Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Finally took the time to start my journal!

I’ve already introduced myself in the introductory board, but I will do a short recap.

Fiscallyblonde, 25 years old, living in The Netherlands with my partner.

I’ve been working full time in the tax world since I graduated at 21. Recently started a new job where I got about a 60(!)% percent increase of my salary. Needless to say I was very happy about this step which has helped me tremendously with saving more for a future house.

Currently living in an apartment with my partner and we’re looking to buy a house in the upcoming year. The areas where we are looking are expensive, so houses costing about 600k for a regular house is not strange to us anymore. We have a mortgage appointment next week so I will keep you updated regarding that. Hoping to find a starter home that doesn’t cost us a fortune.

I’ve been following Fire blogs and videos for years now, and started investing in 2020. Next to that I own an apartment that I’m renting out and not living in at the moment. My current plan is to achieve a form of LeanFire before we (try to) have kids. My partner has his own company and is planning on working on that for a while and not looking to fire, so my plan is to be able to have about €2000 passive income before kids.

I’m not sure how comfortable I am with sharing all numbers on here, so I will start with net worth and savings rate.

August 2024
Net Worth: €157k
Savings Rate: 74,81%

Net worth is made up of the cost of my apartment (government issued cost, not market value to be conservative), shares (etf’s) and cash in a HYSA. Small part is gold & crypto. Deducted are mortgage and student loan. I made a cute graph but haven’t figured out how to add photos, so I will try that later.


There are still 3 days leftover in August and I’m expecting for the savings rate to go down a bit due to a small medical matter, which will come out of pocket. I also feel the need to comment on the fact that 74% is not a normal savings rate and has only been achieved due to lots of petsitting during this summer next to my full time job. It’s been quite a lot of work so I’m planning to do a lot less petsitting in the future and fully focusing on my new job.

Planning on doing monthly journal entries after receiving my salary, so I can’t wait to grow my net worth with all of your comments and support!

Fiscallyblonde

74% is an impressive savings rate, even if it's not the usual! I'm curious about the amount of work pet sitting was? Is it mostly commuting from one place to another that takes time? I've been thinking of offering something like that but only in my (larger) neighbourhood to cut down on transport time. Also vaguely curious if pet sitters usually get an insurance in case something happens to the pet while the owner is away and the owner decides to sue, though I would guess not.

Welcome FiscallyBlonde!

Just curious, what do you think are your main motivations for ERE? I saw on your intro post you'd like to buy a house and reach lean-ish FIRE before having any kids. Could it be the financial security / peace of mind about paying for expenses? Or spend more time with partner and family? Freedom to travel more, or something else? It's nice to understand where people are coming from, moreso from an emotional/personal level (care about X) rather than an achievement level (reach status of <homeowner/retiree/whatever>, but these ideas can sometimes take a long time to work through

@mousse thank you! So the petsitting is done next to the full time job, and mostly took up all evenings due to the amount of addresses. I usually stay 30 minutes at one address, unless they pay me more to stay one hour. I also planned to only do the neighbourhood, but I just love pets so much and usually accept all petsitting requests that are max 15 minutes by bike from my house. The problem is that if all locations are max 15 minutes from my house, there could be up to 30 minutes inbetween those locations. Which leads to me cycling quite a lot and not having any free time. Some weeks I actually stayed over at the petsitting address and took care of dogs, who need a lot more care.

Regarding insurance: I do have a personal insurance in case I break something, but I don’t think that includes anything happening to the pets. Sometimes I get booked through an app, and the pet owners pay a fee to the app for insurance. Thankfully nothing like that has happened yet!

@brainstorm thank you! I have quite a lot of motivations, that might be why I’m so eager to work on my finances. So ever since I started working, I realized that I don’t get a lot of satisfaction from sitting behind a screen for 9 hours a day. In the beginning I thought I didn’t like working but I think it’s more nuanced than that. I love working on our apartment, doing renovations, fixing up furniture, whatever I can do with my own two hands. I also love spending time at home just cleaning and organizing and taking care of the household. Next to that I have new hobbies every month, whether it’s a new game, embroidery, reading books, running, weightlifting.

