Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I'm 37, single living in the Netherlands

I have been at my current employer for about 4 years.

I earn around € 2200 each month.

I track every € i earn and spend in excel, started in 2012.
My saving rate from 2012 till now is: 49.94%

I bought a house in 2016, and spend around € 22000 on things like solar panels, insulation and pellet stove.
Also got a new bathroom and some smaller improvements to the house.

Now that does things are paid for, my saving rate should increase again.

My biggest monthly expense are:

Mortgage: € 167.18 (€76.76 interest, the rest is to pay down the mortgage)
Gas for car: € 142.76 (I live around 24 miles from work)
Health insurance: € 89.67
Groceries: € 101.11

My monthly avarage expense this year are: € 1262.39 (Without home improvements it would be: € 922.80)

Assets:

House: € 94000 ( this is the amount i bought it for, same houses go for around € 125000 in my street now)
invested: € 30930
Cash: € 39000 (I invest each month, and know that time in the market is better then timing, but still I feel better doing a few € 1000 each month)
Crowdfunding: € 16949 (i am not adding any more to this, so it will decrease over time)
Pension: € 13324 (this is a locked account, i can't use it till i reach pension age.)

Liabilities:

Mortgage: € 42655 (still 14 years left @ 2.14%, this is before taxes, i get some € back each year when filling taxes)

no other debts.

Net worth around € 151000


I think it is going pretty good, I am just trying to get my savings rate up again.
I'm looking at things to cut/save on, but it's getting difficult, all the easy things are already done.
I think at this point the biggest problem is that i don't earn enough/more.

...

Subscribed. Looks like low expenses to me (have you excluded the amount for paying down the mortgage?).
If you post more details, you might get more tips to see if you can get it further down.
Though I agree, that it is likely easier to increase your income at this point.
Keep posting.

Thanks for the replies.


I made an error in my first post.

Without home improvement my monthly average for this year is € 815.30
That's including € 90.42 for down paying the mortgage.


My monthly expense are:

Mortgage: € 167.18 (€76.76 interest, the rest is to pay down the mortgage)
Health insurance: € 89.67
Dentist: € 17.56
Internet: € 30 ( i don't have cable)
Eletric and gas: € 20 (most of this i will get back, but this is the minimum i can pay to the gas/electic company)
Water: € 17.05 (this is both water use and tax)
Taxes: € 68.24 (€ 20.63 is for my car)


Gas for car: € 142.76 (I live around 24 miles from work)
Groceries: € 101.11
Pet: € 20.67 (toys and other stuff for my cat)
Electronics: € 52.79
Car Insurance: € 21.49
Take away: €9.38
Birthdays: € 22.01
misc: € 35.39

Home improvements where € 500.58 avarage each month.
But I am done with that.

I can't get OT where i work, so i have to find something else.
I work in shifts, so i am free at different days each week, so that doesn't help with finding something.

Hi!

You are very close to living within 1 jacob. According to this topic, 1 jacob adjusted for inflation (JAFI) is about $8500 or 7225 euro (602 per month). With your current expenses of 725 (if counting mortgage principal as savings), you only need to cut 123 euros (a car) to reach this point.

Now that this month is over, i checked my saving rate for this year: 50.42%
So it's getting slighly better.

I mainly invest in VWRL (Vanguard FTSE all-world UCITS ETF), it has an TER of 0.25%
It has 3200 stock holdings.

I am thinking of switching to:

IMEU (iShares MSCI Europe UCITS ETF EUR (Dist), TER 0.12%. Holdings 446 stocks
and
VUSA (Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF (EUR), TER 0.07%

And then something like 50/50.

If I switch I have a lower TER, but i also have much lower diversification.
And no asia, or russia or emerging markets.
I could get emerging markets for TER 0.25%

What would you do? just keep it simpel and pay the higher TER? or replace it with 4 or 5 etf's?

...

Small update:

My expenses for the first two months of the year where: € 854.09 and € 733.29.

Biggest expenses:

Morgage € 166.25
Gas for car € 141.89
Health insurance € 95.31
Groceries: € 82.04 (about € 20 less per month then last year, mainly because i try to buy less snacks)

Net worth: € 171803

Average saving rate first two month: 70.89%

Time for another update, i don't expect any more income/expenses for this year.

Average saving rate this year: 74.77% (76.49% if i don't count the mortgage pay down as expense)

Biggest average expenses monthly:

Gas for car: € 151.59
Mortgage: € 113.03 (around € 60 is for paying down mortgage)
Health insurance: €95.31
Groceries: €86.14
Electronics: € 54.76 (biggest part is a new dishwasher)
Taxes for my home: € 44.81


Total average monthly expenses: € 833.23 (without mortgage pay gown, around € 770)
(Fixed cost € 459.01; variable cost: € 374.22)

Net worth at years end: € 203.635
That's an increase of about 38k € in 1 year, this is a combination between saving rate and a very good stock market year.

I only have 5k € left for mortgage, i will pay that in January.
(if i pay that this year i have to pay a fee)

Congrats on paying off your house, man!

Super impressive expenses, with the reduced housing cost it sounds like you might be able to save about 1500 euro per month, that should quickly accelerate your FI path. Are you planning on pulling the plug as soon as your liquid stash can throw off ~800 euro per month or are you going to take it a bit more conservatively?

ItsALongStory wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 29, 2019 12:12 pm

Super impressive expenses, with the reduced housing cost it sounds like you might be able to save about 1500 euro per month, that should quickly accelerate your FI path. Are you planning on pulling the plug as soon as your liquid stash can throw off ~800 euro per month or are you going to take it a bit more conservatively?

I am aiming for to get between 1000-1100 from my stash before i stop working, just to be on the save side.

I already save more then 1500 euro each month.

income 2019: € 39634.32
Expenses 2019: € 9998.76 (including around € 600 to pay down mortgage)

Saved 2019: € 29635.56 (average per month: € 2469.64)

Gelukkig nieuwjaar!

Ah that makes sense, better to be a bit safer. I keep reading that the Netherlands is a pretty terrible country for FIRE due to taxes. What do you anticipate as far as drag on returns from taxes?

Gelukkig nieuwjaar.

So far it's not to bad for taxes, for example in 2020 if you have € 100.000 wealth
So things like savings, stocks and bonds not the value of your house or if you have have money saved for your pension (it needs the be a special blocked account)

in 2020 you will pay € 373 wealth tax if you have € 100.000.

The government has plans to change that.
Now it doesn't matter if you wealth is in savings or stocks, but they want to change that because you get almost 0% on a savings account in the Netherlands, and a much higher % on stocks.
So they plan is to charge 5.33% wealth tax in 2022 on everything that is not in a savings account, tax rate is 33%. So 5.33%*33%= 1.67% wealth tax.
Now if you have a very good year like last year paying 1.67% isn't to bad (it still sucks), but if the average is 8%, then you have to pay almost 25% each year in taxes.

example:

€ 100.000 wealth, 25% savings account and 75% stocks and bonds

Wealth tax 2020 € 373
Wealth tax 2020 € 1194

If the plans become reality it's really going to hurt small investors.