We <3 Dividend!

Yay, dividend was paid out today! I really love the fact that our Vanguard FTSE All World stocks pay out a quarterly dividend. You can watch this compound interest theory doing it’s thing, yeah baby!

Next month it’s “my month” to invest the bigger monthly sum the hubby and myself agreed upon.

I hope your Christmas was merry and bright and I wish you a wonderful and prosperous new year.

Lots of love,

Mrs EconoWiser

P.s. I am looking forward to my maternity leave early February. Hopefully I’ll find the energy to blog a lot more…and clear out the house….and set up this new business thingy I have been thinking about…oh….right….and having this second (and final!!!) baby! 😉

Investing For The Kids

We are thinking about opening accounts with Meesman for each of our kids once the little man is born. Meesman has announced to finally get rid of the annual €25 euro fee per account. That’s great news for our purpose! They decided to change TER as well. This meant a decrease for emerging markets (0.65% -> 0.5%) and world-wide bonds (0.6% -> 0.5%). However, it also meant an increase for Euro bonds (0.3% -> 0.5%). The latter I can’t grasp and thus we won’t invest in Euro bonds. Such a pity, since TERs usually aren’t that high for Euro bonds when investing in mutual funds.

Anyway, we plan to start with €100 a month for each kid. Probably 80% world-wide and 20% emerging markets or 100% world-wide to keep things simple. The idea is to show them the wonderful world of index investing when they’re ready for it. In the meantime, they won’t know they own all this money because they won’t have access to this account. They’ll have their savings account which they’ll be able to access when they’re ready.

What do you think?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Extended Payment In Shops

Oh dear, another great idea was launched here in The Netherlands. The new trend is to let people take the items they want and make them pay later from shops. Most of the Dutch do not pay with their credit cards, it’s basically the same principle. We have debit cards here. But then the amount due is extracted from your bank account immediately. This also causes an increase in sales around the end of the month when it’s payday. Retailers now hope to spread and increase their income by offering extended payment, just like customers are offered in online shops. Marketeers have decided that people “want and expect” this “service”.

The spendthrifts and shopaholics will cheer, I guess.

Ugh…

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

The Hidden Tow Bar

When we decided to buy a specific Toyata Verso we negotiated a deal including winter tyres and a tow bar. The vendor called…ehm…yeah…the car already had a tow bar a dismountable one. The connector was well hidden and he just didn’t notice it when putting it up for sale. So…we got another €680 discount on the car. We now believe it was a very good deal indeed…for a three-year-old car that is. Still…a shitload of money.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

How To Process The Car Purchase

Since we didn’t purchase the new car from the garage who bought our old car we’ll the money will be wired to our account. We’ll then wire money (a lot more!) to the other garage. Normally, you would get a huge discount for the used car. But now there are two forms of cash flow. Since this isn’t income, it would be weird to add the money to our income. My idea is to just put the difference between the proceeds of the used car and the cost of the new car in my Excelsheet, because that really is how much we literally spent on the new car. Right?

Is this the best option?

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

We Bought A Car

Yep, yesterday we bought a car, a 2011 Toyota Verso. One we already saw a week ago, but didn’t test drive. We first went to see another car. It looked like the better deal….because it was cheaper. We thought we were going to buy that one. We took it for a test drive, parked it and took off the hood. The motor block didn’t look good at all. For a car that only had 56.000kms on the clock, it looked in really bad shape. Then we opened the maintenance book and there was our answer. There was only one stamp in there. The car had been taken to a garage in 12.000 for the first and last time! Yikes!

When we came back we were able to negotiate an even better deal, because of the stamps. I wanted to take a written offer along to our second best option. This turned out to be the best option. Yeah, it was more expensive. But the car had been serviced four times already with 68.000kms on the clock. Toyotas need to be serviced every 15.000kms, we were told. The motor block looked perfect, no rust, no damage, no weird stuff going on.

We were able to negotiate a good deal here, so we bought it. We’ll pick it up this Friday.

I’m so glad this whole car debacle is over. I hope and expect this car to last us at least 10 years.

Lots of love,

Mrs EconWiser

November Was A Disaster…Even Without Purchasing A New Car

Last month my husband bought some days off…so that decreased his income significantly. We also bought a double stroller on sale, since we’re going to need one in March. Our vacuum cleaner broke down and we had to buy a new one. The hubby had to buy himself some Hue lights, whatever. We went out for dinner. And….life’s what happened…really.

So, even without purchasing a new car (which we’re going to do in December) November is hereby declared a disaster. We spent a whopping 92% of our income. (Mind you: I do not include income from the side business here. I do not pay myself out. It’s just what’s left at the end of each year, basically.)

November 2014
Mortgage: 32.7% (0.06% increase)
Emergency fund: 400.8% (5% increase, due to the closing down sale of the side business)
Stash (=EF + stocks): 16.23%(0.48% increase, due to increase stock market and closing down sale…)
Spending to income ratio this month: 92% (Ugh….)
Spending to income ratio this year: 63% (since we are going to buy a car in December there’s no way we’re going to get that under 60%)

I decided to include the purchase of the car in next month’s numbers and not to write it off over a period of time. I mean, our last car was supposed to last us at least 10 years but it broke down after only 4 years. I am, however, interested in how much we spent without the purchase, so I’ll calculate that number as well. But in order for things to be fair, transparent and honest…I’ll include the purchase of the damn car in my annual overview. The hubby wanted it that way as well. (I was going to cheat….and be honest about the cheating….;-)…but after a few comments decided against that. Thanks, guys!)

Love,

Mrs Econowiser