I think I just long for a diverse life where I can choose to do whatever I want to do, and not be tied to a job and a specific amount of leave. I also love travelling, which is something I already do a lot but would love to increase.

Next to that I also think it’s important to be able to spend time with kids, if we can have kids. I see friends of mine both working long weeks and not seeing their kids a lot because they’re still in a building phase, and I would prefer to be able to spend more time at home when that time comes for us. My partner would love for me to be able to stay at home when that time comes as well, but I don’t feel comfortable putting all the pressure on him to have to pay for everything. Therefore I want to have a good foundation laid before I start to work less.

I hadn't thought about the fact everything being in a 15 minutes radius can still mean quite a bit of distance between the addresses It sounds like it might still be a nice gig when working fewer/no hours. Thanks for the reply!

And your plan sounds great, best of luck with the journey!

Yeah, sounds like a great plan and some rewarding ends to pursue! Excited to see how it takes shape!

It was nice to meet you last Sunday!
I'm quite positive that you can reach your goals, and I wish you a lot of good luck. And even if your goals in life gradually change, it never hurts to have a few 100k's of euros.

I made a thread about box 3 taxes... maybe you'd like to join
viewtopic.php?t=13235

Good afternoon all!

Seeing as the month of September is over and October has officially begun, it's time for a new update.

September has been busy with birthdays, housewarmings and graduations, so we've had to buy a lot of gifts. Next to that, some previously planned dinners where I had to pick up the bill. Last but not least a lovely holiday to the sun which also was not free. The place we went to is known for their gold markets, and I really wanted to buy a piece of gold jewelry with a part of my grandma's inheritance. I'm glad I did so I can have something I can wear daily to remember her by. The rest of the small inheritance is of course appreciating in stocks.

The savings percentage is a bit skewed due to me advancing some costs for my partner. He is expecting to pay that back in October, which will just be seen as an increase of my income since I deducted all the spendings from my budget to come to my savings rate. Therefore the savings rate should be higher this month.

Thankfully the markets did well, I'm earning quite some interest (between 3,5% and 4,2%, if any Dutch people want to know where, just shoot me a message) on my non-invested money (in my house savings fund), received some dividends and I also managed to earn some extra cash by selling items and catsitting. Therefore my net worth went from 157k to 163k, while definitely not putting in that amount of cash.

September 2024
Net Worth: €163k
Savings Rate: 52,35%

I'm expecting October to be less eventful and therefore a bit less spending. I am planning to do an alcohol free month in October and spend more time working out, so I have less time to spend money. My partner will join me so it will be good to motivate each other. Next to that I have quite a lot of designed items that I'm trying to sell, so hopefully that will gain me some more cash. I just want to clear out the entire house and sell as many items, just so we do not have to move all of this if we buy a new house. Might as well tidy up and make money at the same time.

Regarding the mortgage meeting, the mortgage man mentioned that it would be smarter to wait until next year so we can also take out a mortgage on my partners income. Because he has his own company, the banks want to see an increase in profit which will be visible in this years numbers. We are meeting with a financial planner / advisor in two weeks to see what options he sees. Until then we just continue saving and investing to get a nice downpayment!

The weather is getting worse here, so I'm looking forward to cozying up the house. I have a bunch of candles and blankets and tea, so I won't have to buy more to make the house cozy. I ordered some Halloween decorations last week, so no more Halloween spending either! Now we just have to find some time to sit down and watch Harry Potter movies!

Fiscallyblonde

Ps. @dutchgirl thank you for your messages, I will dive into the box 3 thread soon!

Great stuff, I’ll send a PM as I may have use for the “savings account”.
Thanks!

FiscallyBlonde wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 29, 2024 11:52 am

I think I just long for a diverse life where I can choose to do whatever I want to do, and not be tied to a job and a specific amount of leave. I also love travelling, which is something I already do a lot but would love to increase.

Next to that I also think it’s important to be able to spend time with kids, if we can have kids. I see friends of mine both working long weeks and not seeing their kids a lot because they’re still in a building phase, and I would prefer to be able to spend more time at home when that time comes for us.

Great motivation and I can defintely relate to all of the above. Good luck with your journey!

Hi everyone,

End of the month, so it's time for a new update. The alcohol free month has been going well, although I am looking forward to a glass of wine by now. I do believe it has helped health wise and weight wise, and I feel more motivated to lose some more weight by kickstarting it with this alcohol free month. Hopefully I will be able to keep going, even during my birthday month and all the celebrations in December.

October 2024
Net Worth: €165k
Savings Rate: 70,56%

Net worth is about 2k higher than last month. I think this is mainly because of the market not being favourable in October. My savings rate was pretty good, even after settling the last costs of the holiday (160 euros), booked a hotel for a christmas market trip (55 euros) and booking a concert ticket (50 euros).

I opened a pension account last week. This is an account where I can deposit cash (post-tax) and get the tax back in my return next year. Seeing as I always have to pay extra at the end of the fiscal year, this will lower my tax bill and will allow me to invest a small amount for 40-45 years, while getting a tax break. I am not planning on putting a lot of money in here right now, but around a 1.000 euros per year will still get me to a sweet payout at (government issued, around 70 probably) retirement date. I do not feel the need to invest a lot of money in here due to the fact that it can grow for 45 years, but is only reachable after the pension date. I suspect I will need most cash earlier, so I am just using it as a nice tax break while ensuring a cushy pension.

The interest changed from 3,75% to 3,25% in my main savings account. I also use another account has 3,7% interest/ They used to have 0,7% costs to deposit money but I recently checked and it's not there anymore, therefore I might shift some cash to there. This account is only protected up until 20k so will most definitely not put more in that account.

We had a meeting with financial planner two weeks ago. We had spoken with him last year through our company, and we got a free follow up. It was fun to speak to him again, even though he confirmed what we already know, that getting a mortgage will be hard this year but might work next year. Few things that surprised me during the conversation:
- We were talking about selling my rented out apartment. I was telling him how I was thinking about selling due to the stock market giving a better profit, and the new dutch tax laws not being favourable for rented out apartments. The financial planner mentioned that I was thinking too much of making profit and should consider selling the apartment to use the money for a more expensive house, for 'living pleasure'. I understand where he is coming from, but it would only make sense if we couldn't get a mortgage normally (next year). His point was to sell the house to be able to buy a more expensive house, on top of the mortgage we were already planning on taking out. Needless to say, this will not be happening.
- We discussed getting life insurance for my partner. Based on our current ages, the life insurance payments are very low (between 10-14 euros a month). We have been doing some calculations and this might be worth the investment.
- Financial advisor mentioned how it might be worth selling my investments to bridge the period between buying a new house and selling the old apartment. I am definitely not comfortable with this, but I do put most of my income into my savings account and focusing less on my investment account.

We had lots of birthdays, graduation parties, babyshowers etc this month so we spent a lot on gifts this month. My friend is having a baby soon so I will be making her some freezer meal prep meals, of which i can also make some for myself to keep in the freezer. We have passed the grocery budget for this month. so I'm going to try and keep within our budget next month.

Which leads us to the next point, seeing it's my birthday next month and I will be having a lot of friends and family over who we will provide dinner for. Birthday dinner + birthday drinks will be outside of the grocery budget, but still hoping to keep it below 75 euros (I have a big stockpile of drinks for these events).

The rest of the month has been uneventful, which was really nice. We went to one theatre show, which was booked last minute and partially paid for with a giftcard, therefore the costs were €18,50 per person. Next to that we enjoyed nights at home, watching movies and documentaries. The most expensive, unexpected cost this month was the vet bill, €125 for a checkup because one of the cats had vomited blood. Thankfully they're okay, but one of them will have to go for a dentist appointment next month which will also be costly.

Got to renew my energy contract for my rented out apartment. My renters rent all-in and therefore I pay the energy bill. They have been using less energy than anticipated and with a cashback, my energy bill will be €24 next year instead of €60. Next to that, my current energy provider mentioned that I can lower my monthly payment to €1 for the coming two months, because I have overpaid the previous 10 months. After telling my partner to also check our energy contract, he managed to get a new contract for our apartment, which is coincidentally also €36 less per month.

