currently invest 2450 kr (around USD 350) monthly for both me and my girlfriend in an alderspension (type of Danish retirement account similar to Roth IRA) at nordnet.dk. I throw it all in Superfonden which is a 0% ÅOP, zero purchase fee, C20 Cap index fund. I balance this out by putting my arbejdsmarkedspension (equivalent of 401k) in a 50/50 split of a MSCI US-index and a MSCI world index. My arbejdsmarkedspension is currently me putting 6% of salary into it and my employer matching it with a nice 12% (as in double my input). I have a scheduled raise coming up and am so excited to see the actual retirement contributions rise to the new level
- In the near future (when we get our home fixed up) I plan to put at least another 2500 kr for each of us into a standard taxable brokerage account. Probably a 50/50 of the C20 Cap index and a US index.
- I hope to be financially independent by age 50-55. I’m not even sure I’ll want to quit the job if/when the time comes, but I want to be able to take long vacations when wanted and probably for both of us to go part time. Maybe I'll even want to do consulting or start my own company. Burnout is also real and although I’m not affected by it, who can say what their job-situation is in 20 years.
Best of regards from the small town of Hobro
Asbjørn