I Haven’t Been To The Beautician In Over A Year…

And my skin looks great anyway! Ha!

I decided to do all the scrubbing, plucking, pinching, creaming and what not myself over a year ago. Also, I found a facial cream to suit my needs via a beauty blog that’s much cheaper than the expensive creams I used to buy off the beautician. Besides that I have discovered beauty on a budget tricks like putting honey on your face as a facial mask. Cheap as chips!

This saves me a whopping €1000 a year!

If my skin went bad, I would have gone back to the beautician. Actually, I think my skin has never looked better!

That was some sensible saving and some senseless spending on my part.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

A Whole Week In Which I Plan To Do…

Fun
Today is the start of a week’s holiday for me! The husband won’t have a holiday. His only day off this week will be Tuesday because that’s Queensday and also the day on which our Queen will abdicate and our new King will be coroneted. We’re going to get together with some friends and have fun that day strolling around their hometown enjoying music and drinks.
Sunday the 5th of May is another very special day this week. It’s our Liberation Day. We will probably enjoy festivals in our hometown or go to Amsterdam for music and drinks.
Furthermore, I am going to go horse riding (which I haven’t done in years!) with a neighbour. I am so looking forward to that! We can rent a horse for €17.50 an hour and just go for a ride through the woods. Brilliant!

Chores
I plan to make new curtains for our foldable caravan. I showed you what it looks like in a previous post. I’ll have to go to the market this afternoon and buy the fabric.
I have a lot of chores to do around the house that involve gardening, decluttering, cleaning and organizing. I am actually looking forward to those.
I also have to do the whole administration on 2012 for my business. I have to supply my accountant with a bunch of stuff and he’ll calculate how much we owe or (hopefully) Uncle Sam will return to us.

Money
I opened an account with SNS Fundcoach and I received verification codes and what not. I transferred 1 cent as a test. Hopefully I’ll be able to invest via them by the end of this week.
Looks like it is going to be a rather expensive week with two days of music and drinks coming up…but hey, they’re going to be so much fun!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The Dutch Are Making Extra Mortgage Payments!

Today I read an article about the fact that the Dutch have become aware of the fact that they have too much debt. Our country has managed to accumulate a huge amount of debt due to weird tax breaks and other government incentives. This situation has become untenable.

All Dutch banks have noticed an increase in the amount of people who are making extra mortgage payments. The amount of money people are now using to pay off their mortgages has also increased. For the first time in many, many years our mountain of debt might actually be decreased.

Go Dutch!

Paying off your mortgage and making extra mortgage payments seem to have become a trend in our country. What about your country?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

A Free Gift To Yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Our Prime Minister Is Asking Us To Spend Our Money

Seriously, he did. If we start spending, then he won’t go through with the budget cuts. Hmmm…..don’t think anyone is going to jump on their feet and run to the stores ‘cuz the PM said so?!

In two weeks our Queen will abdicate and her son the new King will be coroneted. Maybe that will cause a nice little jump to our ever slowing economy? We’ll see. I don’t have a very strong opinion on our monarchy by the way. They hardly have any influence and the things they do are quite good, actually. I just see them as the permanent ambassadors of our country and it seems to attract business. And obviously I am not opposed to any reason to have a party. Each year on the 30th of April we celebrate Queensday. From next year onwards we’ll celebrate Kingsday on the 27th of April. I highly recommend visiting The Netherlands around that time. Oh, and don’t forget to wear orange!

Music festivals…

Yard sales but then in public parcs

Orange clothing or things that represent our flag = dress code!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

I Want To Go Camping!

I am so looking forward to go camping this season. Maybe this is because today’s been the first lovely spring day of 2013 here in The Netherlands.

We don’t pitch a tent…we have a very “luxurious” foldable caravan dating from the seventies. It unfolds like this one.

How cool is that? I totally looooooooooooove our foldable caravan. The brand is called Rapido and they stopped making them in the eighties because they were too labour intensive to make. They’re made of aluminium (or aluminum for Americans reading this) and would last a lifetime. Well, ours is from 1976 and it’s still going strong! What you don’t see in the video is that you also have these cool cupboard which you then hang on the walls. It has a dining area which can be converted in to the master bedroom area. We can also make two bunk beds for kids (if we had them, now we just use those to put stuff on). It’s soooooo funny pulling up a campsite with this thing. At first people don’t show any interest in our little caravan, but when we start unfolding this quirky thing we steal the show and people always come up and ask lots of questions. Of course, I am always very happy to answer all of them.

I bought mine over eleven years ago and I am still very happy with my purchase, on of the best purchases of my life. So is my husband. I already owned the caravan when we met and I made him an enthusiast as well.

Do you like to go camping?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Money, Money, Money

This week I have started rummaging through the house and selecting things that I’d like to remove out of our home. Eventually, we will have a tidy, semi-minimalist household…I’m sure of it! So I’ve been putting lots of stuff on Craigslist and things have been sold nicely. This week I earned around  €150.

Our government has also decided to skip the 4 billion euro budget cuts that would have meant I wouldn’t get any extra salary. See, official’s salaries have been frozen for almost four years now. It seems that I am now going to get some extra dough there as well. Yeah!

Our Prime Minister wants us to start spending more and that’s why the government decided to not go through with the budget cuts. Well…I’ll let other people do the spending for me. We’re going to make another extra mortgage payment this month. HA!

Seems like I am going to work extra hours during the upcoming ten weeks. The Big Boss asked me to do so and I am willing to do that if he’s going to pay me handsomely which he will. Mo’ money, me like! However, I am not planning on doing that shit on a regular basis. I want to be FREE, right?