Selling extra items (clothing, furniture and jewellery) has been going well, and I also get to catsit for a few days this week. I overpaid for my hot water/heating in my rented apartment and received €124 back. All in all expecting extra income of about €400 this month.

Going to a personal finance networking event next month, which is focused on younger people. Hoping to make some fun connections here!

Fiscallyblonde

Another month over and it's December already!

Had a great birthday month and had quite some people over for dinner this month. Therefore we have surpassed the grocery budget, but it's been great to have everyone over. I always do almost all shopping at the cheap Turkish supermarket, which ensures we eat mostly vegetables so you can imagine we've had quite a lot of vegetables to have been able to surpass the grocery budget. Hopefully we will get invited some more to other people's houses from now on!

November 2024:
SR: 57,22%
NW:167k

Savings rate lower than last month, which was to be expected due to Sinterklaas (Dutch Santa) happening on the 5th and gifts having to be bought for that. I did manage to get a new debit card that has a 10% cashback until the end of the year, and even had a 15% cashback in the Black Friday weekend. This has saved us quite a lot in Sinterklaas shopping, although the cashback is still pending and therefore not represented in the SR and NW.

For this month I am not expecting many big expenses, we do not have many events coming up that haven't been paid yet or that will not cost a lot. Next to that we are celebrating Christmas at family therefore we do not have any food costs for that (even though we offered to bring some food).

I am excited to share a year overview next month, but I can already say that this year has been extremely positive financially, due to a new job and a newfound excitement for the fire/ere lifestyle that has really helped boost my savings and stocks. It's also fun to compare my current status to my goals that I've set in January, which I will also do next month.

Wishing everyone happy holidays and will update again next month!

Fiscallyblonde

I'm looking forward to reading your annual analysis! I love those .
But for sure you've been doing well this year, and your net worth is growing nicely. The money you've put in investments this year will also be able to grow for many many more years to come.

It sounds like you had a nice month in November, I hope your December is equally fun & social.

I'm gonna send you a specific tax question... thanks for answering, if you are so inclined.

Happy new year everyone!

As I promised last month, I was going to compare my current (financial) status to the goals I've set last year. Of course I had more goals than these, but these are just the financial ones. I have updated my goals halfway through the year when I got a new job with a new salary.

The first goals were:
- 35k in my investment accounts.
- 30k in my savings account.

When I received the offer for the new job, I set some higher goals to push myself to save more and earn more money.

The second goals were:
- 35k in my investment accounts.
- 45k in my savings account.

Please keep in mind that most of my money is in my real estate and not in shares. Next to that, I also focused on the savings account due to the plan to purchase a house in the foreseeable future.

In the end I managed to finish with 40k in my investment accounts, and 40k in my savings accounts. I still have a loan of about 6k outstanding and if we calculate that as savings, I have exceeded my financial goals for the year!

Next to putting money in my investments and savings, I also paid down a part of my student loans, did some work in my real estate which also appreciated a bit (my net worth is calculated with the value decided by the municipality, not the actual value which is approximately 50k~75k higher) and started a separate retirement account.

Net worth:
1-1-2024: 117k
1-1-2025: 177k

Which means an increase in my net worth of 60k, which is way more than my net pay from my job! To compare, last year my increase was a whopping 20k, mostly due to lower pay and health costs.

My savings rate over 2024 was 50,52%.

For next year, my goals are a bit less numbers focused due to the possibility of us buying a house this year, where I expect my savings account to decrease instead of increase.

Financial goals for 2025:
- Buy a house!
- Have 80k in my investment accounts (meaning shares, crypto, gold all together)
- Increase my average savings rate by at least 5%

Buying a house will most likely mean that my net worth will decrease, because I am unsure whether I will include my house value in my net worth. I do not think it makes a lot of sense to include it, but I'd love to hear whether you include it or not and your reasoning behind it.

All in all I'm very positive about the past year financially. I could've had a higher increase in net worth, but I spent some money on lovely holidays and time with family and friends which was definitely worth it.

Please let me know if you've also uploaded a year overview because I would love to read it!

Hello everyone!

All income of January 2025 has been received, so it's time for an update.

This month was going quite well investments-wise, until the bloodbath that was the 27th of January with the DeepSeek news coming out. Thankfully, today the market seems to stabilise again and my loss does not seem to be that large. And of course, it's not a loss if you don't sell, so I am buying some more shares and not selling.

I have purchased some more bitcoin and gold, and of course some more shares. Next to that I saved a good amount this month, coming to a SR of 63,18% so far this month. I really tried to lower impulse purchased and going out for dinner, combined with doing an alcohol free month this has worked quite well. We have planned a last minute holiday next week, which cost about €500. Next to that, my cat had to go to the vet again which cost another €100. These are the highest expenses of this month thankfully.

Other very good news is that the Dutch government has finally decided to forgive a small part of the student loans. This means my student loans have been lowered by almost €4.000 and my monthly payments have been lowered from €73 to €62. I still have about 25k to go, which will be 0% interest until the end of the year. Next year, I will look into whether it's worth paying off early, although I doubt it with the interest being around 2-3%. One issue that might come up earlier, is the fact that mortgage lenders sometimes expect homebuyers to pay off (part of) the student loans before they provide a mortgage. Curious to hear what the mortgage lender will decide. At least the monthly payment going down €10 will help with the amount of mortgage we will be able to get.

I am also working on tidying up the whole house and selling these items. I decided to do a 2025 decluttering challenge which means I am getting rid of 2025 items this year. I have already decluttered over a 100 items, and I have a big bag and a big box filled with items ready to sell or give away. I also have some furniture I am working on fixing up and selling. Profit ranges from a few euro's to 50-100 euro's, but any amount is welcome. If I sell something, I try to immediately send it to my savings/investment account and not spend it on other cute second hand items, which is usually my downfall. Other extra income of the month comes from dogwalking, and I am also receiving a nice amount of dividends this month.

I have been reading some more about high dividend investing, and the pro's and cons. Of course, the pro's being that the money is paid out immediately and it's passive income. The cons being that you have to pay dividend tax over the dividends, and also the fact that I am still working on growing my portfolio, which means I will always reinvest my dividends. Therefore the dividends I am receiving, will be taxed first, and afterwards I will have to pay fees for the investment platform to reinvest the dividend money. If I purchase shares that do not pay out dividends, the value of the shares will increase without me having to pay the dividend tax and reinvestment fees. Please let me know if you have a strategy regarding high dividend investing, and whether I am overlooking something if I do not spend more time and money on high dividend investing.

Anyhow, with all information above, my NW is the following:
Dec 2024: €177k
Jan 2025: €184k

Which means an increase of 7k, so I am pleased with how the month went. Expectations for next month will be a bit lower savings rate, due to municipal taxes coming up (I have a sinking fund for this), being on holiday for a few days and having to book plane tickets for another holiday coming up. Next to that it's a pretty quiet month thankfully, not a lot of things planned. I want to continue being alcohol free after my holiday, so that will save me some money again as well. I will probably spend my time on DIY projects at home, but I do not see the required products for those projects being very costly. I am trying to ensure our home is in perfect state for when we decide to sell it, so there are some parts that require some attention.

Thank you for reading!

Look up accumulating vs distributing etfs. Accumulating etfs were designed specifically to address the dividend taxation issue i believe

FiscallyBlonde wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:19 am

Other very good news is that the Dutch government has finally decided to forgive a small part of the student loans.

Thanks for sharing your journal! For other people who live under a rock, more detail on the news above: https://www.rijksdienstcn.com/actueel/n ... moetkoming

FiscallyBlonde wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:19 am

And of course, it's not a loss if you don't sell, so I am buying some more shares and not selling.

I understand the sentiment but have always found it curious that people tell themselves that unrealized losses aren't losses but then they treat unrealized gains as gains. Taken to the extreme, one ends up owning a penny stock but telling themselves that it really isn't a loss because they haven't sold.

That's not to say that one should sell because of a market downturn. Rather the appropriate thing to do is treat it as if hamburgers were on sale and you loved hamburgers (to use a Buffett analogy). That's what it seems you are doing. Granted, we are currently dealing with $30 hamburgers that have been marked down to $29 (at least in the US market).