Is money flowing your way as well? ‘T feels good! Is that because of my changed, positive attitude towards the stuff?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Comparing Investment Fees And Making Choices

Comparing investment fees:

			TER
	Transaction fees	Depository fees	Management fees	Currency fees	Membership fee (annual)
Meesman					€ 25	(we’re members already)
Global Stock Index Fund (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,50%	0		€100 minimum per month
European Stock Index Fund (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,50%	0		€100 minimum per month
Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,65%	0		€100 minimum per month
Global Bond Fund	0,50%	0	0,60%	0		€100 minimum per month
Euro Bond Index Fund	0,50%	0	0,30%	0		€100 minimum per month
SNS Fundcoach					€ 0
Global Stock (MSCI)	0,50%	0,00%	0,50%	0,00%		€500 minimum or €100 per month
European Stock (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,50%	0		€500 minimum or €100 per month
Euro Bond	0,50%	0	0,30%	0		€500 minimum or €100 per month
Emerging Markets (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,65%			€500 minimum or €100 per month
US S&P500 available in dollars only	0,50%	0	0,38%	0,15% max €20		€500 minimum or €100 per month
Ohpen					0
Stock funds, bond funds, private equity and property funds	0,50%	0	0,50%	0		Information is unclear, no Vanguard funds, they select their own, a no for me
Brand New Day					0
Euro Bond	0,50%	0	0,50%	0		No switch fees
World Stock (MSCI)	0,50%	0	0,59%	0		No switch fees
Sustainability World Stock (SRI)	0,50%	0	0,75%	0		No switch fees
Small Cap World	0,50%	0	0,80%	0		No switch fees
Emerging Markets	0,50%	0	0,85%	0		No switch fees
Binck					0
Offer Vanguard funds and ThinkCapital (Dutch company, so Dutch taxbreak)	€6,50 + 0,1% min €10 max €150	0	?	0		You need an account in order to view TER
Alex					0
Offer many Vanguard funds	€7,50 + 0,15% min €10 max €150	0,05 per quarter	?	0		You need an account in order to view TER
Rabobank					You need a bank account with Rabobank, we have our mortgage with ABN Amro so we can’t switch
Emerging Markets	0,20%	0,20%	0,65%	0
Euro Bond	0,20%	0,20%	0,30%	0
European Stock	0,20%	0,20%	0,40%	0
S&P500	0,20%	0,20%	0,30%	0
Global Stock	0,20%	0,20%	0,40%	0
SRI Global	0,20%	0,20%	0,50%	0

Meesman and SNS Fundcoach are my favourites. We’re already with Meesman, but I am thinking of opening an account with SNS Fundcoach. Mind you, these people warned me about the new system as per the first of January 2014. So these fees will probably only be valid for the rest of this year. The fun part is that I can buy S&P500 through them, yay!

Ohpen remains a mystery for me. I don’t like their funds and they don’t seem to work together with Vanguard. Euro Bond funds only consist of Dutch and German bonds for example. I am not going to invest more time in trying to figure this out.

Brand New Day has a very cool and sexy website. The staff handling the phone are experienced and very nice. I would almost be persuaded to open an account with them…but looking at their fees I have decided against this.

Binck is another cool and sexy broker. They’re interesting if you have a lot of cash to invest in one go. I could open an account just for the fun of it and check out which Vanguard funds they have on offer.

Alex is like Binck, only more expensive. So that’s a no.

I finally managed to speak to a Rabobank employee that sounded like she knew what she was talking about. I love their management fees and transaction fees, but I hate their depository fees. In the end that will make up a large sum of your costs. Also, this really isn’t an option. You need to open a bank account with Rabobank if you want to invest there. I’m stuck with ABN Amro because of our mortgage (discount). And opening a bank account on which you do not have your salary deposited every month is very expensive. Rabobank is a no for me.

In conclusion, I am going to open an account with SNS Fundcoach and will keep a close eye on Binck…or maybe open an account (what the heck?!) and see where things go. 

And next time I post something it won’t be about stocks…I am fed up with thinking about them for now!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The Rules Of The Dutch Investment Game Are Going To Change

I spent half the morning on the phone talking to brokers because I am still trying to compare the costs of investing with Vanguard here in The Netherlands. According to a new European directive the rules will be changed by the 1st of January 2014. The brokers will not receive a kick-back fee anymore and all the costs are going to be crystal clear for the customers. So all the costs that were previously hidden in the index trackers will be charged now.

This will probably mean that customers will pay a set price for every transaction fee, this will depend on the broker. Odds are this will range from €6 to €12 per transaction. There goes index investing on your own with only €100 a month to spend.

Some brokers are already playing by these new rules (Alex, Binck, Saxo) but some aren’t (SNS Fundcoach, Meesman) yet.

Then I phoned Brand New Day and they didn’t know anything about these new rules, so maybe it doesn’t affect index investing after all?

Argh!

So, I am more confused than ever. Don’t know what to do. Does anybody else know?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Rabobank Employee Never Heard Of Vanguard!

Finally, Rabobank managed to phone me back. I requested information on investing with Vanguard via Rabobank. I explained the nice lady on the other end of the phone that I wanted to invest with Vanguard. Her response: “What is Vanguard?” I mean, WTF?! Are you freakin’ serious? I stayed very polite of course. She was new to investments. Uhm…doesn’t that require some sort of education? Now she’s going to find out about the costs and send me an email about it. Sigh….

This is a ridiculous situation, isn’t it?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser